INTERVIEW - Aleksi Eeben / Principal Sound Designer at Nokia

Aleksi Eeben - Principal Sound Designer at Nokia Design

A little bit background...

-When did you start composing?

I have been writing music for as long as I can remember. Since 1988?

-At what age?

That would be around 12. A bonus track on one of my albums is actually a Commodore 64 piece I composed at 13. I was fascinated by digital sounds much earlier, though. I got a VIC 20 in 1984 or 1985 and the user's manual had a great appendix of short sound effect programs. It was all very easy to gasp, so maybe that was the start of something. The noise generator was a lion. And it still is.

-Did you play some instrument or?

Casio keyboard and later a bass guitar, a little. But I never went to a music school or played in a band. At one time I studied music somewhat obsessively on my own, but hey come on, those balls and sticks, what a ridiculous notation system you have there!

-What you are doing now as a profession?

I'm Principal Sound Designer at Nokia Design, soon moving to Microsoft. I started at Nokia in late 2002. We're a relatively small team. My sounds can be heard in over 1200 million mobile phones. I've recorded our cat, antique cameras, composed ringing tones for a symphony orchestra and done a little bit of everything between.

-Which tools (apps, software, mobile apps...) you currently use?

Tools themselves are not that interesting really, because they all do the same thing: manipulating and ordering sounds on a timeline. I currently have Logic Pro X, TwistedWave and some plug-ins. No gear, cables are annoying.

-Can your music be found somewhere? 

Yes, you can find my music on iTunes, Spotify and some on SoundCloud. And also Nokia Design Team has a SoundCloud page.

-What wise advice you would give for aspiring musicians?

Listen!

DAILY QUOTE - Seth Godin

"Wishing is not a strategy."

-Seth Godin

WHAT MAKES *ACTUALLY* GOOD MUSIC?

Despite of the provocative title, there are as many answers as questions.
Such a subjective topic, i've been thinking many times "what makes some songs sound good more than other songs?"

Now i fully understand that this is extremely subjective, delicate and complex issue.

But let me give you a little bit background for this topic.

Long time ago when classical composers created their masterpieces they had only few 'resources' to use : notes, maestro, musicians and their instruments.
Please, note here that actually "notes" are only part of the overall big auditory picture.

When composer creates a song for e.g. played by piano. The overall 'audioscape' will be defined by the melody (notes), player and the instrument (piano, in this case). Piano can produce certain kind of sounds, mostly depending on player's skills and note velocity (i.e. volume in laymen's term).

Back to the future. Now days, instruments, recording equipment and overall sound engineering play much bigger role than before. Example, one can create good (subjectively) sounds independently of actual melody.
And also other way around, 'good' melody played by lousy sounds can still be fairly good melody.
Extreme example could be a top chart dance hit which sounds good (subjectively) by most of the listeners. But that song might not sound ("be") good played by another instrument (e.g. violin or piano).

This is the thing which makes music very interesting; complex integration of the melody and the sounds.

Which was the first one, chicken or egg?
I don't care. If song sounds good then it's good.

SAMPLING 101 - part 2 - "Nyquist frequency"

As an definition for Nyquist frequency: in order to reconstruct signal x(t) from its samples, sampling frequency (Fs) needs to be (2x times) higher than bandwidth (B) of the sampled sound (Fs > 2B).

For example, human voice usually contain relatively insignificant frequencies at or above 10 kHz. Sampling such an audio signal with sample rate at 20k samples/sec or more, results an good approximation to meeting the criterion. No problem.

If there is some need (e.g. due to technical limitation or standardisation, to only have 8kHz audio signal), in this case, human voice should be filtered before sampling in order to reduce to aliasing. In this situation the type of filter needed is a lowpass filter (which in this example can be called as anti-aliasing filter.)

Aliasing & anti-aliasing can also be applied in other digital signal processing, e.g. digital image processing.

I'll define aliasing and anti-aliasing later in an another section of this evolving blog.

As a rule of thumb; sampling frequency needs to be (at least) double than the original audio signal's bandwidth.

DAILY QUOTE - Brian Eno

"The basis of computer work is predicated on the idea that only the brain makes decisions and only the index finger does the work ,,

-Brian Eno

DAILY QUOTE - Nile Rodgers

"I think the hardest thing to overcome is judging yourself 

and being your own worst critic so to speak ,,

-Nile Rodgers

IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO START SOMETHING

Sometimes it is very healthy to cut out and *forget* some career options or hobbies.
They are only burden for you. That kind of decisions will make your life much simpler when you know what 'not to do or aim at all'.

Following diagram is just an vague example:

Ambition level vs. Required practise

This is still double-edged sword. Things are not always clearly black or white.

Since many of us (including me, sometimes :)) think that "it's too late to start" some new career, venture or hobby.

As i already mentioned in the first line: in a way it's true, if your are 45 years old and if your new career (e.g. mandatory license + training) or hobby requires e.g. 10 years of disciplined practise 7 hours per day, then it would be unrealistic, and better to consider other options.

However, there is so much (undervalued mostly by ourselves) and hidden pieces of art in our own's desk drawers. These masterpieces are waiting and entitled to be seen and heard by the world.

Let me give some examples; it'd be waste of time to try to be olympic runner at age 35+ and you have never ran before. On the other hand, it is totally realistic and possible e.g. to study a new degree or to start to work as a professional photographer.

It all boils down to two key questions: what's your ambition (target) level vs. how much you are able & willing to practise in disciplined way. Think about that.

IT HASN'T ALWAYS BEEN SO EASY - Brief history of audio recorders part 1

Only the multi-track tape recorder enabled meaningful audio editing. Multi-track tape recorders were introduced into the world (courtesy of a company called Ampex in the 1950s). Editing could be done after the recording sessions (kind of copy and paste style with tape), which was very time-consuming work.

Digitalisation started in the 60s with small experiments. However, it was 1981 when CD was introduced to the world. Still digital audio was recorded on tapes (e.g. systems like DASH by Sony and TASCAM).

Still the recording and editing were done with tapes, now as digital signal on the tapes instead of analog signal. One can imagine what kind of 'logistical nightmares' some 70s progressive productions were...

Clear advantages of digital audio (in 80s) were:

• overall noise level was lower
• when adding several tracks all together -> noise level raised less
• quality of the sound remained same (independently of how many times sound was copied & edited)
• consisted sound without classic "wows & wobblings" with analog recordings, which were caused by fluctuations of the tape's speed.

To be continued. Stay tuned!

ARE YOU REALLY REACHING THE AUDIENCE

Earlier aspiring artists and bands used to make demo tapes. In 80's it simply meant C-casette (which was recorded in garage...) to be sent record companies. Anxiously waiting for an answer. Usually "no thanks".

Recording techniques and sound quality varied lot depending on band's competence and studio/recording equipment.

Nowadays, (at least some) professional music composing tools are free. Also possibility to be heard and known is better now due to web-based distribution services like Sound Cloud, YouTube, Spotify... from idea-to-listener has never been easier.

To be frank, the main problems now are:

• to find promising talents from the overall noise
• to find new & unheard music you'd like
• composer's & band's guts to release publicly their creations

Think about that.

Music creation tools are available, music distribution channels are also available.

What is your excuse?

We need you, now.

MUSIC CREATION STEPS

Lifecycle of music creation

How to compose, create and finally ship ready-made producting music? 

That's enormous & complex subject, and i can't give direct instructions or straight-forward answer. 

However, we can try to think it as a series of various steps.

1. idea: first you may have vague vision, request, or melody in your head.
2. early draft: this is important phase, since as soon as you get your melody out of your head to something audible. When intangible materialises, it becomes easier to grasp. Thus it will be easier to continue to work on when you have something even very very early drafts in your hands.
3. composing: actual work, playing, trying, tweaking sounds, iterating and throwing lot's of ideas into trash bin. Usually self-critism can become high. Just go ahead!
4. mastering: polishing, tweaking and balancing your song to a recordable piece of art (this topic needs several posts and articles to discuss this). Let the professionals do this phase (they do usually have better pair of ears than composer itself)
5. distribution: how you do ship your song(s) to others? via record labels? using internet channels (Spotify, iTunes, YouTube)? are your songs free or are you selling them? how?

Lot's of things to do. Still doable. Later we will cover these (previous) issues little deeper.

Stay tuned!

THE LIFECYCLE OF OUR PAST MUSIC LISTENING

Music Listening Cycle

Picture on the left side depicts very traditional way of "consumer cycle" in music.

In old days (meaning now 80's & 90's), you heard and found good songs & artists from e.g. radio or friend. Then you *had* to get it somehow (LP-record, C-casette, CD...). You listened to it time after time.

 If you were real fan of music, your own room was full of CDs in no particular order and tapes everywhere. Managing of your music collection was easy; either it was (usually...) total mess or you even put that stuf in alphabetical order. I even know couple of extremists who kept disciplined book about their collections.

Sharing options were scarce; you just borrowed music (friend, library) & trying to copy your friend's music (CD, LP...) and that's pretty much it.

YOUR BIGGEST PROBLEM

Phenomena known as: "writer's block"

Main symptoms are (not limited to):

-not knowing where/when/how to start

-trying (way too much) different tools and sounds

-unfinished songs in desk drawer and unfinished...

-would this sample & rhythm sound good...? or this one?

-how about that...? 

-i heard about that new tool... hmmm. 

Sounds familiar?

These are class book examples (read: excuses) why composing is not finished 

or the worst: even started.

This phenomena happens everyday, everywhere and especially in the work where primary goal is to create something new.

All these subtle 'distractions' happen under the radar and invisibly. Daily subtle distractions, sudden changes. Facebook check-ups, living in the e-mail inbox, not enough time...

This 'shadow' works between our own ears. You can't see or smell it. It only exists in your thoughts and beliefs.

Quality itself is a good thing, some ideas can be better than other. Some criticism needs to be.

But composing a song is the main work of composer.

All artists (writers, painters, actors...) confront this problem somwhow, someone even everyday. 

Nobody is perfect.

When you are in the state of "this song is crap","sounds are not yet right", ad nauseaum, it's your

inner critic ('shadow') who is prematurely judging your piece of art. A inner shadow is trying to

stop your work. It's main purpose is to distract you (from your creative work).

Steven Pressfield has written book called "War of Art". Good read.

I know, sometimes it is good to quit some project or polish/fine tune song even better sounding.

And let ideas flow, mature and then pick the best ones. Every piece of work is not going to be best-seller or classic. Some will probably hit really low...

Behind the scenes, we are mostly afraid of failure (kind of "what others will think when they hear this song". The best cure is to be aware of our inner shadow and notice when it starts to distract your work.

Just keep composing and creating your music. Give it to us, we need it!