Pairing Music with Visuals – 7 Ideas to Get You Started
Pairing Music with Visuals – 7 Ideas to Get You Started Okay, so you’ve finally finished the dopest new song. It’s out on soundcloud, bandcamp, itunes, or what have you now. But you just don’t have a visual. As producers, we wear a lot of hats: instrumentalist, engineer, promoter, songwriter, manager… etc. And now? Tack videographer to the list. The importance of a visual accompaniment to any song cannot be understated. With youtube accounting for nearly 1/5th of all internet traffic, the importance of that video upload is indisputable. How much more likely is someone to share your song if it has a dope music video to accompany it? Yeah. Video is a powerful tool. But, while the idea of putting a video together can be overwhelming, there’s one thing certain: anything is better than nothing. So if the idea of a storyboard, film crew, budget, blah blah blah, isn’t …
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4 Mistakes to Avoid When Compressing Vocals
4 Mistakes to Avoid When Compressing Vocals I recently came across a great article by Rob Mayzes at The Pro Audio Files about vocal compression, and the common mistakes people make. The article simplified concepts that can often feel overwhelming. Since vocal compression is something I’m sure most of us could at least use a refresher on, I’d like to go over the concepts brought to light by Mr. Mayzes and include some of my personal experience as well. The vocal sound you are trying to achieve will vary by genre, but a cornerstone of modern vocals is consistency in level and clarity. Most of us recognize a compressor as the solution to this problem, but attempting to achieve a modern, punchy sound with a single compressor can often lead to over-compression. This leads us to our first common mistake: 1. Relying on Compression Alone Naturally, the human voice …
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3 Free Ways To Vastly Improve Your Mix Before You Press Record
3 Free Ways To Vastly Improve Your Mix Before You Press Record Recently, Ross Hughes from Pro Tools Expert went over techniques to improve your records before you even get into the intricacies of what kind of gear and software to use. I felt it would be useful to go over them here since we don’t always spend enough time mastering the basics of making records. And we always need a reminder that our ears are one of the most important pieces of gear we use. Some of the greatest drum sounds, guitar sounds, and vocal sounds ever have been achieved using these techniques, and they’re free! The Room Matters Whether you are in a fully sound proofed, “dead” room or a lively room with all hard surfaces – instruments are going to sound different at different positions throughout the room. Take some time to listen to your instrument at …
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Record Your Next Album In Less Time With High Quality
Record Your Next Album In Less Time Sounds like a gimmick, I know, and while what we’re about to go over may seem obvious and simple, as someone who has been writing and recording music for over 10 years, simplifying the process may be just what you need to finish what you have started with the quality you want. This post is inspired by Graham Cochrane’s article from The Recording Revolution. The main concept of this strategy is Parkinson’s Law, which states that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”. Most of us out there have many other commitments in our lives besides our music. While we still want the music we release to have the quality we dream up in our heads. Dreaming of that quality is a lofty goal and can be intimidating, and if your problem is feeling as if …
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5 Tips For Getting Huge Drum Sounds
5 Tips For Getting Huge Drum Sounds Grammy nominated and Spelleman Award winning audio engineer, Matthew Weiss, has blessed us with a few tips on how to get huge drum sounds. He clarifies that he is referring to the “huge” sound that fits with more rock, pop records that are using either acoustic drums or a live drum feel. However, his tips will inform any curious producer or engineer and understanding other styles can only take your skills to the next level. I’ll summarize his five points below. Embrace The Space – to get character and energy in your drums you need to embrace the space in which you’re recording. Even if it isn’t acoustically perfect, it is working with those inconsistencies and quarks that will MAKE your sound. A controlled space can very easily sound dead and boring. Fake It If You Can’t Make It – if …
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Developing Perfect Pitch – Free Online Ear Training Tools and Tutorials
Developing Perfect Pitch – Free Online Ear Training Tools and Tutorials Why Ear Training? For producers who use reference tracks as a starting point, ear training is a crucial practice that could greatly leverage the producer’s ability to hear the greater details of a track. It also enables producers to quickly transcribe the rhythmic ideas, chords and melodies in their mind. There are many good ear training softwares such as Ear Master 6 with over 2000 pitch and rhythm identification exercises. Another software for synth programming identification is Syntorial. It is a software that teaches subtractive synthesis by training the ear to identify the different stages of subtractive synth programming. Below are a few free ear training websites: 1. The Rhythm Trainer (http://www.therhythmtrainer.com/) The Rhythm Trainer lets the user choose between two different types of exercises. For exercise A, the user selects the rhythms that they hear. For exercise B, …
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