It's Always a Killer

I would have liked to post before now but the end of the month is always a killer for me at work. Things are progressing nicely as far as the rehearsals for our show on the 11th. A good part of the day was spent setting up to record a couple of songs to include on an EP to sell. We have two weeks until the show and we haven’t recorded anything yet. I’m going to set it up so that we can record the drums (6 tracks), a scratch vocal, a scratch guitar and a bass part. That will be 9 tracks, which means I have to press my Yamaha AW2816 into service. I’ve got them sync’d together via MTC and STMP so that when I press record in Sonar, the AW2816 starts up and records in step with Sonar. I’ve done this before but I had to go through a dry run last night just to check things out because I haven’t use the Yamaha in a while. For you techies out there, the setup is as follows:


Motherboard – Intel 865 PERL
Processor – Intel 2.4HT
Memory – 512 MB
Hard Drive 1 – 20MB
Hard Drive 2 – 40MB
Recording Software – Sonar 4 Studio Edition
Audio Interface - Roland Studio Package (includes Roland VM-3100 Pro and Roland RPC-1 PCI card)
Outboard Mixer – Mackie 1604 VLZ – connected to Roland VM-3100 Pro with an 8-channel TRS to TRS recording snake via direct outs
DAW – Yamaha AW2816 – connected via midi to VM-3100 Pro
Other gear – Boss GT-3, Line 6 Bass Pod, several Shure SM-58’s, several Shure SM-57’s, 3 Roland DR-20 mic’s, Edirol UA-100, Roland A-30 Midi
Controller, Boss Dr. Synth DR – 330(a relic), Fender P-bass, Fender
Mexi-Strat (a great guitar), Fender Pink Paisley Telecaster (an even
better guitar), and a Roland V-Club set.
Miscellaneous – Vibra Slap 2 (awesome !), tambourines, cabasa, etc.


The Yamaha worked fine as I expected it would even though the CD burner went on the fritz a while back and I had to buy a SCSI drive to replace it. I will post the tracks as we record them. We’ll be recording our drummer’s kit through hit CAD drum mic’s. We’ve recorded his kit before – check it our at our website – www.catchtheband.com .
In other news, the first edition of the Your Home Studio Dot Com newsletter will be coming in out in the coming days. Email me @ newsletter@yourhomestudio.com if you would like to subscribe.

This Afternoon

I just this afternoon got a chance to sit down and try to post something. I’m still working on the article on compression. I recorded a guitar part and posted some files both compressed and uncompressed with overdrive and without to illustrate the sustain that compression can introduce when used correctly. I used the compressor included with Sonar 4 and also the amplifier simulator set to the “Marshall” setting. The files are as follows

1. Clean Guitar – no compression


2. Clean Guitar – compression


3. Overdrive Guitar – no compression


4. Overdrive Guitar - compression

Let me know what you think as far as if the examples really show the difference between a uncompressed and compressed guitar. I’m going to use the same file for eq, delay and reverb. For chorus, phase, and flanging, I’m probably going to use some strumming. I also intend to use a kick drum for compression and maybe some vocals for some other effects. I will take the whole mix of “Smells Like” to illustrate mastering with compression, limiting, Multiband compression and mastering equalization as well as just eq in general.

We’ll be really kicking it in to high gear to get “Smells Like” recorded by the time of the gig. I hope I can get everything updated as things go along so you’ll be able to see the progression. The compression article should be up on the website tomorrow evening so I guess I’ll post again to update.

Busy

     I know it’s been a couple of days since my last post but I’ve been pretty busy over the last few days. I had a sound reinforcement gig Tuesday night for a local hospital. It was boring as hell but it pays pretty good - $350 for about 3 hours work. If I could get 3 or 4 jobs like that a week, I’d quit my day job, although that wouldn’t leave me much time to do any recording or rehearsing with the band. I started working on an article about compression for the first newsletter for the website and I’m having a hard time finding out the history of  audio compression. I’m not sure if it was something ported over from the radio side or if it was designed for recording use and crossed over into radio. If anyone has any information concerning that, I would love to know because I don’t want to put some bullshit in the article and then have someone call me down on it later. We are rehearsing again tonight and I haven’t had a chance to practice my vocal parts but I think I can wing it. Brandon hopefully will have listened to his CD’s and worked out his parts. We’re probably going to discuss the recording schedule for the two songs we plan to have produced by the next gig. It’s going to be pretty much balls to the wall as far as I can tell. I’m planning on posting the tracks as we cut them so you can see the process. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot – check out these two websites Live Plasma and Pandora. They’re both kind of variations on a theme. I can’t really say more than that – just check them out.

We went out to listen to my daughter’s band; “People” play at a restaurant/bar called Lafayette’s in Lafayette, LA. They did a great job considering they hadn’t all played together in some time. One of the guitarists, BJ, just got out of school for underwater welding and is working now. He had to ride out the last hurricane on the crew boat and his car got flooded. My daughter called me Thursday to rant about how she never gets any respect from guys at music stores when she goes in to buy strings, etc. They always think she’s buying them for her boyfriend or they are really patronizing. I had a bit of an epiphany on the drive from Shreveport to Lafayette concerning this. Women have to be men if they want to get any respect in the music business, especially popular music. Look back at the women who have made a name for themselves in popular music and you’ll understand. Joan Jett is probably the quintessential example of this but you also have Pat Benetar, the Wilson Sisters from Heart, and Madonna (Yes, Madonna – she dresses like a woman and oozes sex appeal but in an aggressive push in your face, don’t screw with me kind of way). I could go on but I think it’s kind of interesting to look at the ones who don’t fit that type or have changed from that and it makes it even more interesting. Britany Spears for instance, no one takes her seriously that is a music aficionado. She’s the very definition of what guys want in a girl – sexy, blonde, maybe didn’t do so good on her SAT’s – you know what I mean. Actually, I think if she is going to continue after the birth of her baby, she’s going to have to toughen up a bit and try to appeal to a broader audience. A good example of someone who changed her persona and lost her fan base is Liz Phair. A year or so ago, she produced a record with one of these pop production teams because she said it was a financial necessity. It had the exact opposite reaction from what she expected. Not only did she alienate her existing fan base, she didn’t really break through and now she’s a bit like a ship without a rudder. I hope she figures out that you have to carve out and own your niche to have any respect from the serious music buying public. I have often wondered what happened to that crop of really great women artists came out in the mid 90’s, Meredith Brooks, Paula Cole, etc. I think I understand now. As soon as they showed that they were really women, all the interest faded away. There’s a whole new crop of women out there who understand this and are defining themselves to their fans for what they are and I think in the long run honesty will win out.

Anyway, enough of that. We got together Thursday night for rehearsal and it went pretty well. At least, I think Brandon knows what he needs to do now. We recorded each one of the songs with Joel singing Brandon’s part so that he can listen to that and practice with it. We listened to “Smells Like” and Joel wants to rerecord the whole thing because he doesn’t like his vocal on it and if we were to record another vocal part we could get some problems because during the last chorus, when Joel really sings out, his vocal bleeds into the guitar track (you can hear it if you listen to the guitar track here). I’m not sure how were going to set this up because Brandon’s kit is in the vocal booth, but I’ll figure something out. I’m going to start putting together the newsletter for the website soon so sign up for it if you haven’t already. I plan to have a section on new recording products, a short tutorial on different aspects of recording (effects, eq, etc) and maybe my musings on the state of the music industry. Look for it around the first of November.

The Tuesday Evening Standard

The Tuesday Evening Standard - That's the name of the band(for now). We had rehearsal tonight and we all decided that's what we would go with. The website will be eveningstandardmusic.com. Rehearsal was a bit difficult as we are trying to add some vocal parts to our originals and everybody's not on the same page. Brandon was trying to follow my lead and I have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing but when I hear him kind of hunting around for where he needs to be, it throws me off and then the whole thing goes to shit. Plus I don't know how comfortable he is singing and playing drums at the same time. I find it almost effortless to sing when I play drums but playing bass and singing is another thing altogether. I can do it but I really have to pay attention or I'll either lose my place in the song or sing something off key. So Thursday when we get together, we are going to just work on vocals against Joel playing acoustic guitar- no other instruments and we'll see what we can do with that. I'm anxious to get that behind us so we can rehearse like we usually do and then finish recording "Smells Like" and "I'm Doin' Fine". Not much else to report so TTFN    

Cleaning up

The track including the drums is up. It took me a little longer than I expected to clean them up and I had some catching up to do this weekend like clean up my yard from Hurricane Rita. Click here to listen to it. It’s recorded in midi from my Roland V-Club kit and the sound module is the software synth provided with Sonar 4 studio. It’s pretty good although I’m not crazy about that splash cymbal. I’m interested in what people think of the rim shot instead of the regular snare after the vocal starts. We are going to record Brandon’s kit starting this week and I’ll post those tracks as we progress. I got a visit from one of my former clients this evening. He has a real unique style and I will post the tracks from those sessions as they proceed. I will probably play drums for him as his drummer flaked out on him. I’ll try to get a picture illustrating my recording technique I mentioned a couple of posts so you can see what I’m talking about. I did update the site to link to the blog  but I decided to wait until after we’ve recorded “Smells Like” to have a complete page with maybe some illustrations and/or pictures.

Just Couldn't Sleep

It’s 5AM and I’ve been up since about 3:30. Just couldn’t sleep I guess. Anyway, as promised, the individual files for the vocal and the 2 guitar tracks (same guitar – 2 mic’s) are on the server.

     Vocal File
     Guitar One
     Guitar Two

I had a bit of a time trying to convert them to .wma files because I stupidly burned the files on the CD as .wav files so instead of going back to computer in the studio and re-burning a CD properly, I transferred them to hard drive on my laptop, burned them as an audio CD, and them ripped them using Windows Media Player. Let this be lesson for you – pay attention and you won’t have to do things twice. While I was waiting for the files to upload, I went to the studio and cleaned up the drum track. This won’t be the final drum track as it’s a little sloppy and I think Brandon will do a better job anyway. I recorded the drum track using my Roland drum kit and the sound module playing the kit is the one that came with Sonar 4 studio. It’s sounds pretty good for a software synth. I’m putting up so you get an idea of what the feel of the song is going to be like. We’re pretty well committed to doing the set on the 11th as an almost exclusively original set unless it’s a cover that we really do our way. “The Gunshy” seems to be a determined individualist and I don’t think doing a bunch of covers is really appropriate in this situation.  I’ll put the drum track up a little later today along with another copy of the song with the drum track included. Remember, you can sign up for the newsletter at newsletter@yourhomestudio.com and please don’t forget to visit the web page and let me know what you think about the website.

Ok, I know I promised...

Ok , I know I promised to upload those other files yesterday, but Joel and I worked on some vocal parts for some of our originals that we are putting into the set and after that we played Madden 2005 ( I lost – again). I promise that I will get those uploaded tonight and get the drum track up by the end of the weekend. It’s finally turned cool here which will be a blessing in the studio. Even though the studio is air-conditioned, it’s not very well insulated to the outside and it can get pretty hot in there especially when we are rehearsing. I am also planning to update my website this weekend to include links to this blog and put a new page up detailing the recording process of “Smells Like”. I would appreciate some input on how you like(or don’t like-although I don’t think that’s possible) the song and if you have any ideas regarding arrangement. We are kind of going for a stripped down sound but I definitely am not going to cut my nose off to spite my face. I’ll post again as soon as I’ve uploaded the audio files.

As promised, I uploaded the .wma file for "Smells Like". It's encoded for Windows Media Player at 128bits/sec so unless you have a really slow connection it should sound pretty good. Tomorrow, I'll upload the individual files so you can listen to each one. If you listen closely at the beginning, you'll hear Joel and I discussing the previous take and saying that the previous one was uneven in tempo. That will disappear when it comes time to mix down and of course the song will be trimmed
so that the it starts after the count-in. The guitar and vocal were recorded at the same time using a technique of my own invention. I placed a music stand with the shelf part horizontal over the guitar mic's and a shield placed behind the vocal mic. The results are fairly impressive with the vocal only bleeding over to guitar mic's when Joel really sings out at the end of the song. I think if you pan the track either right or left fully, you can probably hear it if you don't want to wait until tomorrow.

Correction : Catch will be at L'il Joe's on November 11th opening for "The Gunshy". Kind of a Tom Waits/Bob Dylan kind of sound judging from the the songs on the website. We are in the middle of trying to find a new name for the band so any suggestions will be helpful. The leading candidate so far is "The Tuesday Evening Standard". I had thought of "Odette Calling" but some one reminded me that "Odette" is the name of the Swan Princess so I guess that's out. We are going to try and finish recording "Smells Like" and another original so we can try to sell some EP's at the show in November. I will post the links to the songs as we record them so you can see the progression. We already have a scratch vocal, a guitar track and some drums that I played(not very well). I think we will let Brandon, our drummer, record the drums on his kit and then I will record my bass line before we do the final vocal. I will put the link to the scratch vocal and guitar track up tomorrow after I upload the tracks to my website - "Your Home Studio Dot Com". This should be a good illustration on how a recording is constructed as the song is really just vocal, drums, bass and guitar.

Monday - not the worst Monday of my life. We (my band - CATCH) had a gig last Wednesday night at L'il Joe's Tavern across the street from Centenary College. Our set went from 9 to 10 and then this gal(Ill Ease) who was a solo performer from NY played 3 songs for about 30 minutes which were basically her playing a riff on guitar and letting a loop station play it while she played a drum rhythm and then back to the guitar to play on top of that. Not really my kind of stuff. I don't mind loop based things as long as they go somewhere but this definately did not. The last band was "The Gaslights" from Kansas City. They've got a Loretta Lynn meets the Ramones kind of thing goin' on. Very different from everything else I've heard in the Shreveport area which seems to be the barely discernable vocals screamed with the mic half way down their throat. I certainly hope this is the direction things are going. One of the things that came out of that gig is that we've got to finish recording "Smells Like". For the most part, it's the lyrics from "Smells Like Teen Spirit" with a country kind of chord progression that moves into a jazzy kind of feel before it rocks out in the chorus. I've always believed in this song and we got a really good response. I think we'll be playing there again on the 20th of October. On the recording info front, I just posted an article at New Free Articles Dot Com entitled "Recording in the 21st century #1 - Home Music Recording Studio Necessities". I'll keep you posted on when the next one comes out. Please make sure you check out "Your Home Studio Dot Com" and let me know what you think. You can also sign up for the free newsletter while you're there.

My First Post

As I sat this morning in my pajamas drinking coffee and looking at my email and website stats, it occurred to me that I could blog as well as anyone. So here I am. A little background information - 45 years old, happily married, one daughter about to turn legal, 2 dogs, one cat, 2 parrots, one cockatiel ....hmm am I forgetting something - No, I think that's about it. My day job is in the foodservice industry - I am the sales manager for a medium sized foodservice distributor in Shreveport, LA. For those of you who are not familiar with what a foodservice distributor does, we sell food and food related items to restaurants, hospitals, casinos, etc. It's not the most glamorous job in the world but it can be very rewarding when you work with customers who have built their businesses from a dream and understand what hard work, perserverence and a positive attitude are all about. Enough of that- this blog is about music and music production. I have been running my own home studio for about 6 years and while it never has provided enough income to eclipse my day job, the other rewards more than make up for it. I've met and worked with many different people from diverse backgrounds from real studio musicians to the rawest talent you can imagine and loved every minute of it. I decided a month or so ago to impart my "vast" knowledge to the newbies of the home recording studio world so I published Your Home Studio Dot Com - a basic tutorial on setting up and operating a home recording studio. I had a lot of fun putting it together and I plan to increase the scope to include more in - depth treatments of issues relating to recording and producing music in a home studio enviroment. I've got to go - My wife and I have two birthday parties to go to and we haven't bought any gifts yet.