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Is it possible to Get That Big Label Sound at home? - Making the track 'My Aberration' from the EP Surveillance State.
Current mood:
adventurous
adventurous
Is it possible to Get That ....Big Label.... Sound at home?
MMI-ABC RADIO USA
Reviewer....
Reviewer....
‘Most believe that this ....big sound.... is only possible in big studios, engineered by top people.
While there is no denying that top experts can truly transform anyone..s music, I have no doubt AT ALL that ....anyone.... CAN produce fantastic music (yep, with that ....BIG LABEL.... sound, lol) if they only go about it the right way. Doesn..t matter what equipment you own.
Assuming that you already have that great song which you believe is WORTH THE TIME AND EFFORT to make a RECORDING of it, and assuming that you..ve rehearsed all the parts perfectly well (or if you..re sequencing, you have all your basic skills down pat) - then producing a killer demo is actually very simple. But it does come down to honing your ear.
This is the producers mindset
Take the time it takes. Be patient. Be excited. Enjoy every minute of it.
back! It..s just a state of mind :)’
While there is no denying that top experts can truly transform anyone..s music, I have no doubt AT ALL that ....anyone.... CAN produce fantastic music (yep, with that ....BIG LABEL.... sound, lol) if they only go about it the right way. Doesn..t matter what equipment you own.
Assuming that you already have that great song which you believe is WORTH THE TIME AND EFFORT to make a RECORDING of it, and assuming that you..ve rehearsed all the parts perfectly well (or if you..re sequencing, you have all your basic skills down pat) - then producing a killer demo is actually very simple. But it does come down to honing your ear.
This is the producers mindset
Take the time it takes. Be patient. Be excited. Enjoy every minute of it.
back! It..s just a state of mind :)’
The gauntlet has been thrown down! ....
I first purchased recording software for my new PC two years ago (Cubase LE) and spend six month working out how to use it. I recorded my first demo track ‘Drift’ in October 2006 and although I was surprised how good the quality was for a home recording is was far from studio quality and even further from big label production quality.
Between October and January2007 I worked hard on improving the recording quality to a point where I got my first radio play on E-Wave - Near FM (George Mulchay) with the track ‘Bend Your Mind’. You can listen to this track on my myspace player. The track has gone on to be played by a number of FM and internet stations & reached one of the qualifying stages on Meer Music (MMI Fame-games). ....
Between October and January2007 I worked hard on improving the recording quality to a point where I got my first radio play on E-Wave - Near FM (George Mulchay) with the track ‘Bend Your Mind’. You can listen to this track on my myspace player. The track has gone on to be played by a number of FM and internet stations & reached one of the qualifying stages on Meer Music (MMI Fame-games). ....
If you listen to ‘Bend Your Mind’ then to the next couple of tracks such as ‘Kite Runner‘ you should be able to hear major improvements in production and overall recording quality, however when I listen to the CD version I still didn’t believe this sounded as good as a ‘big label’ production. So can this really be achieved at home as MMI (Meer music Fame-game reviewer suggests)?....
Making the inner voices track - My Aberration,
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Making the inner voices track - My Aberration,
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My last two tracks have been experimental Progressive-electro-rock and have been both highly rated by some and ..also.. received criticism, I guess because they sound quite different than standard stuff on the main stations. I've decided to take on the MMI challenge with my next track which is going to be even more of a challenge due to the style.
I started working on the new track in January; mainly practicing tricky parts on the guitar/keyboard and working on the words. I have an overall picture in my mind of how I want the track to sound and have played around with the 'millions' of sounds I have purchase for the PC (Steinberg Hypersonic2 software). The majority of the creative hard-work is done (although a good producer has to be creative ..also..).....
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My objective over the next month will be to create/produce a sound which is close or as good as the ‘big label’ production tracks. This means I have be dedicated in making every part sound ‘perfect’. ....
From my experience gained recording over the last 12 months I see the main obstacles as:....
- Working alone without a second opinion....
- Lack of time when the house is free of noise!
- Acoustics of the room interfering with the recording.....
- Hardware, can the home recording gear (costing around £900) match multimillion pound studio?
The last point has been a major issue for me over the last 12 months; firstly improving the recording of the vocals in a normal room. I have to fill the room with cushions and by using a condenser microphone can sing at a reasonable distance from the microphone to get a clean sound.....
Secondly: how to get the electric guitar to sound ‘absolutely brilliant’. I made a major step forward when I was recording ‘Kite runner’, I was listening to Bloc Party and realised that my electric guitar sound so dull! With help from ‘Sound control’ in ..Salford.. they kitted me out with a Korg guitar synth box which I now connect to the Tascam interface box in stereo (2 channels). I now also find that feedback from large speakers help to drive the strings on the guitar.
....Before starting any recording I like to have at least a draft of the words; I have one hour of traffic jams past the trafford centre every day (each way urghh ........), which could be a real waste of time. I try to use this time by listening to different styles of music or thinking about words - its probably the only time in my life when I not distracted by anything! ............
Below is the draft words for both several songs on the same scrappy bit of paper (which is not complete as yet). I normally spend about 2 months thinking about the words as they have to fit with the music and sound good.....
I am using Cubase software on my 'super-fast home built PC', this allows loads of analogue and midi tracks to be recorded at different times and edited/corrected after for final production. I always lay down a really basic rhythm and bass as a guide first. ....
Before recording/programming these I need to have a good plan of the structure of the song (in bar numbers) otherwise it can end in a big mess. Below is the plan I produced using an excel spread sheet for 'Kite Runner' and I am currently doing the same for this new track. This ..also.. works out the total time for the track (once you know the beat). Generally you need to have a time of around 4 minutes for radio play or else the track is either over too fast or the DJ gets bored listening to your 'brilliant' extended 'Bran May' lead guitar riff?
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I’ve spend 2 weeks just trying to get the sound right for 2 (8 bar) sections of the new track. I’ve recorded this more 20 times before I know the timing is perfect with the beat.....
More to follow over the next few weeks:....
27th April....
The first step has been to program in a guide beat, I prefer to programme a drum rhythm rather than using the ‘clicks’ as it helps to build up the keyboard tracks later. I also develop a simple computer bass track which guides me through the song.....
I have recorded Piano and advanced dynamic electronic sounds (which are linked to the timings in the software) using my Roland keyboard as a controller keyboard. This means that the keyboard is only used to produce the midi data (the note, the timing and loudness) not the sounds.
I have listened to lots of ‘chart type music’ and most of it lacks musical feeling due to all the sounds being programmed rather than played. This is something I will never do – I play most of the midi tracks from a dynamic keyboard then edit the data after. There is a time delay between hearing the guide beat and bass and the midi data being recorded on the PC - not caused by my brain, but by the PC processing speed!
This is easy to correct by dragging all the notes to the correct position. In my previous tracks this has been the only correction I have done, however I’ve decided to go one step further and correct the timing of each individual note (minute fractions of a second). I don’t feel comfortable about this too much (plus it takes a lot of time and patience) but I’ve noticed that most professionally produced tracks have digitally perfect timing throughout; so I’m going to do it to meet the challenge. I will have to make sure the musical feeling is delivered via the guitar and vocals. (I'm sure this wouldn't be required in a large studio)
I’m analysing each track for noise and notice that there is a slight buzzing from the bass guitar track. After several hours of searching I decided to strip the bass guitar pic-ups out of the body and find bad cables in the pick-ups L This has set me back a day (but this is a week for me as I am at work the rest of this week).....
29th April 2008..
I have previously worked on the music for a track first and left the vocals until the end. There is a problem with this in that I have found on a couple of occasions the music did not work with the words in the way I imagined and I then had to back-track on some of the music. This time I'm taking a different approach. I have the basic song structure working ok now and I've produced a rough demo, including some dodgy singing produced within 20 minutes of recording time. ........
The demo is loaded onto my MP3 so I can listen in detail while wasting 20% of my life in traffic jams at the Trafford centre. This really gives me a chance to review how the song sounds and what needs to be changed.....
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I have previously worked on the music for a track first and left the vocals until the end. There is a problem with this in that I have found on a couple of occasions the music did not work with the words in the way I imagined and I then had to back-track on some of the music. This time I'm taking a different approach. I have the basic song structure working ok now and I've produced a rough demo, including some dodgy singing produced within 20 minutes of recording time. ........
The demo is loaded onto my MP3 so I can listen in detail while wasting 20% of my life in traffic jams at the Trafford centre. This really gives me a chance to review how the song sounds and what needs to be changed.....
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I've realised that the vocals are going to be difficult due to the range (close to my top vocal note) and I'm going to need several weeks of hard work and practise before I'm ready to record the final tracks. In addition there are certain words which don't sound rights so I'm making minor adjustments to the lyrics now.
..7th May 2008......
I've been working on the acoustic guitar part which will start the song (first 40-50 seconds). The idea for this part came from listening to a Newton Foulkner CD - he plays the acoustic guitar parts really well. (by the way: the track will not sound anything like his stuff)....
I'm using again Tescam USB interface to allow connection of analogue instruments or microphones. ....
Recording acoustic guitar is not so difficult as it has an internal Microphone and I can use headphones to hear the guide tracks. I want the beginning to sound more intimate and I don't think the internal microphone is giving the correct sound. So I will have to work on a new solution to improve the stereo feeling you would get naturally if you were sitting in the room with me playing to you! ....
This set-up is not the solution!....
With the electric guitar tracks, I find even good headphones interfere with the magnetic pickups on the electric guitar. Also the type of sound I'm looking for needs feedback from the speakers. So I have to use the output speakers (100Watts each!) plus my orange AMP.....
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..7th May 2008......
I've been working on the acoustic guitar part which will start the song (first 40-50 seconds). The idea for this part came from listening to a Newton Foulkner CD - he plays the acoustic guitar parts really well. (by the way: the track will not sound anything like his stuff)....
I'm using again Tescam USB interface to allow connection of analogue instruments or microphones. ....
Recording acoustic guitar is not so difficult as it has an internal Microphone and I can use headphones to hear the guide tracks. I want the beginning to sound more intimate and I don't think the internal microphone is giving the correct sound. So I will have to work on a new solution to improve the stereo feeling you would get naturally if you were sitting in the room with me playing to you! ....
This set-up is not the solution!....
With the electric guitar tracks, I find even good headphones interfere with the magnetic pickups on the electric guitar. Also the type of sound I'm looking for needs feedback from the speakers. So I have to use the output speakers (100Watts each!) plus my orange AMP.....
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12th May....
I’ve played around with either using an external condenser microphone or the internal mic in my acoustic guitar and found a specific mix of both gives a really nice sound. So on Saturday I had to play a tricky acoustic intro to the song with headphones on, the guitar plugged into my PC interface and a microphone perched close to the guitar. This is really not so easy when you having to set up the PC software to record in the correct part of the track at the right tempo. However this morning I’ve been listening to the result in my car on the way to work and this sounds really good (I think?) and well worth the effort.....
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I’ve also been correcting minor timing errors on the electric guitar track mainly caused by processing delays during the recording, but also human errors (very minor of course). ....
Below you can see the wave pattern recording of the electric guitar, the idea is to synchronise the guitar tracks perfectly with the drums and bass line. This is real painstaking work – especially if you have other jobs to do and plenty of minor domestic distractions.....
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In the meantime I am now adding stereo effects into the track which is creating a much more professional sound now.....
25th June,
I’ve spent 2-3 hours working on the vocals and without any second opinion this has been really hard to get right. I’ve used different compression techniques with the acoustic section at the start (RMS) and Peak with the main song, this has very distinctive differences to the final sound. My aim in the first section is to be kindof exposed so there is only me and my guitar. I have used a small amount of electronic sound towards the end of this section however this is lost a little in a poor quality MP3 version – on CD and good speakers it sounds really great.
26th June
I have only just learnt how to master properly and I now know I need,
- good normal hifi speakers
- headphone (better ones are required)
- average quality computer speakers or similar
I take the raw mixed down Wav file and import it into a mastering project on my software. You can see the wav pattern in the picture below (the acoustic section followed by the wall of sound ) and I balance the bass, middle and treble to get the track to sound right in all types of listening media. This takes a lot of concentration and time to get perfect. (Not so bad if you get paid for this)
After a whole mornings work – I can hear slight distortion when the loud electric guitar comes in after the acoustic section….shit!!!! So I have to start again (29th June).
28th June
Just when I thought eveything was going well the PC brakes down!
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27th June
At last I have a good mastered wav file which I can burn onto CDs and produce MP3 versions for e-mail distribution. In true home produced form, I burn all my own CD and produce the artwork/labels myself so if you ever consider buying one you know now these are 100% handcrafted. These are sent out to a number of Radio DJs.
Barry Wilson (Alternation) Newcastle NE1 FM can claim the first play of this track. (Thanks!!!)
http://www.myspace.com/eugenespeed2
3rd July
Following web promotion on N1M music site in USA
6th July 2008 www.numberonemusic.com
Voices – Surveillance State EP (There Goes the Fear - London, Thom Morgan on Friday, 13th February 2009 )
Inner Voices is the project of Adam Brierly and debut EP ‘Surveillance State’ is filled with guts and attacks society in a way not many others would dare. The lyrics on opener ‘Surveillance State’ contain an angsty undertone: “So render your profile, with hits you made last/Building monuments, with your virtual past!” It’s energy filled and the combination of electro breakbeats with guitars and emotive lyrics help separate Inner Voices from the pack. On ‘Carbon Shadow’ the electro influences are more evident as Adam tackles the sensitive issue of religion with the powerful booming of “You will never stuff, never stuff this war”. The lyrics on this track are easily the best on the EP, further attacking religious blasphemy with the energetic wailing “When your time has come/what shadows your memories with the things that you’ve done.”
‘My Aberration’ opens more peacefully with soft guitars but the chorus soon kicks in and the indie-electro mania soon takes over. Again the energy in the vocals is remarkable and the persistent of this through the EP is a magnificent achievement. The track is self produced and self mastered which shows the talents of this young man, the lyrics again are spot on; “Airbrush lines around my eyes/Paint dark clouds make them white/But through the eye of your lens this is me.” The album version of opener ‘Surveillance State’ which closes the EP is a massive achievement. The track seems reborn with a better sound and tone. The electro-synth is more spot on and the guitars ring more clearly – the sound is a brilliant achievement and closes the EP beautifully. It differs from the homemade approach on the other tracks and the echoes of the guitars prove to help the mood. The entire EP is a brilliant musical accomplishment – it’s filled with the balls that most artists seem to be lacking, and the unique electro-guitar sound ensures that this excellence exceeds the excellent songwriting – this is borderline genius.
The wave magazine - Philadephia, USA
Surveillance State EP by Inner Voices
Music Film and book review:http://musicfilmbookreviews.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html
Have you ever bought an album only to find that just a small handful of the songs were ones you actually liked? I realize iTunes has now virtually eliminated such a problem, but lucky for us there's one EP out there that can save the trouble of testing out each song before we commit to buying it. The Surveillance State EP by Inner Voices was released in March, and includes three songs that have been placed at number one positions on several independent charts, along with two semi-finalist positions in the UK Songwriters Competition of September 2008.
Here's the track list:
1. Surveillance State (radio version)
2. Carbon Shadow
3. My Aberration
4. Surveillance State
This one-man band has found that "just right" balance between electronica and rock which, coupled with his incredible vocals, results in a similar style to that of Depeche Mode and New Order.
Adam Brierley, the man behind the inner voices sound, pushes that synthesizer in Surveillance State to where it sounds as though it's just putty in his hands. He starts it off with a misty beat that just gets catchier by the second, bringing the guitar and drums about ten seconds in, establishing a firm framework for the rest of the track. It is definitely my favorite track off the EP, as it's so danceable. Brieley expands on the song as being about "a society sleep walking into a surveillance state justified by 'anti-terror' legislation." This track actually has already receieved a finalist Effigy Award from MMi-ABC Radio Famegames, USA and Europe in January of this year.
Carbon Shadow's meaning gets even deeper, as Brieley "questions the motivation of the religious leader who asks the people to sacrifice their lives for their own gain." He starts his second verse with "Drilling through your head, these words they carry tasks.../Guilty man for ending life too soon/bending words to enhance your personal tune" makes reference to suicide bombings and essentially opens up the listener's ears to what is going on in the world. It's really refreshing to hear artists pull away from the typical theme of writing about personal issues, and instead enlightening us with world issues. What's so great about this track is that it still has that danceable synth and guitar; Brieley successfully keeps the listener going while getting his message across.
My Aberration starts off slightly different to the other two, opening up with an exotic Spanish beat. About fifty seconds into it the synth starts to creep in. The mood is a bit more serious in this track, expanding on truth that our identity isn't about how we're made up, or "molded," but who we are beneath the outer layer.
Brieley, just like so many other unsigned artists out there, is a good reminder that quality music doesn't necessarily come from a fancy studio. He puts thought into his music which leaves him with a talent that, judging from the Surveillance State EP chart positions, shines bright and clear.
Get ready to Rock Magazine - UK
http://www.getreadytorock.com/reviews2009/single_reviews0109.htm
INNER VOICES Surveillance State http://www.reverbnation.com/#!/innervoices
Home recorded selection of songs from the upcoming debut album, 'Bend Your Mind' from Inner Voices, which is basically Adam Brierly. Three songs on here with the title track the real stand out, reminded me of Saga in their prime and the vocals are very similar to Michael Sadler's as well.
Very effective use of synths throughout the song. 'Carbon State' ups the tempo going down a guitar led sound (not a million miles away from Fish era Marillion) whilst 'My Aberation' again has a few tatsy bursts of guitar and the Saga comparisons come back to mind again.
Definately makes you want to hear the full album, especially fans of Saga and hi-tech prog rock music. ***½
Definately makes you want to hear the full album, especially fans of Saga and hi-tech prog rock music. ***½
Conclusion:More to follow..... in June 2009
How to create the big label sound from home (with a small amount of help from a producer).
Topic: How To Get That ....Big Label.... Sound? Reply
Hey Adam / Inner Voices,
I was most impressed by the amount of time and dilligence you..ve put into the whole process, as evidenced by your blog. While I haven..t heard the result of all your efforts, I thought it might be a good idea to give you a little feedback on the process itself, point by point addressing your blog, in the order you wrote it - or at least the points that caught my eye.
1. Cubase LE
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As good a sequencer as any for what you..re trying to achieve. It will faithfully record your audio and ..MIDI.. events and allow you to tweak them in an intuitive and creative way. More you cannot ask! :) Other sequencers have more bells and whistles but the basic stuff is the same.
2. The ''commercial pop rock challenge''
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The ''challenge'' isn..t restricted to ''commercial'' music or for that matter any particular style. It concerns ANY music you find engaging enough to not begrudge the time it deserves. Music which is simply ''good'' is bound to ..also.. be ''commercial'' in the sense that other people will WANT IT. No matter what style.
3. Hypersonic
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This is a pretty good all-around work-station soft synth and will give you a decent starting point for any production. Just remember that often even some of its ''best'' presets still need to receive a little extra TLC.
4. Objective: to create a ''big label'' sounding track
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Too broad as stated. Define this more narrowly. Big labels have produced classical music as well as folk as well as everything inbetween. So WHICH big label sound?
The easiest way to define this is to find a few REFERENCE tracks. And from that point on, THESE tracks are what you mean by ''big label sound!'' Only ensure that the tracks you select are not only great music, but ..also.. are current and up to date production-wise.
Often it..s a good idea to pick one track purely for its mix values (whether you like the song or not), another for its arrangement, etc. Once you have all that selected, you now have a CLEAR reference for what ''big label'' sound means to you.
5. Major obstacles (isolation, lack of time, noisy environment, poor acoustics, experience)
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It is a huge advantage to be able to lock yourself away in your ''den.'' This would cure the ''noisy environment'' problem and to some extent maybe even the ''poor acoustics.'' But this is not always practical, I know. The second-best solution for this is using high quality headphones (the kind you can have on your head for a long time without getting tired of them, but which ..also.. are studio-grade and block out many of the external noises - and have a good natural sound).
Isolation is a double-edged sword. It..s good to have alone-time with your music, and it..s good to vibe it with others. Have a control group you invite to your studio every now and then. See if their vibes excite you.
As for experience - you..re gaining it now by the bucketload. You..ve got the thrill of discovery which is always the biggest high.
6. Recording vocals in a typical bedroom
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You may find that a very simple STAGE microphone (e.g. a Shure SM58) with a relatively small dynamic response will work better for working in a noisy environment than a high class studio mic!
Working with more sophisticated microphones in an unsophisticated environment can sometimes cause unexpected problems. I remember working with an expensive Neumann mic in a bedroom and the thing picked up noises I couldn..t even hear in the room! In the end, I switched to an SM58 and got a nice clean sound which only needed minimum extra post-processing afterwards.
Another thing to keep in mind is mic technique as it relates to the room you..re using. It..s not the distance that gives you a clean sound. It..s a clean sound-path and minimum external noises. Unless you can totally deaden a room, that mic distance you have in the picture in your blog tells me you..ll be picking up loads of room ambience - i.e. probably not exactly what you want. An inch or so off the diaphragm will all but eliminate the ''room.'' But you do have to watch out for levels much more, of course.
7. Getting the guitar sound right
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You have two ways to go here: either you already have a great live sound which you wanna reproduce on your recordings at all costs, or you don..t and are willing to experiment.
In the first case, you..ll need a pair of decent mics plus maybe ..also.. a direct in. And a little time to experiment.
Lock your Marshall amp in a bathroom (lol or a closet - never mind), crank it up, mic it up with ''mic 1'', slightly off center of the speaker cone, possibly pointing at the speaker at a 45 degree angle, maybe 3-4 inches off. You..ll need to experiment with this a bit.
Set up ''mic 2'' further away, possibly in a ''sweet spot'' in your bathroom if it exists. Finally, take a line out from the amp/speaker and plug that directly into your desk.
With three signals going into your mixer you now have a choice of mixing the three or using only two of them - or just one. You can pan them out, if you use two. You may need to re-EQ them a bit until you..re hearing the same sound that you..re accustomed to.
In the second case, you can plug your guitar straight into your mixer and apply plugins to get the sound you want. If you have the GuitarRig, you..ll likely be able to make even a so-so guitar sound come across pretty well indeed. But even if you don..t, creative EQ..ing and compression can give you unexpected results.
Be aware of compression. For an instrument to ''sit'' in a track, it..s often quite necessary to (judiciously) use compression. It..s ..also.. often a good idea to remove certain frequencies from the sound spectrum (by EQ..ing them out). This, naturally, depends on the rest of the instruments and there is not set rule here. But more often than not you..ll find that thinning an EQ out helps place an instrument like a guitar or a vocal quite nicely in a typical mix.
If you..re after a ''big fat'' sound, ''thinning'' anything out might sound like a bad idea - but you..ll often discover that the opposite can be true. You can get your ''fatness'' in other ways, while thinning a guitar out a bit can make it sound clearer and more powerful. Don..t be afraid to experiment. Funny things, ears! ;)
8. Words
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Lyrics are ever so important in a song. For some people they..re even more important than the rest. So, getting them ''right'' is an artform.
There are no set rules, but a few pointers tend to work in modern songs: keep it real. Conversational. Use rhymes well, but don..t be afraid not to rhyme either. Stay away from cliches and from big words. A lyric must be powerful. No matter if it is about a party going on or about love or politics or anything at all. ''Power'' is best achieved with simplicity.
Consider this line: ''This is rather difficult to ascertain but I believe that this is not so terribly good'' - a wordy sentence ain..t it? Sounds educated but doesn..t compare in power to a simple ''This sucks!''
Lyrics, like anything else in a song - or indeed any work of art - need revising. You..re the expert and the judge. When is it revised ''enough''?
Use all the help you can get. Run things by other people. But never force your opinion on them. Don..t tense up if they tell you that it..s so-so. Next time they..ll lie to you and tell you it..s great. Be good natured about criticism. They usually mean well, even if they..re misguided. But often they..re not!
9. Guide track & Song arrangement
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While structuring a song on paper (or otherwise) is a great idea, it helps if it ''feels right'' first and foremost. Hear it in your head FIRST. Find some quiet time, perhaps while you..re driving. Take your dictaphone in case you..re worried about forgetting ideas. But don..t use it just yet. Just ''hear'' the complete song in your head. It..s like meditation. You..ll find that it..s easy to forget fly-by ideas, but strong ideas which COMPELL you to write them in a song, tend to stick. And strong ideas like that ..also.. tend to ''write themselves.''
Aid your arrangement with simple techniques. Is there an intro? Is there a chorus? How often does it come in? Is there a single or a double verse? Is there a bridge? Is there an instrumental part? What is the ending? Do you have good hooks in your head already? Links? Now write it down. But don..t ever be rigid. The Muse doesn..t like rigidity.
You may have written a great lyric which doesn..t want to fit into a verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus-chorus pattern. Are you gonna chop the lyric until it does? Or are you gonna re-arrange the song?
Is your song based on another song? This DOES NOT mean you..re ripping anything off! But, let..s face it, we are all inspired by other work. So - is it ''kinda like'' something else you already know? Well, if it is, then write down the structure of that song, but make sure to NOTICE the LITTLE things. How do they enter a new part, how do they end it. How long..s the intro? And so on.
Figure out the groove and the flow of the song. Feel it in your body FIRST. Then lay down a SIMPLE guide, using just a guitar or a p..ian..o. Or, perhaps your cue will work better with a simple beat. Just ensure that all the basic parts you wanted are there, revise at all times, sing along over them, just get the feel for whether it..s truly good or not. And don..t hesitate to revise. The more work you do on the cue track, the easier it will be later on.
You can play a ..MIDI.. hi-hat, even a square 1-2-3-4, throughout the length of the track, and play the structure using a simple ..MIDI.. p..ian..o. Don..t use an uninspiring ..MIDI.. click. But use something else that you can stand listening to for quite a while. So a hi-hat might be a good idea. Keep a steady beat throughout (don..t worry, you can ''humanize'' it later, lol). Now arrange the song as if that was all you had. If you can get a good vibe going, chances are you..re on to a healthy song.
10. Getting the Timing Right
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Two seemingly contradictory mistakes artists commit when it comes to sequencing: (1) they create tracks which are too rigidly ''on time'' and they get mechanical and boring results. (2) they ''know'' that it..s wrong to do that and they all but ignore the metronome and the result is so much sloppiness...! ;)
The simplest ''general'' rule is: play the kick and most parts of the drums strictly to the beat, and you can quantize that. Any instrumental rhythmic parts can be quantized too (but not ''blindly''), while all additional instrumental parts should be played ''live'' and only edited for any errors, but the human feel should be preserved (assuming you the artist can actually play, lol).
And then there are the in-betweens. Depending on the style of music, you may want to keep the snare drum loose. Occasionally speed it up, other times slow it down - by milliseconds. Or you can just record it without quantizing. And the same goes for other instruments.
End goal: utterly tight performance which feels alive.
11. Latency
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If your ..MIDI.. keyboard doesn..t record ''immediately'' and you have that little ''delay'' - that..s so-called ''latency.'' This is due to many factors, most of them correctible. And it pretty much always comes down to your ASIO driver settings. Edit your ASIO settings, or try different ASIO drivers. If you..re using the generic one (e.g. ASIO Direct X) you..ll have horrible latency as much as 750 ms and worse.
You need 25 ms or less to have ''INSTANT'' response. So try the ''Full Duplex ASIO driver'' and already there you..ll see the response go down to a more respectable (but still too slow) response of around 40-45 ms. You may want to try other drivers too. If you have a dedicated audio card - and you really SHOULD have one - then use the driver that came shipped with it.
But that..s not all. Once you have the FASTEST driver, and your latency is still above 25ms, tweak the buffers, memory per channel, and channel buffer size (smaller numbers will yield better performance). You can get a plain vanilla PC with generic drivers to give you around 25-35ms response time, which is pretty acceptable for most applications. This said, you..re really shooting for 0 latency or near-0, for completely perfect results.
12. ''Chart music lacks feeling''
--------------------------------
I wouldn..t necessarily generalize like that, but it..s true that a lot of it does. But - NOT ALL. Listen to the best music which is done by the best artists and producers around. Also, don..t discard the ''other'' stuff either. There..s something to learn from ALL kinds of music.
13. Noise Reduction
---------------------
You..ll find that noise reduction plug-ins can work very well. While it..s best to get clean signals in, it..s sometimes near-impossible particularly with distorted guitars, etc. Most commercially available (and free) noise reduction programs do a pretty good job of ''fixing it in the mix'' - or fixing it offline (work on a copy of a ''dirty'' track and then once you get the right CLEAN sound, use that copied track instead).
14. Vocals
--------------
This is what will ultimatly sell your music, possibly above all else. So this needs to be just right. If you can..t or don..t want to use a session singer (or just a plain old great singer you happen to know), then you owe it to yourself to work on your voice as much as you need to.
Apart from (recommended) vocal training, you can get a good compilation (''comp'') take out of just about any singer. Honest! This is actually quite easy with modern sequencers. Laborious - but easy, lol.
A few ways to work this: (1) working one full pass (whole performance) at a time, or (2) working a small chunk at a time (typically, looped).
Some singers, particularly the experienced ones, work best with full takes. Singing the song top to bottom, a few times. You then align all the takes and select the best bits. Others prefer to work in small chunks (this can conserve their energy, lol). Do the first line a few times, then move on to the next, and so on.
So - how many takes? This depends on your time and patience and energy. And ears. There is NO reason to impose any limits here.
It can be 5 or 10 takes, or it can be 100. You in a hurry?
But how best to do this? What if I can..t really sing, and even if I sing 1000 times, it still sounds the same?
In that case, approach each set of takes in a different way. Do the first 5 takes using a speaking voice - SING, but without any ''inflections'' - using your normal, ''boring'' voice. The do the next 5 takes using a nasal voice, then another 5 using a mock ''operatic'' voice, and another 5 using a breathy voice, and then using a whacked out space alien voice - and so on.
When you..re comping your takes, you..ll soon find the MAIN KIND of voice. Use that for 90% of your whole performance and comp it up from the best bits from the same type of takes. But then combine small elements from those other ''alternative'' takes. If you..re intuitive about this (and it takes time to develop this technique), you can build spellbi
Hey Adam / Inner Voices,
I was most impressed by the amount of time and dilligence you..ve put into the whole process, as evidenced by your blog. While I haven..t heard the result of all your efforts, I thought it might be a good idea to give you a little feedback on the process itself, point by point addressing your blog, in the order you wrote it - or at least the points that caught my eye.
1. Cubase LE
--------------
As good a sequencer as any for what you..re trying to achieve. It will faithfully record your audio and ..MIDI.. events and allow you to tweak them in an intuitive and creative way. More you cannot ask! :) Other sequencers have more bells and whistles but the basic stuff is the same.
2. The ''commercial pop rock challenge''
----------------------------------------
The ''challenge'' isn..t restricted to ''commercial'' music or for that matter any particular style. It concerns ANY music you find engaging enough to not begrudge the time it deserves. Music which is simply ''good'' is bound to ..also.. be ''commercial'' in the sense that other people will WANT IT. No matter what style.
3. Hypersonic
--------------
This is a pretty good all-around work-station soft synth and will give you a decent starting point for any production. Just remember that often even some of its ''best'' presets still need to receive a little extra TLC.
4. Objective: to create a ''big label'' sounding track
---------------------------------------------------
Too broad as stated. Define this more narrowly. Big labels have produced classical music as well as folk as well as everything inbetween. So WHICH big label sound?
The easiest way to define this is to find a few REFERENCE tracks. And from that point on, THESE tracks are what you mean by ''big label sound!'' Only ensure that the tracks you select are not only great music, but ..also.. are current and up to date production-wise.
Often it..s a good idea to pick one track purely for its mix values (whether you like the song or not), another for its arrangement, etc. Once you have all that selected, you now have a CLEAR reference for what ''big label'' sound means to you.
5. Major obstacles (isolation, lack of time, noisy environment, poor acoustics, experience)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is a huge advantage to be able to lock yourself away in your ''den.'' This would cure the ''noisy environment'' problem and to some extent maybe even the ''poor acoustics.'' But this is not always practical, I know. The second-best solution for this is using high quality headphones (the kind you can have on your head for a long time without getting tired of them, but which ..also.. are studio-grade and block out many of the external noises - and have a good natural sound).
Isolation is a double-edged sword. It..s good to have alone-time with your music, and it..s good to vibe it with others. Have a control group you invite to your studio every now and then. See if their vibes excite you.
As for experience - you..re gaining it now by the bucketload. You..ve got the thrill of discovery which is always the biggest high.
6. Recording vocals in a typical bedroom
-----------------------------------------
You may find that a very simple STAGE microphone (e.g. a Shure SM58) with a relatively small dynamic response will work better for working in a noisy environment than a high class studio mic!
Working with more sophisticated microphones in an unsophisticated environment can sometimes cause unexpected problems. I remember working with an expensive Neumann mic in a bedroom and the thing picked up noises I couldn..t even hear in the room! In the end, I switched to an SM58 and got a nice clean sound which only needed minimum extra post-processing afterwards.
Another thing to keep in mind is mic technique as it relates to the room you..re using. It..s not the distance that gives you a clean sound. It..s a clean sound-path and minimum external noises. Unless you can totally deaden a room, that mic distance you have in the picture in your blog tells me you..ll be picking up loads of room ambience - i.e. probably not exactly what you want. An inch or so off the diaphragm will all but eliminate the ''room.'' But you do have to watch out for levels much more, of course.
7. Getting the guitar sound right
--------------------------------
You have two ways to go here: either you already have a great live sound which you wanna reproduce on your recordings at all costs, or you don..t and are willing to experiment.
In the first case, you..ll need a pair of decent mics plus maybe ..also.. a direct in. And a little time to experiment.
Lock your Marshall amp in a bathroom (lol or a closet - never mind), crank it up, mic it up with ''mic 1'', slightly off center of the speaker cone, possibly pointing at the speaker at a 45 degree angle, maybe 3-4 inches off. You..ll need to experiment with this a bit.
Set up ''mic 2'' further away, possibly in a ''sweet spot'' in your bathroom if it exists. Finally, take a line out from the amp/speaker and plug that directly into your desk.
With three signals going into your mixer you now have a choice of mixing the three or using only two of them - or just one. You can pan them out, if you use two. You may need to re-EQ them a bit until you..re hearing the same sound that you..re accustomed to.
In the second case, you can plug your guitar straight into your mixer and apply plugins to get the sound you want. If you have the GuitarRig, you..ll likely be able to make even a so-so guitar sound come across pretty well indeed. But even if you don..t, creative EQ..ing and compression can give you unexpected results.
Be aware of compression. For an instrument to ''sit'' in a track, it..s often quite necessary to (judiciously) use compression. It..s ..also.. often a good idea to remove certain frequencies from the sound spectrum (by EQ..ing them out). This, naturally, depends on the rest of the instruments and there is not set rule here. But more often than not you..ll find that thinning an EQ out helps place an instrument like a guitar or a vocal quite nicely in a typical mix.
If you..re after a ''big fat'' sound, ''thinning'' anything out might sound like a bad idea - but you..ll often discover that the opposite can be true. You can get your ''fatness'' in other ways, while thinning a guitar out a bit can make it sound clearer and more powerful. Don..t be afraid to experiment. Funny things, ears! ;)
8. Words
---------
Lyrics are ever so important in a song. For some people they..re even more important than the rest. So, getting them ''right'' is an artform.
There are no set rules, but a few pointers tend to work in modern songs: keep it real. Conversational. Use rhymes well, but don..t be afraid not to rhyme either. Stay away from cliches and from big words. A lyric must be powerful. No matter if it is about a party going on or about love or politics or anything at all. ''Power'' is best achieved with simplicity.
Consider this line: ''This is rather difficult to ascertain but I believe that this is not so terribly good'' - a wordy sentence ain..t it? Sounds educated but doesn..t compare in power to a simple ''This sucks!''
Lyrics, like anything else in a song - or indeed any work of art - need revising. You..re the expert and the judge. When is it revised ''enough''?
Use all the help you can get. Run things by other people. But never force your opinion on them. Don..t tense up if they tell you that it..s so-so. Next time they..ll lie to you and tell you it..s great. Be good natured about criticism. They usually mean well, even if they..re misguided. But often they..re not!
9. Guide track & Song arrangement
-----------------------------------
While structuring a song on paper (or otherwise) is a great idea, it helps if it ''feels right'' first and foremost. Hear it in your head FIRST. Find some quiet time, perhaps while you..re driving. Take your dictaphone in case you..re worried about forgetting ideas. But don..t use it just yet. Just ''hear'' the complete song in your head. It..s like meditation. You..ll find that it..s easy to forget fly-by ideas, but strong ideas which COMPELL you to write them in a song, tend to stick. And strong ideas like that ..also.. tend to ''write themselves.''
Aid your arrangement with simple techniques. Is there an intro? Is there a chorus? How often does it come in? Is there a single or a double verse? Is there a bridge? Is there an instrumental part? What is the ending? Do you have good hooks in your head already? Links? Now write it down. But don..t ever be rigid. The Muse doesn..t like rigidity.
You may have written a great lyric which doesn..t want to fit into a verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus-chorus pattern. Are you gonna chop the lyric until it does? Or are you gonna re-arrange the song?
Is your song based on another song? This DOES NOT mean you..re ripping anything off! But, let..s face it, we are all inspired by other work. So - is it ''kinda like'' something else you already know? Well, if it is, then write down the structure of that song, but make sure to NOTICE the LITTLE things. How do they enter a new part, how do they end it. How long..s the intro? And so on.
Figure out the groove and the flow of the song. Feel it in your body FIRST. Then lay down a SIMPLE guide, using just a guitar or a p..ian..o. Or, perhaps your cue will work better with a simple beat. Just ensure that all the basic parts you wanted are there, revise at all times, sing along over them, just get the feel for whether it..s truly good or not. And don..t hesitate to revise. The more work you do on the cue track, the easier it will be later on.
You can play a ..MIDI.. hi-hat, even a square 1-2-3-4, throughout the length of the track, and play the structure using a simple ..MIDI.. p..ian..o. Don..t use an uninspiring ..MIDI.. click. But use something else that you can stand listening to for quite a while. So a hi-hat might be a good idea. Keep a steady beat throughout (don..t worry, you can ''humanize'' it later, lol). Now arrange the song as if that was all you had. If you can get a good vibe going, chances are you..re on to a healthy song.
10. Getting the Timing Right
-----------------------------
Two seemingly contradictory mistakes artists commit when it comes to sequencing: (1) they create tracks which are too rigidly ''on time'' and they get mechanical and boring results. (2) they ''know'' that it..s wrong to do that and they all but ignore the metronome and the result is so much sloppiness...! ;)
The simplest ''general'' rule is: play the kick and most parts of the drums strictly to the beat, and you can quantize that. Any instrumental rhythmic parts can be quantized too (but not ''blindly''), while all additional instrumental parts should be played ''live'' and only edited for any errors, but the human feel should be preserved (assuming you the artist can actually play, lol).
And then there are the in-betweens. Depending on the style of music, you may want to keep the snare drum loose. Occasionally speed it up, other times slow it down - by milliseconds. Or you can just record it without quantizing. And the same goes for other instruments.
End goal: utterly tight performance which feels alive.
11. Latency
------------
If your ..MIDI.. keyboard doesn..t record ''immediately'' and you have that little ''delay'' - that..s so-called ''latency.'' This is due to many factors, most of them correctible. And it pretty much always comes down to your ASIO driver settings. Edit your ASIO settings, or try different ASIO drivers. If you..re using the generic one (e.g. ASIO Direct X) you..ll have horrible latency as much as 750 ms and worse.
You need 25 ms or less to have ''INSTANT'' response. So try the ''Full Duplex ASIO driver'' and already there you..ll see the response go down to a more respectable (but still too slow) response of around 40-45 ms. You may want to try other drivers too. If you have a dedicated audio card - and you really SHOULD have one - then use the driver that came shipped with it.
But that..s not all. Once you have the FASTEST driver, and your latency is still above 25ms, tweak the buffers, memory per channel, and channel buffer size (smaller numbers will yield better performance). You can get a plain vanilla PC with generic drivers to give you around 25-35ms response time, which is pretty acceptable for most applications. This said, you..re really shooting for 0 latency or near-0, for completely perfect results.
12. ''Chart music lacks feeling''
--------------------------------
I wouldn..t necessarily generalize like that, but it..s true that a lot of it does. But - NOT ALL. Listen to the best music which is done by the best artists and producers around. Also, don..t discard the ''other'' stuff either. There..s something to learn from ALL kinds of music.
13. Noise Reduction
---------------------
You..ll find that noise reduction plug-ins can work very well. While it..s best to get clean signals in, it..s sometimes near-impossible particularly with distorted guitars, etc. Most commercially available (and free) noise reduction programs do a pretty good job of ''fixing it in the mix'' - or fixing it offline (work on a copy of a ''dirty'' track and then once you get the right CLEAN sound, use that copied track instead).
14. Vocals
--------------
This is what will ultimatly sell your music, possibly above all else. So this needs to be just right. If you can..t or don..t want to use a session singer (or just a plain old great singer you happen to know), then you owe it to yourself to work on your voice as much as you need to.
Apart from (recommended) vocal training, you can get a good compilation (''comp'') take out of just about any singer. Honest! This is actually quite easy with modern sequencers. Laborious - but easy, lol.
A few ways to work this: (1) working one full pass (whole performance) at a time, or (2) working a small chunk at a time (typically, looped).
Some singers, particularly the experienced ones, work best with full takes. Singing the song top to bottom, a few times. You then align all the takes and select the best bits. Others prefer to work in small chunks (this can conserve their energy, lol). Do the first line a few times, then move on to the next, and so on.
So - how many takes? This depends on your time and patience and energy. And ears. There is NO reason to impose any limits here.
It can be 5 or 10 takes, or it can be 100. You in a hurry?
But how best to do this? What if I can..t really sing, and even if I sing 1000 times, it still sounds the same?
In that case, approach each set of takes in a different way. Do the first 5 takes using a speaking voice - SING, but without any ''inflections'' - using your normal, ''boring'' voice. The do the next 5 takes using a nasal voice, then another 5 using a mock ''operatic'' voice, and another 5 using a breathy voice, and then using a whacked out space alien voice - and so on.
When you..re comping your takes, you..ll soon find the MAIN KIND of voice. Use that for 90% of your whole performance and comp it up from the best bits from the same type of takes. But then combine small elements from those other ''alternative'' takes. If you..re intuitive about this (and it takes time to develop this technique), you can build spellbi
Comments
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- Sam Montague Holly shit man you have all the shit to get that big label sound2 years ago
- the RejectKid Hi Adam.2 years ago
Great blog. Full of very useful info and facts.
It's certainly obvious that you put alot of time and effort into making the best sounding music you can. We can definitely hear the improvements on the tracks. The big studio sound is what all us home-produced musicians strive for.
But in the age of the mp3 player and the iPod, is sound quality really that important? I don't mean to be flippant or ignorant to your cause. It is a cause that I hold dear to my heart. I strive to make my music sound the best that I can. But with more and more music being played exclusively on headphones, either through mp3 players or mobile phones, sound quality takes second place and who the singer is and how cool they are.
I remember buying LPs and listening to them on my fathers hi-fi stack. With the turntable at the top, amplifer, tuner, tape deck and cd player at the bottom, music from the speakers filled the whole house. Happy days.
I just want to say that I admire your dedication to the cause and it's good to see that not all music is being made by using shortcuts.
Music comes from the heart and not from the microchip.
Keep up the good work and congrats on the success you have received. I'm sure there is more on the way.
Cheers, Anthony.
... Show more- inner voices Thanks for your comment. Yes you are right - it is difficult with MP3 (standard 128kbps format) to determine a reasonable recording from a superb recording - so the internet/myspace and track download sites are the greatest supporter of ‘averageness’. I learnt last year to mix the track for MP3 format as I found that what sounds great on a nice CD player doesn’t necessarily sound good on myspace or MP3.2 years ago
As an example if you listen to the guitar at the beginning of ‘My Aberration’ or the
- paul matheson Hey3 years ago
stumbled across your blog via another site - made really good reading. Definatley will check back to see how things are going and how you do them.
All the best
Paul (producer Her Voice Resides)
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