So you’ve written a great song or a piece of music, and you want to get it recorded and saved as soon as possible. Thanks to modern technology, you no longer have to wait until you have the money to record it professionally in a recording studio (or try to remember your song by recording…
OPTIMUM MONITORING ENVIRONMENT Normal construction — parallel walls, sheetrock, 2×4’s, plywood, insulation, hollow floors and doors, etc. — may be robbing you of the clarity and proper sound imaging that you need from your monitor speakers. Try these steps for improving the situation: Locate your monitor speakers one to two feet away from the wall….
MICROPHONE SELECTION AND PLACEMENT Standard techniques for miking snare drums, guitars and vocals are well-documented, but sometimes unusual situations can trip you up in the studio. Here are a couple of tricks: If the drum set you’re miking has six or more toms, individually miking each tom may not produce the clearest sound (due to…
This is one of the most evasive and frustrating phenomena ever to invade our workstations. Let’s get rid of it! Use only one A/C “breaker” line for your workspace. No shared appliances (ie: refrigerator, washer/dryer, dishwasher). Do not “daisy-chain” power strips, one after another. Use only one power strip per A/C wall outlet. Positively NO…
You can record a kick drum using two mics and have ultimate control of thickness and punch. Here’s how: Use a mike that has a high SPL (sound pressure level) to mike the inside of the kick, close to the head. Move the mike around to get the best of the “click” of the beater….
Live music is big business. The highest-grossing tours by major label artists can rake in hundreds of millions of dollars every year. The even more shocking aspect of this objective fact is that they are getting more lucrative all the time. Sure, people talk about the music industry being harder and harder to make money…
What do you Need to Become a Music Producer? The role of a music producer can be one of the most exciting and creative jobs within the music industry, but it can also be one of the most hectic. If you’re serious about being a producer you need to be fully invested. You need to…
Everyone, at some point in time, has dreamed of being a rockstar. Finding a massive audience for music that’s a direct reflection of who you are. Finding a platform to create artwork that’s a sincere reflection of your thoughts, opinions, and experiences. However, most people leave it as a daydream. It takes a very rare…
If you’re an up-and-coming musician there’s only one way to get noticed. Make work. You need to be producing songs. You need to be out in the streets making connections and showing your abilities. That’s the only way to make headway within the industry. A while back, the only way to get ahead was to…
The recording industry, and the music industry in general, is much larger than anyone likes to admit. Most people think of the music industry as just musicians, bands, and maybe producers. However, in reality, there are a myriad of jobs that exist outside of those listed above. People who fill all types of roles from…
If you’re a person who makes music you know that Digital Audio Workstations aka DAWs are essential to your work. There’s almost no way to create music today without them. You build your beats, songs, and projects in a digital space. Sure you might play a few analog instruments, but you’re playing them into a…
Making money as an artist is never easy. Especially when you’re starting out, it seems like an impossibility. How do you get people to believe in you and your work… when no one believes in you or your work? How do you find a way to support yourself when all of your efforts and time…
Today, Hip-Hop rules the world. It’s the dominant musical genre, produces a wide swath of America’s celebrities, and is used in everything from film soundtracks to selling soap on TV. To think just a few short decades ago, Hip-Hop and rap were viewed as a non-commercial and niche thing, it’s almost mind-boggling. Today it’s a…
HOW DO I BECOME A SOUND ENGINEER OR RECORDING ENGINEER? Everyone that wants to work in the music industry has to start out at the same place. Zero. They all have to start from nothing. You don’t know anyone, you don’t have the skills, and you’ve never made music. And then as you grow, and…
The music industry can seem impenetrable from the outside. It can appear opaque and difficult to understand. Where do you start? Where do you find out how to get your foot in the door? How do you approach building a music production career for yourself when you don’t even have your skillset fully built up….
