Michael Peters – New Album Out
March 14th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
This summer I had the privilege of working with this fine bearded-fellow, Mr Michael Peters. Julian was in the studio one day I think laying down some bass line for a cover tune, and he mentioned that he’d like his friend to come down and chat about a recording. I don’t do a lot of engineering gigs these days, but I liked the idea of tracking some real players in a real room, and also got to really delve into dynamic mic technique. Gotta love the dynamics. Keith Price produced with Michael, and I actually think he managed to avoid playing anything… ah yes, he hummed a few bars on mic. Oh, and the whale noises! The combination of the two, both probers, meant long and fascinating conversations between the two about where the tunes could go. I’m prone to leap out of my chair and not eat or sleep till the song’s done, once I get an idea in my head, and this was quite refreshing sitting back and dialoging instead of pulling all-nighters. There’s a lesson in there for me, somewhere…. oh well time to finish another idea….
Anyhow, good times were had by all. I think Michael has written one of the saddest songs of all, “Ain’t None But Jesus”. He tells the story, in classic fashion, and we accept it as fatalistically as it’s told. These are the moments I look for in music; they touch something I can’t explain, and therein lies their virtue. If the message penetrates and garners a reaction before I can even finish lyrics, and by the time I do I realize what’s happening, well, that’s just great storytelling: Michael’s magic. A varied setlist, and not every song/lyric will be everyone’s cup of tea, but a man who cares about what he says.
Lots of good stories and shenanigans, including the infamous whammy-bar-tuning-infinity-loop, the double-pick solo, and my favorite phrase over the sessions, “Ya now that we’ve recorded it I have a great idea for the arrangement.” Classic!
Beds were done with all 3 players, Curtis Nowosad on drums, Michael on various instruments and vocals for the scratch guitars, and Julian Bradford on a few basses. Overdubs were guitars, vocals, pianos, percussion etc… I think mostly dynamics on everything, maybe U67′s on overheads and vocals. The solo ballads, we’d create an array of mics around Michael at various distances, and let him do his thing. I’m pretty sure we didn’t even take the cover off the piano… Michael was partial to Fury guitars, brought some neat pedals, and I think Mr Carl Strempler loaned us his pedalboard for an afternoon as well. Which was good, because it took us the whole afternoon to figure out the thing!
If he ever manages to get the thing onto iTunes, I’ll post a link. Until then, try here for more info.
Thanks for the fun, Michael!
Sounds n Sample Search
March 5th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
I’m just about done the outlines and script for the upcoming MakeProMusic production tutorial series, and the last bit deals with programming, sounds, sample arsenal, anything and everything to do with how we make noise and turn it into music. Pretty chaotic and personal stuff, so there’s bound to be some strong opinions.
I’ve been typing all week and working on new Kat Penfold stuff, and starting a whole new (and involved!) section on a Friday, especially since it’s also ‘eat-anything-i-like-day’ (diet described here by these fine folk), and after that much sugar I kinda keel over every hour or so.
So it turned into a creative day, looking over and finding new sounds to play with. I haven’t had this much fun (and sugar) in a while (week)!
I first dove into all the cool user-made libraries for one of my favorite synths, Reaktor. There was all sorts of cool stuff, a lot of synths expanding on some of my favorite patches will lots of options (some still pretty lame). My only complaint is that I wish they’d clean up all the dead links from some libraries. I’d get all excited seeing the title “Super accurate vintage Prophet 5 Emulator” and of course, dead link. Still, this should cram all sorts of FM, Subtractive and Granular synthesis down my clients’ ears for years to come. A healthy refresh.
What excited me even more, though, was finding samples people had made for my main sampler Kontakt. Soooo inspiring. I think back and give thanks for all the hard work my Japanese friends put into at Korg with their old M1 series. Those patches kept me going for years. And now, the whole world is contributing to an online synthesis database giving people access to their own inspiration. The things people will do with these rad sounds!
One thing I love is that I have access to a big ol studio, so getting ‘big, awesome’ sounds is a fairly regular affair, and manipulating those samples is easy and happens all the time. But unlike back in the day when I’d carry a laundry basket full of gear from studio to studio, getting unique, organic sounds depends entirely on getting unique, organically dressed hobo music dudes in with their unique, organic-looking instruments. And that doesn’t happen often. Well actually, it does, but getting all that organic-ness to align with whatever organic-ness I need at the time, is, well, tough. Plus coordinating all those outfits.
Anyway turns out people are really passionate about sampling their own instruments, kitchenware, pets, you name it. And it all has that pleasant charm of not sounding like a slick, corporate studio. Cause I’ve already got piles of those.
To be honest, I did spend some money on ‘official and pro’ sample libraries, but those were on super expensive vintage instruments and sounded nothing like a studio session of today. I’m really digging Yamaha CP70s right now, and Fairlight CMI samples.
I got ridiculously excited when I was suddenly playing patches used on old Peter Gabriel records, I even found the patch used on Sledgehammer! Such a treat. Turns out angels didn’t descend and make those flutey-sounds for the solo section, after all. It was a patch. Well stay tuned for those sounds, bound to sneak in there somewhere. The design effort put into the pads and string sounds back then are absolutely unmatched. All the patches from the top stuff these days only manage to match how well they sit, and even then that’s a rarity. I just wanna call up a pad, and have it sit well in the track! Well now, guess I can.
Well, back to finding more sounds! I hope I can take some mics this summer and sample everything I see, to give back to this awesome online community that spreads inspiration.
Katie Murphy – New EP out
March 4th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Katie Murphy’s got a new EP out – Exes & Uh-Ohs
I mixed the first song on the record, Oooo! (She’s got a lot going on!). Good times!
Del Barber – Juno Nom
March 4th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Here’s some cool news: Del’s album Love Songs for the Last Twenty is up for a Juno this year. I met Del a year ago, and did some keyboard tracks and mastering touch ups on the record.
He’s a good time, and I’m pretty darned impressed with what they did on the album, capturing great vibe and energy, and sounding, well, very much like Del. It’s easy to lose sight of who an artist is in the recording process.
I ran into Del again this January at a WSO fundraiser at the concert hall, and what really impressed me was how he answered the usual question during small talk, “keepin busy? on the road lots?” He said, ‘Heck ya, 200 show last year.” Wow. That’s inspiring. Even more inspiring, I asked, “Taking it easy this next year?” He replied, “No way, I’m aiming for 200 more shows this year.”
People like that are SO fun to be around! Best of luck, Del!
And there goes another mastering rule…
March 1st, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Had a creative day today…. on a few mastering gigs! Who’da thought. Most times you’re supposed to remain ‘technical’, not walk all over the mixer, not get all ‘producer’ in the middle of the session. I can imagine the look of horror of a band’s face when the mastering guy suddenly jumps up, “Hey!!! I’ve got a great idea!!!” And 10 plugins later… it’s unrecognizable. I think the nature of the gig is a nice blend of ‘stay the heck out of the way’ and ‘well i guess the buck stops with me’. In today’s case, it was only… 12 plugins. On a Cuban record.
I’m not sure there’s a safe place to begin that’ll shield me from the purists out there. Anyone younger off is thinking, ‘no way man, way to use your head and try new things! there’s no rules!’ Well, ya, there aren’t, but you’ll learn you don’t get gigs because you’re known as the guy that’ll always mess with your work because he’s ‘feelin it’.
It was also one of the first times I’ve been able to use my Airfield Audio Liminator 2 compressor on the 2-bus. It’s used all the time in mixes on all sorts of stuff, but never on the mix because my Blue 230 is handling that. For most mastering gigs, the STC-8M is the tool of the hour. This time, however, I got to use all sorts of toys.
It started with a call from the engineer, my friend Larry Roy, who said go ahead and add some space if you think it’d help. Turns out, I agreed. Larry’s got a great studio, comes from an excellent musical background, and mixes with all sorts of API eq’s and comps, Millenia gear, distressors, and much more through Lipinski 707 speakers. So the mixes came in ready to rock. In the ambience department, I called up a convolution long room with a slight tail that complimented the existing space, as well as a complex, heavily diffused Lexicon PCM Native room. Both verbs had their channels pre treated with SoundToys Decapitator Preamp module, making sure that the sound feeding the plugs was a shade different than the direct source. There was a tricky goal of adding space yet character yet being subtle enough to pass through mastering. The mixes of verbs varied greatly between songs, of course, and the name of the game was to always make it sound better, not worse or just gratuitously add verb to be a ‘creative’ mastering guy.
The Airfield was brought in as a parallel comp, very quick attack/release times, light ratios, low thresholds, and it added considerable volume and body with cool compression characteristics. Transformer 2 was used, though transformer 1 is a better starting point when using the comp as an insert on a master. Also in parallel was the Drawmer 1968ME, a tube comp that was used in more of a traditional role. These two comps fed the STC-8 which was on a standard light mastering setting, and voila. Mix to taste per song, usual variable eq tweaks, and you’re left with a rare case scenario where an all-acoustic record is given a little more vibe with judicious use of mastering/mixing tools. Of course the verbs had to be of high quality, or they’d stick out compared to the high quality System 6000 verbs originally used at mix time.
I’ll post a link to the album by Trio Bembe, as soon as it’s available online.
Budgets pt 2 – number shock!
December 6th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Scenario 1: I can’t afford to spend 100k on my album like my favorite artist did.
Answer: Not many can. I’d be really curious to see the budget breakdown for an album like that, because you never know how much was actually spent on the essentials. How much was the great musician budget? How much spent on quality people for the recording side? Was it mostly photo shoots, dinner, and marketing?
The truly salient question: how many songs on this record are actually worth anything? If you’re in love with 2, then you’re only dealing with a 20k budget. Perhaps they wasted 80k.
That math is funny, but it really distills what our goals are. I don’t know about you, but my goal is never to spend money by itself. It’s usually always that tough door to walk through in order to get somewhere we wanna go. But this is the world of faster, cheaper, better. Sort of.
So back to our magic number: 310. In our last post, we looked at the budget breakdown values. Contentious, sure, but let’s keep going. Out of that 310, over half of that has very abstract values. You can’t put a price on songwriting, unless you’re buying songs, and then you better really be a good performer. Same with arranging. You could probably negotiate with a producer that sees value in you for a royalty based on sales for most of the fee, you’re left with a weird number of 150. Otherwise, it’s 210.
Maybe you’re the next Celine Dion or a performer that at best will co-write the songs when they’re not paying for them outright. For every dollar you invest on a 310 format: (On a 10k budget)
32% is songwriting (3200.00)
19% is arranging (producer budget) (1900.00)
13% is musicians (1300.00)
6% is recording (!!!!!) (600.00)
3% is mixing/mastering/post pro (300.00)
1.5% is photos/minimal duplication/distro (150.00)
24% is marketing. Should really be more. (2400.00)
210 format:
28% is arranging/production (2800.00)
20% is musicians (2000.00)
10% is recording (1000.00)
5% is mixing/mastering (500.00)
2% is photos/distro (200.00)
35% is marketing. Still should be more. (3500.00)
Wow. Fascinating. Maybe that’s yet another reason to do things one song at a time….. Food for thought there! tbc….
jrj
Jordan Rory Jackiew
Resosound Productions
www.resosound.com
Budgets pt 1 – and the most colorful math you’ll ever see
December 6th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Here’s some truly wacky math for you:
Let’s say it takes
A great song (A)
a great arrangement (B)
a great performance (C)
a great recording (D)
a great finishing touch (E)
a great delivery format (F)
a great marketing effort (G)
So… A+B+C+D+E+F+G= best chance at success you could ask for (X).
Are all those values equal? Certainly not. And in most cases, besides the first few, you can either convert money into time, or coast until you’ve got the most important parts covered.
So…
A great song (A) is what it’s all about. Something someone wants to hear. We have to like it. It costs us nothing to get unless you’re buying someone else’s, it’s just work ethic. Go write songs until your head spins and you’re great at it. It’s worth 100. Don’t even start until you have songs. No songs, nothing to spend money on. Don’t waste your time.
a great arrangement (B) puts the song into the way you could play it 100 times and have it rock every time. Great ideas. Adds to the song, puts it out there in a flattering way for yourself to present it. Get a producer. Pay her/him whatever they need, work out the arrangement. It’s worth 60.
a great performance (C) is done by truly passionate and skilled musicians/programmers. Pay them whatever they need. They’re awesome. Worth 40.
a great recording (D) doesn’t sound bad. It doesn’t get in the way of all the work before it, and it even can enhance the feeling of what’s being laid down. Here’s where so many things go wrong; it either derails here, or starts here without any work on the song/arrangement/musicians. Oops. It’s worth 20.
a great finishing touch (E) is like the mixing and the mastering. Important, but completely dependent on so so many things already. Pay for skill, not for hype, don’t make it worse. With a ‘slight’ amount of work you can find absolutely awesome people for dirt dirt cheap. The important thing is: don’t make it worse! If you do it yourself, and you’re not good at it, it’ll be worse. It’s worth 10.
a great delivery format (F) is nice artwork, a nice packaging idea or online look, something easy for people to access and enjoy. Once again, pros are better than people that suck, so unless you rock at it, don’t make it worse. Pros are still found cheap, don’t overpay. It’s worth 5.
a great marketing effort (G) is….. well…. kind of your only option for people to hear you. Doing gigs is marketing. A website is marketing. Holding up a sign on the side of the road is marketing. With no marketing, you don’t exist. I’d rate it at 100 except for the fact that sometimes great music sells itself, except there’s so much music out there, we’ll settle for whatever jumps in front of us. It’s worth 75, cause song is king, but… really. Huge. I probably shouldn’t have even said that whole ‘good music markets itself’ stuff because everyone already thinks everything they do is great. Fact is, most people need an honest and sober look at who likes it, and how it obviously isn’t marketing itself. If you need marketing, because people aren’t jumping in front of you to shower you with success, you probably need marketing ‘and’ song/arrangement/performance help.
So 100+60+40+20+10+5+75= X
The best chance of success you can get is a number: 310.
Think about that…. tbc
jrj
Jordan Rory Jackiew
Resosound Productions
www.resosound.com
Starting your career – Nobody owes you anything
November 11th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
***Warning*** Sober topic****
We just hit the 5th job inquiry this week. The grade 9 student doesn’t really count, but they were smartest about how they approached me. Asking for career advice is tough to turn down, asking for money…. well…. don’t be surprised if that comes up short!
We all want to do well. We all make this our career, and call this our livelihood. But as musicians…. we don’t compare to the car salesman and lawyers. It’s a better phrase ‘having a career in music’ than saying ‘musician’. When people ask what I do, I really try not to hesitate or use the M word, and reply ‘Music Producer’. It sounds organized and aggressive enough to merit some respect, and is still vague enough to not be put in the same category as ‘power-broker’. It’s a funny brand, a musician. It means we’re just trying to get a gig. And then another one. And another. It’s about ‘that’ organized and thought-through. Living day-to-day, seizing opportunities and scraping by. Just about zero planning. Kinda depressing…
Ok, so if we don’t pick up an instrument and look for performing gigs and tours, then we must be ‘industry’ people. We look around for ‘work’ in our field, whatever role…. and it’s the same thing. Get a gig. Do it. Do another one. Zero planning. Time is like a big straight line…. from the start to the end of our ‘career’, same thing with some ups and downs. But ultimately going nowhere.
I can hear what you’re saying. “Nope, not me, I’m totally going somewhere. I’m awesome!” And there, lies the sober lesson for us all: Nobody owes us anything.
Regardless of talent, there are no guarantees. Nobody has to like your voice, nobody has to like how you play, no one has to like your song, no one has to get you a gig, nobody has to recognize your so-in-with-the-times creative genius. A sober subject for sure!
I know a singer with an amazing voice, walked in to a regular corporate gig I do with a rotating door of frontmen. By and far she was the most difficult to work with, showed up late, unprepared, and had attitude. Great voice! Never hired again by the client. A while ago they also invested in a few original tunes for her and hired a producer and the whole deal… songs turned out great…. and went nowhere. She just couldn’t believe that once they were on iTunes, nobody bought them. Nice voice! Anyone that’s worked with me: haha no it’s not you! This person wouldn’t ever make it to this blog. They left town and went traveiling, disillusioned that their talent wasn’t recognized. If you only remember one piece of career advice it’s this: don’t leave town and disappear right after finally releasing some music. Lol. Fact is, no one knew she was even on iTunes, or when she was gigging, or that she was awesome. And she wasn’t in the mind space to let anyone know, either. Without a label, it’s next to useless. But the real fact is that the labels are the ones looking for eager people who can take care of themselves! Most of the bands I’ve seen signed or even approached were done so because they made their own scene.
Talent isn’t enough. It takes work ethic. The world’s full of people loaded with talent and lazy as….ya, and with crazy hard-working ambition yet zero aesthetic qualities. Another world-class singer showed up to the studio last night for a money-gig and had no idea what they were doing. Zero work ethic. Around-in-circles they go. Do you think they need an investor or a lottery or piles of gear so they can get their project done? I guarantee you, equipment will get them nowhere. Equipment will get us all nowhere. Our problem is not budget. It’s never budget. Budget determines the car we drive, not how well our careers go.
I get emails all the time with resumes and offers to take work off my hands or to hire them, as if one random encounter merits and exchange of funds. We haven’t even put the word out we’re hiring. But someone believes they’re awesome somewhere, or they’ve gone to school for it, and they believe they’re owed gigs and recognition for what they’ve done. That’s not how the world works. Nobody owes us anything. If the company we work for can’t afford to keep us on, or we’re no longer able to benefit the whole, they let us go. When they need people, they ask. They still take what they think is the best candidate, based on ‘their’ idea of what rocks, regardless of resume. Those who are invaluable, stay invaluable. Those who aren’t, really need to ‘make’ themselves invaluable to someone, because that’s all that pays. If your songs make people feel so good they’re willing to pay for it, great! If your engineering talent helps out a producer so much they can’t live without you, great! If not, you’re going to have to prove it to a lot of people before they’ll value you enough to pay you. And there it is. It’s self-employment. No steady cheques. Go out there and get it. Prove it. Nobody owes you anything. Doesn’t matter who you are. You have to become valuable.
jrj
Jordan Rory Jackiew
Resosound Productions
www.resosound.com
Back to school…. Sort of
November 9th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
I think we can all think of our big heroes in our respective fields. For me, a mix engineer, it’s the usual suspects: chris lord-alge, Tom lord-alge, michael brauer, jack joseph puig, bob clearmountain, manny marroquin, Dave pensado… the ones i find myself listening to even if I’m not super into the music itself. I’m just drawn to their craft. So we all have heroes. Guitar heroes, producer heroes, singer heroes, band heroes, writer heroes. Whatever.
We also at one point went to school. A time when we’d get five or six different areas of study in a day, plus vocations and whatever we did afterwards. Then we get the whole social element as a bonus, which I guess was kinder to some than others. But boy did we learn. Always challenged, it’s only been specializing since those days. Less diversity, less complete, less challenge in different areas. The biggest, most massive loss though I’d have to say is being forced to face our weaknesses. As youth, almost everything’s a weakness, so adapting is par for the course. The more freedom we get, the less we have to learn. We get to focus on our strengths. I remember in highschool when i figured out taking classes wasn’t mandatory. I specialized in selectively attending just enough classes to maintain a grade, and to this day i still have the occasional dream I’ve avoided a class too long that I have no clue whats going anymore. Life and competition can certainly feel like that.
The elusive point: there are unknown treasures and wealth for those who continue to tackle their weaknesses, especially in their field of choice. It’s a funny thing, the best singers to come through the studio doors have been singing the most often and the longest. How bout that. Same with guitarists, producers, drummers, assistants… that doesn’t mean age is an automatic win. And a full gig and tour schedule still isn’t a substitute for learning and expanding your horizons. My absolute favorite people are the ones that have a realistic and sober perspective of their talents and abilities……. and then work at it more. Where would you be if you spent twenty solid, concentrated minutes on a less developed area in your profession every day. If I examined pre-delay settings on reverbs vs delays and how it affects the tonal space of the mix, or a keys player doing strength and stamina training to get better tone out of their axe. Or singers… singing when theres not 100db background noise and poor monitoring happening. Even just twenty minutes recording yourself and evaluating.
These are usually the most fruitful minutes of the day, with respect to making today matter. Without them, years can go by and we can’t measure what they were for.
Assimilating Free Spirits – Get a Rig
October 27th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
If you’re not recording yourself at home, you’re really missing out. iLife ’11 came out yesterday, shipping with every new Mac, and the improvements to Garageband give just about anyone who can own a (pricier) computer the ability to make their own grooves, add keyboard parts, and record anything with a mic. Basically, your own recording studio with almost any instrument at your fingertips.
Will it sound like the latest major-label release? Well… sorta actually. It’s still one of the best ways to use samples and add artificial sounds if you like.
It’s the easiest and most portable way to record a demo when an idea comes to you, document songwriting sessions, and even have fun making up random stuff with sounds you”ll nevvvvver release to the public. It’s creativity, just get it out there and see what happens.
The important thing is having control. When you have the mic AND the tape recorder, you pick whatever you record. No producers, engineers, buddies, family, gnomes, enchanted unicorns interfering with your whole color-thought process and inspired music making. It’s your sanctuary, where no one ever has to hear what you lay down or say or sing or play, and you can try anything. That’s right: all you folkies can get your dance on, and techies can get your granola on.
You learn the art of self-producing, which, of course, everyone is a genius at already, haha.
But if you don’t have your own avenue to just get whatever you feel on tape and document it, like a napkin from the future, your journey just won’t go as quick. A singer came in the studio a few years ago, played piano and sang over top, and their jaw dropped when I added some bells (christmas song) and another little tinkly thing. They emailed back, and wanted me to send them a list of every sound I had so that they could know their options and come to the studio better prepared…… yikes.
So what does it take? You might have a rig already, but the magic is in the application. You know what the best rig is? The one that’s the quickest and easiest to use. Get music done. You shouldn’t have to turn a crank, press a button, pray to the technology gods, sprinkle a powder and do a take hoping it doesn’t crash.
You want to lay the idea down. Focus on the songwriting, on the part, on the hook, on the feeling, on the point. Don’t try to win a Grammy for engineering. You don’t have to yet. If you lose the whole self-producer mentality, you’ll absolutely love recording yourself and getting your ideas down. If all you can think of is wishing you had preamp X, you’ve got the same attitude as an A&R guy. Wrong team, lol.
Do the stuff that makes you unique, your song and your performance. Document it, evaluate it tweak it, retrack it. Then, when you’ve got a ton of ideas down that you absolutely love, you’re ready to record for real. Whole other ball game.
jrj
Jordan Rory Jackiew
Resosound Productions
www.resosound.com
