john

I still have no idea what you mean by "opening pic". What pic are we talking about?

Opening pic?

Lol yeah. Though that was five years ago. Maybe six. I put a lot of weight on over the last two years, and my beard (which comes and goes every 2-3 weeks) really ages me. The combination really, really makes me look like a different person.

Lol. ''Twas great to see you. My beardy disguise serves me well when navigating the teeming masses of fans. Kinda through Steve for a minute! I should have mentioned English is my second language lmao

Hi and welcome to Songstuff Juin. Are you a lyricist? musician? both?

Ok I updated the links in the first post and removed the quotes of the first post as they embedded the broken link

The 3 parts are listed on this page: http://www.songstuff.com/music-business/article/

The article still exists but thus is a very old topic... 2005!

Hey Mike I know several guitarists who offer lessons, Erik Mongraine and Jon Gomm, Ally McErlaine (Texas guitarist). They make less money than they used to and it's simple economics if you want to have professional musicians these days. Especially if they do not want to be pertually touring. From everyone else's perspective I think it is great. Those guys all offer 1 to 1 lessons via Skype. Then there are sites that offer tuition on video. For example 3.5 hours of video lessons by Christine Aguilera for singers. Exposure to techniques directly from people you admire... ideal. Cheers John

Lol. The joys of photoshop... that's the same hat taken in two photos. He did pretty well!

Hey Mike, good to meet you! Welcome to Songstuff!

I am not that much of an Ed Sheeran fan in musical terms, but I can't help but admire his drive and work effort. I do also like that his music is very diverse now

Hey Mike, good to meet you. Welcome to Songstuff! When you say you used to make music, did you play any instruments or other skills like recording or production?

Hi Ken When I was young I just experimented with little foundation in knowledge, and emulated the approach and techniques of other mix engineers. It wasn't until I was older that I reapproached mixing based upon an understanding of what I was doing to sound. In fact, when I reapproached mixing I had a far, far better understanding of what sound was, and what is looked like. It made a world of difference. I found that training my ears was, of course, very important. But the big difference for me was in visualising sound, and visualising what I was doing to sound, with every tweak and every effect. Effects and processors can do quite complex things to sound across 3 aspects: amplitude, in the time domain and amplitude in the frequency domain. Use DAW tool spectrum analysis to help with understanding frequency domain, and use a wave editor to understand the time domain. I found using 4 test wave forms helped with time domain effects and processing, including EQ. I used sine, square, triangle and saw. To help with getting what was going on in the frequency domain I tried both known wave forms at mixed frequencies mixed together and white/pink noise. Each had different benefits. On top of that I learned and understood the maths involved... but that was because I was learning about designing digital and analogue effects! So I don't recommend most people fo this!. I also learned what theoretically Each effect and treatment should do in the digital and analogue domain and the limitations of electronic circuitry. All that did improve my understanding. It helped me visualise what is going on, whether that is cutting an EQ hole in a pad to allow other instruments to cut through, or applying a chorus effect etc. One of the reasons I love Isotope tools is their visualisation. My point here (yes there is one) is that anything that improves understanding is good. Experimentation using your ears is necessary, an absolute minimum... trial and error. But you can greatly improve the speed and accuracy if your understanding of what is going on is developed in parallel.... and as part of the experimentation. Simple waves like sine, square, triangle and saw make visual change pretty obvious. Different waves also let you see the effect that quicker transitions can have. I realise few would go to the lengths I did, but it doesn't mean doing some of what I did wouldn't be very useful. This at least allows you to experiment with more focus, and with the ability to improve your learning. On mixing itself, times have changed (and with recent development come full circle). When I started mixing there was no automation. Ok perhaps on very high end Neve desks. Mixes had to be rehearsed. Group faders were essential, as were trainee engineers to manage sections of faders. You learned your mix much like playing a musical instrument. It introduced another performance element and level of variation mix to mix. Latest mixing control systems seem to be reintroducing this as a feature. I always enjoyed that, it has to be said. These days you can control and automate your mix to a fine level if detail. All the more reason to understand your console knobs, faders and switches, and the effects and processors you use from VSTs to console EQ. Testing is best done using test signals (many consoles can generate them) and by using reference recordings. Reference recordings are essential for getting to know your system, especially when getting to know the effects of amplifier and monitors on a recording. You know how your reference recordings will sound on different systems, so you can work out how your new mix sould sound (ball park) in order to achieve a similar balance on other systems... Moore of an issue when you do your own mastering. I hope this rambling is of some use! Lol Cheers John

Exactly so! Lol there speaks a voice of experience!

Yep, it's 10. We we're getting a lot of drive by promo posters who would make one post and never be seen again.

You can only post there after you pass a post threshold. I can't remember exactly how many posts, but it's not that many. 10 or so? I can check and post back...

Welcome to Songstuff!

Actually hold fire... I know what is up. It's a bug. I have a patch to upload.

Rudi, I can't see those links, at least not just now. Can you post up a couple of the links please? Thanks!

Seems fair David. Rudi, I'll look into what's up, thanks for letting me know btw, I met up with Steve today. He was up for a trip to Glasgow! Awesome to meet at long last.

hi gang I saw this and thought that some of you might find this inspiring. You would never know he had a stutter, or that Eminem was a part of the cure... or that he had one ear drum! it just shows what is possible, and that we ourselves create our limitations.

The instrument boards were ridiculously quiet. So all the old instrument boards are now under performance. It shouldn't be difficult to find topics in there. If they were active topics they will be near the top, on the first page. When proposing the recent re-org I was aware that several areas of the site had becom back waters, in part because they had been so divided into sub categories. I know it is change, but I hope it will be for the better. Should we find a lot of people are posting about guitars, or drums, I think there is a good case to consider a dedicated board... but when posting in a board drops below a reasonable level, it ceases to have justification to be stand alone, and it just becomes muddle on a site that people regular complain was difficult to navigate or find things. I would add, that if members are busy or quiet in an area it is noticed. The instrument boards were all one at one point. We created the instrument and performance boards but splitting them up only created 5 quieter boards. Much quieter, and getting quieter as time passed. We had left them in place for a long time, so we really did give them a chance. We tried to encourage members to post there, but often there was only one active topic at a time, sometimes for a month. Two months! One of the boards didn't receive a post, never mind a topic, in 3 months. That is unsustainable and not good for the forums as a whole. In the long run I hope that members will agree this, and the merging of music business boards, are beneficial, and help create a more active community. just to be clear, the boards were removed, but all the previous posts, from all the instrument and performance boards, are now in the performance board.

That's my plan... but hopefully we can get a few tracks up for remix.