john

Bustin' some fretboard moves...

btw I shared your blog onto the Songstuff Facebook page

Hey Karlos, welcome to Songstuff! It's always good to know that people are recommending Songstuff. What options for direction are most likely? Cheers John

love it

That sucks! Not that it arrived earlier, but such a brief time to play is surely teasing!

Hi and welcome to Songstuff hope yer feeling better.

I suppose I could when I get a little time. I had intended (years ago) on writing a series on studio design, gear selection, acoustics and psychoacoustics, soundproofing etc, with info about doing it all on a budget too. Unfortunately my time on Songstuff got swallowed by server management and site infrastructure. I have more or less sorted all of that now and I am planning to get back to my own music and writing a screed of content for the site. We'll see how realistic my hopes are! Lol

It is important to understand the issues and trade offs. For example, frequency response and dynamics, spill (important when it comes to sharing your "live room" and "control room", as most home studios are combined with a budget limiting gear available), and the rarely mentioned topic of ear fatigue. Frequency response. The bass response of headphones is quite different to that of speakers. In fact exactly how they get your ear to hear bass is entirely different. This means that using headphones (worse - ear bud! Noooooo.....) can really color your mix... It'd skew the frequency volumes. Dynamics, yet again we also feel bass, particularly sub-bass. Headphones either omit sub-bass or reconstruct it using harmonic frequencies to fake it inside your ear. Bass frequencies (particularly sub-bass have long wavelengths, which even monitors cannot reproduce exactly, but they are a hell of a lot closer than what headphone speakers can achieve. Use headphones for a rough mix, a detailed idea of stereo image, but not final mixes. Better if you use headphones (or "cans" as they are also known) for monitoring during recording rather than mixing and only to check minimal aspects of the mix. when you record mix and perform in the same space, spill is very important. Specifically applied to cans it is when the sound coming from headphones "spills" from just your ear hearing it, to being picked up by the microphone. Apart from a less likely "feedback loop" it can cause havoc come mix time. Imagine the general early recording mix spilling on the vocal track, especially the snare. You want to have the vocals out front but in doing so now it boosts the snare sound whenever the vocal track is not muted. Worse if you decide to remove the drums in one section during mix, only now you can't remove it because the drums can also be heard on the vocal track... And that is just one scenario using one instrument spilling. To combat this cans come in 3 varieties: open back, closed back and semi-closed back. Closed back cans cut spill to the minimum, BUT they color the mix more by skewing the frequency response of the headphone speaker, meaning you hear something that is far from a true representation of the frequencies in the music... Or at least significantly different. For this reason closed back cans are best suited to being word by the musician who is being recorded. They do not care about such details of frequencies but you want to minimise spill. Conversely open back cans minimise coloration of sound, but have a lot of spill, and I mean a lot. This type of can is best suited to mix and mastering engineers who have a dedicated control room, with the musician being recorded in another room (only an issue for mic-ed sources) Semi-closed cans are a halfway house. They have significant spill, but less than open cans, and the color the sound, but less than closed back cans. Ear fatigue. Closed back cans are often avoided by mix engineers, even when they are in the same room as the source because of ear fatigue. Ear fatigue is a phenomena where your brains perception of sound is interfered with... Not because it is bored, but because of the mechanics of the inner ear. Without going into detail here, it is enough to know that after a while of working with sound what you hear actually changes... Which skews mixes lots! The closer the speaker, the sooner ear fatigue kicks in and the worse it will be. Worse again, closed back cans make the problem even worse. Much worse than open back cans. Pro engineers cannot afford to screw up mixes, or to have ongoing "tired" ears. Do not underestimate how much it will screw up your mixes! On a budget, monitors are essential to good mixes, especially during long sessions. Equally at least one pair of closed cans is essential. They do not need to be brilliant in any other way than reducing spill... So check that. Get a friend to try them to get an idea of suitability by seeing how much spill there is. However,, a pair of open back cans is really useful if you record and mix loads, and a good pair of semi-closed can be a useful compromise if you can only afford one decent pair for the engineer. If you record yourself mostly, get a pair of closed and a pair of open... Ideally all 3 options are useful. I know, you want to hear: do this. You also want to hear it is just one purchase.... And initially it might be. But your ears are essential tools, AND you don't want to have crap mixes and wonder why (having read this of course that will not be the case ), so plan at least to purchase the missing bits asap, and know the initial trade offs if you limit to buying just monitors and one pair of mixer cans (crap old cans for anyone else!). Try very hard not to work with only cans. It sucks. It is impossible to work with only monitors!

It depends on what you typically record. There is no sense getting a mic suitable for recording drums if you are unlikely to be recording them. If you plan on 99% recording vocals and guitar get a decent vocal mic. It will still be able to record other instruments, just avoid setting the mic up too close. Typically a capacitor mic is used. On a budget I have found Rode mics to be on the money. Lower priced and versatile are two industry standards "dynamic" mics: Shure sm58, a versatile mic for singers, used a lot for gigs, and the Shure sm57 which is a common instrument mic. thre are more modern alternatives, including USB mics, but the Shure mics are both industry budget standards. Sorry I didn't see your post earlier, but you did leave it kinda last minute to do some research i hope this helps, Cheers John

Bad Company - Shooting Star

Just a quick note to say, well deserved Mahesh. it's a cracking song. Can i ask other members to please, please, share thie video, like it, comment on it where you see it, tweet it, re-tweet it and blog about it. Help demonstrate the power of people and check out just how we as a group can have an effect on a huge number of people. Thanks in advance.

Hey James Yep we have some members making some great music here, of pretty well every genre! You should be able to upload an avatar and be able to add links straight away. There is a post limitation on adding a signature and the size of that signature. There are also some limitations on access to some boards. Most limitations are at 10 posts, I think a couple are at 20 posts.

Hi Irwin What are the purpose of your beats? As a resource for yourself for songs of your own? To supply producers with beats for their productions? The beats, as they are, never settle in a groove... but then producers will look for: 1 measure, 2 measure, 4 measure loops fills a variety of measures with each set of drum sounds (which you have) variations in the drum sounds You have some of these elements, generally in 4 measure groups with 2 measure turn arounds played twice. in addtion producers will loook for: some standard beats some more unusual beats as varieties on the standard beats a good groove, beats that flow As a rule of thumb, the more niche, the further from standard, the more limited the audience. Looking at your beats, rather than the almost constant changes stuck together, think about presentation for producers... ie take a beat create a 1 measure version. Create a 2 measure version with a slight difference between measure 1 and measure 2. I suggest adding or removing one stroke on one of the drums or cymbals. Now create a 4 measure version that builds on the 2 measure version, and in measure 4 incorporate a fill in measure 4. Create an alternate 1 measure fill and 2 measure fill specifically for this beat. On beat construction, I suggest looking at the function of each instrument within a drum kit. What is the purpose(s) of a bass drum, a snare drum, hi-hats etc. Even industrial kits will replace the function of a standard drum, like for like. A real drummer understands exactly the purposes of these instruments. In fact, Tom (above) has created some excellent video lessons for drummers, but the key concepts are there for non-drummers to learn. Next you need to be clear about how producers will use your beats. If you have created your own songs using loops you will have a good idea of what you used and why, and that is a great starting point. If not, I recommend you get a hold of some drum loops, a loop library, and you create some music. Soon you will grasp common usage and the limitations of the loops you have, what is missing, what you would like to have had available etc. If you are not creating for producers, but are instead simply demonstrating the beats you are constructing for your own music, then there are some issues. Mainly that nothing settles in a groove. It is always changing and the fundamentals change, not just embellishments. Sound wise, I wasn't overly impressed or unimpressed. It was less appealing as the mix wasn't quite right and there was some delay/reverb in the mix. As a producer I would want clean sounds. I can always add reverb/delay/phase etc, but I cannot remove it easily, if at all. I hope this helps. Cheers john

Hey James G Welcome to Songstuff!

Moved your topic here as it isn't an intro to you (which is what the "Introduce Yourself" board is for). For that reason alone, you are more likely to get teh feedback you want here. I would also recommend you make an effort to interact with other members both within this topic and elsewhere on the boards, purely because human nature being human nature, people make more effort for people they see making an effort themselves You could even start by posting an actual introduction to yourself on teh introduce yourself board For your cover channel, do you plan to stick within a genre (either for source songs, or for your resulting covers)?

Welcome to Songstuff Tracey

What are your thoughts on trends Farah?

Lol Welcome to Songstuff!

Hi and welcome to Songstuff! Sounds like the ideal time to work your ass off. Do yourself a big favour and learn about the music biz, what the roles are, what they do, why they do it etc. It'll really help if you have a decent grounding in more than writing and performance.

hi and welcome to Songstuff

Hi and welcome to Songstuff

The Who - I can see for miles https://youtu.be/H4BBQMjbX3c

Hi Aaron, Welcome to Songstuff!

Hey Farah I think the next trend will be in a new type of pop-rock blend. This is not driven by technology so much as labels wanting to revitalise the industry, knowing that rock potentially has huge, more reliable, long tail sales in merch and tickets. This also means there will be a boost to traditional rock and metal music. Singer-songwriter will continue to grow as fans bred on the cover culture search for new and interesting music. In addition, indie music will continue to develop a thriving alternative music scene, but the line between indie and mainstream scenes will be far more blurred. This is mainly down to the continued development of good quality indie music and the tools and know how of how to make the most of it. Importantly, I think there will be a growth in the money making potential of indie, and the size of the overall pot of cash within indie will grow significantly. Pop as it exists today will still continue to do what it has been. As always some labels adapt better than others. The difference will be that the market for such pop will decline... It is mainly for kids who think music has little intrinsic value, and who ultimately suck as customers. For years the industry has been driven by short-tail sales, but some labels are beginning to put more emphasis on long tail sales again. Many levels will simply hedge their bets and develop some acts for short tail and some for long tail sales, as they do now. Just now, and for many years, the majority of development investment has been in short-tail sales. That is what is changing. As part of these changes we should see an increase in the numbers of indie acts that cross over to mainstream, to some level. As ever this is driven by labels picking artists on the rise and signing them, rather than grass roots development. just my two cents. Perhaps some new music tech will come along and completely change all that! New tech has often redirected music and allowed labels to continue the short term investment approach, to continue the pop cover culture. So we will see whether this is all bullshit or not! Lol A good question Farah! An important one to ask on a regular basis. I will be interested in what you guys all think! What trends do you see? What changes will happen, and why do you think those changes will happen? cheers John