john

Hi and welcome to Songstuff

Wow, you love Nicki Minaj too? lmao Welcome to Songstuff Jake

Welcome to Songstuff

A different set up for this purely vocal looper, and for me absolutely excellent. I thought you might appreciate it:

Welcome to Songstuff John

Welcome to Songstuff Jeremy

Hey Yes I do. Weirdly enough I'm writing an article laying out a useful methodology for Songstuff! Almost finished. I will probably split it into a couple of articles as it is pretty big...

At home just use a hifi amp and speakers for the output from the mixer. Effects wise for instruments that have a pickup, electric and electro-acoustic guitars, they can be in the signal chain between guitar and guitar amp or between guitar and mixer. For anything being input to the mixer, guitars included, you can use a mixing desk feature such as aux (auxilliary) sends and aux returns. Usually there are anywhere between 2 and 8 aux groups. For example, I could have a delay unit hooked up to aux 1. Individual channels can then be routed through that effect before being returned to the aux or mixer group channels. Sounds complicated but mixers are pretty straight forward once you get your hands on one and bit of time with the mixer and manual.

What Tom says is true. For example session musicians are not free. For me I might use an online mastering service if I had heard a lot of their work. However remote recording using session musicians I would be very very unlikely to use. Interacting with the session musicians is key and that is far harder to do remotely, though not impossibly. I write and record my own music, so I can see the temptation for solo lyricists... but that is where there is a degree of miss-selling of online song services. I would go with plan A. Work as locally as you can and get to know local studio owners, session musicians, other songwriters, producers and bands and work with them. not just amateurs either. The first step is finding people, on or offline, to work with. Growing your contacts is the biggest single thing you can do. By saying "demo" it makes me think this is to send to labels and publishing houses, as if it were for gigs you would have a band (or at least the whole line up you need to perform), and if that is the case an online recording service really doesn't make sense apart from mastering services. If it is for labels / publishers etc these days they really expect songs submitted as production-ready. That being the case avoid online recording services like the plague (like a studio that takes either lyrics, or lyrics and melody, and records the song for you. Often writers aren't happy with the results. The results could be used to approach publishers but not labels... but the results are very unpredictable. Additionally they are less likely to be interested in the songs than say a band that writes and records their own songs (or a band that records your songs) because their interest is reducing workload, minmizing risk, and maximizing profit. Add to that sending unsolicited demos is about as useful as digging a hole and throwing your hard earned money in. Far better to find other writers to work with and then find a band to play the songs, or write the lyrics for a band that is good at writing music. With a band online recording is really not a viable option. For me this is either recording for vanity reasons, or to record a high calibre of session musician that either they or you cannot travel and it really is the last chance to get them to record their part. In terms of local studios, yes a song package is okay to a degree, but unless this is vanity recording don't go near them unless you have words, music, a good idea of the instrumentation and arrangement. At least you then clearly know what you want and can easily interact with the producer, engineer and session musicians. If you have a band then record locally. A quick and dirty recording will be cheap but only much good for getting lower end gigs. Mid-range recording prices are likely to be not much better. Higher end you have to have the minset that you are creating a finished product where standards are high. If you are a lyricist, find a music writer to work with to create finished songs. Take finished songs to bands. Then record them (well the band does, and they pay for it too. If you need a demo to let bands hear you are as well making a simple home recording using vocals and one instrument to accompany the vocals. Very rarely you will find a publishing house interested in a raw and rough demo. Usually they then get you to get it recorded properly before they invest. So you might as well focus on that before you start talking to them anyway. Hopefully that helps. It's hard answering questions like this in a beneficial way. "How long is a piece of string" is pretty well impossible. What is the purpose for the recording? Can you create a complete song, words and music, or are you part of a songwriting team that can? Do you have complete songs ready to record? Do you work with a band that plans to do something with your songs? What is your own level of music skills/knowledge? What are your long term goals for your music? Out of ten, how committed are you to do something with your songs? With answers to those questions a better guess to cost could be made. I regularly see writers, musicians and bands online that simply think high standards aren't needed, or they point each other to cheap services because they are cheap. That is simply lack of insight, laziness, and the delusion that labels, publishers, production houses and fans are happy to listen to poor quality music, and plenty of it. They don't. Think about what you want and why you want it and then work towards making it happen. If you do you are far more likely to achieve your overall aims. That is unless you don't really care what happens. That being the case I would say save your money.

1. Two mics for versatility in sound and simplicity in live performance. Each mic can be routed through it's own effect chain and into different loopstations (as is the case with some loop based set ups.) Live he won't have time to click all the pedals. Two effect chains gives him at least two distinct vocal sounds he can swap in or out as needed with a minimum of fuss, leaving connection changes or unnecessary knob twiddling to between songs. 2. He no doubt uses an audio mixer instead of multiple amps. Possibly even one that can on some level be controlled by footswitches. The mixer can take multiple audio inputs to mix into a stere pair that then goes to a PA (public address) system (usually the large speakers on either side of a stage and a behind the scenes amp). 3. Mics (vocal and instrument) go into the audio mixer. An guitar is either mic'ed directly, or a pickup is fed to a guitar amp that is mic'ed and fed to the mixer, or fed directly into the mixer, depending on the guitar and sound preferences of the performer and his available budget for gear.

Welcome to Songstuff Well it is good that you at least see that rekindling may not be straight forward. What you describe can often happen to people as they move through their twenties and thirties and beyond anyway, never mind something quite so transformative as the military. The military trains, trains and trains to make tasks as un-emotional and reflexive as possible, quite the opposite of the needs of songwriter. Experience alone can leave us feeling that our experience has made us grow beyond youthful naivety. We learn to look back more with hindsight than we had as teens, less believing in silver linings, and with a growing realization that wherever we tread, many others gave gone before. So we often censure our ideas far more before we even start writing, thinking a topic is cliche, or done to death or unbelieavable or so common place that people will not want to hear it. But that is our cynicism talking. We have learnt to be guarded in what we say out loud. The fact is it is a trick of the mind that what we could say is somehow less valid. Let me instead say that the discipline you learnt in the military will stand you in good stead. Becoming a better writer is about learning, drive and discipline... plus some good insights into what to improve and how. It's also about creativity and emotions. You'll need to get used to expressing both, but you probably already know that. Life gives us plenty of experience of many kinds to draw on. The trick is to let it play out by not stopping ourselves from exploring emotions and topics, by writing and committing to getting ideas down, learning to develop them and polish them, and that means taking some risks... simply to connect and learn. Topic wise your life is no doubt full of rich inspiration. Don't fool yourself that people don't want to hear it. They do. Have they heard people talk on the topic before? Almost certainly yes. Is that a bad thing? No. I isn't. How many love songs have been written? Millions. A million shades an perspectives. However the problem isn't about the topic, or even the perspective, though some are no doubt more interesting than others. It is all about being creative in how you express yourself, and learning how to connect with listeners so that you keep improving with every song you write. It sure isn't anything instant. The more you listen and consider feedback, the more you try to understand what works, what doesn't and why, the more you really want to connect, the better, as they are all good attributes in a decent songwriter. They all help nurture one thing very well - awareness. Good luck with journey. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy mine.