BigBubbaBrown

My current setup is a PreSonus Audiobox USB. It works great for MIDI, but I get noise whenever I use the line-in/XLR inputs. It doesn't matter what's plugged into it or how it's plugged in. When I set up a track for line-in in my DAW if anything at all is plugged in I get a bunch of rapid clicking. If I plug my keyboard directly into the line-in it does it, if I hook a microphone up via XLR it does it, running my keyboard to a direct box (Sidekick passive if that makes any difference) won't get rid of it no matter what position the ground lift switch is in, and if I just take the 1/8" to 3/4" converter jack off of my headphones and plug it in, nothing plugged into the converter, it's enough to get it to clicking. I've also tried an empty XLR cable (nothing attached to the other end), my mic in both the on and off position, and when my keyboard is plugged in, whether directly through line-in or via XLR through the direct box, it does it whether the keyboard is on or off. I thought it might be electrical interference since it's sitting on my computer desk with my subwoofer on the shelf below it, my PC tower on the shelf below the subwoofer, my telephone sitting right in front of it (land line so I can't move it as easily as I could find a new place to store my cell phone), and my modem right above it so I got the longest USB cable I could find and moved it to the other side of the room. That didn't even diminish the problem, let alone get rid of it. I fiddled with the knobs on the front. By the time I got it low enough to where I couldn't hear the clicking I could barely hear my keyboard with the volume slider moved all the way to the top. It's too loud to noise gate. I've even tried the bare minimum when no sound was coming from the keyboard, but the gate plug-in still interfered with the audio. Basically I've done all of the troubleshooting I can think of and it isn't any better. I'm new to the whole non-MIDI thing, other than running a toy keyboard into a cassette recorder as a kid, so I'm not even sure what else to look for.

How do you feel about an artist having a right to earn a living from their music? I don’t mean their capability to make a living. With exceptions I won't get into due to the controversy of them, everyone should have a right to try to earn a living in any way they see fit. If people are willing to pay someone for their music they should be free to earn a living off of it. If someone can make money juggling live chickens on a tightrope he should be free to do so. That doesn't mean anyone's entitled to earn a living in the way they desire. I would love to be able to make a living making video games, for instance, and have the soundtracks of my games open up a secondary career as a musician, but if no one buys my games and no one is impressed enough by my soundtrack work to commission me to write music for them then I'll have to keep my retail job. The people who write music (or software, or draw comics) and give it away freely to say that all music should be written, recorded, and performed for free is along the lines of a hobbyist with a woodworking shop in his back yard saying that all hand crafted furniture should be made purely for the love of the craft and given away freely. It's sheer lunacy. Should art be purely about you, the artist? It depends on the scope. If you're just at home recording into a computer or a reel-to-reel and couldn't care less if anyone hears it then it's by default all about the artist. If you want to put instrumentals out there you need to factor in what you want other people to feel and how to structure your music to get them to feel that way. If you're a lyricist you need to be able to write lyrics that other people can relate to. In these cases it's less about the artist and more about the intended audience. Where do you come on the spectrum of art for self vs art for others? All art that I make, whether it's music or a video game or a CGI rendering, is initially for myself. If other people like it that's fine and well, but other than that I don't care. It would be nice if I could find a way to monetize my artistic endeavors, but I won't be quitting just because people don't like it. Is pop a dirty word? Pop is a form of social engineering. It has been for at least half a century. I can't go into further detail without getting into forbidden topics, so I'll just say if you don't like the way society is being directed then it's the most vulgar of the dirty words. If you like the current direction then it's not. I'll just leave it at that.

Tough call. I have several favorites. Fortunately for you if you're on a budget I'm a cheapskate when it comes to software synths. If I'm going to shell out $400 it's going to be for a hardware synth (currently eyeing the Roland D-05). That way if I find my computer can't handle it I haven't lost a month's wages or put myself in a position where I have to get a new PC. In fact, I'm so cheap that all but one of the plug-ins I currently use are freeware. Synth1 is my go-to synth. Any time I get a new computer or replace a hard drive it's the first one I get after I reinstall my DAW. It's good for pads, good for leads, has a built-in arpeggiator, with the right settings and one of the built-in distortion effects you can even get a fairly convincing metal guitar sound, which can come in handy even if you're not into metal. Kamiooka is another good one. It's not quite as straight forward as Synth1, in fact it tries to simulate a modular synth, but if you're willing to sit down and tinker with it for an afternoon you can get some pretty good results. Hexagon 85 is an emulation of one of the Simmons SDS series drum kits. I believe it's the SDSV, though I could be mistaken. All I know is that I can use it to get the exact drum sound used in the second part of Genesis' Home By the Sea, so if you've heard that song it will give you an idea of what to expect from the VST. Dexed is a great one. It's a DX7 emulator, mostly indistinguishable from the hardware, and much easier to program than the original hardware. The only reason I don't use it in everything is because I lucked out and found an actual DX7 in my price range. There is only one VST to date that I paid for, and that is the Korg Wavestation. I fell in love with it when I heard it on Genesis' We Can't Dance album. It has a lot of great pads on it, especially if you layer it with an instance of Synth1. The only issue is, at least in my experience, that the hardware version was so popular in its day that a lot of the good patches are practically (though not legally) trademarked by the people who used them. There are still countless patches that are still free for the taking, and if you're willing to tinker a bit you can make your own. I'm also keeping an eye on Realivox Blue. I haven't used it, haven't been able to afford it, but I'm very impressed by what I've seen. It's hard to describe, but it's basically a virtual singer. Much higher quality (though more limited) than the likes of Vocaloid. It's the one exception to my "if the price gets to three figures just get a hardware synth" policy.

My mom's giving me her piano. It's an upright. I haven't done any acoustic recording since my teenage years when I was recording my drums onto cassette tapes with a cheap Radio Shack microphone. I have an external audio interface with two XLR inputs and a couple of mics my dad gave me, probably not professional quality but the bluegrass singer who gave them to him always sounded pretty good at the festivals where he used them so they're a considerable step up from the $10 Radio Shack mics. I'm not sure about placement. I've seen a lot of diagrams and videos, but none of them are for uprights. I'd say the principle is the same, one mic on each side, but it seems like that kind of setup would favor the lowest and highest octaves while requiring a lot of volume automation in my DAW for the mid range. I've also seen a video where a guy suggests attaching them to the bottom of the lid and closing it if background noise is a concern (which between my HVAC system, traffic, and loud neighbors it is) but it seems like I'd have to do a bit of carving to keep it from crushing the cables, which I want to avoid.

I've been reading about a bunch of setups in these forums and most of them include external hardware such as patch bays, EQ, compressors, reverb units, etc. in addition to studio monitors. Now I've been thinking. Pretty much anyone who hears my music will be listening through PC speakers or on a mobile device. Currently all I have for my system is PC speakers. They were top of the line when they were new, but the fact that I got them because one of my brother's clients was getting rid of them should tell you something about how they've aged. Since the setup I have is essentially the upper end of what my target audience will be listening on (barring high end headphones for mobiles or some audiophile with a home theater setup stumbling across my videos) would it be possible to achieve decent results with just Cakewalk Music Creator, VSTs, and a MIDI controller? Or should I start investing in some hardware? I don't do vocals and I don't have the space to set up my acoustic drums so I haven't even needed a mic by this point.

My DX7 is one of the originals. It's been modded. There's a knob on it next to the volume slider with settings labeled A - H, but I have no idea what it does (changing the settings did nothing) and apparently the guy who modded and sold it to the music store that sold it to me doesn't use Craig's List so I couldn't find a way to contact him. Despite the mod it still works, minus the dead battery (which isn't an issue because I don't like presets anyway). It's a bit noisy but truthfully I kind of like the lo-fi sound. It has a nostalgia value to me and I'm sure it won't be noticeable in a full mix with effects added. So basically I would be better off going with an interface than trying to find a digital recorder, right? Do you have any recommendations? I have some unavoidable expenses coming up (and I won't know how much I'll have to pay until it's all over) so I can't really afford anything higher than $250. I have a MIDI to USB adapter but latency keeps me from recording with it. Even recording with no VSTs hooked up there's still too much lag. I have to spend so much time editing the results that I might as well do it all with a mouse from the beginning.

I've always had trouble recording live, both with MIDI and line in. There's too much latency with the default settings and if I adjust the settings to get the latency down to an acceptable level in my DAW it glitches out. A new sound card would probably fix that but it's not an option with my current computer (all in one thing, basically a giant tablet). I was watching a guy use old "toy" keyboards to recreate classic 8 bit songs (mostly from Commodore 64 games) and I noticed he had his keyboards plugged into a device that was plugged into his computer. I doubt that would help me with my latency issues, but it did get me to thinking. Is there an affordable (i.e. $200 or less) device where I can just plug in the line out of my keyboard, record some tracks, plug it into the USB port of my computer, and export it? If it could handle MIDI as well that would be great, but not vital because I can still do that with my mouse, but multitrack recording (which will likely require a line out on the device itself to monitor it) would be a pretty important feature. Right now I have my Yamaha DX7 sitting idle because I can't record with it, neither using the native sound (which I'd like to use because the VST plug-ins I tried just didn't have the same sound) nor using it as a MIDI controller. Clicking in each note is too slow for everything but the drums plus I never thought I'd see a DX7 in person, let alone own one so I'd like to use it.

The difference is those songs had actual lyrics. The only thing that was ever said throughout the entire song was "naminanu." No other words.

I forgot about this thread until I was email notificated about a new reply. I've been digging around on YouTube looking for Genesis songs I haven't heard before and I came across the one line I am kicking myself for not thinking up. It goes: "Naminanu naminanu naminu naminanu. Naminanu naminanu naminanu naminanu." I can't remember the title of the song. I think it's called "Naminanu" but I could be wrong. And yes, this is a real song by Genesis. Fortunately it was only ever released as a B side to the best of my knowledge. In all seriousness, after going on a Meat Loaf bender I'm wishing I could have beaten Jim Steinman to the lines "Baby you're the only thing in this whole world that's pure and good and right/And wherever you are and wherever you go there's always gonna be some light" Unfortunately that album was written and released a good 4 or 5 years before I was born.

How does the copyright notice deal on the site work if you don't use your real name? When registering obviously I'd use the name on my birth certificate but online I never use my real name. Even my facebook name was "borrowed" from one of Victor Hugo's works. I'm increasingly paranoid of identity theft so I take great pains to make sure that there's nothing on my PC that can identify me if a key logger or other type of trojan makes its way through, all forms are filled out in pen and mailed in, and I never even type my real name on any web site so how would I handle the copyright information when posting a song here?

Unsolicited contact regarding services is almost always an indication of a scam. It's true of door to door home repair outfits (many of which demand up front payment "for materials" then you never see them again), people who claim they can make you a fortune through youtube if you pay them $500 to get started, and this licensing racket you were contacted about. Unless you explicitly put it into the public domain your song is already licensed. If people want to use it for their own purposes they either have to contact you or you will, assuming you can prove that you're the author of the song (as an aside, before you upload any more you might want to download software like MuseScore, transcribe each part, print it out, then mail it to yourself. It's not as air tight as registering with the copyright office but the postmark will still give you more evidence than just uploading it and relying on the "date modified" field of the original file) or didn't put it under one of the Creative Commons variants, have grounds for legal action against them. Legitimate companies who deal with things like this will generally wait for you to contact them. I've been wanting to get into the soundtrack game for a while and my dad offered to put me in touch with his agent to find out how to go about it. If it's something you're interested in it I can pass along any information I get. I can almost guarantee that any firms he tells me about won't demand up front payment. They'll just act as a mediator and take a cut of any revenue they help generate.

Don't worry about image at this point. It means nothing on the local scene. If someone hires you at that stage it will be because they like your music. If you reach a point where you want to branch out beyond your region (and your income allows for it) you may need to hire someone with connections, namely a manager. Not only would a competent manager have connections, they would handle the band's image. In other words, worrying about your image now will get in the way of your music, which is what will get you those local and regional gigs. By the time you're ready to go multi-regional or even national you'll likely have someone to help with your image.

I think I'll have to drop that part, anyway. I have half of my dad's joke books here (which he used to write scripts as a ventriloquist) and read the other half when I go to my parents' house. I simply can't come up with anything to use for that. Even running it in my head using what I'm familiar with as a placeholder (Roy and Buck's rendition of Cripple Creek) I can't find any way to make the format work. I should be in the clear on everything else. Hee Haw wasn't exactly all that original. It was just Laugh-In in a rural setting with musical guests and somewhat cleaner jokes. Saturday Night Live is basically Hee Haw with no defined setting, jokes that would make a lady of the night blush, more acting (as opposed to Hee Haw's format of people standing, sitting, or laying around telling jokes), and musical guests from genres other than country. Mine will basically be Laugh-In/Hee Haw/Saturday Night Live in a small town setting (and the outskirts), animated (it's easier to get people to record their voices onto a computer than it is to find locations for filming and get everyone together), and I don't know about musical guests. I'd like to have them but I don't know of many musicians who would be willing to work pro bono. As for the title and everything, I don't think that's an issue. "The Untitled Internet Variety Show" (originally a placeholder, if it does well enough to make more of them it will be the official title as sort of a joke, like regardless of the actual quality there wasn't even any effort made to give it a proper name) is about as far from "Hee Haw" as you can get. Shouldn't be a problem unless, unbeknownst to me, someone already used it (and a google search doesn't turn up anything on it). I'm not sure it will even have a title sequence. Works for TV shows but most people complain when internet videos use them.

Posting this here is kind of a grey area since it has more to do with television than music, but I don't know of any other forums (other than the monthly subscription fee based sites) where anyone even remotely knows about copyright law and once this idea is fleshed out it will be music related. I've been watching a lot of Hee Haw reruns and after a few days of posting cornball jokes to my facebook page and various online forums I've been considering doing a spritual successor of sorts on youtube. Legally there shouldn't be any issue as long as I don't mention the show in any way or directly rip off their sketches, but there's one area that's kind of confusing me. I'd like to do something similar to Pickin' and Grinnin,' where they'd play part of Cripple Creek (I'd be using a different one, as I'm pretty sure Cripple Creek is public domain by now but it's so heavily associated with Hee Haw that I'd rather not risk getting into trouble with it), tell a joke, play another part, tell another joke, etc. My question is, can that very format be protected under copyright? In other words, could whoever currently owns the rights to Hee Haw order youtube to take down the videos (or order them to have me take it down, having never had a disputed video I don't know how it works)?

People are immune to hype these days. You go all over the place and see "the fastest way to lose weight," which you immediately ignore since you know there are faster and safer ways to lose weight, if you even need to lose any at all. "Get rich selling our snake oil and cheap trinkets." This one does draw in quite a few people but the vast majority see that the ones involved aren't even earning enough to go to a movie so they don't buy into it. "Check out the sickest new beats of the year." Self hype is the least effective, as it makes you sound arrogant and is more of a turn off for people than anything. If you want hype you need to get other people to build it up, not try to do it yourself. But when it comes to videos there are two reasons people watch them. Either they're really good or they're horrendously bad. Harmonic Voltage on Animusic's official channel has over 800,000 views, which I consider a high number. That's because a lot of effort went into making the video and it shows. The music itself is pretty good, too. A bit repetitive at times, but I've certainly heard far worse from better known names. Rebeca Black's "Friday," on the other hand, has had over 52,000,000 views. Now I don't want to get a debate started about if she's actually good or not. The song was quickly written (and we all know the quality of songs written in a hurry) for a 14, possibly at the time 13 year old girl. It's not going to have the depth of Mumford and Sons' writing, but I will say she's come a long way from the ear splittingly nasal "Friday." Outside of the video's intended demographic, which would be pre-teens and possibly early high school kids, the video is famous for being bad. It's been parodied countless times, when it's mentioned in a vlog it's always the subject of ridicule (at least among adults. I don't know what the kids were saying because I think it would be creepy for a man of 32 to go through youtube watching vlogs by 13 year old girls, unless that girl is his daughter, niece, or little sister), basically people only watch the video to make fun of it or to see if it's as bad as they've been told. People won't buy an appliance that they've heard is bad, pay to see a show they hear is bad, or use a mechanic with a bad reputation. But since it doesn't cost a dime to watch a video on youtube, Vimeo, or Dailymotion they will let curiosity or the desire to have something to mock lead them to a video they know isn't any good. Then it hit me. Why not a negative hype campaign when you're starting? I don't mean intentionally writing bad songs and making bad videos. Just get people to talk down your video when you're trying to promote it. Peoples' curiosity will draw them in or they'll go to "laugh at the train wreck." If they don't like it they got what they came for. If they like it, well, I've never heard anyone complain about a video or song being better than what they expected. I tried an experiment. I keep a Xanga blog where I post my experiments, which I then link to facebook to get some feedback from my relatives and a few friends. The other night when I posted a song I had my best friend downplay it. The night I started writing it she said she was getting a headache and I joked "that's how bad my music is. People don't even have to hear it. They just have to chat with me online while I'm writing it to get a headache from it." She got onto me for "cutting myself down," but I had her post a reply to the effect "I should have known it would be a mistake when I got a pounding headache just knowing you were working on this, but I listened to it anyway." One of my nieces got curious about it after that. She replied saying that she liked it, but after I sent her a message she deleted her reply and replaced it with "Wow! My dog is trying to chew his ears off now. When he's done I'm going to have him start on mine." Now normally when I link to a song on facebook the only person on my friends list who views it is my best friend. The rest ignore it (I'm not going by replies. I'm going by referral information on my Xanga blog). But the negative press started a chain reaction. Soon my brother posted how much he hated it. He either knew what I was up to or he was just teasing me, but yesterday at my parents' house he was trying to pick it out on piano and he doesn't do that with songs he hates. Then his fiancé joined in. I had to send her a message to get her to keep the negative hype going, so she changed her reply. One of my former band teachers commented (though she genuinely disliked it, expressing disappointment that I got away from "real" instruments like drums and went with MIDI synthesizers). By getting people to "bash" my work I went from the one solitary listen I normally get to just about everyone on my friends list listening to it. I have 32 friends on my list (not including an alternate account one of my friends has), received 23 comments, and the entry got 28 views, all referred to from facebook. When my friend comments on how good my work is the rest ignore it. When she insults it the curiosity factor brings them in. Now I'm not that active on my youtube account yet since I still have a lot I need to get together, meaning I haven't tested this out on a larger scale, but if this weekend's experiment is any indication then until you get a following negative hype may be a viable way to bring in initial viewers.