TapperMike

Hey Nineteen - Steely Dan

If I remember where I left my pick I'll play hybrid. I had a teacher who was a fanatic that everything had to be flatpicked Because he was inlove with the tone. It was a short lived teaching experience.

I used to have a mitchell les paul copy (small body), The neck warped on it but it was a lot of fun to play while it lasted

I used to have this little "knuckle" slide. It was a thick brass ring with a thick half cylinder brass shell. Even though I could only hold on to four strings at a time with it. It was great because I could rotate the thing around and play guitar "regular" then flip it around when I needed it. Recently I tried a lot of slides and was disappointed with everyone. They were to thin especiallly afew of the dunlops and the thimble type ones. While discussing this at another forum a friend tipped me off to Jetslide which has the mass one needs but you can still "flick it out of the way when you don't need it. I never got one. I put it off till someday.but so far I'm liking what I'm hearing on youtube.

I don't use reaper because I already have Samplitude and have for several years. It's not that I've got anything against reaper it's just that I prefer the mastering suite in samplitude and some of my clients (yes i still do mixdown and mastering) demand samplitude for it's recognition in the industry . It's broadcast quality mastering. Many wouldn't need that level (actually I don't) of quality but when you work as opposed to play in the field there are some demands/expectations that clients have which you must provide. As an example. Flash....There are or were several "me too" products that can produce swf content not just flash. A few uears back if you wanted big fish clients you had to use adobe/macromedia flash. Even though coding and layout are much faster to produce in something like "SWiSH Max" The client demands and the company provides. Are you a producer/mixdown/mastering engineer as a profession or do you create and produce your own material? When you are producing your own material your own concious should be your guide to what you need. When you are producing/mizdown/mastering for others then you are better off trying to appease them (to a degree) To reiterate. I don't record others. I mixdown do some non destructive editing and master for others. I don't pitch those services here because....Most people either don't recognize the difference a trained professional can make / aren't willing to spend the money because they think by virtue of having some tools they can do it all by themselves. Just by virtue of having a guitar does not make one a guitarist. And just by virtue of having mixdown/editing/mastering tools does not make one a producer/engineer although there are those who would believe otherwise. I do record myself. When I record myself because I have the equipment I do I choose the best method that suits my workflow. I'm an old school musician, composer, arranger, and audio engineer. First I write then I arrange then In record the complete song instrument by instrument. into a standalone daw It's a lot of pre prep but it saves time in the long run. Then I transfer the tracks to the computer where I spend less time with cleanup eq reverb compression because I've already done that. The clearer picture you have and the better your abilities the less time you spend fiddling with parameters.

You know what's funny. After the beatles decided no more covers and Paul McCartney followed suit with his own career I always wanted to hear him do some covers. The last thing I would have ever expected is that he'd team up with Dave Grohl and reform Nirvana. I did like the Billy Joel / Elton John tour where they would perform each others songs.

Big Spendor - Cy Coleman (Shirley Bassey)

The demo version of Studio one does not alllow for third party plugins. The pay version does. Re bloatware: Abelton Live full: (any flavor) of all the daws I've owned it has the worst latency and is often subject to crashes. I'm running a xeon processor in my desktop which is more stable then an i7 and I've still had problems with it. Live is great fun if you like spending hours on end creating techno (acid, trance, dubstep etc) and then spending hours making corrections thereafter. It's dithering is shameful. There comes a time when you want to release your material to the world and that means dithering down your audio to an acceptable download/web format (to avoid cliping when it is a forced through a compression alongrthm on the other side. See my article http://forums.songstuff.com/blog/159/entry-1320-listen-to-what-theyve-done-to-my-song-an-engineering-perspective/ under "The Web" Cakewalk. Do to the way they (Roland) is packaging it it's sluggish and overloaded with imho unnessicarily large sample libraries that you can't use outside of Cakewalk Oddly I was a huge fan of cakewalk back in the days of windows 31 And kept on updating thru earlier verions of Sonar but just got tired of it. And while I also was (and still am to a lesser degree) a fan of roland hardware workstations and synths in the past. I'm just not impressed enough to pony up. Sony Acid: When Vegas owned Acid I got a lot of work doing mixdown and mastering in the format. More so then pro tools. I could load my external vst's/vsti's no problem and it was reasonably priced. When Sony took over the first two things they did was jack up the price and remove the ability to use external plugins. Then they installed inferior effects plugins with limited functionality/accessabilty. Later (I've read as I was really furious over several issues with sony and decided no more) They jacked up the price and re introduced the capability of using external plugins. Each step along the way they moved away from a real daw and moved closed to a "Compositor" for audio. (just add your audio clips and tada its done) As well most of my mixdown mastering was coming from other daws (cakewalk/magix/audacity/samplitue/cubase) Stienberg products I hatedl cubase in windows 3.1 Liked it even less in Win95/98 and finally gave up trying in Vista. While I've got to love them for creating the open standard for plugins today. The interface was always crap for zoom/scrub/snap/trim. As well if you aren't a registered (purchaser) user in good standings you can forget it. They shut the door on trial users who might be experiencing a problem. And for that I've shut the door on them. As impressive as the Halion (et all) collection of libraries they have it's not a real bread and butter collection. One has to do too much tweaking to get the sounds to be bread and butter and a cottage industry has risen up which samples and tweaks the roland/cakewalk collections and then transforms them into kontakt files. Inot to sure about the legality or the quality but it's there. For my personal recording I've gone back to a hardware daw. It's extremely stable I get a desirable signal response even though it's uncompressed 16 bit 44.1 wav. I don't have to fight with getting the levels where they should be and I don't have to over compress the signal. My next daw will be a zoom R16 or R24 I much prefer getting my instruments and sound down right before I record as it saves a lot of headaches afterwards. And it's more geared to the old school musician that I am. I can then easily mixdown/edit/master in any common daw without the glitchiness (though I prefer samplitude) and save myself hours of post production. For those who are just starting out. I'd suggest reaper (though I don't use it myself) It's a relatively straight foreward design that's easier to get aquainted with then the big league daws and easy to grow with as you learn more about the whole production side of recording. http://www.reaper.fm/ http://www.musicradar.com/gear/tech/computers-software/digital-audio-workstations-daws/reaper-4-499919 While I agree they could do a better job with individual sound editor the rest I also agree with

Oh well, Lets just move on. I'll take it from Tom's last response. Ray Price - For The Good Times http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1ZKIX0ICZo

Contrary to popular belief you shouldn't purchase a daw because of it's sounds. There are sounds galore on the web as well as effects. The popularity of Studio One II is based on two things .... 1. Stability. The more bloatware put into a daw to make it look pretty or seem hip the less stable the environment becomes. Latency is added by the daw trying to do to many tricks at once. 2. Functionality for live performance users. As well. The good sounds will require the full price. It cost them to develop so it will cost you to use. Just like any other major player daw. (Roland/Cakewalk,,,,Samplitute,,,,,Cubase,,,,,,Abelton Live) I used to love the Live limited edition which came with several sound cards etc. The thing that killed me was mixdown/mastering. It did a crap job of dithering down to an acceptable format for the web. And that was part of the hook. If I wanted good dithering with multiple compression per frequency I'd have to upgrade to the full version. I've got Samplitude (had Cakewalk, Cubase, Live, etc, etc) and the selling point for me is the mastering capabilites (especially surround sound) Which is why I don't bite for the small fish.

Got to play the blues if you want to pay your dues. http://forums.songstuff.com/blog/159-tappermikes-blog/

Born Under A Bad Sign - Booker T http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDGtY9JZSkQ

It wasn't the song as much as the gigs When I was just starting to get into traditional jazz I had a rough go of it. I wouldn't know the songs for stuffing and the band I'd sit in with would always be playing at 200 bpm. Hard and fast. The one thing I leared back then was the piano players left hand never lied. He'd always drop the root of the chord with his left hand pinky. He was brutal to me on stage but I kept on going back for more. Everytime I'd think I had a number down he'd change the key.. "Yeah I know it's in C but lets try it in Ab" Then he upped the anti one more time by changing the key and not even giving me that. I got really good at not only learning songs quick to be played fast but developing my ear and transposing on the fly. They were the hardest gigs of my life and even when I was on top of my game I still didn't get my due. Finally I figured as much as I loved the music it just wasn't worth sitting in. I did one last jam with Bobby Cole and we got a big write up in the local papers entertainment section. The columnist was throwing heaps of praise on to my performance but not Bobby who was a local legend. I met up with BC a few weeks later. He was happy that I was no longer sitting in. I was stealing his light. He never wanted it to be a jazz jam as billed he always wanted it to be about him. It wasn't too much later that his drummer and bassist left him. When i was no longer his punching bag he turned it on them. Had I stayed in the area I would have been happy to take his band with me as they were younger players who like me still loved jazz but also could rock.

I'm with the rest how you practice makes all the difference. One of the most challenging things I've ever done musically was two part jazz walking bassline and melody at the same time. The same thing holds true to singing and playing at the same time. Break it down beat per beat. Learn to think vertically. not horizontally. It will be tough for awhile but if you stick with the program it will get easier.

A small fan. My Dad had the whole quadraphonic setup but it was more to impress his friends then for my personal listening. What really got me into it was ...anime (non-adult). I was watching a dvd with my niece once and it had this really wide stereo for the background music which filled up the center into a true surround sound (I forget the name of the show now) But I was amazed by the separation of instruments and their clarity that got me hooked. I have samplitude which allows for surround sound placement and I started remixing some of my older stuff as well as projects sent to me in surround sound.

I circulate with some very techically advanced producers. It's funny they always are talking about this that and the other thing when it comes to techno/dubstep et all music and they all fall flat when I bring up the subject of surround sound mixing. In this age where almost anyone with a car has a surround sound in it. Where surround sound systems are commonplace in the home and even laptops have surround sound emulators for headphones almost no one mixes to surround sound. Part of that has to do with outlet. There are no specific surround sound audio files. You have to move up into the world of mp4 video to attain it. I love mixing/mastering in surround sound. And I think if the audience got used to hearing song mixes in surround sound. They too would gain a greater appeciation for the medium.

This thread will outlive us all. American Woman - The Guess Who

I would never want to break free from the progression. There are such things as "Vamps" where you keep the same chord thru-out the song. While I can tolerate a vamp for awhile. I can't tolerate two vamp songs in a row. Usually random melody generation away from an instrument leads to not remembering it when you have a good idea. If the melody is stuck in your head there is a good chance it's someone elses popular song you can't recognize. In my most prolific writing cycle I'd keep a tape recorder and a guitar next to my bed. I used to dream musical ideas. Wake up and try to get the core idea. Some were lousy some were great. But if I didn't hit record I'd never have known.

Sorry all, After re-reading my response I can see where it is a little rough. I know it's hard to carry the ball that far from concept to creation to final polishing. Even when I get done recording I don't want to listed to it anymore I just want to through it out there and have someone love it in the raw. Mike

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFlsXgw_SFE

edit. The gold lace sensors are on my stratocaster. And while they are fine for buddy holly covers they really aren't the heart and sould blues pickups I'd want on my strat.

It's funny. I've had a few guitars sitting in thier cases and decided to break them out. Most notably my Godin Freeway and my Godin LR Baggs model Oddly this video doesn't due justice to how amazing the LR Baggs model is. It preceeded the acoustcaster and later models of similar design. It has these "tines" inside the body that vibrate sympathetically with the strings. It's just amazing. As well I broke out my Godin Freeway SA and gave that a whirl. The more I think about different guitars these days. The more I think to myself. I'd rather make slight changes to my current lineups hardware then go out and buy another guitar to sit in a case waiting for someday. I'd prolly add a neck pickup to the LR baggs model and I'd prolly swap out my gold lace sensor pickguard for a pre wired Jimmie Vaughn pickguard.

Getting one track (especially the drums) down first is always key to me. Even if you don't want drums as part of the final song. The reason is it gives you head space for the rest of the song. If it's a folk rock type song then I'll lay down the rhythm guitar next. If you try to put everything into each instrument It's going to come out...not as well as it could because it sounds like none of the musicians are listening to one another. I try to leave holes to be filled up by other instruments and I remember what fills I did so when I add tracks I don't step on the fills. In folk and folk rock the bass comes next. When playing a bass in a folk setting you want to add it only as a mild flavoring. Not a hiphop production or a rock steady performance. Usually it sounds best when one uses "Connect the dots" simple and | one to guide the progression along nice and on the 'easy' beat. For rock blues jazz I'll still start with the drum patterns first then I'll lay down the bass then the rest of the rhythm section and finally the melody/solo parts. Believe it or not the more you practice before you hit the big red button the more you can make concrete decisions on where you want to go. I usually have better success if I start with the song form first and stick to the form. Then lay out the progressions either on paper or band in a box. Then I start practicing. Then I start recording. People spend too much time recording because they are too busy trying to keep a handle on everything. Watching the daw remembering the song, thinking of changes, trying to add stuff. When you record it should be ...zen. The only thing you should concern yourself with is performing the song. That's where practice and arrangement came in. You've already done that stuff you don't have to rethink it. Editing, mixdown and mastering come after you are done recording. I use live and I know a lot of ableton live users. People who have a lot of fun with the product and...produce nothing because they are playing with it too much and not thinking ahead. Jamming isn't songwriting/arranging/recording. Jamming/improvising can be a great way to have fun and expand your creativity and somethings you can apply to what you are writing but it should only be used as a starting point not an end point. One thing that the masters of motown taught me while I was studying audio engineering was dedication. They and we would spend twice to three times as long mixing and mastering as it took to record. Remember these are big league pro's where by the song is already written and it takes about an hour to read the music and put it in the can. If you are doing every that is a lot of wieght on your shoulders and it's easy to get tired sick of the song and the song recording process. I actually like doing editing/mixdown mastering when it's not my song so I don't have to hear it again. I don't like having to go through those parts of the process but...There is no one to do it for me but me. I've tried to farm out my work to others and have been not impressed especially with the techno/acid/dubstep would be producers. It's about pride and going the extra mile. This is your song. It's about you even if it's not about you. You want to polish the song so you put your best foot foreward when looking for artists to perform the song or record labels or the general public. People often think that the software will do it all for them. Just get the most expensive brand daw you can and then press the magic fairy dust button and out will come a hit. It doesn't work that way. Nor are online courses in recording engineering that useful or effective. Now just for the sake of example listen to this song once for the arrangement aspect and again for the engineering aspect. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLaiSG-6DzA Notice how the riffs that run through the background match specific melodic lines and are used to compliment the singer rather then simply some lick that sounds good for the key. Also notice how the guitar while very rarely playing a rhythm in the background is mostly for fill work And when it does the guitar and the keys match close to the same lick while not stepping on each other. The beat carries the band. And as a result the band isn't acting like a bunch of individuals trying to fill in as much space as possible. Now listen to it for the recording aspect. Because it's primarily a "folk" song where the main focus is on the storytelling the singer's voice sits way above the rest of the mix. While Bonnie Raitt's voice has close mic'ing going on a lexicon reverb is added to give it some more 'brilliance' and depth. However the rest of the band does not get the lexicon treatment. The guitar amp is mic'd off access with an additional ribbon mic set back for "air" it's less bright/more warm then you would hear if you were standing next to the amp or electric guitars in general. Yet still bright enough to cut through the mix when needed without having to resort to increasing the gain. Also pay special attention to the drums. They come in just bright and loud enough but they aren't manually mixed down when the rest of the instruments enter. They don't need to be reduced because all mixers act as "Summing" mixers meaning it will push down elements aside from those set to the highest levels when other instruments are introduced. A common failing of new producers is to ride the faders too much. Your job as an engineer is not to destroy someone else's work for the sake your ego but to preserve the work in the best possible light for listeners.

Those old "Airline" "Kay" and "Silvertone" guitars as well as other oddbal instruments from my earliest years. The looked great and were completely unplayable. I didn't know there were "Guitar" tech's that could fix em into something more usable and when I found out usually the cost of the tech plus the instrument was more then finding something alot better. A buddy of mine who is a tech and owns a small guitar store used to collect Kay's he'd even out the frets dress and polish them go as far as removing the necks as well as replace tone and volume pots. He knew if he ever sold them it would be at a lose. Till one day the manager for a GC offered him 50K for all 30 models. He never paid more then $150 for any one of them. That's 4,500 he made over 10 times as much as it cost him.

I'm constantly seeking out songs I used to enjoy way back when. Recently I wanted to perform a cover of Poco's Call It Love I've got a good but not great ear when it comes to transcription. It was pretty easy for me to figure out the guitar parts however it fell apart when I tried to sing and hold onto one of the guitars. It didn't fall apart because of my singing or choosing a single guitar to isolate and play through. It fell apart because there wasn't enough going on to support the song. In days gone by I'd say no problem. I'll break it all down and suss out parts to my band mates....or I'll break it all down to individual parts and record them. I neither have band nor patience for that now. I'm curious on the level of dedication others bring to the larger craft of songwriting. I see many dedicated lyric writers who aren't afraid to take several drafts before moving on to the recording process. Elsewhere I'm somewhat disheartened at the lack of dedication going into the actual arrangement. It's like they have the belief that it's a one shot and either hit or miss. Which I think is a terrible way to treat a song. They set themselves up for disaster rather then success. So my question is how dedicated are you to the entire process including the arrangement? Do you go the extra mile and set up a strong backing arrangement with proper fills or do you try to cram it all into one instrument?