When recording, reaching for the EQ knob should rarely be something that you find yourself doing. In fact, EQ should really be thought of as a last resort, only using it as a tool to shape particularly difficult recording scenarios.

EQ is an often overused piece of gear in the studio. In my assisting days I was often told to patch up an EQ simply as a matter of common procedure. I also worked on a handful of sessions where the engineer showed up early and began EQ’ing before any musicians even arrived to play a note!

Now generally speaking, there really is no right or wrong way to go about recording. Recording music is truly an art form, and just like any art is highly subjective. However, there are many scientific guidelines that if used as a base point will help you achieve above average results.

It’s also worth noting that there are a lot of talented engineers who purposefully record using EQ so that they don’t have to use it as much during mixing. This is a very efficient, logical and wise approach. But equally logical is the notion that it’s just best to simplify. Recording with an EQ inserted is an approach that should be reserved for those who have a lot of experience in the field of recording. You could also make the argument that using EQ as an effect is a valid technique to employ when expressing your artistic voice, but this is a special case–not the normal set of studio circumstances.

The most effective way to get a great tone out of any instrument you record really comes down to three main steps:

1. Find the best place in the room for the instrument
   The way a room interacts with musical instruments dictates to a large degree the way it sounds. The farther away from the sound source the mic is placed, the more the room becomes a factor in the recorded sound. Before recording, spend some time having someone play the instrument in different places within the room. Trust your ears the most. Once you find the best position in the room, designate that place for that instrument and repeat the process for the next instrument. Make sure you allot an appropriate amount of time for this process in your recording sessions, because this process can take a while.

2. Find the sweet spot–the optimal place to position the mic
   After you have found the position where the instrument sounds best in the room, you need to find the position where the mic will sound best on the instrument. This process has two halves: a) using your ears in the room to find the initial position for the mic b) fine tuning that position by listening through the speakers in the control room. When recording very loud instruments such as electric guitars or a drum kit, it may not be possible to stand in the room and listen because of the high volume. If you find this to be true, then you may have to just go with the “b half” of this exercise. Also very important is to always wear earplugs when making adjustments in the recording space! Your most valuable recording asset are the pieces of equipment attached to the sides of your head. Protect your hearing at all costs. Otherwise you risk flushing your career down the tubes. Once you have found the instrument’s sweet spot you can move on to the third step in this process.

3. Choose the right microphone/mic pre combination
   The last step in the process is to select the correct mic/pre combination. Honestly, to fully discuss mic/pre selection would require an entire blog post itself, and perhaps I will explore this topic in a future post. But for now, you just want to find the right match that seems to bring the most life to the tone of the instrument you are recording. In a perfect world we would all have any microphone and preamp at our disposal at any given time. If you happen to be in this situation you are a very lucky person, and probably should not be wasting your time reading this blog. For the rest of us reality is a different truth. Spend some time experimenting with the mics and pres that you do have available to you to find a combination that seems to fit best. If your situation is anything similar to mine, then you only have about three choices. Just do your best.

If you find that you are still not achieving the sound you want out of an instrument after going through this process, it is still best to adjust an element of one or all of the steps before inserting an EQ. Resist the urge to use EQ as a crutch. EQ should be used when you have no other options left to help you craft your sound, or if you are going for a specific effect, which as we said before is a special case. EQ should be used lightly and as a tool. If you do find that you need to adjust the sound by inserting an EQ, do so very judiciously. Leave room to do most of your EQ’ing during the mixing stage.

I hope you have found this article helpful. If you feel that I have overlooked something, or have any other tips on getting a great tone without the use of EQ, please leave your tips in the comments. Additionally, if you have any questions or would like to see an article on a specific topic relating to the music recording and/or production process feel free to leave a comment below, telling me what topics you would like to see explored on producer notes. If you would like to keep your suggestions private, you can email me at stinson[AT]producernotes[DOT]com

Good luck finding that tone you are looking for…

The following is a post that was originally published on 6/2/08. Due to a data loss issue producer notes suffered on 6/2/08, I am republishing it today. It is the last of four posts that will be republished in an attempt to retain the integrity of producer notes.

I’m back from a two week leave from Producer Notes. My time away from here allowed me to relive a bit of pressure that built up as a result of my ongoing balancing act between my freelance production/engineering career, and the operations of my startup. I was able to do quite a bit of Radical Notion business planning, and pickup several recording sessions as well. I got a whole lot of work done, but it’s definitely not complete. I will likely have to take another leave before the summer is out. Thanks for your loyal readership, and for staying subscribed throughout this process. Now on to today’s post…

Recording should be a creative process. The technical aspect of it should be pretty much invisible. In order for that to happen, you need everything to run as smooth as possible. Nothing derails your creativity quicker than constant technical hiccups. This week I put together 5 tips that will help things feel smoother and more creative when recording your own band, or recording for someone else. This list is meant to be 5 individual tips, not a step-by-step process.

1) Plan your setup beforehand
Planning out your setup should be done at least the day before you intend to record. Determine whether you will record everyone at once, or if you will be building the recording part by part. Figure out the best use of the recording space, and the best place for each instrument within that space. After you know where you want to put the instruments you need to decide what mics and gear to use. Then patch it all up and get it ready.

2) Test your setup beforehand
Once all the equipment is setup, go through and test each input to make sure you are getting a clean signal from the mic, through any gear, to the DAW and to the headphones. An easy way to do this is simply to have a band-mate go around and talk into each mic while wearing headphones. The last thing you want is to sit down the day you are supposed to record, and realize that you are not getting any signal into your DAW. Save yourself from a massive panic attack. Test your setup the day before you record.

3) Record to an external hard drive.
Your internal system hard drive is not meant for recording! It is meant to run the operating system and other various applications that you use on a day-to-day basis, such as your DAW software. Do yourself a huge favor and buy an external hard drive. Keep your session document and audio files in a folder on this external drive. Name the folder the same name as the song. Most DAW software will take care of this folder creation/naming for you. But allocate your recordings to this new drive! Having an external hard drive also makes things more convenient when recording at several different locations. If you are taking the project to a place that has the same DAW software as you, you can bring your drive and everything should open up perfectly on the other system (this is not always true, unfortunately).

4) Simplify
You want to always keep the shortest path to the DAW. Don’t put every compressor, EQ, reverb, delay, time displacement discombobulating logarithmic refracting unit known to man in your signal chain. Refrain from over calculating things. Having more gear in the signal chain means having more things to worry about (and more noise). Leave the EQ’ing, compressing and audio time travel for the mixing stage.

5) Keep things consistent
There is no use in changing something just because. Find your basic setup, and keep it the same through the recording process. This way you eliminate the possibility of confusing anyone (or yourself) and causing a technical mess. If your setup is working fine the way it is, then there is no sense in changing what’s working.

I hope you can find a few of these tips useful. Perhaps you already knew some of them. When writing this post I thought of well over 5 tips, so I plan on making this a recurring post. If you didn’t find anything useful this time, maybe you will next time. In the meantime feel free to leave comments with your own tips. Or you could send me your tips via email at stinson[AT]producernotes[DOT]com. I might include them in a future post. Hope your recordings are full of creativity…

The following post was originally posted on 5/12/08. Due to a data loss issue producer notes suffered on 6/2/08, I am republishing it today. It is the third of four posts that will be republished in an attempt to retain the integrity of producer notes.

My friend and business partner, Jonathan Harms, just started his own blog called A&R Notes. He decided to continue with the “notes” theme in order to form a brand of some sort between his blog and mine (Producer Notes, A&R Notes).

I welcome Jonathan to the blogging community. I look forward to reading his thoughts as the future of the music business unfolds, and the craft of A&R takes a new shape.

Read Jonathan’s first blog post here: [www.arnotes.com/7] And make sure you subscribe to his RSS feed so you don’t miss anything.

The following post was originally published on 5/5/08. Due to a data loss issue producer notes suffered on 6/2/08, I am republishing it today. It is the second of four posts that will be republished in an attempt to retain the integrity of producer notes.

eSession is a service that someone told me about around a year ago. I forgot all about it until it resurfaced somewhere else just recently. It’s a pretty cool idea of connecting music makers together via web based tools to collaborate on recordings. The community ranges from amateurs who make music in their spare time, to music industry professionals looking to make their next record. It costs nothing to join, but the use of the resources (various tools, community connections, disk space, etc) cost on a pay-per-use basis.

There are two ways to sign up: 1) as an eMember 2) as an eTalent member. An eMember is the standard signup method. An eTalent member is a musician or engineer who has at least 15 verifiable major label credits. The only difference between an eMember and an eTalent member is that eTalent members are publicly visible professional accounts. eMembers are not publicly visible unless someone does a search.

Please do not take this post as an official review, as I have not tried out eSession yet. The service simply piqued my interest because it’s a pretty cool idea, and it is free to join. But I am probably going to set up an account to get a better feel for how it works.

As the internet develops, the music making world continues to become an online collaboration. eSession seems to be a useful tool as studios and musicians continue to connect and collaborate with one another globally via the web.

What do you think? Is there anyone who is already using eSession? Visit the link and then come back and leave comments with your thoughts. [www.esession.com]

The following is a post that was originally published on 4/28/08. Due to a data loss issue producer notes suffered yesterday morning, I am republishing it today. It is the first of four posts that will be republished in an attempt to retain the integrity of producer notes.

This past weekend I went to my friend Aron Wright’s show at Portland Brew here in Nashville. It was a fantastic show featuring the intimate sounds of Aron Wright, McClain and Robby Hecht.

Visit them each on the web:
Aron Wright [www.myspace.com/aronwright]
McClain [wwwmyspace.com/tfmcclain]
Robby Hecht [www.myspace.com/robbyhecht]

But I really wanted to tell you this morning about something remarkable Aron did for the show. He set up a live video broadcast over the internet using a service called UstreamTV [www.ustream.tv] This is something that I have been planning on incorporating into the shows that Radical Notion promotes. I knew I would be able to set up a live broadcast of audio, but being able to offer video was something that I was still brainstorming. So it goes without saying that I’m very fired up about this service. Look for our live broadcasts in the near future here: [www.ustream.tv/RadicalNotion]

Check out Aron Wright’s broadcasts here: [www.ustream.tv/aronwright]

Anyone else already using UstreamTV? I would love to see what you are up to. Post links to your broadcasts in the comments below.

Yesterday morning producer notes hit some turbulence, and didn’t quite make it through without sustaining some damage. Long story short, all the comments throughout the entire blog were erased. I have no idea what caused this, but I am still pretty amateur when it comes to maintaining web sites.

Lately I have been getting hit pretty hard by spam bots. I have my preferences set to moderate all comments, and I usually bulk moderate everything on posting days. Sometimes spam comments can build up quite a bit by the time I get around to moderating anything.

Yesterday morning I posted a new post, and then began moderating the comments. I selected the “Awaiting Moderation” tab in the Wordpress admin panel. I know for a fact that I was only moderating comments that had not previously been approved. I even went over each comment to double check that I was not marking one as spam that shouldn’t be. I marked around 120 comments as spam. When I was finished there were no comments under any category. Not under the “Show All Comments” tab, the “Awaiting Moderation” tab or the “Approved” tab. Everything had been erased!

I figured the best thing to do would be to restore my previous database backup, but the most recent backup I had was a month old. Restoring it meant that I was going to lose 5 posts. I decided to do it. Once I got the old database loaded up, I noticed that some things were out of sync with the blog vs. the feed, and there were a few other broken features. At this point I felt that I was losing too much, and trying to save a few comments was just not worth it. After all, my blog is still pretty new, and I really didn’t have that many comments (only five). So I “un-did” the backup, and decided that I would just lose the comments.

But this morning as I woke up I was not happy with this decision. I felt I really needed those comments even if there were only five. Having comments on your blog is an integral part of what gives a blog its value. I highly value the interaction of people, and joining together as a team to build something. It took a lot of dedication to get those comments, and I distinctly appreciate each person that took the time to stop by and interact on producer notes. To just let that go like it meant nothing would have been a disrespectful waste.

So after much flip-flopping on the issue, I have decided to restore the month old database, regardless of what content I lose or what features break. I do have the five lost posts on file which I plan on republishing one at a time over the rest of the week. Any features that end up breaking I feel confident will be fixable. And if the RSS feed gets out of sync, worse things have happened. The important thing is that I have my comments back. Well, most of the comments. Unfortunately I was not able to recover one comment, and I’m sorry for that.

Sorry if my mishap has caused any confusion. Thank you again for being subscribed and/or loyal readers. In the end I have learned a few things from this incident. The first of which is that I’m going to vamp up my backup routine to a more frequent schedule.

You should begin to see four of the five lost posts start to reappear, starting today with UstreamTV and following with:

• eSession on 6/4/08
• Jonathan Harms’ New Blog on 6/5/08
• 5 Tips to Make Your Recording Sessions More Efficient on 6/6/08

I’m going to leave one post, Leave of Absence, unpublished as it is no longer relevant.

Thanks to those who have participated in the interactivity of producer notes.

Photo in this post taken by a little azorean and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License

I was away in Florida all weekend for a wedding, so I am a little late to the party about the Walter Yetnikoff interview. If you have not already seen it, you should watch it. [Walter Yetnikoff Interview]

I first learned about Walter Yetnikoff a few years back when I picked up a copy of the book [Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business] by Fredric Dannen.

This interview is awesome. Yetnikoff has some great insight on how major labels are run today as opposed to when he was head of CBS Records. He also rails a bit on Hit Men.

Here are some blogs/articles I have stumbled across over the past couple of weeks. I subscribed up to these blogs, and I suggest you do to. It’s priceless information written by some of the best music business thinkers/marketers.

[http://sivers.org] Derek Sivers’ blog, the founder of CD Baby

[http://newmusicstrategies.com/?p=508] Came across this from a link on Derek Sivers’ blog. The article is written by Andrew Dubber as a post on his blog. Great perpective on piracy vs. sharing, and how it really fits into our industry.

[www.openp2p.com/lpt/a/3015] Another great article about piracy that Derek Sivers linked to on his blog. This one is written by Tim O’Reilly.

[www.musicthinktank.com/blog] A great new music business blog that has multiple authors all sharing very thought provoking ideas, and building a community around those thoughts. Authors include: Andrew Dubber, Derek Sivers, Bob Baker, Ariel Hyatt and plenty of others.

[www.futureofmusicbook.com] I googed Paul McGuiness because I wanted to read the speach he made at Cannes. I ended up at Dave Kusek’s blog. He and Gerd Leonhard co-wrote the book [The Future Of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution] Oh yeah, and he posted a [full transcript] of the Paul McGuiness speech.

The guys over at [www.youngentrepreneur.com/blog] are running the “Young Entrepreneur Challenge.” It’s an interview of 20 questions that you answer on your own blog, and then comment with a link back to your post. They are giving away an iPod, but I’m just doing this for fun. I have never participated in something like this before, so I thought I should give it a shot. Hope you enjoy my answers.

1. What ignited the spark in you to start a new business venture or to make significant changes in an existing business?
I have been in love with music all my life. I knew at a very young age that I needed to be in the music industry. I got interested in the studio because I wanted to have full control over the sound of the music I made. Over time as I became more and more involved in the music industry, I saw how hard it was to get your work recognized. I thought to myself, “if I want to produce a hit record, then I need to make the records I produce a hit.” I started Radical Notion (independent media) so that I could produce records and then promote them instead of leaving it up to someone else.

2. What is your definition of success and has your company achieved it?
My definition of success is to not give up. Thomas Edison once spoke about failure saying, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” When you set out to do something new; to cover new ground in your life, you are going to learn a lot of new and valuable life lessons. You are going to fall on your face a few times. Success is defined in how you react to falling down. Do you give up? Then you fail. Do you get back up, dust yourself off and try another apporach? Then you have been successful. Radical Notion is still here. In my book that makes us a success.

3. To what do you attribute your company’s recent achievements?
Many things. Patience, perseverance, passion, community, positive thinking, taking the time to pay attention to detail and do things right, communication, our fans/audience, trust, honesty.

4. How important have good employees and team members been to your success?
Integral. You cannot have success unless you form a strong team with your business partners, and communicate. You all have to share a common goal/vision. My business partner, Jonathan Harms, is a team player. I am a team player. The artists we manage are team players. We all share a common dream. We are a true family.

5. What three pieces of advice would you give to high school or college students who want to become entrepreneurs?

1. Be a mavrick. There is no right or wrong. Learn the fundamentals of your trade, but be willing to throw the “book smarts” out the window. Be wise. Just because a text book says to do something a certain way does not always mean that is the only way. Often times the people who made a big splash did not do so because they colored inside the lines all the time.
2. Have passion. Jonathan passed on some great advice to me over the weekend. It came from his mom, “Don’t do something that keeps you alive, do something that MAKES you alive.”
3. Here is something I have learned the hard way: Don’t miss out on life because you were too busy working. Yes, you do want to pick a vocation that makes the line that divides work and play very blurry, but too much of any one thing is a bad thing. Don’t neglect spending time with those you love. You will only get burned out, which will suck all the enjoyment out of something that was once fun.

6. What have been some of your failures, and what have you learned from them?
I have been known to talk too much. I learned to be confident, and say exactly what I mean. If you believe in yourself, then who cares if someone else doesn’t?

I have made the mistake of waiting too late to do something because I didn’t know every little detail about how to do what I wanted to do. I figured out that I should be “learning by doing.” You don’t have to be an expert in an area to get started. You don’t have to be an expert to have a good idea. Just do it. If you don’t, someone else will.

I have made the mistake of talking without thinking. I learned to “look before you leap.”

7. Describe/outline your typical day.
Wake up at 6:00 am, make coffee or tea (depends on my mood). Sit at my desk with the computer off. Relax/think/meditate for about 30min to an hour. Write out some ideas. Read for a bit. At around 7:30 or 8:00 am I begin to consult my lists. I prioritize my projects, and develop an idea for what I will get done for the day. I turn on my computer and check my email. If it is a Monday I post an article on my blog. Around 8:15 or so I jump in the shower. After my shower I tidy the apartment. If it happens to be a recording day, then around 9:00 am I head to the studio. I will then spend the day recording, mixing, or producing music. If it is not a recording day, then around 9:00 am Jonathan shows up. We sit and talk over some coffee about where we are regarding our current business affairs. We go over our objectives for the day, and then set out to promote, book shows for, market or generally manage the careers of the artists we represent. From there it depends. I could be in the studio all nite, my business partner and I may have to go to a show and sell merchandise or we may not have anything planned. Overall, my days are pretty unpredictable and wild.

8. Where did your organization’s funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it?
Our funding/capital has come partly from some money we had saved up, and partly from our loving families who support everything we do. I cannot express how much I appreciate them! They believe in us wholehartedly.

9. What stops you from throwing in the towel and giving up when you are frustrated?
My passion. I am so passionate about what I do, and it is such a part of me that I cannot even imagine doing anything else. It is a dream come true. There is no defining line between what I do for fun, and what I do as work. Setting that perspective makes it illogical to walk away from something I have so much fun being a part of. It does not matter what you choose to do with your life-you will feel frustration from time to time no matter what. It would be silly to just walk away from something because you got frustrated for a moment.

10. Do you believe there is some sort of pattern or formula to becoming a successful entrepreneur?
Yes. Perspective, passion, patience, wisdom. People who are innovators, adapters, and opportunity seekers.

11. Who has influenced you most and been your greatest inspiration?
This is a very hard question for me to answer. First I have to mention my parents. They taught me so many priceless things. To pay it full tribute would be impossible. Outside of that, it would have to be Jacquire King, Butch Vig, Billy Corgan, Thurston Moore, Robert Smith, Roger Moutenot, Terry McBride, Steve Jobs, Mark Montgomery, Seth Godin.

12. What book has inspired you the most?
The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning

13. How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
So far we have done the majority of our marketing simply by making a presence online. We are utilizing social media such as myspace, facebook and blogs. We are in a startup phase of business right now, and doing most of our marketing through a grassroots word of mouth approach.

14. In one word, characterize your life as an entrepreneur.
Dreamist

15. Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?
echo music

16. How do you achieve balance in your life? Or do You?
This is honestly a daily struggle for me. It’s very difficult for me to achieve balance working in the entertainment industry. It is one of the hardest industries to work in. Entertainment never sleeps. Entertainment never stops.

17. Where do you see yourself and your business in 5 years? 10 years?
In 5 years I see us as a profitable artist management/publishing/recording company. In 10 years I see us moving into other media circles in addition to music such as, video and web technology.

18. What’s your exit strategy?
There is not one. That is not an option.

19. If we could introduce you to anyone, who would it be and why? (you never know who we know!)
Terry McBride. I feel he has achieved what I am setting out to achieve. I would love to sit and have coffee with him for an hour or two. I could learn so much.

20. If you were conducting this interview, what question would you ask?
Are you happy?

You can now buy Wes Sp8’s Please EP on CD Baby and iTunes. Check it out at the links below.

On CD Baby:

On iTunes: