Since last Friday I’ve been battling a terrible cold, and have not been able to get much sleep. Out of frustration I gave up, and decided to just watch movies on Hulu instead. Last nite I came across The Flaming Lips: The Fearless Freaks, which is obviously a documentary about the band The Flaming Lips.
Although I’ve never collected or listened to a lot of The Flaming Lips music, I’ve always been very interested in and inspired by the band. I remember being turned onto the band by my older sister, who is responsible for turning me onto a lot of the now legendary bands which shaped rock music from the late 80′s through the early 90′s.
I think it was 1994, and my sister was all about this new song hitting the independent radio airwaves-I believe back then there was this really cool station in Nashville called Thunder 94, which played some of the most fantastic underground indie/grunge rock-the song was She Don’t Use Jelly.
She came to me and told me all about it, “You have to hear this song!” She put it on a mix cassette tape, and we would listen to it in the car on the way to school.
Shortly after, I went out and bought the CD, Transmissions from the Satellite Heart. I listened to it, tried to like it, didn’t get it, and ultimately traded it to my sister for The Smashing Pumpkins record Pisces Iscariot. A few years later, when my sister went off to college, I went digging through the CDs she left behind. I was so excited when I found that she had left Transmissions from the Satellite Heart. I listened to the CD from start to finnish, and this time I understood the appeal. I loved the guitar tones, the timbre of the lead vocal, the riffs, and the instrumentation.
Like a lot of bands, though, for some very strange reason I didn’t continue to follow The Flaming Lips, or buy any more of their records. Throughout the years there have been a lot of bands I’ve really enjoyed, but never bought their records. Best I can tell, this all had something to do with my obsession with The Smashing Pumpkins-I was too busy studying their records to pay much attention to anything else.
The Flaming Lips have always held some kind of special inspiration for me, and throughout the years, as the band periodically popped up on my radar-one of the Batman movie soundtracks; when they hit critical mass around 2002 with Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots-it’s always stirred an excitement in me that I can’t quite put my finger on.
And watching The Fearless Freaks last nite helped me understand a little bit more about what the excitement and inspiration that comes from The Flaming Lips is. It reminded me of a time in my life when I was first realizing how important music was to me, and it reminded me of specific memories for which the band’s music served as the soundtrack.
The Fearless Freaks served as an intimate window into the lives of The Flaming Lips, and made me realize that through all these years this band has been astonishingly forward-thinking, lead by risk takers who are pure artists, and visionaries-always remaining true to a specific set of ideas.
I’ve always been inspired by The Flaming Lips, but watching The Fearless Freaks I saw that I’m now inspired by the band on another level-an entrepreneurial level-as they more or less have been doing for around 20 years, what I’m attempting to accomplish now. Building something that is remarkable.
Over a continued period of time, as I continue to author Producer Notes, it will grow in audience, participation, and value (hopefully!).
Over the course of this timeline you will be able to watch me become more skilled as a writer, blog editor, producer, and music business professional.
And as that happens you will certainly be able to dig into the archives and uncover old posts which contradict newer posts.
Paradigm Shift
As you grow as a person and as a professional, and as you learn more and sharpen your skills, your understanding of things and your paradigm will continually shift. And somewhere along the line something you do or say is going to contradict something you did or said a few months ago.
I love sharing information with people, which is definitely one of the main reasons I run this blog. But I also run this blog as a way for me to learn things, myself, by sharing information. It’s the way I’m wired. I don’t fully understand and learn things until I both put it into practice, and teach it to someone else.
Which means that sooner or later (I probably already have) I’m going to contradict myself in some form or fashion here. But that’s a good thing, because if I’m doing that it shows I’m learning. And if I’m really doing things right I’ll continue to share ideas through these contradictions in a way that keeps straight any potential confusion.
Any time you keep an open mind, welcome in new ideas, and work to shift your paradigm when appropriate you’re going to come to a point where there is contradiction. But embrace this contradiction, as it’s a sign that you’re learning and growing.
Thanks for 2009
Hey, this will likely be the last time I post on Producer Notes in 2009, so thanks to another great year (can’t believe this blog has already been around for almost three years!). Thanks for being readers and helping me learn. Looking forward to where our conversation goes in 2010.
I’m going to be taking a break, once again, from the regular schedule of my weekly posts on Producer Notes. There is a lot going on with Mother/Father (namely their upcoming show w/ Kings Of Leon) at the moment, and I need to offload a few things so that I can take care of those responsibilities.
Although I will be off the regular schedule around here, I do expect to drop in a bit with some posts here and there-just not on a weekly basis. I’m not sure how long this is going to last, or if this relaxed schedule may become a permanent change for Producer Notes.
If you’re interested in following Mother/Father, you can jump over to their website here: thisismotherfather.com. There’s a lot of developments taking shape, which we’re all excited about, and two of which are happening next week:
Mother/Father Grimey’s in-store (win tickets to Kings Of Leon): Thursday, Oct 15th 6pm
Mother/Father with Kings Of Leon: Friday, Oct 16th 7:30pm
Details here
As always, I do appreciate everyone who reads this blog. Hope that you continue to find value here. Thanks for understanding my need to take a break.
Disclosure: I am in no way connected to the Mellowmuse company, or the Auto Time Adjuster plug-in. No one approached me to write a review. This is not an advertisement. I am in no way getting any form of compensation for writing this blog post. I’m simply excited that there is a finally a tool that will allow us Pro Tools LE users to have a form of automatic delay compensation, and that this tool is inexpensive.
Here’s something I’m pretty excited about. Auto Time Adjuster (ATA). I was flipping through the latest issue of Tape Op when I came across ATA in the gear reviews section. If you spend a significant amount of time working in Pro Tools LE (like me), I’m sure you’ve grown frustrated many times when dealing with plug-in latency. The lack of automatic delay compensation in Pro Tools LE can create so much extra work and stress.
While ATA isn’t perfect, it’s definitely worth it in my opinion. Using ATA in your sessions will further complicate the signal flow, unfortunately. But that’s still not even close how complicated things can get when having keep track of manual delay compensation times, or how many samples you nudged specific regions. Save if anything changes.
No more manual plug-in latency compensation. And it’s only $49.
Take a look at the website, which has some tutorials. http://www.mellowmuse.com/ATA.html
Compression is a great tool. And I love the way it sounds when applied as an effect of sorts.
But I think everyone can agree that compressors have been used pretty generously in record making over the last fifteen years. If the amount of people who hit Producer Notes because they put some term relating to dynamic compression into Google is any indication, I’d say compression is the number one thing people are interested in regarding recording and mixing music (Buss Compression is one of the most viewed posts on this blog). And I’m not even going to start up on the loudness war.
But why not trade out the compressor for automation? Most DAWs and consoles have fantastic automation capabilities these days. Why not simply turn up the track when it needs to get louder, and turn it down when it needs to get quieter?
I understand that there are particular contexts in which automation can’t do the job (which is really a very specific amount of contexts), but for everything else, why not automate it?
From my experience I find this approach lends to a much more musical, open, natural, and, (not so) ironically, bigger sounding recording/mix overall.
Any thoughts?
Have you read Unleashing the Idea Virus or Tribes by Seth Godin? Or The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell? All very inspiring books about how truly great ideas can spread and gain traction when the right people are rallied around the idea.
Jackson’s Science Fair Project is the current living example of these books. I met a band from Canada a few weeks ago-Oceanship-through a friend of mine. Turns out there is a 7th grader, Jackson, who really likes this band, and has decided to connect people together by creating a tribe on Facebook. It’s all a part of a science fair project assignment he is completing for school.
This is a perfect example of how new marketing can be very powerful for the music industry. Jackson’s Science Fair Project has been very successful very quickly because it creates meaning, tells a story, and connects Oceanship fans to one another.
Here’s a few quick ideas for crafting your tone when recording electric guitars. Because many of us working at home in our project studios don’t have access to a lot of outboard EQs (I sure don’t), I’ve left the use of EQ out of the equation. Personally, I’m of the mentality that you should work with the source you’re recording to craft the tone, then use microphone selection and techniques to further craft the tone you’re looking for. There is certainly a place for EQ, but I’m a believer in not only keeping things as simple as possible, but also holding out on EQ as much as possible-using it only as the last coat of shine to a source that is already great.
Multiple Mics
Using multiple mics allows you to blend the response curves of the mics together, creating a tone full of warm nuances. It’s kind of like taking a photograph with several different lenses at the same time, and then blending the qualities of these lenses together to create a picture with a unique look.
Multiple Amps
Grab an amp splitter or A/B/Y pedal. There are lots of companies that manufacture these. You can get a simple two-way splitter (A/B/Y pedal), or if you’ve got a little more cash on hand you can get more sophisticated with a multi-way splitter.
In any case, split your guitar signal through two or more amps. Then blend the tones together just like in the technique above. You can use the same type of mic on every amp, or try different combinations for more complex tonal shaping.
Layering parts with different tones
One of my favorite things to do is to have the musician perform the same part multiple times, but change different parts of the setup, such as the guitar, the amp, the pedals, the mic, the pre, or all of it. This way, you’re not only getting variations in the tone of the guitar, but also in the nuances of the musician’s playing. Really makes the overall track have a big sound in the end.
*EXTRAS*
So there’s three fairly basic and widely used techniques to capture a great guitar tone in recording, but I thought I’d throw in a few extras as a bonus.
Phase Alignment
There is some great outboard gear, as well as some software phase alignment tools on the market. These tools allow you to play with the phase of the signal-continuosly sweeping it from anywhere between 0 deg to 180 deg in phase adjustment. When it comes to electric guitars (especially in rock) playing with the phase of signals can create some really interesting and inspiring tones.
Mic Placement
Another way to play with the phase of signals is to simply change the placement of two or more mics in relation to one another on a source signal. Equally as interesting and inspiring as above. When positioning microphones, play around with their position and distance on an individual speaker as well. Mic’ing directly in the center of the speaker (mic pointed at the dust cap) will get you a tone that has a lot of high frequency content (but could sound thin). As you move the mic to the edge of the speaker the highs will begin to roll off. Playing with the distance of the mic to the speaker will cause the proximity effect to come into play.
Using Pedals
My favorites are fuzz and octave fuzz boxes, clean boosters, and chorus/short delays. But distortion boxes, EQ/filter pedals, compressor pedals, and phasers/flangers can all be great as well.
If you try some of these techniques out, please come by and share your thoughts or links to sound clips in the comments. Got any of your own techniques? Feel free to post those in the comments too.
In other words, don’t overcommit yourself to more projects than you can handle, and stick to your guns-both in negotiations, and in the forward-thinking creative ideas you put into your career.
Being a yes man all the time won’t make you achieve the success you’re after. However you’ve chosen to define that.
This is another way of saying, “Don’t put the cart before the horse.”
A while back I read a great book called Behind the Glass. It was and is a popular book within the music community. Back when I first got an internship at a recording studio, I was given the book by the assistant manager of the place. Later, I let a friend borrow it, and I never saw it again. I’ve been meaning to purchase the book ever since.
At the beginning of the book, Howard Massey, the author, conducts an interview of five record producers. One of which is Tony Visconti. On page thirteen Tony says this:
A common mistake that’s being made today is getting the order or protocol reversed. People think, have, do, be: If I have this equipment, I can do it, and I can be it. That’s not the way it works: It’s be, do, have. Everyone says, “How do I get a great guitar sound?” It’s really simple: You put the amp there, you tweak, you play, you put the mic there-and a microphone is pretty much a mirror-you put the mic in front of that great guitar sound. That’s where you have to do it in the first place. So many people think that, if they get all this gear, it’s going to make them sound great, but the opposite is true. I know that things are going to change-30 years from now, I don’t know what we’ll be recording on. Maybe a tomato, I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter-certain principles will always apply. They applied two hundred years ago when Mozart was alive-you have to really be an artist. And being an artist means that you have to woodshed, you have to put time in, you have to practice. That is where good sounds will always come from-how you record them is irrelevant. A great performance transcends all that.
Be. Do. Have.
That short quote from the book has stuck with me ever since I first read Behind the Glass. It’s become a mantra of sorts for me, making sure I keep my priorities in order as I progress in my career as a producer.
Owning gear can quickly become a distraction. Focus on constantly sharpening your skills. That is your real asset as a record producer.
And grabbing a copy of Behind the Glass for yourself isn’t a bad idea either. Here’s a preview with links to buy.
I’ve been trying to get around to writing this blog post since April. That’s the month my friend from college, Matt McCloskey, released his record. All along the way I’ve been very inspired by how he has gone about putting everything together-from the writing/recording process, to how he gives away his music, and employs a “participation is marketing” strategy to publicize everything. Matt gets it.
So I thought my opportunity to write about Matt releasing his record had escaped me, until he told me that he was about to go on the road.
These American Times
Matt put together a tour that is taking him and a band from Texas to New York and back, via Alabama, Tennessee, and Chicago. He’s thought up a theme of sorts to provide a story to the tour, and set up a website/blog where this story unfolds in pretty much real time.
These Times Won’t Last
On the recorded music front, Matt set up a website where you can either buy the record, or submit your email address and download the record for free. In this download, Matt even offered something I thought particularly forward-thinking. In addition to the standard mp3 format and the not-so-standard AAC format, he also included the option to download the record in full quality AIFF format. This is something I’ve seen Nine Inch Nails do as well, and although we do offer mp3, AAC, and FLAC via Radical Notion Digital, I have intentions to offer AIFF as well in the future. But it’s inspiring to see Matt making this available now, and acknowledging the value some people find in owning the full quality format (like us producers/engineers). That’s good marketing, friends.
Reason To Buy
So if you want a good illustration of an artist who gets it, and is employing marketing strategies that are relevant to music fans today, with examples of “participation is marketing,” and giving fans a reason to buy, add Matt McCloskey to your file of case studies.
Check out the links below, and if Matt is coming through your town on his tour, go out and see him. And tell him I said hey.
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