It's all about the song... and the LYRICS

If you wanna work in the music business you'd better be incredibly good at your job. As an engineer you'd better get better drum sounds, better guitar sounds... better EVERYTHING sounds than anyone else. As a producer you ideas better be more fresh, cleaner, more emotional, etc. than the next guy.

Those things are great but if you REALLY want to make it in "the biz" learn to write a hit song. It's the only real way to make money and retire on it. Now, I'm not suggesting that this is a silver bullet but it can't hurt!

Check out this article on lyric writing. Very basic and fundamental but basics and fundamentals should be drilled into our brain. For this reason I suggest reading this article over and over and over again!

Blessings to you! I hope the economy isn't rocking your world too bad! :)

http://blog.tunecore.com/2009/10/the-lyric-holy-trinity-writing-a-breakthrough-lyric-by-wayne-cohen.html

P.S. I'm moving to Nashville this week!! Lots to do. Pretty excited though! I'll blog about my new city endeavors soon!

Track labels

Color coding your tracks can help you find things quickly. Here's my colors of choice and the order they go in.....


DRUMS - RED
PERCUSSION/DRUM PROGRAMMING - PURPLE
BASS/SYNTH BASS - ORANGE
GUITARS - LIGHT GREEN
KEYS/SYNTH PROGRAMMING - LIGHT BLUE
VOCALS - YELLOW
MASTER BUS - DEFAULT COLOR (DARK RED)
FX BUSSES - DEFAULT COLOR (DARK GREEN)


(BELOW: Screen shots from John Stearns' song "Believe")

Dropbox and the file sharing revolution

Sharing files, making mix changes and staying organized are very difficult tasks at times. I've shared tips and tricks here and there about how I like to work. I use tools like FileChute, Apple's .mac accounts and google documents to share files. I've found a new handy tool that is changing the way I work (and no I'm not being paid to endorse these guys).

It's called "Drop Box" and it's a sort of dynamic folder that syncs between many users from anywhere in the world! Any file that is saved or altered in my Drop Box folder will be updated on all of the other users' computers as well! Better yet, I can have several folders, each setup for different projects, with an entirely different group of users!

For instance...

Folder: "Charles Billingsley" is setup between myself and my producer friend, Adam Lancaster.

Foder: "CPB" is setup for my clients at Liberty University and their upcoming live album I'm mixing.

So, anything I place in the "Charles Billingsley" folder will be updated on Adam's computer. If I save a mix file in the "CPB" folder, it will notify the other users that a change has been made. I quickly hear back on the approved mixes!

TIP: If you're mixing a project (or producing for that matter) for a client, include a document called "progress" and keep track of how things are coming along. Include questions you have for your client or request mix approval on a song you've mixed. The document becomes a virtual time line as you work on your project.

I must thank my friend Adam Lancaster for introducing me to Drop Box!! Thank buddy!

Write me a song you're the songwriter man!

Ever had an idea, recorded it on your iphone or hand-held recorder, played it back later and couldn't for the life of you remember HOW you played it? Well, I was watching a video interview with a producer named Tommy-D. He had a great idea...

record your song ideas with isight or your computer's video recorder!!! You can now hear AND see your song idea and thus see how you played that cool guitar riff or piano part.

Neat, huh?

Co-writing

I grew up an instrumentalist. For me, that was enough... then I realized that the only way to truly succeed in "the biz" was to become a songwriter. Luckily, I've dabbled in songwriting since I was a young lad. :) I'm still learning but it has been an extremely rewarding journey.

Here's a great article on my favorite songwriting approach... co-writing. Check it out!!

P.S. My blog will be moving soon. I'll keep you posted on the details soon!
P.S.S. I LOVE hearing your thoughts on my blogs. Feel free to comment often!

Reverb ideas

I'm not sure what's been going on, but the links I've been posting have not been showing up. Hopefully this will be different.

Reverbs are a tough game. Very difficult to get right. Things that sound dry in a recording are not necessarily completely dry. Perhaps verbs have been used in a way to give thickness but not add a reverberated sound. These psycho-acoustical techniques take a long time to develop and a lot of attention to detail.

My recommendation, spend a great deal of time with the ambient environments in your tracks. The use of compression is often considered the tell tale sign of a pro or amateur, but a close second is the use of ambient effects in a track.

Here's a simple article with some tips for using verbs.

Hope all is well with you all!!

http://www.looperman.com/tutorials-production-33-15_reverb_tips.html

EQ... pre or post compression

When engineers get together we talk about silly recording stuff. It's goofy and silly and if I pretend I'm listening in on the conversation rather than participating in it, I find myself laughing hysterically at how much of a total dork I am. But, that's what happens when you love what you do... you don't care how much of a dork you are. In fact, being a dork about your craft will make you better at it. Because you care!

In those geeky conversations we'll often talk about our techniques for EQ and COMPRESSION. One frequent topic is whether or not to EQ pre or post compression. Meaning, whether or not we choose to EQ before a compressor (pre) or after (post). Everyone has their techniques and no one is wrong. I have a very basic way of approaching this. Hopefully these guidelines will help you. Feel free to reply with your techniques for this is in no way a holistic approach. I am still developing my ear too.

WHAT COMPRESSION DOES...

We all know that compression controls dynamics but what you may not be clued into is how it affects the sound. In addition to dynamic control compression also does 2 things...

emphasizes dominant frequencies and rolls off the top end.

1) It's important to note that compression is going to overemphasize the dominant frequencies in the instrument you are compressing. The more extreme the compression the more extreme the result. This is important to know because if there is an odd frequency in your bass guitar and you're really smashing it with a limiter, you may end up with a very odd sounding instrument. You may have guessed what you should do... PRE EQ.

If the compressor is doing odd things to the sound of the instrument, do some PRE EQ carving to shape the instrument so the compressor has a more even sound to compress. (TIP, always compare what it sounded like before you tweaked it.)

2) You are almost always going to lose some top end fidelity when compressing. For this reason (and others) many people choose to EQ post compression to try and make up some of the sound lost in the high frequency range caused by compression. Some people compress post EQ almost all the time to try and make up for compression. Not a bad idea.

This topic came up when I was discussing Chris Lord Alge's techniques for mixing. He has a very over-the-top compression sound and he is also known to HEAVILY EQ things. Well, you'll notice if you have the CLA Waves SSL Bundle that all of his presets use EQ before compression. The presets boast a lot of EQ and a lot of compression.

Now, the SSL EQ's are extremely aggressive. They have a bite that is coveted by many engineers. What I've noticed is that you can use this aggressive EQ and the compressor will take off some of the bite. You would also need to add a lot of HF EQ because of how much the compressor is affecting the sound. I guess what I'm getting at... CLA can heavily EQ because he runs the EQ in PRE and then compresses so heavily (dulling the EQ and making it not so extreme). This is part of CLA's massive sound.

Now I don't subscribe to this all the time. I think I'm a bit less extreme than CLA is... and he's a freakin' beast and makes amazing music. To draw a comparison feels pretentious at the least... so I don't :) I do find it useful to use both techniques for different situations.

As you are learning, try being aggressive with compressors and EQ in order to learn the sound of your gear BUT I would encourage you that LESS is definitely more. Your more natural sounding mixes will be loved... I promise. You can slowly work your way into more aggressive mixing as you learn where "too far" is. You've gotta learn what real instruments sound like and how to finesse them into musical submission. It takes a long time. I'm still working at it!!

Hope this stuff helps!!