Are you a learner??

I love to teach and I love to learn. Neither should happen without the other. Those who have learned (I believe) have an obligation to teach and those that teach have an obligation to continue learning. When we refuse to do these things simultaneously we stunt our growth. We'll watch others in our field pass us by. We'll watch them make strides professionally and creatively, then wonder why we're not able to do the same thing. We'll say, "They're no better than me, why are they successful?" or "Must have been luck!"

Learning and teaching are important. After all, someone provided information so that you could learn. Maybe you had a teacher who invested in you (as I did). Maybe you are self-taught and found the information on the internet or in books. Either way, someone provided you an education. Consider this and then spend time investing in someone who wants to learn.

MACPROVIDEO.COM

I am always searching the internet for new ways to learn and new things to present to you. My latest find is macprovideo.com. It is a tutorial site for just about any piece of software used for creative mediums. Tutorials for Photoshop, Reason, Ableton Live, Pro Tools, Logic, Native Instruments, Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Office, etc.

For $25/month you'll receive internet access to ALL of their dozens of tutorials. These videos are amazingly done, in depth, and taught by industry pros in their respective fields. WELL WORTH THE MONEY!

I just finished a watching a tutorial for Spectrasonics' "Omnisphere." It was Incredibly in-depth and easy to understand. One of the best lessons I've seen. Additionally, the tutorial gave a fantastic overview of synthesizer programming in general; a topic I've always had trouble wrapping my head completely around. I can say safely that I not have a firm understanding of synth programming at its core. I can't wait to dig in and build some new synth sounds from scratch!

Subscribe, you'll learn a lot!!

Maybe in the spirit of teaching you'll turn someone on to this blog. I'd love to have even more subscribers. The more the merrier!!

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