Family Force 5

I've become a big fan of these guys. Family Force 5 is really unique, blending tons of influences. Their stuff has energy!!!! It's so entertaining. In the spirit of producing great records, take a look at this article on how they produced their record. There's a major focus on how they tracked guitars. Hopefully you'll get a picture into how they made the record. (Pay attention to the comment about using small amps for big sounds... even a cigarette mini amp!)

Happy guitar tracking!

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/interviews/interviews/family_force_5_exception_to_the_rules.html

Tips for tracking guitars.... using microphones and don't forget to use strings!! ;)
(on a serious note, I love SM57's blended with a Royer 121 or an ADK S7 through API 512 pres into a distressor or LA-3A limiters! Peace out!)

REPOST: Buss Compressors and Parallel Compression

This post was published originally on May 3rd, 2009 but I realized that the link was bad. It was worth posting again. Check it out and learn :)
*****

There are SOOOO many ways to use compression. I consider Michael Brauer a genius when it comes to mixing with compression. He is unbelievably innovative and has worked long and hard to develop his fantastic technique.

I remember hearing Coldplay's "Violet Hill" and being so impressed with its unique sound only to find out that Brauer mixed it (he's mixed a LOT of Coldplay stuff). I found this article where he talks about the process of mixing this fantastic song. Check it out...

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov08/articles/itbrauer.htm

Also be sure to check our Michael Brauer's website and try to read through all of through and contemplate all of his Q&A stuff. WOW!

Plugins are so dang expensive!!!

As you know, plugins can be very expensive. I think I'd be jaw dropped at the amount of money I've spent on plugins in the last five years or so. Without counting, I must have about 100 plugins and software instruments and I've purchased every single one of them. (I'm a big proponent for PAYING for the tools and music you use... anything else is stealing, right?)

There is hope though! Have you ever considered buying plugins on ebay? Well, if not you should! In the last few years I've purchased many plugins and plugin bundles on ebay at massive discounts. I paid about $60 for Smack!, $125 for the Focusrite Bundle and I purchased the Waves SSL TDM bundle for $600 and the entire Sound Toys Suite for $750. Now, that's still a lot of money, but it's still a great deal! I've purchased the above plugs as well as things like TL Space, the Pultec Bundle, Moog FX, Fairchild Compressors, Auto Tune, etc.

So, before you go spending full price for your plugins, do an ebay search for what you need. You can save your search criteria and ebay will notify you when what you are looking for becomes available.

Merry Christmas everyone. Enjoy giving gifts but I pray you'll spend some time enjoying your families and celebrating Jesus Christ this season.

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!