A bit of old school recording methodization for your brainization

Hey all,

I'm aware that I haven't been on in a while and with my current day job hopefully I'll be able to post more often.

However, I have a nice piece of information for you guys with regards to recording.

First off I've been exploring a lot of new (new to me) techniques when it comes to recording guitars. You see for the longest time I've been recording everything "in the box" including my guitars. I haven't had an actual amp in years since I've been using Guitar Rig from Native Instruments to do most of that.

Recently however I bought a half stack from Kustom and a few pedals, I did this because I wanted to try my hand at recording a cabinet with a cigar mic.

That's a photo of the stack itself and an old 7 String guitar I had from Douglas Guitars.

For any of you that have ever heard the tracks I've recorded in the past you know that they sound a bit grainy and unrealistic at times.

Here is a link to a song where I recorded the Chorus with that same generic 7 string and the verse guitars with a Mexican Made 1996 Fender Stratocaster.


New Song 3

As you can see the track came out quite well in comparison to previous attempts at recording.

The bass was recorded with the guitar cabinet as well. However I chose to keep the volume low during recording so I wouldn't blow the speakers.

The rest of the things you hear are midi including the drums.

Since my strong point was never mixing I was very surprised to find that a generic guitar like the Douglas would create such a great sound and would sit that well in my own mix.

Of course I did all the standard techniques of double tracking all my rhythm parts and hard panning them.

In fact once I got my gain staging correct I didn't have to do much to the mix at all, no drastic compression or EQ.

My regular job affords me a lot of free time so I like to write material while I'm at work too. For that I usually do my written scoring with a free product called MuseScore. It's a fantastic product an old friend of mine discovered while I was still working with Sibelius. The sounds included aren't good at all but let's face it, any serious songwriter isn't going to use Score Editor sounds anyway.

But for actually recording guitars while I'm at work I use a midi guitar and bass from Impact Soundworks called Shreddage 2.

As you will see from my lack of links I am not sponsored by them and I have no affiliate links so I'm not getting paid in anyway to promote these products. I do however sincerely believe in their quality and I use them very often to either produce blue prints for me to record full tracks later in my home studio or I use them for my music licensing work.

However bear in mind if you decide to go the midi route like I have, there's one thing you really need to know. If you are programming midi you need to work much harder on it than you would by playing the instrument.

Just clicking a note into the piano roll or trying to play a guitar with a keyboard isn't exactly intuitive, so you will need to spend some time getting the nuances of your performance just right to make it sound realistic. This can mean making sure the notes aren't perfectly on time (if you're piano rolling it) or making sure you make the right moves with your keyboard to emulate an actual stringed instrument (for the keyboardists out there)

However with enough patience and hard work you can create something amazing with much less money than going out and paying thousands for a high end guitar and tube amp.

That being said, if you have the actual gear, there's nothing like the feeling of a properly recorded guitar part done the old fashioned way.

I originally chose midi for convenience and portability, however I came to realize portability was very true, however convenience was a fantasy.

But it all depends on your budget and situation.

As my regular job allows me to record music, I still have to be quiet. So writing music for 8 hours a night gets a lot done but when you can't bring a giant amplifier and drums in to work, then it's much more logical to use midi and a pair of head phones for the recording.

On a side note, I've mentioned before that I am not that great at mixing yet, so I do send a lot of my stuff off to my mix engineer. He does a fantastic job and helps out a ton.

I do this so that I can still keep things moving while giving me a chance to practice mixing on my own.

I hope to have an update on my complete studio rig very soon! I also will be making a few more purchases in the near future.

I am buying an Alesis electronic drum kit so that I can track my midi notes more naturally, and a bass combo amp so that I can do some old school recording on my 6 string bass as well.

Like always I hope all is well with every one and I hope you get some inspiration from my trial and error!

My studio workflow.

It bugs me to death when my favorite producer's avoid talking about their production work. Specifically the things they use.

I'm more of the type to want to help rather than worry about someone using the same gear I do. I never want to be like that. EVER! So starting today I'm going to be doing a series on just about everything I use in my production. Today I'm going to do an overview of the things that I use. From there I'm going to be doing reviews based on how I do the music.

So without further delay, here's my gear.

I'm a huge Native Instruments junkie. So I have the following items

Kontakt 5
Maschine
Absynth 5
Massive
Reaktor 5
Guitar Rig 5
Battery 3
Driver
Kore 2

A special note on Kore 2; it's discontinued, however I suppose you might be able to find one used on the web.

The easiest way to get all that if you want it is to get the Komplete 8 Ultimate bundle. Which is what I did. I've been a Komplete user since the 6th version.

I got Driver as a special Christmas promotion and it was free for a limited time. Native instruments likes to do cool stuff like that.

Maschine you can't buy in a bundle but it's definitely worth it!

I run everything in Maschine, doing sound design and primary production in Maschine.

Then I take everything bounced out into stems then mix and master in Logic. Yes I master my own music. I know a lot of folks don't like that idea, including my College. However I have a sound in my head and I don't like the idea of paying hundreds of dollars to someone who doesn't know what I'm going for.

I also do a lot of my traditional recording (vocals, guitars, basses, etc.) in Logic for me it's much easier.

I do all my sheet music in Sibelius 6. They are currently on version 7 however I'm personally happy with the features of 6.

My music computer is a Macbook Pro, it's pretty stable and I like the Operating System, so I go with that.

If you like PC better more power to you.

My recording interface is an Mbox 3 Mini, I got it with Pro Tools 8 LE which I'm not a fan of. So I just use the interface.  But the truth is when it comes to D.A.W. its what works for you.

I have 2 keyboard controllers, M-audio keystation 88 es and M-audio Oxygen 25.

I use two microphones both condensers MXL 990, and MXL 991.

It's a long list, but it's what I use. I'm not listing the physical instruments because all of my guitars and basses are relatively inexpensive, and again it's one of those things based on your own personal preference.

That's a huge thing about Music, it's not necessarily what you use but how you use it.

Keeping that in mind, this has been the most cost effective solution I've ever used. Well everything except the Mac. However it was part of my College requirements so it was provided for me. I still had to pay for it but I was given a huge school discount.

When I return for another blog in this series, I will start going over the items included in Komplete 8 Ultimate!

I hope this series helps with your music.

Finger Picking

Well folks there's something to be said about changing a routine. Though routines are pretty great, I have to say that I am happy with the results. As a musician or songwriter, we get used to doing things the old fashioned way. Doing things all the way we've done them for years on end.

As such I have never been good with finger picking a guitar. I started working on that today and I noticed something really cool. Turns out what when I focus on finger picking when I'm writing I come up with more interesting rhythms than if I would do it any other way.

It really opens me up and gets the juices flowing, and I'm looking forward to seeing the results of those efforts.

I can definitely suggest trying something different once in a while. Whether that be a new playing technique, or a new genre entirely. It may just inspire your current efforts.

Well even though this one was rather short today, I hope that it helps and you get something out of it.

Everyone have a great weekend!

Music Theory and Alternate Dimensions

Well as you can see from the title this one's going to be kinda weird.

I have been poking around with this idea lately. It's more of a concept that I want to use in a story.

As you guys may know I'm also an amateur writer on type of being a songwriter. The reason I post about my writing in this music blog is simply due to the fact the entire concept revolves around music.

Basically the main character in the story is rather special, he can walk through songs as if they were a place.

It's a plane of existence where sound is a location, and he has the ability to go there and experience music like nobody else has. 

Basically this character is able to listen to a song in headphones close his eyes and be transported into the song. As he walks around inside the song's dimension he can interact with the different musical parts in the songs. 

I've been playing around with this idea for about a year, and even though I generally write horror, I would love to try this out if only in a short story.

What do you guys think? Worth a shot or a complete rubbish idea that I should throw away for all time? 

Concept of a Portable Recording Studio

Recording studios have always been thought of as these massive multi-million dollar structures with way more knobs, buttons, and faders than we can possibly count.

Ever since I was a teenager this never appealed to me. I never liked the thought of having to go to the ends of the earth to record an idea. This brings me to my next thought. I've never imagined a recording studio as being anything more than a sketchpad. I mean you can write your lyrics and chords down. You can even write out sheet music or tabs.

However to have audible feedback is an amazing concept. To be able to digitally document all of your musical works is amazing.

So why do we always think of music in such a stringent and sterile environment?

Isn't music suppose to be as imaginative and raw as we are?

Music in my opinion is the epitome of humanity. The absolute best language for conveying anything and everything about, God, love, hate, or any other thing involved in the concept of humanity. It's anything but sterile.

So I always liked the idea of being able to capture that passion and energy at a moments notice.

When I was about 19 I came up with an idea for a portable recording studio solution. The idea was to be able to fit all of the basic requirements of a composing and recording studio in a backpack.

Even if it was a slightly large backpack.

I realized that beyond all the insane outboard gear you can get yourself caught up in, there's not much to a recording studio at it's most primal level.

Computer
Audio Interface
Microphone
Microphone cable

That's it!

So if you want you can get a mic, a mic cable, a buss powered interface and a laptop.

This is super simple and great for doing basic things.

However over time my highly refined concept needed drastic expansion. But my primary requirement remained the same.

I want a recording studio in a backpack.

I like to fancy myself as a composer on top of being a singer/songwriter.

So as a composer I came across virtual instruments. It was  stroke of genius for whoever thought these things up!

Nowadays a virtual instrument is as expansive as you want and much cheaper and more practical than the real thing.

A primary example of this is Native Instruments. They are a company that makes several virtual instruments.

Let's take Battery 3 for example. It's a product designed around drums. Any kind of drum you can imagine they probably have it in there. From electronic and weird, to orchestral, ethnic, rock, jazz, pop you name it they probably have it.

For a good rock drum set you can be set back thousands.

With Battery you are set back a couple hundred and you have access to thousands of drums!


As you can see from the above link it's not terribly expensive.

I use it almost every day in my work.

Now to run those instruments you can use the piano roll on your recording software.

You could also use a midi controller keyboard or pad controller. This is my personal favorite as far as options go, since you still play the instrument.

Neither way is wrong though and doing what ever works for you is perfect.

I have a M-audio keystation keyboard for my home studio.




I also have an M-audio Oxygen 25 for my backpack studio.

I unfortunately don't have a link for the Oxygen 25 but the keystation link is above.

I use the keystation for piano based things where I need to cover a lot of keys very quickly. I personally use the 88 key one.

However if I'm writing orchestra parts or anything other than full keyboard parts I jump for the 25 key.

The key restriction forces me to think about what I'm playing more and actually results in better music.

This 25 key controller fits in my backpack as well.

This means the list is as follows

-Computer
-Interface-
-Microphone
-Mic cable
-2 usb cables
-25 key controller
-Optional mixing headphones (not optional for me)

All fits in my slightly oversized backpack.

People are shocked and amazed when they see me recording from a backpack or coming up with a full orchestral piece with a tiny keyboard and a Macbook laptop.

Mac vs Pc

It doesn't matter leave it at that.

I have a Mac, because I prefer it. Not because one is better than the other.

If you have any other questions regarding portable recording studios feel free to comment! I will answer all questions to the best of my ability!

Thoughts on music as a career

You know, we all do it. We say we're going to work on songs and we actually do. However there are those times when we really don't and every once in a while we allow that time with music to grow less and less. We spend tons of time on social media, watching tv, or doing anything really. But unfortunately we just don't work on music.

We call ourselves songwriters and composers right? Why don't we ever really get down into the depth's of our souls with music like we used to? Why don't we bleed for it anymore?

As time goes by we tend to forget how wonderful writing music really is. It's definitely unfortunate. However it takes time and discipline to get back into the groove.

Well I can't say that for all of the music world. However for us mere mortals we require time and patience.

It's an old concept of effort and reward. Most people like to be rewarded for their time. For some of us we only require a finished piece to feel satisfied. That sense of accomplishment if you will. For other's they feel the need for more external and non-holistic rewards. Some could desire payment for their work, others maybe praise. I think personally a lot of people would like to have both.

As you may or may not know my primary goal right now is to gain financially from my writing, enough so that I can make music full time.

This is not to say I'm doing it for the money. If I were doing that I would be in another career path. However I would like to make enough to pay the bills and have some extra for play. This way I don't have to hold down regular jobs in order to keep my house.

It's a struggle I believe most artist's or writer's go through in their lives. We want a ton of time to pursue our art without having to worry about where we are going to get food from.

Truth be told even though vast riches sounds nice I think I would be happy just doing music for a living and paying the bills.

What are your thoughts?

Alexander the Great can Teach You to Write Music!

Hello folks,


I've noticed something that most of the people I know in music don't seem to take into account when they work their craft.

A songwriter is an author.

What does this mean exactly? Well in my humble opinion a song writer is similar to a novel writer in some regards.

They are writing someone's story.

For most songwriter's they are writing their own story bit by bit song by song.

Religious songwriter's may write stories from whatever sacred text they follow and put it to a melody.

Other's however write the stories that other people go through. This is one area I like to delve into myself. One of my favorite things to do when writing lyrical music or thematic instrumentals even is to go to my local library and pick up a history book.

Keep in mind that most feel history is a very dry and (bad pun) dated subject. However I'm going to attempt to change your minds today.

The first thing you need to know about history is that it's the most human subject of study you can imagine. History for the most part deals with the actions and consequences of people. Okay most of us can agree with that on some kind of level, however it goes much deeper than that!

Take for example Alexander the Great. You can look at his historical biography and you can try and put yourself in his shoes in your imagination. The more you do this the more you can start to identify with that particular character in history. Because for the sheer fact human emotion is similar in every human being. We all feel love, passion, ambition, distress, confidence, pride, fear, all of it. Imagine the pride Alexander must have felt while conquering much of the known world. Imagine any part of his life and how he would have felt in that moment.

History isn't some kind of dusty old group of stories. It's humanity at it's finest and it's worst. You can literally find inspiration at a moments notice with a simple history book in your hands. After doing something like this I've found myself writing music I didn't even know I was capable of. Such a variety of sounds that can come from writing music based on a story is much more powerful than just playing notes that fit with music theory textbooks.

Music like History is an intimate, grand, passionate, emotional experience. Most of all it is a very human experience.

The combination of the two is a very powerful concept.

I hope everyone can enjoy their time with music and find inspiration daily!