Studio Snapshots

Why Recording Matters

One of the realities of the music industry is that you can't rely on anyone else's imagination to fill in any recording quality deficiencies. As some would say, you almost have to spoon feed your song to the listener.

Consider this scenario: you have written a great song and used GarageBand or your cell phone to record a rough work tape. You march into a publisher's office and tell them you've created the best thing since sliced bread. They turn the speakers up, hit "play", then hit "stop" 30 seconds in. They didn't even make it to the chorus. Instead, they take out your CD and pop in a song from another writer that they're excited about. What comes through the speakers may sound better to the ears, due to the fact that the song was recorded well in ProTools or Logic. But deep down you know that your song was better than the one the publisher enjoys listening to.

How do you avoid a scenario like the one above, where a worse song gets attention because it sounds better? Focus on getting a great, clean home recording. If you track even just a piano/guitar and vocal well, you could even use those recordings as the foundation for a full-band track.

If you're interested in taking the next step in setting up your home studio, I would highly recommend picking up a copy of Mike Senior's Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio. It has helped me take very practical steps in improving my own setup, and I'm sure you would benefit as well.

Keep writing,
Ben


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Would you or someone you know like to go on a songwriting retreat with industry professionals? Visit SongbirdCamp.com for more details!

Engineer Geoff Emerick on Lyrics

In Emerick's recent book Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles he makes this observation:

"For some reason, I never used to listen to lyrics all that closely. Perhaps it was because of my taste for opera and classical music that the vocal always seemed like just another instrument to me. I was attracted to it solely for the way it fit in with the backing, not for the words that were being sung. Lyrics simply never sold me on a particular song--it was the overall sound that did."

I think it's sometimes easy to get too worked up about what the lyric says that how the message is said gets lost.

Keep writing,

Ben

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Would you or someone you know like to go on a songwriting retreat with industry professionals? Visit SongbirdCamp.com for more details!

Fast - Cheap - Good: Pick Two

Here's a marketing tool that I've found helpful: in any given project, a product can be fast, cheap, and/or good. But it can only be two of the three. Let's look at this through the lens of a songwriter.

If you're interested in getting a song recorded, there are three scenarios:

1. Fast/Cheap

There's an audio engineer friend who is looking for some recording experience. He said he'd record your song at his place if you buy him lunch. Fast and cheap, but what level of quality should be expected?

2. Cheap/Good

There's a family friend who has had success over the years recording well-known artists. As a favor, he offered you the opportunity to come into his studio when it's available to record some songs. He even said he'd be willing to mix them. It's no cost, and the quality is top-notch. But how long will it be before he has a free day to mix your song?

3. Fast/Good

There's a professional audio engineer in town who has gained a reputation for not only getting great-quality recordings, but mixing them the very next day. Nothing's better to a songwriter or publisher than getting a final mix so soon, but how much is that going to cost?

The best audio engineer of all is the one who makes you feel like you got a recording that was all three of the above: cheap, good and fast. It's your job to figure out which one of the three it's not!

Keep writing,

Ben