Auralex to the Rescue!

As some of you may know, my wife and I are expecting our first kid in June. It became clear pretty quickly that, as our second bedroom, my writing/recording room was to become the nursery. Thankfully, we had some space in our basement that showed potential for becoming a devoted space for creating music.

There was really only one main problem: with concrete/plaster walls, the room basically acted as a rectangular reverb chamber. It was obvious that something needed to be done to address the acoustic situation. This is where Auralex came in.

Here are some pictures of the basement room before I brought in my recording equipment:

We decided to start by repainting the walls a more vibey green color (these pics were taken while the paint was still drying):

Here's where the Auralex came in, along with my recording setup:

My new man cave!

My co-writer's seat

The vocal booth, enclosed by movable Auralex ProMAX panels

The Mopads were the perfect thing to separate the monitors from the stands, isolating the vibrations

I suspended the foam from the ceilings with these gold hooks

Eric Smith from Auralex

Not only does the new setup look cool, it actually encourages creativity. I've been told that it's easier to focus when there are less rogue sound waves bouncing around the room, and I've experienced that to be true. I've never heard the stereo image like I have in the past couple months. My mixes are improving, and I'm enjoying listening to music more now than I have in the past couple years. 

The room's acoustics are so tight now that, one day, I noticed what sounded like a static problem in my left monitor only to discover that I was actually hearing a candle burning on my desk. That's a good sign of an accurate acoustic environment!

If you have a dedicated space for writing/recording, I highly encourage you to invest in the room's acoustic treatment. If you can't accurately hear what's coming out of the monitors, you'll have trouble competing with those who have a proper setup. Check out Auralex.com for ways that you can turn your room into a space that serves your creativity. Treat yourself to proper acoustic treatment!

Keep writing (a treating acoustics), 

Ben

The Elephant in the Room

My wife and I are about 19 weeks along, expecting our first kid in June. We are incredibly excited and I'm actually looking forward to those sleepless nights. Soon after we found out we were expecting, my wife and I both knew we were going to have to discuss the elephant in the room. In our case, the elephant is my writing/recording/mixing setup and the room is our soon-to-be nursery.

One thing I'm really excited about is the fact that, for the first time, I'll have a dedicated room that's a creative space first, guest room second. When we moved into our house, this is what our guest room looked like (it used to be a little girl's room):

 

Then, with a little paint, new blinds and a few decorations, we ended up with this:

With the migration south into the basement, here is the room I'll be working with:

So far, we've painted the walls and have begun transitioning some of my gear to the new room:

The next step is treating the acoustics of the room. I'll keep you all up to date with the progress over the coming weeks!

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!

Quote of the Day - Whistler

"It takes a long time for a man to look like his portrait."

- James McNeill Whistler

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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!

The Four Quadrants

While in the middle of reading Stephen R. Covey's classic The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and came across this incredibly helpful diagram.

He makes the distinctions between urgent/non-urgent and important/non-important tasks, concluding that the activities in quadrant II (top right) are the elements that give our lives meaning and significance. The challenge, however, is sifting through the other three quadrants to identify which activities are important but non-urgent.

Here's an example of a quadrant II activity my wife and I undertook this past weekend, repainting an old table and hanging three chalkboards:



Spend some time today focusing on the things that are important but may not be absolutely necessary. That reminds me, I also need to invite my neighbors over for dinner.

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!

Disappearing Chinese Artist

The artist offers some interesting words on how his cultural art struggles to fit into a commercial society (for more images of his art, click here):




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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!

Rules, Schmules

There are plenty of rules that can be helpful when writing a song, but only if they are viewed as guidelines. Instead of using the rules as tools to build the skeleton of the song, The strongest lyric will share a lot of these common characteristics.

There is no concrete rule when it comes to songwriting, because you can find a great example that breaks every rule. It’s helpful to understand rules and guidelines as road signs, but it doesn’t mean you have to follow exactly where the map tells you to go. You can take a more scenic route and still end up at the finish line. It's often easiest to take the fastest, most direct route, but the path less traveled should always be a viable option.

A lot of times when I learn something new about songwriting, one of the first emotions that rises to the surface is a sense of lost time...a sort of regret that I may have been doing it "wrong" for so long. But as I mentioned earlier, it's important to view songs more as stepping-stones rather than the other shore (a means to an end rather than the end itself).

“There is no right way to paint...so just paint.” (Nashville's Helen King to her art students)

I would echo that by saying that there's no right way to write songs, so just write.

Keep writing,

Ben

New Logo!

I'm proud to announce this new logo for The Songbird Project. Looks a lot like the old one, but I painted this little birdie myself.

Keep writing (and painting logos),

Ben