Linkin Park’s singles often inspire the question “haven’t they already written this song?” An mp3 that does the rounds from time to time mixes Numb (on the left) and Pushing Me Away (on the right) to illustrate this with almost comical effect: All Linken Park Songs Sound Exactly The Same.

As shown below, and forgive the hyperbole, much more than they sound the same all Linkin Park songs look the same. And while it’s easy to criticize the band for their overuse of a formula that’s by now cliche, the similarity between their tracks at least holds a lesson on the importance of song arrangement in pop music production.

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Tags: arrangement, professional-engineers

Make a cassette loop for about 6 seconds: As some of the commenters note, this could be used for old school loop-based effects. Exactly HOW you’d do that is not covered, of course.

The Time Correction Wiki: Described as a website “dedicated to the study and practice of time correction techniques in audio engineering and music production.” I didn’t realize the field warranted such in depth examination, but then I also wasn’t aware of the distinction between perfect and irrational looping.

Which DAW is best for you?: It’s ad-ridden, but this article on Digital Pro Sound highlights the similarities and (rapidly diminishing) differences between 5 of the main DAW software pacakges: Protools, Acid Pro, Audition, Sonar, and Cubase.

Tags: diy

Brad posted a great article this week on which CD sales approaches pay independent artists the most. His experience mirrors mine: Direct sales are the most profitable, followed by CD Baby, then the various online distribution methods. Says Brad:

No big surprise, buying direct from me is the best (for me). Direct digital sales… is the best in profit and percentage as I only pay Paypal fees and a negligible Amazon S3 amount. I make more per sale on CD Baby and iTunes UK than direct CDs from me, but that’s only because the unit price is three or four dollars more.

That information could come in handy if you take Bob Lefstez’s advice – Don’t sign with a major label

They don’t pay you.
Oh, they’ll give you an ever-shrinking advance. But royalties? No one sells enough albums to go into royalties anymore. And they own the rights to the recording. Terry McBride’s got it right, you want to control all the rights, so you can license INSTANTLY! So you don’t have to get someone on the phone to say YES to YOU about YOUR music! Oh, they’ll give you money to get started, but it’s like making a deal with the Mafia, they own you, forever.

Tags: business

A quick note: Create Digital Music hit their sponsors up for a pile of music hardware and software to give away (to U.S. residents.) Free stuff is good, free music stuff better.

Tags: hardware

As an amateur recording engineer, you’ll likely run into the name Recorderman when learning how to mic a drum kit. Recorderman’s approach to placing overhead drum microphones is recommended for beginners because it’s easy to set up, and yields good, sometimes great, results in practically every situation.

The name “Recorderman” comes from a user on the recording.org forums who is credited with popularizing the technique. (Though his approach has been used by engineers for decades. It’s largely a two-mic adaptation of Glyn Johns’ mic setup.)

Here’s Recorderman’s original post about his technique, along with some good followup discussion. And this Gearslutz thread on overhead drum mic placement has more discussion and pictures.

Recorderman in a nutshell: Use two drum sticks as a ruler to place your mics the same distance from the snare drum, and a cable or string to get them equidistant from the kick beater. Here’s the best video description I’ve seen, to better illustrate:

Recorderman’s approach accomplishes 3 things:

1. It places the snare and kick drums in the center of the stereo image.
2. It ensures any close mics on the kick and snare are in phase with the overheads.
3. It captures a balanced drum kit sound, close to what the drummer hears.

This microphone setup is ideal in a few situations:

When you have limited microphones for the drums: Especially when you only have 2 or 3 mics, Recorderman can still get you an open, balanced stereo image of the drum kit. If you’re recording a talented drummer, 2 or 3 microphones in this arrangement might be all you need.

Recording with low ceilings or in a tight space: Drums sound best in a big, open room. Traditional overhead miking approaches tend to capture a “smeared” drum sound when used in small rooms, largely because sound reflections off the ceiling interfere with the direct sound from the drums. Recorderman’s technique gets the microphones close enough to the drums that this isn’t an issue.

When the drums sound killer at the drummer’s position: With decent microphones, this setup usually captures a sound close what the drummer hears. If the drums sound ideal right where the drummer is sitting, you should consider a Recorderman setup even if you’re in a high-ceilinged space.

(Note: I use a modified version of Recorderman for The Morning Rain drum tracks. There are a few pictures, and sound samples here.)

Previously: Better drum mixes with a drum reference track, Parallel compression for fatter drum tones

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Tags: drums, video

Whether or not you’re in it for the money, making a few bucks with your music is a great feeling. I’ve been writing songs most of my life, and recording for the better part of the last decade. And while I’m not a professional, I’ve still earned enough over the years to warrant paying taxes as a musician and amateur recording engineer.

Inspired by Darren’s “top 5 ” project, I thought I’d share a few of the ways I’ve made money with our favorite hobby. [UPDATE: Below, I overlooked the possibility of winning money in song contests.]

In descending order of which has made me the most:

1. I sell CDs, both online and at shows: The industry’s changing, but for the time being at least, this tried and true approach is the most profitable for me. As I’m sure is the norm, I sell more CDs at live gigs than via my web site. Still, the online CD sales of Waking Up In August are more than enough to justify the album’s web site. And if you’re debating whether to use a service like CDBaby: I sell far more CDs via my own web site, but enough folks find my album via CDBaby to justify using both approaches.

2. I’ve written and recorded songs on spec: Most recently, last month a lady I’ve never met hired me to write a song about her and her fiance. (Out of respect for her privacy, I haven’t put the song online. But if you’d like more details, contact me.) It was a challenge: Writing a personal song about experiences I’ve never had was enlightening, to say the least. But I learned a lot through the process, so I can charge more next time.

Check out Tailored Music if the idea of writing songs for others appeals to you.

3. I’ve recorded and mixed tunes for other people: I have a decent basement studio, so my musician friends come to me when they want to record their own songs. One such friend commented after a session that my T3 probably cost more than his entire collection of instruments, and I realized I should be charging for the service.

4. I sell MP3s online: I offer Waking Up In August in multiple formats on the web site, but the album is also available on iTunes, and somewhat to my surprise, people buy it there! Though adding my own experience to the recent body of evidence that albums may be dead: People buy Brand New Car by itself much more often than they buy the complete album. Apparantly, that song is the “single.”

5. I write about music: Hometracked doesn’t make me a fortune. Really just enough to cover my hosting fees. (And while I could bury the site in ads to make a few more dollars, one of the reasons I started Hometracked was my frustration with the sea of affiliate marketing-ridden home recording sites telling me what to buy, rather than how to use what I already have.) But I enjoy writing, and most of the links I post are articles and web forums I’d be reading anyway. So it’s a natural extension of the hobby.

I’m curious: Have you found any novel ways to earn a few dollars with your music, or your home recording skills?

See Also: Tips for successful song contest entry

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Tags: business

In Mix It Like A Record, Charles Dye recommends several methods of checking a mix for mono compatibility. The simplest: Put a finger in one of your ears!

There may be slightly more to it, however. Lifehacker recently featured a list of body hacks, and it included this great tip about using our ears:

If you’re stuck chatting up a mumbler at a cocktail party, lean in with your right ear. It’s better than your left at following the rapid rhythms of speech… If, on the other hand, you’re trying to identify that song playing softly in the elevator, turn your left ear toward the sound. The left ear is better at picking up music tones.

Neuroscientists have learned that because of the brain hemisphere to which each of our ears is connected, our left and right ears hear things differently. The right ear responds more to rhythm and speech, while the left ear is more attuned to music.

From a study published in the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology:

This finding provides support for claims of a right-hemisphere bias for the processing of melodic contour… In the present study, we sought to determine whether short tone sequences presented monaurally (to one ear at a time) are processed differentially by the two hemispheres. Studies of auditory processing often indicate that linguistic and musical stimuli are processed preferentially by the left and right hemispheres, respectively

This has an obvious implication for mix engineers: If you favour one of your ears, it could affect your mix decisions. Dye’s trick of checking a mix for mono compatibility could yield different results depending on which ear you stick your finger in!

Of course, you can use this to your advantage too. For example, when you need to make a decision about a mix’s rhythm elements, you might find it easier if you listen only with your right ear.

Tags: hearing, mixing, psychoacoustics

A web search for “best VST EQ” turns up dozens of pages that mention the Paris EQ VST, but for reasons I haven’t been able to figure out, the plugin and its author Matt Craig have dropped off the face of the Internet.

That’s a pity, because the plugin is fantastic. Although it’s colorful, so not appropriate for every EQ task, it’s sometimes perfect for bass guitar and vocals (I referenced the Paris EQ in my best free vocal plugins article.) On some material, I’ve even preferred the Paris EQ VST over the much more expensive Waves REQ.

I saved the install file I downloaded, so as a service to my fellow homerecordists who may not have a chance to try the plugin, here’s a link:

And here’s Matt’s description of the plugin from the readme file:

The Paris VST EQ is a 4-band parametric stereo VST equaliser plugin utilising the same algorithm as the E-mu/Ensoniq Paris system. It offers the same musicality and quirkiness as the original including soft-limiting, grungy distortion ability, and resonant behaviour under certain conditions.

Previously only accessible to those who owned the Paris custom DSP hardware, this unique EQ is now available to all PC DAW users.

(Note that it’s Windows-only.)

Tags: EQ, plugins

Electronic Musician just added an old interview with Bob Clearmountain to their web site.

Clearmountain is one of my idols (his work with Radiohead notwithstanding.) And while he’s arguably the most famous mixing engineer on the planet, he doesn’t mind sharing advice with us amateurs on how to mix:

I mix at various monitoring levels, through different speaker systems, in a somewhat random order. I also use a bit of overall compression and, of course, make the important things louder and the not-so-important ones quieter. I’ve found a good, generally useful technique is to make sure there’s no unwanted extra low end coming from instruments other than the bass and kick drum. Doing this will almost always make the bass sound better, louder, and clearer.

Sound On Sound also has an interview with Clearmountain that discusses many of the artists he’s mixed, and his favorite equipment. But it wouldn’t be Sound On Sound without tips:

With pop music, I tend to focus on the lyric and the lead vocal more than anything else, trying to get a sense of what the song is. That matters more than anything; more than what the drums or guitars are doing, although I know a lot of people tend to start with the drums and the rhythm parts. I tend to start with the vocals, and then I might get into guitars and keyboards. I’ll try to find effective pan settings for everything, thinking of it like a stage.

Tags: interviews, mixing, professional-engineers

Boy do I ever have a huge backlog of links to post. Here are a few stories from the last few weeks relating to indie artists and the music industry.

Can Music Survive Inside the Big Box, from the Wall Street Journal, discusses the increasing power of Walmart, Best Buy, and Target over the (traditional) music industry:

For his part, Best Buy’s Mr. Arnold says the blame for waning consumer interest in CDs lies with the record labels, not with stores like his. “Music has become a commoditized item,” he says. “The CD is perceived by the consumer to be a $10 item, and the manufacturers continue to release new titles at $15 to $18.98.” To remedy that situation, he says he has urged labels to move to a “paperback-book model,” with no-frills packages priced cheaply for most customers, and more deluxe presentations for die-hard fans.

The Album, a Commodity in Disfavor, from the NY Times, discusses the demise of the record album in pop music:

… fans are buying fewer and fewer full albums. In the shift from CDs to digital music, buyers can now pick the individual songs they like without having to pay upward of $10 for an album. Last year, digital singles outsold plastic CD’s for the first time. So far this year, sales of digital songs have risen 54 percent …

This short article from Bob Baker, The Truth About Music Industry Upheaval, caught my attention because it reminds us that history repeats. Sometimes, over and over:

We tend to think that whatever changes are taking place in the present moment are the biggest and most impactful ever. While it’s true that change occurs at ever increasing rates, and the music shift going on today is truly dramatic, it’s also important to realize that it’s nothing new.

It happened with the invention of the gramophone. It happened with swing and big band. It happened with Sinatra, Elvis and The Beatles. It happened with the introduction of the cassette and the CD. It happened again with the widespread use of MP3 files and iPods. It’s happening right now.

It seems at times that the major labels’ current woes are an entirely new challenge, unimaginable before broadband and Napster. But change is a constant in the music industry. Those best suited to capitalize on whatever comes next are the folks who recognize the patterns.

Carrie Underwood’s Big Accomplishment could be significant for indie artists, even if she’s the furthest thing from indie herself:

Before this week, the only way to get into the Billboard top 100 was to have a massive record distribution model that included major retail stores like Wal-Mart, Target, Tower Records, Sam Goody and the like. It required a ton of advertising money and an full on radio assault. But now we have a proof of concept that an exclusive online download can reach the sort of customers that only traditional record sales have reached in the past.

Sure, Underwood had the help of 30 million Idol viewers to reach the charts. But even a couple of years ago, her accomplishment would have been impossible. Underwood is mainstream writ large, and the appearance of her track on the Billboard chart illustrates broad mainstream acceptance of iTunes, and more importantly downloadable music. That’s a good thing for indies, large and small alike, who depend on digital distribution to reach fans and sell their music.

Finally, Andy’s conclusion in The New Music Industry resonated with me:

Bands can now release content at a more fevered and consistent pace, churning out a song every couple of months from the privacy of their own homes.

No longer will the artist need to write “filler” in order to artificially elongate their album. No longer will fans be forced to purchase 9 songs they don’t like in order to have 3 songs they love. No longer will fans have to wait years between albums. Fans will get a new dose of the band they love every time they write a new song.

Early adopters of this idea will benefit greatly by keeping their band in the media more often.

Especially for indie artists, music is a long tail market. As an indie, you’re not likely to sell a million copies of your album. But you might sell individual tracks a few hundred copies at a time. Grow your catalog of tracks, and suddenly a viable business presents itself. And add to that the increasing mainstream acceptance of paying for downloadable music (thanks, Ms. Underwood,) and it starts to look like a whole new business model …

Tags: music-business