Drum Triggers....

So, I am starting a new business called "Mr. Trigger" I am wondering, (Drummers) have you heard of triggers? If you have, would you be interested in purchasing them?

Logic Or ProTools...

Okay, so I have been using ProTools for around a month now... and to be totally honest, I have to say I prefer Logic, it has such a more user friendly interface and it uses less physical memory which means you can use more plugins and still have little to no latency!

Don't get me wrong... I'm not going to uninstall ProTools any time soon, it is still an amazing program and one I would like to dabble more into so I can teach tutorials about it on here! Until then, I shall be giving tutorials on Logic :)

Stay Tuned!!

:)

Getting Into A Band

I have played in a few bands.... I have only been in one that has really meant the world to me. Four Minute Affair (The name of my band). And we have had a little bit of YouTube success which has helped build us a fanbase over in Australia.

So, when you first decide to get into a band, what sort of band do you want to be? Do you want to be a covers band? or an original band?

My advice for either band type, is start with an easy cover, my bands first two songs were Holiday - GreenDay and Dammit - Blink 182, these songs are basic songs, easy on all instruments (Dammit is just exceptionally fast for the drummer) but they are songs that people know as well, so you are instantly "building a fan base" even if that does start with your fans being your mum, and some friends (they still count)

So, to find band members.... This is the hard part, to start with, make sure you know what direction you want to go in, a covers band will be easier for amateur musicians, and originals band is for more accomplished musicians as you need some experience and creativity.

I know that in New Zealand we have a website called the RockShop. They have a classifieds page in which you can find band members! I highly recommend starting with basic covers (Greenday is always good for rock bands) and then deciding on what it is you want to do!

Song Writing

Hmmm so I want post about song writing, but its an extremely hard topic to talk about and explain, every songwriter and every song is written differently, some write lyrics first, some write the physical music first.

I will explain the way that I write, and believe me, in no way am I saying that "this is the way to do it, if you don't do it like this you are doing it wrong" there are so many ways to write songs, and each song writer will have their own way of writing. Back on track, my way of writing songs, has worked out reasonably well for me, I believe it is more of a "pop" sort of method, because instead of writing, exactly how you feel, you are more.. writing along what sounds good, you are still writing how you feel, but it is more about how it sounds with this method.

So, I'll walk you through my songwriting method, to start with, I like to start with little motifs (riffs) or just a hook, that will keep people listening, songs like Dammit - Blink 182, it has that intro guitar riff that is repeated throughout the song. So I find a nice sounding motif (riff) and then, get that sounding reasonably nice, then I will find a chord progression that goes well with the riff, and being into pop punk these chord progressions are generally easy to find, sometimes they are as simple as C,G,A,F and because I am writing a song that can have such a basic chord progression, I will let it have a basic chord progression, it has worked in the past, just about every Greenday song is a basic progression so why do I need to change it?

So, find a motif, or riff, and find chords. Record it! If you have your phone record it on that! but record it on something you can play back to yourself so that you can listen to it, then write lyrics! it helps so so much!!

:)

Pro Tools HD 9 or Logic Pro 9

So, I have read a lot of people asking questions around forums on weather to choose ProTools or Logic.

I have been working in both over the past month and there are many differences I suppose, the first obvious one is the ease of use, Logic has a much much easier interface as you can see in the screen shot below...

So the ease of use in Logic is much easier as opposed to the ease of use in ProTools HD 9 (Which is what I am using) here is a screen shot of ProTools HD 9's main user interface ...

As you can see from the two screenshots above, the user interface is much different, if you are just getting into music recording and music production, I would highly recommend Logic Pro 9 or even Logic Express! Logic is much much easier to use than ProTools. 

Placing plugins into Logic is much much easier than placing plugins into ProTools. Ill show you a basic "Mixer" look at the two programs with plugins on the tracks as well as the pop out window to install the plugins...

Logic...

ProTools....

Open those two pictures into a larger window and compare the two, Im not to sure which one LOOKS easier but believe me, Logic Pro, in comparison is much much easier.

In the next week, I will try to remember to create two comparison videos of the two programs! stay updated!!

:)

The Power Of YouTube.

YouTube can be an extremely powerful tool for bands, as an extremely famous artist called Justin Bieber has found out. Future Idiots, a more appropriate example of using YouTube to their advantage have been doing pop to pop/punk sounding covers and they are starting to get 1000's of views on each of their video's and I believe that a large amount of their success is from good covers on YouTube, sticking to their specific genre (in this case their genre is Pop/Punk), finding a target audience and doing something that nobody else has either done or nobody does on a regular basis.

For Future Idiots creating pop to pop/punk covers, they have built a large fanbase all around the world, and therefore they have got a large audience that will listen to any of their originals.

Basically, what I am trying to say is that, if your in a new band and you want to create a name for yourself, do covers! lets say you are a heavy metal band but you still have some punk influences, do a ramones cover.... into your genre! It will create new fans, as well as strike up a discussion weather its good or bad (because it is an old song put into a new genre, there will be old fans that hate it, and new fans that like it) Discussion in this case is very very good!!

:)

Mixing: Before and After

Now, I can show you the after mix! It is still not a perfect example of mixing, but it shows the basics, and the basis of which mixing is built around.

I have created my own sort of EQ and by no means is it a professional, or recommended EQ although it sounds good for this recording and this style of song.

Attached is a screen recording of me showing you everything I have done in the mix to take it from very basic, to average, I am still working on it to get it sound as good as I can.

 I hope you can learn from it. Any questions feel free to ask and I would love to answer or hear any feedback. I do however have two active gates on my snare channel.... Im not to sure why although it did help :P

Thanks!

:)

Mixing: Before and After

At the moment... I only have a before sound demo and a before screen shot. This is using ProTools HD 9 which I am very new to.

In this sound clip it is totally unmixed drums and you can hear quite a lot of bleeding into other mikes as well as feedback from one of my Tom Toms.

Please excuse the drumming!

As you can see from the above two screen shots, there are no plug ins at all involved in this snippet. If you listen throughout the whole thing there is also a clav on the snare.

Unfortunately, the sound file is located on the video which is just a video of a screenshot to show 0 Plugins.

Tonight I will take a picture of the drums, and how they are all miked up!

:)

ProTools HD 9

So my next song is done using ProTools HD 9 ProTools is a massive step up from Logic, thats for sure. Although ProTools does take longer to get the hang of... it also has many professional plugins that come in handy, one of my favourite plugins is called "Eleven Free" its basically a computer based Eleven Rack, and it pumps out some pretty realistic sounds, if you listen to my next cover, you will hear the Eleven Free being used on the guitar track.

So ProTools did take quite a while for me to learn how to use, and I admit to reading the manual! it was a lot of help. I also watched a large amount of YouTube tutorials, and they too were very helpful. So basically in the next week, I will set up a new project on ProTools, taking screen shots, and pictures of any gear I am using to hopefully explain how it all works.

I will show detailed pictures of how I am miking up my kit, I will upload audio files of my session before and after so you can really get a detailed idea of how it all works, how the EQ works and how the Gates work.

Stay tuned.

:)

Dan Sweeto.

So he hasn't commented on my blog. he is a big star in Australia, he has earned his fame through covers of bands like Short Stack. He has one of the best voices I have ever heard. Although. What is letting him down, is his recordings.. dont get me wrong, I dont want to sound like a judgmental c#$* but if he spent another hour or two on mixing, and EQing the guitar a tiny tiny bit more, you would hear so much more of an improvement in his recordings, dont get me wrong, they already sound fantastic, but honestly, if he spent another hour or so on the EQ on some of his covers, there would be such a great change in the sound, it would be insane!

Who is he? Dan Sweeto is an Australian Singer, he was born on the 13th of August 1992 (almost 19) and he has dreams of opening for Short Stack. I believe he can do it as well as all of his thousands of teenybopper fans, and when I say thousands I do mean thousands, he has over three thousand friends on his personal Facebook page, he has over two thousand views on his Short Stack cover "Werewolves" and believe me, getting one thousand views on Youtube is hard enough!

Dan Sweeto is going to get far, he has done an amazing job with just about all of his covers, he has original songs and everything! I am waiting for a recording company to snatch him up!!

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/DanSweeto
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001019520555

All The Small Things.

So, when you listen to your favourite band/artist what do you hear?  I know before I started to get involved with the recording and production of music, all I heard was my favourite band playing a cool song. Now I understand all of the parts that go into it to make the song sound radio worthy.

After learning a bit more about music production and recording processes, and recording companies, you learn that there are so many more people involved in the production of a song than you really realize.

And for me, I still dream of being someones favourite band that they listen to, but realistically only a handful of people really can get that far, and for me, I still want to be a part of the music industry, weather that means that I am a record company executive, a producer or my personal dream, the band, or artist you physically listen to.

:)

Late Night Thoughts

so, do you ever sit at home, late at night listening to some bands, and thinking "I really really wish I had that life"?

I know I do, and I know a lot of other people do too, and believe me, you can get there, maybe not with as much fame, but definately with the same perks!

Since I am still attending high school, I have another few years until I really need to worry about getting a real career and until then, I am going to be working on music production and writing and recording my own stuff.

Anyway, back on topic. If you are reading this, you obviously like your music, correct? So why not, get in a band with a few mates, get a video camera, and upload it to YouTube, covers or originals. Do that, then post your video up here and I will comment it, review it and give you some help as well as give you advice on instrumentation (which instruments you have) and also new gear to invest in.

:)

New Gear

Although I just posted saying this site is for new bands and etc, I am also going to talk about some good recording techniques, recording programs and recording gear. I will let you in on some of my bands own demo recordings, none of the mastered songs that you hear on YouTube.

So to start with, I recently got myself a copy of ProTools HD 9, I am still only learning all of the ins and outs of it, as I have been using Logic a lot. But over the next few weeks, I will spend a lot of time in the studio, just making little drum tracks that I can then mix, and create "DIY" videos to help teach you about some of ProTools features.

At the moment, I am actually working on a cover of Short Stacks song, called "Counting The Stars" I will post a link up here as soon as the song is on YouTube.

If anyone reading this has a band that they would like to be commented on, reviewed, get more hits on YouTube or ANYTHING! just add a comment to this page, and I will definately do my best to help you !