Mega Music Talent

Posts Tagged ‘advice’

You’ve spent countless hours writing and rehearsing Your songs. Another few hundred more in the studio recording them and just for good measure another hundred or so mixing it till it sounds just right. Now the album is soon to go for mastering and You’re putting the finishing touches on the way the album is going to play out. Here are a few tips I found helpful when putting the final play list together.

1) Put Your lead single in the first 3 songs.

The reasoning behind this is that when people buy your album they will most probably buy it because they enjoy your lead single. This means that when they look at the playlist on the back of the Cd one of their first thoughts is ‘where’s the single?’ Now if they see it in the top three they would be more likely to listen to the two other songs in the top 3 as they’ll be thinking ‘well at least the lead single is only a song away so I might as well give this song a chance’.

Also if for example your lead single was song number 2 they will most likely end up listening to song number 3 because they are already in the ‘groove’ of your music and thus would let the songs run. Having another solid song in the top 3 is also a plus as You make a great impression early on.

Another small addition is to make the silence at the end of the lead single and the silence at the beginning of the song after it particularly short so that the break between the lead single and the song after it is quick.

If the lead single was in the center of the album the chances are that the listener will skip directly to it and then end up listening to the subsequent songs. This would mean a large chunk of material will be skipped in the first listen through.

2) Make the Song after Your lead Single a Solid Track.

After listening to Your first single your listener will be in the mood for some more of your best material and so serve them with it! If they listen to two solid songs in a row that’s when they will say ‘wow, these guys must have a pretty solid album’ and will be more open to listening to your more diverse songs.

Now when I write ‘a solid track’ I don’t mean that it has to have the same energy or emotion as your lead single but is should have another dose of the ‘you’ that is in the lead single that they’ve grown to love so much.

3) Put ‘Happier’ / High Energy Songs at the Beginning and End of the Album.

When listening to an album nobody wants to leave the experience feeling ‘bummed out’ or overly introspective, that would most probably result in them not listening to the album again for a while or when they do being pensive when it gets to the final few tracks or in the case of the more (negatively) emotionally charged songs being at the beginning they would probably skip them entirely.

If the album starts out with high energy songs and then slowly drifts into the more introspective, emotionally charged songs in the center it will be easier to handle as the residual ‘vibe’ from the first songs will still be lingering and ‘cushion’ the blow of the more emotionally charged, introspective songs.

4) ‘Trim The Fat’.

If You find two or more songs that sound alike quite simply keep the best of the two and get rid of the latter. I don’t mean completely scrap the song and destroy the final mix, simply save it for a later date.

When putting out a promo CD or a subsequent EP You could use the track that was left out of the full length album. The beauty of this is that when people are listening to the Promo or EP they would be reminded of the full length album so would link the good emotions they had listening to your full length album with the EP or promo.

5) Listen, Listen & Listen Again (after that?Listen Again).

The most important of all the tips would be to listen through the album as many times as possible. Get friends to listen to it, your producer to listen to it, ask your mastering engineers advice when they’re going through the mastering process.

After that listen to it again and if anything even remotely feels out of place then don’t get it pressed. Wait until You’ve got the playlist so perfect that You could listen to the album through and want to start it again right then, that’s when You know.

Lastly always remember that the buck stops with You. There is no one else in the world that can even begin to judge Your album but yourself. It’s Your Music, Your Passion, Your Experiences, Your Sweat, Your tears on that record and so the last say is Yours. It is Your Child.

Always remember that, always.

Author Bio: I’ve worked as an Independent Canadian Artist for a number of Years and some of my previous material can be found at http://www.delta14.com. Thank You for Your Time.

Drum building routines are discovered by pro drum makers after years worth of messing up, constant repetition and drum building experiments. Possessing the “drum building secrets” from years and years of practice would take… well… years and years of practice! Can’t we skip some of that and learn from others? That’s where our Guerrilla Drum Making DVD comes in; you can learn from 10 years of drum making mistakes, methods, and ideas.

In the DVD we steer away from the term “drum building secrets,” and practice these three “drum building philosophies” that are necessary to follow if you want a good looking and sounding drum set (who doesn’t?).

These are practices put to use by the big boys, so following these philosophies will not only help turn your DIY drum building project into a professional adventure, but also establish some great routines for future drum building projects.

#1: Save Time By Batching Your Drum Building Stages:

This is huge, people. Batching your drum building stages simply means to group similar activities together and do them all at the same time. This is the most simple drum building tip! Activities to batch in a drum building project could be the sanding stage of all your drum shells, glueing your drum wrap, staining all the shells, etc.

Batching the drum building stages are important for many reasons including time saving, the reduction of activity clutter, and finish consistency.

#2: Measure Twice, Drill Once:

I know? you’ve heard this a million times and drum building is no different: measure twice and drill your drum shells ONCE.

Drum building has a few crucial steps that are unforgiving and irreversible. One of them is the drilling stage. After you measure and mark all your hardware lines, you’d better do a quick double check before drilling.

#3: Set Your Drum Building Goals and Invest in Quality Products:

Drum building with poor products WILL yield poor results.

Think of the end goal and set your drum building budget accordingly. Do you, for example, want a studio kit or something to bash on the road and throw around every night without drum cases?

You get what you pay for, and you should be paying for products that are specific to your goals. If making a professional sounding and looking custom drum set is your goal? invest in the best.

If you’re band sounds like the Ramones and you want to trash your drum set every night like Dave Grohl did? I would recommend investing in something that is LESS expensive and lesser in quality.

A lot of people first getting into drum building want to make the coolest looking drum set and the baddest sounding kit ever for $300.00

Is it doable?

Of corse? it’s doable. There’s a million situations where this could work out.

Remember that drum building to save money is a byproduct of drum building to make a killer, 100% one of a kind drum set that is perfect for you and your musical situation. Saving money and having a unique sounding set go hand in hand? and one shouldn’t outweigh the other.

Author Bio: For more Drum Building Tips and to preview the Guerrilla Drum Making DVD, visit our site at:http://guerrilladrummaking.com

Sound design is a very competitive, tricky and time consuming process, new trends appear, and die very quickly. Good wholesome sound design requires innovation, a great amount of patience and sometimes a good nights sleep! If you stick to the simple yet effective fundamental theoretical approaches and techniques listed here, then in no time you’ll be the elite Vanguard sound designer you always dreamed to be. Yep, you too can achieve the sound of that French guy with the long hair…

Think of artists such as Spor, Noisia or Dirtyphonics. These people use conventional waveform selection, usually saw and square, but go crazy on everything else. Curiosity gets you places. So let’s throw the rulebook out of the window.

Try literally randomising your settings to start with: slam together different oscillator wave forms, envelopes & fllter settings. For example go crazy on waveform selection sometimes, mix and match. What you thought was a no go, is usually a ‘$%@k me that’s a crazy!’ sound. Your next step will be to refine your raw sound into something more usable and more importantly controllable.

Messing around with the LFO is great it adds depth to your sound, try to add LFO into your sounds and keep the speed low to give a fattening washy effect. Nearly every sound in ‘Oxygene’ by Jean Michelle Jarre (one of my synth programming heros) uses LFO.

Don’t use too much release in a dance lead, sometimes just a little will do, try using hardly any attack, a mid amount of sustain, and a mid amount of decay.

The detune control is a killer and can be the key to any anthem based dance sound. Try taking a sound with no detune and turning the detune knob to around 54% and compare the results.

You often don’t need 16 or 32 voices, sometimes just 5 can be enough, you’ll find turning the voices down can give your mix a more minimalistic sound. This Approach can also relieve essential CPU resources too if your running low!

The Vanguard’s filter can be extremely versatile: for plucky sounds try a low 24 decibal. For bass try low 12 db. For acid sounds try band+shp, notch and format. Being careful in this department can really help determine how your sound sits in the mix, so take your time and experiment.

The Vanguard’s trancegate effect can give some really cool effects – for more subtle fx don’t have it on max, keep the contour control knob low and the gate to around 60%. You can also get some crazy results by playing with the stereo and speed controls of the trancegate.

I’m not a big fan of the Delay unit on the Vanguard. It works better for me on background noises, so if your sound’s the centre piece I’d set the delay to ‘Widen’ with a short delay time to give your sound more stereo width.

The reverb unit on the Vanguard is great for electro. To get the ‘Benassi’ type reverb try this: adjust the mix to around 35%, pre-delay to around 40%, room size to around 15%, damp all the way up & width to 50%. This gives your sound that ‘sidechained’ feel. Glide can also be great on this kind of sound when you have overlapping notes in your sequencer.

So there we have it – a few points to consider when making your own Vanguard sounds – good luck!

Author Bio: Mark is a passionate DJ who loves to remix and make tracks with various Synthesizer Patches and electro loops. Mark works for dance midi samples in the UK who sell various DJ producer packs. Click for more information, here.

A young band’s first gig is always an exciting time. Many hours slogging it out in the garage finally come to fruition with the offer of a first gig.

These days bands usually get a school or party gig or a shared bill with a few other bands or even a band competition. Either way the experience of the first gig should be enjoyable and exciting. You don’t want it to turn into a nasty experience with everything going wrong, which it invariably will if you are not prepared.

Murphy’s law will apply – “what can go wrong, will go wrong” if you are not ready for the task at hand – every musician in the world can remember the first time they perform on staged, so you should make it a good experience not a frightful mess.

Be ready!!

# Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse… no matter how many times you have performed your songs in the garage, when you get on stage it will all sound different, and if you don’t know your part 110% you will get it wrong. In the garage you are usually all in one small room and quite close to your fellow band mates. On stage you can be separated quite a lot and you may not be able to hear the other guys or what they are playing. If you know your songs very well you will be able play it no matter what sound problems you have.

Be confident in your ability.

Also rehearse your songs in the order you will perform them especially if you are doing a short set. If you are doing a whole night, rehearse your whole song list as if you are actually doing the gig. This will alert you to any problems such as guitar changes, pedal set up changes, singers needing a “breather”, etc. that may make you look disorganized on stage.

Be ready.

# Make sure your guitars have new strings (but put them on at least two hours before you play and stretch them in), your drums have at least a new snare skin, check the condition of the kick drum skin too.

Make sure you have new batteries for pedals and especially tuners, and for any wireless systems you may be using. And don’t forget a guitar stand or two!!
Have a spare lead close by even if you are using wireless systems, it is a good back up.

If you are doing a gig with a bunch of other bands, make sure your accessories such as leads, tuners , and microphones are clearly marked with your name or at least some special markings, it is strange how much gear goes ‘walking’ at these gigs.

Write a song list/order for all the band members and a few spares if the gig is using a sound or lighting guy. Make notes if you want any special effects etc done for you by the sound man. Each member should write notes on his or her list if they need to remember certain things such as pedal adjustments, change of guitar, etc.

Singers may need a “cheat sheet”, just write down the first word of each line to jog your memory in case you get nervous, however if you are well rehearsed your should not need it!

Make sure your equipment is ready.

Get to the gig early enough to be in no rush and bring as many as your friends as you can. Audiences generally have a ‘sheep’ mentality and if they see or hear a bunch of people making a lot of favorable noises they too will go along and get the vibe.

Your friends can also help you with your equipment too!!!

Enjoy your self and get the whole thing recorded on audio and visual mediums so you can show it to your family and friends and to your grand kids when your old!! Either way you won’t forget it!!

Matt is a guitar enthusiast who lives and breathes anything guitar related. He’s been playing for a long time and loves talking about guitars with everyone. You can find him frequently playing on his porch. Check out free tips, online lessons, and a guitar forum at his site http://www.axebay.com