StudioPros

Have you ever tried talking to someone about your music? Sometimes describing something so abstract can be a little tricky.

“I want this song to have a smooth vibe, but still be a little rough around the edges.”

“This song should rock out and have tons of energy.”

“This track very ethereal and spiritual, but without being corny.”

Sound like anything you’ve heard before? Each of these things means a specific thing to the artist. But what it means to them could be completely different from what it means to you (or any other musician for that matter). And that’s the trouble with using words to describe music: it’s not always a universal language. What’s dark to one person might be somber to another. What’s peppy to one ear could be cheesy to the next. So how can you convey the style you’re going for, particularly when you’re doing a project with an online recording studio like Studio Pros?

The answer: reference tracks!

The simplest and most helpful way to help a musician figure out what you want for your song (beyond musical charts) is to provide them with songs that achieve the same kinds of goals you want your song to achieve. That’s why the musicians at Studio Pros like having our customers send reference tracks to help translate their instructions. Reference tracks are particularly important when the customer provides only a basic recording of the song (like a vocal/guitar take) or have decided to use our chord progression writing service. Any time we don’t have a partially-arranged recording to base our parts on, reference tracks are very useful.

You may be thinking to yourself, “But I don’t want to send in reference tracks. I don’t want them to just copy another artist’s song. I want my song to be original!”

We understand the concern; no one wants to sound like they ripped other musicians off. But Studio Pros’ world-class session musicians don’t use reference tracks so they can copy from them. As the name suggests, they are simply for reference. Our session players have played on countless major label releases, so they have lots of experience capturing different vibes, not copying other artists.

You may also be thinking, “but my song is unique in style, there isn’t an artist that I can be compared to!”

That’s awesome!  We love working with talented artists forging new grounds with their music.  But you can put those creative forces to work with the reference tracks, too…  If you can’t say, “I want this song to sound like Ben Harper,” you can say: “I’d love the raw energy of Ben Harper’s ‘Ground On Down’ along with the laid back beach feeling of Jimmy Buffet’s ‘Margaritaville.’”  This way you can retain the uniqueness of your song, but also give our musicians some great references to work from.

So for your next Studio Pros project, think about some songs that have a comparable sound and feel to the track you want to record and upload them with your song files and instructions. This will help you get the best possible product and maximize your Studio Pros experience!

To get your next project started, click here.

If you want a great drum track for your song, you might want to practice your… keyboard skills?

Well, if this video teaches us anything, it’s that we musicians should probably start shedding our keyboard chops if we want to record a funky, tight drum part:

And if you want to really rock out, just follow this guy’s lead (he really busts it open at about 1:20):

So the moral of these two videos is this: if you want to record a drum track, you can lock yourself in your room, practice drumming on a keyboard for hours on end, and then maybe in a few years you might be able to play something that resembles a real drummer. Almost.

…OR…

You can spend all that time that you would have been practicing your fake drumming skills working on writing great songs instead, and have a real studio drummer lay down a live drum beat for your song within 48 hours.

So let’s do a quick recap: years of practice, or a two-day turnaround? Something that sort of sounds like a real drummer, or something that’s actually played by a professional studio drummer? A $2,000 keyboard, or a $125 drum track?

I’ll leave it up to you to decide which is the better choice! And when you’re ready to have studio-quality drums recorded for your next song, have Studio Pros make it easy for you!

1. Decide whether you want to record live (with the whole band playing together) or record one instrument track at a time. Even though recording live seems more fun, it’s actually much harder and requires renting a bigger, more expensive studio.

2. If you plan to record live, you should first try recording one of your rehearsals with an mp3 recorder. Even though the audio won’t be high quality, you’ll get a good idea of how “together” your band sounds and whether or not you’re ready to hit the studio.

3. If you decide to record one instrument at a time, you must prepare a sketch of your song before you enter the studio. This allows you to find the right tempo, work out the song structure, and think about hooks, breaks and other details that would otherwise take up a lot of your studio time. The sketch doesn’t have to be high audio quality. It will simply serve as a guide, so you can just record it at home before you get in the studio.

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1. Choose your session players wisely. Many local (non-commercial) studios will offer you their own musicians, or even to have their engineer play on your album.  But 99% of the time the result is just a mediocre instrumental track that will do nothing to set you apart from the thousands of other singer/songwriters out there. Think about it for a second: do you know of any famous songs that were recorded by a “one-man-band?” It is crucial to the sound of your recording to get yourself the best session players you can afford.  And with today’s easy access to great recording technology, finding the right session player is even more important than the recording studio.

2. Sketch out your song and plan the arrangement before you go to the studio. Songwriters’ biggest mistake is trying to write/arrange/finish their music in the studio. Remember: when that studio clock is ticking and every extra minute is money out of your pocket, it makes it nearly impossible to be creative–especially in an unfamiliar environment.  So plan ahead and record a sketch of your song at home; it can be as simple as a guitar/keyboard and vocal recorded to a click. Use this sketch to start thinking about what instruments you’ll need, where you want to place parts and breaks, and any other details for the final recording. If you know all of this before you enter the studio, you’ll be able to focus on recording your song while minimizing stress.

3. Don’t mix and master your song with your local studio’s engineer. While he might be a great recording engineer, the mixing and mastering should be done by a true professional. You’ll want to find someone who has mixed albums that you like the sound of. The right mix engineer will give your album a unique sound that reveals who you are as an artist.

4. Use the help of online recording studios. Bringing a good drummer to the studio (if you can find one in your home town) is no simple task.  The complex set-up required to record a drum set can even add to the expense of your studio fee.  You can get professional sounding drum tracks from a world-class drummer over the Internet for just $125.

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Mixing and mastering usually go hand-in-hand. But while most people refer to them both together, they are two distinctly different stages in the recording process. So why exactly do you need to master your album? Couldn’t you just get your songs mixed by a great engineer (maybe a Studio Pros engineer), skip the mastering step and save a few bucks on your record?

It may seem like an effective cost-cutting solution, but if you don’t get your album mastered, you’re only going to hold yourself back–way back, in fact. What many musicians don’t realize is that mastering is as important as every other aspect of recording, including recording great sounding instrumental tracks and professional mixing. Not mastering your album (or trying to master it yourself) will yield the same unprofessional results as if you recorded low-quality drum tracks or mixed it poorly.

Mastering is essential for making your songs broadcast-quality.

What exactly is mastering anyway?

Mastering might sound like a bit of a vague concept to many musicians, as though it’s just one magical step added to the end of the recording process. But while learning how to master a song very well is an extremely difficult task, learning what mastering actually is is quite simple. In our interview with Studio Pros’ mastering engineer, he explained that mastering is basically EQing, compressing, limiting and gain staging the final mix.

What that means is that the engineer tweaks your mix to sound just like the songs you hear on the radio every day–the same volume, the same balanced sound. Without this step, your song just won’t cut it for broadcast quality.

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Did you know that you probably already have enough music to record your album? Even if you just have the basic sketch of a song in your head, it’s probably enough to get started.  The Beatles once famously said that “all you need is love.”  I’m here to say that if you want to record your music, all you really need is a melody and a chord progression. (A little love doesn’t hurt, either!)

You don’t need every section of your song planned out note by note; you don’t need the intro melody or the solo section completely written. All you need is a “sketch.” The song sketch is a rough outline of your song… And when you get world-class, top-notch session musicians to play on your recordings, they help flesh out your creation with their professional expertise. The chord progression, melody and lyrics are the heart and soul of your creation–they are what the whole rest of the production is based off of.

But the production process involves getting down to every last little detail in the song, whether that’s a cool guitar lick in the bridge or a melodic hook in the background vocals. With Studio Pros, you get to be involved in every last step of the process, giving your approval for every instrument as its being recorded. But along with giving your feedback, you get to work with some of the best musicians in the business–musicians who have recorded on hundreds of albums and engineers who have been nominated for Grammy awards. Because of this, you end up collaborating with top professionals who know how to take your song to the next level and make you stand out among the throngs of musicians trying to get heard by record labels and music supervisors.

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You probably have an amazing album inside you, just waiting to burst out. The funny thing is, you might not even realize it yet… Sure, you know you have a lot of great musical ideas and a whole lot of untapped creativity swirling around inside your head. But a whole album might seem like something that you won’t be able to tackle until you have 12 fully realized songs ready to go.

But the fact that you only have a handful of songs that you feel are ready to record shouldn’t stop you from starting the process. Back when I wrote about the biggest myths keeping you from recording your album, I mentioned that not having enough songs doesn’t mean you can’t begin recording your masterpiece. In fact, it may be even better to start laying down some tracks when you only have a few songs to work on. Here are a few reasons why:

You can better focus your creativity

Recording just a few songs allows you to think about only a few things at a time–which means you don’t have to worry about spreading yourself too thin while trying to deal with a whole album’s worth of material. Figuring out the background vocal harmonies on four songs is a much less daunting task than tackling a dozen songs!

Find your musical direction and vision

Many professional musicians don’t have a complete album when they go to record. Instead, they take the music they have and start working with top producers and collaborators who help them hone the direction and vision of the album. This is a good strategy, because if you simply go into a recording session with a full album, you might find that some of them don’t quite fit–and then you’re back to the drawing board again. Starting with a few songs will help you figure out what direction your music is heading in, thereby giving you focus and purpose as you write new material.

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Technology can be a great tool. It can help you come up with your next masterpiece, and it can give you the means of recording your latest creation.  And I don’t know about you, but it sure does make me feel warm and fuzzy inside when I buy a shiny new piece of gear for my home studio.

That is, until I plug it in.  You see, technology is something of a double-edged sword.  Even though buying new gear is really fun, it also means you have to invest a ton of time into learning how to use it well. That’s why the fuzzy feeling starts fading as soon as my new piece of gear is out of the box.  I’m faced with the daunting task of the dreaded musical equipment learning curve, something I may have time to get the hang of, but rarely have the time to master.

And there’s the real kicker–even when you get used to using new gear, it still takes a lot of time, experience, trial and error to be able to use it to its maximum potential the way a top professional would. While it would certainly be nice to get to that point eventually, I don’t want to sacrifice the quality of the recording I’m doing now to work towards the goal of great recordings later.

It’s because of this that technology, while seemingly freeing initially, can really put unnecessary limits on your song’s production and ruin your creative process!  Talk about a catch-22… Every minute you spend figuring out how to maximize your gear’s potential is taken away from time you could have spent composing, creating, and expanding your artistic horizons.

There is, of course, the obvious solution to this dilemma: put your music in the hands of a professional who already knows what they’re doing with today’s best technology.  But that sure sounds easier said than done–it’s not like you can just hand your stuff over to a Grammy-nominated engineer who will mix and master it to radio broadcast standards without forking over your life savings, right?

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Sometimes an awesome guitar solo can add a new level of energy and fun to a song. In some cases, particularly in songs from guitar-focused bands like The Black Crowes and Van Halen, the guitar solo can be the defining moment of a song. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a bad solo can really bring a song down with it. Imagine that just when you are really getting into a song, suddenly a lame solo completely takes you out of it–and once you’re gone, the song may never recover.

It’s important, then, to be sure you’re laying down a sweet solo whenever you record your song–a solo that will enhance it and not hinder it. Here are some tips for recording the ultimate guitar solo!

To improvise or not to improvise?

Even before you go to record your guitar solo, you have some decisions to make. Do you want to sit down and write a solo beforehand or are you planning on improvising one on the spot? Unless you’re a seasoned improviser and you’re playing music that typically involves heavy ad-libbing (like jam band music or jazz), I would recommend at least outlining a sketch of your solo beforehand. You don’t have to plan it lick-for-lick, but it’s a good idea to come up with some basic guidelines: how long you’ll play in one position before shifting up an octave, what bar you want to play a cool arpeggio over, where you’re going to fit in that really catchy lick you came up with, etc.

When I was recording the solo to a song that had a particularly complicated chord progression, I knew I needed to work out what I would play ahead of time, because I probably wouldn’t improvise anything memorable on the spot. I was really glad that I did–the solo that I ended up writing was much more thoughtful and interesting than what I would have made up, and it became a signature musical moment for my band.

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So many talented songwriters and composers love melodies and harmonies so much that they layer as many into their song as they possibly can. They want the best music productions for their songs, but think that adding more and more instruments and parts will make their production sound great.

Unfortunately, it won’t!

Less is more

Have you ever noticed that some of the biggest hits of all time only have three or four instruments on them? Lots of classic Beatles songs just have a couple simple guitar parts, bass, drums and vocals. Nirvana and Green Day have had monumental hit songs, and neither group is more than a power trio. Even “Billie Jean,” one of Michael Jackson’s biggest hits, is a simple production with few instruments.

If you have too many parts, melodies and counter-melodies, it can prevent your song from being catchy and memorable. If you try singing two melodies that are played together in a song, it’s pretty much impossible… And if you can’t do it, neither can your potential fans.

Don’t let too many parts get in the way of your song’s catchy melody

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