WTF is in Elroy Jetson's pocket?

Thu, 1 Sep 2011 16:04:08 -0400

Lately I’ve been pondering this question. It is, without a doubt, one of life’s greatest mysteries. I can’t believe there isn’t ANY information available on the internet about this. In fact, nobody is even asking what that little brick-ish mass in the front of his overalls could be. But I guess that’s what happens when something is so deeply mysterious.

Is it some kind of GPS tracking device from the future? Is it a humble chalkboard eraser? Maybe a camera or an iPad?

I don’t think it’s any of those things, but it is definitely a device from the future. I’m almost 61.34% certain that it’s a Gamboy Advance. Look at the shape. Okay, sure, it’s a little old school for Jetsons-era gaming technology. But when the show was written, the Gameboy Advance would have been YEARS ahead of its time! Maybe Elroy has a taste for classics. The Nintendo 3DS ain’t got nothin’ on this guy.

Wear earplugs

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 01:04:03 -0400

A lot of musicians don’t like to wear earplugs while performing because it affects their performance, their balance, and their energy onstage. But even if you’re just playing with a high-school jazz band, you could be exposing yourself to sound pressure levels (SPL) high enough to cause permanent hearing damage.

120 dB is considered loud enough to cause pain, and is often compared to the loudness of a jet during takeoff. Depending on where you are, many live concerts reach this volume--I find that indoor rock shows are excessively loud in the Baltimore area, whereas they are slightly more controlled in cities like Boston and Nashville.

So it’s really important for musicians to wear earplugs. After all, our ears are our livelihood! And anyone attending loud concerts should wear ear protection as well. Even prolonged exposure to SPLs of 90 dB can make you go deaf. It’s especially important to remember right now during festival season, when you might be spending 9 hours at Warped Tour or three days at Bonnaroo.

But what’s especially interesting is how wearing earplugs can backfire, particularly for musicians. When you’ve been playing for years without earplugs and suddenly you start shoving big hunks of foam in your ears, you no longer hear the power and volume you’re used to coming out of your instrument. Many instrumentalists begin to overexert themselves and cause serious damage to their muscles--think about a drummer trying to hit twice as hard. And if you’re really overzealous, you just may be playing so loud that you’re once again damaging your ears.

The best solution is to get earplugs with a smaller decibel reduction rating. They’ll block out less sound, so you’ll still hear things the way you’re used to and you can play normally. These earplugs are still usually great for cutting out the high-frequency ringing that causes rapid hearing loss and immediate pain. Believe it or not, more reduction is not always a good thing!

The other nice thing about plugs with a lower decibel reduction is that they actually make it easier to sing onstage. With general-use foam earplugs, all you can hear is your own voice when you speak. It gets trapped inside your head and drowns out the sounds around you, making you feel like you’re singing really loud when you’re actually just whispering.

I recommend these Hearos earplugs made specifically for musicians. There are a lot of brands that make similar looking models with the same three-cup design, and I’m sure any of them will do the job just as well. They’re cheap, reusable, and washable. And if you can’t stand to wear them for your own performances, at least wear them when you’re in the audience. They really do turn the volume overkill in a club into a more musical experience!

Of course, if you’re willing to shell out a few hundred bucks, you can get really nice flat-EQ earplugs custom fitted to your own ears. Anything is better than plugs made for snoring, swimming, construction, or Nascar racing!

Put on a shirt

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 23:59:55 -0400

If your band doesn’t have t-shirts yet, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity for profit. Getting shirts printed for The Suburban Pirate Orchestra was the single most lucrative decision I ever made for the band. They sold better than CDs, and they continue to advertise for TSPO to this day.

The great thing about t-shirts is that you can get them pretty cheap and sell them for at least double the cost. I ordered just 48 shirts to start, for $4 each and sold them for $10. That’s a pretty average price for a t-shirt at a show, and $6 profit per unit certainly isn’t bad. And provides you the ability to make back the cash you fronted for the first batch and use the profits to order more shirts!

I’ve seen ballsy local bands sell shirts for $15, but I’ve seen smart ones sell them for $5. After all, what’s five bucks to somebody? That could be one beer, or it could be a cool shirt that you can wear forever, and the band’s still making back their investment.

For printing, I highly recommend Contagious Graphics. They’re the only company I’ve ever seen that offers a small quantity of shirts for $4 per shirt with no additional screen set up charge. And my favorite thing is that they check your artwork to verify that it’s compatible and will look good before they print.

Their T-Shirt Garage Sale is a truly killer deal. You get 48 shirts in every color you could imagine, and people love picking through them to find a shade that matches their own personality perfectly. Contagious Graphics promises not to give you pink shirts unless you request them, and believe me, you will definitely want a few. They print the shirts with your one-color logo on one side--black ink on light shirts and white ink on dark ones. None of the shirts are duds or low-quality materials, either. They’re the same shirts you could buy for a lot more money, just all mixed up. And you pick the sizes you want.

Contagious Graphics also offers stickers and posters. They’re constantly giving away free stuff so make sure you’re on their mailing list.

Don’t miss out on the money you could be making and the advertising you could be getting by waiting to get t-shirts made. If your band is drawing crowds, you can guarantee your shirts will pay for themselves. And the only thing cooler than receiving a huge box of your own band’s t-shirts is seeing a stranger wearing one at the mall.

The Closetalkers

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:41:33 -0400

When I really think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever played in a pop band. Or a blues band. Or a southern rock band. But playing the Closetalkers fills all those voids for me.
 The Closetalkers play music for the good times, that’s all there is to it. It’s fun and not overly serious, perfect for casual audiences in bars and at big festivals. And you’re guaranteed not to hear a bunch of weird music you never asked to hear. When you’ve played so much cerebral music, it’s nice to play in The People’s band.

We’ve been received extremely well at every venue we’ve played. The Closetalkers were selected as the staff pick for our first round at the 8x10’s Battle of the Bands. The band has been asked to play repeatedly at Half Pints, Looney’s Pub, and Broom’s Bloom.

Originally just a keyboard and guitar duo, Sam O’Hare and Danny Garrett have been playing in Harford County for years. This spring they changed the band’s name from Sam and Danny to the Closetalkers upon the addition of former Daybreak Terrace drummer Tyler Pietruszka. I joined a few months later.

Make sure to come by the All for One Cure Benefit this Thursday to see the Closetalkers rock the Main Stage at 11 AM, and then check out the Willmatics at 3:30. Also, come support us at the 8x10 for our second round in their Battle of the Bands on June 29th.

The Closetalkers offer everything from Maroon 5 and Stevie Wonder to the Beatles and Steppenwolf. For a full up-to-date list of events, head over to www.theclosetalkers.net.

Recording Vocals Part 3: Mixing

Mon, 6 Jun 2011 01:56:47 -0400

If you’re recording vocals in your home studio, you’re going to need some decent equipment and more importantly some some solid recording technique (see part 1 and 2 of this blog, respectively). But everybody knows that at the end of the day, you’ve got some mixing to do. Especially if you want this song to sound professional.

I find that in vocal mixing (and mixing in general) less is more. It is vital that you have recorded the best possible performance from your singer--and if you haven’t done that by now, go back to part 2 and start over. No amount of editing can make up for a crappy performance, poor mic placement, or unwanted room reverb.

The first thing you need to do is create a “comp” or composite take made up of the best parts of every one of your three to five really perfect takes. Yeah, that’s right, they weren’t quite as perfect as you thought they were when you were recording, huh? There are a number of ways to do this depending on how you recorded your takes and what DAW you’re using, but however you do it make sure your track sounds consistent all the way through in terms of tone, confidence, and energy. Create small crossfades in between your cuts to make sure there aren’t any pops or clicks in your final comp track.

Try to avoid using pitch correction software unless it’s absolutely necessary. Plugins like autotune have a tendency to take the life and realism out of your music and make your singer sound like a robot--unless, of course, you’re producing T-Pain; in that case load it on! I like to (sparingly) use Melodyne to make small corrections in pitch if needed, because it’s one of the most natural sounding and robust pitch and time editors available.

You may hear the need to adjust the EQ slightly. I’d start by adding a high pass filter just below the fundamental pitch of the vocal to cut out the low end rumbles that can muddy up the mix. In most pop recordings, the vocal is all high-end. Other than that, try to stick to cutting frequencies more than boosting them. If you do boost, use less than 4dB at any one frequency.

Compression on the vocal track is very important. A compressor’s job is to limit the range of dynamics in a track, much like having someone turn down a fader each time the vocalist gets too loud. You’ll need compression to bring the lead singer out in your mix and allow her to sit comfortably on top of all the other instruments. Start with your compressor’s ratio between 2:1 and 3:1 and adjust the threshold so you end up with between 6 and 12 dB of reduction on the meter. Tweak these two controls together while listening very carefully. Make your singer strong without sounding choked! You can raise the gain control for a louder signal. Raising the attack value will cause the compressor to react more slowly, reducing the volume a longer amount of time after each transient. Adjusting the release changes the amount of time that the volume reduction remains in effect.

After compressing the vocal, some additional automation is usually needed to keep the singer sounding strong and in focus throughout the entire track. This is known as riding the vocal. Listen to the song while constantly automating the volume fader to keep the lead vocal at an appropriate level on top of the frenzied wall of distorted guitars.

Many novice mixers will insist on adding a ton of reverb, but I beg you to use just a touch. If you listen carefully to popular music today, you’ll notice that it’s all very dry, unlike the sound of symphonic music and ‘80s new wave!

Contrary to what you may think, we’re not going to add the reverb plugin to the list of inserts on your vocal track. To save on your computer’s CPU resources and to create a unified sound of one space for your entire mix, we’re going to create a reverb aux track. Create a new aux (or auxiliary) track in your project. Name it “Reverb”. Add your favorite reverb plugin to this track--I personally like the Waves Renaissance Reverberator or RVerb. Set it to a preset that you like, such as a medium sized room with a moderate decay time. Crank the wet to 100% and the dry to 0%. Now you’re going to use a bus to connect your vocal track (and all your other instrument tracks, for that matter) to this new reverb aux. Just set Send 1 in your vocal track to Bus 1 and set the input for the reverb aux to Bus 1 as well (If you’re using ProTools or Digital Performer, you may need to unhide your sends). Imagine that this bus is a patch cable connecting a piece of rack-mounted gear to a hardware mixer. Turn up the Send 1 level on your vocal track and listen to the amount of reverb change. To the right is kind of what it might look like in Logic.

If you do this to all of the tracks in your mix, you can create a sense that all of the instruments are playing in the same room because the reverb unit will be consistent amongst all of them. To make something sound far away in the room, turn up the reverb a bit. To make it sound right up in your face, bring the reverb way down. Again, remember not to use a lot of reverb so your mix doesn’t become muddy.

If you have background vocals, use a different amount of reverb for them and pan them off to the sides for a cool stereo effect. It doesn’t hurt to add some light chorus, too, for thickening and to really isolate them from the vocals.

As always, the most important thing to do is listen. Mixing is like playing an instrument; the more your practice, the better your mixing chops will get. The best thing to do is to frequently reference a song that was produced in a similar style to what you’re shooting to create and compare it to your current mix. It’s very easy when mixing to lose track of what things really sound like when you’re listening to your own project on repeat.

This concludes my three-part blog about recording vocals. While some of this information may seem obvious to you and some of it may seem over your head, I’m confident that many people can at least take away a few new ideas and some fresh insight. Everyone does it differently, and I encourage you to experiment and find your own way. This is simply the best procedure I can compile from my own years of experimentation topped off with some Berklee tips and tricks. Hopefully you’ve learned to keep your ears wide open and now you have a polished product to use on your next demo or independent release!