1. How to Record Electric Guitar in Your Home Studio

“Tips and tricks for recording electric guitar. Check this vid for some fresh ideas. mic choice and placement ideas.”

2. How to Record an Electric Guitar on Your Mac

Here’s some tips and advice from the official Apple site:

“It’s easy to record great electric guitar sounds on your Mac. You don’t even need an amplifier or effects pedals — GarageBand, Logic Pro, Soundtrack Pro, and many other Mac-compatible audio programs include plug-ins that can mimic vast collections of vintage and modern gear.

“There are several ways to connect your guitar. This tutorial helps you pinpoint the right method for you. You’ll also learn how to fine-tune your software and hardware to capture the perfect sound.” Read more.

3. Electric Guitar Tone & Effects When Recording Tracks Tutorial

“Electric Guitar Tone & effects when recording tracks quick tips tutorials.”

4. Recording Electric Guitar

Some great ideas from Mix Online Magazine.

“Let’s assume for the purposes of this discussion that we’re starting with a good guitarist, with a good instrument and a good sound at the amplifier. Otherwise, there’s nothing I can do in the control room to get a good sound. I can improve upon it, but I can’t get a really great guitar sound. The first thing that I do, whether it’s with a guitar or another instrument, is go out and listen to the source. You don’t want to hear something for the first time after it has passed through a microphone, a mic cable, a fader and a pair of speakers. If there’s a really killer sound coming out of the amplifier, I’ll do whatever I have to do to capture that sound.” Read more.

5. How To Record Electric Guitar with Guitar Rig 3 in Audacity

“This is a tutorial about how I use Guitar Rig 3 as a VST plugin for Audacity.”

6. How To Get Expensive Guitar Sounds From a Cheap Home Studio

From the Audio Recording Center:

“I’m always amazed by how many people working in home studios think you need a $750,000 console, a 48-track digital machine, an arsenal of $2,000 microphones, and tons of outboard gear to make your tapes sound “professional.” It’s just not true.

“What you need is some basic knowledge about the physics of audio (most of which you can learn by dropping a pebble in a puddle of water), and some pretty basic and inexpensive equipment. This is especially true for recording the electric guitar. Trust me–if it were brain surgery, I would have become a brain surgeon and made my mother a much happier woman. And while I have the opportunity . . . for all you kids who want to grow up to be recording engineers–don’t do it. Become brain surgeons. They make a lot more money, drive nicer cars, and never have to worry about where their next gig is coming from.” Read more.

7. Episode 9 – Recording Electric Guitars

“How to record electric guitars using an sm57 mving coil mic. Centered off center close and distant techniques. Frequency response of each technique.”

8. The Guitarist’s Guide to Recording on your Computer

Some great product advice from TweakHeadz Lab.

“It might seem strange for some of you to think I might know anything about guitars, with my small claim to notoriety being sampling and programming, but the truth is, I was originally a guitar player who played in real bands. I’ve been recording acoustic and electric guitars so long I’d rather not tell. I’ve also gone pretty deep into midi guitar and have programmed guitar patches on synths for MIDI guitars. The good thing for you is that you get the advantage of some hard won tips on recording guitars and making your playing sound the best it can be. Lets start with a basic guide to ways to record your guitar on your computer.

“First you need a way to get audio into your computer. The ideal way is to get an audio interface that has a Microphone preamp for recording acoustic guitar, vocals, drums, etc. and Instrument input for recording electric guitars and basses. These don’t have to be expensive, and many are custom designed for the guitarist. They might come with digital models of guitars and amps built right into the interface or in the software that comes in the package.” Read more.

9. Coyote Circle Studio – Recording Electric Guitar

“Here I show how, with only a small amount of gear and a few small changes in setup you can create several different guitar sounds. I’m playing a 1987 Fender American Standard Stratocaster with stock pickups through a 1967 Fender Basmman with a 2×12 cabinet.”

10. Recording Electric Guitar

And finally, Sound on Sound Magazine add their advice to the mix.

“The theory of evolution says that the longer something has been evolving the more complex it tends to get, and this is certainly true of the electric guitar, which has been evolving for over half a century. Electric guitar sounds rely on the instrument itself, the amplifier through which it is played and also on the loudspeaker system used. Further variables are introduced when miking techniques are taken into consideration, though these days miking is only one of the ways of recording an electric guitar — we also have a number of effective DI techniques from which to choose.” Read more.

Conclusion

That brings us to the end of our 10 great tuts about recording electric guitar. Which did you find most helpful? Would you like to let us know of other electric guitar tuts? Do you have some tips of your own you’d like to add? Please let us know in the comments.

Here is a short track demonstrating what you will achieve with this tutorial:

Download audio file (AudioTuts Jam.mp3)

1. What are we trying to achieve?

When we develop musical ideas in our heads, even just short progressions, they’re often quite fully formed with lots of important rhythmic nuances and interplay between multiple instruments. Being able to develop and test these ideas is an essential compositional process and, even if you’re skilled enough to be able to write out multi-part scores, knowing how to use a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) like GarageBand can really enrich and speed up the creative process. Not only that, you’re able to communicate your musical ideas to band mates and collaborators so much more easily when they can just hear it.

The good news is that computer-based home recording needn’t require a huge investment of time or money: tools like GarageBand (which is part of Apple’s iLife package, around US$65) are very affordable and very easy to use while containing a surprisingly rich set of features. You won’t achieve professional studio quality results, but you don’t need to and, moreover, it’s not the point – hopefully your recordings will sound good, but we’ll save the fancy recording techniques for the studio – this is all about developing, recording and sharing your ideas. That said, if you do find that you want to progress to that level, getting to grips with the following processes is great way to get started.

So, let’s take a look at how to develop a simple guitar riff idea into a basic song demo that you can share with your band mates.

2. What You Need

The idea here is using as little extra kit as possible. In fact, if you’re reading this article, the only thing you might not already have is a means of plugging your guitar into your Mac. There are many ways of doing this, ranging from multi-input I/O devices to simple ¼” to ⅛” jack adaptors, but I recommend going for a simple jack adaptor for now since they’re cheap and will work just fine for what we’re going to do here.

3. Starting a Project

On opening GarageBand, you should see this window:

Select the Electric Guitar icon and click Choose. A new window will open asking you to define a name and location for the project file. Give it a name, and click Create.

Tip: start out with a good habit and give your projects meaningful titles; sorting through countless projects called “idea1″ or “song2″ gets annoying very quickly!

Don’t worry about the project tempo, key signature and so on for now; we’ll deal with those details later. Click Create, and the main GarageBand project window will open.

4. Orientation

There are 4 key areas of the project window:

1. On the left are the track headers and track mixer – this is where you edit track properties like volume and pan, mute or solo the track, and check the track’s levels.
2. In the middle is the arrange window. Your instrument tracks and loops will appear here.
3. At the bottom are the carriage controls and, via the LED style display, you can alter tempo, time signature and, for real instruments, access a tuner. To the left of this is the master level control and meter. At the very far left, there are buttons to create a new track (“+” symbol) and open the Track Editor (scissors symbol); at the right, buttons to open the Media Browser (film/musical note symbol); open the Track Info panel (circle “i” symbol) and open the Loop Browser (eye symbol).
4. At the right is the Track Info panel, which contains a track’s instrument properties and, on the Master Track tab, the master track properties.

For a more detailed introduction, take a look at Apple’s GarageBand at a Glance document. I’m using GarageBand 09, but Apple’s guide still refers to the 08 release. There are some small differences, but they’re largely cosmetic and shouldn’t cause you too much confusion.

5. Setting Preferences

To get the guitar signal into GarageBand, we need to ensure that the correct input is selected. Go to Preferences by pressing the Command+comma keys simultaneously. In the Preferences window, go to the Audio/MIDI tab and, in the Audio Input and Audio Output drop-down menus, choose Built-in Output and Built-in Input. If they weren’t already selected, you will see a pop-up window asking you if you want to change the audio driver – you do, so click OK.

6. Sound Check

Before we get started with our song, let’s make sure that we’re actually getting sound. Plug your guitar into the computer’s line input, and set your computer’s volume to an appropriate level.

Double click the amplifier icon in the Track Info panel; the icon will turn around and a settings menu will appear below it. In the menu, check that the Source is Mono 1 (Built-in Input) and that Monitor is set to On. Leave that menu open for now, we’re going to come back to the Recording Level in a moment.

Next, we need to “arm” the track (i.e. turn it on) in order to be able to hear the guitar signal. Click the circle at the far left of the track header; it should turn red indicating that the track is now armed. You should now be able to hear your guitar through the computer’s speakers or your headphones. If you can’t, check back through the previous steps, check your cable, and make sure your guitar’s volume is turned up!

As you play, note the level meter on the track header. Adjust the Recording Level slider in the Track Info panel until the meter only occasionally hits the yellow and amber lights. If necessary, adjust the track volume slider too. When you’re happy with the level, double click the amplifier icon again to display the amp’s controls.

7. Dialling Tone

At this point, you might want to play around with your guitar tone a little. You’ll have noticed that, under the amplifier icon in the Track Info panel, there’s a set of familiar looking EQ controls. These work exactly as you’d expect, so feel free to play around and find a good basic tone. If the default amp isn’t your thing, hover your cursor over the amplifier icon and an arrow appears either side. Use these to cycle through GarageBand’s array of amplifier models: you’ll see lot’s of familiar amp types, from high gain half-stacks to tweed combos.

You’ll also notice the effect pedal icons next the the amplifier. Clicking on an effect pedal opens it’s settings, while double clicking brings up a menu of other pedals which can be dragged and dropped into the signal chain. Play around and see what you can come up with.

8. Noise Annoys

On the whole, GarageBand’s built in amp emulator is versatile and produces some great quality sounds, but you will find that, the more distortion you use, the more unwanted hiss you’ll get, especially when using single coil pickups. However, there are a few simple things you can do to minimise the noise:

1. Don’t overdo it with the distortion. Most good guitar tones use a lot less distortion than you might think, even heavy ones, and you can thicken the sound up with multiple tracks if you need to.
2. Make sure you’re using a good quality, screened instrument cable. If it’s of poor quality, or is damaged, you’ll pick up more noise.
3. Turn off fluorescent lights (including energy saving bulbs), TVs, and any other electrical equipment that doesn’t need to be on. They all generate electrical noise which your guitar can pick up.
4. Try sitting or standing in a different place. Often, just turning a little in one direction or another will cut some noise.
5. Turn on the noise gate.

I’ve deliberately put the noise gate last. Always try to eliminate as much unwanted noise through other means before you put the noise gate on: it’s a great tool, but the cleaner the signal it has to work with, the better it will work for you.

To set the noise gate, double click the amplifier icon again and, in the settings panel, check the noise gate box and experiment with the slider level until you get the best balance between noise reduction and your instrument’s natural attack and decay.

9. Setting Tempo

I find that the easiest way to start a track is to jam my basic idea along to GargeBand’s metronome to determine the right tempo. Turn on the metronome by going to Control on the Toolbar and selecting Metronome, then click the play button (or press the spacebar). You should now be able to hear the metronome click.

To change the time signature and tempo, click on the symbol at the far left of the LED style display and, from the pop-up menu, select Project. Clicking on the tempo and time signature in the LED display will open a slider with which to alter the setting.

10. Recording Your Ideas

When you’re happy with the tempo, try recording your idea. To do that, just click the red button next to the carriage controls or, easier still, press R on your keyboard. To stop recording, simply tap the spacebar.

If you want to re-record, just hit spacebar and start again.

11. Using Loops

You might find that you struggle to keep in time using just the metronome, especially if you’re not accustomed to “playing to a click”; or maybe it just feels too clinical without a beat going on? No problem. We can use one of GarageBand’s drum loops to help make things feel a little more natural, and it may inspire some new ideas too.

Loops are accessed via the Loop Browser. Click the “eye” icon under the Track Info bar, and you’ll see a menu of loops organised by instrument and musical genre. In the screen shot, you can see that I’ve selected All Drums, and can cycle through the list of available loops at the bottom of the window. Clicking on a loop in the list will play the loop, so you can preview them without putting them into project.

Loops with a green icon are produced with GarageBand’s inbuilt synth instruments, and so are fully editable. Loops with a blue icon are actual audio samples and so are not editable; for that reason, they won’t sound too good in your project if your project’s tempo is much different than the loop’s tempo.

To use a loop, simply drag it from the list into the Arrange Window, and a new track will automatically appear containing the loop. To extend the loop over multiple bars, just hover your mouse over the right edge of the loop you dragged into the track; the cursor will change into a circular arrow, indicating that you can click and drag the loop out across as many bars as you like.

12. Get Creative

At this point, with the original idea down, you might start coming up with more parts to go with it. My advice here is to go with the flow and don’t filter your ideas too much: you can worry about whether you’ve inadvertently ripped off someone else’s song later on, but for now just let the theme of your first idea develop. I find it helpful to simply record each part separately: for example, I might record a couple of bars of a chorus idea and then, in the same track, a verse idea, and so on until I have the essential pieces I need to start fleshing out the composition.

You may also want to start adding harmony or melody parts on top of your first track. A quick way to do that is to select your existing guitar track’s Track Header and press Command+D on your keyboard, thus duplicating the original track. Having done that, pan the tracks to opposite sides of the stereo field using the pan wheel on the Track Header, and remember to “arm” the new track before you record.

13. Order From Chaos

Don’t worry if things look a little messy and disordered at this point. You can copy, paste, drag and drop, trim and adjust these snippets later. Think of it like writing down phrases onto Post-It notes, and then rearranging the Post-Its to form a paragraph, and then a page. I find doing things this way helps my creativity by letting me get the ideas out of my head and onto the computer quickly, leaving me free to worry about arrangement and the finer points of the composition later.

In the next part of this tutorial, we’ll look at how to take these fragments of audio and arrange them into a song structure and, from there, start to build up the backing parts using GarageBand’s built in software instruments.

For now, save your work by clicking File on the toolbar, then Save (or Command+S), and we’ll flesh the idea in part 2.

This track has been submitted for your friendly, constructive criticism. They have put their track (and their heart and soul) in your hands to learn and get useful feedback.

• Do you enjoy the song or track itself? Does it have potential?
• Can the arrangement be improved?
• How did you find the mix? What would you do differently?
• What do you enjoy about the rhythm track? What can be done to improve it?
• Is the choice of instruments relevant and effective for the style/song?
• Are the lyrics (if any) effective? Does the style, arrangement and genre of the song suit them?
• Can you suggest any specific techniques that might improve the track?
• Do you have any other constructive feedback?

Pop It Off Early by Tyson Willert

Artist’s website: soundcloud.com/tysonwillert

Description of the track:

Yes the killa cam samples are allowed, I do live in LA. Is anyone feeling this?

• Trying to make it as loud as possible and finally beat my reference track. Quality has kind of diminished though, little loss of dynamics chasing perceived loudness
• While I’m getting my loudness I’ve used reverb to fill the track consequently track doesn’t hit as hard? Sound doesn’t hit as direct. Little spaced out? Is it too chaotic?
• I know there is no real melody, that’s why I’m asking if anyone actually likes this haha

Not really a fan of WIP tracks but this one was messing with me, hey everyone what do you think? BTW where is the forum?

Thanks for the suggestion of a forum, Tyson. There isn’t one at the moment. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be one in the future. Don’t expect one too soon.

Download audio file (TysonWillertPopifOffEarly103.mp3)

Terms of Use: No download. Please have Mo or someone just as cool check it out. Rather than someone who is awesome in a genre that isn’t dance music. Welcome all comments from everyone though.

Have a listen to the track and offer your constructive criticism for this Workshop in the comments section.

Submit Your Tracks for Workshopping

Need constructive criticism on your own tracks? Submit them using this form.

One area that is hugely important is creating interesting transitions and using varying fills when introducing new elements. These small sections of your track can become some of the most time consuming, but don’t underestimate how important they are. Let’s take a look at a few real world examples.

Step 1: The Basic Drop

For the purpose of this tutorial I have mocked up a small dummy arrangement showing the transition between a few different sections of a hypothetical track. The track is very simple and has only been constructed to demonstrate the techniques included, so please no comments on how good or bad it sounds. I’m aware it’s not going to win any awards!

In each step of the tutorial we’ll look at different techniques for creating varied and interesting fills. These will vary in complexity and approach but by the end you should feel equipped to create your own versions.

First up let’s take a look at perhaps the most simple method for moving between sections in your track, the drop. A drop is really easy to recreate and can be extremely effective, so don’t be put of by its simplicity.

Basically all we are aiming to do here is remove one or more elements from the mix to drop the energy of the piece temporarily. This enables us to change the mood enough so that new elements can then be introduced effectively. In this case we have dropped the main beat and even this creates enough space to distract the listener and signal the new section.

The basic drop.

The percussion loop is also faded out over the drop using level automation and by the time the gap is bridged the new sections and bass part is introduced nicely. Sometimes a simple drop like this is all you need to get your new instrument into the mix.

Automation is also added to compliment the edit.

Download audio file (1.mp3)

The drop fill in action.

Step 2: Programmed Builds

An alternative to dropping the energy is to increase it. This is usually achieved by a build and builds can come in many different guises. The increased energy that a build provides means they are perfect for transitions that introduce more frantic elements or further layered parts but saying that they can also be used to introduce a sparse cut down section.

The sounds you use to create your fill can vary drastically but traditionally drums would be used. Snare and kick drum rolls have been really popular for years now and tend to lend themselves to electronic music. Although the standard 16th snare roll may still work it might be worth putting a bit more time and thought into the process and create something a bit more original.

In this example I have simply cut a section from the main drum loop, repeated it in 16th of a bar increments over half a bar and used level automation to fade the whole thing in. This isn’t rocket science and creates quite a simple and effective little build. This is obviously quite a laid back track so intensity isn’t really called for but in other styles these builds could be used over larger sections of the track. Extra layers and effects could also be added throughout the build to increase the tension.

The programmed build.

… And some automation to spice things up.

Download audio file (2.mp3)

The finished build.

Step 3: Sample and Effects Based Fills

Another way to create builds is to use samples. Of course you don’t have as much flexibility here but select the right fill sample and you can really add to your track. If you aren’t 100% confident in your programming abilities, using fill samples can also be a great way to introduce some groove into your transitions.

The trick to using fill samples is taking your time picking the right one. This may sound pretty obvious but often this process is rushed and the wrong fill sample can sound out of place and can make a production sound a little amateur. Take special care of the drum sound and timbre in the samples you select and try to match them with your current mix elements.

In this example I spent some time picking a suitable sample and then fine tuned it to ensure a good fit. Some light delay was added, the sample was trimmed to size and a small fade was executed to edit the end of the sample. The end result is a pretty realistic drum fill, that adds a human feel to the mix.

The sample is added to the mix.

The sample is lightly treated.

Download audio file (3.mp3)

The new sample treated and in place.

Step 4: The Programmed Fill

If you’re after something a little more technical then you may want to program your own fills and breaks. This approach will give you a more electronic feel but executed well it can work with most genres. There are no hard and fast rules here, its all about creativity. Any element in your mix can be cut up and programmed as a fill. Obviously drums are the obvious choice but you can also try instruments and effects.

In this example I dissected the main drum loop into its component parts and created a new pattern by placing the slices in various locations. I also created some buffer repeats and used pan and volume automation to mix things up a little. If you are using midi this process is even easier and the only real limit here is your imagination. With practice a new pattern like this can be created very quickly.

The new programmed fill with automation

A close up of the programming

Download audio file (4.mp3)

The programmed fill in the mix.

Download audio file (4b.mp3)

… And in isolation.

Step 5: Using Automation and Effects

Up until this point all the techniques shown have involved manipulating exciting audio or samples. You can however create builds and fills without performing a single edit, this achieved through the use of automation.

As you may of noticed in the previous examples I have used volume and pan automation to compliment the edits, but the last fill/build in our mini track simply adds reverb to the percussion loop over about 4 bars. The bass is then faded out in volume and the main drum loop is filtered over the same time using a very simple stock low pass filter.

The automation creating the build.

Download audio file (5.mp3)

The Automation based build.

This is all simple stuff but combined it creates a slow mutation and a wash of reverb that moves us into the final part of the arrangement very smoothly. This sort of technique can work really well when moving into breakdowns or more minimal sections of your track.

If these small tips have been useful to you let me know and I’ll expand on the whole subject of arrangement and create some more tutorials for you all.

The finished mini arrangement

… and the mix

Download audio file (5b.mp3)

The whole track.

I’ve never been good with a metronome. The tedious and tiresome repetition brought forth by playing scales over and over again to a metronome has never appealed much to me. Maybe it has something to do with me being the I-want-it-now generation that I just didn’t have the patience to practice to the steady beat of a metronome all day. I had a much better time learning Metallica riffs and with playing them over and over again, I had an easier time gaining finger dexterity and some speed in my playing that way.

But because I’ve never liked playing to a metronome I’ve never actually been able to play well to a click track. I absolutely despise the tick-tock monotonic feel of the typical DAW click track and I’m never able to play correctly to it. I know I’m not alone because I’ve encountered many instrumentalists that can’t record properly to a click track. They see they can’t feel musical and have a hard time getting their groove into playing alongside a droning click track. But there are a few ways you can get your players to record with more confidence and feel.

Discard your click track

There are plenty of rhythmic options inside your DAW that you can use to evoke a better performance out of an artist.

1. Change the click. In Logic Pro, you can actually change the sound of the click-track by going into the environment. In Window>Environment you can open up the environment window and change the synth that’s used to play a click track.

   

2. Use a drum machine. Create a simple beat with kick, snare and hats for a more human feel. You could even program an alternating drum beat that has a few different parts to make it even more real. Better yet, try to program a beat that accents the type of playing that’s about to be recorded.

3. Use percussion loops. Use shakers or other percussion type loops. Guitarists often respond much better to the live feel of a typical shaker than a harsh click track.

4. Use real drum loops. If you’re recording a hard rock song, maybe you need something a bit more substantial than a shaker. Try using some rock drum loops that have crashes and big sounds so you can get the performer to lock in with the song.

5. Don’t use a click track. Maybe this particular song doesn’t need a click track? Be careful when opting not to use a click track because if the players that build the foundation or rhythm structure are all over the BPM map, it’s going to be harder for the following players to record on top. That said, you can get a really nice feel out of certain genres when you allow the players to weave in and out of rhythm as they want.

Conclusion

If you are anything like me, or know that your fellow recording musicians are going to be, be ready to give them a few more options when they record next. Instead of trying to squeeze a forced performance out of a player that’s struggling to keep up with a click track, see if you can’t make him feel better with an alternative option. Throw in a shaker instead and see if he responds better to it. Use some drum loops or program your own beats that follow the performance of the track recorded. It’s all about getting that great performance out of the musicians, and by keeping these things in mind you can both accommodate your musicians and accomplish you goals at the same time.

To learn more about what you get as part of Audio Premium, read this. To take a peek inside this tutorial, hit the jump!

Effects in mixing are like the cherry on top of an ice cream. That little thing that makes everything so much better. We use effects to enhance our mixes and instruments, giving them more interest, depth and sparkle. Effects can make the most bland instrumental part sound vivid and cool. Whether it’s tremolo to add rhythm to stagnant chords, vibrato for movement of your electric piano or chorus for you backing vocals, the creative use of effects can really help make a mix better.

In the following tutorial I’m going to go into detail of what each effect does, illustrate it with some famous examples from music history and provide you with practical examples that you can use in your mixes.

Table of Contents

• 1. A Little About the LFO
• 2. Delay Time
• 3. Chorus for Depth
• 4. Chorus for Acoustic Guitar
• 5. A Wave of Flange
• 6. Flanger for Post Production and Sound Design
• 7. Phasers
• 8. Vibrato
• 9. The Tremolo Effect
• 10. A Sense of Excitement
• Conclusion

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Each Tuesday we open our mic to readers and lurkers alike to come out of the woodwork and tell us your thoughts and opinion, your experiences and mistakes, what you love and what you hate. We want to hear from you, and here’s your chance.

Do you use a hardware mixer in your studio, or is the software mixer in your DAW all that you need?

Which hardware mixer do you use? Why did you choose it? Are you happy with it? Do you have any hints about buying the right mixer?

How do you use your mixer? How does it integrate with your other audio hardware? Do you use it to record more than one instrument at a time? Can you get by without a mixer in your studio?

Do you use a mixer in a live setting? Do you look for something different in a live mixer?

Flickr Image by emdot

Song Idea Management

So you’re a composer, musician, or songwriter. You have a great idea for a new song in the middle of the night – what do you do!? For most of us, the flash of creative inspiration often comes at the most inopportune times. That’s why it is important to always have some means of capturing these ideas close at hand. For most of us that leaves a couple of options:

• Laptop or Desktop Recorder: If you’re fortunate enough to be quick on the draw, or close enough to your DAW, by all means – capture your song idea right into your full recording app. Remember to give the song a memorable name – something you’ll recognize so you can come back to it.
• Voice Recorder: A simple voice recorder – standalone or as a phone or PDA app – can be a great, handy tool for capturing your song ideas on the go. Some of these recorders have naming functionality so you can label your songs appropriately. If not, be sure to promptly download your ideas to your computer and label your songs as soon as possible so they don’t become lost or forgotten.
• Standalone Multitrack Recorder: Perhaps you already have a compact, standalone multitrack recorder, such as those made by Zoom, Tascam, Korg and Fostex. These are great ways to capture song ideas – provided you have a way to label and categorize the ideas once you’ve quickly recorded them.
• Manuscript: Some of you might be skilled enough to be able to write your music down on staff paper, without an instrument or recorder handy. If this is you, remember to jot down notes and labels so you can file or expand upon your ideas at a later time.

Flickr Image by oddsock

While it may seem simple and mundane, managing your song lyrics is an important step in librarianship. After all – not every song is written the same way, and what may begin as lyrics for one song may eventually morph into lyrics for a different song.

From this perspective, think of managing and organizing your song lyrics as a separate and distinct art – apart from managing your musical song ideas. Here are a few ideas on how you might organize song lyrics:

• Database: For those savvy enough to do so, a simple database system makes a great way to organize song lyrics. You can easily create several searchable fields including song text, song title, song themes, and ‘tags’. Then, when you decide you want to work on a song about topic X, you can search your database to see if you’ve got any lyric ideas that might be a good starting place.
• Word Processor: A simple word processor or text editor is a fine way to manage lyrics, provided you’ve created a folder/directory system that makes it easy to find what you’re looking for. Fortunately, todays operating systems make it relatively easy to search within a file – so even if you forget the title of a song, remembering one or two lines may make it possible to find the file through a system-wide-search.
• Paper + Pencil: Believe it or not, many songwriters still prefer to write lyrics the old fashioned way. I keep several notebooks handy to write down ideas for poems and lyrics. I come back to these books periodically and pick out the ideas that deserve further consideration and transcribe them into my computer.

Sample Management

Flickr Image by altemark

Perhaps the most in-depth and critical aspect of writing music in the digital age is that of managing samples and presets. Fortunately, the vast majority of major software music applications acknowledge this, and have implemented systems for creating, saving and finding your source material. That said, here are some applications and ideas you may consider to assist you in your quest for library domination:

• Native File Systems: Believe it or not, many creative types simply use their native OS filesystems to find and organize files. With a smart folder/directory structure, and appropriate management of metadata, most modern OS’s make it possible to find your content without too much additional work, and no extra cost.
• Asset Management Systems: For people with massive amounts of sample data, original field recordings, and so forth, a dedicated sample management application may be in order. There are numerous varieties, and they range from simple and inexpensive to massive and “cost a fortune”. In no particular order, here are a few standouts:
  • Iced Audio Audiofinder: A Mac-based asset management system that acts as a ‘hub’ for all your samples. Allows auditioning across pitches, beat detection and tools for editing. Only $70 – highly recommended for Mac users.
  • Audioease Snapper: Similar to Audiofinder, Snapper is a Mac-based app aimed at making your content easier to work with. While it isn’t really a ‘management’ system, Snapper is built as a kind of extension to the Finder allowing instant auditioning, editing, and manipulation of files.
  • Soundminer, NetMix, Sonomic, Basehead: These apps are all robust, database driven sound management apps, with a wide range of features and capabilities. They also vary widely in price, but for someone with a huge library of sounds, the amount of time they save in finding content can be a real lifesaver. I have personal experience with Basehead and Soundminer, and both are excellent applications.
• Proprietary Systems: Standalone systems such as Native Instruments Kore takes the whole library concept one further by encapsulating all of the Native Instruments content into one wrapper/controller system. Native Instruments claims the Kore+Komplete system offers over 7000 sounds to explore, and gives easy access to searching, browsing, auditioning and editing these sounds. There aren’t many variations of this type of system on the market, but if you love the NI stuff, this might be a good choice for you.

Project Management

Flickr Image by kevindooley

So now that we have some song ideas, some lyrics, and some source content – what’s next? Production! And once we enter into production mode, we must begin to consider how we’ll manage and organize our projects. As with sample management, the vast majority of DAWs already incorporate some form of basic project management, including automated backup of files, versioning of files, unique folders for source and final audio, as well as fade and waveform data files. Applications such as Logic Pro take it one step further, allowing you to copy FX presets, samples and certain software instrument presets to the Project Folder, allowing near-complete portability of your files from one system to another. Even so, it is still important to take the following into consideration:

• Production vs. Completed: Think about how you’ll organize and archive songs that are in progress vs. songs that are complete. If you’ve finished songs and don’t expect to come back to them anytime soon, incorporate a system for backing them up and removing them from your primary work drives.
• Portability: If your projects need to be portable – think about what type of compatibility you’ll have on the receiving end. If the applications are the same, make sure to bring all your source files, as well as any proprietary instrument presets or samples that you’ll need. If the applications are different, make sure to bounce all your tracks out individually, and possibly even consider exporting the files to a standardized format such as OMF.
• Future Proofing: Without a doubt, there will come a time when, in the future, you’ll want to go back to a song from an old version of some applciation that you can no longer run. The result is hours of work lost, or worse…If you truly love the work you do, and value your time, do yourself a favor and archive your songs in such a way as to allow yourself to come back to them. For most of us that means two things: bounce out all your audio tracks as individual track files and export all of your software instrument tracks as MIDI. While your FX and software instrument settings may not carry forward, at least you’ll have the most basic building blocks of audio and MIDI to work with.

Performance Management

A relatively new concept, performance management software continues to make waves both in the studio and on the stage. This type of software allows the performer to organize virtual ‘racks’ of software instruments for manipulation and playback during performance, on a song-by-song basis. Some standout applications in this space:

• Logic Audio’s MainStage: This application offers users the ability to configure sets of instruments, effects, loops, and prerecorded tracks into an intutive and easily controlled interface. The layout is completely customizable, and it is easy for users to map parameters and controls to external MIDI hardware.
• Rax: This app from Audiofile Engineering (which acquired the software from Plasq in 2007) is similar to Apple’s mainstage, but is application agnostic – you provide the plugins, instruments and effects. You organize racks into songs and songs into setlists. It can easily be controlled via Apple Remote and MIDI.
• Ableton Live: The entire basis of Ableton’s flagship software is to make it easy for musicians to perform and create on-the-fly. Live features a powerful two-way view – Session and Performance – that allows the musician to, in a way, change the way they visualize their music. Some prefer a more classic, linear approach, some prefer the realtime or modular approach, and Live accommodates this well.

Conclusion

There are a number of ways that musicians, composers, producers and engineers can improve their skills and workflows. Becoming a great librarian is an important step in the process, because capturing, managing, editing, and working with your ideas should be second nature. Rather than spending hours trying to find the right sample, or recall the right lyric, if these systems are in place, you will find it is easier to write and record your music.

I’d love to hear what tools, applications, and methods you use to organize your song ideas, lyrics, samples, presets, projects and performances. Please let us know in the comments!

The Pattern of The Overtone Series

Here is the overtone series based on a fundamental pitch of C:

For our current purposes the most important thing to notice is that the intervals are spaced widely at the bottom and close together at the top. This will be the fundamental principle we use in chord voicings. Keep the lower voices more than a 5th apart and try keep the upper voices a 5th are less together. More than an octave between upper voices should always be avoided unless for special effect.

Towards the bottom of the series we only have octaves and fifths, it isn’t until the mid to top range that we have thirds and seconds.

Let’s put this knowledge into use.

Voicing A Chord For Strings

When you decide to write a chord for an ensemble of instruments it can feel like there are an unlimited number of possibilities for deciding which pitches to put where. If you want to voice an Em chord and all you know is that you need to have an E, G and B, you can be left guessing what to do with them.

Using the overtone series as a guide, you can instead have a reliable rule of thumb for a voicing that sounds clear, balanced and strong.

We don’t have to follow the series literally pitch by pitch, but we should remember to keep the bottom voices spaced widely apart and the top voices close together.

Here are a few ways to use the 5 instruments of a string section to voice an Em chord, based on the principles learned from the overtone series:

Download audio file (StringsEm.mp3)

Just to prove the point, let’s listen to a less effective voicing, with close intervals in the bottom and wide intervals at the top. I’ll play the more effective voicing immediately after so you can compare:

Download audio file (Ineffective.mp3)

The first voicing feels muddy in the bottom and thin near the top, whereas the second has a supportive bottom and full upper range.

Doubling of the 3rd

As you may have noticed, we were using 5 instruments to play a 3 note chord. This obviously means that some notes are going to have to be doubled.

As a general rule you should double the octave first, the fifth next, and the third last. Again this idea can relate to the overtone series: the third is a higher overtone and therefore a harmonically richer and more complex tone. If too many voicings are playing it, it sticks out to much and can destroy the balance of your chord.

If you’re voicing a first inversion chord (a chord that has the 3rd in the bass), you want to pay special attention to this rule and make sure that you don’t double the 3rd anywhere else in the voicing. Of course this will create a bit wider space in the top, but if we keep the voices within an octave (preferably within a 5th) we’ll be OK.

Download audio file (1stInversion.mp3)

Conclusion

This concept of voicings isn’t just for strings. The principles are true for any grouping of instruments, be they brass, woodwinds, synth pads or human voices. The key takeaway is this: Wide intervals in the bottom, close intervals in the top.

People have been notating music for four thousand years now, and it’s all we have of music that was written before recording was invented. Today it remains an essential tool for every musician, and the ability to read and write some sort of notation is a skill well worth learning.

Here are five ways you can notate your music:

1. Don’t Notate, Record

If you want to get a quick record of a new tune or song idea, the first step might be just to record it. The recording doesn’t have to be of good quality, just enough to help you remember your idea. Unless you are very used to writing notation, the extra time and effort it requires might be just long enough to forget.

Try to keep a small recording device with you at all times, especially when you’re being musical. You may already have one without realizing it. Many MP3 players include the ability to record, as do almost all mobile phones – though you’ll need to add an extra app for your iPhone (like this one). You could also look into purchasing a dedicated voice recording device – the Recording Device Information blog has some great advice on this.

If you were playing your keyboard when inspiration struck, you’ll find that most keyboards today are capable of some sort of music recording. They’ll normally only record what you’re playing, though, not what you’re singing. Or if you’re keyboard is plugged into your computer, you can use computer software to record your ideas. Recording as MIDI will give you more notation options down the track.

2. Chord Charts

A chord chart is simple and common way of notating a song. No special equipment is needed – just pen and paper. And little music expertise is necessary – you just have to know the chords you were playing.

A chord chart gives a general guideline about the song, but doesn’t give the full story. So a chord chart is useless if you want to remember a new melody or rhythmic idea. But it can be helpful to give to your band when you’re teaching them a new song – as long as you’re around to explain how you want the song to go.

There are different ways of writing chord charts. The most basic is to write out the lyrics of the song, and then write the chord names above the words where chord changes occur. This sort of chord chart contains very little musical information, and is popular with beginner musicians (especially guitarists) who are learning to play a song they are very familiar with.

Better still is to write the chords first, with bar lines (usually four bars per line) and time signature. You could also include lyrics, but they are much less necessary with this sort of chart. It is also helpful to include labels for the different parts of the song, including introduction, verse, chorus and bridge. I’m a fan of this sort of chord chart, and normally create mine in a table in a word processor, though it is possible to create one more simply by using the pipe character (“|”) for bars and the slash character (“/”) to mark time.

Finally, you could do the same on some manuscript (music notation) paper, then add some rhythm notation on the staff. If you don’t have any manuscript paper, you can create your own here and here.

3. Get Fake with a Lead Sheet

I learned to play my dad’s old organ by using fakebooks. “Fake” is a simplified form of notation that places chords above the staff, the song melody on the staff, and the lyrics under the staff. Bookshops and websites are full of fakebooks. The ones I learned on even wrote the name of each note on very large note heads, which probably slowed down my learning to read music.

Using this sort of notation for a lead sheet may also be useful to composers. It is simple like a chord chart (including harmony and timing information), and adds melody information. It allows you to capture the basic ingredients of your song quite rapidly. It also allows you to create your notation piece by piece. Start by writing the bars and chords, and add the lyrics and melody line later.

4. Guitar Tablature

Guitar tab is a very popular way for guitarists to write and share exactly what they play. It consists of six lines, representing the six strings of the guitar, with numbers written over the top of the line, indicating which fret to pluck that string on. Time goes from left to right. Rhythm information is not accurately notated.

There are thousands of sites sharing guitar tabs for popular songs, and many software tools for creating guitar tablature. But it’s probably quicker and easier just to print out some blank guitar tab sheets from Blank Sheet Music.net and write out your notation with a pen.

Composers who are guitarists, or writing guitar parts, should seriously consider using guitar tablature. Blank Sheet Music.net also allows you to print your guitar tabs under traditional notation, allowing your to combine fake and tabs on the one sheet.

5. Full Musical Score

This is the traditional way of notating full compositions, and the reason that we can play complex symphonies that were written hundreds of years ago. Few composers today would bother printing an entire score, unless the music was to be played by an orchestra or had a focus on live performance.

Yet it has never been easier to create a musical score than it is today. Many MIDI sequencing programs can print music notation, and there are also a large number of programs dedicated to music notation. Activemusician have a great list of options.

Conclusion

Unless you work alone and have a perfect memory, music notation will play an important part in the composing process. Today we have a wider set of options than ever before, both in terms of method of notation, and tools for creating it.

How do you notate your songs, and what are your favourite tools?