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How to Build Your Reputation as a Beat Producer
There are as many worthless lyricists out there as there are people pumping out horrid beats in their bedrooms and filling up SoundCloud and YouTube. Let them work together. You are the one high quality producer out of the thousand that has any lick of musical talent. The problem is that nobody knows you're there. They don't make their way to your music profiles to […]
Types of Guitar Pedals: 23 Must Have Effects That Define Your Style
We all have heard that tone starts in the hands of the guitarist. Different players can play thru the exact same amp and guitar rig and produce sounds on opposite ends of the spectrum. I like to refer to this base sonic level as the DNA of a player. Thanks to mad scientists tinkering in their evil laboratories of sound, we now have the ability […]
High-Level Song Arrangement Tips: From 'Meh' to Masterpiece
So you've written a great song. Now what? Most songs call for more than simply the original skeleton of voice and piano or guitar. But just how do you arrange when you're starting with these bare bones? What do you add to the orchestration and where do you add this to the song? Here we'll offer some tips to help you create a quality song […]
Managing Stage Fright: Does Practice Make Perfect?
Anxious music students and seasoned performers are often asked, “How long do you practice every day?” Having treated many performers with stage fright, it is important to take a closer look at this question. The answer is not a simple number of hours (or, in some cases, minutes) that one practices, or even how carefully one practices. Yes, careful and mindful practice is important. Nervousness […]
Beginner Jazz Guitar for Non-Jazz Guitarists
Learning to play jazz guitar might seem like rocket science to some, and while there is a world of information and approaches out there, taking things in small steps will yield the best results. Remember that music is not a competition. It is art for its own sake. In this lesson, I'll attempt to give a general overview of the basics while being as comprehensive […]
How to Soundproof a Room for Studio Quality Recordings
With advances in technology driving the cost of music recording microphones, interfaces, and computers down, everyone is building their own home recording studios. Why not, right? Why pay $500 for a 5 hour time block in your local studio when you can buy a really nice mic for the same price? Double that and you've got nearly everything you need to record vocals, guitar, keyboard, […]
Fletcher Munson Curve: The Equal Loudness Contour of Human Hearing
Working with studio headphones and monitors that feature the flattest frequency responses is important. They reduce the possible variation our listener's will hear due to their own stereo systems, equalization preferences, and the influence of their listening rooms. Untold hours and billions of dollars have been spent in research and development in these industries alone. Then two physicists stepped into the game and changed everything. […]
How to Build Guitar Calluses: Take Care of Your Fingers!
Forget about the tall tales, the marketing schemes, and the urban legends. Nobody wants their fingertips raw and wounded from playing guitar. Mainly because that means you have to stop playing until you heal. As a beginner, it's bad enough to need to restrict your practice time because your fingertips are tender and squishy. You might only play for 30 minutes but the next day […]
EQ Cheat Sheet? Frequency Charts for Mixing Hurt More Than Help!
They're designed well and make nice posters for a school classroom. They get a lot of re-pins on Pinterest. Halfway interested amateurs pass them around because they seem profound and packed full of useful information. Except they aren't. Your first clue that these abominations suck are the instrument frequency charts that purport to show the fundamental frequency ranges as well as the harmonics of every […]
What's the Difference Between Mixing and Mastering?
We've all heard the difference between an amateur recording captured in your buddy's garage and a professional recording tracked in a recording studio equipped with all of the best gear available. But that only affects the clarity of the song in general. Those differences in recording environments and access to gear is like the difference between working with a puzzle where the pieces were cut […]
What is Guitar Tone? Understanding & Dialing In Your Sound
Depending on who you're talking to, you'll get various definitions on what tone is and where it comes from. Many purists will even tell you where it should come from, too. The reality is that various genres of music and guitar playing are accepting of more and more layers of signal processing and effects, and the more that they use regularly the more forgiving and […]
DIY Studio Desk Plans - Custom Fit For Your Needs
What you'll discover as you browse the internet is that there's a whole ton of people who have built their own studio desks, but very few ever documented the process meticulously in terms of isometric engineering sketches or even your typical carpentry blueprints on a dirty napkin. This is the same conundrum we face in the world of computer desks and essentially every other kind. […]
How to Achieve Low Audio Latency While Recording
Let's say you're an accomplished guitarist who has been playing live for nearly a decade, ripping improvised solos alongside your band mates in your city's most celebrated cover band. You realize you don't want to pretend to be a member of Talking Heads for the rest of your life, so you bring it up to your crew and they all confess the same. But rather […]
How to Sell Beats Online & Work Your Way Up to Pro Placements
By virtue of being able to make beats, the instrumentalist in the rap and R&B community brings a boatload of skills to the table that provide a sharp advantage to being seen and earning an on-going passive income. The producer must do everything the vocalist does in order to gain success, but they get the compounding benefit of the vocalist doing it a second time […]
Go Global! Distribute Your Music Online
Most musicians want an audience, and many people would love to hear their music (if only they knew it existed). Classically, that's where music distribution came into play, but in the new millennium, that means digital distribution across the internet. Let's look at reasons every musician should be distributing music online. Online distribution is easy to do: It's shockingly affordable It can make you money […]
Gain Staging - Levels are Everything for High-Resolution Recordings
It's hard to blame musicians for not having a perfect gain stage... Most have never even heard of this aspect of signal processing. Ignorance won't save you though. It's either done right or you've compromised your ability to have the highest quality song at the end of the day. Your gain matters at every step, from the preamplifier, equalizer, compressor, converters, and even when printing […]
Understanding Mix Bus Compression
There are very few topics and techniques that amateur mixing and mastering engineers will avoid out of the sheer complexity and thus confusion. One of them is stereo bus compression and auxiliary bus compression. Today our goal is to remove this shroud of mystery so all of us can enjoy the fruits of this advanced mixing technique. It's not nearly as complicated once you understand […]
Instrument Miking Techniques & Tips to Capture Your Best Sound
There's a danger to studio recording and mixing the results. We all fall prey to using our eyes instead of our ears. It's simply a part of how our brains are wired and how we survived all this time. But the beasts of the recording jungle, your clients and audience, will eat you alive if you listen with your eyes instead of your ears. It's […]
Guitar Inlays - All About Those Fretboard Markers
“Playing guitar is easy, just follow the dots!” Playing the guitar is that easy, huh? I guess that explains why my grandma shreds like Steve Vai, right? I guess that's why nobody rage quits daily... There may be some truth to that "dot" statement, but we can’t always follow the dots these days. Sometimes we have to follow the diamonds, vampire bats, roses and thorns, […]
The Best Music Business Schools & Colleges to Launch Your Career
Lots of musicians take a strange path through this life of musical hardship. While they work their craft and attempt to gain exposure they fund their low income lifestyle by waiting tables and other measly day jobs. That's not a judgement statement. You've got to do what you've got to do and are willing to do. But why not play on easy mode and work […]
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