Michael Jackson And Me

Michael Jackson's passing yesterday brings reminiscing by the rich and famous who had contact with him over his life. While I was by no means a friend or even an acquaintance, I have my stories as well (although neither rich nor famous).

When I first moved to LA in 1980 I took a job as a salesman at the audio gear supplier Everything Audio to put food on the table until a reasonable touring or studio job popped up. The company was based in Encino, California, the same town where the Jackson family had their compound. As a result, all the Jackson brothers used to come to the office (we were located high up in an office building with only a small showroom) at various times to purchase gear. On 3 or 4 occasions, Michael Jackson dropped buy to place an order.

At the time, Michael Jackson was famous, but he wasn't "Michael Jackson the superstar." He was a nice enough guy who'd slip into and out of the office quietly. We'd say hello, and I'd pass him off to his personal salesman. He was quiet, unassuming and taller than I'd thought he'd be. he never said much but always had a smile on his face.

Eventually I became the sales guy to brothers Marlon and Randy, and was invited up to the Jackson compound a few times. I remember that the thing that impressed me the most at the time was one of their guest houses that was decked out completely for video gaming, having every video game kiosk of the time that you can think of (they were a bit ahead of their time on this - it was 1981). By this time, Michael had moved off compound to his own estate a block away.

The next time I saw Michael was in 1982 before Thriller had come out. He was a much bigger star now, and had to go out incognito. I remember coming out of the now defunct Wally Heider studio on Sunset Blvd. at about 8PM one night, and as I stood on a corner waiting for my ride, an old beat-up 60's Chevy Camaro with primer, no paint and lots of bondo passed me by. Something made me take a good look at the driver (the window was open) and sure enough, it was Michael. The car passed quickly and although I thought I saw him, I couldn't be sure. But then it passed again, and again, and yes, it was Michael circling the block for some reason. My ride showed up by this time, so I packed my gear in the trunk and left. Who knows how many times he passed by, but it was Michael Jackson, driving himself around in a beat up car.

My next encounter with MJ from a distance was almost life changing. I was writing songs with Michael "Shrimp" Chambers, a famous break dancer at the time and the guy that taught Michael Jackson how to moon walk. We wrote what we thought was a great ballad, and Shrimp said, "I've just got to get this to Michael. I know he'll love it." This was after Thriller and Michael J. was a full-fledged superstar and had now moved to Neverland. Sure enough, Shrimp was invited to the ranch to play the song for Michael and much to our shock and excitement, he did indeed love the song, proclaiming it "a hit." "Here we go," I thought, "the step into the really big time. If Michael cuts this on his next album, it could be worth major $$$$!!!" A few days later Michael called back and said, "Shrimp, I really think this song is a hit, but you should cut it instead of me. I want you to be successful." Now Michael could have offered to produce it, or introduced us to any number of people that could've helped us, but he didn't. And Shrimp didn't have a record deal so keeping the song for himself was moot. MJ might've been distracted with life or he might've been letting us down easy, I never found out the back story. The song got cut by a Motown artist no one has ever heard of before or since, and we made zero $$$. What a swing of fortune!

But it doesn't stop there in terms of my being a degree separated from the man. In the early 90's I took Jennifer Battan's place as guitar player in a version of the cult band Doc Tari. Jennifer left to become MJ's touring lead guitar player.

Then in the late 90's, I met and became friends with Bruce Swedien, the engineer that crafted all of Michael's big selling records and an absolute superstar in his own right in the recording community. In fact, he was kind enough to sit for an interview for my first book, The Mixing Engineer's Handbook. Then in 2004, I produced a video interview with producer Quincy Jones at his magnificent house in Bel Air. Since I was such a fan of their work and interested in the recording background of Michael's albums, both of these larger than life people were kind enough to relate all sorts of great MJ studio stories, not one disparaging Michael in any way (though I did hear lots of "unusual" stories from other people).

I'm one of those that doesn't really believe that you die as much as transition into something different. As your journey ends in this world, universe, dimension or whatever else you want to call it, another begins. Happy journey, Michael Jackson.

Magic Frequencies

I was recently given a mix to evaluate and as I listened, it soon became apparent that the mixer wasn't aware of the "magic frequencies." Magic EQ frequencies are something that every mixer should know in order to obtain the biggest, best sounding mix.

Before we can discuss the specific "magic frequencies", keep in mind that the audio that we hear can effectively be broken down into six distinct ranges, each one having enormous impact on the total sound. The following is an excerpt from The Mixing Engineer's Handbook, but was originally written by Leo di Gar Kulka in the November/December 1972 issue of the sadly missed Recording Engineer/Producer magazine entitled, “Equalization.......The Highest, Most Sustained Expression of the Recordist’s Heart.”

"• Sub-Bass - The very low bass between 16 and 60Hz which encompasses sounds which are often felt more than heard, such as thunder in the distance. These frequencies give the music a sense of power even if they occur infrequently. Too much emphasis on this range makes the music sound muddy.

• Bass - The bass between 60 and 250Hz contains the fundamental notes of the rhythm section so EQing this range can change the musical balance, making it fat or thin. Too much boost in this range can make the music sound boomy.

• Low Mids - The midrange between 250 and 2000Hz contains the low order harmonics of most musical instruments and can introduce a telephone like quality to the music if boosted too much. Boosting the 500 to 1000Hz octave makes the instruments sound horn like, while boosting the 1 to 2kHz octave makes them sound tinny. Excess output in this range can cause listening fatigue.

• High Mids - The upper midrange between 2 and 4kHz can mask the important speech recognition sounds if boosted, introducing a lisping quality into a voice and making sounds formed with the lips such as ‘m”, “b,” and “v” indistinguishable. Too much boost in this range, especially at 3kHz, can also cause listening fatigue. Dipping the 3kHz range on instrument backgrounds and slightly peaking 3kHz on vocals can make the vocals audible without having to decrease the instrumental level in mixes where the voice would otherwise seem buried.

• Presence - The presence range between 4 and 6kHz is responsible for the clarity and definition of voices and instruments. Boosting this range can make the music seem closer to the listener. Reducing the 5kHz content of a mix makes the sound more distant and transparent.

• Brilliance - The 6 to 16kHz range controls the brilliance and clarity of sounds. Too much emphasis in this range, however, can produce sibilance on the vocals."

For those of you who have an easier time visualizing the audio spectrum in one octave increments (like those found on a graphic equalizer), here’s an octave look at the same chart.

31Hz = rumble, "chest"

63Hz = bottom
125Hz = boom, thump, warmth
250Hz = fullness or mud
500Hz = honk
1kHz = whack
2kHz = crunch
4kHz = edge
8kHz = sibilence, definition, "ouch"
16kHz = air

This last list is really helpful for neophytes (pros too) when EQing. We can extend the magic EQ frequencies to specific instruments and really zero in on the particular bands that make that instrument speak, but the list above is a good start and easy way to remember.

The Studio Musician's Handbook

LA session bassist Paul Ill and I recently completed a new book called The Studio Musician's Handbook. In it we cover all the things that you need to know to become a studio musician, including things like the different types of sessions you might play on, what equipment you need, what kind of chops are required, how much you can make and who hires session musicians.

Also covered is something very important but always overlooked when discussing session players, which is the proper studio etiquette that all top studio musician's must have in order to keep working.

The book also contains individual players guides for just about every instrument (including strings, horns and percussion), as well as 14 interviews with top players like Ricky Lawson, Leland Sklar, Rami Jaffee and Brian MacLeod.

There's a DVD that accompanies the book and it contains a few more interviews as well as a look into a session at a top Hollywood studio. A sample of the DVD is included in the trailer below.

The Studio Musician's Handbook is published by Hal Leonard and won't be available until October, but a table of contents and some sample chapters and interviews are available on the bobbyowsinski.com website right now. Below is the trailer for the book.

The Basics Of A Great Sounding Drum Kit

Before drums can sound good under the microphones, they have to sound great acoustically first. In a summary of Chapter 1 of The Drum Recording Handbook that engineer Dennis Moody and I wrote, we find out just why drums acoustically sound the way they do.

So what does sounding “great” actually mean? While the definition of great is different to different people on a general level, in the studio it usually means a kit that is well-tuned and free of buzzes and sympathetic vibrations. This means that when you hit the a rack tom, for instance, the snare doesn’t buzz and the other toms don’t ring along with it. Or if you hit the snare, the toms don’t ring along. So how do you achieve this drum nirvana? It’s all in the tuning and the kit maintenance.

But so many drummers just buy a set of drums because they look good or because their favorite drummer endorses them without really listening first. Unfortunately, many drummers aren’t even aware of what they should be looking for. So lets take a look at drum construction itself, since it helps to have a little background so that you can determine just what your drum kit is capable of and why it sounds the way it does.

There are a number of parameters that determine what a drum will sound like. Let’s take a look at them.

Shell Size
The diameter of a drum has the most impact on the natural pitch of a drum. The larger the diameter, the lower the natural pitch, although you can obviously change this a bit by tuning the heads.

Shell Depth
While the shell depth does contribute to the tone a little, it’s mostly responsible for how loud the drum will be and to some degree, the articulation of the sound. This means that a shallow shell (say a 9” tom) doesn’t have as much surface area as a larger one, so the sound is a bit shorter with a sharper attack. A drum with a deeper depth (like a 12” tom) will have a lower resonant frequency so the attack will be a bit longer and warmer and the drum will be louder.

Shell Thickness
Shell thickness is usually overlooked as a contributing factor to the sound of a drum. Thinner shells actually are more resonant since they’re easier to excite because they have a lower mass than a heavier, thicker shell. As a result, thicker shells have to rely much more on the heads for the overall tone of the drum.

Shell Material
Probably out of all the parameters described here, the material used to make the drum shell is the most responsible for tone of the drums. Here are the most commonly found drum shell materials.

Generally speaking, maple is the most prized construction material by drummers, primarily because the sound is so even across the drum frequency spectrum. It’s expensive and becoming more difficult to get since it’s a slow growth tree.

Mahogany is another slow growth wood that is becoming increasingly hard to find. While true US or Honduran mahogany is considered the best, other woods from the Philippines, Southeast Asia, China and Malaysia are sometimes labeled mahogany simply because they have the same look as the US or Honduran wood, but they don’t sound the same since their density varies from the real wood. Mahogany drums sound warmer than maple since the low end is increased.

Birch is a very dense wood, which, thanks to its hardness, results in a brighter drum with a lot less low end than Maple.

Poplar is a fast growing tree, which translates into cheaper wood and inexpensive drum kits. It has a sound very similar to birch, with a bright top end with less bottom.

Basswood is also a fast growing tree, resulting in inexpensive kits, but exhibits an increased low end that’s similar to mahogany.

Luaan is an Asian tree that provides the least expensive wood available. It’s very strong and accepts a stain very well so it generally looks good. It also has a warmer sound with less top end, similar to mahogany.

Shell Interior
Although it’s not widely known, the interior of the drum shell has a lot to do with the pitch of the drum. A rough interior produces in a less resonant drum, since the roughness breaks up the interior reflections. A smooth interior results in a more resonant drum, which means it’s easier to tune and control.

Bearing Edges
Maybe the least understood of all the things that go into giving a drum its tone is the bearing edges of the shell. That means the cut at the edge of a drum shell where the hoops are attached. The way the bearing edge is cut can not only affect the pitch of the drum, but the tuning as well. The sharper the cut, the brighter the drum.

The degree at which the edge is cut makes all the difference in the sound of the drum. A sharp 45º angled cut will result in a long sustain with bright overtones. A 30º cut will provide less of a high-pitched ring. Rounded edges produce a muted, poor tone. All bearing edges must be flat and true with the exact same degree of cut. For more on bearing edges, see the tips from the Drum Doctor later in this chapter.

Hoops
The type of hoop and the number of lugs used to seat the drum heads also determines how the drum will sound. In general, the thicker the hoop, the easier the drum will be to tune. Fewer lugs provide more complex overtones.

Stamped hoops are made from a variety of metals, all of which affect the tone a bit differently, but most drummers feel they get a warmer tone from die cast hoops. Aluminum gives a high pitch while brass provides more overtones.

Die cast hoops are generally both thicker and stronger than stamped hoops so the drum becomes easier to tune. There are fewer overtones as a by-product.

Wood hoops come in different thicknesses, so they can be made to sound like either a stamped or a cast hoop, only brighter.

Drum construction plays a vital importance in how a drum will sound, and until it sounds great acoustically, it will never sound great under a microphone.

Some Good Arguments Against The Performance Rights Act

I've been a proponent of the Performance Rights Act as you know if you've been following this blog, since I'm a strong believer that artists should be paid for what they do.

That being said, I do have an open mind, and the very informative Creative Deconstruction blog has a great article entitled, "5 Reasons Why The Performance Rights Act Is A Bad Idea."

These are compelling reasons, and strike at my biggest fears for the bill - the corporate entities surrounding the music business will get all the money originally meant for the artists, and the radio entities that treat independent musicians fairly will be hurt by this piece of legislation.

As with so many bills before Congress, you have to start to wonder just which ones are well-meaning but got corrupted along the way, and which ones have ulterior motives from the start. It seems pretty hard to find legislation that's 100% pure of intent. At this point, I'm on the fence about the PRA.

The Death Of Music Journalism

Rolling Stone and Idolator critic Christopher R. Weingarten shared his views on why Twitter and blogs are leading to the death of music journalism and criticism. In a really witty, clever and passionate presentation at the 140 Characters Conference, Weingarten shared why he felt he'd be out of a job within the next year. Among some great quotes:

"If the people decide (what to listen to), then nothing truly adventurous ever gets out." (explaining why crowdsourcing tends to make everyone listen to the same thing)

"All this music that rises to the middle. The boring, bland, white people guitar music." (on following music blogs that write about music and how they all tend towards alternative genres)

"It's the music that the most people can stand." (again, why following the blog crowd means following trends instead of discovering new music)

"That's what we're missing in a world without critics. The 'because'." (explaining that blogs and Tweets tend to describe what the music does for the writer, instead of a reason anyone else should be interested in it)

"People think that you need a long Internet rant to express some enthusiasm and it's not true." (explaining how it's possible to be articulate within the 140 character confines of Twitter)

The entire presentation is below. It's about 10 minutes long.

Jelli - Crowdsourced Radio

Finally, a new idea comes to broadcasting. Jelli, a new format that melds some of the interactivity and networking of the internet with big station reach, launches on June 28th and hopefully, radio will never be the same.

Jelli uses true interactivity and the idea of crowdsourcing to allow the listening audience to select a station's playlist. Not only can the audience make real-time suggestions on the website regarding what to play, but also vote on the suggestions as well.

This is great for radio in several ways:

First, it allows for the audience to truly let their voices be heard in what's actually playing on the station.

Second, if a listener feels as if his voice is actually being heard, his interest in a slowly dying format is enhanced or even rekindled.

And third, the type of taste info collected is a gold mine to radio stations, artists and their labels. Now you can actually have real-time demographic information that a radio station could only dream about in the past.

The first station to adopt the format? Live 105 (105.3FM) in San Francisco. Be part of the public alpha by visiting the Jelli site. A new dawn in radio may be approaching.

More Albums Released Now Than Ever According To Nielsen Soundscan

According to the latest study from Nielsen Soundscan entitled "Measuring Music Consumption," 105,000 new albums were released in 2008. This number was up from 80,000 releases in 2007.

Imagine that - 105,000 album releases in a single year!

The problem is that only 950 of them sold more than 25,000 units, and those 950 were responsible for a full 82% of all new release sales! Of the albums that were released in a digital-only form, they accounted for only 1.8% of all the sales - a mere 2.8 million units.

So what were the big sellers of 2008?

Lil Wayne at about 2.9 million

Coldplay at 2.2 million

Taylor Swift at 2.1 million

AC/DC with 1.9 million

Metallica with 1.6 million

These 5 releases totaled 2% of all sales last year.

The stats in the Nielsen report are very telling about the music industry. Here are some observations:

• With 105,000 album releases a year, it's almost impossible to get traction unless you have a big machine behind you.

• Of course, none of the top 5 albums were independent releases, and probably won't be in the immediate future either.

• There's no point in releasing an album unless it's in a physical form. Digital albums just aren't selling well.

It's getting more and more difficult to get separation from the crowd in Music 3.0. While everyone thinks that the democratization of music has leveled the playing field, it's really leveled it too much. Unfortunately, you still need the machinery of a label to get anywhere, at least for the time being, according to the figures in this report. Will 2009 be the year that an artist can really break through on his own? We're half-way through and so far the answer is a resounding "No!"

Vinyl Still Gaining Steam

The old vinyl record just won't go away. In fact, it's appeal just continues to widen. And it's not just boomers with some time and a turntable or DJs who've not gone hi-tech. A whole new generation of listeners now believe that the format is cool (they're right - it is) with a big part of the demand coming from the under 25 crowd.

Projections for this year's vinyl sales see an increase of about 50%, with indie record stores accounting for about 70% of that. There must be some heat in the format since major retailer Best Buy is even allotting it's valuable floor space to records, even as they decrease CD space.

One of the more interesting aspects of the trend is that some record buyers don't even own a turntable, buying it just for the collectible value. On of the major beneficiaries has been Guns n' Roses Chinese Democracy, a release that has generally been considered a stiff but meeting with great demand in its vinyl version.

And finally, in 2008 there were 400 lp's that sold more than 1000 units, with Radiohead, Metallica, The Beatles, Elliot Smith and Bob Dylan leading the charge. By the looks of things, those numbers will increase in 2009.

Latest Entries To Library Of Congress Sound Archive

Every year the Librarian of Congress selects sound recordings to include in the National Recording Registry, which s a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000 and the recordings are selected by members of the public and a panel of music, sound and preservation experts, and the library's National Recording Preservation Board. The panel also aids the librarian in selecting what recordings to add to the archive.

Among the 2008 additions to the registry are:

"Boogie Chillen," John Lee Hooker (1948)

"West Side Story," original cast recording (1957)

"Tom Dooley," The Kingston Trio (1958)

"Rumble," Link Wray (1958)

"At Last!," Etta James (1961)

"2000 Years with Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks," Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks (1961)

"The Who Sings My Generation," The Who (1966)

"He Stopped Loving Her Today," George Jones (1980)

It's pretty cool that the Library of Congress has a program to preserve what they and the public deem to be significant recordings, and it's even better that they have such a diverse taste. It will be interesting to see what's chosen in subsequent years.

Penalized For Supporting The Performance Rights Act?

There's a case being made that artists who support the Performance Rights Act are being penalized secretly by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). Bono, the most vocal supporter of the bill, found the Put On Your Boots single from the current U2 album with a minimum of airplay despite a huge promotional pitch by the record label, an opening spot at the inauguration concert, and a few other prime opportunities afforded only to superstar acts.

While support in the music community has grown for the bill, the NAB has ratcheted up its lobbying effort against it, spouting all sorts of doom and gloom about what will happen should the bill pass. The Performance Rights Act pays a royalty to the artist, not the songwriter, each time a song is played on the radio. Until now, artists with massive airplay (like the Righteous Brothers, who's You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling is the most played song in history) have never received a cent for any airplay. The United States is the only country that does not pay performance royalties.

The NAB claims that having to pay a performance royalty will force all radio stations to convert to talk radio because of the increased costs of doing business. This line of thinking, of course, has no basis in fact. Radio stations are immensely profitable and are increasingly owned by large station groups and broadcast conglomerates. A performance royalty will slightly cut into those profits, but the NAB acts as if it's so much money that the stations can no longer stay in business.

Believe me, if it were as bad as the NAB claims it will be, station groups would be shedding their stations faster than an MP3 stream, which might actually be good for radio in the long run since the stations would probably be more local in their programming again instead of using the homogenized national playlist that we're forced to listen to now.

Some think that even if what the NAB says is true, it would still force a return to local programming, only with the artists signing waivers against any royalty collection. History says that this won't work. When radio first started in the 20's, owners tried to make a go of it without the higher priced "stars" of the day. After a few years of mediocre ratings, they finally gave in to using star power and their ratings and the fortunes of the industry soared.

The Performance Rights Act is coming to a vote in Congress soon. It should be interesting which lobbying group, the one for the broadcasters (the NAB) or the one for the record labels (the RIAA), comes out on top.

The Secrets To Making A Great Live Band Video

Most of the time when someone wants me to check out their band, they send me to their website or MySpace page where they have a video that they shot at a rehearsal studio or a gig. Invariably, it's so bad that I can't get a real idea of what they really sound or look like.

So here are some tips from chapter 16 of my band improvement book, How To Make Your Band Sound Great, that will take your videos from the unwatchable to the "Now I get the idea" category. In fact, I just signed a publishing deal to write a book specifically to address issues like this called "The Musician's Video Handbook." Look for it next year.

There are basically two things that you need to make a great live band video (assuming that you play great and put on a great show) - great audio and a tripod. Forget about camera quality, resolution, format, or any kind of specs. If your video sounds bad or is shaking like crazy - it’s just a bad video although there are a few exceptions that we’ll touch on in a minute. Let’s look at the audio first.

Audio is 50% of the Final Product
Despite what anyone tells you, audio is always looked down upon as the poor stepchild of picture by video people, mostly because they don’t understand it. That being said, if the sound is bad then the picture always seems worse than it really is, so it’s really important to pay close attention to the audio when making a video.

Here are some rules of thumb regarding audio for video:

Bad audio + good picture = bad video

Good audio + bad picture = bad video

Good audio + good picture = maybe a good video

(still depends upon how you played and looked and how it was edited)

So you see that the only way you stand a chance to get something decent is to make totally sure that the audio is at least on the same quality standard as your picture.

Audio Recording Tips For Video
There are a couple of things that you can do to make sure that the audio quality is a lot better than what you can get with just the mic on the camera.

Use an external mic. You probably have some extra mics laying around already or at least you can borrow a couple, so let’s put them to use. The problem is that most consumer cameras have mini-jack mic inputs that won’t readily interface to an XLR or phone plug. No problem, buy an XLR to mini-plug adapter. They’re cheap and just about any mic you choose is going to be better than the $2 on-board camera mic. It will make a world of difference. Another possibility to to use a feed from the mixing board, or a combination of board feed and microphone that you can balance later.

Turn off the limiter. Most cameras have a built-in audio limiter to try to keep audio overload to a minimum. While this might work OK when shooting those nice vacation movies, it’s horrible for band use, squashing and twisting your audio into a heap of crap even on the most expensive professional cameras. In all but the cheapest cameras, you can defeat the limiter by diving into the software menus and finding the Defeat selection in the audio section. You’ll hear the benefits of this action immediately.

Turn the input level down. Just about any band will easily overload the audio inputs of a camera since they’re usually designed for capturing the noise of a family outing rather than the level of any number of instruments playing. If there’s a level control knob on the camera, turn it as low as it will go without turning it off. If it’s in a software menu, do the same. If you’re still overloading the input (the overload indicators are flickering red), you’ll have to get an attenuator pad to lower the microphone’s output, but these are pretty inexpensive (less than $20) and can come in handy for some every day audio purposes as well. Remember, it’s a lot better to have audio where the level is too low than too high.

Get A Tripod
If you’re shooting a gig to just see how you’re doing or shooting a music video, you’ll need a tripod for at least some of the things you shoot. If you’re shooting a gig, get a tripod and set it up as high as it will go so you won’t see audience heads and people passing in front. A nice stable image will make viewing a lot easier later.

If you’re shooting something for a music video, hand held shots can look exciting and hip, but you’ll need at least some tripod shots for things like B-roll, establishing shots and anything where you need more than a couple of seconds of a steady shot. Although tripods can run as high as a couple of thousand dollars, even a $25 cheapy is better than none at all. As with most everything, the more you spend the better it will be in that it will last a whole lot longer, be sturdier, and lighter, but anything is better that nothing.

Just paying attention to these 2 things will make your band videos so much easier to watch for both you and your audience that you won’t believe it.