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Thursday, April 3, 2014

Fleetwood Mac "Rhiannon" Isolated Guitars And Vocals

Today we'll listen to the first hit from the reconstituted Fleetwood Mac  - "Rhiannon" from the big selling self-titled album that made the band a household word. Here's what to listen for.

1. The playing is extremely precise. This is one of the records that led to the modern production techniques of today, but remember this was done without a DAW. The precision came from playing or singing it over and over until you got it right (ah, the good old days!).

2. There are 4 guitars playing throughout: a low string guitar toward the left, the riff guitar towards the right, a harmony riff guitar and a strummed guitar. These enter in varying amounts throughout the song as needed keep it interesting. Take notice that all guitars have basically the same sound, yet they all work extremely well together.

3. The vocals are about perfect, and the doubled background vocals on each side are gorgeous. There's a nice long plate verb on them which also sounds great. You can see why this record was such a huge seller.

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Wednesday, April 2, 2014

7 Reasons Why Your Song Isn't Making It

Top 20 Songs image
Songwriting isn't easy, and learning how to do it well takes time and experience. That said, there are some common song problems that crop up very frequently. Here's an excerpt from The Music Producer's Handbook that outlines the 7 most common reasons why a song just isn't quite cutting it.

"While this book is not a songwriting handbook, let me point out a number of common points that stick out when an artist or band that’s inexperienced at songwriting and/or arranging first play me their songs. Keep in mind that we’re talking about songs from any genre of music. No matter what it is, from rock to country to goth to rock-a-billy to alien space music, you want the song to be interesting to your particular audience, so beware that any of the following apply.

1. It's too long: One thing I hear a lot are songs that have sections that are way too long.  Two minute intros, three minute guitar solos and five minute outros are almost always boring. The idea is to keep everything interesting and to the point. You are always better off to have a section too short rather than too long. The only exception is if you can actually make a long section interesting, which usually takes a lot of arranging skill and even then still might not keep the audience’s attention. One really long outro that does work, for example, is the outro to Lynard Skynard’s classic Free Bird, with slight arrangement changes, kicks and accents every 16 bars. A great band, great performance and great arrangement keeps the listener’s attention to the very end, and that’s your goal after all.

2. There's no focus: Beginner songwriters often have no focus to their songs which means that the song meanders from chord to chord without an apparent structure and no clear distinction between sections. This is usually the result of not honing the song enough and thinking it’s finished way before it’s time. Sometimes there’s really a song in there if you peel it back a bit, but usually the only way to fix it is to go back to the drawing board for a major rewrite.

3. The choruses are weak: In a lot of songs I hear, it’s hard to tell when the verse stops and the chorus starts, they’re basically the same. An interesting chorus has something different from the verse. It may be just a little different, like adding background vocals or another instrument, or an accent or anticipation to the same chord changes and melody (like Robert Palmer’s 80’s hit Addicted To Love with the harmony vocals, or Stevie Ray Vaughn’s Crossfire with the horn hits and guitar fill, or Michael Jackson’s Don’t Stop ‘Till You Get Enough with the string pad and horn fill). Or it will be a lot different, like a different set of chord changes or melody combined with the arrangement changes previously mentioned like Vertigo by U2, This Kiss by Faith Hill, or our oft sited favorite Hotel California. Either way, something has to change in the chorus to lift the energy and keep the song memorable.

4. There's no bridge: Another common songwriting mistake is no bridge. In song writing, a bridge is an interlude that connects two parts of the song, building a harmonic connection between those parts by increasing or decreasing the tension. Normally you should have heard the verse at least twice. The bridge may then replace the 3rd verse or precede it. In the latter case, it delays an expected chorus. The chorus after the bridge is usually the last one and is often repeated in order to stress that it’s final. If and when you expect a verse or a chorus and you get something that is musically and lyrically different from both verse and chorus, it is most likely the bridge (Van Halen’s Panama comes to mind).

A bridge is important because it provides a basic quality found in all art forms - tension and release (in music going from loud to quiet or quiet to loud, in painting going from dark to light colors, in photography it would be light to shadows, etc.). Tension and release keeps things interesting. The bridge is sometimes the peak of the song where it’s at its loudest and most intense (check out the bridge of the Police’s Every Breath You Take), or it could be its quietest and least intense point (The Who’s Baba O’Riley where Pete Townsend sings “...It’s only teenage wasteland,” or The Doobie Brother’s Black Water). 

Almost every great song has a bridge, but there are the occasional exceptions. Songs that are based on the straight 12 bar blues frequently don’t have bridges but might use dynamics or arrangement to provide the tension and release. An example would be the ZZ Top classic Tush. There’s no bridge in the song, but the snare fill by itself after the last verse into the outro guitar solo supplies the release. Another would be the Guess Who/Lenny Kravitz song American Women where there’s just four bars of a different guitar rhythm and a stop.

And then there are the songs that can get by without a bridge by virtue of the fact of how they’re arranged or how long each section is. Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams has only two verses and three choruses but listen to how everything builds so that the peak of the song is the last chorus. 

5. The arrangement is poor: Even with great songwriters, this is the most common mistake I hear. Usually this means that the guitar or keyboard will play the same lick, chords or rhythm throughout the entire song. Now this can work perfectly well and might even be a great arrangement choice if another instrument plays a counter-line or rhythm, but normally it just means that the arrangement will be boring. You’ve got to make sure that the song stays interesting, and that means the addition of lines and fills. An example where a structure like this does work is American Women again.

6. There's no Intro/Outro hook: If we’re talking about modern popular music (not jazz or classical), most of the songs have an instrumental line (or hook) that you’ll hear at the beginning of the song, maybe again in the chorus, and any time the intro repeats in the song. A great example would be the opening guitar riff to The Stone’s Satisfaction or the piano in Coldplay’s Clocks. It seems that developing intro/outro hooks are one of the major jobs confronting a producer.

7. The song has no dynamics: Once again, one of the secrets to an interesting song is tension and release. In the case of dynamics, it’s getting loud then soft (or vice-verse). The song breathes in volume from loud to quiet, to louder to quiet, to louder to really loud and the intensity builds. That’s tension and release. Even if the song doesn’t use this song structure, you always have to consider the volume envelop of the song before recording it. It’ll sound better and make the arrangement a lot better right out of the box.

The next time you listen to a song, notice how something different happens in every section. Either an instrument is added or subtracted or is played a little differently, like on the drums between the high-hat and ride cymbals. Not only does this arrangement make the song naturally dynamic, but it make the song a lot more interesting as well. Compare the this outline to many of the big hit songs from the last 40 years or so and you’ll find they all use some variation of the above. If it’s worked so well before, it will work for you too."

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Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Guitar Center: The Sad Story Continues

Guitar Center image
When I wrote about the financial condition of Guitar Center a while back, the post received a huge response, maybe the biggest I've ever had. Much of it came from customers who disliked the company's business style, some of it came from supporters, and a few from GC employees at various levels. Now analyst Eric Garland has written a long post on his blog on the current financial wrangling of the company that's truly an eye opener. Who thought selling guitars and amps could be this complicated?

To briefly and simply recap, GC was bought by private equity firm Bain Capital 6 years ago and has a huge billion dollar debt as a result. Ares Management, who holds much of the Bain's debt, announced at the beginning of March that it was converting its debt to equity and assuming management of GC. Since then there have been a number of announcements regarding the complex behind the scenes financial engineering to sell a number of notes to other private equity companies to raise the necessary cash to keep everything afloat and pull some money out before the whole thing implodes.

Eric discusses this in his article, and compares what's happening to the lead-up to the mortgage crisis in that the same kind of financial engineering is taking place. The deals are all complex to keep analysts and regulators from easily figuring things out, but he managed to get to the bottom of the everything thanks to the help of some extremely literate finance experts, who all seem incredulous at the situation.

Here's the bottom line. Guitar Center is owned by a bunch of Wall Street .1%ers who don't give a crap about you, the industry or music in general. It's strictly all about money, and they'll do anything to squeeze as much out of the industry before they leave it in the dust.

I really feel sorry for the manufacturers that are caught in the middle. They have to hang in there because they've geared up for the sales volume that GC brings, but I bet they're holding their collective breath that they won't get caught holding the bag when the fire sale happens.

Read Eric Garland's post, then decide where you want to make your music purchases. And no, this is not an April Fool's joke.
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You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.

Monday, March 31, 2014

The World's Longest Decay Time

There's reverb, and then there's reveeeeeeerb. An abandoned World War II oil tank buried deep in a hillside of the Scottish highlands holds the world's record for reverb time at an astonishing 75 seconds! The tank, located outside the town of Inchindown, is vast, measuring over 600 feet long, 30 feet wide and 44 feet high. Acoustics professor Trevor Cox of Salford University shot a pistol about a third of the way down the tank, and the following sound file is what he got. You can read about other acoustic wonders on Smithsonianmag.com.




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You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

New Music Monday: Output Rev Reverse Instrument

If you ever wanted to play something in reverse you know that the process can sometimes be frustrating. It's not too hard to turn around something around in a DAW, but manipulating it to work with the track can become a time-consuming operation. Now comes Output Sounds' Rev, a software instrument dedicated to playing everything in reverse.

Rev comes with a full library of reversed sounds that can be used as either effects or pads, but can be highly manipulated with relative easy. The app consists of four engines; the Instruments engine lets you control the length and envelope of the sound. Timed Instruments let's you play things with dedicated note durations like whole, half and quarter so they easily sync with the track. Loops contains 15 banks of tempo-locked reverse loops. Rises provides a host of reverse envelopes that we all associate with backwards sounds.

For the sound designer, electronic musician, or anyone who wants to create new sounds, Rev is a must-have. It's $199, and requires a free Kontact player host to run.


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You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.


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