Session Etiquette - Part Two

Knowing the proper etiquette while recording is almost as important as doing your gig. If you make people uncomfortable or do something that's considered out of place and chances are that you won't be asked back.

In recording session etiquette part two, we'll look at the way everyone expects you to act during the session. Once again, these are points taken from The Studio Musician's Handbook, but most of them apply to just about everyone on a session.

• If there’s creative dialogue with the artist, songwriter, producer or engineer, make sure that your opinions are wanted and warranted before you offer them.

• Be careful about musical references. You may think that the track you’re working on is great because it reminds you of Dusty Springfield’s classic “Son of a Preacher Man” only to find out upon your mention of it that it’s on the artist’s “Ten Most Overrated Songs” list.

• Whether you’re on your own or part of an ensemble, focus on your work first. If you have input for other players, make sure it’s warranted and you can actually help them out. Players often tweak each other’s parts or help one another to understand a written passage, remember a song’s form, or get a sound.

• Remember – always defer to whoever is in charge. That person is usually the producer, but you may be receiving guidance or input from a musical director, the artist, or the engineer.

• Keep an open mind. Greet suggestions with willingness and always respond positively. If you’re receiving input from more than one source and they contradict one another, diplomatically point that out and let them resolve it.

• And don’t forget – if you can’t keep your cell phone outside the studio, TURN IT OFF (not just on vibrate - that’s a distraction too).

• Put away the magazines, computers, iPhones, and anything else that can be a distraction. The last thing a producer wants to see is you updating your Facebook status in between takes!

• If you need time to check your messages or Facebook, make sure you ask first. Most sessions have timed or natural breaks when you can meet you individual needs, but be sure to always ask if you wish to leave the recording environment while there’s work being done, even if you’re not directly involved at that moment.

• Your behavior should always be positive, and you should strive to be “present for the moment.”

• There’s a time and a place for everything, but sometimes cajoling, goofing around or humor doesn’t belong at a session. Then on another day with the same people, the session may be all about the gags and laughs. Studio pro’s know how to “go with the flow” and are experts at reading people and situations.

• If people are conversing, treat the session like any other workplace and try to avoid potential conversational “hot spots”: politics, religion, family and money.

• Everyone likes a good conversation and a funny joke, but it’s best not to risk being misinterpreted or misperceived as offensive.

• Earn and honor rank. That means if there are players on the session with more professional or personal history with the artist or producer than you have accumulated, let them lead. Everyone benefits when everyone gets along and knows their place.

• Always wait until the job is done before you ask the powers that be if they are open to your creativity. It’s appropriate to do so before you offer your ideas. Always ask first if they are open to your input. If so, and you hear it in your imagination, let them know.

Tomorrow - Session Etiquette Part Three

Session Etiquette - Part One

The way you act at a session many times counts for so much more than your performance. If you make anyone uncomfortable in the slightest way, you can bet that you probably won't be asked back, so being aware of proper studio etiquette is extremely important.

Studio etiquette applies to before, during and after a session as well. In part one, we'll look at what's expected before the red light is turned on.

These points come from The Studio Musician's Handbook, but most apply to everyone connected with a recording session as well as the musicians.

Before the session begins:

• On any session, always know who your point of contact is.

• ALWAYS SHOW UP EARLY. To be early is to be on time. To be on time is to be late. To be late is almost like not showing up at all! If the downbeat is for 2PM, show up at least a half-hour early at 1:30!

• Let the powers that be know you’ve arrived. Make your presence known at a session as soon you roll up on the studio property. If you’re there and no one knows it, you can cause the session to start late if you’re hanging out in the lounge instead of the studio while everyone is waiting for you because they’re unaware that you’ve already arrived.

• Load your gear in quickly and quietly. Accept help with this if it’s offered. If it’s your first time there, introduce yourself to those you make contact with, and find out what the plan for the session is.

• You may be immediately welcomed in the studio or control room, or you may not. You may be asked to wait in the lounge instead. While you’re waiting, use those people skills and find out what’s going on. Be friendly and respectful but don’t be overly formal.

• After you’re set up and ready to play, keep your warm-ups and noodling to an absolute minimum. Get your sound and follow the producer’s or engineer’s direction “to the t”. If you’re playing an electric instrument, it’s totally cool to turn your volume all the way down and do your warm-ups.

• If there are headphones in use, try putting them on with the volume all the way down (studio headphones are capable of being loud enough to cause hearing damage, so don’t hurt yourself), and slowly turn them up to see what’s happening with the mix. If there are other people in the room, you might want to “keep one ear on, one ear off” until recording begins in case someone talks to you. Always keep your focus on the music and what’s right here, right now.

Part 2 next post - Etiquette during the session.

Rolling Stone's Albums Of The Decade

Rolling Stone magazine just released their Top 100 albums of the decade. As with any subjective list like this, there's always reason to debate the choices, but they're still pretty interesting to look at.

My first thought after looking over the list is, "It was a pretty creatively barren period."

Here are the the top 20 albums, but you can find the entire top 100 here.


1 | Radiohead: Kid A
2 | The Strokes: Is This It
3 | Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
4 | Jay-Z: The Blueprint
5 | The White Stripes: Elephant
6 | Arcade Fire: Funeral
7 | Eminem: The Marshal Mathers LP
8 | Bob Dylan: Modern Times
9 | M.I.A.: Kala
10 | Kanye West: The College Dropout
11 | Bob Dylan: Love and Theft
12 | LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver
13 | U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind
14 | Jay-Z: The Black Album
15 | Bruce Springsteen: The Rising
16 | OutKast: Stankonia
17 | Beck: Sea Change
18 | MGMT: Oracular Spectacular
19 | Amy Winehouse: Back to Black
20 | The White Stripes: White Blood Cells

Something

I don't know how long the following video will stay online since it seems to be a lift from a BBC documentary on recording The Beatles, but it's a wonder to listen to while you can. The video is just the audio portion of "Something" off the Abbey Road album and it's a great study in how a hit was put together using only an 8 track tape recorder.

First of all, the sounds are wonderful, even though you only hear them through the monitor mix (especially the strings). Second, listen to how all the parts fit so well together. A few of them, like the guitar through the Leslie speaker and piano in the bridge, only play for a short time in a turnaround but they make a huge impact in the arrangement. The vocal double in the chorus is a trick still used today on perhaps the majority of records.

It's a great song that's become a standard, a beautiful arrangement, and great recording that's stood the test of time.

The Real Reason Why Apple Bought LaLa

It's not exactly what you think.

Does "cloud computing" (see the picture on the left) ring a bell?

Check out the Music 3.0 blog for the story.

The Greatest Selling Record Of All Time

What's the best selling record of all time? No, it's not Thriller by Michael Jackson (reported numbers are said to be inflated so it's difficult to even tell how many copies it's sold). It's"White Christmas" by Bing Crosby and written by songwriting legend Irving Berlin. The single is said to have sold over 50 million copies alone with the album putting total sales over 100 million.

Recorded in 1942 just after the World War II started and debuted in the movie "Holiday Inn" with Crosby and Fred Astaire, it's widely held that the war actually had a lot to do with the song gaining popularity. Since millions of troops were overseas and longing for family, the song brought a little bit of comfort and the feel of home. From that point, it's become ingrained in our consciousness as a standard that's played constantly (over and over and over again) throughout the holiday season.

There's a lot that's interesting about songwriter Irving Berlin, He was self-taught and could only play using the black keys of F#. Because he was self taught, he also frequently wrote with unusual cadences, and many times never bothered with a song bridge, which was contrary to the times. Still, the song has outlived hundreds of competitors over time with more introduced every year. Despite all the famous songs that Berlin wrote that everyone somehow knows, ("Alexander's Ragtime Band,""Easter Parade," "There's No Business Like Show Business," "God Bless America."), White Christmas will be the one he's best remembered for.

So if you really want to make your mark as a songwriter, write a holiday song.

Gear Hits of the Noughties

Kevin Becka, the tech editor at Mix Magazine, recently wrote an interesting post entitled "Top 20 Gear Hits of the Noughties" that was pretty cool, so I thought I'd reprint some of them that I thought significant with some comments (in italics). If you following the links, you'll get more info from Kevin on the product.

Pro Tools HD – Digidesign’s 2002 hardware upgrade brought high resolution audio to the industry’s top DAW. Yes, this version truly made a difference in that there were a lot of questions regarding the sound quality of Pro Tools until HD came out. None now, it's the standard!

Apple Logic Pro – After the purchase of Steinberg, Apple puts its stamp on this popular music production tool making it a contender for top affordable native DAW. Don't know about Logic Pro as a game changer per se, but the fact that you can get great performance from a native (using only the host computer without the aid of additional processing cards) DAW certainly is.


Celemony Melodyne – The only competition for the ubiquitous Auto Tune app brought us a new way to correct pitch. The latest version of Melodyne is nothing short of amazing, providing some great forensic tools  not usually associated with pitch correction.


JBL LSR6328P monitors  – Once the studio monitoring champ, JBL made a solid bid for the title again with these great sounding speakers. Don't know how much of a game changer they are, but they're my choice and the ones I use every day.

Royer SF24 – Royer provided an easy way to record with ribbon mics in stereo without having the gain and impedance issues of a passive ribbon. Of all the new mics on the market today, one of the few that have become true recording standards have come from Royer.

Plugins – Many companies defined this category in the noughties including Waves, Sonnox, Focusrite, McDSP, Bomb Factory, TL Audio,SoundToys, PSP, URS, IK Multimedia, brainworx, Universal Audio,iZotope and more. Just as Pro Tools HD changed the way we thought about the sound of a DAW, the same can be said for the latest generation of plug-ins. No one even compares the sound to hardware anymore.

Digidesign VENUE and ICON – Digidesign went from 0 to 60 in record time with their live sound and studio consoles. Absolutely true. They became a real player in sound reinforcement seemingly overnight.

Now that the industry has made the conversion from hardware to software, more and more we see products that are evolutionary instead of revolutionary. I think a good case can be made for some of the above to be put in the revolutionary category. Wonder how many we'll see in the 10's?

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" Backing Track

Here's the backing track to Nirvana's 90's hit "Smells Like Teen Spirit". This was the song that launched a whole new musical trend so it's significant from an historical perspective, but it's also a great example of dynamics and how a song is taken to another level by a great drummer. This video contains all the tracks except guitars so it's another perfect example of rhythm section production to study.

As famous jazz drummer Buddy Rich once said (most likely referring to himself), "You can't have a great band without a great drummer," and he was certainly right. EVERY great band has a great drummer and to be even more precise, the perfect drummer for the band. Dave Grohl was certainly the right guy to hold down the drum chair for Nirvana, and this track proves it. The drum track is punchy, in-time, dynamic and aggressive.

Speaking of dynamics, that was one of Nirvana's strong points and Teen Spirit is the perfect example. Listen to how the tension is built by going from the steady but less intense verse to the fury of the chorus. If you want to learn how to play dynamically, that's how it's done.

There's no picture on this video other than the album cover, but the audio's well worth a listen.

Live Band Karaoke

One of my oldest friends, studio bassist and co-writer of The Studio Musician's Handbook - Paul ILL, just returned from a trip to Atlanta where he saw what appears to be the latest rage on the East Coast - live band karaoke.

In case the term doesn't sink in, it means a real live band invites members of the audience up to sing a song of their choice. The band charges $5 for the privilege and if you tip, you move to the head of the line. It sure beats singing to a machine and it must be a real thrill for the vocal participants to feel the energy of a band.

Apparently this is the hot new thing for club bands, and karaoke bands are now popping up all over the country. Although my club gigging days are way behind me, I think it's a really clever idea. It's a new way for a band to draw an audience, a great way to keep that audience involved, and a new way for the band to make some needed money in these days of fewer and fewer gigs. If I were playing in clubs again (perish the thought), it's something I'd definitely consider. You could even expand beyond just singers to have audience members sub for all members of the band, so you sort of get a little bit of a live "Rock Band" game as well.

Just do a search for "live band karaoke" and watch what you get.

Analyzing The "Sweet Child Of Mine" Backing Track

In keeping with the theme of this week so far, here's the backing track for the hit "Sweet Child of Mine" from Guns n' Roses. I'm not sure that this is the real GnR track (you can never tell what the source is on Youtube), but it's still a pretty good analysis of how it was put together. You'll hear the drums, bass, 2 rhythm guitars left and right and the lead vocals.

A couple of interesting things here. First the whole drum kit has a load of reverb on it, a lot more than you hear on most rock songs. Second is the effected bass, which has a chorus on it - again unusual for a rock song (any song really). It's also worth noting when the rhythm guitar on the right comes in on the choruses and bridge to change things up a bit and give the song some additional power.

It's also interesting to hear a small bass rhythm flub about half-way through the first verse, and the punches on the vocals (if it's really GnR, it was done on tape - no unlimited tracks) during the choruses.

Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody - The Multitrack

I've always been a big fan of listening to multitracks of hit songs as a learning experience. It's so much fun to hear just how perfect or imperfect the tracks are. Until recently, these multitracks were pretty difficult to find unless you already knew the band or artist, or their producer or engineer, and they were kind enough to let you play with them.

But everything has changed now with YouTube, where you can find a wide variety of dissected material. It's been suggested that a lot of this comes from a guy who works for the vault company that houses many of these master multitrack tapes for the major labels, but who really knows (I'm sure the label's business affairs sure would like to know)? The fact of the matter is that so many songs are now available for our dissected listening pleasure, and any student of record production should take advantage of them.

Here's a great example of one of the most sophisticated hit songs ever made - Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. This video gives you a look at all 44 tracks to provide a great idea of how the song (especially the vocals) is layered.

Listen to how in-tune all the vocals are (a tribute to Freddie and the band) and how tight everything is in the days way before Beat Detective and digital editing. Sure there are a couple of things that a sharp ear will detect, but you'd probably leave those in today anyway because the feel is so good.

The only thing better than listening to this video is having the tracks to play with yourself, but you'll have to find that on your own.

The Value Of Fewer Tracks - The Making Of The Beatles "Come Together"

I'm pleased to say that I started my recording career in the era of limited tracks. As a young working musician, I owned one of the first 4 track Dokoder tape recorders. My first professional productions (and where I really learned the craft) came on a 16 channel MCI console and a Scully 8 track recorder. It was a big deal when I finally graduated to 24 track recording on major label projects.

While having limited tracks to work with might seem primitive compared to today's unlimited digital tracks, it was really a blessing in disguise. Fewer tracks means that decisions have to be made during the recording process. If there's a sound or part that you think you like, you have to commit to it NOW, rather that leave it to be sorted out later during mixing. That sort of forced decision making leads to more efficient, quicker recording, and the ability to trust your first creative instincts (which we often overlook when we have too many choices).

Again, that approach seems to be creatively limited, but some of the greatest music of our time was made  that way. All of the timeless music by The Beatles and all their contemporaries were done with 8 tracks or less. Here's a great example of how "Come Together" came together, starting from a 4 track tape then finished on 8 track.