Rolling Stones "Gimme Shelter" Song Analysis

Here's a song that we've visited before but never as a full song analysis. It's The Rolling Stones seminal "Gimme Shelter," the opening track from the 1969 release "Let It Bleed" which was a huge world-wide hit at the time.

The song was originally recorded at Olympic Studio in London with drummer Charlie Watts, bassist Bill Wyman, producer Jimmy Miller on guiro (a hand-held Latin percussion instrument), pianist Nicky Hopkins, and guitarist Keith Richards on the basic track where Richards sang a scratch vocal track. The song was later finished at Sunset Sound in Hollywood with the addition of Mick Jagger's lead vocals and harmonica and Merry Clayton's soaring harmony vocals. Stone's guitarist Brian Jones, who was still in the band at this point, was absent from the sessions.

The addition of Clayton was a spur-of-the-moment idea from producer Miller, who called in Clayton, who was still in curlers in the middle of the night. Upon returning home, she suffered a miscarriage due to her strenuous vocal performance.

"Gimme Shelter" was never released as a single, but it's been a big part of the Stones set in concert and has been used in dozens of movies and television shows, as well as covered by a host of artists.

The movie at the end has most of the parts isolated so that you can hear what they're playing and what they sound like, followed by the album mix version.

The Song
"Gimme Shelter" is interesting from a songwriting standpoint in that it mostly revolves around a single 3 chord pattern that repeats over and over, except for the verse, which stays on the first chord of the pattern. The form looks like this:

Intro, Verse, Chorus, Interlude, Verse Chorus, Solo (Verse and Chorus), Bridge (Chorus), Verse, Chorus, Chorus, Outro

The solo is over a verse and chorus, with the harmonica taking the verse and the lead guitar taking the chorus. The bridge is actually just a change in the energy thanks to the solo vocal by Clayton, which is also over a chorus.

The Arrangement
The arrangement of "Gimme Shelter" seems like there wasn't much thought given to it except for the intro in terms of song dynamics, but it still works out well.

The intro begins with a tremolo rhythm guitar followed by two tom hits (boy, do they sound good), after which Watts plays the hat against the guiro on the 2nd time through the patter. That's where the doubled "Ooo's" enter, as does the lead guitar playing fills. The 3rd time the pattern plays, the kick and bass enter very softly, then the bass enters playing the pedal of the key of the song (C#) at full volume over the 4rth repeat of the pattern. On the 5th time around, the piano enters, also playing a pedal note on both the left and right hands, while the bass alters it's pattern just a bit, sliding up from the flat 7th. The 6th time is when Watts enters with the beat and the bass begins to follow the chord pattern.

On the verse, a second rhythm guitar enters, but without the tremolo, and the piano drops out or is decreased in level so it's barely perceptible. The first and second verses and choruses are basically the same, with Clayton's harmony and Richard's lead guitar fills entering in the choruses.

Maracas enter at the harmonica part of the solo at about 2:00, while a guitar solo plays underneath. It's then featured during the chorus part of the solo. The chorus continues with Clayton's solo vocal part entering. Later in the song, a 3rd vocal harmony (presumably sung by Richards) also enters on the chorus.

At the end of the solo, the harmonica comes back for brief interlude, then the piano enters for the last verse and Clayton adds harmony to the end of Jagger's vocal phrases. The outro after the vocals features dueling solos between harmonica and lead guitar.

  * The Foundation: bass, drums

  * The Rhythm: guiro, maracas, rhythm guitar, piano

  * The Pad: none

  * The Lead: lead vocals, lead guitar

  * The Fills: lead guitar

The Sound
As you'd expect, the sound of the drums is very 60's, as it's surrounded by a lot of room ambience as the kit was probably miked with only a couple of mics. If you listen to the isolated drum track, you can hear the rhythm guitar leakage, which leads you to believe that the basic tracks might have been only drums, rhythm guitar, percussion and vocals.

One thing that jumps out is how thick and long the reverb on the vocal track is. The verb is delayed so it stays out of way of the lead vocal a bit, but there's a lot more of it than there seems to be on the final mix. Also, notice how low the vocals sit in the mix.

Another thing that's interesting to hear is how distorted everything is, especially Merry Clayton's solo when she begins to belt it out.

The Production
You always hear stories about what a light hitter drummer Charlie Watts is (he's been known to go years between snare drum heads), but that's not true in this song and he leans into it with some muscle. His performance is very solid with great tempo, especially during the fills. Many drummers have great time except when it comes to fills, but that's not the case here.

The percussion provides movement to the arrangement that's subtle but very real and really pushes the song along. This is a Jimmy Miller trademark and it's used a lot by the Stones during this period.

There are a number of "mistakes" that probably wouldn't have been kept had the song been made today, like the last note of the lead guitar fill right as the vocal enters in the first verse (it's a bit late), or Merry Clayton's voice cracking during her vocal solo in the bridge. Actually, the crack really makes it seem a lot more human and paints the emotion better, but I bet most producer's today would never let it go by and have it fixed.

Another thing to listen for is how loose the bass and drums are. Back in the days when the song was made, bands never concentrated on being tight the way we do today, going instead for feel. "Tightness" as we know it today is a concept that's been refined over time since then. As you listen to the isolated tracks, notice that the bass and drums don't always line up, but they never loose the feel.

Clayton's vocal solo in the bridge is a great example of natural dynamics in a song where the performance itself is the dynamic factor. Her vocal is set up to stand out following the guitar solo, and it probably wouldn't have seemed as intense had it been after a vocal chorus, which illustrates perfectly how important the arrangement is in the production of a song.

Be sure to listen to the isolated tracks below!

Send me your song requests.

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7 Tips For A Better Rehearsal

Regardless of where you're at in the musical food chain, rehearsals are an essential part of your life. One of the major differences between a pro and an amateur is in rehearsal technique. Here's a quick checklist to make those rehearsals go a little smoother so you can get a lot more accomplished (excerpted from the How To Make Your Band Sound Great band improvement book).


1) Have an agenda. Know what youʼll be working on before rehearsal even begins. It saps so much energy out of a band to argue about what you're going to do when you have to decide at the rehearsal. Learn something new, work out something that doesn't sound right yet, but keep moving forward. And plan the next rehearsal at the end of the last one.

2) Know your parts before you get there. You canʼt concentrate on playing with the band if you donʼt know your parts. This applies more to cover bands, but can also apply to bands that play their own music as well. Usually the songwriter will record at least a rough demo before the band gets together to work it out. If you work out the changes and get an idea of where the song is going beforehand, there'll be a lot more time to experiment so you can perfect playing with the other musicians during rehearsal.

3) Concentrated on the details. It's not just the changes that make the song, it's all the other things that take it to the next level. Learning to play dynamically and concentrating on the turnarounds, builds, attacks and releases make all the difference in the world in how the song finally sounds.

4) Stop immediately when thereʼs a trainwreck. Address the problem while itʼs fresh. Don't let a mistake go by, especially if the player or players making it aren't aware of what they're doing. Remember the golden words, "How are your playing it?"

5) Work on the most difficult part first. Start as close to the part that's giving you trouble as you can and donʼt stop playing it until it works. Repeat until you get it, even if you have to play it slower at first, or softly so you can hear yourselves better.

6) Donʼt rehearse a song to death. Give it a break and come back later. One of the worst things that a band with their own music does is play the same songs every rehearsal. Give them a rest, especially if you've been playing them for a long time or out on gigs. Don't worry, you won't forget how to play them.

7) Rehearse your show. Before you play a gig, rehearse the entire show, including what youʼll say in- between songs, sound and light cues, etc. This is what a major touring band does and that's why they can nail it from the first night of the tour onwards. The less you leave to chance, the better your show will be.

Just by following these simple techniques, you'll find that not only will your rehearsals be more productive, but your shows as well.

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When Frank Zappa Discovered A New Talent

Here's a repost of something that I posted in 2009 about Frank Zappa. That was in the beginning of my blog and I didn't have too many readers, so I thought you'd might be interested.

Sometime during the 80's when the AES (Audio Engineering Society) conference was still being held at the Waldorf Hotel in New York city, I happened to meet Frank in the one of the hallways between hotel rooms (a lot of the manufacturers showed their gear in hotel rooms rather than in the relatively small banquet hall). He asked me to tag along with him up to the Synclavier room (Frank was a power user), and of course I did.

As we were about to enter the hotel room, a teenaged kid comes up to Frank and asks him to come over into the alcove at the end of the corridor to listen to him play. Frank, being ever so polite as he always was with anyone he did not consider a fool, told him he would be back to listen to him in a few minutes after he finished his business with Synclavier.

Of course it was never just a few minutes with Frank, since everyone there (probably about a hundred people) wanted a chance to talk with him. So after about an hour, the kid came in the Synclavier room and taps Frank on the shoulder. Frank sees the kid and says, "I promise I'll be out in a few minutes."

About 45 more minutes go by and the kid comes back again, taps Frank on the shoulder again, and looks at him with these big doe eyes and says, "Frank, pleeese?" It's hard for anyone to resist a kid pleading like that, so Frank said his goodbyes and headed out into the hallway with the kid, who took him to a quiet corner near the elevators.

The kid had a little battery powered Pignose amp and a Travis Bean guitar (the one with the aluminum neck and long out of business), and began to play for Frank. To everyone's amazement, he wasn't playing with a pick or anything like the usual guitar style that millions of players use - he was cradling the guitar so it's perpendicular to his body and tapping on the frets with both hands.

The kid was scared though, and pretty much fumbled through the song. Frank sensed this, and at the end of the song said, "Hey, that was great! Can you play me something else?"

The kids confidence instantly rose through the ceiling and he proceeded to rip off a song with his unique style that bordered on virtuosity. We were all amazed. Frank gave him his card and told him to call him if he ever got to LA (don't know if he ever did).

The kids name? Stanley Jordan, who eventually went on to a pretty nice career as a jazz guitarist using his unique style.

Frank could be totally brutal with players (or anyone for that matter) with an attitude, and was especially good at cutting them down to size (some good stories there too). But he was also sensitive to players who valued heart above technique and was always open to people showing him what they could do. I'm not sure how much Frank helped Stanley in his career, but at least for one moment on a cold Saturday afternoon in New York, he lifted him towards the sun.

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5 Reasons Why Concerts Sound So Bad

I've posted this before a long time ago (in 2008, I believe), but it's still relevant and a particular pet peeve of mine. Concert sound reinforcement equipment is better than ever, yet we're frequently burdened with a mess of auditory goo that just sucks the enjoyment from a live event.

Unfortunately this happens much more than it should, and I think it's a big reason for many people not wanting to attend as many concerts as they once did. It's tough enough with the high ticket prices, the "convenience charges," and the high cost of parking and concessions, but if you add to that a less than perfect concert experience, it doesn't give one much incentive to return again any time soon.

The fact of the matter is that the majority of concerts really sound bad these days and it's not because of the venue acoustics. It's the mix.

I believe that an entire generation of soundmen grew up learning the wrong way - that the kick drum and snare are the most important part of a mix. While that may be true in some small way when mixing a record (it's really important, but not the most important), it's an entirely different thing mixing live sound, where the vocal should be king.

Common sense says that the softest thing on the stage (the vocals) should get the most amplification and attention. After all, that's really what people pay to hear (and who they come to see the majority of the time), not the kick drum. And the overuse of subwoofers just makes a boomy venue all the more boomy.

So here are five reasons why I think concerts don't sound as good as they could:

1.  The vocal isn't featured. The vocalist is usually the main reason why we're there. Mix it so we can hear and understand it, please.

2.  Over-reliance on subwoofers. In real life, the only time you hear 20-30Hz is during a thunderstorm, earthquake or other natural phenomena, and adding in too much (as is sometimes the norm) can be a big distraction. Sure, you want to make the music sound bigger than life by adding in all that bottom end, but it shouldn't be at the expense of intelligibility.  

3.  Too much kick. A function of the above two items, many soundmen seem to have a myopic vision of the kick drum, spending way more time trying to get a sound at the expense of everything else on the stage. Believe me, most drummers at the concert level are using drums that sound great already. It doesn't take that much effort to make them sound good.

4.  Low intelligibility. Again a function of the above items, many concert soundmen seem happy if you can just hear the vocal. But what the concert goer wants is to understand every word. Let's spend some time on that instead of the kick.

5.  Bad mixing habits. It seems like many soundmen never listened to the CD of the band they're mixing. Sure it's different mixing live. Sure you have some wacky venues to contend with. But 1, 2, 3, and 4 on this list leads to #5.  Now's the time to break the cycle.

I'm sure this list won't change the mind of a current concert soundman. But if just one kid starting out decides that it might not be the best thing to emulate that guy, we'll all be the better for it.

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How To Sort Out Band Writing Credits

Reader Damian Graham sent me a request last week asking a comment on how to split up songwriting credits between band members. This is a loaded question in that there are multiple ways to do it, and most of the time someone feels shortchanged. That said, let's give it a go.

Unfortunately songwriting credits with a young band are usually left until after a number of songs are written and recorded and the possibility of publishing money appears. Then the weeping and gnashing of teeth begin. Usually it's pretty hard to unravel who wrote exactly what in retrospect, thanks to everyone's selective memory on the subject. That's when some really intense band discussions start to take place; sometimes intense enough to break up the band. So what are the ways it's done? Here are the two ways I've seen.

The Percentage Deal. This is where a certain percentage of a song is assigned depending upon the player's involvement. This usually results in lopsided percentages ("I get 75%, you get 20% and you get 5,") that leaves everyone unhappy except the one with the largest percentage. There is a way to handle this though. To most publishers, the music is worth 50% and the lyrics are worth 50%. That at least gives you a basis from where to start to assign credits. If someone contributed a single lyric line, they'd get a smaller percentage than someone who contributed a whole verse or chorus. I hate it when someone is sitting there with a calculator figure out percentages, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

The downside of this method is that the drummer, and to a lesser extent, the bass player, usually gets left out in the cold. But what if the drummer's beat was just the thing that caused the idea to spring forth in the first place? What if the bass riff drives the song (Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust" comes to mind)? Or what if the song was written by the singer, but the guitar player comes up with the riff that sells the song (Would "Satisfaction" be the same song without the guitar riff?). I'm told that it would be difficult to argue any of these and court and expect to win . The judge is going to rule for the one who wrote the melody and lyrics, because that's how the law currently assigned songwriting credit.

The "We're all in this together" Method. This method can work two ways. First, everyone in the band gets an equal share, regardless of who's idea it was. We've seen this in the past with bands like The Doors (guitarist Robbie Krieger wrote all of their huge hit "Light My Fire" except for one line, yet only gets a quarter of the publishing), Guns n' Roses, and most recently Foo Fighters. This also works for songwriting teams as well, most famously Lennon and McCartney (they wrote separately after the early albums) and Mick Jagger/Keith Richards. This way has the least amount of hassles, even though it may not be the fairest contribution-wise.

A modification on this is that whoever is in the room when the song was created gets an equal share. If you're not there, you get no credit. Another is that whoever has the original idea gets a larger percentage and the rest is split. Another way is to make sure that at least one song on the album includes everyone in the band so there's at least some publishing money going to everyone, although this method leaves a lot to be desired in these days of singles being the primary source of royalties.

As you can see, it's messy regardless of which way you do it, so the best thing is to avoid any of these problems in the first place. Make sure that you hash this out with your bandmates as soon as possible, because it only gets messier as time goes on.

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Carly Rae Jepsen "Call Me Maybe" Song Analysis

Here's a song that's #1 on the Ultimate Chart and a top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 by Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen called "Call Me Maybe" from her album Curiosity. The song was originally written as a folk song, but later became the pop that it is thanks to producer Josh Ramsay. After both Justin Beiber and Selena Gomez tweeted about the song, it took off and became a world-wide hit, going to #1 in 11 countries. The song has sold nearly 2 million copies and is still going strong.

The Song
"Call Me Maybe" is probably one of simplest pop song forms you'll ever see, consisting of just a verse and a chorus. There is a bridge (that unusually happens to repeat at the end of the song), but it's really just a slight melody change with some different lyrics over the chorus. The form looks like this:

Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Bridge (Chorus), Interlude, Chorus, Bridge (Chorus)

To add more time to the song since it's so short, each chorus is repeated with just a few of the lyrics changed. Speaking of the lyrics, they fit the song well and are written around a single sentiment that most people can relate to - giving your number to someone you're attracted to. There's not much of a story, and it almost seemed like the lyric writing was rushed since it feels very incomplete, especially the bridge.

The Arrangement
The arrangement on "Call Me Maybe" is interesting for a couple of reasons; first of all, there's really not a bass instrument that can be easily heard. The low end is supplied by what sounds like a synthesizer, although a bass could be in the mix but mixed down pretty low, or it could even be a baritone guitar. Which brings us to the second point. The main instruments (strings hi and low, guitar chords, bass synth) are playing the exact same figures throughout the 2 sections of the song. In fact, I keep waiting for the bass to break out and play a walking line or counter figure, especially after the snare fills during the song, but it never happens.

The song starts with two bars of eighth note string hits (it almost sounds like it could be a sampled guitar), which is joined by a quarter note kick drum (4 on the floor), the lead vocal, and either a guitar or another synth playing a lower part underneath the opening strings. Halfway through the verse the high hat, stereo harmony vocals, and a guitar playing a lower string pedal enters.

On the chorus the vocal is doubled, a new bigger kick sound is introduced along with an exploding snare sample, and a new string line doubled with a guitar enters. When the chorus repeats, a second guitar enters on the right playing chords and a different guitar enters on the left playing a double-time line to add some movement to the song.

On the second verse, the hat pattern is slightly different and a soft snare enters. There's also a bass synth/baritone guitar from the chorus that continues to play. The vocal now has a harmony above it, but it's in mono instead of the spread stereo of the 2nd half of the B sections.

The Bridges are interesting in that they're basically a chorus with different melody and a guitar counter line.

There's a hard ending to the song but it's done fairly cleverly with slow-down, pitch-down of the existing instruments to give the song some finality.

  * The Foundation: kick drum, exploding snare in the chorus

  * The Rhythm: high hat, guitar in the second half of the chorus push the song the most. Strings, bass synth and guitar chords push it less.

  * The Pad: none

  *The Lead: vocals

  * The Fills: guitar counter line in the bridge

The Sound
The sound of "Call Me Maybe" is very in your face, especially the vocals. The only ambience is the short stereo room on the strings, and a long timed delay on the fill guitar in the bridge.

The harmony vocals of the verse and chorus are doubled and spread left and right, and the guitars in the chorus are mono and panned to the left and right, but most everything else is mono and panned to the center.

As is the case with most pop songs today, this one is fairly compressed, especially the vocals. You can sometimes hear the compressor pumping on the vocal, and it sounds like there was a lot of sibilance that was attenuated with a de-esser, almost too much since you sometimes can't distinguish the "S's" in the song.

The Production
For a song that has just 2 1/2 sections (if you count the bridge/chorus), it does develop pretty well dynamically-speaking. If you listen closely, you can hear the instruments enter and exit especially from the beginning of the song until just after the first bridge. Sometimes it's subtle, but there's always something new happening to capture your attention.

The vocal performance by Carly is especially strong as it varies just enough to keep the melody from being boring, yet never sounds forced. In fact, you could say that it even carries the song, which is exactly what you want in a pop song.

Send me your song requests.

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How To Get That "60's" Drum Sound

Ringo with a 2 mic recording setup for "Beatles For Sale"

Last week we talked about how to go really old school and record the drums with a single mic. Today we'll come into the future just slightly and look at how it was done with 2 mics. This was the sound of many of those great hits from The Beatles, Led Zeppelin Beach Boys, etc., at least in the beginning of their careers.

If you look at pictures of recordings in the early to mid 60's, you'll always see the drums miked with one mic on the kick drum and another used as an overhead. Here's the placement technique:

1) Place the kick drum mic about a foot away from the outside of the front of the drum (it doesn't matter whether it has a front head on or not). Place it at about the height of the beater and aim it towards where the beater hits. 

2) Place the overhead mic over the center of the kit (where the rack tom or toms and the snare meet) at height of just a little over the top of the drummer's head. Raise it up a little if you're not getting the coverage of the kit that you need. You also might want to shade it a bit more towards the floor tom, since that's the drum that's usually picked up the least in this setup.

Keep in mind that the 2 mic setup works best for small kits like they used in the 60's. If you have a huge Terry Bozzio-like kit with a dozen toms and cymbals, you won't get the result you're looking for with this method.

Also keep in mind that the 2 mic method was always used for mono recording where both mics were  recorded on a single track, and sometimes, were mixed together with other instruments as well (or even a lot of other instruments, like in the case of Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound"). That doesn't mean that you have to record both mics on the same track, but they were forced to way back when because they didn't have the technology available to them to separate things a bit to balance them later.

Remember that a little bit of compression (a couple of dB or so, but add to taste) goes a long way in this setup, helping to balance the kit a bit while moving it forward in the mix.

So if you want a simple setup that gets an authentic "classic 60's" drum sound with a minimum of hassle, the 2 mic method is the way it was done.

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Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust Now Available

June 6th, 2012 is somewhat historic in that it's the 40th anniversary of the release of David Bowie's seminal The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, and the 50th anniversary of the first time that The Beatles stepped into Abbey Road Studios to record.

It's also the release date of legendary producer/engineer Ken Scott's memoir Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust, co-written by yours truly.

What's the connection to The Beatles and Bowie? Ken was one of the 5 main Beatles engineers, starting as an assistant on A Hard Day's Night, then working his way up to a full engineer on Magical Mystery Tour and The White Album. As for Bowie, Ken co-produced Ziggy Stardust, as well as his Hunky Dory, Pinups and Alladin Sane albums.

But Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust is about much more than that, as Ken discusses his time doing Beatle solo projects (Lennon's "Give Peace A Chance," Ringo's "It Don't Come Easy," and Harrison's All Things Must Pass), Elton John, Supertramp, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Devo, Kansas, The Tubes, Duran Duran, Jeff Beck, Mahavishnu Orchestra and many more.

If you're curious as to the gear that Ken, The Beatles or Bowie used, Ken's recording and mixing techniques, and the layout and hierarchy of the famous Abbey Road Studio, there's plenty of detail all laid out in convenient sidebars so it can be easily found. But if you're just a fan, there's plenty of juicy never-before-told stories and photos that read like a who's who of the 70's and 80's.

I can tell you that even though I helped write the book, I still find it fun and enjoyable to read after being through it dozens of times. It's the next best thing to being there yourself. I hope you'll enjoy it just as much.

Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust can now be found at any book store, music store, or online, and will soon be available for Kindle and iPad.

If you want to read more about the book and see a full overview of each chapter, go to abbeytoziggy.com.

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Cream "Sunshine Of Your Love" Song Analysis

Here's a classic song that's interesting because it's been such an influence on generations of guitar players. It's "Sunshine of Your Love" by Cream, a song from the band's second album, Disraeli Gears in 1967, and released as a single the following year. "Sunshine of Your Love" was the single that broke the band in the United States, eventually rising to #5, and was the first single to chart higher than in the UK. In 2004 Rolling Stone magazine named it the 65th greatest song of all time, while in 2009 VH1 called it the 44th best hard rock song of all time. Like with all song analysis, we'll look at the song form, the arrangement, the sound and the production.


And of course, Atlantic CEO Ahmet Ertegan hated both Jack Bruce (he didn't the bass player should be the lead singer of the band) and the song so it was almost left off the album. It was only included because they didn't have enough material in the end. Leave it to a record exec to want to nix what became their biggest hit!

The Song
"Sunshine of Your Love" is basically a 12 bar blues song, but it's quite unusual in that it's in 8/8 time rather than the usual 4/4. The distinctive bass riff is an 8 beat riff (in other words, it needs 8 beats to complete), and the song is built around it. As with most 12 bar blues songs, the first 8 bars (sometimes it's 10) make up the verse and the last 4 (or 2 in some songs) basically make up what amounts to a chorus, although we look at the full 12 bars as just a verse. The song form looks like this:

Intro (4 bars), Verse, Interlude (2 bars), Verse, Solo (over a Verse), Verse, 2 bar Chorus repeat, Outro

The song begins with the guitar and bass for the first two bars, then is joined by the drums for the next two. Unlike a common pop song, it doesn't feature a signature hook since the bass/guitar riff line is a hook in itself. The interlude is just 2 bars of the verse, and also does not feature a true hook or melody on top of the song's foundation elements. The end of the final verse features an additional two bars with the vocals of bassist Jack Bruce and guitarist Eric Clapton answering each other.

According to Bruce, the signature bass riff was inspired by Jimi Hendrix. The lyrics were written by beat poet Pete Brown during an all night writing session. Said Bruce, "I picked up my double bass and played the riff. Pete looked out the window and the sun was coming up. He wrote 'It's getting near dawn, and lights close their tired eyes....'" Clapton later wrote the chorus ("I've been waiting so long, in the sunshine of your love").

Unlike most song lyrics, Brown was a real poet and you can tell, as the words have an elegance that's missing in the majority of hit songs that you'll hear today.

The Arrangement
This is early rock at its finest in that the song is just the band with a single overdub, and that's the guitar solo. Everything else is the simple three piece power trio that Cream was. The only thing slightly unique is that they had two lead singers, with Bruce and Clapton alternating lines in the verse and singing harmony together in the chorus.

The arrangement elements look like this:

  * The Foundation: drums

  * The Rhythm: guitar and bass (they play the same riff)

  * The Pad: none

  * The Lead: vocals, guitar solo

  * The Fills: none

This is one of those rare songs that only has 3 arrangement elements occurring at the same time throughout the song. The vast majority of songs may have 3 elements for a portion of the song, but eventually graduate to 4 or even 5. You'll almost never have more than 5 simultaneous elements since that just confuses the listener, and breaks a basic arrangement rule.

The Sound
"Sunshine of Your Love" was recorded by the legendary Tom Dowd at Atlantic Studios in New York City. As with most songs of the era, it's clean, not very compressed, and not very loud, especially when compared with the songs of today. It also doesn't have much low end on the mix, since that wasn't much of a priority at the time. Engineering emphasis of the bass frequencies came about a decade later.

The stereo panning is typical 1967, with the drums on the right side and the rhythm guitar on the left. Take note of the long delayed reverb that's prominent on the vocals, and a little less so on the guitar. The drums, in turn, are pretty dry.


Jack Bruce's bass is pretty distorted and the amp is obviously miked. There was no such thing as "going direct" back in those days. In fact, direct boxes didn't even come on the scene for another 10 years or so. I must admit, I think that miking the amp is a better way of doing things as it gives the bass player's tone some character. Direct bass tends to all sound the same.

Bruce's vocal is also distorted, especially when he really opens up on the B section. It has just a touch of reverb, and you can hear the compressor grabbing a bit, but it's not a bad sound in general. Also listen to all the breath noise in the vocal. If the song was recorded today, that would probably be eliminated, but it does give the vocal a sense of realism and character.

Bruce's and Clapton's vocals are slightly split in the stereo field during the choruses


Of particular interest is the sound of the guitar solo, which Clapton called his "Women Tone," and came from his 1964 Gibson SG guitar played through a Marshall JTM 100 Model 1957 "Super Lead" amp head and matching 4x12 cabinet. Clapton has explained that the sound came as a result of the tone control of the guitar's neck pickup set to full "off" and the bass, middle and treble controls on the amp set to max.

The Production
Back in 1967 production consisted more of getting everyone to the studio on time, keeping everyone inspired and choosing the correct take, which is something that producer Felix Pappalardi did well in this case.

There is one production piece that was crucial to the song though, by way of engineer Dowd, who went on to a successful career as a producer as well. According to Dowd in his documentary Tom Dowd And The Language Of Music, he explained, "There just wasn't this common ground that they had on so many of the other songs. I said, "Have you ever seen an American Western where the Indian beat - the downbeat - is the beat? Why don't you play that one. Ginger went inside and they started to run the song again. When they started playing that way, all of the parts came together and they were elated."

The drum part he's referring to is exceptionally unusual since it revolves around Ginger Baker's toms emphasizing beats 1 and 3 (on most songs it's 2 and 4). There's very little snare drum and the only time you hear cymbals is in choruses and the solo (although you hear them more as the song progresses). Very different for the time, and still very different today.

Send me your song requests.

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The Intangibles Of A Mix

It’s easy to think that getting a good mix is just a matter of pushing up some faders, getting a reasonable balance, adding some effects and your done. Sure, that might work for a rough mix, but there’s a lot more that goes into making a great mix that’s way beyond the basic issue of balance, and these are the things that usually take some experience or a mentor to realize. While it’s so much easier if you watch and listen while a great mixer does his thing, let me point out a number of intangibles that are vitally important to a great mix. Awareness is always the first step in learning, so here are some things to consider before you start to move faders around.

The Arrangement

It’s really easy to get caught up in just the audio portion of being an engineer, but unless you seriously consider how the music itself is put together (assuming that’s what you’re engineering, of course), your ultimate product probably won’t sound great no matter how good you are at balancing tracks.

I’m sure that anyone with a little experience has found that the arrangement is usually the #1 non-audio problem in a mix. In these days of unlimited tracks, it’s all too easy to pile more and more musical elements along with doubles and triples and stacks of everything you can think of. You can easily wind up with a hundred tracks to wade through, and that gives you an impossible task of making it sound like something more than a wad of dense audio goo. A good producer will usually bring some sense to the arrangement, paring things down to where it’s reasonable, but sometimes the producer is the one demanding everything but the kitchen sink be added on. And if the songwriter doesn’t have an innate sense of arrangement (many do, luckily), you’ve got a mess on your hands.

That’s why it’s important that the mixing engineer be aware of some basic music arrangement principles, because a big part of being a mixing engineer is knowing when to mute things and knowing just what elements take precedence at a certain part of the tune.

Good balance actually starts with good arrangement, so it’s important to understand arrangement because so much of mixing is actually subtractive by nature. This means that the arrangement, and therefore the balance, is changed by the simple act of muting or lowering the level of an instrument whose part doesn’t fit well with another. If the instruments fit well together arrangement-wise and don’t fight one another, then your life as a mixer just became immensely easier. 

The Point of Interest

Every song has something that’s the main point of interest or something so compelling that you can’t take your ears off it (if it doesn’t, send the song back to the drawing board. It’s not complete).

Although having control over how the previous five elements appear may be sufficient for many types of audio jobs, and might be just fine to get a decent mix, most popular music requires a mix that can take the song to another level. Although it’s always easier with great tracks, solid arrangements and spectacular playing, a great mix can take simply OK tracks and transform them into hit material so compelling that people can’t get enough of it. It’s been done on some of your favorite all-time songs.

So how can we get to that point?

More than being just technically correct, a mix must be as interesting as a good movie. It must build to a climax while having points of tension and release to keep the listener subconsciously involved.  Just as a film looks bigger than life, a great mix must sound bigger than real life. The passion and the emotion must be on a level where the listener is sucked in and forced to listen.

And the way to do that? Find whatever element is the most important to the song. In some cases (like Dance and Rap music), the most important element is the groove. Yet in other genres (like Country), it’s the vocal. It Rock and Pop it might be a signature line or hook.

Even though the most important element is often the lead vocal, it doesn’t necessarily have to be. It could be a riff like from The Stone’s Satisfaction and Start Me Up or the intro to Coldplay’s Clocks or the rhythm on the verses of The Arctic Monkey’s I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor. It’s always a part so compelling that it forces you to listen to the song.

Whatever part is most important, the mixer must identify it and emphasize it in the mix in order for the mix to be elevated beyond the ordinary. You can learn more about mixing either in The Mixing Engineer's Handbook or my Lynda.com Audio Mixing Bootcamp video course.

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Music Software Popularity Index

Here's an interesting chart on the left from Digital Music Doctor that shows the popularity of DAW applications. As you can see, Pro Tools is still in the lead, but FL Studio is coming on strong, followed by Ableton Live. Last years challengers Cubase and Sonar have dropped back some.

Digital Music Doctor doesn't measure the installed base of users or even sales of software packages, they measure Internet search results, so don't misconstrue what the chart is trying to say. It's the popularity of a software package based on search activity on Google, Bing, Yahoo and AOL. The idea is that the number of searches directly correlates to the DAW's real popularity, which may or may not be the case.

As I said before, I'm no shill for Pro Tools but I can tell you that if you really want to work professionally in just about any area of the entertainment business, knowing how to use it is a necessity because that's what the majority of pros use. From music production to film and television post to voice-over work to anything else you can think of, it's a Pro Tools world for the most part. That's not to say that any of the other fine DAWs don't have their place. They're great learning and production tools, every one of them. But if you're looking for a job that has to do with audio, you'll need some Pro Tools operational skill no matter which way you cut it.

This comes from a person who started with Digital Performer version 1.0, then switched to Nuendo 1.0 (which I loved), only to go kicking and screaming into the Pro Tools world after it became just too painful transferring projects back and forth to those other platforms. I've never looked back and my projects never suffered from the change. So just a word of warning when looking at software popularity charts; they don't always tell the whole story.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

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

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Single Mic Drum Recording

Sometimes we get caught up in a complex technique simply because we can. The technology that's available to almost anyone today offers so many choices that we want to use them all - sometimes even at the same time.

Then sometimes we use a technique because that's what everyone else is doing, or even worse, because that's what you're favorite engineer, artist or producer does. The problem here is that each situation is different. The song, arrangement, players, environment, and signal path means that what works great for someone else may not work in your situation.

And then again, sometimes the simple, old-school way can work best.

Take drum recording, for instance. Back in the very old days when a 4 input mixer was considered "large format," placing a single mic on the drum kit was the norm. The drums were considered a single instrument, not a number of individual units (as is thought too many times today). They used a recording technique then that can still work surprisingly well today - using just a single mic.

Here's how it's done:

1) Place a mic about 3 feet directly in front of the drum kit at height of around the drummer's eyes. 

2) Aim the mic down at the snare. 

3) If you want more bass drum and less cymbals, lower the mic. 

4) If you want more room ambience, move the mic backwards a couple of feet at a time until you get the right blend. 

5) Add a couple of dB of compression to both tighten the drum sound and even out the balance between drums.

This technique will work really well with any kind of mic, but the better the mic, the better it will sound (no surprise there).

Give it a try; it really works, especially if you're looking for that classic 50's sound.

You can read more about drum techniques like this in The Drum Recording Handbook and The Recording Engineer's Handbook. Check out the excerpt section of my website to read more.

Next week we'll look at another classic method - this time using 2 mics.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

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

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