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I'm your host, Jeff Boller, main songwriter and performer in The Simple Carnival. This blog is all about the art and craft of writing and recording music. DIY home studio songwriters and musicians should feel right at home here! More about me...

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    Posts Tagged ‘recording’

    Three tricks for better vocal overdubs

    Saturday, December 20th, 2008
    “In a lot of ways, everything is sort of judged by the voice.” -Kevin Barnes from Of Montreal
    Want to capture better-sounding vocal performances in the studio? (OK, that’s a dumb question. Who doesn’t?)
    In this article, I’ll share three tricks I’ve discovered for singing solid lead and background vocal overdubs. These tricks use simple psychoacoustics to coax the best performance out of a vocalist.
    Note that I’m not going to talk about vocal technique, microphone placement, or anything like that. I assume you already have a basic understanding of these things. In fact, I’m going to assume all of the following:
  • You’re working with a singer who can generally sing in tune, and that singer might very well be you.
  • You’re capable of capturing decent-sounding vocals onto your tape recorder or DAW.
  • You’re serious enough about recording vocals to own a pop filter.
  • You have a hardware mixer.
  • You know what an aux send is and you’re not afraid to use it.
  • You despise AutoTune and would rather capture a good performance in front of the mic instead of manufacturing one at a later date.
    • You don’t have to be Stevie Wonder to use these tricks. In fact, these techniques work best with “average” singers.
    I’ll be the first to admit I’m no Stevie Wonder. I’ve used these tricks on just about every Simple Carnival song with (I think) pretty good results. Try them on your voice to see if it doesn’t put your vocal tracks in a better light than usual.
    TRICK #1
    This trick is for lead vocals.
    I won’t go into the specific implementation of this trick, as it will depend on the gear you own. But this is where you want to go.
    First, get a mono mix happening for all of the instruments in the song. That way, when you listen to it through headphones, it’s happening in “the middle of your head” and sounds incredibly bland. Even the reverbs and chorusing effects in the song need to be in mono.
    Sing into the mic, but find a way to split the signal. Take one feed and send that into your tape recorder/DAW. Take the other feed and find a way to put big, spacious stereo reverb on it — way more reverb than you’d ever use in the final mix, but not so much that you can’t comprehend what’s going on.
    Don’t have any noticeable predelay on the reverb. This rules out using most native DAW software-based reverbs, which typically add some latency to a live signal. So in most setups, the reverb should come from an external hardware unit.
    No matter where you get your reverb from, be careful that it’s not adding a subtle chorus-like effect, as that will give the singer slightly incorrect pitch information.
    This trick does a couple of things. One, because your instrument mix is in mono, you’re not distracted by mix elements that are panned in the stereo field. This allows you to hear the reverb clearly, because it is very much in stereo.
    Two, because you have a long reverb, you can listen to the end of your phrases when you sing and determine how “on” you were. This is important.
    I’ve found that if a vocalist’s pitch is a bit off at the beginning or in the middle of a phrase, the listener will usually overlook that. But if the vocalist is flat at the end of a phrase…. ugh. The listener then perceives that phrase as being out of tune. (Disclaimers: This is dependent on the style of music you’re recording, it doesn’t apply if you’re Bob Dylan, etc.)
    TRICK #2
    This trick is for background vocals. Again, I won’t go into the specific implementation, just where you need to end up.
    First, get the mono mix happening for all of the instruments on your song, just like Trick #1.
    Now record your first background vocal exactly like how you would record a lead vocal using Trick #1.
    After you get a performance you’re happy with, take that first background vocal and pan it all the way to the left. (Or right, it doesn’t matter.) Don’t put any reverb on it. Have it up loud enough so you can anticipate your breaths and syllables.
    Record your next vocal, using Trick #1 (heavy stereo reverb on the vocal you’re singing).
    You can continue stacking duplicate background voices this way. I typically use three voices for each part of a harmony, because three voices are the minimum for masking slight intonation problems.
    Why three?
    It’s the same reason orchestral arrangers tend to use three or more violins to play a single melodic line. Two well-performed violins playing the same note will often create a flanging sound; three or more and your ear becomes “confused” in a good way. Your ear only perceives a pleasant, natural “chorusing” sound. (Not that two violins/voices aren’t useful — they are! But it’s a different sound. I’ll often record lead vocals with just two voices.)
    Don’t take my word for it — try it for yourself and see which your ear prefers for background vocals.
    But when it comes time to sing another part of the harmony…
    …it helps to keep all the “old” harmony takes in one ear and the “new” harmony takes in the other ear. And lower the volume of the combined earlier harmony part.
    This technique, like Trick #1, allows you to clearly hear your pitch because of the reverb. But because you have a previous good vocal tickling one of your ears, it’s easy to be in sync with your previous performance, and it’s easy to tell when your pitch is “on” and blending well.
    TRICK #3
    Some days, everything in the studio happens efforlessly. You’re in a state of flow. You’re in the zone.
    On other days, nothing goes right. That’s when it’s time to pull out Trick #3. This trick almost never yields results as good as a day spent in the zone, but it’s better than accomplishing nothing at all.
  • Use Trick #1 and “Frankenstein” a lead vocal part together. When I say “Frankenstein,” I mean do whatever you have to do to get an acceptable performance: sing one line at a time, punch in individual words, or use — gasp!!! — Autotune.
  • Once you have your technically OK but uninspired lead vocal part, use Trick #2 and pretend like you’re recording a background vocal part. That is, let the Frankenstein part be your security blanket. Follow along with your breaths and syllables. Once you do Trick #2 enough, nailing a lead vocal like this is easy — it’s like being on autopilot.
  • When you finally have an acceptable performance, delete the Frankenstein track.
    • Audio from an actual vocal session
    I did a vocal session recently where I used Trick #1 and Trick #2 extensively. I also did some variations to these tricks, like recording a keyboard part to help learn a harmony line. Here is a mp3 illustrating Trick #1 and Trick #2 in action.
    Vocal overdub tricks mp3
    This mp3 contains the following excerpts from the session, recorded directly from my headphone feed:
    1. The first vocal overdub of the first harmony part, using Trick #1. Note the large amount of reverb to help discern pitch information.
    2. The second vocal overdub of the first harmony part, Trick #2. Note how the first take is panned far left and is completely dry.
    3. Three vocal overdubs for the first harmony part panned far left and completely dry. A Casio keyboard guide part is being recorded through the vocal mic to help learn the second vocal overdub part.
    4. The first vocal overdub of the second harmony part. All three overdubs of the first harmony part are panned far left, are completely dry, and are lowered in volume. (Actually, they’re a little too low — I was recording quickly and didn’t feel like correcting it.) The Casio keyboard guide part is panned far right.
    5. The second vocal overdub of the second harmony part. The first harmony overdubs are still panned far left. The first overdub of the second harmony part is panned far right, along with the Casio keyboard guide part.
    6. Three harmony parts with three vocal overdubs each panned dead center with no effects, no EQ, and no compression.
    And what is the “preamp test for Songs and Sonics?” Stay tuned…!

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    Posted in The Simple Carnival | 2 Comments »

    Interview: The Brigadier

    Friday, May 16th, 2008
    Some artists make recordings. The Brigadier (a.k.a. Matt Williams) makes records.
    Matt WilliamsThe Brigadier’s albums sound as if they were meticulously assembled in a 1979-era world-class million dollar studio. Electric Light Orchestra, 10cc, and Queen are all sonic reference points, as well as more recent artists like Teenage Fanclub.
    Except that Matt doesn’t utilize a world-class studio. Instead, he uses a computer, a keyboard, and a guitar in the corner of his living room. And he posesses a very interesting microphone preamp, as you’ll discover in the following interview. If The Brigadier isn’t a great example of imagination triumphing over gear, I don’t know what is.
    The Brigadier’s brand new album, The Rise and Fall of Responsibility, is a solid collection of Teenage Fanclub-meets-Jeff Lynne studio pop goodness. And at precisely the point in the album when you think you’ve got his sound pegged, he throws in two superb electro-disco tunes (The Melancholy Days and This, is Why) that amazingly don’t feel out of place with the previous guitar-centric tracks.
    If you’re looking for a good soundtrack to accompany this interview, look no further than The Brigader’s MySpace page. If you’re not won over by the end of Some Sort of Magic (from The Brigadier’s 2007 release, View from the Bath), you should probably have your pulse checked.
    Jeff: How did The Brigadier get started?
    Matt: I did the usual route of playing in bands throughout my teens and all that, though just initially as a guitarist playing rock stuff. I’d always been able to come up with tunes since I was young, and by my late teens was able to form them into songs. Then I started recording them on a four track.
    To cut a long story short, I went through some more bands but got fed up with all the stuff that comes with being in a band. So I decided to go “solo,” as it were. I didn’t want to go under my own name, as there were already several other artists called Matt Williams and I thought it would be a bit boring to go under my own name. The last band I had been in was called Brigadier, so I decided to keep the name.
    When thinking of the name I wanted something a bit authoritative but also with a twinkle in the eye. All the regal names had been taken — Queen, King, Prince, Princess — so I decided to go with a military name. The only one which popped out as sounding interesting was brigadier. I just kind of found it funny!
    Then I bought a computer to see if I could give it a go on the internet, largely because hardly anyone had heard my songs and I had no idea how they would be perceived. I went on loads of sites, but eventually settled down on MySpace, as I found it the easiest to use. Suddenly, I was getting a lot of feedback from people who really liked the stuff — which was a real boost to my confidence. Then, when I started making CDs to sell, people actually bought them! Which was the best thing, as it really validated what I was doing.
    Your productions are reminiscent of big budget late ’70s pop. Where the heck did you learn how to produce like that?
    I kind of just picked it up by doing it again and again. I used to record everything on four track tape. When I moved over to a computer, I utilized it in the same way — just as a glorified four track. I used to be very sloppy with my recording. But the more I did it, the more my ears became attuned to hearing everything, and the better the sound became.
    I like fuller productions, like what you would hear on mid ’60s Beach Boys and ’70s Queen records. I like to bring out as much of the song as possible in the production without suffocating it. Sometimes I try to strip things down and do something with just my voice and piano or guitar — but I don’t often get there!
    How often do you play live? How do you make sure your songs translate to a live environment?
    I play live as often as I can. Some songs I just sing playing along with my guitar. For the others, I sing and play guitar along with backing tracks from my mp3 player. It’s basically the same tracks off my albums, but stripped of lead guitar and vocals — so it’s kind of like Karaoke!
    It’s not ideal, but until I can find a band, it’s the only way. Surprisingly, it doesn’t sound that bad, and the songs seem to go down well in the live environment.
    You do everything on your recordings — writing, performing, and recording. Your recordings sound fantastic. What’s your studio setup?
    It’s quite a skeletal setup, I use one microphone (Beyerdynamic) for everything, mostly because I never got around to buying any other, then that goes into a Tascam four track tape recorder, which is sort of my preamp, as I don’t have a mixer.
    The Brigadier's recording studioAre you serious? From the sound of your vocals, I thought you had a midrange microphone and a high-end preamp! What microphone model are you using? And which 4-track?
    The mic is a Beyerdynamic M300 TG. It’s one that my dad gave me years ago when I started recording. To be honest, I don’t know that much about mics, so I’ve never used any other!
    The Tascam is a Porta 03 MkII. It has a stereo input that I use for my keyboards, which you can switch to a mic input for the mic. Then, I plug the output of that into the computer.
    Are you using a separate audio interface, or are you running the audio directly into your computer?
    The audio is going straight in. I use an old Apple Mac G3, on which I’m running Logic Audio 4.7, an old but trusty program! I don’t use any MIDI instruments, as there’s a fault with my setup which won’t allow it. But I do have some internal synths on my computer which I can use, like Mellotron samples and old ’70s analogue keyboards.
    What sample libraries or virtual instruments do you use?
    I don’t have many sample instruments, but I bought some on eBay, like Mellotron samples which I use and ARP synthesizers. I use them inside the EXS24 sampler in Logic. Aside from that, all my keyboard stuff is played in direct from my Yamaha portable grand.
    Most of my keyboards have to be played straight in, which can be annoying. If you make a mistake, you have to start again… But it makes you a better keyboard player!
    What do you do with your vocals as far as compression? Are you just running the vocals from your four track into the computer and compressing inside Logic? Or are you using some outboard hardware compressor?
    I use a compressor inside of Logic on a lot of the vocals but not all of them, then I EQ them to make them a bit warmer. I don’t have any external processors, as I don’t want to get overwhelmed by too much stuff! Also, I’m currently trying to upgrade my equipment at the moment, but it’s not working as I keep getting plagued with technical hurdles!
    The Rise and Fall of ResponsibilityOn “The Rise and Fall of Responsibility,” many of the songs seem to revolve around the transition from being a teenager to a young adult. Were there any real-life situations that inspired the songs?
    Some songs derive completely from real-life situations and others are exaggerated somewhat. The rest are either fictional or songs about somebody else, so are not applicable to me. Generally though, there is a biographical and nostalgic element to a lot of the songs. In that sense it could be construed as self-indulgent, but that’s just the way it is!
    Well, if you’re a songwriter, you gotta write about something, y’know?
    Is there a specific song on “The Rise and Fall…” where you could describe how “real life” influenced it?
    Well, there’s a song on there called Under the Influenza which is written about having the flu or colds and all that sort of stuff. That comes from always being ill when I was younger. I’m generally much healthier these days, but I had the flu earlier in the year. I wrote this song in bed when I was feeling pretty dire!
    You pull off a credible “Discovery”-era ELO sound with “The Melancholy Days.” (And it’s a fantastic song, as well!) Have you ever considered doing a 12″ remix? A disco album?
    Rhythm is very important to me, and I try to give every song a different rhythmic feel. There’s nothing worse than listening to a collection of songs which all have the same groove. I think you should be able to move to most music, whether it’s “dance” orientated or not. That said, I do like “dance” music in a traditional pop way. I like a lot of disco, funk, and early 80s dance pop, as its quite fresh-sounding, and most importantly, full of groove — which I think a lot of dance music gradually lost over time.
    I don’t know if I would do a whole disco album, but probably after a few more albums you could certainly compile a good dancing compilation!
    As a one man band, you obviously don’t have the luxury of other musicians helping establish a groove when recording. Are there any tricks you’ve discovered to help get the right sort of “feel” for a song?
    Yes — I basically borrow a groove off a record that I like. Generally, when I’ve written something, I’ll write down next to it, “The feel is like this song by…” whoever it is. That’s usually the start off point. That’s why it’s good to listen to lots of music — even stuff you don’t like — because you might find something like a rhythm or groove that you can borrow!
    Could you provide a bit of a breakdown about how you produced “The Melancholy Days?”
    It was just something I wrote on guitar. It was going to be a slow ballad, but I thought that might be a bit obvious, so I didn’t do anything with it for a while. One day, I was listening to a song I liked called La Dolce Vita by Ryan Paris, who was a sort of early ’80s Europop one hit wonder. I thought that I should do something with a similar beat, so I basically used the groove off that song, though compositionally they have nothing in common. Sound-wise, then I was just fiddling around with different synthesizer sounds. I had to keep relentlessly stripping it down until it was very sparse, though by the end of the song it gets quite busy again!
    How long does it take for you to write and record a typical Brigadier song?
    I’m quite quick at writing, but the recording takes time as I have a day job and have to fit it in around that. I’m always thinking simultaneously about loads of different songs at any one time. Some songs I finish and some I don’t. Some come back for another day.
    Some songs literally are all completely recorded and mixed within a few hours (like This is, Why… off the new album) and others I might start at some point, and then burn off my computer — coming back to them weeks or months later. Usually if you record and mix something on one day, you go back to it a few days later and you want or need to refine it. After a few more times of doing that, it usually sounds finished. The more experienced you become with recording, the easier it is, because you know instinctively how you want it to sound and how to get there. But then that’s like anything, I suppose!
    Do you throw stuff away?
    I abandon lots of songs in the writing stage if they’re not keeping my interest, but will usually just throw them into a pile for another day. With recording, sometimes I’ll do a backing track and decide I don’t like it or it’s in the wrong tempo or key — or basically, it’s not inspiring. So I’ll bin it. Then maybe a few months later, I’ll come back to that song and redo it in a different way. I have lots of songs like that!
    What are the best things about being a one-man-band?
    The best things definitely are being able to do what I want when I want. I can write anything and release it and don’t have to teach someone how to play it. I have collaborated with people before many times on writing and recording, but would generally prefer to produce other people than write with them — but I’m not ruling it out.
    What about the worst?
    The worst thing is that you have to be your own motivator and you have to really force yourself to keep your own morale up. It’s especially evident when I’m doing a gig. It isn’t as much fun doing a gig by yourself. I’d rather play with a band behind me in that capacity.
    Do you have any tricks you use to stay motivated, especially when writing and recording?
    I think having strong self-belief is the only thing which you can use to motivate yourself a lot of the time. That, and getting feedback from other musicians and fans. You tend to feel validated when people like what you are doing, so it helps keep you on track. That said, there are many dark days where you feel a bit lost and directionless and what you’re doing is not worth anything. But you need to try and not let those thoughts hold much weight.
    Who are, in your view, some excellent but severely overlooked recording artists that everybody should know about?
    A lot of my tastes are quite mainstream and go from the mid 50s to the recent day, but that encompasses pop, rock, progressive rock, funk, heavy metal, country, bluegrass, country-rock, disco, electropop, etc. So as far as I can think the overlooked bands that I like did enjoy some success but not enough of it: artists like Saint Etienne, Stackridge, Salad, The Auteurs, Emitt Rhodes, and Mike Scott.
    I think as well as bands that are underrated or unknown, there are also “lost” periods in famous artists histories that go completely overlooked, people like Nick Lowe, Dion Dimucci, Delmont Shannon and The Everly Brothers, even The Beach Boys too. People might only know them for a handful of hits, but if you delve in to their back catalogues, there are some really great albums.
    What’s next for The Brigadier?
    My first priority is to try and upgrade my recording equipment to make things easier. I’m also working on an EP for release in the late summer with a loose theme of “Holidays,” but that will probably change. I’ve also started recording my next album for probable release next year. I’ve got so many songs that I’m just going to keep recording them because I can’t think of anything better to do. Thankfully, I have a good fan base who enjoy what I do, and I always sell enough to cover all my costs of making CDs — so there’s no reason to stop!
    10 things that inspire The Brigadier
  • Food
  • The weather
  • Photographs
  • Nostalgia
  • States of mind
  • Going on trips
  • Films
  • Other peoples songs
  • Love
  • Not going to work
    • The Brigadier’s web site | The Brigader’s MySpace page | Order The Rise and Fall of Responsibility

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    Posted in Interviews | No Comments »

    Interview: Postal Blue

    Monday, April 28th, 2008
    Wait, they’re from where?
    Adriano RibeiroPostal Blue is proof that, in the age of the internet, it’s optional whether you sound like your home base’s music scene. Aside from the sole Portuguese track on their latest EP, Road to Happiness, if you close your eyes when listening to Postal Blue, you’ll swear that their chimey guitar pop is from some sleepy overcast town in the UK, not from the tropics of Brazil. Fans of The Smiths and Echo and The Bunnymen would be wise to check them out. Heck, it’s only a mouse click away! You can go right to Postal Blue’s Last.fm page and listen to almost everything they’ve officially released.
    Today I’m talking with Adriano Ribeiro, lead singer, songwriter, and one of the guitarists in Postal Blue. Adriano’s blog, Confessions of a Nearly Starving Artist, is a fine read about being a recording artist and making music. It’s one of my daily web visits.
    Jeff: Tell me a little about how Postal Blue got started, where you’ve been, and what you’re up to now.
    Adriano: I’d been in a band for many years with André [Costa] (our drummer) and former Postal Blue guitarist Alessandro. We decided to start a new band, and André brought in Ismael [Braz] to play bass.
    We teamed up around late 1997 or early 1998, and immediately started working on the songs that would later be our first ep (Postal Blue) on Drive-In Records. A couple of those early songs made the way into our latest EP. Those are I Took The Love You Were Hiding and I’m Glad You Know.
    After the first EP, we signed with Shelflife Records for another EP and an album, which were Weather Sensitive and International Breeze respectively. Even though Alessandro was in the band when we wrote the songs for the album, he left just before we started recording it, so Francinalto [Lacerda] filled his spot from then on. The album was followed by our last EP, released by Humblebee Recordings, called Road to Happiness.
    We’re currently on a break, gathering inspiration and recharging batteries for a new album, which is supposed to be our “White Album.” Lots of songs and plenty of experiments in pop. We also have a single coming out on Cloudberry Records pretty soon.
    I see that you’re releasing songs on your Confessions of a Nearly Starving Artist blog as Postal Blue, but you’re usually playing all the instruments. What’s the story? Is the band still together?
    The band is not officially kaput, and we might as well get together to rehearse and record next week, provided we can get the stars properly aligned.
    Having said that, I am putting up songs on my blog under the name Postal Blue because they’re mostly demo recordings of songs we are going to re-record and rearrange at some point in the future. But I am writing and recording them on my own. It’s mainly a way to force myself to produce something regularly, and to gain input from listeners while I’m still writing the songs.
    Where did the name Postal Blue come from?
    It’s my favorite color.
    How is Road to Happiness different from your previous releases?
    Postal BlueIt’s a more straightforward record with proper pop songs, as opposed to our album where we did a lot of experimenting with moods and song structures. Production-wise, it’s just us playing the songs as we do during band practice too, with barely any overdubs and not much in the way of synths and samples. The only exception is the last song (I’m Glad You Know), which called for a different approach.
    That track has a very different sound compared to what came before it. It’s much more pastoral, and you’re using string and piano sounds. Is this the start of a new direction for Postal Blue, an experiment, or…?
    It’s more of a look back into our past, when we did a lot of that kind of thing. I do like to do tracks like that a lot and it’s definitely not the last time you’ll hear me torture a piano.
    What was the process for writing songs on Road to Happiness?
    The songs that were written specifically for that EP were The World Doesn’t Need You, It Won’t Last, and Vou Deixar Pra Depois. You can tell that by the fact that they share very similar structures.
    The process was the usual: I’d come up with a vocal melody and chord progression, and we’d go from there. Words were added last, some during recording, like in Vou Deixar Pra Depois, which only I knew was going to be in Portuguese.
    Regarding lyrics — do you leave your lyrics vague enough to be open to interpretation, are you telling specific stories that you want to get across, are you throwing ideas together and seeing what sticks..?
    A bit of each. It varies a lot. I go from writing stories (I Know Where Your Dreams Go) to just using free association to see what comes up (Vou Deixar Pra Depois)
    Adriano RibeiroSome lyrics are very heartfelt, like in The World Doesn’t Need You, Asleep, and Weather Sensitive, while others, which I won’t name, are just vague lines that sound complimentary to the instrumentation. I get a little Liz Fraser-y sometimes.
    Where do you record?
    We record everything in my apartment. You can hear my place’s ambience on a lot of our records, and it doesn’t sound pretty, I’m afraid. I do all the mixing too, though I’m not very good at it yet.
    How do you manage to record drums and guitars in an apartment? Do you get complaints from the neighbors?
    Oh, I forgot to mention that drums are tracked at a friend’s studio, but the equipment used is all ours. I pack my computer and mics to the studio, and we do drums there.
    Guitars are tracked at home. I never got any complaints. I record at a pretty low volume by most standards, even distorted guitars.
    You capture some very nice clean electric guitar sounds. How do you do it?
    I never use dynamic mics. I always reach for a condenser to mic guitar amps. Either a large diaphragm condenser, when I want the track to carry the song or a small diaphragm condenser for most other tracks. It varies, though. I try a couple of mics for each track in each song to see what works best for that specific guitar sound and tone range.
    The intro to The World Doesn’t Need You was recorded through an MXL 603 small diaphragm condenser, while the guitar at the ending of I’m Glad You Know was done with a Studio Projects C3 large diaphragm condenser.
    It also helps to get the exact sound you want, so you don’t have to mess with it in the mix, adding eq and compression after the fact. The only exception is reverb.
    What’s next for Postal Blue?
    Besides the upcoming single on Cloudberry Records, we’re planning to self-release an album pretty soon. We already have plenty of songs, we just need to record them properly.
    If money and reality were no object, what would you love to do, musically-speaking?
    If money were no object, I’d love to record with an orchestra, and tour all over the world (not necessarily with an orchestra, mind you).
    If reality were no object, I’d love to collaborate with the likes of Brian Wilson and Tom Jobim, if anything at least to learn how they worked and pick their brain. And maybe go back to 15 years ago armed with all the knowledge I have now.
    10 Things that inspire Adriano Ribeiro
  • Good music
  • Good books
  • New guitars (not necessarily good)
  • Learning new things, be it music theory or recording techniques
  • Playing with other people
  • Rainy days
  • Happy days (yes, I’m a guy who actually likes to make music when I’m happy, not when I’m depressed)
  • Good movies
  • Bad music
  • Playing by myself
    • Postal Blue’s web site | Postal Blue’s MySpace page | Postal Blue’s Last.fm page

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    I Can See My Computer From Here

    Sunday, April 13th, 2008

    “So how do you record drums?”

    That’s one question that inevitably arises when talking with a fellow home studio DIYer.

    The question isn’t pointed at microphone selection and placement, but at something much more fundamental: How do you tell the computer to start and stop recording?

    There’s a lot of hassles involved in recording real drums. And if you’re recording yourself, chances are you’ve got an additional headache: It’s not easy to press a key on the computer to start recording, run to the drum set, gain composure, and play a winning drum take.

    In recent years, products like the $200 Tranzport have entered the market, which diminish the need for basement relay races.

    I needed the Tranzport a few years before it existed, so I came up with a $40 homebrew solution using a wireless joypad and free software. It doesn’t have all the features of the Tranzport, but it might be good enough for your needs. It’s been good enough for mine — I’ve recorded almost all of The Simple Carnival’s tracks this way. I haven’t been (pardon the pun) remotely tempted to upgrade to something better.

    The Logitech Cordless RumblePad 2 is a standard wireless gamepad, and, as you can see from the picture above, I’ve put stickers on its buttons to represent the Pro Tools LE functions I use most often when tracking. Here’s a more detailed view.

    The right joystick doesn’t do anything — maybe I’ll come up with a use for it one day. The gamepad handles rewind and fast forward. The up and down directions are not used.

    Here’s a diagram showing the buttons on the back of the gamepad.

    JoyToKey, a free Windows application, maps — you guessed it — joystick functions to keyboard buttons. Here’s what my JoyToKey setup looks like.

    And this is how I record drums! And flute, marimba, vocals, organ, piano, congas, guitar, bass, Fender Rhodes, Clavinet, synthesizers — anything where I’m not standing directly in front of the computer keyboard.

    Yes, sometimes I have to squint if I’m moving the mouse pointer with the joystick on the other side of the room. It’s just something you get used to after a while. On the other hand, most of these functions don’t require you to look at the screen anyway. After you arm your tracks, just about everything else can be done with your eyes closed.

    There’s a nice bonus when using this technique with a guitar, or any instrument with pickups: Since you’re not performing in front of your computer monitor, you won’t pick up any interference from it.

    Have fun on the other side of the room.

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    The Nasty Lo-Fi Machine You May Already Own

    Friday, April 4th, 2008

    You want grunge? You want compression? You want a grimy, filthy-sounding microphone where everything that comes out the other end sounds lo-fi in a (sometimes) pleasing way?

    Well, if you don’t already have this magic box, look no further than your local OfficeMax.

    microcassette recorder

    That’s right, a standard microcassette recorder is your gateway to a world of sonic suckiness.

    Note that this is not one of those newfangled digital recorders — although I’m sure there could be uses for that, too. I’m talking about the ones which use those tiny little cassette tapes that are getting harder and harder to find every year as technology marches on.

    A microcassette recorder isn’t just for college lectures or surreptitiously collecting inadmissible evidence. No sirree. It should be a required piece of gear in any home studio.

    microcassette recorder in mic standObviously, you can use these recorders as rough idea collectors. What’s not so obvious is that they often fit perfectly into a plain old mic clip.

    If you sing and play an instrument when writing songs, a microcassette recorder makes a great “vocal” mic. The built-in compression on these devices is usually so crazy that it will capably pick up the sound of your instrument, even if the mic is pointed at your mouth.

    (By the way, if you put the microcassette recorder in a mic clip, be sure the mic clip isn’t pressing against the tape door area. You can get some sounds which are even more screwed up that way — you’re messing with the tape head azimuth alignment — but you could also hurt your recorder. You’ve been warned!)

    microcassettes in Trivial Pursuit boxIf you’re serious about using a microcassette recorder as an idea catcher, do yourself a favor and invest in a bunch of microcassettes. Then, throw them in a Trivial Pursuit card box or something similar. Keep all the tapes rewound to the beginning, and pull out a random one when inspiration strikes.

    But let’s get to the heart of what these gadgets excel at doing: acting as a lo-fi mic/compressor combo.

    Start recording with the microcassette recorder, then run a cable out of the earphone jack to your DAW’s line input. If your microcassette recorder is like most, then voila! You’ve got a unique-sounding mic for when you’re in a grungy mood.

    Try the recorder as an overhead or room mic for drums. Try it on piano and check out the squashed, Beatles-like tones. Use it on vocals for a telephone effect. Play back only the vocal tracks or some other element through your monitors, position the microcassette recorder appropriately, then record the microcassette recorder’s output as a new track. (Be careful not to send the newly recorded signal back to your monitors, or you’ll get feedback… although that might be interesting, too!)

    tricking a microcassette recorder to record with no tapeNote that the mechanical parts of the tapes themselves can contribute an undesirable noise to this “mic”, so you might want to remove the tape and stick your finger over the safety tab mechanism when pressing the record button.

    Another thing to watch out for is that, depending on the model, the microcassette recorder’s circutry might delay the incoming signal by, say, 1/10 of a second. If this is the case, your recorded microcassette mic performance might feel a bit out of the pocket compared to the tracks you’ve already recorded. So you may need to adjust your microcassette mic tracks after recording them in your DAW.

    It’s also possible to use a microcassette recorder in a time-shifted sort of way. If the tape noise doesn’t bother you (and why should it? The sound is already awful), throw in a microcassette and record an entire vocal take onto it. Try it with both record speeds. The slower speed adds an extra layer of grunge by severely attenuating the high end. Which speed is best depends on the source material and how nasty you want the sound to be.

    After you’ve recorded your part, play it back and record the result into your DAW. You will need to shift things around, as it’s unlikely the recordings will be synchronized (or stay synchronized). You may find this “out of time” effect appealing, depending on the song.

    I used this time-shifted mic technique (with a backwards reverb) for the “radio” voices on Really Really Weird. You can hear the microcassette recorder voice the second time “Really Really Weird” is sung on this clip. I also used a lot of microcassette mic stuff (piano, drum room mic, vocals) on Hey Lancaster, a song from the upcoming Girls Aliens Food album. (Sorry, no sound clip yet!)

    And if nothing else, you can use a microcassette recorder to make beatbox patterns. Tapping on the recorder could make interesting source material for a dirty-sounding loop, or something that pops up momentarily.

    Did I miss any other uses?

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    Welcome to Songs and Sonics!

    Sunday, March 16th, 2008

    Welcome to the Songs and Sonics blog. I’m your host, Jeff Boller, main songwriter and performer in The Simple Carnival.

    You’re probably wondering, “Who? The Simple what?” That’s OK, because I don’t know who you are either. And I don’t know how you found this site, but please make yourself at home.

    So what’s this all about? Well, within these electronic pages you’ll find a smorgasbord of tales from the front lines of songwriting, music production, and working with bizarre objects that make grinding, belching, unwelcome noises (which can be, but are not limited to, actual musical instruments). We’ll take a close look at the creative process of making music. We’ll have some audio show-and-tell. There will be interviews with other artists who are doing cool things with sound. Mostly though, I hope that this blog will provide you with ideas and inspiration for your own creative endeavors.

    “OK,” you say. “But who the heck are you, and why should I care?”

    Fair question. I’m a 30-something singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist based near Pittsburgh, PA. Since 2001, I’ve fronted The Simple Carnival, a pop recording project that sounds like what might happen if Harry Nilsson and The Beach Boys collaborated on Sesame Street. To date, The Simple Carnival has released three EPs and the first real, honest-to-goodness album (titled Girls Aliens Food) scheduled for release in late 2008 on Sundrift Records. I play all the instruments and sing all the parts on these recordings.

    My music career has led me from writing and producing songs for other artists, to recording bands at professional studios, to directing video productions, and ultimately… to finding a 9-5, non-audio job that actually pays the bills. :-)

    So if you’re looking for advice on how write that hit song or make it big in the music industry, you’ve come to the wrong place. I don’t mind communicating with a large audience, but my background is mostly in writing and recording songs for a specific niche, and it’s not the same audience that closely follows the Top 40. Write what you know and all that. Still, even if you’re not into the kind of music I do, I hope to keep things general enough so that the majority of the content here is relevant to anyone doing creative things with sound.

    You can probably expect a new post every few days, with a big article about once a week — as long as there’s something to talk about. I look forward to your feedback, as it will help steer the conversation toward the things you find most interesting. And yes, I do consider this blog a conversation. So please post some comments to help get things rolling!

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