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Dear Audiominds-members,It's a great honour for me to announce a brand new edition of our monthly newsletter. Once again we worked very hard in order to produce something very special. So besides some minor changes we also decided to introduce a new category called "Letter to the editor" where we will publish YOUR comments either about a given question or about a past issue. The question we ask this month was: Where do you spend new year's eve? Please don't post your comments on the board. Instead drop me a PM to Elwood Blues.We also held another monthly Demo Contest in November and are proud to congratulate Gabriel Aulaga for being the winner. The hat is already on its way. In this tradtion you can look forward to another of Pete's interviews, this time with the October winner. Since we're talking about music, the white season is coming soon and also Christmas is soon to be upon us. Many people are surely busy studying the Christmas carols or even perhaps trying their hand at writing one themselves, which is precisely what this month's article "Let's write a Christmas song" is all about. Furthermore, Cyprian has written a special article with his pen being as witty as always. Here's wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Yours, Dennis Schulmeister Editor of the Newsletter 
Pete's Interview with Scott-Le-Rock and Neuaddsibly
“Young an Keen” took The Hat in the October 2004 Audiominds.com Demo Contest. The song was the product of an international online collaboration. Both of the primary conspirators joined us for a discussion about their project and the joys of online collaboration. The “conversation” itself was somewhat unusual in that it was accomplished over two weeks of email correspondence.
Scott Casey was born in Halifax, and has been living in Denver since 1996 with his wife of 20 years, their dog Misha and cat Hercules. He is a marketing specialist for a multinational corporation when he isn't making music. He is known as Scott-Le-Rock on the Audiominds forum. Paul Townsend is from Wales. He has been living in Germany since 2000 with his wife and 22 month old daughter Elin, with another on the way. Music and football, (“sawker to you stateside peeps”,) are his passions. He dreams of some day being able to support his family with his songwriting. He is known as Sibly on Audiominds, and is active at ArtistCollaboration.com and homerecordingconnection.com. AM: Congratulations on winning the October contest! Paul: thanks! it's all Scott's fault. Scott: Yes, thanks a lot, and with a guitar player's ego, I would love to take all the credit for this one, but I can't. AM: Why did you select this song for the contest? Paul: After being rather proud of hitting it off with each other straight away and the quality of our first project, we got chatting about what we should do with any of our finished songs. We kinda decided that it would just be cool to get it out there for any radio airplay (online or otherwise), and as we have both entered the fun Audiominds contest before for shits an' giggles, as Austin Powers would say. It seemed the ideal thing to do. After all, such contests are all about having a bit of fun and showing what collaborating (in this case) can achieve across the miles. Scott: Paul and I were very happy with the way this song evolved and how it turned out in the end. To tell the truth, "very happy" is a big understatement. I was absolutely thrilled at hooking up with Paul, Jerry on Drums and Chad on bass. It was the first song I've ever done through on-line collaboration, and the first time I mixed a finished song on my own. Learning n-Track was easy with the AM tutorials and forum threads. I also liked the idea of a demo song contest and admired the honest and experienced feedback and critiques offered by the AudioMinds moderators and users. Oh, who's kidding who - I thought the song was a winner and I wanted to make sure others agreed!! In the end, I felt that this was a great song with a unique sound and a hooky feel to it, so of course it was a no-brainer to enter it. AM: Who actually wrote the song? What role did each of you play in the production? Paul: Both of us. Scott turned up at artistcollaboration and I tuned into his tunes just to have a listen. This one really grabbed me; it was right up my street. I came up with a few lyrical and vocal melody ideas straight away. Later that night I worked on fleshing out a scratch vocal, sent it Scott's way and the rest, as they say, is history. It really helps when the person you're collaborating with is down-to-earth, ego-less, and instantly strikes you as the kind of guy you'd share a pint with. Then we discussed what the final structure and arrangement should be, I re-tracked better vocals and Scott did the engineering. A pretty smooth collab all round, I'd say! Scott: As Paul says, we first met up at Collaboration Central. I got there from AudioMinds, and I found AudioMinds from a Yahoo Boss BR-8 user group. For this song, I had been tinkering with some HammerHead drum beats, and since one of my pals was giving me such a hard time on my tempo ranges, (120 to 130), I decided to take it down a notch to 106. So it started with the original pop-funky beat and I added the acoustic guitar part first. Then a feel developed and the phased and auto-wah guitars just kinda flowed into it. I called the instrumental version "Might As Well Be An Optimist" because of the up-tempo feel it had and the frame of mind I was in when I recorded the original tracks. Then I put a basic bass line on it. A couple friends said that the instrumental reminded them of a late 80's Prince song. I posted this mix at NoWhereRadio.com (where I have an artist listing as "Surfer Joe"), and then posted messages with links to it on AM and CC. Then Paul picked it up, posted a version with his inspired lyrics and vocals, and from that moment we were a team. We talked a lot about the song's structure and through the process realized that we were nearly always on the exact same page musically - which is the the reason this song came to life so quickly. We both like the Finn Brothers a lot, so that helped with this song, as they seemed to be the sub-conscious inspiration to us. At first I was just using the BR-8 for mixes (ie: getting the re-structuring of the song done and a drum-free click version for Jerry to track to). Mid-stream in the process I got n-Tracks and started to learn to use it. This was a real eye-opener for me. I'd never mixing a complete song before, so I got through it by trial and error, plus great feedback from Paul, Jerry and others at AM and CC. So Paul and I were equal creative partners on this song, and I mixed and engineered it. AM: When was the melody originally written? Scott: The instrument melodies just came by themselves. This was certainly much more of a theme or feel idea, not a complete arrangement at all. The final arrangement and song structure would come after starting to work with Paul. The acoustic started with the Dmaj chord that has the open/octave high E-string thing going on. This was after I had the drum beat programmed. I added the other chord progressions after that, and kept the major chord themes all the way through for the "happy" feel. Almost all of the stuff I come up with starts with a chord that I usually don't play all that often, or a riff that settles in after strummin' away for a while, usually on top of a drum beat idea that creates the feel I'm after. (The word "feel" is used a lot, and that's really how all my stuff starts out.) The other guitar melodies started out as improvs or jams on top of the acoustic part. I was particularly happy with the phased effect guitar part. I was thinking, "What would The Edge (from U2) do?" when working on the chorus part, and ended up with the auto-wah effect that is just a tweaked version of one of the sample COSM effects in the Boss BR-8. All my guitar tracks and effects were recorded on the BR-8. The vocal melodies were all Paul's creation. I was astounded when I first heard his take on the song with his lyrics and vocals. I didn't think that this little instrumental number had such potential. AM: What are your primary instruments? Paul: Acoustic guitar. I bought my first guitar at 16 and since then have gotten more and more passionate about music every year. I would put my "job descriptions" in this order though: songwriter, singer, guitarist. I also play a little keyboard. (It's tiny!) Scott: Guitar. I started playing when I was 15 yrs old, back in '78. Back then it was all Kiss, Zeppelin and Aerosmith, but quickly shifted to Pistols, Ramones and The Clash. I can hack out a drum beat, and also played bass in a couple of bands. Over the years, most of the bands I've played with have done originals, and this is where I really learned to play and write. Today I enjoy programming drums, but since coming to AM and CC and getting real drummers to play on songs through on-line collaboration, I haven't done much drum programming. AM: When you each write on your own, how do you go about it? Paul: For me, it totally depends really, as I can write songs in many ways. For 99% of the time, it used to be that I picked up my acoustic guitar, played some progressions and just hummed dummy words along, writing lyrics as I went. These days I find I also write a lot of lyrics first during the day and then try come up with progressions for them later. This is also how I tend to collab a lot and indeed how I got involved with Young & Keen... I listened to the instrumental idea through my earphones while at work, and wrote the lyrics straight away. When I do this, I sing the song in my head so that most of the phrasing fits OK when I get round to record the idea later. Then I rush home and record a scratch track before I forget the vocal melody that I had in mind. That's when the refinements come in, the lyrical changes, or more drastically still, the scrumpled up bit of paper get three-pointed right into the bin in the corner of my room. Scott: For these I've always had the lyrics first, and then got an idea of how I heard the song's phrasing and melody in my head. Singing in the car works real well for me. Then the chords start coming together when I sit down with it. I can't sing at all, so I'll hum the tune for a singer, or record a nasty pass at the vocals (as I did for Paul on another song recently) so the singer gets the idea. I should mention that Jerry (JmanWord) deserves a lot of credit on this song. His drum playing was truly inspired, and he took this song up to a new level. His "ear candy" work during the break in the middle that has the tabla and other sparkling instruments was totally his idea. I think his work is part of what makes this song as unique as it is. Paul: I totally second that. I was really able to get into the feel on the final vocal thanks to Jerry's excellent drums being on there. His stuff during the outro really pulls everything together. AM: Who else was involved in “Young and Keen”. Well, it was me with the first instrumental idea and I played all the parts. The song project (and Paul's and my friendship) was then officially launched on CC's Collaboration Station topic forum. That was on August 12, 2004. The song structure was re-worked through a couple versions to get it right. We had 4 drummers express interest in this song. JmanWord and Blades both posted a mix with their playing that replaced the original programmed drums. Jerry (JmanWord) was first and since I had already started work on the new mix, I regretfully told Blades that he was just a little late. Jerry did another take when I did the first major re-structure that changed the lengths of some of the parts. Jerry tracked again (3 times in total now) for the final version after some more tweaking, plus he added the nice tabla and other cool stuff in the break. Finally, Chad (ClarkGriswold) added the bass track. I fine tuned the mix with a lot of feedback from the team. AM: Tell us how the collaboration process works in a little detail, for those who have never done it. Scott: A few people at AM told me to get an account at CC, so I did. This made all the difference. They provide 100meg of free FTP space for members, upon request, so that files can be uploaded and downloaded. The process worked like this:
I feel that I've gotten to know everyone, especially Paul, and not only do we get on well with each other musically, but we have become friends as well. AM: Please elaborate a little bit on how you did your live recording. Paul: Well my side of things was quite simple.... I have a little vocal booth/recording room in my house to eliminate PC noise, so I'm pretty happy with the sound I get when recording vocals. I use an AKG C2000B condenser microphone going straight into my Hoontech C-Port. It isn't really a booth. I'm making it sound much more pro than it is, but I am proud of it nonetheless. Basically, its a small room in the basement adjacent to my mixing room. It's just big enough to house my guitars, a small sofa (which deadens the sound nicely), a chair and such. I covered the ceiling with thin polystyrene maple-look panels (they are very convincing and cheap) and strategically placed 12 foam panels on the walls to deaden the sound, making sure that no panel was directly opposite another panel. I also made a hatch to cover and soundproof the window when I'm doing my cat wailing. I made it out of an old pinboard, which comes in handy for lyrics! It's a "studio on a shoestring" but its my pride and joy! Some pictures here.... maybe they can explain it far better than me...but the purple is much warmer in real life: http://neuaddsibly.net/studio/images/purple Scott: I use my Boss BR-8 and the Boss/COSM effects that it has built in for all my guitar recording. For the acoustic, I go in dry with an SM-57 on a boom stand, so it's real close to the hole. The acoustic I have is a really old Bentley clunker with fat ol' strings on it. I would really like a better acoustic, but this one has it's charm. Not much high end sparkle, but a pretty warm sound. I use a Hertitage CM140 gold top (Les Paul style) electric. I go straight into the BR-8 with the effects set the way I want them when I record. I save the BR-8 tracks as mono WAV files and transfer them to my PC. For this song I tracked to the original programmed drums. My whole setup is VERY simple, and a testament to what you can do with just a little. AM: Scott - you sort of brushed on the engineering process. Can you tell us more about how you went about doing the mix? Scott: I bring my guitar tracks from the BR-8 as WAV files into n-Tracks. I run n-Tracks 4 on my Dell Laptop (Pentium III, 1133 MHz, 526Meg RAM). I have never recorded directly into n-Track. I switched from the BR-8 mixing/editing to n-Tracks mid-way through this process. N-Tracks was a fantastic introduction to PC mixing and was easy to learn, considering this was the first time I did anything like this. Once the song structure was solid, the programmed drums replaced by Jerry's, my bass replaced by Chads, and the latest lead and harmony vocals were in place. The final track lineup was:
I first get a reasonable level mix with no effects or EQ, then mixdown I listen numerous times on 2 or 3 different setups (earphones and speakers at least, and the car is always a good sanity check) As I go through with the various effects and EQ I repeat the multiple listening process.
Vocals are first, listen by themselves, add some standard 'verb settings and a tiny bit of EQ, usually for a little crispness at the higher end, and the lead vocal has compression. The drums are next, but were "good to go" in this case as Jerry's drum mixes were fantastic and didn't need ANYTHING!! For Chad's bass I just used n-Track compression. No EQ was needed. I recorded 2 acoustic tracks and have them panned far L and R. Added a touch of 'verb and EQ'd them quite differently so they would sound distinct from one another. I cloned the phased effect guitar track and panned 30% L and R, no EQ or additional effects. For the two other guitars (wah and lead), once again the BR-8 recordings were fine and no additional effects or EQ were needed. I panned the wah 40% L and the lead 40% R, which helped separate the lead from the tabla drum part during the break. I got a lot of feedback from Paul and Jerry on the preliminary mixes. I listened obsessively to each preliminary mix on several different playback mediums. When I was happy with the mix, saved it as a WAV file and then opened that as a new n-Track project. With this new one I added master compression and a hint o' EQ for the final-final WAV mixdown.
Paul: Yep: just go for it. With the technology available today, constantly improving as it is, and constantly becoming cheaper (especially second hand gear on auction sites, as more and more people are involved in home recording and therefore more and more stuff is up for auction), you really can learn a great deal and achieve marvelous things from the comfort of your own four walls. Taking your first few steps really is a piece of cake, and there are so many helpful people, articles and forums out there to give you a leg up when you hit that inevitable stumbling block or twelve. The days of the Dictaphone are long gone, like the days of overdubbing a track on your old double cassette deck stereo. For as small or large an outlay as you want, you can put your music down in great quality, and distribute it to anyone you see fit. Start small to get your teeth into it, then upgrade your soundcard/mics etc as and when you need to. You won't regret it. Scott: Digital recording at home is a must for anyone that wants to be able to collaborate with other musicians remotely. It's hard to describe the excitement and satisfaction of having a good quality collaboration project get off the ground. n-Tracks was absolutely key to the process for me, so if someone is starting from scratch, this is the most effective and inexpensive way to go. I had used loads of software but never digital multi-track, but n-Tracks was straight-forward for my projects and easy to learn using the AM tutorials and forums. I agree with Paul that it only takes a small investment and a little effort learning how to pull off digital recording at home. Once you get started though, a whole new world of possibilities will open up. AM: Gentlemen, thank you so much for your time, and for being willing to give this odd method of conversation a go. Paul: No worries! I had a blast, thanks for the questions. I enjoy getting insight into other online folk, so hope others do too. Scott: This has been a pleasure. For additional information on Paul Townsend, his projects and albums, visit http://neuaddsibly.net/
Let's write a Christmas song
Writing a song is lot like cooking to me. It depends upon the tasteful and sensitive use of the suitable ingredients and spices. But just like cooking, the old adage that too many cooks can spoil the soup, the real fun of composing comes when I can work on my own. A recipe surely is a good starting point - but nothing more, so it is not my aim to dictate an accurate set of instructions, or anything of that sort. Instead I'd like to talk about how my last composition evolved and in this way address some rather general thoughts.
For cooking as well as for composing you usually will need more than one tool in order to get the job done, in fact, you will probably need at least several tools. Which tools one uses of course depends upon skill, taste and individual preferences. I, for example, am a keyboardist and like having those black and white keys in front of me, but can absolutely not get used to fretboards. The upside of today's keyboards is that you can use the power of MIDI in order to connect them and let them "talk" to each other. Unfortunately MIDI always sounds so cheesy and cheese doesn't fit my meal so well. But does MIDI always have to sound like cheese? Isn't cheese an ingredient instead of a tool? Right, MIDI is a tool, a wooden spoon for example. But a wooden spoon doesn't make the taste of a meal, only how it is used. So from my experience I can say that MIDI employed with the right tone generator doesn't sound cheesy at all. On the contrary it always surprises me how good it can actually sound. Well, a wooden spoon in and of itself is no Christmas pudding. We also need pots, bowls, dishes, an oven… Or in order to write a song paper and pen, inspiration and possibly a good dose of humor and later on we might find we need a computer. Admittedly the computer actually is superfluous but since I only have two hands the computer shall have to serve as the other hands. It shall become my accompaniment band. Now that we're done with those preparations the next question arises: Which ingredients do we need, anyway? Bang, we're already in the process of creating - the act of composing. At the beginning there's always the idea or the direction respectively. My aim was to write a nice Christmas song. Well, what belongs to a Christmas song? It seems one would have to know some Christmas songs if you want to answer this question. On the one hand there are traditional songs like Jingle Bells, Silent Night or Oh Christmas Tree. On the other hand I remember songs like Feliz Navidad from José Feliciano [or Ritchie Valens! --ed. ] or Last Christmas from George Micheal alias Wham. Than there are the gospel/spiritual bent songs. They all have their charms. Because I didn't want to define an absolute direction I simply thought about what components there are that make the songs what they are, and perhaps more importantly, how I could combine these ingredients. Christmas carols are most often sung. As Leroy Anderson demonstrated so well, the use of sleighbells in the percussion section can immediately suggest Christmas. The chord structures shouldn't be too complicated but offer potential for extensions and so on. Such thoughts went through my head for some days before I played any note. Than one day it happened. I sat at the keyboard and what I played (only a half measure) captured me immediately. I knew, this is how the beginning of my Christmas song will sound. This was real serendippity, an accident turned into a good idea. An idea which painted a whole picture during the next weekend. Step after step new ideas came, I wrote them down, tried them out, erased them, tried again. Even my not-so-musically-inclined girl friend was pressed into service, her job was to play the sleighbells. At the end I was really proud - the frame made of chords and a few melody lines was built. But - and this is the point - up to this point I had yet to write a song. The analagoy to cooking here (remember the cooking?) is that I had prepared a batter but had yet to bake a cake. This was when the computer was brought into play. Unlike many great composers who have the ability to create whole songs within their head, a gift I'm constantly practicing, I'm not able to do so just yet. So I did what I always do instead: I turned the computer on, opened XG-Works and programmed a somewhat sporadic drum line and began to play on my keyboard to that mini loop as it played back. Several detours later I also learned that the true time signature of my song is not 4/4 but 2/4. Okay, so its simple duple instead of compound. All that not stopping me much, next came a few trial recordings. I guess because I really wanted to know which direction the song wanted to go, much like the chef who puts his finger into the mixture in order to taste it. I have to say I was overwhelmed by the possibilities at this point. Since up to this point all I really had was a framework, it was now time to practice filling that frame with some actual musical content. Some bass here, some guitar there. Take this melody over here. The frame was built and fleshed out in small bits and pieces at a time - the act of composing went on. But it is important to mention that I didn't merely fill. I also "emptied". A sparse arrangement doesn't have to be a bad arrangement. A full blown arrangement on the other hand doesn't have to be a good arrangement. But first, what really constitutes a sparse arrangement? All I can tell you, while sparse in nature, it's not one of those monotone arrangements, either, because if you remember, right from the beginning I tried to involve changes within the content of a "nice Christmas song". A rule of thumb I always remember reads: "The best part of a song is the part the listener anxiously waits for." As much as I might like my little guitar solo, two times is the absolute maximum. Hmm, perhaps it is indeed possible to imitate a nice guitar sound using MIDI after all... The project has been progressing rather well, and at the time of this writing I can at least say that I have written a Christmas song which includes lyrics and a rather complete arrangement including an Intro. There's also a MIDI sequence created of it now, and I'm about to dot the i's and cross the t's on this one. Certain details of the MIDI sequence aren't yet satisfying enough, some editing and addition of a few controllers for spice are in order, then of course I will have to convert those MIDI tracks to AUDIO tracks, record the vocals and mix this project before it is "in the can". So what does this creation taste, er, sound like? I spent too much time thinking about whether to provide some parts of my song as a reference what I'm talking about but came to the conclusion that at this point things wouldn't make much sense at all. After all I want you to write your own Christmas song, too. But I assure you as soon as the tracking is finished I'll provide it on my website as well as on the review board. Just give me some time to put the frosting on this Christmas "cake", please. Yours, Dennis Schulmeister
The Sturm and Drang of Christmas
Who has the colesaw, or is that cold saw? Maybe you do, but that won't prevent this Christmas Special from coming to you. See, prevention becomes the key in when avoiding yet another Christmas tale. You sit there with your shredded cabbage and a good book about type creation. Now that's something special. Where does that leave you the reader? Well, do you like your cabbage raw or cooked?
I've never been a big fan of taking factory tours. Those places are loud, noisy and filled with bizarre exhibitions of manufacturing in motion. For example, have you ever seen them manufacture a cow? How they put all those pieces together and then apply the "special" it to animate them. Admittedly, that is what my Grandpa told me during my preschool walk through the packing house. Heh, chickens lay eggs, why can't a cow lay ground beef? Something continues to lay those fruit cakes that end up in my mail box each year. And I know that only a fruit cake laying machine can responsible for St. Blub's Crunchy Fruit Cake. So there I am inside the cabbage shredding factory. Little heads and big heads all join together in the big hopper directed to their fate. Shred, shred, shred, scream little cabbage, soon you'll be cabbage shreds. Now the nice thing about cabbage is the length. You can have short little shreds and big long stringy shreds. The long strings of cabbage not only can be eaten, but can be assembled into replacement headery. Look ma, I have cabbage hair! Now, the shredding machine has a pleasant little hum. You can sit there for hours enjoying that little minimal number. Kind of reminds you of the distant sounds of frozen choralers bombarding the post sunset wintery gloom. Ah, my little secret, the Merry Christmas machine. Oops! Now you know about it too. You have devined my secret out of me. Eating that colesaw and cooking that sauerkraut has eased my tongue. You plied me with the joyful little cabbage treats. Lucky for me, I didn't give out my real secret. Hah, hah, you haven't got me real secret. Heehee. So what, I guess knowing about the Merry Christmas Machine (or the MxM as I call it) isn't so bad. It isn't like I told you where. But, even if you had a "Streetscrape Vision" map with little heads of cabbage planted along the streets and sidewalks, you couldn't find the MxM. Maybe that's good. What does this all have to do with music? Let's see, factories make noise. Iggy Pop lived in Detroit. The Stooges wanted to emulate the sturm and drang of cars being slammed into life and I am the son of Santa Claus. Yep, you heard me right. I am Santa's son. How can that be? My dad is Santa Claus? He has the suit and boots to prove it. And don't forget the beard! Cyprian Alexzander
Letter to the editor
Here it is - the long awaited new category of our monthly newsletter: Letter to the editor
In this category YOU dear reader have a voice. It's is very important for us not to write a newsletter from far above, but to listen to what our readers got to say. You are free to either write your feelings about a past issue or about a given question. The quesion we ask this time reads: ”Where you you spend new years eve?” This is what people told us, thanks guys:
As any respectable musician knows, the only place to be on New Year's Eve is playing a gig. This year, it will be a house party at the new home of our drummer, debuting three sets of new music. We're calling it our pre-CD release party.
Whiffleball
this year its at a vfw hall in fostoria ohio, i play in three working bands, this year its the country band playig on new years, i think the last new yers eve i didnt play out was 7 years ago hahahaha
happy holidays, Dave in toledo
plan to spend new years on a date with my wife...with a new baby, a four year old and a very busy life I feel that she and I just naturaly neglect each other. An evening consisting a good meal and conversation without the kids will do much to lift the holiday spirits.
kw (Harpo111) This message arrived us one day after publisihng but fortunatly we're flexible enough to insert it afterwards:
Dear Elwood,
I will spend this New Year´s eve at my mother´s home with my brother, my three sisters, their spouses and their sons; and, of course, with my wife and my three daughters. And each one will eat twelve grapes during the last twelve seconds of this year. I did it during every single year during all my life, with the exception of one year in which I was in the army mounting guard with a gun over some frozen mud close to Madrid. My father died when I was twenty, and my brother and sisters made their own families. Fortunately, we all live in Galicia in northwestern Spain and we are able to meet together at least once a year in New Year´s Eve. This is a very important date for us. Best regards. Gabriel Aulaga Audiominds.com, its site content and its newsletter are copyrighted material of this web site and the appropriate authors. Please contact us for redistribution rights. |
