Vocals: Front & Center

A few weeks back I was asked to participate in the "Face the Music!" panel (a Fiero Flair production) at the California Lawyers for the Arts Music Business Seminar.  This was the second time that I had participated in this event and it is always a treat for me.  Looking back, being a part of this event in the past was the original inspiration for this blog.

For me it's always a great treat to hear what emerging artists are putting together as they begin their careers and start developing a library of their own recorded materials.  But while it excites me to see what they're doing, it also demonstrates to me how few of them know how to utilize the recording equipment correctly, or are able to find engineers that are capable of helping them.

What makes these engineers so good and sets them apart in their industry?  Vocals.  It has been demonstrated that anyone can be fooled by instrumentation and orchestration for bands or artists, but the way that vocals get set up in a mix is an art form that can be very hard to get right.

Let me emphasize here:  I am NOT talking about the performance of the vocals.  That aspect is solely based on talent alone.  Good engineering of bad vocals will only expose them more.  Some might argue that many of the pop artists out there are poor vocalists that have a career based on image and no vocal talent at all.  I'd argue that you have to have a starting point, and while some of these pop princes and princesses don't have the world's greatest voices, some of them have a set of pipes that can light the venue on fire, but the material they are asked to perform does not emphasize that.

So what is it that makes a good vocal track?  Intelligibility.  How can you enjoy the vocals if you can't hear or understand what's being sung?  Setting a vocal track apart takes 3 pieces of understanding:

First and foremost, you have to make room for them in the mix.  This means working with the EQ in order to make sure that the vocals will not be stepped on by the guitars, keys, bass, drums, or any other instrumentation involved.  Keeping the frequencies surrounding enunciation in the voice will allow for the crispness to cut through the mix and help make the vocals the focal point.

Once you have the EQ set the next part is balance of signals.  This might seem like an obvious thought, but there are so many times that I hear tracks where just turning the vocals up in the mix would have been a problem solver.  This can sometimes involve a great deal of automation to make sure that the vocals rise and fall based on the levels of everything else supporting them.

The last piece of keeping the vocals the focal point of the mix is compression.  For those of you unfamiliar with what compression actually does I'll give you the base line overview.  What a compressor does is limit the gap between the highest levels of volume of a signal and lowest levels of volume of a signal.  So if a vocalist is varying how loud they are singing the compressor allows you to limit the level of variance.  It does this mainly by putting a soft ceiling on how loud a signal can get.  A hard ceiling would be a limiter and could potentially cause distortion, but with the soft ceiling of a compressor, signal can breach the highest levels but still go above.  By knocking the level of the loudest signals down, you are able to turn up the overall signal without distorting when the performer hits those emphatic notes.  In turn, this also means that the vocals can be much more consistent throughout a song, allowing your EQ and balance to always remain out in front of the rest of the band backing them.

This isn't to say that vocals shouldn't rise and fall with the dynamics of a song.  Songs should have ebb and flow, a rise and a fall, but the vocals should not get lost in the mix when the song rises because everything around them rises faster and louder.

Keeping these thoughts in mind when you're mixing your next vocal track will help you create a song that will add a level of professionalism to the recording and stands up against the best engineers.

The Musical Trinity: Arrangement

The third and final installment of this series that was originally posted on hypebot.com.


Next week - new content...I hope you're ready!


When you listen to a song that you haven’t heard before, what is it that draws your attention?  Is it the beat that gets you moving?  Is it the lyrics tugging at your heart strings?  Is it the arrangement and interplay of the instruments?  A great song has a bit of all of these elements, but what can set a song apart from the rest often involves the hidden science and art of the audio engineer helping to put those pieces together.  

With the diversity in music today we can all find something that draws our attention.  What I want to look at is how the Musical Trinity of engineering, songwriting, and arrangement creates those songs that linger with us.

Arrangement

The last prong of the musical trinity is the arrangement.  This is where the artists start to separate themselves from the musicians.  Many years ago I was playing bass in a jazz band.  I was the least experienced member of the group by far, as I was only just learning to play the bass at the time.  My conductor took more time to work with me that week than any other member of the band to make sure that I would be able to contribute to the group.  Being as we were all just teenagers at the time, he had to work with us to make sure we understood how to get the best performance required.  This included teaching us how to play what we were supposed to, as well as listening to what the other musicians around us were playing.  It was the musical conversation that made the songs appealing.  Each instrument having a role to play; I don’t remember how he described each section, but I will never forget the following two descriptions:

The drums are the headlights of a band – letting everyone know where they are headed.  Are we speeding up?  Are we slowing down?  Are we going into a shout chorus?  Are we hitting a break?

The bass is the heartbeat of the band – it keeps everyone locked down to the tempo, it drives the chord progressions, it gives everyone the down beat to realize where they are at any time.

And it’s that understanding of how the instruments are talking to each other that becomes so vital in an arrangement.  A musical conversation doesn’t just have to be a call and response, it can be simultaneous.  What the conversation actually refers to is the interplay of notes, chords, and melodies that everyone is playing.  If it is a minor progression it draws a certain emotional picture and tone for the song that becomes dark.  A major progression tends to keep our emotional connection to a song more positive.  Creating this interplay between the instruments and using the knowledge of how to evoke those emotions allows the musician to create a backdrop for the lyrics.

It’s like looking at a picture or painting.  There may be a focal point in the near field such as a person (the lyrics) but the world around that focal point finishes the image (the arrangement).  Is the person in the country or the city?  Was it night or day?  Was it sunny or raining?  The lyrics can convey the message very directly to the listener, but the arrangement is what completes and compliments that image.  Without an arrangement we don’t get the whole image of what was happening.  With an arrangement that contradicts the lyrics, listeners can become confused as to the intent of the song.  The instrumentation plays into this scenario by acting like the type of brush or the color selection used to contribute to the background.  Do you want broad brush strokes (which could be similar to a horn section)?  Do you want subtle color enhancements (string pads)?  Do you have a specific theme to the artwork (a repeated musical line that continues throughout a song?  All these considerations must be made as the development of the arrangement proceeds.

The Musical Trinity: Songwriting

This is the re-posting of an article that I wrote posted on hypebot.com last fall...Enjoy part 2 while I continue writing new articles for your consumption!


When you listen to a song that you haven’t heard before, what is it that draws your attention?  Is it the beat that gets you moving?  Is it the lyrics tugging at your heart strings?  Is it the arrangement and interplay of the instruments?  A great song has a bit of all of these elements, but what can set a song apart from the rest often involves the hidden science and art of the audio engineer helping to put those pieces together.  

With the diversity in music today we can all find something that draws our attention.  What I want to look at is how the Musical Trinity of engineering, songwriting, and arrangement creates those songs that linger with us.  

Songwriting

Songwriting is a completely subjective thing to people.  So while I could write about the formulaic ideas that can create a hit song, you could also just think of yourself at the age of 14 and write to that kid and you’ll probably reach the same point.  The key with songwriting is to draw your listener into the song by giving them something they can relate to, effectively creating an emotional attachment. 

Nick Hornby once wrote about songwriting in his book “High Fidelity” (and John Cusack embodied it) that we listen to thousands upon thousands of songs about love and heartbreak.  So why is it that the most common theme across ALL musical platforms is misery over lost love?  Because it is something that everyone goes through, something that everyone can relate to, and something that is a fundamental human understanding as we go through life.  That topic brings together more people than anything else.  Seems like a bold statement to make, but how many of us turn on music for at least an hour a day?  Next time you’re listening to the songs blaring through your speakers or headphones count how many of them carry the underlying theme of love or heartbreak.  Yes, I am including the types of songs that include lyrics like “finding my bitches in this club” – momentary love is still love – call me a romantic if you will, but it still counts. 

Beyond the lyrics, songwriting involves having the basic fundamental chords that will move with the song.  As you develop the structure of a song make sure that the chords that are chosen convey the message you wish to express.  Do you want dissonance in your song to express tension or sadness?  Do you want more upbeat sounding tones?  Then stick to major chord structures.

The last piece of songwriting goes with tempo and feel.  If you’re writing a song designed to get people up and dancing in a club on a Saturday night, you’re not going to want it to be slow.  The same would be true for the style of song.  If the base of fans that you’re trying to reach out to listens to country, giving your songs a reggae feel probably won’t draw them in.  Knowing what kind of audience you’re trying to reach can help you tailor the feel of the song and tone of the song to maximize exposure.  It can also help you determine instrumentation, which leads us to…

The Musical Trinity: Engineering

A few months ago, I was fortunate enough to have this 3 part series run on hypebot.com.  As I have been absent for a little while, I thought we'd kick off the new year of posts by re-running them and getting back to the basis for what this blog is all about.


When you listen to a song that you haven’t heard before, what is it that draws your attention?  Is it the beat that gets you moving?  Is it the lyrics tugging at your heart strings?  Is it the arrangement and interplay of the instruments?  A great song has a bit of all of these elements, but what can set a song apart from the rest often involves the hidden science and art of the audio engineer helping to put those pieces together. 

With the diversity in music today we can all find something that draws our attention.  What I want to look at is how the Musical Trinity of engineering, songwriting, and arrangement creates those songs that linger with us. 

Engineering

Some people hear “engineering” as a dirty word when it comes to music; they start to think about the dreaded auto-tune and how someone has manipulated the recordings to make flawed artists sound like premiere musicians.   Sadly, this has become more commonplace with the more famous artists as they want to have that absolute perfection to the recording.  But what about the up-and-comers?  They can’t all afford the studio time or the necessary equipment to put out that top notch production.  This has created an interesting gap between the self-produced albums and the label productions.  Is one production better than the other?  Sure, you can hear a better fidelity with a label production but that doesn’t take anything away from the quality of the self-produced albums.  The key thing to look for when listening to the production of an album is balance.  Having that discerning ear to notice where instruments are placed in space, to notice if they all sound like they are playing in the same room, to be able to close your eyes and actually picture it, as if you are sitting in front of this group watching them perform. 

The idea behind a modern recording studio is to record the sounds as closely as possible so as to not hear any of the environment around them.  During the production and mixing of the album, the engineer will help to create the room that those sounds should be placed in.  The engineer creates that width so we hear something from the far left to the distant right.

A lot of inexperienced engineers, though, forget that we don’t just hear in 2 dimensions when we’re listening.  This means that they tend to forget to take depth into account.  When we listen to a concert are all of the musicians right at the front of the stage, hitting us at the same volume?   No, of course they’re not.  The drummer is usually towards the back of the stage, the singer is front and center, and the guitars and bass will be sitting between the two.  We hear with depth, we recognize that a sound is far away or right in front of us.  (If you want to know more about that look up the Doppler Effect.)  

It’s that principle of placing instruments in a three dimensional field that is the foundation of balance in a recording.  I say the foundation because once you’ve figured out where in the environment you are placing the instruments, you have to look at the listening environment and ask yourself the following question:  if a sound is directly in front of me or far off, how much ambient noise or reflections in the room will I hear?  That question tells you how much reverb and delay to use so that all the instruments will sound like they are playing together.

Coming Home by Tavius

I have to first express my gratitude to Tavius for being the first artist to take part in this project.  I was put in touch with him by a friend of mine and when I asked which song he wanted me to listen to, Tavius told me to take a look at "Coming Home".  Click here to listen to the track that I'm going to be discussing.

If you would like to submit a track for me to review, please send me a message at audibleintegrity@gmail.com 

One of my favorite parts of this endeavor is the fact that I have no idea what's going to be coming through my speakers when I hit that play button - no idea for style, tempo, tone, or artist intent. I just get to enjoy the creation without any bias.

So I have to say my first reaction to what I saw was "A 9 minute song!  Ok this should be interesting."  As it started to play I liked intro right off.  Beginning a song subdued and with some subtlety is never a wrong way to go, and in fact has been proven to not only draw a listener in, but also get them to turn up the song before the bigger hits in the music begin.  By getting the listener to adjust that volume dial at the very beginning of the song, the artist/engineer can almost create a musical bubble when the song finally reaches the first peak, as if to surround your listener and really pull them into the song.

It was the next few minutes that I found myself getting a bit lost.  I kept hearing the same looped creations cycling through nearing just about 4 minutes in. The loops in and of themselves I found to be creative.  Incorporating several different tones and textures for the drums, pulling string pads in and out while generally having a central tone in either keys or strings that would carry underneath the arpeggiated melodies. 

What caused me issue with the song was more about the fact that it never actually went anywhere.  There was no build beyond those first few seconds of the introduction.  Once that was over it was just transitioning from one loop into the next.  The transitions were not bad ones (as the artist has voiced concern over them before when I asked him if there was anything in particular he wanted me to listen for), but they were so frequent it made it very difficult to really dive into any portion of the song because as soon as I got a feel for a loop and its beat, I was listening to the next transition and loop. 

I would have loved to see these loops spread out over more time.  Taking each one individually and as opposed to cycling them as frequently as was done, really spend the time to build them.  They have a great simplicity to them in the orchestration that makes this a very easy song to listen to, even for someone that isn't generally a fan of electronic music, but it lost me on the fact that there was no build or climax for the music.  The song transitioned in and then stayed on an even line for the next few minutes before hitting the final transition out at around 8:45.  I will definitely say that I really enjoyed the outro.  I thought it was a great way to deconstruct what had been happening before in the music.  The very end was a bit abrupt, but that's an easy fix. 

Overall, I would have liked to hear a little more texture in the instrumentation used.  Specifically, I would have liked to hear more than string pads and drums, and the use of more effects to create a deeper and wider listening environment.  I also would have liked to hear the song develop the loops more, taking the chance to construct the loops during the song as opposed to cycling the pre-built loops.  While all those are things I would have liked to hear, I still find myself clicking play for the ambient music in my earbuds while I'm working away at my desk during the week. 

It just goes to show a fact that many musicians and engineers often forget: a perfect track is nearly impossible to create, so build something that seems true to you and stand behind it.

Thanks again Tavius for helping me get this started.

I Didn't Pay to be Insulted

When did it become a trend for new musical artists to force sarcasm to prove that they were clever or funny or edgy? 

 

I recently attended an independent singer/songwriter showcase of young artists (who shall remain unnamed) and witnessed something that I can only describe as the least professional stage presence I have ever seen. 

The first artist was extremely shy and forthcoming about it as she flat out stated that she was going to allow the audience to command her songs for the evening and would only pretend to look at her song list as a delay tactic until someone shouted out a request.  Now, I can understand that in an intimate venue like we were in (about 50 attendees) this was a great way to involve the audience, but to stand on stage without having done any preparation as to what songs you want to use to convey who you are as an artist to those that might not be familiar with your music just demonstrates to me that you’re not interested in commanding your audience while you’re on stage. 

This performer sang every song from beginning to end with her eyes closed, which never helps when you’re trying to connect with your audience.  I’ll write off a lot of this to just generally being young and inexperienced and needing someone to help her overcome all that by encouraging her and pushing her to believe in what it is that she’s doing.  However, the second artist committed stage sins that I just can’t fathom (as someone that has been both a band leader and a side man). 

She began her set by commenting on the fact that she prefers to have a microphone on stage because it allows her a physical item that demonstrates she’s better than her audience.  Between each song there would be a 2-5 min diatribe about either the origins of the song, or just banter between her and the audience.  These chat sessions would involve comments that were continually demeaning nearly driving me to leave, had I only driven myself to this show.  My “favorite” part of this was that after continually trying to show how witty she was by sarcastically insulting her audience, she then asked continually for them to support her by purchasing her CDs or other merchandise. 

All I could do was think to myself throughout her performance, you honestly expect me to spend more money on you?! You’ve shown a complete and utter lack of appreciation for those that paid money to come here and see you perform by a) insulting us and b) not actually performing for your entire allotted time because you had an overwhelming desire to chat.  So essentially, I’ve gotten to see 50% of your show because you elected to not do what I had expected you to do, which was sing, but you want me to support your career?  It’s artists like you that have no appreciation for those that have come before you or the audience that has worked hard to be able to afford to see you perform.  In essence, shut your mouth unless you intend to sing.  If I wanted to see a comedian I would have paid to see stand up.  I wanted to see some new up-and-coming singer/songwriters that had talent and drive.  Instead I saw young artists that have developed an unjustified overinflated ego about their value as a musician. 

And this is my message to young artists out there everywhere: you used to be a dime a dozen and now it’s probably closer to a dime per 50 – appreciate the fact that people are spending their hard earned money on you.  In the current state of the economy expendable cash is less and less in everyone’s pockets.  Don’t act like you deserve the attention more than anyone else out there, be thankful and grateful for the opportunity allotted you for the chance to play and be paid at all.  You’ve earned that right by being talented, and each show is a new opportunity to show people just how talented you are while being exceptionally humble about the fact that they are there to appreciate you.  Never forget that your career can be over in seconds if you say the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time.  So please, keep playing, keep developing, and strive to create something new everyday, and appreciate the fact that someone, somewhere out there wants to hear it and pay you to do it.  If you can make a living being a musician you are one of the lucky few – don’t discount that and always remember that there’s probably someone else out there that can do exactly what you’re doing just as well if not better that would kill for your opportunity.  Check your ego at the stage door and just show me what you got.

Call for Submissions

So, Now that I've said what I'm trying to do here, I want to ask you all to submit your songs.  We all have friends that are musicians, so forward this on to them.  I'm happy to listen to anything and offer any help I can.

The best thing I can say is send me the link or song and tell me what it is you want me to listen to.  Do you want me to listen to the lyrics, arrangement, mix, or just give you a general commentary?  My goal is to help in any way I can so I will make your request the primary focus for where I direct my comments, but I will also add in a few thoughts on some of the other components as well.

I can't wait to hear the creations that you're putting together!