Category Archives for "Production"
Thanks to the world of DAWs, loops and samples, many producers, engineers, musicians and bands don’t know what the “groove” and the “pocket” of a song is. Because most every recording is placed exactly on the grid, it’s easy to come up with a beat or song that’s perfectly in time, but lacks a groove […]
Continue readingAlthough known more recently as a music publisher with his Artist First Music as well as being the former president of the American Independent Music Publishers association, Richard Feldman has an equally rich history in reggae music production. With credits of amazing reggae music stars like Andrew Tosh, Joe Higgs, Junior Reid, The Congos, I Threes and Wailing Souls, he also won […]
Continue readingQueen’s epic “Bohemian Rhapsody” has remained a creative marvel every since its release in October 1975. It provides a special insight into the genius of songwriter, lead singer and pianist Freddie Mercury and to the band as this anti-radio mini-opera actually not only managed to go top 10 in most of the world, but still remains […]
Continue readingIf you’re in the music business or know any of its history you probably know the name Geoff Emerick. Geoff made a name for himself as one of the original 5 Beatles engineers, then went on to a fruitful, yet often overlooked career afterwards, recording Paul McCartney and Wings, Elvis Costello, Cheap Trick, America, Ultravox […]
Continue readingAn overdub session, especially one involving multiple players and parts, can deteriorate quickly into chaos without a plan. It’s easy to spend hours looking for the right performance or sound, but you can spend even more time experimenting if the producer didn’t expect that to happen and allot time for it. That’s why it pays to […]
Continue readingWhen it comes to hard rock guitar recording and mixing, producer/engineer Joe Barresi is considered the king. He’s worked with Soundgarden, Tool, Queens Of The Stone Age, Slipknot, among many others, and his work is widely admired by both artists and other top-of-the-line engineers. In this video he shows how he treats distorted rhythm and […]
Continue readingIt’s probably fair to say that the studio lifestyle isn’t exactly healthy. We start in the business working long hours, then feel that we’re not working hard enough later in our career if we’re still not working like a maniac. That can lead to all sorts of health problems, as there’s so little time left […]
Continue readingThe post last week from the Ken Scott bio Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust was so popular that I thought I’d do it again. Since we’re now celebrating the 50th anniversary of the release of The Beatles White Album, here’s an excerpt from the book describing those sessions. I must admit that I enjoyed reading […]
Continue readingAh, guitar distortion. It seems like we can’t get enough of it. From the very first time it appeared on records in the 50s, we’ve been hooked. I’ve posed a little about the history of guitar distortion in the past, but the video below takes the history back even further to Bob Willis and his […]
Continue readingI never had an opinion about mega-producer Mark Ronson either way. Sure, I’d admired his work with Adele, Amy Winehouse and Bruno Mars (just to name a few), but I had never seen him speak much until this TED talk below about how sampling changed music. I must admit that he opened my eyes to […]
Continue readingRecently I went back and began to read some of the Ken Scott biography Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust that I was lucky enough to co-write. It’s a great book (if I do say so myself) with some wonderful stories about Ken working with some of the legends of music business. One of my favorites […]
Continue readingWhen Michael Jackson left his brothers and went solo, it didn’t take long for him to establish himself as a solo hitmaker. His first release “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” was an instant worldwide hit and continues to be popular almost 40 years later. Most listeners just take a song for granted but not […]
Continue readingA lot of bands are naturally good because of the caliber of the musicians. Their innate talent causes them to automatically do some things that are important to band tightness, but many of the rest of us sometimes wonder why our band doesn’t seem as tight as it should be, either across all songs or […]
Continue readingEvery few years musical conspiracy theorists push forth a new iteration of how our A = 440Hz tuning standard was actually meant to be 432Hz instead. I’ve written about this in the past, but every so often a new video comparison shows up that makes it worth at least looking at and listening to. Just […]
Continue readingWe haven’t done an isolated track for a long time, but I thought that this one would be good to get us back in the swing of things. It’s the isolated lead vocal and lead guitar tracks from Derek And The Domino’s (Eric Clapton) classic hit “Layla.” On it you’ll hear snippets of the 6 […]
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