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now, it’s been almost a week since that last part, so you had plenty of time to clean up your studio, take a dustcloth and the vacuum cleaner, organize all those bits and pieces and be ready to work in a clean, tidy and well organized environment from now on.

i told you this series will have four parts, so what else can we clean up you ask. the second thing that needs some tidying is your song. believe it or not, chances are there’s a lot of dirt in there. ok, we’re not talking freejazz here, but everything that’s being listened to is kind of clean in terms of the songwriting. “clean” might be a stupid word to describe this, but i can’t think of a better one. the idea is to have the song (here it is again) cleaned up. that means no unnecessary licks, no notes that don’t really fit in there. the right chord at the right place and not just the standard chord because it’s the only one you can play. go through your song, note by note, and pick the chords that fit in the best – make them up if necessary. think of “sweet home alabama” for instance – quite simple, standard D, C, G chords, right? nope. listen to it very closely. on the one hand, the song is more complex than you might think – lots of important details in there. but on the other it’s even simpler than standard. you can find lots of songs that are really well cleaned up by listening to the eagles – this is of course just one example. good funk music is often exemplary when it comes to cleaning up, good hiphop as well. the thing is to do what’s right for the moment. if the song calls for a guitar solo, so be it – if not, leave it out. do you really need that b-section? correction: does the song really need that b-section? and so forth. it’s not about writing the most complicated song – more like the other way around. i always wanted to write awesome progressive concept albums with 20-minute-songs. today i’m in the process of writing two-part-songs, one part for the verse and one for the chorus. that’s it. and who’s to say which ones are better? i can’t, even if those are my songs. but i can tell you one thing, nowadays i can finish a lot more songs and record them instead of carrying them around in my mind for years without even bringing them to paper. and people like them, the 3 people that actually do listen to my stuff that is :-)

but this is not about my songs, simply because my songs have no hit-potential (i know, “hit” is one of those words today), they’re not for the masses. but they are clean. and if you want to come up with something people would want to hear, then it has to be clean. throw out anything that is not necessary. it’s like packing a backpack for a hiking-trip. you first make a list of all the stuff you’d like to take with you, then lay it all out on the bed, then go buy a mule and you’re ready to go…. the better way is to make a list, lay it all out, throw half of it away and put the other half in the backpack. it will be fine.

i love comics, especially ones that are simple, like those for instance (that’s just the current one, there’s a new one each day…) – because i love the way they simplify everything. their people are made out of a few simple strokes but still you know what it’s about. i really dig the simplify-idea and i think it’s very important in songwriting. a song still can be complex of course, but it has to be clearly shown what it’s about…

damn, i really felt my english sucked in this one and i sincerely hope that you get the idea. good luck with that :-)

yeah, finally a real entry again :-)

before i’m starting with this, remember that i’m not a professional sound engineer, technician, producing great or anything related. so the following ain’t written in stone, it’s just what i found out during my creative journey so far. your experience may differ, maybe some of this is plain wrong. so just think of it as ideas or theories and we’ll be fine.

i would like to divide this “cleaning up”-topic into 4 parts. and this entry is, oddly enough, about part 1 :-)

this first one is kind of a no-brainer, at least it should be – so i’ll make it brief. because it really is about cleaning up. cleaning up your studio aka workspace that is. simple as that. you might think ‘what the hell is he talking about?’ but there’s a reason why there’s a huge industry dedicated only to the task of organizing workspaces. there’s a reason for pocket-calendars and filofaxes, flipcharts and magnetic boards, post-it-thingies and different colored markers, lots and lots of software applications helping to keep track of it all.

well, i’m not that much into all those little helpers – i prefer to rely on my brain, even if this sometimes is quite a challenge depending on the number of things to remember and the current state of mind i’m in, but let’s not go there… did you ever see someone freak out in wild panic because he/she lost his ___________________ (fill in name of little helper)?

anyway, this here is just about keeping your studio clean and tidy. and don’t you ever underestimate the importance of this! i’m not writing this for those guys who think they need their creative chaos with pizza-slices (already green and shiny on top) lying around, piles of all sorts of cables on the floor – some working, some not – and so forth. those people might as well make their music on a dump. it doesn’t have to look pretty, it needs to be well-organized and working for you. so take the time to once and for all sort out the cables that don’t work etc. – get a bunch of boxes, draws, whatever to put spareparts, screws, tools, plugs, adapters and so forth in. find a way to organize cables, hang them on the wall for instance. i guess you can see what i’m getting at. you should also wire up the pieces of equipment you use regularly and keep it that way.

for example, i have two modeling devices to record guitar with. so they’re both connected to an audio-interface with the usb/firewire-cable already standing by as well as the guitar cable. and they’re both connected to a midi-interface for faster and easier sound-programming through the computer and this doesn’t change. when i want to track guitar or bass, all i have to do is plug in the instrument and the laptop and that’s it. as soon as the new studio is finished (which might be a while…), the audio interface will be wired at all times to the desktop mac as well. and to continue the guitar-example, the picks, slides, string cleaner, spare strings are at arm’s length as well as the guitar stand with the instrument i use the most. so it’s all right there where i need it, when i need it. including the sounds. i once took the time to program a whole bunch of guitar and bass sounds that i now use almost exclusively. they’re all versatile and can be shaped after the tracking with dynamic effects etc. there’s also a di-box standing by in case i want to do some tracks that can be reamped later. this all might sound a bit complicated, but that’s only my crappy english. in fact, i set this up once and now i’m always ready to record guitar and bass whenever i freaking want to. so you see, this goes hand in hand with the workflow ideas i wrote about in this earlier entry. but it’s not the same. this one here really is about a clean and tidy workspace. so take the vacuum cleaner every once in a while ;-) and get some dustcovers for your equipment. it’s a lot more fun to work on gear that’s clean and looks as if it’s brandnew.

another aspect of this is the way you organize your stuff inside your computer. i strongly recommend you create a template that you can use for any song or projet you’re working on. this takes a few minutes once and will save you hours later. just create a folder that you can name after the song later. inside of it, create other folders for audio samples, instrument tracks, effect patches, backup songfiles….. whatever you need and always save the single files in the right place. you might want to invent your own system of naming files, so you can see at once if a file is really used or just standing by as a donor of pieces if necessary. and of course, have a working system to backup your stuff up and running that you use at all times. after each and every session i save everything at least three times to different locations, so each location has the same status – always.

this part of the work is kind of boring and not as much fun as the actual writing or playing of course. but having a working system that keeps everything cleaned up, organized and perfectly accessible at any time makes this as efficient as it gets and gives you more time for the music.

to be continued…

that is something i do all the time, since i wrote my first song – about 18 years ago that is. accidentally i should add.

for some reason, i always write stuff i cannot play or sing – and it sucks. breathing for instance is usually no big deal once you got the basics down. there’s of course – and always will be – songparts that are hard to do, but those are just a few. oddly enough, i managed to write songs, lots of them, that i myself could not breathe at all. how stupid is that?

and although i’m through with this “airless phase”, i still do this with other parts – like drum- or guitarpieces i simply can not play. now, today that shouldn’t be a problem, right? we have computers and such to do this for us. but this is just not how it works, at least for me. even though i do almost everything with the laptop, i still take pride in my music (stop mocking me!) and the things you hear are really played and recorded, not drawn in with some pencil tool. and this is important to give it authenticity, which is one of the most vital things in music – or any art, for that matter. so right now, while working on the second album, i spend a whole lot of time practicing – just to be able to actually play those things i’m making up for myself. it usually is about precision. when i come up with a drumpart, it’s something i am basically able to play – if you can think it, you can play it – so that’s not the problem. same with guitar or bass. the hard part is to play it clean and precisely, to make every hit or stroke count and equally important. to have no fingernoises or rimclicks and so forth. this is the big challenge for me, so it’s writing the stuff and then tracking a really bad version of it, so i can figure it out in detail. and once i know exactly what to play, i practice like crazy to simply not suck too bad on the real track.

and that’s my point. there’s this saying here (no idea if there’s something similar in english…): one grows with his challenges. or as i probably mentioned many times before: practice something you can NOT do, instead of playing something you already own over and over again. so maybe i should feel lucky to have such a freakingly perverted subconscious that throws all those rocks at me during songwriting, because it knows me all too well. but even if this makes me playing better, it still would be nice to come up with something i could do right away every once in a while…

now we’re getting somewhere :-)

i just finished another recording session and am now up to 15 song-construction-sites. and since i’m still in da zone, this will be a really short entry (once again…). sorry for spending so much time making music, but i can’t help it – it’s what i do…

anyhoo, today was all guitars so far and if you’ve ever tried to record electric guitar, here’s the mother of all advice from me to you: less gain! stop mocking me! i know this is no bloody Richard-Friggin’-Feynman-Flash-Of-Genius-Idea but it helped me a lot. set up your sound the way you like it and then turn the gain-knob down by maybe 20% or the sound will suck big time on the recording. i have no idea why, this came out of experience, lots of swings-and-misses and running up and down the street, waving my arms like crazy screaming out “serenity now!” at the top of my lungs. so better take this advice before your neighbors call the lunatic-patrol-guys who will come into your home and kidnap you away from your compu

well, actually i wanted to name this “never underestimate the importance of the workflow” because it’s more like a tip and not a complete guide of how to organize a complete music production from a to z. maybe this would be a great idea as well, but i’d definitely be the wrong guy to write that one, for i have not the slightest idea about it. my approach to recording is more of an Eastwood-nature: i’m riding into a town and the rest just happens.

but that doesn’t mean i don’t follow a few basic principles. and one of them is to be aware of the workflow. i started to think about this a little when i watched a few tutorials on Propellerheads new software Record which will be released in september i believe. anyway, they have a bunch of short tutorials about it on their site and it looks ridiculously simple. so my first thought was “hey, that’s exactly what i need!” – but then again, i do not really need it, because i’m already able to do what it does best. and that’s recording on the spot without having to set up or do anything except hitting the red button. i might buy it anyway because i’m doing almost everything with Reason anyway and Record will be the perfect mate for it with seamless integration of everything – which would mean to get rid of the middleman. so it might still be a good idea to get it but it’s not absolutely necessary.

now, my recommendation to you – and i’m sure you already are aware of it, but maybe forget about this on a regular basis, as i do as well – make recording as simply as possible. have an empty an ready-to-go project set up at all times, so all you need to do once inspiration strikes is turn on the computer, open the project and hit red. as for me there’s one more step in between, depending on what instrument i want to track. i have a guitar-modeling-device wired into both an audio and a midi interface with the guitar cable already plugged in. i have one bank of the modeler filled with the different sounds i use in most cases. and for all other instruments, i have a midi-controller keyboard standing by. so the extra step mentioned above is simply plugging the audio interface and/or the midi-controller into the laptop. if i would use a desktop computer, this would already be wired up at all times. now, if i want to record guitar, i simply plug in the audio interface, turn on the modeling-device and the laptop, open the empty cubase-project, plug in the guitar and hit record. ok, that’s six steps, but except for the first one, all of them have to be made in any situation. if it’s not guitar i want to track, then it’s plugging in the controller, switching on the laptop open an empty Reason-rack, selecting an instrument and hit record. it doesn’t get any more streamlined than this. the midi-interface is simply there to program/change sounds on the computer screen instead of going through endless menus on the modelers two-digit-display. but since i have my five favourite guitar sounds already at my fingertips, i just need to tweak them a little bit by assigning another cabinet or changing the gain slightly. oh, and when i talk about ‘empty’ projects, i do mean my default starting point. so it’s not really empty, it’s what i defined would be the most efficient and comfortable place to start. and you should do this as well. take those few minutes once to set up what you would like to see as soon as you click on “new” and never again bother with making those same changes over and over and over again as i did for years because i was to lazy to define my preferences (…).

the important thing is to always be ready. if you need to go through a 2-hour-setup-session to catch even the tiniest idea, you won’t get very far. that’s exactly what happened when i first started recording my own stuff. i had every piece of gear i needed, the software etc. but everytime i wanted to record something it took hours to get ready for it. and as a result, i didn’t record very much at all. so once inspiration struck i thought, “cool, let’s track this down”, then i started setting up and halfway through thought “hmm, it’s not that great after all – not worth the effort…” and the idea got thrown into the bin.

today, for me everything is worth the effort, simply because there’s no more effort involved. and with the ability to change sound, tempo etc. after the actual recording process, i can just let inspiration get the better of me and work on it later.

by the way, i found it very important to pick one piece of software and learn to really use it, including keyboard shortcuts and different advanced techniques. i used lots of different programs before and knew all of them just a little, but this winds you up in endless im- and export-battles and so forth. so now i only use two, and one of them only for the raw tracking process. anything else is done inside of just one program which i know pretty well by now – makes things very easy, especially for someone as lazy as me…

ok, i gotta run – so here’s just a quick update on how the work on the new album is coming along. there are no lyrics whatsoever yet. but the intro is finished – i’m thinking about turning the intro into a whole song, though…

the music for one song is finished, except for the solo which i will track after i’ve done the vocals. and the music for 4 more songs is written. this takes that much longer than expected, but this whole internet stuff is stealing away lots of time (not talking about writing entries for this place…).

on the other hand, i’ve got one song almost finished (again except vocals) but it won’t be on “traitor” because it’s a completely different style, more bankjob-like. i tried to combine it with already existing traitor-stuff but it sounded…..cough, cough…..not that great. we’ll see where that goes…

babysteps once again – but at least steps. and they’re in the right direction…

this is worth checking out. and not only because this guy is a great player, it’s also a cool song. by the way, the microphone used is a Røde NT-4 (sorry, still no links yet) – for you recording folks out there, it’s worth considering…

enjoy:

i just finished recording rhythm-guitar for the first song of “traitor”, i played ten tracks, threw two of them away and kept the other eight – not sure if i’ll use them all, though. there are lots of bits and pieces for this new album i already recorded, but until now i wasn’t sure what this album would sound like. during the last few weeks i was messing around with all kinds of ideas but now it became quite obvious where this will go. this little tracking-session today made it very clear that this will be a straightforward, lowdown and dirty hardrock album.

the funny thing about this is, i stopped being a rock-musician years ago. and since then i’m listening to everything with the same amount of interest, i’m playing everything with the same amount of ‘being into it’. but beyond all that there’s some unfinished business i suppose. songs i wrote during my rock-phase for instance, like 15 years ago… i don’t even like those songs anymore, but i still love the feel of some of them or some parts, riffs, licks or whatever. and since that time, whenever i’ve picked up a guitar, some of those old ideas snuck up on me. so now i’m making peace with myself by finally doing a record with all that stuff – hoping those ghosts from the past will leave me alone at last :-)

nah, don’t gimme that “so, now you’re trying to palm off old and rotten stuff on me?” because that’s not what this is. there won’t be a single one of those old songs on the record, as i said before, i don’t like them anymore. i will, though, write new material with some of those riffs, ideas etc. included. what will mostly remain of the old stuff is the feel. suffice it to say i was quite an angry young loon back then. but don’t panic! i’m already thinking about the third album which will be completely different – again. this second one is basically about getting something off my chest and be done with it. on the other hand – recording this dirty stuff was kind of fun……………..

sounds ridiculous, right? i never thought about this before, but a few days ago i went to see a band and that got me thinking…

they should remain anonymous because this is no review about this gig and i don’t want anyone to directly connect them to what i’m gonna say here. so let’s just say there was a live-show that triggered the following thoughts…

as a matter of fact i never heard of them before, when a friend told me they were playing some place near us, so we decided to have a look. first i must say, the place was crowded and the people were in a great mood right from the start. we went in, stood there for a couple of songs, then looked at each other and thought exactly the same thing: why does this work for anybody except us? the audience loved it, they were screaming and singing along…..we were kind of bored. i then asked my friend what he was thinking and he said the very word i would have come up with – slick. no doubt, the performance was flawless – well, pretty much. we detected very few minor mistakes, nothing worth mentioning. it all was really well arranged, really well played and sounded very tidy and, well, slick.

it took a few more songs to find out what was missing (for me/us). there was no edge, no character, no feeling. ok, this is a bit harsh i guess. but it reminded me of my early recording experiences years ago. when i would lay down a performance and then cut off and delete anything that seemed not essential for the part, meaning fingernoise on the guitar or breathing during vocal-takes. so in the end i would have a flawless, tidy take with notes only – nothing else. and it would always sound like shit! why? simply because i deleted everything human in it. what is it with us musicians? we’re building drummachines that play better than any drummer (in terms of timing and precision of course…) and then we’re spending decades trying to add random flaws to it – giving it a human factor, controlled by unbelievably complex algorithms. on the other hand we’re playing something and then try to make it as machine-like as possible, erasing the human factor as good as we can (pitch-correction, quantizing etc.) – what is that? why is that? is this really it? or are we just too stupid?

when it comes to recording, i’m still figuring this out for myself – making this same decision for every bit i’m tracking and it’s very well possible that i would make a different one for the same take on another day. so at least there’s a human factor in deciding if a human factor should be involved :-)

anyhoo, my answer to the question is YES! there is such a thing as a too good performance. it’s just a matter of how one defines ‘good’. wow, this is getting more complicated than i thought – it seems there should be a second part to this, so here’s your chance to think about it yourself :-)

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ok, time for the next episode. the seventh song of the album, which i called “the lover”. this is a really simple song, just two guitars and vocals. one guitar playing the bassnotes and the other one the chords – only three by the way. again, no real instruments, i used guitar samples with a tremolo effect. if i was to do this again, i’d record a real guitar – although it sounds quite real to me… anyway, i wanted to do everything except the vocals with the laptop only as kind of an experiment, so i used samples for everything.

the interesting part were the vocals. i should have mixed it a little different, i realized afterwards, because the words are hard to understand. this is the result of something i never did before, so it was new to me and i improvised. the reason for this was i wanted it to sound as close and soft as possible which brought up a variety of problems. first of all, if it should sound close, you need to turn the microphone up – way up. just having a normal setting and go further away from it might work live but for recording this ain’t good enough. why? because the words are not the only noise you make. there’s breathing for instance, even the air that comes out with the words has a certain sound and then there’s the little sounds that appear when you open or close your mouth. now, the recording can only sound really intimate when those sounds are there. if someone talks softly into your ear, those sounds are there as well – so to keep it real, you need them. cranking up the mic, though, can really freak you out because a large diaphragm tube condenser mic is quite a monster – those things pick up everything! when you’re recording that way you need silence, perfect silence. you might even want to think about the clothes you’re wearing, that’s why i recorded nekkid – and shaved :-) just kiding……or am i……

but turning up the mic wasn’t enough for me, i wanted more. the only possible way was to get even closer to the mic. next problem: usually there’s a pop-killer (i think that’s the right word….) between the mic and your mouth, a round thingy to prevent pop noises that occur when too much air hits the mic hard. light a match and sing a ‘p’-word (not phuck…) into the flame to know what i mean. those airstrikes cause little sound-explosions and can ruin a track in no time. getting closer to the mic meant to get rid of the pop-killer. i virtually touched the mic with my lips which makes it almost impossible to get something useful out of it (not talking about live here!) and the fact that the mic was cranked up made it even impossiblyer…..uhm….more impossible……or…less possible…..or…..uhm……you get the idea.

all that forced me to sing not only more cairful but also softer than i ever did before. there’s a thin line between really soft singing and whispering and to make it sound somehow even is a real challenge. singing out loud is a lot easier than doing it really, really soft. by the way, it’s the same with drums. tell your drummer to play a groove as soft as a whisper (or try it yourself) – it’s freaking hard to groove at such a low volume, when the sticks can only be an inch away from the drum…

in the end i’m not sure if it was worth the trouble, because i still don’t know if it’s even possible to get a decent recording with this. although i was very careful, it still doesn’t sound quite as even as i wanted it too. and it was a lot harder to deal with it in the mix than it is with ‘normal’ vocals. so it sounds like either a bad singer or a bad recording – i guess there is such a thing as ‘too real’. it seems there is kind of a threshold and from that point on ‘more real’ results in ‘less good’… i’m gonna spend some time in the future to figure that one out…

anyway i really love that song for its intimacy, even if it shows what could have been better.

p.s. i should mention that the feeling i wanted to create with this was inspired by Nancy Sinatra‘s “Bang Bang” and the title tune from Twin Peaks.