This article was written by Nick Schenkel at Sweetwater.  Over the next few months, we’re publishing an entire series of articles in the Lounge from Sweetwater. Keep your eyes peeled and check back often!

Over the years, I have played in many bands. I have labored to get band members to show up to practice. I have gone home exhausted after load out with a paltry couple bucks in my pocket. I have dealt with the drama that can erupt between two band members that are at odds with each other. I have been through it all, and I quit.

When I first realized that I no longer wanted to be part of a band, I had tough decisions to make. Was I going to just do the singer/songwriter, guitar and vocal approach? Was I going to do the “band in a box” thing? How was I going to do justice to the songs I had written while keeping the act solo?

There are several ways that an individual can perform with the sound of a full band, but without having the extra personnel. The solution might be as simple as having traditional backing tracks played through the PA system. Another solution might involve using pre-programmed MIDI sequences. Other solutions might be more complex, but might also be more rewarding. Let’s take a look at some of the options.

Traditional Backing Tracks

With the advent of the personal computer and recording software, it’s easy to create backing tracks to play at a live performance. You can load your songs onto a CD or your iPod, and have studio-quality back up for your performance. The problem is that you are locked into a specific arrangement and set list. Also, you either need to have the capability of producing the tracks yourself, or you will need to pay for studio time. This is the “band in a box” approach, and although it can sound great, it often leaves the audience feeling like they just went to a glorified karaoke performance.

Pre-programmed Sequences

With a MIDI sequencing sound module and some kind of controller, you can have high-quality sound and a certain amount of flexibility. By preprogramming different sequences for each part of a song, you can opt to stay with a particular passage longer (for example, to play a little longer on the solo), or edit out a passage altogether (skip the third verse). This allows the performer the ability to react to the audience, and adjust the performance to suit the mood.

Loop-based Performance

Thanks to advances in technology, we now have access to loop pedals that can record sound-on-sound for anywhere from 10 seconds to 10 hours. With these powerhouse loopers, a performer can build an entire arrangement in front of an audience. This can lead to a very engaging and dramatic show that will have people talking for days afterward.

To get a general idea of the process, check out a live video of KT Tunstall performing “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” solo sometime. (There are several available on YouTube.) KT uses an Akai E2 Head Rush pedal to do the looping for her. By using the percussive elements of her guitar, a tambourine, and handclaps, along with her voice, she builds a lush arrangement in a matter of seconds.

If you take this general model a little further, you can see how easy it can become to take a solo performance in a new and exciting direction. Perhaps one might choose to incorporate some simple drum loops from an external source, and (while bringing in the drum loops) use an octave pedal to lay in a bass line. You could take a microphone around the room, and have the audience provide rhythmic elements by clapping or hitting glasses with their spoons. The possibilities are endless.

The end result is a memorable performance that avoids the “canned” feel of pre-recorded/programmed backing track. The audience can also be engaged in a creative and constructive way, adding to the uniqueness of each show. This elevates the solo performance above its usual clichés, making it a fresh and involving experience.

The three options above are by no means a comprehensive list. Certainly, one can consider a number of options using a computer with recording software, or a keyboard workstation with recording options, as ways to expand the possibilities available to you as a solo performer and perhaps lead you in a new direction.

The main point is that there are many ways to avoid being the singer/songwriter in the corner of the coffeehouse strumming your guitar to an uninterested audience. Similarly, one does not necessarily need to work with a band in order to present a full-bodied arrangement in a live environment. With the right technology and a little imagination, you can take your solo act into uncharted territories and pick up new fans along the way.

Nick Schenkel is a guitarist and sound designer. He has degrees in music production and engineering, and has spent the last fifteen years working in both live sound and recording studios. Nick currently works at Sweetwater as a Sales Engineer, and can be reached at (800) 222-4700 ext. 1399 or nick_schenkel@sweetwater.com.

This article was written by Stuart Niven at Sweetwater.  Over the next few months, we’re publishing an entire series of articles in the Lounge from Sweetwater along with contests and prizes. Keep your eyes peeled and check back often!

After producing/engineering and mixing bands in Australia for nearly ten years I have worked with artists from their first demo to national releases for indie labels and labels with some pre-production projects for majors like Sony and Warner as well.

In this time I have seen and experienced many pitfalls, made mistakes, and learned some lessons. My hope in this article is not to enforce any rules or preach any “thou shalt do” – this is after all music and should be approached with the imagination, passion and free spirit that is music after all – but rather I hope to give you some tips on how to succeed in the studio!

Before

I find that preparing well provides huge benefits. It’s true you can never be prepared enough, but you do not want to be so locked into ideas that you miss out on the inspiration that comes from the recording process. That said, it’s easy to go so far off the path that you never get back to what it was you first set off to accomplish. These days of endless possibilities in the studio have brought with them a certain risk of never quite making decisions; it’s easy to trade the decisions off for the “we’ll fix it in the mix” path.

While this is great for some, it is a dangerous path for most. Commit! Let your heart take over, set your mind free, does it feel good? Does it sound good? What are we doing here? What is it we are trying to accomplish by recording our musical dreams? We all strive for perfection but sometimes chasing perfection can result in the “need” to edit the life out of an idea. Some of the greatest albums in history were recorded on to two tracks, bounced to another track so the overdubs could be added – editing was not an option.

This “limitation,” by modern standards, was the basis of what I consider the fundamental concept of making a record: Know your part! No amount of editing or digital trickery can replace a well played, from-the-heart performance. Technology should therefore enhance the dream, not replace it. A vintage Neumann microphone with a classic preamp, 2-inch tape, or Pro Tools will capture a bad performance the same as an all-in-one cassette 4-track. Conversely, a great performance will still be a great performance no matter what it is recorded to or how/where it was recorded.

A great record starts in the rehearsal room. It is often thought that the rehearsal (jamming) stage of the process is the fun part. While this is true to a degree, you are defeating the true purpose if you keep making the same mistakes over and over again that will become habits that get overlooked and only appear again under the close microscope of the recording process. If you are rehearsing and make a mistake, stop. What is wrong? Is the arrangement not working? Is the tempo wrong for the part? Do you know your part?

Producer

One of the most valuable sets of ears in the recording process is that of the producer. The role of the producer has always been a bit of a mystery. The evil opinionated guy in the room that makes you do it again…and again…and again? Or, the guy that facilitates the creative flow and exploration…and what makes a person a “producer” anyway?

I always imagined both sides of the coin. We get lost in our own music and sometimes and loose sight of what we are aiming for. A producer can be anyone, but must be objective and slightly removed from the subjective “dream” while seeing the dream in its essence and reality. Basically, a producer will help guide you, keep you on track, and facilitate the process. That may mean bringing lava lamps and creating the “vibe” that keeps everybody motivated and focused or refusing to accept something that doesn’t feel right and demanding better, all while seeing the essence of the song and acting without ego. I guess that the point is that an objective ear is invaluable to a recording, like a jockey on a horse: without the guiding hand of the jockey, the horse could run around completely off the track.

These days of home-based studios where the role of engineer/artist/producer/mixer, and A&R (artist and repertoire) are blurred into one, it’s important to have somebody that is both critical and in touch at the same time…somebody who likes, understands, and has respect for your music.

Gear

The better the gear that you have access to the better you can sound. I recommend hiring or gaining access to the best gear that you can. Spend some money on a good drum room with some great preamps and mics to record the drums. This is the foundation of your recording and chances are, if your drums sound great, the rest will come easier.

Get your sound from the source. A great guitar amp with a great guitar played by a person who knows his part so well that he can let go of the “thought” of the music and just “be” the music will sound real no matter what media is being used to record the performance. But again I must stress, knowing your part and being well rehearsed is paramount, a good vocal performance can be more effective with a cheap mic than a bad performance captured with a $5000 microphone.

Do you sense a recurring theme here?

The Point

I mix with a Pro Tools HD System and have nearly every plug in available, summed into a Dangerous Music 2Bus, almost always with an SSL Bus Compressor strapped over the final mix. Nice gear, but I like to think that these tools only help bring out the best in the sonic soundscape and do not “make” the sound. I have Autotune but I resist the urge to use it unless it is necessary to save a part that cannot be done again. I have Beat Detective, but I try to make sure it is used only to enhance the part and not replace a heartfelt performance.

Stuart Niven recorded bands in Australia for nearly 10 years, including projects for major labels. He graduated from the Conservatorium of Music in Queensland Australia. Niven plays guitar, bass, and drums. He is currently a Sales Engineer at Sweetwater. Reach him at 800-222-4700 x1137 or at stuart_niven@sweetwater.com.

This article was written by Yuval Fuchs at Sweetwater.  Over the next few months, we’re publishing an entire series of articles in the Lounge from Sweetwater along with contests and prizes. Keep your eyes peeled and check back often!

Haven’t taken the plunge into home recording yet?  Yuval Fuchs helps guide the debate between standalone multitrack recorders and home computers as total recording solutions.

When I first started out recording my own music about 24 years ago (wow, I suddenly feel old!), my first recorder was a Fostex 4-track cassette multitrack. The point was to use it as a musical scratch pad when the inspirational moment struck, but with the ability to produce a more elaborate arrangement than just a one-shot recording of me playing my guitar. Typically, I would start with a drum track using a drum machine, then a keyboard track followed by a guitar track and a vocal track. If I wanted to add some reverb to my vocals or my final mix, I would insert an external processor into an auxiliary bus and dial in how much or little effect I wanted.

While four tracks of audio doesn’t seem like much by today’s standards (and it isn’t), I was able to get some pretty good sounding musical productions, at least good enough to call it a song or “my new tune” while being able to say I performed all of the music myself. In this day and age, the premise hasn’t changed, but the means to achieve the final results have – and changed drastically!

An example is the way the audio can be edited. Today, we can take advantage of non-destructive editing in our digital audio recorders. This means that any edits (such as cut, copy, paste, etc.) that are made do not actually destroy the originally recorded audio and that we can get the original audio back if we mess something up. This enables experimentation and a whole new level of creativity.

In contrast, in the “old days,” if I were to play a guitar solo that was less than perfect, I had two choices: replay it or keep it and live with it. On some higher-end analog tape machines of that day, one could actually physically cut the tape (a process called “splicing”) and glue it to another section of the tape. Needless to say, this was a painstaking, time-consuming, and often inaccurate process. Today, just about any digital recording system enables countless takes to be recorded and seamlessly incorporated into any part of the arrangement with a few button presses. If you change your mind and don’t like the last take, just choose another one and you are free to record your next part.

Those of you who haven’t taken the plunge into home recording may be debating whether to get a standalone multitrack recorder or to use your computer as a total recording solution.

For me, the transition from analog tape to the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) realm was not smooth. When faced with the choice of going with a standalone HDR (Hard Disc Recorder) or with a computer-based solution, I initially went with an HDR because of cost/performance factor. At that time (back in the mid-‘90s), PCs were in their infancy in terms of processing power and although recording audio was a feature they offered, you had to have a really powerful and expensive computer to handle multiple audio tracks and to apply audio effects. I felt that the computers of that day were simply not powerful enough to enable me to do what I wanted to do quickly and reliably.

So I went with a standalone machine that had it’s own microcomputer inside dedicated to multitracking audio. Basically, it was not dissimilar to my original analog cassette 4-track in that it enabled me to lay down my musical performances track by track, but it also gave me the freedom to cut, copy, paste, realign, and crossfade my audio in ways I could only wish I had available to me before.

The downside of the standalone HDR was the small screen only showed a minimal amount of information. I had to depend on my ears when manipulating the data. But that was okay since the natural, tape-based feel of the recording experience outweighed the lack of visual feedback for the most part and was more congruous to the way I was used to working anyway.

Fast-forward 10 years and now we still have dedicated HDRs. But computers have evolved into total self-contained recording studios (driven by the right choice of software and hardware of course). It does seem apparent to me that HDRs are a dwindling breed these days. I have seen numerous HDR systems recently go away (Roland VS2480, Korg D series) with the advent of PC recording solutions becoming more powerful and more affordable. This, along with having a huge selection of audio interfaces, easy-to-learn software, and control surfaces, and all the audio pieces being relatively simple to integrate with even a consumer-grade PC, makes it compelling for singers, songwriters, and bands to get into the game.

The main benefit of going the computer-based DAW route is the big screen and familiar interface. With the Internet becoming an inseparable part of our lives, we are used to the visual feedback we get from our computers. We subliminally expect the computer to visually feedback what we think as we think it – for it to be a logical extension of our brain. Hearing audio is not quite the same experience as also being able to see the waveform and immediately identifying peaks, transients, quiet passes, noise, clicks, and pops.

Today, HDRs are almost gone, short of models that are still serving an important need: portability. But even for portable applications, laptops are becoming smaller, sleeker, more powerful, and much more affordable. It’s just a matter of time before high-quality audio can be recorded into a palm-sized computer without having to get any external gear! Hold on to your socks…we’re almost there.

Yuval Fuchs is well into his 24th year of guitar playing and is a Sales Engineer at Sweetwater Sound. He owns just enough recording gear and guitars to be dangerous and spends his free time testing and comparing new pro audio products in his studio. He can be reached at yuval_fuchs@sweetwater.com or at (800) 222-4700 ext. 1367.

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This article was written by Simon Picazo at Sweetwater.  Over the next few months, we’re publishing an entire series of articles in the Lounge from Sweetwater along with contests and prizes. Keep your eyes peeled and check back often!

So how do you get to where you want to go with your music from where you are right now? Here are 10 key things to keep in mind.