Ripping the Phone Book in Half

PHONE BOOKSo many changes in just a few years!  I have to shake my head in wonder at some of this.  I know businesses that were paying over $1000 a month for yellow page ads.  Now let’s be clear, people traditionally USED yellow page ads and this expenditure was probably justified.  Ironically, some of the last consistent advertisers were pizza shops… many people still used the phone book to order pizza… now we can basically text and pay for orders from our phone.  So, how does a company reach people that no longer use phone books?  Is there a way to spend money on marketing that has a chance on reaching an audience?  What does $12k buy you these days?

As I stated in my article, Digital Dog Years, the world is split into two categories; things you can do on your handheld device and then… everything else.  Are there things that your firm can put online that could provide consistent information to your potential clients/partners?  After all, normal business hours don’t apply if we’re all connected to each other all the time.  Website FAQ’s, Articles, and YouTube videos can answer most of the same questions your staff normally answers during the day.  We might even argue that it can be more effective.  People are used to media telling them why they should buy from the advertiser.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s on TV or YouTube.  It takes pressure off your sales rep too.

And, by the way, $12k buys you alot of media production these days.  I have clients who’ve committed to putting their entire product line in short Impact Media clips on YouTube.  Not only will they save money this year, they won’t have to update the media for some time.  AND instead of a marketing expense, these clips become company assets.

RIP!

Can You Afford Paper?

LITTLE KIDThere was a time in our history when paper was too expensive for the average writer.  Paints and canvas were an indulgance for the rich; materials were simply too costly.  It’s crazy to think that these items were for the elite, not the everyday artist.

Prior to the 1990’s, the equipment used in recording studios was so expensive that musicians were paying more than $100/hour to get the use of a facility that owned some of it.  In fact, time was so expensive in the early days that only well capitalized record companies could afford to rent the studios for the musicians.  The rate included the studio engineer who, by the way, most likely had a college degree in electrical engineering.

Video equipment followed the same plot line.  Before the early 2000’s, Only TV stations and high-end independents with rates to match could afford the equipment necessary to produce professional looking videos.

Today, with a credit card and stops at a big box electronics retailer and a music store, you can take home enough equipment to do both jobs.  Hey, pick up some paint and paper and you can be a writer and an artist too!  I’m being facetious.  The point is this; if you think that media communication is important enough to do it regularly, than you need to consider doing it yourself.

Ian Kanski from IMR Digital and I have discussed this many times.  He believes that once technology can be placed directly into the hands of creative people, everything changes.  The story teller, the artist, and the musician need no go-between.  Once they understand the tools, they can begin presenting their vision.

Sometimes technology learning curves require patience and practice.  Just because we can go buy a Fender Stratocaster at any music store doesn’t mean we’ll be Jimi Hendrix.  So before we set up media production in that empty bedroom/cubicle by HR, there are a few questions that I usually ask my clients;

  1. Do you have a creative person on your staff that would be interested in this type of role part time?  Maybe they have media experience.  Maybe they think it would be fun.
  2. Do you have a digital media strategy that includes the need for professional final products?  Hey, smart phones do a great job of taking pictures and capturing video.  Audio is another story, but if short, regular FB posts are your objective, then good audio may not be necessary.
  3.  Is there a way that Mud-Hut Studios can help you set up your studio cube, train personnel, or even provide on-site production/examples for you?  I am happy to work myself out of a job… I’m used to it!

Little House on the Scary. A Brief History.

FIREPLACE FINALHow far back in time would we have to travel to find our families gathered around a fire?  It would have been a near daily occurrence. fire had warmth, light and was basically the stove.  As education became more common, male family members may have taken turns reading from the bible or borrowed novels by fire light.  Eventually even the girls were allowed to go to school, and they participated.  It’s not too hard to visualize this picture.  If we haven’t been camping, we’ve certainly seen examples of early living in movies.  Versions of this family gathering played for centuries around the globe and it certainly still exists today in much of the third world.

Urban homes began installing electricity in the early decades of the 20th century.  The first radio broadcast was in 1920 and by 1922 there were 600 radio stations.  While probably in the same room as the fire place (central heating didn’t become a common goal until the RADIO1930’s), the radio caused the family to lean in together to hear the static, words, and music.  The radio had replaced the fire as the central gathering point.

In the 1950’s the television replaced the hulking radios in the family room.  We moved as a group from the dinner table to watch Gunsmoke.  Whether we really liked the programming or not was irrelevent.  The TV was the new fire and like the vacuum tube radio technology before it, you could even say it glowed…

Whether the family gatherings were mandatory or not could be argued, but it was probably punishment to be banished from them.

Today, If your family consistently  eats together around a table, I congratulate you.  If you move en masse to a family room, I envy you.  If by chance you then regularly carry on meaningful conversations, I gape at you.

Everyone has their own TV; we can access the world from any room in our home via wireless link; and if you’re reading this, I guarantee that you have used electronics to communicate with another member of your household who was somewhere in the same living space.

Here’s the undeniable irony;  We are more connected now than ever before.  Despite the weirdness of texting someone in the same house, it doesn’t matter whether they’re even in the same state.  It feels the same… like they’re under your roof.  This is why anybody can do business with anybody.  We’re all just settin’ ’round a bigger fire.

Recording Drums… Part Three

DRUMS JOSHThere are hundreds of dissertations on this subject around the web.  Many written by people far more qualified than I.  However, since I’ve recorded 400+ different kits over the years, and customer satisfaction has generally been high…  This is Part Three.

I Usually… One:  Take a wide-ish band at 500Hz and cut it aggresively on the toms.  This is the boxy tone that nobody misses.

I Usually… Two:   That pesky energy node you’ll probably get on the toms at 200Hz isn’t going to go away unless you spend a month tuning… forget about it. Set a narrow band on the eq and try to notch it out either while recording or while mixing later.

I Usually… Three:  Cut 100Hz or so on the kick drum.  I know…I know… that’s the frequency that some people will tell you to boost, but it pushes to much energy into the compressor.  You don’t have to get crazy, but as you drop this freq, you’ll hear some awesome sub tones DRUMS PIGGYthat seem to expand the size of the kick.  You’ll also have to make a wide, gentle boost some place in the upper midrange to show the slap of the beater.  If you hear a weird “clacking”, “beeping” or other unnatural sound, figure out the frequency and… notch it.  I don’t usually boost any low frequency on the kick unless genre=metal then I’ll boost 44Hz a tiny bit with a more severe 100Hz cut.

I Usually… Four:  Put some level of compression on all individual drums.  Very light on the toms, a little more on the snare, and quite a bit on the kick.  Yes, we’re shaping the tone, but we’re really looking for some level of consistency in volume across the kit.

Oh Crap!  Too much cymbal:  They’re in everything and if that weren’t bad enough they’re flanging because of the phase differences at each mic making the drums virtually unlistenable.  Let’s figure out why.

  1. The room is usually the number one culprit.  The cyms just seem to multiply everytime they’re struck.  You’ll have to deaden the room or move the kit to a larger space.
  2. Mic placement is usually the next bad guy.  Solo each mic to find the trouble maker(s) and make adjustments in the way they’re placed. Crashes eat up tom mics and the ride is almost always facing the capsule of the snare mic.  I’ve rubber banded pieces of foam to the sides of mics to help with this.DRUM FOAM but asking the drummer to either move his cymbals or change the way he/she plays may be the only way out.  Depending on your situation, you may have to remove the offending cyms and have the drummer play them as overdubs.  I’ve not done this, but it was common back in the day…
  3. Make sure your overhead mics are in the best possible position to capture a balanced drum vs cymbal performance and as the drummer plays make sure that you sweep from pan to center (mono) to listen for phasing.  Correct accordingly.
  4. I’ve found that almost all drum tracks have too much cymbal in the tom mics.  I just mute the tracks in between tom strikes.

The Snare:  Don’t over compress!  Make sure you can hear enough snare band.  Need more snare in the mix and pushing the volume doesn’t really help?  Build a reverb that does it.  There are tons of plugins that let you set early reflections, tune the verb, and simulate natural rooms and environments.  These can/willDRUM SNARE MIC make your snare as big as you want it without sounding too reverb-y.

I don’t consider myself an expert, just someone who’s had the remarkable opportunity to mic a lot of drum kits.  twenty years from now, there may not be many engineers around who will have recorded more than 10 kits.  Music has changed.  Anybody who’s used sample/replace software knows… but if you have a real band and a  real drummer, who wants to hear real drums, mic’ing is easy…  Part One.  or Part Two.

Recording Drums… Part One

ROB DRUMMINGThere are hundreds of dissertations on this subject around the web.  Many written by people far more qualified than I.  However, since I’ve recorded 400+ different kits over the years, and customer satisfaction has generally been high…  This is Part One.

After recording and mixing a session one day, a band member asked, “What did you do to the drums?”  His wording surprised me.  I thought they sounded pretty good.  “Umm, what do you mean?” I asked.  His reply;  “Well, they sound so good…  So natural… What did you do to them?  The last studio I was in spent two hours on the snare drum alone, and we didn’t record anything the first day of the session because we worked on the drums the entire day.  You just threw some mics up, turned a couple of knobs and said, ‘OK, now guitar.’  Do you have a secret processor or something?”DRUMS CM

I do not.  I have no secrets of any kind, and I have never substituted a drum sound using sample-replace software.  It just seems so unfair to the drummer.  Hey, guitar player, I don’t like the tone of your amp; let’s replace you and your little dog too.

There are a couple of things that I’ve done over the years that have given clients consistent results.

I present these with the humility of someone who has been in situations where nothing really worked and despite my best efforts the drums didn’t sound like they should have.

DRUMS DAVEAssumption One:  The drummer can play.  He/she actually strikes the drums with authority and confidence.  Touch drummers do not record well.  You really have to be on your game when recording a jazz oriented player who strikes lightly.

Assumption Two:  The drums aren’t complete garbage.  I tracked a kit once that was cobbled together from three different below average drum sets.  However, the top heads weren’t dented and he hadn’t removed the bottom heads (important).  Once we removed all of the duct tape and retuned, they recorded fine.  I am partial to maple shells, though.  They just seem so focused.

Assumption Three:  You have some idea how a kit is supposed to sound, and you aren’t afraid to help the drummer tune it.DRUMS KICK MIC

Good Idea One:  Two heads are better than one.  You can’t fake this.  There’s a reason that drums have two heads.  The kick drum can be the exception, however.  If it has a hole, put the mic inside the drum, and you’re in business.  Otherwise remove the front head.   If you’re going for a flabby/indie/70’s sound you may have to keep it and mic from outside the front.

Good Idea Two:  Get two good overhead mics.  They are your drum sound.  I’ve used different ones over the years, and I found that I liked affordable, natural sounding microphones.  I settled on ADK Area-51’s.  Properly placed, you can shut off all DRUM OVERHEADSof the other mics except the kick and hear the real drum sound.  If you’ve been searching for overheads, I highly recommend you audition these.  You won’t need a hihat mic either.  I’ve never used one.   Part Two.