Improve Your Music

Well folks, here is the first progress report on building my own vocal recording booth. As you’ll know I originally wanted a much larger space so I could set up my drum kit or maybe even jam with a few friends, but budget has ruled that out in the short term.

The short term answer to my recording problems was to build a vocal booth. I set myself a budget of $800 Aus and so far, although I’m not quite finished, I think I won’t go over by too much. The original spec was for it to be 1.8m by 1.2m but I got a good deal on some 1.2m by 2.4m sheets of chipboard so I did a quick re-design so I didn’t have to cut up large sheets. I also wanted each wall to be a self contained unit so if I ever have to pull it down it will be easy.

Each wall is made of a single sheet of 18mm chipboard with a 75mm x 45mm pine frame around the outside of the wall. In the cavity I put fibreglass insulation batts then I finished the “sandwich” off with another sheet of 18mm chipboard. You can see the profile of the walls in the accompanying photo’s.
(Click images for larger versions)

The floor is slightly different as I didn’t want a layer of chipboard on the bottom. Chipboard is very fragile if it ever gets wet so I put the pine frame on the bottom then 2 layers of chipboard on the top. The ceiling and door are of the same construction as the walls.

I still have a layer of carpet to go on the outside and some more carpeting and foam on the inside but already it’s pretty quiet. I did a test recording in there last night and you could only just hear the traffic outside. Once the extra layers of carpet go on it will just about be silent.

Where to from here?

Now that I know that all the pieces fit together I’m going to pull it apart again and paint it. It will probably never get wet but I’m not taking the chance. Once it’s painted then I’ll re-assemble it, sealing the joins with silicone as I go. This will help the sound leakage a lot too.

After sealing then it’s an external and internal layer of carpet and some acoustic foam. There will still be a few areas of bare timber inside so it’s not totally dead sounding but it should be nice and quiet.

Last but not least it will stand on a rubber mat for a bit more isolation.

Lessons learnt so far.

• I should have used a bit more internal bracing and stuffed a bit more fibreglass in the walls. They still resonate at low frequencies. The carpet will help this but more bracing would have been good.
• Building it almost square isn’t ideal sound wise but it was cheap!
• I need more hinges on the door. It’s REALLY heavy.

Overall I’m very, very happy with the progress so-far. Stay tuned for another progress report in a week or so.

I got a call this week to come in and help with a recording. A friend of mine is recording an album and he’s just not been happy with the drum part he’s getting. He started off with a drum machine for the basic feel and recorded some guide guitar and vocal parts. The drum machine just wasn’t cutting it and sounded too artificial. The trouble was that he wanted the recording to be locked to a solid time for editing purposes. He got a real drummer in to try to fix the tracks but the guy had trouble playing to the click track. His time wandered a bit, sometimes ahead of the beat and sometimes lagging. It was close but noticeably out. What should he do? This is when I got the call. Could I come and play to somehow “fix his problem?”

As it turned I helped, but not in the way he was originally thinking. You see, playing to a click track is really hard unless you do lots and lots of it. It’s as simple as that. It’s been a few years since I’ve played in a band that used backing tracks but I remember how hard it was to learn those songs while concentrating so hard on being locked to the click track.

I sat down to play and my time wasn’t much better than the last guy. Sometimes I was a fraction in front & sometimes a touch behind, but you could hear it. I’d forgotten how hard it was to do, especially without rehearsal!

It’s not just drummers who suffer this problem either. You can stump most musicians by simply making them play to a metronome. What you need to understand is that it is a learned skill. You will only get good at it by doing lots of it.

In the end I offered my friend a different approach which may work better in the long term. I suggested that he stopped trying for “perfect takes” of the whole song and just work at getting “perfect sections”. Just get the intro right, then just get the first verse right then the first chorus etc. You then have the option of copying your perfect verse and using it again and again. It is a time consuming system but so is weeks of rehearsal trying to get the whole song perfect in one take. There is no escaping the time factor either way. It’s just up to you which system system works best for you.

Anyone know of a better method?

I’ve featured a few videos here by Bob Gatzen over the last few months. Mainly on how to tune a drum kit. This time I’d like to feature Bob himself as a drummer. Here is a great little clip that shows some of what Bob Gatzen can play in the form of a tasty little solo.

Way back in October last year I mentioned that I was planning to build a practice studio in my garage so I thought I’d update you on the progress. That won’t take long… there hasn’t been any!

A few things got in the way, the main thing being the budget or lack of budget. When I actually sat down and worked out what materials I needed in order to adequately soundproof a 6 metre by 4.5 metre space then budget became a problem. Sure I could work on it over time but the problem was that i need to do some recording and I need to do it now! This calls for a compromise.

The recording I need to do is just some vocal narration work but it needs to be good quality. The buses going past my house don’t help. The short term answer came to me last week. Build a vocal booth! I can knock together a simple but effective vocal booth quite quickly and cheaply. So that’s going to be step 1 of the home practice/recording studio. Once I’ve got that in place I can slowly start to build the larger room around it as budget allows. Not a bad plan, eh?

The booth will measure 1.8 metres by 1.2 metres or about 5feet by 4feet in the old money. That will be plenty big enough for my large frame and a single mic on a stand. The construction will be chip board on the inside and outside with a pine frame filled with fibreglass insulation. I’ll add carpet to the outside and accoustic foam to about three quarters of the inside plus carpet on the floor. By my reckoning it should be pretty quiet but either way it’s going to be much better than trying to record in my noisy house.

Construction will start later this week (if it stops raining) and I’ll do some update posts with pictures as I go. Stay tuned!

We are very excited to announce the release of our first eBook, “Taking Your Music Online.” It is a collection of some of our best articles as well as some exclusive new material. We take the “business of music” very seriously here as this is the area where most musicians fall down. Time after time we receive questions about how to become a successful independent musician or band. This eBook is the first step in understanding what it takes to take your music online.

Chapters include:

1. Building an Effective Press Kit for your Band
2. Why Most Band’s Web Sites Are A Complete Waste Of Time And Money
3. How To Get Your Music On The Radio
4. Selling Your Music Online
5. Do You Really Need A Record Company?
6. Raising Finance For An Album

Get your FREE copy right now. Just put your name and email into the box below and we’ll send you the link to download the book immediately.

Once you’ve read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts, comments and suggestions. Just scroll down to the comments section below.

Cheers, Mark Gibson.

Do you really know the name of the notes on your guitar fretboard? You can learn the notes well and in a short time if you put a little energy into the project!

It will really help you as a guitarist if you know the names of the notes on your guitar. Let’s see some of the benefits you reap from learning to know your guitar:

1. It will be much easier to learn to play sheet music notation as you already know where to find the notes on your guitar. The only remaining task is to learn the names of the notes on the sheet music staff.

2. You will find it much easier to understand chords and remember chords as you easily can see where to put your fingers to play the required notes.

3. It will be easier for you to understand guitar lessons on the net or in guitar instructional books as you understand an important part of the language used in guitar instruction.

We will start with something you can learn as your first task if don’t already know this. It is to know the names of the notes on the open strings of your guitar. An open string is a string not pressed down by a left hand finger. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Here is another fantastic video by Bob Gatzen, this time on tuning bass drums. I’ve tried his tuning method recently and had great results. If you’ve got any drum tuning hints then why not share them in the comments section below. I hope to hear from you soon.

I just wanted to give you folks a heads up on a brand new website for musicians and bands. This project is still in the design stage so this is a very unique opportunity to find out what’s going on before the general public does.

Head over to www.musicbusinessmasterclass.com/sneak-peek and be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments section.

We’ve spent quite a lot of time lately looking at ways to promote yourself and your music. Arjun over at The Good Musician has a great article on just this subject called 100 Free & Affordable High & Low Tech Ways To Promote Music. It might sound like a tired old cliche but good marketing and promotion really does make a phenomenal difference when trying to make money out of your music.

It starts off with:

1. Never leave promotion to the other guy. Depending on your point of view don’t count on the label, band or publicist to do their jobs. Do it yourself or it may not get done.
2. Know your niche market(s) or hire/befriend someone who does.
3. Always think of the fans first when making decisions.
4. Start early. Pre-promote. It allows time for viral buzz (aka free promotion) to build and ensures you’ll get you a larger share of a discretionary spending.
5. Take the time and spend the money to get a great publicist to get free media.
6. Produce great promotional material and send it out early and often. Don’t wait until they need it.
7. Email lists must be your new religion. Make sign up simple and easy to find. Put it visibly on the top half of the front page and watch it grow.
8. Segment your email lists (genre, location) to fight email burnout.
9. Produce and send great e-cards. The best ones get forwarded to others
10. Make your web site a destination by keeping it updated and including news, giveaways, polls and things to make it worth visiting.

Read 11-100 here.

Music is undoubtedly a form of communication and/or expression. Coincidently, the skills of improvisation are certainly related to the dexterity and formalities that are imperative to accomplishing your role as a communicator. Therefore, as you are preparing to become a musician, improvising will firmly assists with your development of the overall perception and understanding of musicianship.

Improvisation often focuses on the recognition of one’s personal awareness, into the present moment. The skill also enables the development of a profound understanding of the action that one is currently displaying. Once you are aware and understand the concept, you will be provided as the practitioner with a sense of belief and accomplishment.

As a practitioner you will display pure confidence in which you are able to execute with a range of options that best conforms to the current situation regardless of previous successes or failures. Quite frankly, the practice of improvisation symbolizes acting and reacting, making and creating of “in the moment” response to the stimulus of one’s immediate environment.

In music, specifically, improvisation is spontaneous composition. The performer is challenged by performing music that is composed at the spur-of-the-moment. This is usually achieved through solo or cadenza. Improvisation has actually dominated in Jazz musicals. The challenge of improvisation is not to be confused or compared with technique. The two concepts are different in that improvisation is described as a creative performance art.

On the other hand, technique or sight reading is a reconstructive process. It is noted, however, that as both technique and improvisation require that you react immediately to any changes needed to the music in response to stimuli, they do demonstrate primary differences. Namely, the process is executed externally for successful sight- reading and internally to execute improvisation. Furthermore, they both are greatly enhanced by a strong musical knowledge base. [Read the rest of this entry...]