I consider myself pretty frugal. I started my studio with minimal gear, and during its two year run I was able to keep things afloat without concerning with the latest and greatest plugins and other niceties that we all like to look at like a kid in a candy store full of studio gear. Most of the plugins I ran were stock, and I had a select few workhorse plugs that I'd implement all the time. If I didn't use it all the time, it wasn't worth my time.
Then my studio closed, and I shifted roles to that of a stay at home dad to special needs teenagers. Often, there are gaps of time where I'm sitting around on my phone because there's not much else I can do at that moment (the girls are eating dinner or something of the like, and I'm with them because they are special needs and require 24/7 supervision). No longer did I have big blocks of time to work on editing and mixing, but I did have time to window shop.
This was a bad move for me, although I've found some new go-to toys by doing this. I hardly bought a plugin for two years, and then out of boredom I began researching plugins and other audio geekery toys. Before long, I was downloading every free plugin I could find and playing with it just to see what it did. There were some that I purchased during this as well. "Ah hell, it's only $12.50 on sale, and I'm not paying studio overhead anymore!"
I was justifying, and bored. From a business perspective, the entire point is to keep your costs as low as possible so that your profits are as high as possible. But as a tinkering geek who was bored, despite having some freelance work on my hands to do from my new home studio, I began to throw my strict business attitude toward it all out the window. I bought plugins from Waves, Joey Sturgis, Native Instruments, Plug & Mix, and more. I bought Harrison Mixbus, Melodyne Editor, I bought Screenflow, drum samples, iPad apps for electronic music making…and I saw money I'd been paid by clients drift away from me and go to the manufacturers of the awesome little "tools" (toys) I'd just purchased.
In reality, I'd done fine for a long time without these cool things I now have. I spent a lot of time learning and understanding the basics of audio, and I implemented them at every turn. These plugins were fun, but they were counter productive to me in some respects. They took away the money I was working for, and since I'm not able to churn out work nearly as fast as I used to (daddy duties have to come first), it takes longer for the next job to replace the revenue I earned on the last job that I spent on the latest "no brainer deal"!
I've made a decision. Outside of saving for a new iMac in the next year, and saving back money for replacing any gear that may break, I'm done spending money on gear. I've got more than enough tools now to do literally anything that I want to with respect to audio mixing and editing. The list of things I'd classify as an actual "NEED" is very small but very important. That list consists of stockpiling money from jobs to pay down debts, replace gear with cash so I don't have to go further into debt if my interface breaks or a hard drive crashes, and try to better my situation financially. After all, spending everything you make from mixing on tools for mixing when you don't need any is illogical. That's like getting a job to pay for gas money so that you can afford to go to the job you got (which you only got to get the gas money to go there to begin with…and around and around we go).
A fool and his money are soon parted. I'm done being a fool. Time to get my head back in the game. I never was one to give in to the pressure of buying shiny things, and I don't know what brought me here really, but it's time to get back to my old way of doing it.
Monday, August 25, 2014
Thursday, July 31, 2014
10 years later, how far I've come.
I'm sitting here watching a music video that I shot a decade ago while still in college getting my associates degree in Applied Science from Ohio University. I specialized my degree around audio production, but it was a very broad focus during my 2 years. I hate that I didn't learn much about truly advanced audio production until about 3 years later when I started listening to audio podcasts. But we all start somewhere.
So let's revisit Thoughtless.
My initial thoughts are that the mix sucks, the vocal takes are horrible, the piano's off time, but the vibe of the song is still haunting. Despite its flaws, it was my favorite piece of music that I'd produced for just about the rest of the decade. 2010 marked a turning point for me, as I finally started meeting people who could guide me and critique me. Up until that point, for about 6 years, I was a shitty engineer who had no one able to give me consistent feedback to help me improve my craft. And despite the fact that I didn't really start to come into my own element as an engineer and producer for another 6 years, I still look back on this video with some pride. The song was personal, and the mix was a very different kind of production than any I'd done before. It sounded better than most of the stuff I'd been doing during the entire decade. It was my shining star. I look at where I am now and compare it to where I was, and I shake my head and want to cover my eyes, but I'm still proud of it.
When I recorded Thoughtless, I had no idea what I was going to put down on tape. I went into the studio lab at OU-Zanesville, where we had a digital 8 track tape machine that took Hi 8 tapes. I hooked up my BOSS BR-532 to it and loaded up a drum loop. I tracked that onto track 1 in mono, then went back to overdub the acoustic guitar. Can't remember what mic I used on the acoustic, but it was likely an SM57. From there, I noodled for about 3 minutes to figure out a rhythm guitar part to the song. When I found a couple of parts that worked, I put em on track 3. Track 4 was a borrowed bass guitar that I ran into the BR-532 and used a fretless bass simulator on. I still dig the vibe that tone has. I didn't deviate from the baseline through the entire song, and just played the same thing repeatedly. I wanted this song to just groove from start to finish, so changing things up wasn't really part of the plan.
I borrowed a keyboard from another student, and came up with a piano part. The piano patch had a string section mixed in, and when I held a note out the strings would swell up as the piano decayed away. I thought this was cool as shit, so I used that. Despite the fact that I'm not a pianist, and had never ever ever rehearsed the part before, I got a somewhat decent take. It wasn't til I had given the keyboard back that I realized I had flubbed the timing in the song at one point, but it was too late to fix and I didn't know how to edit back then anyway. Besides, it was a tape system.
So I started tracking vocals. I doubled the lead vocals, and recorded a harmony line. That took up my 8 tracks. I must've done some track bouncing, though I can't recall doing that, because somehow I got 2 lead vocal lines and 2 harmony lines on tape. With drums, acoustic guitar, bass, electric guitar, piano synth, and 4 vocal lines, that's 9 tracks. I only had 8. It's been too long that I can't remember, but there's no other explanation so we'll just say that I bounced something down to make room for all the vocals I wanted to do. I found a way to backup the audio from the tape machine, and took the project home as school came to an end. I graduated a few months later.
In the mix, the drum machine had a high pass filter on it at the beginning, and I took that off halfway through the first verse for an effect of the song picking up. I faded the drums in during the intro, so everything was sorta tied to that drum line.
The music video was made as a class project before graduation. It was shot using a midi dv cam both in my home at the time in downtown Columbus Ohio, and in a local cemetery. In spite of the poor lip syncing, and lack of overall emotion (let's just say that acting isn't my strong suit), I shot 95% of the shots myself. I had assistance from my girlfriend for the remaining 5%.
The shots where I'm playing an electric guitar in the chorus were shot in my living room one evening after getting off of work from my job waiting tables. I was still wearing my uniform, and you can see the dirty sleeves that came from the stainless steel countertops from the restaurant. We had to keep bleaching our shirts. It was disgusting. lol!
I spent 2 days on campus in the lab editing the video. The computer was slow, and it was Adobe Premier from 2004, and I didn't know how to do it any faster. Plus, there's a pesky thing called ADHD, so that slowed me down now and then. The security guards kicked me out of the building the first night after midnight because I hadn't left yet, and they didn't know I was still there. lol.
When it was done, the other students loved it. I think it was the best produced final project of the class, as far as how much thought went into it. Looking back on it, reading that last sentence, I'm embarrassed to say that a lot of thought went into this. But it did, and I didn't have the best opportunities to meet with creative minds to help nourish my fledgeling career. So it is what it is.
10 years later, I've had the chance to hone my video and audio editing skills. My ears have become light years better, my eye for shot composition and color correction has improved dramatically, and I look back on this and I'm still proud of it. This was the first time I'd attempted anything remotely like this, and it came out pretty decent for a first try from a guy who didn't have any real mentoring. A lot of that was my own fault, I was 23 and not applying myself. I could've found mentors and connections, but I lived an hour away from campus and didn't spend time there that I didn't have to. I did the bare minimum throughout school, and I wish I hadn't approached it like that. But I was young, and pretty stupid, and I eventually got over that.
There's an underlying point here. There may be more than 1, we'll see. The most obvious one is that no matter how long something takes to happen for you, it won't happen at all until you start applying yourself. I didn't get serious about my audio career until around 2008 when I moved to Denver. I sat on my ass complaining that no studios were hiring, and didn't really do much to look for studios to work in. I didn't do much to make myself attractive to studios. I didn't do much to keep my chops up. I didn't do much to build new chops. I just sat there and complained that the job market for recording engineers sucked unless you were in Nashville or LA. That was my fault, not the fault of the job market.
In 2008, when I moved to Denver, I decided to promote my services as a studio that would come to the client and record them in their rehearsal space. I got steady work, charging $10-hour, and it was a decent second income to supplement my job behind the deli counter at King Soopers in Evergreen. One day, I was recording an artist named Rob Medina, and we had started the mixing process. A business friend of his who owned a studio in the mountains convinced Rob to use him to do the mixing instead of me, and when I got the call I did my best to take it like a pro. It stung, but it was a SUPER blessing in disguise. The engineer was Bob Swanson, and when I took him the files he started asking me about my pro tools rig. I told him I didn't have pro tools, so he started asking what DAW I used. When he found out I was a guy who had 1 mic stand, 4 mics, small Roland monitors, and a BOSS BR-1600 CD, he was floored that I was going out and calling myself a studio despite my lack of gear. Even more amazing to him was the fact that I was getting work with this very meager setup. He said "I know guys with 10 times the gear you have who won't get started because they think they don't have the gear! Here you are doing it! THAT takes Balls!"
Bob was my mentor from that point on. Not only that, but he gave me spare equipment that he no longer needed. I was floored. I owe my career today to Bob, He challenged me, he taught me, and he guided me.
And when I moved back to Ohio a few months later, I was better prepared to start over in a new market with better tools and a better understanding of what I needed to do. I started applying myself and doors opened.
Had I sat on my ass, it wouldn't have opened.
That's one of the two takeaways I hope you get from this. The other is to be patient. We ALL start somewhere. I'm a better engineer today than I was a decade ago, but I'm still learning. No matter what point in your career you are, you're always learning. Even Pensado says he learns from the engineers he brings on Pensado's Place, and he's won grammy's! Give it time, keep at it, and you'll eventually get somewhere. Seek guidance and help along the way, and never stop trying to learn more about your field.
Thanks for reading.
So let's revisit Thoughtless.
My initial thoughts are that the mix sucks, the vocal takes are horrible, the piano's off time, but the vibe of the song is still haunting. Despite its flaws, it was my favorite piece of music that I'd produced for just about the rest of the decade. 2010 marked a turning point for me, as I finally started meeting people who could guide me and critique me. Up until that point, for about 6 years, I was a shitty engineer who had no one able to give me consistent feedback to help me improve my craft. And despite the fact that I didn't really start to come into my own element as an engineer and producer for another 6 years, I still look back on this video with some pride. The song was personal, and the mix was a very different kind of production than any I'd done before. It sounded better than most of the stuff I'd been doing during the entire decade. It was my shining star. I look at where I am now and compare it to where I was, and I shake my head and want to cover my eyes, but I'm still proud of it.
When I recorded Thoughtless, I had no idea what I was going to put down on tape. I went into the studio lab at OU-Zanesville, where we had a digital 8 track tape machine that took Hi 8 tapes. I hooked up my BOSS BR-532 to it and loaded up a drum loop. I tracked that onto track 1 in mono, then went back to overdub the acoustic guitar. Can't remember what mic I used on the acoustic, but it was likely an SM57. From there, I noodled for about 3 minutes to figure out a rhythm guitar part to the song. When I found a couple of parts that worked, I put em on track 3. Track 4 was a borrowed bass guitar that I ran into the BR-532 and used a fretless bass simulator on. I still dig the vibe that tone has. I didn't deviate from the baseline through the entire song, and just played the same thing repeatedly. I wanted this song to just groove from start to finish, so changing things up wasn't really part of the plan.
I borrowed a keyboard from another student, and came up with a piano part. The piano patch had a string section mixed in, and when I held a note out the strings would swell up as the piano decayed away. I thought this was cool as shit, so I used that. Despite the fact that I'm not a pianist, and had never ever ever rehearsed the part before, I got a somewhat decent take. It wasn't til I had given the keyboard back that I realized I had flubbed the timing in the song at one point, but it was too late to fix and I didn't know how to edit back then anyway. Besides, it was a tape system.
So I started tracking vocals. I doubled the lead vocals, and recorded a harmony line. That took up my 8 tracks. I must've done some track bouncing, though I can't recall doing that, because somehow I got 2 lead vocal lines and 2 harmony lines on tape. With drums, acoustic guitar, bass, electric guitar, piano synth, and 4 vocal lines, that's 9 tracks. I only had 8. It's been too long that I can't remember, but there's no other explanation so we'll just say that I bounced something down to make room for all the vocals I wanted to do. I found a way to backup the audio from the tape machine, and took the project home as school came to an end. I graduated a few months later.
In the mix, the drum machine had a high pass filter on it at the beginning, and I took that off halfway through the first verse for an effect of the song picking up. I faded the drums in during the intro, so everything was sorta tied to that drum line.
The music video was made as a class project before graduation. It was shot using a midi dv cam both in my home at the time in downtown Columbus Ohio, and in a local cemetery. In spite of the poor lip syncing, and lack of overall emotion (let's just say that acting isn't my strong suit), I shot 95% of the shots myself. I had assistance from my girlfriend for the remaining 5%.
The shots where I'm playing an electric guitar in the chorus were shot in my living room one evening after getting off of work from my job waiting tables. I was still wearing my uniform, and you can see the dirty sleeves that came from the stainless steel countertops from the restaurant. We had to keep bleaching our shirts. It was disgusting. lol!
I spent 2 days on campus in the lab editing the video. The computer was slow, and it was Adobe Premier from 2004, and I didn't know how to do it any faster. Plus, there's a pesky thing called ADHD, so that slowed me down now and then. The security guards kicked me out of the building the first night after midnight because I hadn't left yet, and they didn't know I was still there. lol.
When it was done, the other students loved it. I think it was the best produced final project of the class, as far as how much thought went into it. Looking back on it, reading that last sentence, I'm embarrassed to say that a lot of thought went into this. But it did, and I didn't have the best opportunities to meet with creative minds to help nourish my fledgeling career. So it is what it is.
10 years later, I've had the chance to hone my video and audio editing skills. My ears have become light years better, my eye for shot composition and color correction has improved dramatically, and I look back on this and I'm still proud of it. This was the first time I'd attempted anything remotely like this, and it came out pretty decent for a first try from a guy who didn't have any real mentoring. A lot of that was my own fault, I was 23 and not applying myself. I could've found mentors and connections, but I lived an hour away from campus and didn't spend time there that I didn't have to. I did the bare minimum throughout school, and I wish I hadn't approached it like that. But I was young, and pretty stupid, and I eventually got over that.
There's an underlying point here. There may be more than 1, we'll see. The most obvious one is that no matter how long something takes to happen for you, it won't happen at all until you start applying yourself. I didn't get serious about my audio career until around 2008 when I moved to Denver. I sat on my ass complaining that no studios were hiring, and didn't really do much to look for studios to work in. I didn't do much to make myself attractive to studios. I didn't do much to keep my chops up. I didn't do much to build new chops. I just sat there and complained that the job market for recording engineers sucked unless you were in Nashville or LA. That was my fault, not the fault of the job market.
In 2008, when I moved to Denver, I decided to promote my services as a studio that would come to the client and record them in their rehearsal space. I got steady work, charging $10-hour, and it was a decent second income to supplement my job behind the deli counter at King Soopers in Evergreen. One day, I was recording an artist named Rob Medina, and we had started the mixing process. A business friend of his who owned a studio in the mountains convinced Rob to use him to do the mixing instead of me, and when I got the call I did my best to take it like a pro. It stung, but it was a SUPER blessing in disguise. The engineer was Bob Swanson, and when I took him the files he started asking me about my pro tools rig. I told him I didn't have pro tools, so he started asking what DAW I used. When he found out I was a guy who had 1 mic stand, 4 mics, small Roland monitors, and a BOSS BR-1600 CD, he was floored that I was going out and calling myself a studio despite my lack of gear. Even more amazing to him was the fact that I was getting work with this very meager setup. He said "I know guys with 10 times the gear you have who won't get started because they think they don't have the gear! Here you are doing it! THAT takes Balls!"
Bob was my mentor from that point on. Not only that, but he gave me spare equipment that he no longer needed. I was floored. I owe my career today to Bob, He challenged me, he taught me, and he guided me.
And when I moved back to Ohio a few months later, I was better prepared to start over in a new market with better tools and a better understanding of what I needed to do. I started applying myself and doors opened.
Had I sat on my ass, it wouldn't have opened.
That's one of the two takeaways I hope you get from this. The other is to be patient. We ALL start somewhere. I'm a better engineer today than I was a decade ago, but I'm still learning. No matter what point in your career you are, you're always learning. Even Pensado says he learns from the engineers he brings on Pensado's Place, and he's won grammy's! Give it time, keep at it, and you'll eventually get somewhere. Seek guidance and help along the way, and never stop trying to learn more about your field.
Thanks for reading.
Monday, July 28, 2014
Acoustic Treatment and Autism?
Let's talk acoustic treatment and safety around young kids. I'm in a
different situation than most, in that I've got 16 year old twin girls
in my home who have autism. They don't understand hazards in their
environment, or what is not ok to put in their mouths. They require 24/7
supervision, which is why I run my remote mixing operation out of a
spare bedroom. It enables me to work in my spare time while taking care
of them.
When I had my separate recording facility, I had fiberglass panels on the walls. One day, one of my curious kiddos jabbed a drum stick through a bunch of them when my back was turned, which left fiberglass exposed for them to touch. This tells me that fiberglass on the walls in their home is a HUGE no-can-do.
So I started looking. I found a company called "Bonded Logic", who makes acoustical treatment out of recycled denim. It's safe to touch, which is good, and it's tough as nails. It's apparently 33% more absorbent than fiberglass, and they sell it at the hardware store down the street. They have regular bats of insulation that you can put in your walls, with R13 being 3.5" ad R19 being 5.5". They also sell boxes with 6 pre-cut single square foot panels that are 1" thick, which I found for about $20-box at Menards near me.
I got 8 boxes of the
pre-cut panels, and they worked quite well. They are only 1" thick, but
they are more absorbent than fiberglass so that makes up for it
slightly. I'm planning on buying a bat of R19 to make some bass traps
soon. This stuff is kinda hard to cut, so I have to find someone near me
with a table saw, but for better absorption in a safer material it's
more than worth it for me.
Anyway, I wanted to share. This stuff is comparable in price to other insulation products used for acoustic treatment, but safe to touch with zero itch factor. May be what you're looking for.
Learn more at http://bondedlogic.com - If you have a non-typical situation, like me, this may be exactly what you're looking for! Check the spec sheet below made by Torch Lucent to see how it stacks up against fiberglass. Click it to enlarge it.
When I had my separate recording facility, I had fiberglass panels on the walls. One day, one of my curious kiddos jabbed a drum stick through a bunch of them when my back was turned, which left fiberglass exposed for them to touch. This tells me that fiberglass on the walls in their home is a HUGE no-can-do.
So I started looking. I found a company called "Bonded Logic", who makes acoustical treatment out of recycled denim. It's safe to touch, which is good, and it's tough as nails. It's apparently 33% more absorbent than fiberglass, and they sell it at the hardware store down the street. They have regular bats of insulation that you can put in your walls, with R13 being 3.5" ad R19 being 5.5". They also sell boxes with 6 pre-cut single square foot panels that are 1" thick, which I found for about $20-box at Menards near me.
I got 8 boxes of the
pre-cut panels, and they worked quite well. They are only 1" thick, but
they are more absorbent than fiberglass so that makes up for it
slightly. I'm planning on buying a bat of R19 to make some bass traps
soon. This stuff is kinda hard to cut, so I have to find someone near me
with a table saw, but for better absorption in a safer material it's
more than worth it for me.Anyway, I wanted to share. This stuff is comparable in price to other insulation products used for acoustic treatment, but safe to touch with zero itch factor. May be what you're looking for.
Learn more at http://bondedlogic.com - If you have a non-typical situation, like me, this may be exactly what you're looking for! Check the spec sheet below made by Torch Lucent to see how it stacks up against fiberglass. Click it to enlarge it.
Friday, July 25, 2014
Drum triggers. What they are, and how they work.
A drum trigger is a microphone. Nothing more. It picks up the sound of the drum and sends the audio to the source. The source usually is an audio to midi converter either in the box or outside of the box, but that doesn't have to always be the case. The audio from a kick trigger, for example, can be sent to a side chain to trigger a ducking of the bass guitar. The audio from a tom trigger can be used to open a gate that adds a splash of extra reverb. They are merely microphones, and what you do with them is up to you.
To demonstrate this, I'll show you this video from Room Sound in which an SM57 was used to mic up a practice pad. The audio from the practice pad was converted into midi at some point in the signal chain, and that midi was used to trigger the Room Sound library. In this example, the SM57 was used as the drum trigger.
This is how applications like Slate Digital's "Trigger" work. They take the audio source, and apply a gate to it. When the transients open the gate, that tells "Trigger" to play the sample of the drum you've chosen. Depending on the intensity of the transient, "Trigger'" can decipher what the intended velocity would've been of the drum hit and play a sample that matches what the drum would've sounded like at that velocity.
A drum module, like my Roland TD-5, is nothing more than an audio-to-midi converter. If I were to plug in a bass guitar to the kick drum port on the TD-5, then smack the strings, it would generate an audio transient that would trigger a kick drum sound to be played in the drum module. The source of the audio transient doesn't have to be a trigger, it can be anything that can generate an audio transient and send that transient to an audio-to-midi converter of some kind. With this in mind, one could record a 5 piece drum kit with 5 mics to capture the kick, snare, and 3 toms. That audio could be routed out of the DAW into the respective input of the drum module, which would then treat the audio as a drum trigger and use the intensity of the transients to trigger velocity accurate drum samples from within the module. One could then record the midi output of the drum module, and use that midi profile to trigger a drum virtual instrument in their DAW such as Room Sound or Drum Forge.
Drum triggers are a pretty simple concept, but there's a lot of confusion about what they are and how they work. The important thing to remember is that they merely transmit an audio signal, which is exactly what your microphones are already doing. They may have different typical applications, but they are nothing more than microphones. Knowing this, try to find some creative new ways to use drum triggers or incorporate them into your productions!
To demonstrate this, I'll show you this video from Room Sound in which an SM57 was used to mic up a practice pad. The audio from the practice pad was converted into midi at some point in the signal chain, and that midi was used to trigger the Room Sound library. In this example, the SM57 was used as the drum trigger.
This is how applications like Slate Digital's "Trigger" work. They take the audio source, and apply a gate to it. When the transients open the gate, that tells "Trigger" to play the sample of the drum you've chosen. Depending on the intensity of the transient, "Trigger'" can decipher what the intended velocity would've been of the drum hit and play a sample that matches what the drum would've sounded like at that velocity.
A drum module, like my Roland TD-5, is nothing more than an audio-to-midi converter. If I were to plug in a bass guitar to the kick drum port on the TD-5, then smack the strings, it would generate an audio transient that would trigger a kick drum sound to be played in the drum module. The source of the audio transient doesn't have to be a trigger, it can be anything that can generate an audio transient and send that transient to an audio-to-midi converter of some kind. With this in mind, one could record a 5 piece drum kit with 5 mics to capture the kick, snare, and 3 toms. That audio could be routed out of the DAW into the respective input of the drum module, which would then treat the audio as a drum trigger and use the intensity of the transients to trigger velocity accurate drum samples from within the module. One could then record the midi output of the drum module, and use that midi profile to trigger a drum virtual instrument in their DAW such as Room Sound or Drum Forge.
Drum triggers are a pretty simple concept, but there's a lot of confusion about what they are and how they work. The important thing to remember is that they merely transmit an audio signal, which is exactly what your microphones are already doing. They may have different typical applications, but they are nothing more than microphones. Knowing this, try to find some creative new ways to use drum triggers or incorporate them into your productions!
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Production Breakdown: Choices - by Project DIVIDE
An eerie sounding song with a dark message about the difficulty of the choices we must sometimes make in life, it was apparent that this track needed to have an unnatural sound for the end result. The source material pulled that off very well, so the production choices needed to reflect that. Here's how we got what we were looking for.
The beginning of the song is 2 acoustic guitars, a ride cymbal, and 3 vocals. The main vocal line is doubled, and a lower harmony is included in the mix.
We used Melodyne during the writing process to turn the single scratch track of the vocals into the multi-part harmonies we wanted throughout the song, though none of that made the final mix. It was all intended to be a scratch outline of what would be sung, and help us fine tune the notes that we intended to sing. Later, those scratch tracks would be replaced.
The acoustic guitars were both mic'd using an MXL990 that was mounted on a stand with an Auralex Mudguard. Though roominess wasn't an issue in the room we were in, we wanted a more direct sound and used the mudguard to help keep room sound at a minimum.
The drums were recorded using a Roland TD-5 V-kit that was triggering Steven Slate Drums. We used the V-kit to make quantization a breeze, keep phase at a minimum, and to allow us to get the velocity of our performance for the midi tracks. Keeping the velocity of an actual performance, the triggered samples have a more realistic quality and don't sound machine like.
After we recorded the acoustic guitars, and quantized the drums, I ran the acoustic guitars through Melodyne in Polyphonic mode. I wanted them to have an unnatural feel to them, which was an effort to create a soundscape that sonically matched the depressing and erie vibe of the lyrical content of the song. Using polyphonic mode, I was able to bring the acoustic guitars 100% perfectly in tune. This isn't something you can accomplish by tuning your guitar, and was used intentionally as an effect as opposed to a corrective measure. The guitars are so well tuned they are almost synth like, which isn't physically possible on a real acoustic guitar.
Another benefit of running the acoustic guitars through Melodyne in polyphonic mode was the shifting of the natural harmonics of the acoustic guitars. They were also moved to a slightly different place than they had been, which caused them to jump out more. The guitars sound like there's an ambient synth element blended with them, which is not the case. That's the result of fine tuning globally in polyphonic mode using Melodyne. It added a haunting element to the acoustic guitar sound, which was exactly what we were after. We also had a smearing of the attack of some of the arpeggiated notes, which was left in as part of the unnatural sound we were trying to create.
In keeping with the philosophy of making things sound eerily unreal on this track, we also fine tuned the bass and electric guitars in Melodyne using Polyphonic mode. These elements were processed through Melodyne before going into Amplitube 3 to get the tones. While being a "no rules" kind of producer who thrives on taking chances, I knew that the effect of using Melodyne in polyphonic mode after the amp tone would be unpleasingly unnatural and not what we wanted for this track. If you process in this manner before the amp tone is applied, you can keep the unwanted artifacts out of your signal while getting some really cool textures.
To keep the song dynamic, bass was only included during the chorus. Bass completely dropped out during the verses and the bridge. To reinforce the bass, I used a guitar equipped with the "Overkill" mod (a 0.1uf capacitor on the tone pot). This creates a much more extreme low pass filtering effect. Pairing that with the neck pickup of a guitar through gobs of distortion can create a synth like tone. Blending it into the background under the chorus, it reinforces the bass while not being very present in the mix. It's in there just enough to add to the low end of the frequency spectrum and make the chorus sound more full, while simultaneously not crowding the bass guitar and kick drum.
The vocals were fine tuned with Melodyne, in keeping with the overall erie landscape we were attempting to craft sonically. During the chorus you hear 5 vocal parts. 2 of the main melody, 2 of the lower harmony, and 1 of a higher harmony.
At the end of the song, the heartbeat you hear was intended to represent the stress a big life changing decision can cause. We got the heartbeat by using a kick drum in Steven Slate Drums, using a low pass filter on it, and slowly mixing in some reverb on it with automation.
Overall, the result was exactly what we were after. The fine tuning wasn't about creating a perfect take, but about creating an eeriness and unnaturalness to the tone. The end result is a very cool sounding track that is unlike anything we've done before. Enjoy.
Some thoughts on drum sample libraries.
(EDIT: For those getting pissed that I'm not mentioning this library or that library, you're missing the point. This is a post designed to show the different markets the libraries may be catering to, and there are too many libraries for me to review every single one of them. You want a blog post about your favorite library? Write it.)
There are multiple libraries available these days. Some have their own sampler interfaces that allow you to have control over the parameters inside of a GUI that is dedicated to the use of those samples. Other libraries allow you to use your own sampler interface. Both options have their pros and cons.
Sample libraries that come with their own dedicated interface include Steven Slate Drums 4 by Slate Digital, as well as Addictive Drums 2 by XLN Audio. Some of these libraries offer unique routing options, allowing you to send the tracks to aux faders in your daw. They may also include the option of adding your own single velocity samples to the sampler so that you can trigger other sounds that didn't come with the library.
These types of libraries have another common trait. The samples included in their libraries are pre-processed. EQ, compression, and other processing has already taken place to get what is commonly referred to as "mix ready" samples. The fact that these are "mix ready" gives you a quick and easy way to find the drum sound you're looking for by keeping things like phase coherency and notch filtering out of the equation. These will still be issues if you're blending these samples with drums that you mic'd and recorded, but if you're using the samples by themselves you will not usually need to worry about these things.
There are perks to this approach for songwriters, as well as engineers at any skill level. Songwriters can quickly get a great sounding demo of drum tracks without worrying about being an engineer. Beginning engineers can get used to working with great sounding drums, as well as getting used to what a drum should in most cases sound like after processing. Experienced engineers can find this approach as a quick solution for their workflow, as it takes some of the time out of the equation.
But these aren't for everyone. The ability to eq and compress the drum sounds yourself is something that many engineers miss when working with these pre-processed sample libraries. Furthermore, one more sampler taking up space in a crowded plugin menu means more clutter to dig through in order to find the tools you want to use. Also of note are the audio tweakers who like to have as much control over the sounds they are using as possible in order to come up with tones that are unique to them. One internet forum I'm on commonly jokes about overuse of Kick 10 from the Slate library amongst inexperienced metal producers. The desire to get something more flexible is a justifiable one, and there are sample libraries available that cater to those tweakers.
The first is a sample pack known as Room Sound, which comes in multiple formats for a decent price. Buy individual pieces of a kit for as little as $5 each. Buy full kits, sans snare, starting at $20 and going up depending on the kit. Buy the entire library for $178, though at the time of this writing it is on sale for $149. Room Sound's libraries come in formats compatible with Slate Digital's "Trigger", allowing you to load them into Trigger and use Room Sound quickly and easily in place of the drums you have on tape in your DAW. They are also compatible with Massey's DRT, Kontakt, Drumagogg, and include the individual .wav files of all samples so that if you really wanted to customize you could. The Room Sound package comes "uncooked", with zero processing. This allows you to be in control of the eq, compression, and every other decision made to help you shape your drum sound. While this might be a bit much for a songwriter cutting a quick demo, that doesn't appear to be Room Sound's market anyway. My perception of this product is that it was intended for the serious audio engineer to allow ultimate flexibility across the board, as opposed to creating a quick way of getting something that "works". I have nothing against Slate, I use it myself. But I do see a lot of advantages in the flexibility Room Sound offers.
Another offering is DrumForge, which is a newer contender and is only a few months old. Drum Forge also offers compatibility with Slate Digital's Trigger, as well as Drumagogg, but it appears that this product was designed around using Kontakt. Currently, their cymbal pack only works in Kontakt. You can purchase individual drum kit pieces starting at $5 for a sample of drum stick clicks used for a count off. Most of the samples bought individually are $10 and up. Unlike Room Sound, Drum Forge provides both "Cooked" and "Uncooked" versions of the samples with your purchase. This enables Drum Forge to be used more easily by less experienced recording engineers, while maintaining the desired flexibility sought out by more experienced engineers. The full Drum Forge package is around $300. You get the opportunity to blend multiple kinds of mics right on the Kontakt Interface for Drum Forge, which enables you to have tons of control over the overall sound. I don't see much benefit in casual demo-making musicians using Drum Forge, as they would more likely want the overall simplicity attained by a "cooked" library with an easy to use custom interface like Slate or Addictive Drums. But that doesn't seem to be who the Drum Forge team are catering to anyway.
So far the above sample libraries that are Kontakt compatible have offered a lot of flexibility. That's not always the case, as some drum libraries for Kontakt come "cooked" and easy to use with few distracting functions to tweak. Steven Slate Drums 3 was Kontakt Based, but they abandoned Kontakt for their 4th generation of their product in leu of their own sampler interface. So it is possible to get drum libraries that offer the convenience of the "cooked" samples within the sampler you already know and use. These will be less flexible, but flexibility isn't something everyone wants. There are many that are free, although one could argue that the usability of these sounds is low. One free kit for Kontakt that has little flexibility but has a decent sounding result is the "Big Mono" kit from Analogue Drums. You can't tweak much, and the kit is somewhat ambient and resonant. But if you want that natural drum sound, this will get you there. You can buy an upgraded version of Big Mono for $10 that allows you more control, but it still isn't going to be as flexible as any of the other options I've mentioned above. I was unable to quickly find a video demo of the free version of Big Mono, but there is a video demo of the $10 version on Analogue Drums' youtube channel which I'm sharing below.
When deciding which drum library is best for you, ask yourself which options you really need. It could be that the quickness and convenience of use is the key selling point, and if that's the case Slate or Addictive Drums 2 will be excellent buys for you. It could be that you desire some flexibility, while keeping the option to go to "cooked" samples if needed within the same drum library. If that's the case, then Drum Forge may be the ideal package for you. If you desire the ultimate in flexibility with regard to every aspect of the drum tone and how you shape it / compress it / eq it/ etc, then Room Sound may be the most ideal option for you. If you're on a budget, and have Kontakt, then Big Mono may be best. My advice is to visit the weblinks above for each of these libraries, listen to the samples, evaluate your needs, and acquire the ones that fit your needs accordingly. They are all great products in their own right.
There are multiple libraries available these days. Some have their own sampler interfaces that allow you to have control over the parameters inside of a GUI that is dedicated to the use of those samples. Other libraries allow you to use your own sampler interface. Both options have their pros and cons.
Sample libraries that come with their own dedicated interface include Steven Slate Drums 4 by Slate Digital, as well as Addictive Drums 2 by XLN Audio. Some of these libraries offer unique routing options, allowing you to send the tracks to aux faders in your daw. They may also include the option of adding your own single velocity samples to the sampler so that you can trigger other sounds that didn't come with the library.
These types of libraries have another common trait. The samples included in their libraries are pre-processed. EQ, compression, and other processing has already taken place to get what is commonly referred to as "mix ready" samples. The fact that these are "mix ready" gives you a quick and easy way to find the drum sound you're looking for by keeping things like phase coherency and notch filtering out of the equation. These will still be issues if you're blending these samples with drums that you mic'd and recorded, but if you're using the samples by themselves you will not usually need to worry about these things.
There are perks to this approach for songwriters, as well as engineers at any skill level. Songwriters can quickly get a great sounding demo of drum tracks without worrying about being an engineer. Beginning engineers can get used to working with great sounding drums, as well as getting used to what a drum should in most cases sound like after processing. Experienced engineers can find this approach as a quick solution for their workflow, as it takes some of the time out of the equation.
But these aren't for everyone. The ability to eq and compress the drum sounds yourself is something that many engineers miss when working with these pre-processed sample libraries. Furthermore, one more sampler taking up space in a crowded plugin menu means more clutter to dig through in order to find the tools you want to use. Also of note are the audio tweakers who like to have as much control over the sounds they are using as possible in order to come up with tones that are unique to them. One internet forum I'm on commonly jokes about overuse of Kick 10 from the Slate library amongst inexperienced metal producers. The desire to get something more flexible is a justifiable one, and there are sample libraries available that cater to those tweakers.
The first is a sample pack known as Room Sound, which comes in multiple formats for a decent price. Buy individual pieces of a kit for as little as $5 each. Buy full kits, sans snare, starting at $20 and going up depending on the kit. Buy the entire library for $178, though at the time of this writing it is on sale for $149. Room Sound's libraries come in formats compatible with Slate Digital's "Trigger", allowing you to load them into Trigger and use Room Sound quickly and easily in place of the drums you have on tape in your DAW. They are also compatible with Massey's DRT, Kontakt, Drumagogg, and include the individual .wav files of all samples so that if you really wanted to customize you could. The Room Sound package comes "uncooked", with zero processing. This allows you to be in control of the eq, compression, and every other decision made to help you shape your drum sound. While this might be a bit much for a songwriter cutting a quick demo, that doesn't appear to be Room Sound's market anyway. My perception of this product is that it was intended for the serious audio engineer to allow ultimate flexibility across the board, as opposed to creating a quick way of getting something that "works". I have nothing against Slate, I use it myself. But I do see a lot of advantages in the flexibility Room Sound offers.
Another offering is DrumForge, which is a newer contender and is only a few months old. Drum Forge also offers compatibility with Slate Digital's Trigger, as well as Drumagogg, but it appears that this product was designed around using Kontakt. Currently, their cymbal pack only works in Kontakt. You can purchase individual drum kit pieces starting at $5 for a sample of drum stick clicks used for a count off. Most of the samples bought individually are $10 and up. Unlike Room Sound, Drum Forge provides both "Cooked" and "Uncooked" versions of the samples with your purchase. This enables Drum Forge to be used more easily by less experienced recording engineers, while maintaining the desired flexibility sought out by more experienced engineers. The full Drum Forge package is around $300. You get the opportunity to blend multiple kinds of mics right on the Kontakt Interface for Drum Forge, which enables you to have tons of control over the overall sound. I don't see much benefit in casual demo-making musicians using Drum Forge, as they would more likely want the overall simplicity attained by a "cooked" library with an easy to use custom interface like Slate or Addictive Drums. But that doesn't seem to be who the Drum Forge team are catering to anyway.
So far the above sample libraries that are Kontakt compatible have offered a lot of flexibility. That's not always the case, as some drum libraries for Kontakt come "cooked" and easy to use with few distracting functions to tweak. Steven Slate Drums 3 was Kontakt Based, but they abandoned Kontakt for their 4th generation of their product in leu of their own sampler interface. So it is possible to get drum libraries that offer the convenience of the "cooked" samples within the sampler you already know and use. These will be less flexible, but flexibility isn't something everyone wants. There are many that are free, although one could argue that the usability of these sounds is low. One free kit for Kontakt that has little flexibility but has a decent sounding result is the "Big Mono" kit from Analogue Drums. You can't tweak much, and the kit is somewhat ambient and resonant. But if you want that natural drum sound, this will get you there. You can buy an upgraded version of Big Mono for $10 that allows you more control, but it still isn't going to be as flexible as any of the other options I've mentioned above. I was unable to quickly find a video demo of the free version of Big Mono, but there is a video demo of the $10 version on Analogue Drums' youtube channel which I'm sharing below.
When deciding which drum library is best for you, ask yourself which options you really need. It could be that the quickness and convenience of use is the key selling point, and if that's the case Slate or Addictive Drums 2 will be excellent buys for you. It could be that you desire some flexibility, while keeping the option to go to "cooked" samples if needed within the same drum library. If that's the case, then Drum Forge may be the ideal package for you. If you desire the ultimate in flexibility with regard to every aspect of the drum tone and how you shape it / compress it / eq it/ etc, then Room Sound may be the most ideal option for you. If you're on a budget, and have Kontakt, then Big Mono may be best. My advice is to visit the weblinks above for each of these libraries, listen to the samples, evaluate your needs, and acquire the ones that fit your needs accordingly. They are all great products in their own right.
Friday, June 27, 2014
Picking the right clients.
Everyone's situation is vastly different than everyone else's. This applies to clients as well as engineers. When the needs of one persons situation conflict with the needs of another persons situation, conflict can arise. This is true in relationships, partnerships, politics, and even business. It's especially true in freelance business. This is why it's important to be choosy about the clients you accept money from. If the values and needs of the person you have just accepted work from don't match with your own, then it might be a very rocky business deal with a lot of added stress that isn't necessary. Allow me to elaborate.
I'm a professional mix engineer. I've decided to close my studio to work from home, and have set up a mixing room there. I did this so that I could make mixing my second priority, and make caring for my family my first priority. My twin teens have autism, and require 24/7 one on one supervision, which makes mixing take a good amount of time for me. It took me a little more than 2 weeks to get to the editing and mix of one song, which I finished just this morning. This pace would cause many to turn their noses up at the very notion of working with me, and that's fine with me. Audio is priority #2, and family is #1. I still want audio work, but I'm not going to just accept every project that someone asks me to mix. I have a few criteria that I need to make sure the potential client and I are crystal clear on before I consider a new client.
1. They absolutely cannot rush me. I charge per song on mixing, and I do that because I could find 5 or 10 minutes here or there to sit down behind pro tools before being called away to handle an autism related mishap. I may not find time to get back to the pro tools rig for 2 days. I have enough stress, so worrying about client deadlines is not something I'm willing to do. This is made crystal clear up front.
2. They pay in advance. Nothing irks me more than a client who is unwilling to pay once a project is finished, especially after I've put in a lot of time and focus into their project (time I could've spent with my family).
3. They leave me be til I'm ready to post a mix. Once I've got the first mix finalized, we can talk about revisions and other directions. But if you're constantly coming at me to ask me how it's going, you're essentially rushing me. Refer to point #1.
4. They are committing to the tracks they send me. I can understand if something NEEDS retracked because of the multitude of reasons things need retracked. But if you're coming at me with constant indecision about whether you should've done this or done that, you're forcing me to stop work until you make up your mind about what you want. There's no point in me mixing any further til all of the elements are in place, and if you're considering making changes your progress will be stopped until you're ready. The amount of things on my plate are many as a stay at home dad to special needs teenagers. If your indecision forces me to pause working with your track while you evaluate what you want to do, I'm going to put you in the back of the line of work and move on to the next project. This will cause your tracks to take longer, which isn't what any of us want.
With the above in mind, why would anyone hire me?
Simple. They want ME on the faders. I've made efforts to brand myself as the valuable commodity, instead of my facility. When you brand your facility as the valuable commodity, you give the impression that any engineer could come into that facility and do the job. When you brand YOU as the valuable commodity, you create brand loyalty around having YOU behind the faders. This ensures clients who will seek YOU out, and who will be more than willing to accommodate any sort of special circumstances (like my home life) making the process slower than with other engineers.
By being choosy about who I let hire me, I eliminate a lot of unnecessary stress from my life. I've got enough of it as it is. Not everyone is in my situation, but this is the criteria that is necessary for ME. It keeps people from hounding me over the progress of their mix, which will cause me to go into panic mode if I'm worrying about a deadline for a client while being kept away from the mixing room by my family needs. It keeps me from worrying about people flaking out on the payments. If I don't get paid, none of the time I spent away from my family was worth it. It gives me the freedom and time to evaluate every detail of the tracks they've sent me and bring them up to my standards with editing, mixing, and lots of attention to detail. And it keeps me from having projects waiting on the back burner while the client gets their tracks in order. My back burner is quite full, and I need to keep it decluttered. Every one of these pieces are important in my personalized formula for making magic for clients. They are all equally important. If you don't fit one piece of this puzzle, I'll refer you to a fantastic engineer who I know may be able to accommodate your needs and desires. No harm no fowl. I just need to keep my stress about client work to a minimum so that I can bring my maximum focus and effort to my family AND to my clients.
You should be choosy about your clients too. You don't HAVE to take a project just because someone asks you to. If someone asks you to change your rate and cut them a deal, that's a red flag for me to send them somewhere else. They don't value ME, and instead would like me but aren't willing or able to pay for me. If they aren't able to pay for me, then they can come back when they are. If they don't value ME, then I don't want to be a part of their project. When the person doesn't value you and your contribution, then any monkey with a pro tools rig could do your job in their eyes. That kind of client will be nothing but trouble, especially for a person in my situation. Being choosy is a great way to make sure you're keeping everyone happy, including yourself.
I'm a professional mix engineer. I've decided to close my studio to work from home, and have set up a mixing room there. I did this so that I could make mixing my second priority, and make caring for my family my first priority. My twin teens have autism, and require 24/7 one on one supervision, which makes mixing take a good amount of time for me. It took me a little more than 2 weeks to get to the editing and mix of one song, which I finished just this morning. This pace would cause many to turn their noses up at the very notion of working with me, and that's fine with me. Audio is priority #2, and family is #1. I still want audio work, but I'm not going to just accept every project that someone asks me to mix. I have a few criteria that I need to make sure the potential client and I are crystal clear on before I consider a new client.
1. They absolutely cannot rush me. I charge per song on mixing, and I do that because I could find 5 or 10 minutes here or there to sit down behind pro tools before being called away to handle an autism related mishap. I may not find time to get back to the pro tools rig for 2 days. I have enough stress, so worrying about client deadlines is not something I'm willing to do. This is made crystal clear up front.
2. They pay in advance. Nothing irks me more than a client who is unwilling to pay once a project is finished, especially after I've put in a lot of time and focus into their project (time I could've spent with my family).
3. They leave me be til I'm ready to post a mix. Once I've got the first mix finalized, we can talk about revisions and other directions. But if you're constantly coming at me to ask me how it's going, you're essentially rushing me. Refer to point #1.
4. They are committing to the tracks they send me. I can understand if something NEEDS retracked because of the multitude of reasons things need retracked. But if you're coming at me with constant indecision about whether you should've done this or done that, you're forcing me to stop work until you make up your mind about what you want. There's no point in me mixing any further til all of the elements are in place, and if you're considering making changes your progress will be stopped until you're ready. The amount of things on my plate are many as a stay at home dad to special needs teenagers. If your indecision forces me to pause working with your track while you evaluate what you want to do, I'm going to put you in the back of the line of work and move on to the next project. This will cause your tracks to take longer, which isn't what any of us want.
With the above in mind, why would anyone hire me?
Simple. They want ME on the faders. I've made efforts to brand myself as the valuable commodity, instead of my facility. When you brand your facility as the valuable commodity, you give the impression that any engineer could come into that facility and do the job. When you brand YOU as the valuable commodity, you create brand loyalty around having YOU behind the faders. This ensures clients who will seek YOU out, and who will be more than willing to accommodate any sort of special circumstances (like my home life) making the process slower than with other engineers.
By being choosy about who I let hire me, I eliminate a lot of unnecessary stress from my life. I've got enough of it as it is. Not everyone is in my situation, but this is the criteria that is necessary for ME. It keeps people from hounding me over the progress of their mix, which will cause me to go into panic mode if I'm worrying about a deadline for a client while being kept away from the mixing room by my family needs. It keeps me from worrying about people flaking out on the payments. If I don't get paid, none of the time I spent away from my family was worth it. It gives me the freedom and time to evaluate every detail of the tracks they've sent me and bring them up to my standards with editing, mixing, and lots of attention to detail. And it keeps me from having projects waiting on the back burner while the client gets their tracks in order. My back burner is quite full, and I need to keep it decluttered. Every one of these pieces are important in my personalized formula for making magic for clients. They are all equally important. If you don't fit one piece of this puzzle, I'll refer you to a fantastic engineer who I know may be able to accommodate your needs and desires. No harm no fowl. I just need to keep my stress about client work to a minimum so that I can bring my maximum focus and effort to my family AND to my clients.
You should be choosy about your clients too. You don't HAVE to take a project just because someone asks you to. If someone asks you to change your rate and cut them a deal, that's a red flag for me to send them somewhere else. They don't value ME, and instead would like me but aren't willing or able to pay for me. If they aren't able to pay for me, then they can come back when they are. If they don't value ME, then I don't want to be a part of their project. When the person doesn't value you and your contribution, then any monkey with a pro tools rig could do your job in their eyes. That kind of client will be nothing but trouble, especially for a person in my situation. Being choosy is a great way to make sure you're keeping everyone happy, including yourself.
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Home Studio Economics. Pt 1?
For the first post in this blog, I thought I'd discuss how to keep a firm footing while starting your career as a freelance audio/video producer and engineer.
Currently, I work out of a home studio. I work in a spare bedroom of the house, where I have set up an editing system for audio and video. Having recently closed Skyline Sound Studios, I decided to work from home so that I could be a stay-at-home dad to disabled teens who need care. Staying at home allows me to care for my family, while having the ability to mix and edit enables me to continue my career.
So now that I find myself coming full circle and working out of a home studio once again, I'm analyzing my game plan for how to ensure the success of this home operation. This is less about the craft of music production, and more about the economics of working in an environment like the one I'm in now. I know many reading this will be attempting to grow into successful production careers, but may not understand the basics of how to run the business side of things.
So lets talk about the first concern that I have currently as a business owner. 1. My operating expense. Well, that's minimal. The electric bill is paid out of the main household income, as well as the rent, other utilities, internet connection, etc. I have no commuting expense, because my office is 5 feet from where I sleep and 20 feet from the kitchen table. Although I work in a noisy home, I have ways of overcoming that (mixing with headphones is something I've become good at, despite what naysayers will naysay). I have a lot of interruptions at home due to my at home duties as a parent (the family comes first, but I can find time to work on projects), so I've dropped my hourly charge and opted for a flat rate that is high enough to ensure that the project is worth my time.
You see, home studio engineers have a lot of advantages that bigger studios don't. Extremely low overhead, lots of flexibility, and no commute, all add up to equal more flexibility and a much lower stress level. If you have a home studio, and live in a home with an established income already, then odds are you're not worrying about paying the bills. If you are, then ignore this, find jobs, and use the money to get caught up. But if you have the home expenses completely taken care of, then the income you make as a home studio owner can be completely earmarked for whatever you wish it to be. You can pay off debt with it, go on vacation, save up for a car, buy new gear, save it for emergencies, etc...
At my home studio, I have everything I currently need. The only thing I'm currently lacking is great acoustic treatment. The first priority for the money I bring in to the business through projects I get will be to treat this room as well as possible. If I'm going to be mixing in here, this space has to be acoustically sound. That's a problem with most home studios in square rooms (like mine), but it's not impossible. Besides, as I have stated I've become quite good at mixing through headphones. I've analyzed the biggest hinderance to the quality of my product, and I can work very well once I overcome the acoustics in this room. If I had other gear that was absolutely vital (and not just wanted because it's really cool), then I'd earmark the money for that purpose and get that purchase made.
But once I have the acoustic treatment taken care of, the next thing I must focus on with my earnings is an emergency fund. No new gear until i've saved 6 months of living expenses back so that the house can continue to function. This money will be coming from the earnings I get from my projects.
The reason this is so important is that it lowers risk. I could go ahead and spend the money I earn on the setup I have, and then I'd have nothing as a risk buffer. If the main income sources in the house dry up, then I may be forced to enter the work force working a shitty low paying 9-5 job to keep the children fed. This would force me to abandon my clients, which would send them to my competition. This would also make me bitter every time I looked at all the awesome stuff I had to mix with that was going unused. The stuff would be fun, but without clients the stuff is useless. Having an emergency fund set back to ensure that the food, rent, utilities, insurance, and general debts are paid off will allow me to keep working without worry if the main household income sources did dry up.
The reason that I'm opting for 6 months is simple. My income from this operation is going to be variable. I'm taking care of disabled teens, and for me to run out of money and need to enter the workforce would mean that they lose a caretaker. This would be a major blow to my family, and my ability to care for them while pursuing my career from home. With 6 months saved back, if the main income sources dry up, all I have to do is start pulling the amounts of the regular paychecks from the emergency fund so that the bills can remain paid. Meanwhile, I continue business as usual. Any money I would bring in during the use of the emergency fund would go back into the emergency fund, allowing us to float a little longer if it was needed.
The money would all go into a free checking account. This would be used as a very basic profit & loss system. Income goes in, costs of running my business come only out of that account, and what's left is my profit. I merely look at the balance, and that's a summary of the profits I've made. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, it just needs to be something you'll actually use. You have to resist the urge to look at the balance of that account as anything OTHER than emergency money until you've got the emergency fund set aside and fully funded.
After having 6 months of earnings saved back (if you don't have kids, and have more than 1 income in your house, then 3 months might make more sense for you), then it's ok for me to consider using earnings from my efforts to buy new gear and upgrade my tools where needed. Having that money saved back also reduces the financial impact of equipment failure! There's always the risk that the iMac will die on me, and if I didn't have the cash reserved for a new one, I'd be in a pickle. I might have to use a credit card to get a new computer, as well as a new interface and a new DAW if those are needed. The problem with that is the risk involved with debt. If I used credit to buy my tools, then I would always be worried about making the payment. If I had a slow month, and didn't get any work, then I'd have no money to make the payment with. You can't predict when you'll have a slow month, so why add that kind of stress to your life? If you can't make the payment, you'll be forced to sell some things to make the payment. Then you lose some of your things, which is never fun since all of this was avoidable by merely being patient and using cash. You also open yourself up to needing to abandon your entrepreneurial efforts and your clients so that you can get a regular job that pays the debts. Why risk your efforts as an entrepreneur? Debt is bad, m'kay!
By using retained earnings as an emergency buffer, I avoid needing to use credit. I keep the freedom to remain at home if money gets tight, and I keep the pressure of credit card payments out of my life. If you want to make your freelance efforts your full time job, then you too will need a cash reserve to act as a buffer between you and the money problems most small businesses face. After all, if you've got 6 months of living expenses saved back, you could cut your ties with your day job and give your freelance career a real go full time while living comfortably for 6 months! Imagine how much freedom that brings!
Now go make some music!
Currently, I work out of a home studio. I work in a spare bedroom of the house, where I have set up an editing system for audio and video. Having recently closed Skyline Sound Studios, I decided to work from home so that I could be a stay-at-home dad to disabled teens who need care. Staying at home allows me to care for my family, while having the ability to mix and edit enables me to continue my career.
So now that I find myself coming full circle and working out of a home studio once again, I'm analyzing my game plan for how to ensure the success of this home operation. This is less about the craft of music production, and more about the economics of working in an environment like the one I'm in now. I know many reading this will be attempting to grow into successful production careers, but may not understand the basics of how to run the business side of things.
So lets talk about the first concern that I have currently as a business owner. 1. My operating expense. Well, that's minimal. The electric bill is paid out of the main household income, as well as the rent, other utilities, internet connection, etc. I have no commuting expense, because my office is 5 feet from where I sleep and 20 feet from the kitchen table. Although I work in a noisy home, I have ways of overcoming that (mixing with headphones is something I've become good at, despite what naysayers will naysay). I have a lot of interruptions at home due to my at home duties as a parent (the family comes first, but I can find time to work on projects), so I've dropped my hourly charge and opted for a flat rate that is high enough to ensure that the project is worth my time.
You see, home studio engineers have a lot of advantages that bigger studios don't. Extremely low overhead, lots of flexibility, and no commute, all add up to equal more flexibility and a much lower stress level. If you have a home studio, and live in a home with an established income already, then odds are you're not worrying about paying the bills. If you are, then ignore this, find jobs, and use the money to get caught up. But if you have the home expenses completely taken care of, then the income you make as a home studio owner can be completely earmarked for whatever you wish it to be. You can pay off debt with it, go on vacation, save up for a car, buy new gear, save it for emergencies, etc...
At my home studio, I have everything I currently need. The only thing I'm currently lacking is great acoustic treatment. The first priority for the money I bring in to the business through projects I get will be to treat this room as well as possible. If I'm going to be mixing in here, this space has to be acoustically sound. That's a problem with most home studios in square rooms (like mine), but it's not impossible. Besides, as I have stated I've become quite good at mixing through headphones. I've analyzed the biggest hinderance to the quality of my product, and I can work very well once I overcome the acoustics in this room. If I had other gear that was absolutely vital (and not just wanted because it's really cool), then I'd earmark the money for that purpose and get that purchase made.
But once I have the acoustic treatment taken care of, the next thing I must focus on with my earnings is an emergency fund. No new gear until i've saved 6 months of living expenses back so that the house can continue to function. This money will be coming from the earnings I get from my projects.
The reason this is so important is that it lowers risk. I could go ahead and spend the money I earn on the setup I have, and then I'd have nothing as a risk buffer. If the main income sources in the house dry up, then I may be forced to enter the work force working a shitty low paying 9-5 job to keep the children fed. This would force me to abandon my clients, which would send them to my competition. This would also make me bitter every time I looked at all the awesome stuff I had to mix with that was going unused. The stuff would be fun, but without clients the stuff is useless. Having an emergency fund set back to ensure that the food, rent, utilities, insurance, and general debts are paid off will allow me to keep working without worry if the main household income sources did dry up.
The reason that I'm opting for 6 months is simple. My income from this operation is going to be variable. I'm taking care of disabled teens, and for me to run out of money and need to enter the workforce would mean that they lose a caretaker. This would be a major blow to my family, and my ability to care for them while pursuing my career from home. With 6 months saved back, if the main income sources dry up, all I have to do is start pulling the amounts of the regular paychecks from the emergency fund so that the bills can remain paid. Meanwhile, I continue business as usual. Any money I would bring in during the use of the emergency fund would go back into the emergency fund, allowing us to float a little longer if it was needed.
The money would all go into a free checking account. This would be used as a very basic profit & loss system. Income goes in, costs of running my business come only out of that account, and what's left is my profit. I merely look at the balance, and that's a summary of the profits I've made. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, it just needs to be something you'll actually use. You have to resist the urge to look at the balance of that account as anything OTHER than emergency money until you've got the emergency fund set aside and fully funded.
After having 6 months of earnings saved back (if you don't have kids, and have more than 1 income in your house, then 3 months might make more sense for you), then it's ok for me to consider using earnings from my efforts to buy new gear and upgrade my tools where needed. Having that money saved back also reduces the financial impact of equipment failure! There's always the risk that the iMac will die on me, and if I didn't have the cash reserved for a new one, I'd be in a pickle. I might have to use a credit card to get a new computer, as well as a new interface and a new DAW if those are needed. The problem with that is the risk involved with debt. If I used credit to buy my tools, then I would always be worried about making the payment. If I had a slow month, and didn't get any work, then I'd have no money to make the payment with. You can't predict when you'll have a slow month, so why add that kind of stress to your life? If you can't make the payment, you'll be forced to sell some things to make the payment. Then you lose some of your things, which is never fun since all of this was avoidable by merely being patient and using cash. You also open yourself up to needing to abandon your entrepreneurial efforts and your clients so that you can get a regular job that pays the debts. Why risk your efforts as an entrepreneur? Debt is bad, m'kay!
By using retained earnings as an emergency buffer, I avoid needing to use credit. I keep the freedom to remain at home if money gets tight, and I keep the pressure of credit card payments out of my life. If you want to make your freelance efforts your full time job, then you too will need a cash reserve to act as a buffer between you and the money problems most small businesses face. After all, if you've got 6 months of living expenses saved back, you could cut your ties with your day job and give your freelance career a real go full time while living comfortably for 6 months! Imagine how much freedom that brings!
Now go make some music!
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