If you are recording an important project, you will want to look into the final stage of processing your recordings for maximum sonic quality: Mastering. Thanks to mastering engineer Borislav Dimitrov of HZ Productions who guest posts today.  He will share some important information helpful to audio engineers about technically preparing a recording to be mastered. This info is vital because mixing a recording to be mastered is not the same as mixing a project that will not undergo further processing. Borislav suggests:

Don’t compress you mix too much:

Do not compress/limit the mix buss at all. It restricts us in the mastering process. If you want to compress/limit the mix buss – be careful. Give us some headroom to work with. WE CAN NOT UNDO COMPRESSION AND LIMITING. If you can hear the
compressor/limiter work you’re processing too much. You can give us alternate mixes, with mix buss
compression/limiting and without.

Don’t trim your mixes:

The mastering engineer cannot recover lost material. We will do the fades and cleaning up, so leave at least 2 seconds more at the beginning and the end of each track and don’t use any de-noising plugins, leave the fades out to us, too.

Avoid digital clipping:

Make sure the peak levels of your mixes never exceed -1 dBFS, actually stay below -3 dBFS to be completely on the safe side! This way you’re not losing resolution and stay away of the harsh digital clipping which has given some commercially available albums bad name!

Have a Backup copy on another CD-R or hard-disk.

Have the order (sequencing) ready:

It is a lot easier to match the songs, when we do the fades and gaps between the songs, if the order is ready, as each song influences the other songs around it.

Name (or provide!) …

a few reference CD’s to give us an idea of how you want your music to sound. It will help if they are in the same genre and style.

If you bring the mixes on a CD-R…

save them as WAVE or AIFF files and if possible in 24-bit at 44.1 kHz sample rate. WRITE THE CD AT 1X SPEED!!!!! It will eliminate possibilities for jitter and errors. Well, a standard audio CD (CDDA @ 16-bit/44.1 kHz) would do if no other possibility.

Make a list of the processing you want:

ou might feel that some songs need more bass, brightness or editing.

Alternative Mixes:

If you are unsure about the vocal balance in the mix, make a few different mixes. One with Vocal up by 1 dB, Vocal down by 1 dB or mix an instrumental and put the vocals down alone and we will mix it during the mastering session. This doesn’t only apply to vocals. It can also be used for bass or guitar solos, or whatever you are unsure about. Just ID and log the different mixes well.

Again, thanks to Borislav Dimitrov for this post; he and his services can be found at www.HiZProductions.com

If you are a mastering engineer reading this, we invite your comments!

When you write a song, you want to protect your intellectual property rights. This protection for songwriting is called copyrighting.

My friend recording artist Becky Hobbs wrote a succinct explanation about copyrighting a song.  I would like to thank Becky for allowing me to quote her, because I couldn’t have said it better myself…

You can do it [copyright a song] all online now, and you can upload mp3’s (you no longer need written out “lead sheets”).  If the writer/copyright owner info is the same on different titles, you can copyright up to 10 titles at a time, all for a total of $35.00  For example, if you wrote 100% of the song, and you own 100% of the copyright, you can list up to10 different titles.

Go to  www.copyright.gov , click on “electronic copyright office” You can watch a tutorial that will walk you through it.  Easy as pie! It does take around 6 mos. to get your registration certificate in the mail.
If you wish, you can do the “poor man’s copyright” thing, as you await your confirmation from the Copyright office.  [This is where you mail yourself your song via certified mail and never open it or break the seal. ] It can’t hurt. But FYI, the moment a work is created, the copyright ownership is inherent to the creator (author/composer).  The registration to copyright does not prove ownership, but serves as documentation if there ever is a law suit.   It’s all good!!! [Thanks, Becky!]

How many full songs have you heard on internet websites? Yeah, me too. If you are trying to make money from your music, don’t upload full songs to Facebook, MySpace and other sites…not even your own websites — unless you want to give them away free, because you will be.

When using internet marketing to sell music, he only way to prevent people stealing your work is to only put snippets (20 – 30 second edited samplings of songs) online.. not full songs. Don’t believe me? Try googling “rip facebook or myspace music” and you’ll see how easy it is for unethical music thieves to RIP you off!

You can easily edit mp3 snippets with free, open software like Audacity.

If you do want to offer free music as part of your marketing strategy, make the most of it and offer it as such… advertise your generosity to your fans – don’t just put it out there whole and hope nobody rips it without paying.

Last point… don’t worry about people ripping off your snippets without paying. The more those snippets get spread around, the better! If someone likes it, chances are they’ll want to buy the full song.

Here’s an update of my production work for those of you who may be interested. For some clients I produced full projects, some I joined their team as vocal producer, for many I wrote on their songs and they are all my vocal students who smartly prepared for their productions by getting their voices in top shape. Here’s a summary:

This spring I finished full projects for several clients including

• John Farndell- a Christian minister from South Africa. We cut his tracks at Hilltop Studio with John Nicholson, engineer and an amazing cast of musicians. Background singers included me, Jennifer O’Brien and Michael Black.
• Cecilia Halsey- an alt-country artist based in Alabama. This production was recorded at Eclectic Sound, Nick Sparks engineer. Again a great team of musicians led by bassist Mike Chapman.
• Darby Haas, a country artist living in Kentucky. We recorded Darby at Mainframe Studio, Nathan Smith engineer. Mike Chapman again led the band.

These unique, creative projects were great fun for me are now out to the public! They are all quite different, I co-wrote the whole project with John Farndell, produced hers and others’ songs on Cecilia and co-wrote part of Darby’s project. I sang background vocals on their projects and they are all my vocal students as well; I can run a full-service shop:)

I also very much enjoyed joining other producer’s teams as vocal producer for artists including

• Winfield’s Locket, a Louisiana-based country duo produced by the amazing Ilya Toshinsky. We recorded at multiple studios.
• Jenni Schaefer, a novelist/public speaker/singer/songwriter whose works have been endorsed by none other than Dr. Phil. I joined Ilya’s production team working as vocal producer for several of her tracks, including some Jenni and I co-wrote. Several studios and engineers were involved.
• “Jenny and Ashley“, a teen country duo. The production team assembled and led by Mike Borchetta included me as vocal producer and Darran Smith (band leader for Tim McGraw’s band “Dance Hall Doctors”) who produced the tracks.  All tracks and vocals were recorded and mixed at Loud Studio, Julian King engineer.

CURRENTLY: This summer I’m working on finishing up…

• Pop teen artist Emil Bishaw’s new project with engineer Richie Biggs working on final mixes. Tracks were cut at master drummer Steve Brewster’s studio Brewbeat, Richie Biggs engineering. (You won’t be surprised that the drums  sound great!) Vocals were cut in a couple different places with engineer Billy Whittington.
• Country artist from New Mexico  Sim Balkey’s new project – tracks were cut this spring at Mainframe and vocals will be recorded later this summer.
• I’m also beginning a new production for Cecilia Halsey, to be recorded at Eclectic.

As you can see, I work in all kinds of different ways in different studios, with multiple genres of artists. If you’d like to contact me about your production, hit the contact button on this site and I’ll be happy to talk to you!

Recording a music project is a heady experience. A sonic dream gets turned into a reality. No wonder you want to get into the studio as soon as possible! And if you prepare well, it often turns out even better than you hoped or imagined.

But I hope you just noticed I added “…if you prepare well”. No, you can’t wait til everything is perfect (it never will be) but you can wait til you have done some wise preparation to maximize your time, money and effort of heart.. and keep your sonic dream from turning into a sonic nightmare.

Here are some recording preparation tips:

• Do you have the right songs?

If you don’t have strong songs, you don’t need to record. End of story. There is no amount of production or mixing or mastering that will turn a weak song into a great one. (And who wants to hear weak songs?) Maybe get back to the drawing board, write and/or collect more songs til you are satisfied that they will represent you well.

• Do you have enough funds to cover your budget?

Make sure you don’t have to cut important corners… putting recording off til you accumulate your funds can be very wise.

1. Budget more time than you think you’ll need to do your tracks, vocals, and mixing!
2. Consider any extra musicians you might want to create the project you really want.
3. Try to have enough budget to cover mastering. There are many levels of mastering, some inexpensive and some quite expensive, but any mastering is better than none at all.
4. Most of the time you’ll want to buy your own hard drive for keeping and saving your project files. Ask your engineer for a recommendation.
5. Consider also that recording budgets don’t usually include graphics and duplication. Of course you can go ahead and record and then put off doing this until you have the funds. But if it turns out great, you’ll want to get the whole package finished as soon as possible!

• Are you vocally ready?

You can do your tracks when you have the songs. No pressure there. You can sing scratch tracks (sing while the band is recording your tracks) when you are not vocally at top form, but do NOT try to do your lead vocals without having your voice as strong as you can get it unless they really aren’t that important (and when is that?) Practice at full voice volume for 4 to 14 days before a significant lead vocal session. Consider doing some pre-production vocal lessons for optimal vocal preparedness

• Have you memorized your songs?

While you can indeed sing with lyric sheets in front of you, it is my strong opinion that you should memorize your material. It’s too easy to let the page get in the way of your focusing on the emotional delivery of the song. Also, it’s really great to be able to ‘own’ your songs, become immersed in the rhythms, play with your voice and experiment with different ways of singing the material BEFORE you get into the vocal booth.

• Are you physically strong?

You don’t have to be a triathlon champion, of course. However, you need energy to be able to support your voice well for great lead vocals. Sleep, eat, exercise, and by all means hydrate yourself with plenty of water days before you go in to sing. It will matter, I assure you, to the quality of your vocal efforts.

• Do you have the right production team and musicians available?

It’s best to wait until your dream team is available. Musicians and background singers can be interchangeable to a degree, but you might be surprised at how few are best at what you need. Make sure everything is booked far enough in advance to ensure your best team is on board.

For more (a ton more) studio information, please check out “Singing In The Studio“, a multimedia professional guide to getting vocal magic in the recording studio. www.singinginthestudio.com

Are there legitimate reasons for courting a major label deal? Of course- such as needing a larger engine for promoting and distributing your music. However, I would suggest that you understand in the real world you are highly unlikely to get one unless you’ve already demonstrated your major market potential – like having your own huge fanbase already in place and having booked regular performances attended by great crowds.

It also gives you a huge advantage as an asset to a major label if you and your music are perfectly matched to the age and preferences of the demographics the labels are marketing to. And of course, if your street creds are better you can negotiate a much better deal if you do get some major label interest.

That said, there is a very enlightened truism going around right now that you don’t get a deal until you don’t need one. Major music labels are struggling like everyone else to find profitability in this ever changing market.

An independent music label may be a better option for you. Indie music labels come in many sizes… from your own start up label to a large indie with #1 charted records and joint ventures with major labels for distribution. Can you say Taylor Swift and Big Machine Records? Also think Ani Difranco, who chose to go it alone and now signs other acts to her “Righteous Babe” label.

Investigate these choices. Network with others who are investigating. Share and brainstorm… consider leading the way with creative approaches to marketing and promoting business. Double check, have accountability partners and good walls to bounce ideas off… whether it’s a financially wise parent or a circle of major music players. Look into organizations like Indie Connect, get your own website,  MySpace, Reverb Nation, Facebook pages up. The times, they are a-changing, and I for one think the anarchy could be good for you! Then if you get a major label deal… congratulations, but make sure you keep growing your business. Deals can be lost quicker than they are aquired.

For an uncanny, funny look at the practical world of seeking a major label deal…watch this revealing little video satire by someone who’s got an ear to the ground!

Background vocals (sometimes called backing vocals) can add enormous value to — or detract value from–  a recording. Done correctly, they can make the difference between a commercial hit or artistic masterpiece and … not a hit/masterpiece. I’ve been singing background vocals  and creating background vocal arrangements for decades now in all genres. Through the years, I’ve learned through trial, error, client wishes and resulting mixes what does and does not work. Here are some things I typically suggest to create background vocal magic.

NOTE: When the producer or group leader calls for “doubling or stacking a part” it means to record another track of the exact same part. When calling for “next part or sweetening”, it means singing another new note or part. “Multi-tracking” background vocals simply means recording a part or group parts on more than one track.

• What I chose or suggest to do with background vocals depends mightily on the genre of the song. For instance… for rock, r&b and pop, I usually multitrack and double or triple (or even more) each part. For bluegrass I typically suggest only one track/singer on each part to keep the intimate, tight, live sound this genre is famous for. Country… usually single or double any verse parts and multitrack the choruses.

• When I multitrack and double, for the tightest and purest sounds, I have each singer do all the doubling of one part. For thicker sounds and choir sounds, I have singers switch parts for doubling. And then again, some times I do all the parts for budget, time or other expediency reasons. How many times do I double each part? Sometimes it takes trying it out to see if it needs another track for richness or if another double makes the sound too heavy or muddy.

• As to how many parts I sing or direct to be sung, many times experimentation is called for, and I quickly sing or have sung a single duet part, full chord or an octave at top or bottom of the chord to determine which is best for that song. After many years, though, I can usually make that call without having to try out everything.

• I like to do non-conventional parts, not necessarily paralleling everything. Sometimes breaking a unison into parts at a chosen point, sometimes doing counterparts, sometimes fifths, sometimes even notes out of the chord (rock does this a LOT)…etc.

• If possible I like to have each singer on a separate mic each part can be controlled at mix. However, there are many projects I do that are set up with only one mic, then I make sure we record with the right balance of parts.

• For choir parts, many times a choir is recorded and then ‘ringer’ (professional session) singers overdub doubled parts to focus the choir sound.

• How many background vocal singers do you need per song? It depends on the sound you want (consult with your producer), your budget (AFTRA union singer rates are available at the AFTRA website – look under the tab “Sound Recordings”), and who is available for you to call that can come in to the studio in your area.

• Mixing background vocals is also a highly variable thing. Hopefully your engineer will make sure there is a balance of parts and that

I strongly suggest that you not use amateur singers for background vocal parts. Not only will the sound be sub-par, it can cost you more money because of the studio time it takes trying to get something acceptable. Get pro singers, or if you can do your own, you can save money and that might be the best thing to do. However, sometimes it’s best to use singers with different resonances than the lead vocal. The singers still need to be able to blend with your vocal in the way that gives you the best sonic results… and your background vocalist(s) need to be chosen carefully based on whether or not they can deliver that effect. Consult with your producer as to the best option for your project and your budget.

If you have any questions about this or any other aspect of recording, please let me know!