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Listen Your Way to the Top

Joe Gilder — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:00:00 +0000

This week I had the privilege of interviewing Brent Milligan for my VIP members. He’s a professional producer/musician here in Nashville. Over the course of 45 minutes, he said so many things that I thought were just fantastic. I told him we could do a separate interview on EACH of those topics, there was so much good information.

Towards the end of the interview, I asked Brent if he had any final advice for aspiring producers. He told us a couple of things, but one thing particularly stuck out. He said, “Always be listening to good music.”

Now, you may be thinking to yourself Umm…yeah. That’s a no-brainer. But I’m always surprised at how little I focus on listening to good music as a way to get better. I still think of the music on my iPod like most normal people do — entertainment, something to listen to while driving, at a party, or mowing the lawn.

But as Brent so quickly pointed out, listening to good music is one of the best ways to feed your creative self. I don’t go out and find new music NEARLY as much as I should. Brent said he tries to buy a new album every week. Now for you that may be the norm, or maybe that seems like too much, or something you can’t quite afford. That’s fine.

The point here is to reevaluate HOW you’re feeding both the producer AND engineer inside of you. When I asked Brent the question, I expected him to give some sort of technical advice. Really work on mic placement. Or maybe: Get as much mixing practice as you can. Instead, he said to always be finding and listening to good music.

iTunes is a great place to start. The homepage shows you the latest and greatest music. But if you’re not in a place where you can shell out $10 every week for new music, you need to check out Noisetrade.com. Noisetrade is a simple online service where musicians give away their music in exchange for an email address. You can “tip” the artist up to $100 if you want, but there’s absolutely no obligation. You can download 100 albums for free if you want.

These aren’t all mainstream artists, but there are some amazing albums to find…all free.

So there, you have no excuse not to be listening to new music. In fact, I’m heading over to Noisetrade now to download some new music to listen to while getting ready for the Recording Acoustic Guitar class that starts today.

How do YOU find new music? Share with us!

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New Music: ‘Weeds’ by Whitney Winkler

Joe Gilder — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:00:22 +0000

This past weekend I had the privilege of playing guitar at a CD release concert for a good friend and amazing artist. Her name is Whitney Winkler.

Her new EP Weeds is available on Amazon.

I produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered the project. I even played most of the guitar parts…and sang a bit, too.

Whitney’s a really talented singer/songwriter from Kentucky. I know I’m a bit biased, but the tracks sound really good. All recorded in my home studio.

Go grab a copy, and enjoy!

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Christmas Music, and a Good Cause

Joe Gilder — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 17:37:01 +0000

As I type this, there’s snow on the ground here in Nashville. Feels like Christmas.

This time of year you may be looking for ways to help those in need. Here’s a small, quick way you can help (and get some good music, too).

Several of my buddies up at Sweetwater have contributed a few songs towards a compilation album to help their friend Nate Delagrange. Nate suffered a spinal injury about 10 years ago and is a quadriplegic.

A few weeks ago Nate was in a car accident, and while he’s okay, his van is totaled. You can read the full details here.

This compilation album, called “Wheels for Nate,” is your way to help Nate and his family get a new set of wheels. The album is only $10, and all proceeds go to directly to Nate. (Thank to Matt Adams for putting this together.)

The first track on the album is a rendition of “Deck the Halls” that I recorded a few years ago. I’ve never released it to the public before. Enjoy!

You can listen/buy here:

wheelsfornate.bandcamp.com

If every HSC reader chipped in, Nate would have his van in no time. Let’s go folks. Ten bucks. Good music. Good cause. Merry Christmas.

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Holiday Noise: A Christmas Collection

Joe Gilder — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 16:00:00 +0000

If you’re the kind of person who likes Christmas music, you should know about a fun Christmas album.

You may remember my friend Ben Gortmaker. He’s the guy who I interviewed on the podcast about his recently-released album, recorded and mixed completely in GarageBand.

Well, several years ago Ben wrangled up a bunch of independent Nashville artists to put together a compilation album of Christmas songs. Three albums later, Holiday Noise has gotten a lot of attention.

Now Ben has released a compilation “best of” album, featuring one song by yours truly (“O Come, O Come Emmanuel”).

These songs really are fantastic. I encourage you to check ‘em out.

Check out Holiday Noise: A Christmas Compilation on iTunes and Bandcamp.

Merry Christmas!

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“Out of Indiana” – Official Release Date

Joe Gilder — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 14:45:10 +0000

As you probably know, I’ve been selling my latest album Out of Indiana over at joegildermusic.com for the last 3 weeks.

Well, today is the official release date! You may now purchase the album at any of the following stores:

However, you’ll get a better deal if you buy it directly from my website. A few reasons:

Better quality mp3 files (320 kbps vs 160 or 192)
Chord chart of all songs (included with mp3 download)
Free download of the CD Release Concert recording (which will take place this weekend)
Additional bundles…click here to see them all.

Otherwise, do whatever is most convenient for you. And enjoy! I’m very proud of this album.

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Win a Copy of “Out of Indiana”

Joe Gilder — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 22:10:53 +0000

Next week you’ll be able to pre-order a copy of my album Out of Indiana. I’ve been so immersed in this record for the last several months, and I’m excited to share it with you.

Want to win a free copy? Head over to joegildermusic.com this weekend and download the 3 songs I’m giving away for free.

After you’ve listened to them, come back here and leave a comment. Your comment should include two things:

Which of the 3 songs was your favorite?
What project are you currently working on (or about to start), and when will it be finished?

I’ll be reading each comment, and will be picking the winner(s) next week.

Have fun!

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7 Tips for Finishing Your Album [Part 2]

Joe Gilder — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 23:29:37 +0000

In the last article, I shared with you the first three tips for finishing your album. Today, let’s look at the last four.

4. Get it right at the source.

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again many more times I’m sure, but no matter how good your editing and mixing skills are, your mixes will only be as good as the tracks you record. It’s imperative that you place a high level of importance on making your recorded tracks sound as good as possible.

Speaking from experience, I’m really proud of my album, and I’m excited for you to hear it soon. However, I could have done a better job of getting things right at the source. Those of you who joined Mix With Us have heard the raw audio tracks from the album. The acoustic guitars, in particular, could’ve been recorded a little better. The mics were too close to the guitar, so there’s a lot of unnecessary bass in the raw tracks.

I was able to wield some EQ magic to make them sound okay, but all in all I could have done a better job of getting it right at the source.

5. Don’t insist on perfection.

This may seem contradictory to #4 above, but let me explain.

While the guitar parts I recorded weren’t perfect, they still worked. I could have re-recorded everything, but that would’ve taken more time, and would have likely delayed my album by months.

Ask any recording/mix engineer, and he’ll tell you that he never feels finished with a project. There comes a point where you just have to turn it in.

There are plenty of things I could’ve tweaked and changed on my album. There are places where I played out of time. There are a few notes where I sang out of tune, but all in all, I love the feel of the album, and the imperfections are almost endearing to me.

Besides, if I insisted on perfection, and it took me 5 years to finish my album, there’s no guarantee that it would really sound any better, and I could finish 3 albums in that time (which, to me, sounds like more fun).

6. Step Away

This is a really important step. After I had finished mixing the album, I stepped away. I took a few weeks off and didn’t listen to the songs. Then I came back and did a final listen-thru before handing the mixes in to my mastering engineer.

This allowed me to approach the songs with a relatively “fresh” set of ears. It let me make some final obvious tweaks. AND it got me excited about the songs again. If you never step away from the music, you sometimes loose sight of what you’re doing. Stepping away lets you listen to the album as if you’re a new listener for the first time. Pretty fun stuff.

7. Have someone else master it.

I’ve talked about mastering before, and I know some people tend to think mastering is a scam. I disagree.

I disagreed before, and now that I’ve listened to my finished, mastered album, I wholeheartedly disagree. My mixes sound balanced. The bass is consistent from one mix to the other. The songs are louder, punchier, but they still have dynamic range.

In short, they just sound polished, finished, professional. I’m thrilled with it. If you have the means, spend a few hundred bucks on a good mastering engineer. You’ll be glad you did.

What about YOU?

What do you think? Do you have extra tips for us? Leave a comment below.

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7 Tips for Finishing Your Album

Joe Gilder — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:00:18 +0000

As I mentioned last week, my album is finished, and I’m getting ready to release it in the next couple of weeks. If you’d like a free sample, head over to JoeGilderMusic.com. I’m giving away 3 songs from the album. These were all recorded and mixed in my home studio.

I’m planning some pretty cool things for the album release, so make sure you’re signed up to my newsletter, or subscribed to the HSC RSS feed. More to come soon.

But first, let me share with you some tips for finishing an album. There are a bajillion steps involved in producing any recording project, and today I want to share with you 7 tips that really helped me as I went from “I’m working on my album” to “I’m finished with my album.” I’ll share these over the course of several articles. Enjoy!

1. Finish writing the songs before you start recording them.

As tempting as it may be to start recording a song as soon as you’ve written it, resist the urge. As you probably know, songs aren’t written, they’re rewritten. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written a song, started recording it for a few days, then realized that the song needed some major work. Usually that meant scratching everything I’d recorded.

Make sure the lyrics and arrangement are finished before you start recording. You’ll be glad you did.

2. “Chunkify”

I just made up that word, I think.

Whenever there are chores to do around the house, my wife has this habit of saying, “We’ve got a lot to do today.” I always respond with, “What exactly do we have to do?” After she lists out the two or three tasks, it then becomes clear to both of us that it’s not really that much.

It’s the same way with recording. If you speak in terms of “I’m finishing this song” rather than “I’m comping the lead vocals,” you’ll always feel like you have this insurmountable mountain of work to do.

The solution is to divide your projects up into chunks, small individual tasks that, when added up, equal a completed project. For example, rather than saying,

I need to edit all 10 songs.

I would say

I need to edit the acoustic guitars on “No Time” and “Home.”
I need to edit the piano no “Come Quickly.”
I need to edit the bass on “I Won’t Fly Away.”
etc. etc.

Suddenly, I have a list of 100 tasks that I need to complete to finish the album. Sure, 100 tasks is a lot, but it’s measurable. As you chip away at one, you feel a little bit of satisfaction and motivation as you scratch if off your to-do list forever.

[By the way, for more on editing, check out Understanding Editing.]

3. Set deadlines, even if you miss them.

This is nothing new, but it’s worth re-emphasizing. Having a deadline looming in the back of your mind will make you focus more on the task at hand. I missed all sorts of deadlines with my album, but having those deadlines helped me keep moving forward, otherwise, it would’ve turned into one of those 7-year projects that’s always “in the works.”

I would suggest setting deadlines for each of your “chunks.” This will help you with both gaining focus and determining how long it will actually take to finish your album.

Okay, that’s enough for today. I’ll post a few more tips in the next article, but before I do, I need 15 comments on this post. Let me know what you think. What are YOU going to implement today?

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FREE Music from Yours Truly

Joe Gilder — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:00:53 +0000

I emailed my newsletter subscribers yesterday about some exciting news regarding my upcoming album. As I mentioned the other day, the album is basically finished. I’m just ironing out artwork/CD details.

In the meantime, I want to give away a few tracks from the CD for free.

I’m using Noisetrade.com to distribute these free tracks. Noisetrade is an awesome free service based here in Nashville. I highly recommend it for you musicians out there.

To download your 3 free songs, just drop your email address in the widget below. As a reminder, these songs were all recorded and mixed in my home studio, using the same kind of equipment that you use. I’m really proud of this album, and I can’t wait for you to hear the whole thing.

Until then, enjoy these three freebies:

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Update on My Album

Joe Gilder — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 21:55:51 +0000

Know what that picture is? That’s the master copy of my finished album.

If you’ve been a part of Home Studio Corner for any length of time, you’ve heard me talk about my album for quite some time. And as I mentioned in The Magic of Finishing, it feels amazing to be done with this album.

Granted, the album artwork isn’t quite finished, and I have a handful of things to do now before the release date (TBD), but the audio portion of the album is done.

I’ve got all sorts of ideas for blog posts, podcasts, videos, etc., all dealing with things I’ve learned throughout the process of making this album, but for today I simply want to encourage you. If you’re in the middle of a seemingly endless album project, you WILL get there. Just keep doing the things you know you need to do, and ignore the stuff that doesn’t matter.

Trust me, it feels great to be finished. All the writers block, the song rewrites, pre-production, all the different takes, the editing, the mixing, the re-mixing, and then sending your “baby” to a mastering engineer….it’s all worth it.

I’ll be announcing more details later. If you want to mix this album yourself, you can start TONIGHT by joining MixWithUs.com. You’ll download and mix the multi-track audio files for the entire 10-song album. It’s pretty fun.

Alright, that’s it for now. Talk soon!