Blogs
Congrats to John Frederick for being the Mixposure.com Artist of the Month.
I am a artist who goes where the wind blows with a passion for music that I make in my home studio. You never know what you will hear next as I am trying to hone my craft and sometimes experiment with sound and overall just try to make it better every song I do. I hope you enjoy it. Thank You
N ostalgia is a kind of selective memory. From our 21st-century perspective, the past stretches out like a golden landscape of great music, classic gear and bizarre haircuts, and we tend to overlook the fact that there were plenty of dreadful records in the ’70s and ’80s — and that many of the great ones were made despite, not because of, the equipment then available. It’s also easy to forget that the gap between home and professional studio environments was once a gaping chasm. Much of the equipment that is revered as ‘vintage’ today would have been available only in professional studios in 1985, and far too expensive for most home-studio operators.
With that in mind, we thought that a fitting way to mark SOS’s 30th anniversary would be to revisit home recording as it really was in the mid-’80s. We set out to assemble a setup that would include only equipment that was realistically within the reach of the average SOS reader, and use it to program, record and mix a complete pop song — in an ’80s musical style, naturally!
The Lie Of The Land
Sound On Sound was launched in response to a revolution in project-studio music recording. The advent of the MIDI protocol, MIDI sequencers, timecode-based synchronisers and narrow-gauge multitrack, all in the first half of the 1980s, meant it was becoming practical for hobbyist musicians to create complete tracks. Suddenly, eight- and 16-track recording was no longer solely the province of professional studios; but perhaps just as significantly, sequenced MIDI synth sounds and drums could both augment track count and maintain audio quality by being run into the final mix as synchronised live sources, rather than being recorded to multitrack.
Instruments such as the Yamaha DX7, Roland Juno 106 and Korg Polysix were bringing polyphonic synthesis to a mass market; Akai and Emu were doing the same with sampling, and with a little imagination it was possible to extract plausible rhythm tracks from a new generation of drum machines. There was a good selection of relatively affordable mixers to tie everything together, and even luxuries such as digital reverb were starting to become a realistic prospect for home-studio operators. For the first time ever, talented amateurs could create sophisticated recordings without the help of other musicians or engineers.
Yet, at the same time, many other technologies we now take for granted still lay in the future. Affordable sample-based synths and workstation keyboards would not appear until the later part of the decade. Steinberg had yet to create the ubiquitous Arrange Page, the graphical template to which today’s sequencing software adheres. Digital recording was in its infancy, so not only were luxuries such as non-linear editing and plug-in processing unknown, but unless you were lucky enough to own a Sony PCM F1 converter, master mixes had to be recorded to quarter-inch analogue or cassette tape. And entire market sectors that thrive today, such as active monitors, acoustic treatment and affordable capacitor microphones, had yet to be created at the launch of SOS.
Assembling The Studio
Of those SOS staff based in our offices near Cambridge (a list that does not include founders Ian and Paul Gilby, Editor in Chief Paul White or Technical Editor Hugh Robjohns), only Editorial Director Dave Lockwood worked in ’80s home studios first time around. His recollection of the typical home-studio setups of the time — described in the ‘What Would You Find In An ’80s Home Studio?’ box — became our template in setting up the studio. His attic also proved an invaluable source of period-correct equipment, including the centrepiece of the entire setup: an Atari 1040ST home computer, complete with MIDI synchroniser and a copy of C-Lab’s Notator sequencer.
Other team members were able to beg, steal or borrow a few other typical home-studio items: a 16-channel Soundcraft 200SR mixer, a pair of Yamaha REV7 digital multi-effects units and a Fostex M80 quarter-inch eight-track tape machine. However, although we could muster various ‘vintage’ synths between us, what none of us had was a suitable selection of early MIDI instruments. With that in mind, we turned to leading UK hire firm FX Rentals, who very kindly lent us several key pieces from their vast treasure trove of music gear: an original Yamaha DX7, a Roland Juno 106 polysynth and TR707 drum machine, and an Akai S950 rackmounting sampler.
Assembling this lot brought home how unwieldy the home studios of yore were. Our setup might have been a typical ‘bedroom studio’, but anyone who managed to fit that lot into his or her bedroom would struggle to do any actual going to bed too! Even in SOS’s large meeting room, it was a challenge to arrange it all in such a way that all of our cables reached, and everything was accessible, while any changes to the setup would plunge us into feverish sessions of patching and re-patching. Since the Soundcraft mixer was a live-sound variant with no tape returns and only four groups, this had to be done on a regular basis. In some cases it was also a headache to find appropriate cables: the main outputs of the mixer, for example, appeared only on male XLRs, which needed somehow to be connected to RCA phono inputs on our master recorders and be paralleled to our monitors.
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Having spoken to hundreds of musicians throughout my music career, it is interesting to note how some have let the dream fade into the past in favour of a life of normality, whilst others are still walking the yellow brick road in search of stardom. The question we ask is, why do people give up and what happens next?
1. Finances.
If it's not already hard enough having to be the one man band in every area of musicianship, consider the amount of money which needs to poured into a single act in order for it to achieve notable attention and success. Most musicians are poor souls trying to earn a living from their talent. But talent alone doesn't generally take an independent master of music to the height of comfort and prosperity if he remains unsigned indefinitely!
The costs of reputable legal representation, CD pressing, professional studio services and equipment, to name just a few, are high enough to cause even a wealthy individual to hide away his wallet.
More and more musicians are going it alone in the hope that they will be able to snap a deal at some point, which would relieve the financial headache and burden. So they keep going and going until the coffers are worn thin. But still, for many, when is that break ever going to come?
2. Commitments.
It's a classic story. Bob's been playing in a band for six years. He has his heart set on stardom and fame. But then one day, along comes 'Mary,' who initially loves the attention he receives and finds the whole band thing gives her a buzz. She is drawn to his talent and his soulful, expressive hobby. But one day Mary wants to be the 'FIRST' most important thing in Bob's life and soon he starts to feel the pressure.
His attention to the game is emotionally driven off course, as he frets about how he now has less time to make music and his band mates think he should get rid of Mary! How can he let her mess it up? But Bob can't dump Mary because he loves her and despite this indifference their relationship has been truly wonderful.
Perhaps if he gives it a break for a few years he can always come back to it again, couldn't he?
3. Band Splits.
Yes it happens to the famous as well as the unheard of. Unfortunately disagreements are a fact of life. However if you are a band hoping to rise to the top, constant disagreements do not bode well for your musical career!
Some band members split and don't necessarily quit, but join other bands or go solo. It's much harder to pick up the pieces though if the band are already represented by an agent or label and have commitments to fulfil. The job of an agent or representative is to ensure that disagreements are solved professionally, and small quibbles may be solved over a drink and a game of pool.
Sadly though, getting a group of people to agree to each others opinions, future musical direction, (plus all the hundreds of other little decisions and details that require unanimous agreement) is more than impossible for a good length of time.
4. Pressure.
A word everyone in any industry or vocation is familiar with. If we never had any pressure we would take a lot longer to move ourselves out of the comfortable zone and into the firing squad. And boy do indie musicians get a lot of pressure!
They have the pressure to get noticed.
They have the pressure of making it big.
They have the pressure of making sales.
There is also the pressure to feed a family and pay all the general household bill before making it big.
Pressure is an enemy one can ill afford, but generally shifts us into fifth gear and keeps us soldiering on. I remember talking to a friend who gave up his indie career because the pressure of trying to get heard was causing him nasty headaches.
I remember his quote: "It'll kill me and I'll be gone, and then you'll hear my song on the radio". Needless to say once he relieved himself of that pressure the headaches vanished. He now works in an office position which pays him well, and he feels he is now compensated well for his input and knowledge.
5. Competition.
Let's face it; we all have a competitive streak. It's what makes the world turn so rapidly and produces experts in all subject and areas.
For the indie musician though, the 'competition' is the biggest drawback to his chances of success.
"It's impossible! There so many unsigned people out there," he yells in frustration.
The competition we face today is more apparent due to the visibility of artists online trying to make their way to the top. If we were to go back to the highlights of The Beatles era, we wouldn't know who or where half of these aspiring individuals were!
As many musicians step upon the unsteady bricks of uncertainty; and try with all their might to achieve some online success, many are blown off the sidelines by even more fiercely competitive and power hungry individuals. The competition is so fierce that some eventually decide that it's not worth the headache or hassle, and just go back to making music for the reasons they intended originally — for the pure love of it!
So there you have it. There are countless many more reasons why musicians quit, but then again, in all fairness there are countless reasons why many don't.
We love music and there will always be reasons to keep making it and proudly showing it off. So before you fall into one of those categories above, think hard about how you intend to manage your own music career and become a winner rather than a quitter.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope everyone enjoys he holiday and spens some quality time with family. I am personally thankful for everyone on this site who continue to wow me with great music. I am exremely thankfull to Jim, Gene, Maurice, Kerrin, Vig, Doug, Toni, Mark and Jeremy for all of the work hey put in on MixStream Radio. Your guys rock!!
I had a few inquiries over the last few days about how to do a song review so we added a new help file to the forum. To cut down the excitement, just click on any pen icons to initiate a review.
Also due to some confusion, we also made some slight changes to the audio page. We added some icons on there for reviews, edits and deletes. For some reason I thought these had been there all along and I have no idea when they dropped off!!
Please let us know if you have any questions.
We're happy to announce the release of our latest song, "Because of You". Words and music by Bill Thompson who performed all guitar parts and sang lead vocal. Bill also did all production and arrangement. Jacki Grapentine on harmony vocal. We hope you enjoy it!
http://www.mixposure.com/the-truevulgarians/audio/20350/because-of-you
As most of you know we switched servers awhile ago and we were able save some money off of our monthly fees. We also added a lot more storage space. With that in mind, I wanted to revamp the Mixposure Subscription Rates. I wanted to get rid of a lot of the plans and just make it simple for everyone.
For the most part, we really have two subscriptions now. Mixposure 100 and the Mixposure 250 . The price for these will be 24.99 a year and 49.95 a year. As you can guess, the number is how many songs you can add. I have already moved pretty much everyone into these quotas so you should now have the ability to add a lot more songs.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Todd
Todd