Producing Natural-Sounding MIDI Notes

When making electronically-produced music, you'll find yourself often programming notes rather than playing them. People who don't understand the medium will say that this makes the music cold, mechanical and lifeless, but they simply don't understand the amount of work and craftsmanship that goes into manually arranging notes. A composer needs to take into account very precise attributes of every note of every measure of every part they program. This can be very daunting. When I write melodies that are more complex than I can feasibly play, I'll use Cubase's piano-roll style grid to place notes, and then I'll let the computer play them. In the early days, this usually meant that the notes sounded harsh and machine-like. How do I fix this? How can I make MIDI-generated tones sound more natural to the listener?

Well, I thought, human hands are not machines. We don't hit every note on precisely the right beat, right? After placing my notes, I would nudge them just slightly out of sync with the rhythm. Hopefully this would be the subtle change needed to make the music sound more organic. Right?

As it turns out, the hands of a trained musician actually have excellent rhythm; better than you would ever expect. Once I'd learned to play piano with some moderate skill I found that my own notes pretty much hit precisely on the beat when needed. My nudging of the MIDI tracks only served to make my melodies sound amateur and unrefined.

No, the key to lifelike melodies, I found, is in the velocity of the notes played. With some exceptions, almost all of your machine-played notes can be placed in perfect sync as long as they have heavily varied velocities. Velocity, in this case, means how hard the note is played. Think of the difference between a piano being played softly and a piano being played loudly and you'll know what I mean.
I could spend several paragraphs describing the method to you, but I'll let this picture do most of the talking:

As you can see in this very generic guide, the odd-numbered notes are louder, while the even ones are quieter. You can also see that there's a more subtle pattern of general volume change: The smaller the note (8th, 16th, 32nd etc.) the more likely it will be relatively quiet when it is not on the main beats of a measure.

When making a melody, I will start with this pattern and then adjust it according to what I want it to sound like for that particular part. Following this pattern works particularly well for complex melodies with many notes.

If you simply follow that chart to the letter, your melody will still have a machine-like quality to it. It's best to arrange your velocities in this pattern and then adjust everything a little afterward, putting emphasis on certain notes for dramatic effect. This particular chart, for example, is clearly skewed towards something that emphasizes beats on 1 and 3, which you don't alway want. Try adding a little randomness too and see how it comes out. The beauty of MIDI-generated music is that if you don't like it, you can endlessly tweak it until it sounds perfect.

Do you have any cool techniques for MIDI melodies?

Microphones, Cables and Everything Else in Your Studio

This is the final part of the Makeshift Musician's Comprehensive Guide to Building Your Own Studio

So, you've got your room for your studio, you've set up your computer, hooked up your audio interface and installed your recording software. What's next? Actually, a lot of stuff.

Microphones

Unless you're an all-software kind of musician, you need a microphone or two. Entire books have been written on the subject of microphones and how they are used in different situations; it's a very large field. You can get specialized mics for any instrument you can think of for thousands of dollars and often they are purchased in pairs. If you're like me, though, and I know I am, you don't have those kinds of resources. I'll try to point you to some general-purpose mics instead.

AKG Perception 120 - This is the one I use in my studio. It's a good general purpose mic that has a very crisp sound. It comes in a nice case with a shock mount. It usually goes for around $120.

Shure SM57 - This is a classic mic that has been in use for something like 30 years. It generally goes for $70 to $100. It works great for guitar amps and drum kits, (just don't put it too close to the kick drum; that'll be too much for it) and if you get a decent preamp, it works pretty well for vocals too.

Wait, what is a preamp? What a great question! A good microphone needs power to sound good. Some microphones can work with very little power but they're not very sensitive, i.e. your computer microphone that comes with your webcam. The more power your microphone has, the better your overall recording quality will be. A preamp's job is to provide power to your microphone, which your mixer or audio interface may not be able to do. My M-Audio FireWire 1814 audio interface also acts as a preamp, but I'm thinking about picking up a separate one.

Don't forget to check out my article How Microphones Work.

Cables

You should get cables for each device you have. Don't scrimp here. A cable for each microphone you have, two 1/4 inch cables for each synthesizer or drum machine you have. Also, you may be tempted, as I was, to get shorter cables to save money. This really isn't a good idea. 3-foot cables are almost useless unless your device sits right on top of your audio interface. Get at least 6-foot cables for everything. You might consider getting a particularly long mic cable, as you never know how you might set up a mic and you may need some extra length to accommodate.

Everything Else

There are lots of other items you'll most likely want to round out your studio and make it more usable.

Mic stand - If you have a microphone, you want a mic stand as well. What, are you going to hire someone to hold the mic in front of the guitarist while he plays?

Stools/chairs - A musician needs to sit on something while they play, especially during long recording sessions. Simple, cheap stools or chairs do the trick.

Instrument stands - for putting guitars and such on between records. A rack could work pretty well also.

Vocal booth - If the room for your studio has a closet, this is a great opportunity to turn that into a vocal booth. You often want an intimate sound when recording vocals, and even in a padded studio room a voice can sound echoey in recordings. This is why professionals have separate recording booths. If you don't have a closet, try to find some other way to isolate a singer as best you can. Always experiment!

Mini-fridge/food - Long studio sessions can lead to hunger. Always keep musicians happy and fed.

Couch - for lounging. 'Nuff said.

Now get in there and start making some music. Let me know how it goes!

Go to part 5: What Speakers Should I Get?

>>> Go back to the index

Audio Recording Software for Your Studio

This is Part 4 of the Makeshift Musician's Comprehensive Guide to Building Your Own Studio

We're now down to the last big component of your beast of a studio. To add this last piece, we need to dive into the prickly, sometimes confusing realm of software. Luckily for you, though, there are a lot of easy options to work with.

What does the software do? In the old days of recording, I'm talking, say, pre-Beatles era, audio-guys would just stick a microphone in front of a preforming band. The band would play, the mic would record onto a big reel of tape, and the audio-guy would call it a day and presumably get trashed afterward. Now, we've all listened to those old recordings and, well, they've got personality, but overall they sound pretty bad.

There's a misconception among folks that modern stuff sounds great in comparison because our space-age microphones and recording media are simply better, but that's actually only a very small part of the reason. Most engineers can't even tell the difference between a well-built microphone from the 1930's and a well built microphone just off the assembly-line.

The real reason modern recordings sound so good is because of the multitrack recording technique. Essentially multitracking allows you to record and synchronize multiple tracks at the same time, drums on one track, guitar on another and your vocals on a third, for example. You can add effects and edit each of these tracks without affecting the others or destroying or really even changing the original audio, allowing you free reign to tweak the sound until it's perfect. Since the edits you make are on top of the audio in a separate layer instead of integrated into it, if you mess up you don't need to rerecord -- you just take off the edit and you still have your pristine file. For a more in-depth explanation of how it works, read my very first article: An Introduction to Multitrack Recording. Back yet? Okay, now we can delve into software.

There are several options at your disposal and in fact some of them happen to be free of charge. Lets take a look at the free ones first.

GarageBand - If you're using an Apple computer for your studio, then, lucky you, you've already got software built-in. Professionals may scoff at it, but GarageBand is a true, honest-to-god multitrack system, that you can use to record real stuff. Like all Apple products, it's easy to use. This would be a great place to start, and it won't cost you a dime if you've already got a Mac.

Kristal - Another free bit of software, Kristal is so good they could charge $100 for it and people would be willing to pay it. 16 audio tracks, effects built in. VST support. This has everything. If you're just starting out, get this first. You can't beat free.

Those are the nice free ones, and are probably good enough for anything you might need. If you really want to go pro, however, then following is the studio software that'll take big chunks out of your wallet. Keep in mind, all these are competing with each other for your business, but really, ask any professional and they'll tell you they all do the same thing. The important thing is that you take the time to learn to use your software effectively.

DigiDesign ProTools - ProTools is usually the software choice for professionals. You can get the LE version for around $150. The high-end, HD version is much more, but seriously, you probably won't need it. The nice thing about ProTools is that there's a lot of specialized hardware, like mixing consoles and audio interfaces, that can accompany the software seamlessly. DigiDesign has built a whole, unified system around ProTools and supports it really well. I've used it some, and I believe it is geared more towards traditional studio recording, so it may have just slightly less support for purely electronic and MIDI setups.

Steinberg Cubase - This here is my software of choice. Steinberg invented the VST (Virtual Studio Technology) system, which is a platform, of sorts, for developers to create new systems that 'plug in' to Cubase, so you can add things like new effects processors or synthesizers. It has been so successful that other companies have added VST support to their systems. Anyway, Cubase is more geared towards electronic setups, but it can handle pure acoustic recording just fine, as I've used it for both. Cubase Studio 5, the current lower end version, goes for $299, which is pretty pricey.

Cakewalk Sonar - To be honest I don't know a whole lot about Cakewalk, and their product line is a little convoluted, but I know there are some artists that swear by it. The Home Studio version goes for a paltry (by comparison) $100, so it may be the most cost-effective of the bunch.

Remember to approach your software as you would an instrument: This is something you need to practice with and learn the intricacies of before you can really be effective with it. Find tutorials online and record and experiment as much as you can.

You'll most likely be overwhelmed by all the stuff onscreen when you boot up your software of choice for the first time. Here are some items to help get you oriented:

1. Find out how to get your Audio Interface talking to your Software. This is the first thing you need to do. You want to be able to hook up a microphone and start recording, so make sure it actually works when you do it. Go through the manuals for both products, and if all else fails ask the internet: search for both items in a single query on Google.

2. Figure out how to make new tracks. Also, each track has a 'recording input.' This is how it decides where it gets it's sound, be it from the microphone or the synthesizer or the bass guitar. Find out how to set this.

3. Automation. It's generally fairly simple to see how to change the volume of a track manually, but what you really want is to have the volume change throughout the song automatically, such as when an instrument fades out. This is usually called automation. Automation can cover other things too, like panning the sound left and right, or mixing effect levels.

4. Find the keyboard shortcuts. I can't emphasize this enough. Learn the keyboard commands! They will make your life easier.

5. Learn how to use Equalization and Effects. Equalization (EQ) is your best friend. You can use it to cut or boost, with great precision, any range of frequencies in your individual audio tracks. You do this so that you can fit lots of different sounds together without it all sounding like mud. Fiddle around with EQ a lot to learn how it works. Also experiment with effects as much as you can.

Go to part 3: Audio Interface, or How to Get Sound into the Computer

>>> Go to Part 5: What Speakers Should I Get?

Audio Interface, or, How to Get Sound into Your Computer

This is Part 3 of the Makeshift Musician's Comprehensive Guide to Building Your Own Studio

Now that you've got a computer, it's entirely possible that you're now standing in front of it with your guitar or piano or whatever, your eyes slowly moving back and forth between the two objects in a confused manner, wondering how to get sound into machine. At least, that's what I did.

You see, computers don't normally come with a usable audio interface. Sure, you've got a sound card, and it probably has a tiny microphone jack, but you're not actually thinking of using that, are you? Are you??

So what is an audio interface? It's a box that hooks up to your computer, usually through FireWire (you did remember to get a computer that has FireWire capability, right?) On this box is a number of inputs, for taking in sound, and outputs for, uh, outputting sound. I've made a little diagram to show you how it all works. This is to give you an idea of roughly how your studio should be set up:

Click on the image to see it full-size.

Now here are the different components that you want to look for in an audio interface:

Mic inputs

What can I say? These are for your microphones. If you do any acoustic stuff (guitars, drums, vocals, sound effects etc.) your audio interfac e should have at least two of these inputs on it. If you're recording a whole band, you'll want as many mic inputs as possible.

1/4-inch Line inputs

These are for bass guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, drum machines, turntables or anything electronic. If you've got a rack full of synths, you'll want more of these.

MIDI inputs

It's hard to find an audio interface that doesn't have MIDI inputs and outputs, but make sure yours has these anyway, especially if you're planning an all-software electronic setup.

With all this in mind, here are a few interfaces I found with a little digging on Sweetwater.com:

PreSonus Inspire 1394 - This has two 1/4-inch inputs and two mic inputs for $200. No MIDI though.

Roland Edirol FA-66 - Now we're talkin'. 2 mic inputs, 4 1/4-inch inputs, RCA inputs (you know, those red-and-white cables on your DVD player?) MIDI in and out, this one looks pretty sweet. Not bad for $280.

Alesis iO|26 - If you've got a larger studio setup, or you just want to get fancy, this has more inputs than you'll ever need, plus you can use it to control your software. $430.

In my studio, I use an M-Audio FireWire 1814 , though these seem to be increasingly hard to find these days. It has eight 1/4-inch inputs, two mic inputs, MIDI and some other nice features. When it works, it works well, but it tends to crash a lot. Remember to do a lot of research before plunking down your cash for one of these devices. You can find reviews for just about any product by typing in the product name followed by the word 'review' on Google.

Hopefully, this can get you started with choosing an interface. What you get depends on your needs as a musician and recording artist. For example, I have more synths and workstations, so my interface has more 1/4-inch inputs. Some of you might have an all software setup, so you may only need midi inputs, in which case you'll be spending very little on hardware and spending more on software.

Speaking of software, that's our next issue to tackle. See you next week!

Go to Part 2: Get a Computer for Your Studio

>>> Go to Part 4: Audio Software

The Makeshift Musician's Comprehensive Guide to Building Your Own Studio

So you have a great band or you're a composer and you really want to make a sweet album yourself, but you don't know where to start? How does someone even record music? How does one go about putting together a studio? Don't you need to go to school for that kind of thing?

Fear not, gentle reader. Like the majestic albatross, I swoop down from the heavens and bestow upon you the greatest tool you'll ever receive, The Makeshift Musician's Comprehensive Guide to Building Your Own Studio.

My article Make Your Own Recording Studio is the most popular piece on this site. I've always felt like it was a bit short and lacking, so I really wanted to make something, well, more comprehensive and valuable. I hope this guide can help you make the whole process of home recording a little less daunting and mysterious and more fun.

Remember that there are roughly 5 million different ways to build a studio, and what I'm telling you covers just one way. The studio I've built for myself is a pretty good general purpose setup that is also highly portable and easily changeable, and that's about what you'll see in this guide.

• Part 1: Do-It-Yourself Sound Dampening
• Part 2: Get a Computer
• Part 3: Audio Interface, or Getting Sound into the Computer
  
• Part 4: Software
  
• Part 5: What Speakers Should I Get? (Older article recruited for the Guide)
  
• Part 6: Microphones, Cables and Everything Else for Your Studio
  

Get a Computer for Your Studio

This is Part 2 of the Makeshift Musician's Comprehensive Guide to Building Your Own Studio.

The computer is the most important part of your studio. It is the brain, the place where all the audio and data crunching happens. You can make a studio without one, using a dedicated mixing console, but I find it more useful and intuitive to just use a computer. You can use it for not only recording, but also mastering and manipulating your files.

So what do you look for in a computer? The general rule of thumb is the more powerful, the better. You need RAM to manipulate multiple audio tracks at the same time; essential for multitrack studios. You need hard drive space to store all these recorded tracks. Again, that is essential. You need a speedy CPU so you can actually hear the audio while you're editing it, without delays. Jeez, it's starting to sound like you simply need the most expensive machine available, doesn't it?

Here's the thing though. If you have a computer that was built in the last few years, then it can probably work with multitrack software, and you can use it for your studio, just fine. You don't absolutely need the most powerful system money can buy. Computer makers prey on people's desire to own the best product and will release new systems every few months to maximize their profits. You don't need to give in to their pressure. As long as you have a system that works fine for you, you have no need to upgrade. Wrap that thing in duct tape and write "NO UPGRADES EVER" on it . That'll keep it working for years.

I'm reluctant to write down precisely what you should get since standards do change over time and will potentially make this article out of date. It is good to have a reference though, so I'll put the minimum that you should have in order to have a seamless, trouble free experience. Hopefully, if you're an advanced space-musician from the future, my writing will help you get the gist of what you should get for your Infini-core DNA Supercomputer even if the numbers I list seem laughably out of date.

• CPU: Get something 1.5 Ghz or faster. This may sound a bit low to gamers or graphic designers but the fact is people have done multitracking on computers since the 1980's with much, much slower CPU's than that. I've personally recorded professional-level audio using Cubase on machines that were 700 Mhz and 1.5 Ghz and it's always worked without a hitch. This is the one area where you can afford to cut costs a little. Right now my iMac is a 2.4 Ghz. Not the fastest but it's respectable.
• RAM: Simply get as much as you can afford. Again, I've recorded with as low as 512 megs and it worked out alright. Each track you record and mix into a song uses a chunk of your RAM while you're working on it. As you can imagine, it really starts to add up as you go and there is undeniably an upper limit to how many tracks you can have going at once. To guarantee a high number of tracks and a good comfort level for you, don't go below 1 gigabyte.
• Hard Drive: You're going to be recording lots of audio, probably more than you realize right now, and you need a place to store it all. Get a big hard drive. Hard drives are relatively cheap these days, and a hundred dollars can get you pretty high capacity. Get two and use one to back up the other.
• FireWire Port: Make sure your computer has a FireWire port or two. This will be necessary if you use an external device to plug in all your audio equipment. It will also be good if you use an external hard drive to backup your data.

Now, I'm going to break from my already feeble grasp of professionalism and give you some unofficial, personal, man-to-person advice, based on my experience. Get a Mac. I've used Windows-based PC's for lots of things, including recording. They generally work fine, but man, nothing is easier to use than a Mac. They're built for this kind of thing. You plug stuff into it and it works. A Mac works so well, in fact, that it is invisible. I never even have to think about it when I'm writing music or recording or backing up files or whatever. It's like using a reliable appliance: you turn it on and forget about it. Though I can't give up Windows on my sweet gaming rig, I'll probably never go back to PC for recording.

That said, there's nothing wrong with using a PC for recording. In some cases it may be better because any given piece of software is more likely to be written for Windows rather than Mac. And of course, PCs are cheap, and Apple has never understood the meaning of 'affordable', so that's not in their favor either.

What about a display? When working with software like ProTools or Cubase it's nice to have a big display with high resolution. A lot of data is displayed at once and can things go quicker when you don't have to keep closing some windows to make room for others. Many studios employ a dual-monitor setup (or duel-monitor setup, if they're badass.) For me, this is a luxury that I simply can't afford at the moment. It's nice, but not really necessary. Again, the general rule of thumb is the bigger the better, but even if you can only afford a 15-inch monitor, you'll still get by.

So, you've got your sweet computer, now how should you take care of it once you set it up for your studio?

The setup: The computer keyboard should always be placed in a way that makes it readily accessible. This may sound obvious, but it's always tempting, when working with limited space, to have your musical keyboard in front of you and push the computer keyboard to the side. This isn't going to be like web browsing where you only need your mouse, however. You will want to learn all the keyboard commands, or better yet, set them yourself, so that you can operate this beast with maximum efficiency. I've used a studio setup where the keyboard was mostly out of reach, and without having every function at the push of a button it can be almost crippling.

Backups: If you're the tech-savvy type, then you probably can come up with some sort of fancy automated system for regularly backing up your data. Even if you're like the rest of us, however, you can still backup your files pretty easily. Whatever kind of operating system you choose, Mac or Windows, learn the basics of how the filesystem works: know how to create folders, copy files and move them around. You bought two hard drives, right? On a regular basis, copy all your important music files over to this second drive.

Now that you've got your computer, it's time to start making some music on it. Check out the rest of the articles in the series, including getting an audio interface and software for your machine.

This is part 2 of the Studio Guide

Go to part 1: Do-It-Yourself Sound Dampening

>>> Go to part 3: Audio Interface, or, How to Get Sound Into Your Computer

The Beginner's Guide to Becoming a Musician

If you're looking to learn about playing, writing or recording music in some way, any way, but don't quite know where to start, this is for you.

So you want to start making music? You want to be the next Bach? Have lots of ideas and want to make a CD? Perhaps you just have a serious deficiency of groupies in your life and you want to change that? Whatever brought you here, you want to make music in some way, and doing that may not be as hard as you think. This guide will act as your starting point on your new path. Regardless of what instrument you want to play, or what kind of music you want to get into, this guide will show you how to get started, from choosing an instrument and learning to play it to composing and eventually recording.

Before you start

If you're completely convinced of your own ineptitude, or you think it is too late for you to take up the difficult task of making music, then I've got something to say to you:

You Don't Need Musical Talent to Make Music

Getting an instrument

The most popular instruments in Western society are the rock staples (guitar, bass guitar and drums) and piano. There are plenty of other instruments out there to choose from though, if you feel like doing something different. If you haven't decided yet, take a look at this article for advice on choosing and buying an instrument:

Picking up an Instrument

If you've picked piano, here are couple of other articles that you should check out:

Starting out with Piano
Piano Playing Tips for Beginners - (note: while this article was technically written for pianists, the lessons generally apply to all instruments)

Becoming a better listener

As you start to play music, you'll discover an interesting phenomenon: you'll notice more about the musical world around you. After a while, you'll gain the ability to de-construct all the different music that you've been listening to. This is a wonderful experience and will make you a more observant person in general. Now is a good time to take the initiative and start actively becoming a more deliberate listener. Try the techniques listed in these articles and discover new dimensions in music that you never understood before:

Introduce Yourself to New Musical Genres
Listening to Music Intelligently

Composing music

I have two things to say here about composing music, whether it's a short rock song or a 20-minute symphony. 1. All music, and I mean all of it, is made of of the same basic components, which means that if you can write a bluegrass song, you can also make a disco song, a dirge, a traditional Japanese folk song or anything else you could imagine with the same basic techniques. 2. There's no special talent or magical skill needed to write music. If you have the ability to make pleasing sounds on your instrument of choice, then you also have the capability to compose your own songs. Once you've learned some music theory, even just a little, you'll realize how simple it is. If you can take a pile of colored blocks and arrange them in an interesting pattern, then you'll be pleased to know that while writing music is a bit more complicated, it's still pretty much the same basic concept. If you're still not convinced, this might change your mind:

Gain the Confidence to Compose Music

Then look over these once you've decided to take the plunge:

Don't Find Inspiration: Create It
Daily Songwriting Exercise

Making a studio and recording music

This is possibly the most complicated part of being a musician, but it can also be the most fun overall. Recording is also most likely the most mysterious aspect of music creation for beginners. Years ago, the recording realm belonged solely to the professionals with expensive studios. Now that computers have changed literally everything in our society, anyone can make a studio of their own and even make their music sound fairly professional with minimal equipment.

There are a couple of things you need to know when delving into the recording world. First is the concept of multitracking. You need to understand how that works before you can understand how a studio works:

An Introduction to Multitrack Recording

Knowing and understanding the components of a studio and how they relate to each other make up the second important part of what you need to know. You can learn this and how to build your own studio on a minimal budget in the Makeshift Musician's most popular article, short and snappy:

Make Your Own Recording Studio

or go in depth with the ultimate resource:

The Makeshift Musician's Comprehensive Guide to Building Your Own Studio

Read these too:

What Speakers Should I Get?
Do-It-Yourself Sound Dampening

Once you've got your studio up and running, this would be a good read:

How to Make the Best Recordings on Earth

Beyond

What is left to learn, now that you've become a prolific, multi-talented musician? Believe it or not, there's still a lot we don't know about music and how it affects us. There's much to learn, and you could devote your whole life to music and still not learn everything there is to know about it. Here are a couple of articles that may help guide you towards a deeper understanding of the mysterious phenomenon that is 'organized sound':

The second most popular article on the site: The Importance of Music to Humankind
Book Review: This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin
The Origins of American Music

How to Make the Best Recordings on Earth

Thanks to Jade from OffBeatLove for the article idea

I recently went to see a great funk band perform at a big event. I've been into funk music lately and I really liked their sound; enough that I decided to buy their CD after the show. I was pleased to learn that the album contained pretty much the same set that the band played at the show, and since their set was fantastic I was excited when I put it in the CD player in my car a few days later.

Well... It was clear that it was the same band. The talent showed through, but... it was just so dull! I kept skipping tracks, ready for the next one to blow me away with some badass funkiness. Instead I got that disappointing feeling of being underwhelmed. (Now you know why I don't name the band itself!)

Why does this happen? How does a great band make such a stunningly mediocre album? The answer, good reader, is what I call conservative recording.

Let's say you're just learning how to record. You've learned all the rules of proper recording, like avoiding overloading and conventional EQ techniques. For example, you are supposed to record with a loudness threshold at just below the point of overloading (overloading causes distortion) and you are expected to keep the entire mix that way. When using EQ you are told to dampen tracks instead of boosting them whenever possible. Reverb is only for room ambiance. These and many other techniques make up what is considered 'correct' recording: methods for making music that is pleasing to listen to.

It is vitally important that you learn these rules and implement them. Understanding why these guidelines and practices have been established will make you a better recording artist. What I'm getting at though may involve a fundamental rethinking of the recording and mixing act itself.

In both the visual and musical arts, the great, respected masters have spent years learning the rules of their craft. A master painter has learned perspective, light and shadow, and anatomy techniques. A master musician and composer has a deep understanding of music theory, like chord progressions, rhythm and melody. Their status of 'master' however, was not achieved by their technical skill alone, but also from the skillful way that they bent and broke conventions in ways that surprise and move us and allow us to see the world from a new perspective. Yet they could not have achieved any of that without first learning the rules. One who has no technical skill and who simply breaks conventions will likely end up producing ugly art, and one who has great technical skill but doesn't surprise us will end up boring us to tears. Both trained skill and the creative violation of expectations are necessary to make great art.

How does this all apply to recording? Instead of viewing recording as a means of getting your live performance on tape, you should instead be looking at your recorded music as a separate kind of performance, in a way unrelated to your live one. The recording act should be seen as an integral part of the performance, rather than a means to an end. How you mix your music will affect how people enjoy it, so it should be given just as much care and attention as your playing.

Let your drums overload a bit. Crank the midrange equalizer on your guitar track in a way you've never heard before. Use effects in unconventional ways. Never be afraid to break the rules of recording to see how it sounds. The beauty of digital recording is that you can simply change it back if you don't like it.

Give your recordings some life! Do everything you can to make the recording as breathtaking as the live performance. You and I both know that this is possible, but as long as you keep viewing recording as an obstacle in the way of your music, then you'll never be able to achieve true studio greatness. The problem with the funk band was that they recorded and mixed their music very well, with great technical proficiency, but they didn't take advantage of the opportunities available to them with producing an album.

The sound made by musical instruments and human voices are fundamentally altered and weakened when recorded and played back. You can easily tell the difference between a real guitar playing and one playing through a speaker. This is why we have studios in the first place; you can't just put a microphone in front of a band and expect the recording to sound great. You need to use the recording and mixing tools at your disposal to make that band sound incredible.

So do it. Learn the essentials of good recording, and then add the same level of passion and creativity to your studio work as you would anything else that you love do. Don't play it conservatively. Do it like you mean it, and your album will be something you're proud about.

Do-It-Yourself Sound Dampening

This is part 1 of the Makeshift Musician's Comprehensive Guide to Building Your Own Studio

Maybe if you're just starting out with your studio you haven't given it much thought, but do you realize what professionals do when they build a studio? They design the entire place from the ground up, making walls with crazy angles and covering them with different materials. Then they make a separate room for a drum kit and another separate room for vocalists. They cover the walls with either unusually-shaped wood or this unbelievably expensive foam padding with tons of little pyramids cut into it.

Obviously, we at home can't recreate this stuff, but we can throw together our own acoustic dampening setup without giving up thousands of dollars and our first-born.

Most of us don't really get to choose where our studio is, we just have to deal with whatever room we can fit the studio in. I've had, as a studio, my childhood bedroom, a college dorm room, the single-bedroom in a single-bedroom apartment, and the one-car garage of a much nicer apartment. If, however, by some stroke of good fortune you can choose where your studio is, try to choose a room that is somewhat isolated from everything else. You want to be loud and not have to worry about neighbors or roommates attempting to bludgeon you to death after you've played the same guitar solo eighty times just to get it right.

Once you've got your place, what can we do to make it less echo-y? Here are some of my suggestions:

EDIT: My astute readers have suggested that the things I mention the upcoming paragraphs tend to do very little for acoustic dampening, and that the difference between cheap foam and expensive foam is a lot more than pretentiousness. After just a little bit of research, I have to agree with them. Take a look at some of their fantastic advice in the comments section.

Rugs: Go to Goodwill or Wal-Mart and get some big, ugly shaggy carpets like your Aunt has in her living room and nail them to your wall. The more hideous the color, the more fun you'll have putting them up.

Pictures: Since they have flat, non-porous surfaces, pictures would seem like a bad choice for acoustic dampening. However, anyone who's ever moved knows that a room sounds really obnoxious until you put some pictures up on the walls. Get some pictures that you know will inspire creativity.

Egg-crate-style mattress pads: For the true faux-professional look, get some of these while you're at Wal-Mart. Remember, the only difference between expensive acoustic foam and cheap mattress foam is pretentiousness.

Furniture: You'd be surprised at how well furniture can not only scatter sound waves, but also make the studio more comfortable for everyone. Get an old couch or easy chair and see how it changes the feel of the place.

Just remember that the more angles you have in the studio, the more sound gets bounced away harmlessly from your microphones, which is what you want. You don't want the place stark and hospital-like, but you don't want it overly cluttered either. Try to make your studio into something cozy and comfortable and inspiring. I hang huge wall-hangings full of weird geometric patterns in my studio, which have the double-effect of dampening sound and looking awesome at the same time. Experiment a lot and you'll likely find some combination of things that works perfect for you.

This is part 1 of the Studio Guide

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>>> Go to Part 2: Get a Computer For Your Studio

Random Music Making Techniques, Volume 1

There are lots of cool hints and techniques I've wanted to share, but I couldn't think of a good context in which to deliver them. So decided to just put them together in a series of articles. Enjoy!

Stealth Chords: So you have an interesting chord progression in your song. Instead of just leaving your chords as basic triads or whatever, try to change them up a little to make them unique. Take out some of the notes, or arppegiate it occasionally. This may help make the chords blend better with the rest of the music, and it will keep surprising the listener.

Fadeouts: Many folks hate fadeouts. I think they're pretty cool, if done well. If you're doing a fadeout at the end of your song, try introducing a new element just seconds before the song fades out completely. Something like a new melody or maybe a new melody played by a new instrument. This makes the fade out more interesting and will make the song feel like its part of something larger.

Hard Panning: If you have an element in your song that's in the center channel but you want it to have a nice, big presence, try doubling the track and then panning one hard left and one hard right. Sometimes this can give the sound a large enveloping feel.

Key Changes: You've seen Jeopardy right? You know the Jeopardy song? Halfway through it they do a key change, but they don't change anything in the song! It's the exact same music, just transposed up a few steps. I hate this with the fire of a thousand suns. I call that 'technique' artificial lengthening. There's nothing wrong with key changes; they can add so much life to your piece, but for the love of Mike, at least change the melody, if not everything else. Okay, rant over.

Orchestras Play in Concert Halls: remember that if you are making orchestral/symphonic sounding stuff, reverb is very important! Listen to any orchestral recording and you'll hear lots of beautiful reverberation. Spend a lot of time tweaking your settings until it sounds like a real concert hall, and consider simply putting a reverb effect over the entire mix. Whichever works best.

Radio Voice: When recording vocals, for whatever purpose, I've found that a lot of amateurs won't mess with equalization much and leave the voice as is. It's a good idea to play around with the vocals, for instance try cutting out some of the low end. This will often give it a more realistic sound, allow it to mix better, and avoid that deep, booming 'radio voice'. Pay attention to some of your favorite albums and you'll see that the singer doesn't have a lot of deep low-end in his or her voice.

That's all for this edition! Feel free to add your own writing or production techniques in the comments section.

Make Music on Your Computer Right Now for Nothing

Even the studio in my article about building one cost a few hundred dollars at minimum. If the words "a few hundred dollars" make you run for your food stamps, you might need to start with something a little cheaper, like perhaps in the no dollar range. I've listed three options that I've found on the internet over the years, and each one is for a different kind of musician or composer. If you're like me and you're a little bit of all three types, then try all of them:

For those who play an instrument or have a band and want to record it:
Kristal Audio Engine

This could be Window's answer to the Mac's GarageBand. You get 16 tracks and a professional-grade interface. This is a great way to get yourself acquainted with multitrack software.

For you electronic/software nerds:
Jeskola Buzz

They call it 'the first free soft-studio'. The idea is that it's an entire studio's worth of gear running on your computer. It has low system requirements and it's fun to use once you get the hang of it. Note that there's quite a learning curve to get past, and your music is strictly electronic-based. If that's what you're going for and you have some patience then this is for you.

For you of the ruffled shirt, powdered wig and real music training:
Finale Notepad

If you know how to write music on a staff and enjoy doing so, then this is perfect. It's so easy to use that a one-armed dyslexic monkey could do it. You select your time- and key-signatures when you start a new piece and then it automatically calculates the structure of each measure for you as you place notes. Without ever using it before, I was able to fire it up and transcribe 8 measures of a piano song I've been working on in about 15 minutes.

I was just kidding about the ruffled shirt and powdered wig thing. Although if you do wear these items, please send me a picture.

The Difference Between Reverb and Echo

When you're working on music and you want to add some nice room ambiance to a vocal track that you recorded dry, you add reverb. But when you're in a large room and you hear your own voice distinctly coming back to you, you call it echo. Wait, what? What gives? Is there a difference?

'Reverb' isn't just some fancy term to make industry professionals feel elite, though I'm sure it has that effect. Reverb and echo are two different things. Here are the technical definitions of each:

Reverb is characterized as random, blended repetitions of a sound occurring within thirty milliseconds after the sound is made. This is all the sound that immediately bounces off any nearby surfaces before it gets back to your ears. So first you'll hear the original sound and then all the stuff bouncing off the walls, furniture, trees, people, giraffes and even acoustic tiling. Your brain is specially equipped to notice reverberations before your conscious perception does. It blends the reverb with the original sound before you even notice it and then tells you that it all came from the same location, just so you don't get confused. Weird, huh? With enough practice though, you can turn off this feature and notice the reverb that occurs in every space. Snap your fingers, or as I do, make a sharp clicking sound with your mouth, and try to listen to the room around you instead of yourself. You'll start to hear it. Try it in different rooms. It'll sound different each time.

Echo is defined by distinct repetitions of a sound occurring after 30 milliseconds. This is when you can unquestionably hear a distinct... well, echo of a sound coming back to you. When you are at a big canyon or inside a gigantic room and you, of course, say "Hello!" and then a moment later you hear it again, that's echo. For some reason, in the world of music production, it's called 'delay'. The term 'echo' is, to my knowledge, never used. What's wrong with 'echo'? I have no idea.

Next time you're at the Grand Canyon, a cathedral or an ancient meteor impact site, try some of these other phrases instead of boring ol' "Hello!":

"I'm not a crook!"
"Olly-Wolly Poliwogy Ump Bump Fizz!"
"Nooooooooooo!"
"AMPA receptors are both glutamate receptors and cation channels that are integral to plasticity and synaptic transmission at many postsynaptic membranes."
"meine hosen sind juckende!"

What Speakers Should I Get?

This is Part 5 of the Makeshift Musician's Comprehensive Guide to Building Your Own Studio

Some folks, upon hearing that I had a studio, would immediately ask about what speakers I had. This aspect seemed to be the most important part to them. Audiophiles and engineers are a special breed. They love their speakers, to a degree that is frankly a little beyond me. This kind of thing used to intimidate me. You may be experiencing this if you have an audiophilic friend. You may feel the pressure to get some really expensive speakers as part of your rig/studio. Is this something you should be worrying about?

Before I give my opinion, let me get some things out of the way first. The point of high quality studio monitors (which is what audio folks call speakers) is to give a producer a flat frequency response. That means that all frequencies, from the deepest bass to most nasally voice to the highest note on a piccolo are given the same amount of power. The speaker will not favor any particular frequency range, so to speak. This helps the producer make a clean, well-balanced mix. If his speakers have a tendency for a heavy amount of bass (like most of the speakers you'll find at Best Buy), then the producer's music will probably end up with a weak bass sound, if he's not careful.

So should you be spending hundreds of dollars to get yourself a nice pair of real studio monitors, so you can have an authentic, flat sound? Only if you want to. I'd say when you're starting out, don't bother. Get something halfway decent and be happy. When you are working on your music, you should be more concerned with listening to your mix on a variety of speakers. When your song is nearly finished, burn it to a CD and listen to it in the car, on your home theater if you have it, boom box, laptop, weird ipod accessory, whatever you have. You will learn a lot from this sonic variety and you'll be able to make a great mix.

What do I have? For my studio, I do, in fact, use studio monitors. They're fairly cheap ones though: a pair of Behringer B2031P's. You need an amp for them, but they're still relatively inexpensive for a makeshift musician like me. On my Windows computer, the one I use for mastering and playing games, I have the Logitech Z-2300 set. It sounds great and I love it. If these sound good enough for me to do mastering, they should be good for anything.

Some things to consider when buying speakers:

Size DOES matter: No matter what some manufacturers might tell you, tiny speakers are physically incapable of giving you a rich, full sound. Sound waves are literally shaped like the object they come from. Sound waves from a guitar are actually guitar-shaped. Because of the large resonating chamber that the guitar has, it's lower frequencies are massive. A small, 4 inch high speaker absolutely cannot accurately recreate the sound of a guitar's resonating chamber simply because of its size. My audio engineering teacher said once that the ideal speaker would match the exact size and shape of whatever it was recreating. Keep that in mind when buying speakers. If you want a nice, full sound, get something bigger; at least somewhat bigger than your fist. My Logitech's are relatively small, but they have a nice big subwoofer that helps makes up for it.

Speaker technology hasn't really changed or improved in years: Well-built speakers from, say, the 1970's will sound just as good as well-built modern speakers, provided they haven't deteriorated yet. Making speakers into weird pod shapes does not actually make them better. Any talk of this or some sort of new technology is just a gimmick. Don't be fooled! Look for simple claims of high quality instead.

Search online for reviews of speakers to see what is best for your price range. By reading a several reviews of the same product, you can generally triangulate its quality yourself. And when your audiophile friend gives you a hard time for not buying 500-dollar (each!) speakers, just let him (it's always a him) know that he was probably ripped off!

Go to part 4: Audio Software

>>> Go to part 6: Microphones, Cables and Everything Else

The Makeshift Musician's Studio

I apologize to my loyal readers for the lack of articles recently. Rest assured that I have a lot more content on the way for your enjoyment. Also, if there's anything you would like to see covered in this blog, please let me know.

A very astute reader may have already figured out my studio setup after reading all the articles so far. But for clarity, lets just go over everything in my own studio. What does a makeshift musician use? I was lucky enough to be blessed with a single car garage. In this garage I've cobbled together a fairly nice studio (if I do say so myself.) One of the problems with the garage is that it has a slightly sloped floor to keep water from getting in. This is a little annoying because it makes my chair swivel when it should stay still, but most of the time I don't notice. Here's a list of equipment:

2.5 Ghz Apple iMac with 2 megs of RAM - the iMac with OS X on it is so reliable that it's practically invisible. I almost never even think about the computer itself. This is what a computer should be. George Sanger, AKA The Fat Man talks in his book about turning the usually unreliable computer into a solid appliance by first making sure it is working and in stable condition, then sealing it up with duct tape and then writing "NO UPGRADES EVER" on it in sharpie. This is a great idea. Once your studio computer works well, try not to add much software or hardware to it. iMacs are great because they're already stable, self contained machines that work more like appliances than computers.

Steinberg Cubase SE - This is the software I use for recording and mixing. For the most part it is functionally identical to other software like Pro Tools and Cakewalk. The software's usefulness is really just a function of your own familiarity with it. Find a particular piece of software and stick with it. You'll get really good with it after a while.

M-Audio FireWire 1814 - This is how I hook up the keyboards, headphones, microphones and monitors (speakers) to the computer. When this thing works, it works perfectly. It is well built and solid. However, occasionally it will inexplicably lock up at random times, just like a computer crash. I have no idea what causes this, and it is always fixed simply by turning it off and on again, but it is incredibly annoying and is unacceptable for something so expensive. Next time I'll get something from a different manufacturer.

Behringer B2031P Studio Monitors - ('monitor' is a pretentious word for speaker) These are relatively inexpensive and have great sound. Highly recommended. You need to get an amp for them though.

Yamaha Motif ES-6 - This is a high-end workstation keyboard. It's interface is cryptic and difficult to learn. I've only barely learned it's basic functionality, but it has some powerful ability to manipulate sound. It has a fantastic bank of crisp, loud patches covering almost every genre imaginable. It's wind and guitar instruments, in particular, sound incredible. This is where the majority of my sounds come from.

Korg ES-1 Drum Machine - This thing is the oldest part of the Jupiterman studio. It's starting to show its age and has become much less relevant in recent years, but it it still reliable, tough-as-nails and embarrassingly easy to use. I say embarrassingly because the other devices that surround it are more advanced and more expensive and yet are still designed in a completely illogical way. If you've listened to music from jupiterman.net, you'll likely hear a lot of glitchy, multilayered percussion, as in Rebuilding a City, the second half of Apathetic Macrocosm (after the lyrics end), or Continuous Welded Rail. That is all from this one drum machine.

Novation XioSynth - A nice little synthesizer that replaced my old Korg Microkorg. It's a bit easier to use and has a more modern sound. I made a great recreation of a theremin with it. It's only problem is that it doesn't have MIDI input. Only an output, for some reason.

AKG Perception 200 Microphone - This is a crisp, full-sounding microphone with some nice features. Plus it is relatively inexpensive.

What else is in there?
- a microphone stand,
- a couple of stools for whoever is playing an instrument,
- a large plastic container full of scrap metal, balloons and some other random junk for sound effects,
- a bean bag chair left over from the previous tenant,
- a few hippie-looking wall hangings and carpets on the walls and floor for sound dampening,
- a pair of bongos,
- books on audio engineering and chord progressions,
- manuals galore,
- illustrations from Stephen King's Dark Tower series on the wall (a major inspiration for me),
- and some christmas lights that I haven't gotten around to hooking up

Tell me your studio setup and maybe it will be featured in a later article!

Do-It-Yourself Wireless Control Surface

I was looking through my gigantic, elephantine Sweetwater Sound catalog the other day an I came across this item:

It's a wireless control surface for your studio. It's very nice, with a transport wheel and display and all sorts of other nice functions. I'd love to have one myself. You can control your entire setup from anywhere in the room, which is particularly useful if you tend to record yourself, like I do. The idea is that your controls stay on your person so you don't have to hit record on your main setup, run across the room, pick up your instrument and then start playing. Anyway, having this fancy control panel would be cool and all, but look at the price! Two-hundred dollars!? I don't know about you, but I only know one, uh, person who can afford that luxury.

Since I'm not lighting cigars with hundred-dollar bills and throwing solid gold bars at pigeons for fun, a while back I bought this thing at Staples for about 30 bucks instead.

It, too, is a wireless control surface, and it has 80% of the usefulness. All you need to do is hook this thing up, start up your recording/mixing/ speadsheet/ whatever software and assign keys. I have functions like play/pause, set placemark, undo, record, create new track, and switching between various tools all mapped to my wireless keypad. I almost never touch the actual computer keyboard at all. It is much easier to record my own vocals when I don't have to take the headphones off and walk over to the main setup whenever I want to rerecord. I just hold the device while I'm singing.

Sure, it doesn't have it's own display or a cool transport wheel, but give me enough time and I might be able to come up with those too. Anyway, there are several different kinds of wireless keypads and input devices. They can totally make your life easier without the need for indentured servitude.

Start to Finish: The Process of Making a Song

The way I write songs may be a bit different than most. First of all, my songs don't exist in live form. I only write a song as a finished studio piece. Second, I generally don't know where the song is going when I start it. It can be a kind of messy way to make music, but it usually yields interesting results. Even my more focused songs, like Harvest or Continuous Welded Rail followed a similar writing process. I mostly deal electronic instruments, because I have a strong, possibly quixotic desire to be a one man show, but I'll occasionally throw in vocals or some live instrument part. Lets get to work!

Part I: Composing and Producing

I always start with one of two things: a concept for a type of sound, or a melody or chord progression. Sometimes I'll randomly come up with a melody at an unexpected time, or sometimes I'll stumble on one when playing around with the keyboard or banjo. Other times there will be a particular song that I like and I'll want to write something in a similar style. I never use those AB-whatever song structures that are so prevalent in pop music, nor do I try to come up with hooks for my songs. I love hooks, I'm just not particularly good with them.

Anyway, lets say I've got an interesting melody. I'll then practice playing it over and over with different instrument sounds, like piano, strings, synthesizers, maybe horns or something. During this time my left hand will often be searching for chords that fit with the melody as well. Eventually, I'll find a sound that clicks with me and I can picture an entire soundscape surrounding the melody, which is when I get to work.

First I'll decide the tempo I want the song to be at. I do this by tapping a special button on my drum machine that gives me a tempo readout based on my rhythm. I start a new song in Cubase and set that tempo. Then I'll pull up some drum preset on the keyboard and record it real quick and loop it. I'll choose a drum loop that roughly fits the feel I'm going for, though it is unlikely that it'll be used in the final production. This makes for a metronome, or click track, that is way better than the usual obnoxious beeping sound that the software gives you. Now I can play my melody along with a nice beat to keep time.

I'll record the melody first in MIDI format, which means instead of recording the sounds of my keyboard, I record the data of what keys I press onto a MIDI track in Cubase. After that, I'll tell Cubase to quantize my notes, which essentially means make minute changes to each note so that they're all in time with the rhythm. I don't do it too much or everything will sound too mechanical. But since I have just about the worst rhythm a musician could have, it's very useful. Once the notes are in place and they sound like someone with actual talent played them, I'll have the software MIDI track play my keyboard, and this time I actually record the sound. Often for simpler melodies or chords, I won't bother with the whole MIDI/Quantization thing.

I'll then record other parts in the same fashion, like a bass line or a sweet pad (a simpler background chord). I'll also start thinking about what kind of percussion I want. I make sure that I experiment with any instrument sound I can think of. I never leave out any possibility for any kind of sound. Who says you can't have harpsichord, oboe, a screaming synthesizer, xylophone and distorted rock drums all in one song? I'll never tell you that.

By this time I'll be thinking about new melodies to follow up the first one, new chords to move the song to, and transitions to tie the pieces together as I make them. Because I pretty much record as I write, a very experimental way to make music, I'll often end up with several versions of a song, each one going in different directions. Many of them are terrible, but by continually experimenting I'll find new avenues to write in. Working with each part is like working on a miniature song, since any one part can sound completely different from the next. Sometimes I'll go from purely symphonic to purely electronic to several layers of percussion without melodies, and each one requires a different mindset when mixing. This is also a good time to record anything acoustic, like bongos or, *shudder*, vocals.

Eventually I'll get to a point where I either think it would be a good place to end the song or I simply can't think of anything else to add. Sometimes I'll try to incorporate some elements from the beginning of the song into the end, to wrap things up nicely, but it isn't necessary.

Part II: Post Production and Mastering

After I have everything pretty much written, I get to the mixing and engineering stage. This is where it starts to sound less like a collection of disparate sounds and more like a cohesive song. I'll fix up the percussion and add in interesting rolls and crashes to spice up transitions between parts. I might add some small, quiet higher pitch melodies to complement the main ones. I'll change the volume levels on everything until it all sounds great. Remember this: Good volume levels on everything will mean the difference between a mediocre song and a great one. I'll add effects like reverb, filtering and distortion.

I'll keep tweaking it as much as I can. Then I'll leave it alone for a day or two. This is important. I'll leave it alone and make sure I listen to a lot of other music that's not mine during this time. When I come back to the song I'll have a much more neutral and fresh perspective. I'll tweak whatever I think needs work and then I'll burn the song to a CD. I'll listen to this CD in my car as I drive to see what it sounds like there. Listening to your song or mix on different sets of speakers is a great way to make it an excellent, well rounded mix. I often find, for instance, that the bass in my mix is a bit heavy in the car compared to my studio monitors. I'll also probably listen to the song on headphones, which you should be doing anyway occasionally when writing the song. This helps with tweaking the stereo image you've made in your mix.

Once I've listened to it in a few different environments I'll go back again and tweak whatever is left. Then I'll declare it done. (Maybe after listening to it in the car again?) I save it as a WAV file, and bring it to my Windows computer for mastering. I only do this because my mastering software ended up being Windows only. I'll add a very small amount of compression which I add to all my songs to give them a consistent volume level. Then I'll convert that to a high quality (256kbps) mp3 file, put all the necessary tags on it, and upload it to my website or send it to whoever may have asked for the song in the first place. I keep the master WAV file in several different places, (one on the Mac, one on the Windows machine, and one on a separate backup hard drive) to be safe. I also backup the original Cubase tracks as well, because you never know when you're going to need the original tracks when you're famous and some creatively starved rapper wants to pay you millions for the right to call your song his own.

Then I take a quick break and start all over again! If you want to hear examples of songs of mine that followed this procedure pretty much to the letter, listen to:

Falling Gracefully
Apathetic Macrocosm
Quantum Foam
Behold! The Mountain Cries

Postmortem - What I Learned From Producing a Game Soundtrack

Recently I completed my first soundtrack for a computer game; a turn-based strategy title in a stylized fantasy setting. Although the game is on the verge of cancellation, working on the score was a fantastic learning experience.

Generally, a composer is given artwork from a game, or if he's really lucky, an early playable copy of the software to play around with. I didn't have much artwork or software to go by. Actually, I didn't have any. I was writing the soundtrack based entirely on the background story and game structure that the director described to me over the phone and through email. So it wasn't quite the same experience that a composer for media usually has. Regardless, in the end, I had roughly 40 minutes of music spanning 15 tracks. Here are some of the things that I learned from the experience:

MIDI Quantization is your friend - I didn't start using MIDI quantization until this project, but now I've learned how useful it can be when trying to write and simultaneously record. MIDI Quantization is the process of playing a melody and then having the computer nudge the notes around a little to keep everything synced up with the tempo. Some would call it cheating, and it is in a way, but when you're writing an entire soundtrack and live performance is irrelevant, then it can save you a lot of time and frustration, and allow you to focus on quality of composition.

Restraint is an important musical technique to know - Because of the experimental nature of my writing style, I tend to simply throw in whatever sounds I think will make a song interesting. The game had a fantasy setting, so I couldn't go nuts with, say, the electronic elements as much as I would like. I had to stick with a smaller sonic palette than I normally use, a situation which tends to give a person a false sense of creative limitation. It will, however, force a composer to be more creative with the elements that he does have. This is probably why the soundtracks to all those old Nintendo games are so catchy: when you only have four channels of audio to work with, you tend to make those the best damn four channels of music you can possibly deliver.

I really, really need to learn more about chords and chord progressions - oh boy do I ever. Learn how to make a variety of good chord progressions or all your songs will start sounding the same. This has always been a problem of mine and it's starting to catch up with me. I learned a lot just from making so much music in a relatively short period of time, but there is still so much left to learn. If you learn as much as you can about chord progressions, and drill chord structures into your mind, you will become a much better musician.

When writing for others, you can't get too attached to what you make - You need to see everything you make objectively. Even when you think you've made your best work, the other members of the team may not like it at all, and you'll have to rewrite it. I was fortunate to have a team that gave me a lot of creative freedom, but I still needed to do the occasional rewrite.

You can learn a lot when you force yourself to write every day - In fact I wrote a whole article on this after finishing the soundtrack: Don't Find Inspiration: Create It. It is one of my most popular articles.

LABEL YOUR MUSIC TRACKS - I didn't really do this before I started the soundtrack, but now I can't stress this enough. If you have a 30 track song, and you need to re-record a particular string part but you just left all the tracks labeled as "track 21", "track 22" or something else equally generic, you're going to be miserable trying to figure out precisely which string patch you used before, especially if you first recorded it weeks ago. Label each track with precisely what was recorded, along with any special conditions involved in recording it.

I learned a lot of small technical things as well, but these are the most important, overarching lessons I've learned from writing and producing a score. I think they all can apply to music writing in general. Any other composers or producers wish to share their thoughts?

Head over to http://myspace.com/jupitermanmusic to hear a few samples from the game soundtrack: The Regrets of Man, The Inevitable and Legacy of the Dead.

How Microphones Work

Microphones are probably the most abused piece of equipment in the music world. Those poor, diligently working devices are so delicate and precise, and yet they receive the most degrading treatment. Have you seen how pop stars and folk singers behave on stage? They make out with their microphone like it was a sweaty, over-eager lover. It's a gruesome sight that we all seem to put up with for some reason; I suppose in the name of "art". Maybe if singers knew more about microphones they would stop molesting them and actually try using them properly.

Before you can understand how microphones work, you have to understand how sound works. Sound is simply vibrating air particles. That's it. There's nothing fancy going on, just the molecules of air shaking around a bit. For some perspective, wind is actually traveling air particles. For an analogy, sound is like waves on a body of water. The water is mostly just moving up and down. But if you have a hose (wind), spraying water around, that's a lot different.

Microphones are a type of transducer, which means they convert one form of energy into another. In this case they transform the energy of vibrating air (acoustic energy) into electrical energy. A speaker is a precise opposite of a microphone. It converts electrical energy into acoustic energy. Microphones and speakers are so similar, in fact, that if you were to somehow wire up a speaker in the same fashion as a mic, you could actually pick up some rudimentary acoustics (some really weird sounding rudimentary acoustics). You could probably rig up a mic like a speaker and try to get some sound out of it, but I don't know anyone who's tried and I'm pretty sure you'd wreck the microphone in the process.

There are two types of microphones: dynamic and capacitor.

Dynamic microphones use magnets and either a small metal coil or a metal ribbon that vibrates when sound hits it. As it vibrates it generates a voltage at a particular level. Dynamic mikes are rugged but not as precise or, ironically, dynamic as capacitor mikes.

A capacitor mic uses two plates to make a, well, capacitor (which means it holds an electrical charge): a fixed plate and a very thin plastic and metal diaphragm. It looks like this:

When vibrating air pushes the diaphragm around, it changes the space in between the two plates, causing a change in the voltage that it gives out. Tada! A variable electrical signal! Because there aren't any magnets to provide energy, capacitor mikes need what is called a pre-amp; essentially they need to be powered so that the capacitor can always hold a charge.

In addition to their different methods of gathering sound waves, mics are always built to have a particular pickup pattern. This is important to musicians. The pickup pattern is the direction from which a microphone gets its sound. I've made a handy diagram here for you, representing the three most common pickup patterns:

Omnidirectional mikes tends to pick up sound from everywhere. This is good when you're trying to pickup the sound of many people talking or general ambiance. Bidirectional mikes pickup sound sort of in a straight line on either side of the mic. I know people use these since companies keep making them, but I'll be damned if I know why anyone bothers. Cardioid mikes are very common. They are sometimes incorrectly referred to as unidirectional. I say incorrectly, because, if you look at that pattern, you can see that the term 'unidirectional' is kind of misleading. Still, cardioid mikes are the most directional and are generally the best for recording instruments and sounds, since they tend to block out most sounds not in their direct path.

A good thing to remember when looking at microphones is impedance. Impedance is how well a circuit restricts the flow of alternating current. This is measured in ohms (Ω). Now, we're getting into really technical territory and any minute now my brain will jump out of my head, pack up its bags and high-tail it to the nearest Amish village if I don't stop soon, so really what you need to know is that the lower impedance you have in a microphone, the better. With a lower impedance, the mic will have less electrical noise, which means a cleaner sound for your recording.

This is only a very basic overview of microphones. There's a lot more to learn about pickup patterns, transducers, acoustics, and microphone types. But at least now you know a little bit about the subject so you don't have to sound like a total audio weenie in the recording studio or at the music shop. And if you ever get sound out of your microphone, tell me about it, then punch yourself in the face since you just ruined a perfectly good mic.

Efficiency: The Key to Writing Better

Here's a saying that I came up with for musicians, (though I'm not about to claim ownership of it): Nothing should get in between you and your music. I live by this all the time. The point is that anything that makes your music writing more difficult than it has to be should be removed as soon as possible. Everything inconvenient for you is hurting your music writing ability.

Here's an example directly from my experience. When I first put together the real Jupiterman studio, everything was built around an Apple Powerbook that I had:

You can see the laptop there, perched behind the keyboard. Now Cubase, my recording software, allows you to perform most of the functions with just the keyboard, which I did. Using a mouse is an easy but slow method of operating a computer. The problem was that to actually hit any of the keys I would have to stand up out of my chair to reach them. Now this doesn't seem like much of a problem, but I after awhile I felt like maybe it was being detrimental. So I bought a small wireless numeric keypad and attached it to the arm of my chair with Velcro. I then mapped all the functions that I normally used to that device, like play/pause, record, rewind, undo, etc.

Instantly I noticed a huge difference. Canceling and rerecording took a fraction of second, and I didn't even have to take my other hand away from the piano keys. Before, it took much longer. Suddenly I found it much less annoying to do multiple takes over and over. It was far easier to focus on simply working hard to make the music better.

If you are struggling to find a way to keep your sheet music in front of you, just get a stand. You'll be so much happier with it and you can put all of your energy each day into playing rather than carefully positioning your music in front of you or craning your neck. Sometimes your obstacle may be a little more abstract. If you write music on a staff, don't just buy a book of blank sheet music, buy 5 of them. That way, you won't feel the need to conserve your paper for masterpieces and can focus on just writing.

You should be totally comfortable, both physically and mentally, when writing your music. Learn from the best; see what professionals and other musicians do and see if you can recreate their techniques. The easier it is to make your music, the better your results will be. Nothing should get in between you and your music.