The REALITY CHECK Series: Intro

I once had a client ask me to come help her with a track she was working on. When I arrived, she played me the song, which was basically her singing completely dry over an assemblage of loops. After informing me that she had 30 minutes to spend, she literally said, "Now, can you just teach me how to make it sound like the songs on the radio?" I didn't know whether to pee my pants in laughter, walk out, or shake her like that scene in Airplane. Unfortunately for her, at the end of my 30 minute instruction she didn't come away with a radio-ready track; she came away with a sense of disappointment about how complex recording/mixing was.

Now, who do I blame for her naïvety? The internet. Why? Because everywhere you click there are blog posts, videos, and websites with titles like: "Compression Made Easy," "5 Mixing Tricks for Platinum Vocals," "Simple EQ Tips for the Perfect Guitar Sound," and "Learn to Record Like Bruce Swedien in 5 Hours!"

You want to know the truth? Recording is NOT easy, quick, or painless. In fact, here's the Reality Check:

The average home-recordist will probably never produce a radio-quality recording.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.

Why am I smashing your hopes and dreams into tiny pieces, you ask? Because the truth can set you free. Freedom from what? Freedom from the disappointment, frustration, and embarrassment that you experience when you compare your track to others on iTunes. Why does the latest hit single sound warm, sparkly, loud, and balanced, while your track sounds like a 6th grade orchestra captured with a cassette recorder from 1981? I'll tell you why:

Home Recordists can't produce radio-ready tracks because they face several crippling limitations.

The goal of the REALITY CHECK series is to point out those limitations in order to help you understand why your track is only 85% there. I believe that coming to terms with "reality" will help you appreciate how great you're actually doing and hopefully encourage you to stop banging your head against the wall in desperation.

Unfortunately, many of us think our countless searches will eventually reveal that one tutorial that will unlock all the mysteries of recording. When that magical day happens, we'll be the King Midas of the recording world. Okay, you're not that dumb, but many home-recordists sometimes act like frustrated alchemists, mistakenly believing that it's possible to turn lead into gold. So, let me fill you in on the truth: try all you want, but recording a crappy vocal into a Mbox with a $50 condenser in your kitchen ain't gonna earn you a Grammy. Accept this fact and maybe you can start having fun recording music again.

The other benefit of understanding your major limitations is that when you are ready to step it up a notch, you'll know what you have to do to take it to the next level.

So listen, as a home recordist, you're probably producing some pretty cool recordings given your knowledge and equipment limitations. Will you ever produce radio-quality recordings with your existing limitations? Nope. But that's what the REALITY CHECK series is about. Figure out what those limitations are so you can stop beating yourself up about where you're at in your recording journey. Maybe then you can enjoy the ride.

In a few days, I will start off the series with the first post:

Reality Check #1: You Suck

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The Adventures of One-Upping Yourself

Yesterday I spent all day in the studio trying to re-do a previous session that I thought sucked. I ended up spinning my wheels all day trying to one-up the last session and finally threw my hands up in despair, abandoning the new session completely. I took the rest of the day off and tried to forget that I just wasted another 6 hours with still nothing to show for my efforts. In my despair, the next day (today) I opened up the first session and re-listened to the files I captured initially. I was hoping to gain insight on what I needed to do to get what I wanted to get. Turns out, I loved everything I captured in that very first session. This means I can start tracking vocals and adding overdubs. Yea for me!

I learned two things from this experience:

1) My "perfectionism" hates anything I do initially, be it songwriting or recording. I usually have to get some time-distance between what I've done and listen with a fresh perspective at a later date, which could be the next day, several months, or even a year. Any create-music activity is myopic, and I've found that I need to frequently back away from the tree so I can glance at the forest. Many times the forest-view makes the individual tree look less odd.

2) Sometimes I have to try to one-up my last attempt in order to discover that that attempt was actually pretty good in the first place. This applies to every aspect of songwriting and recording. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to replace what I thought were crappy lyrics, only to flail in trial-and-error land for way too long. But somehow through the process I came to discover that my initial inspiration worked just fine. Same thing applies to tracking and mixing. Go ahead and experiment or try to one-up yourself. But don't be afraid to accept the original idea when nothing's turning out the way you hoped it would.

Now, sometimes I do come up with something better. In fact, that's usually why I attempt to one-up in the first place. Whether you fail or succeed, I actually recommend the one-up attempt because it's great education and practice all the way around. Sometimes it produces great results. But sometimes it's the only thing that can help you realize that you had something good before you started one-upping. And through the process you learn yourself.

I love the saying that an expert is someone who has made all the mistakes that can be made. The implication in this statement is that experts became experts by making mistakes, learning from them, and then applying that knowledge to their betterment. In the process, the expert-in-training eventually learns to trust their own judgements. However, this can take years and years of making mistakes to discover. Don't be frustrated about making mistakes; they're part of the joyride toward success.

Happy Creating!

For daily tips on songwriting, music production, recording, including a daily ProTools tip, follow Create Music Productions on Twitter: @CreateMusicPro

RANT: "...Due to Human Error."

One of my favorite movies is Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. I’m not going to attempt to describe what it’s about, but I will say most of it revolves around “Hal 9000,” a supercomputer that runs the spaceship. Hal predicts that a part on the ship will fail, but the humans on the ship can’t find anything wrong with the part. The humans ask Hal if any computers like him have ever made an error. Hal confirms that the 9000 series “has a perfect operational record.” Hal can tell the humans are worried about whether he is malfunctioning or not, so he proposes his theory about the misdiagnosis of the failing part. “This sort of thing has cropped up before,” says Hal, “and it has always been due to human error.” What a great line!

My Dad used to work as an IT guy helping people with their computers. He had a saying: “You can usually fix a computer by replacing the nut at the end of the mouse.” His point? Most people cause their own computer problems. My point? Some people blame their music software for “sucking” when the problem is really the operator. Most of the time, I have to agree with Hal. If your music software sucks, it’s usually “due to human error.”

For example: a guy contacts me and tells me that he’s about to give up on GarageBand because it “sucks.” “I knew I should have got Logic,” he keeps repeating. I inquire about his problems and recommend that he schedule a 15 minute slot with me via iChat. “15 minutes?” he asks confused. “I’ll be able to get you up and running in 15 minutes,” I assure him. See, he was hating GarageBand because it “wouldn’t line up the beats properly.” He also didn’t know how to loop regions and complained that GarageBand was a pain in the butt to use. Sure enough, I showed him the quantize feature in GarageBand, how to loop, and made a few other basic recommendations in less than 15 minutes. Turns out, he had no recording experience, never watched the free instructional videos, and was entering MIDI information by “playing” the tiny on-screen keyboard with the trackpad. I thought to myself, “Yes, it must be GarageBand that sucks.”

Now, in the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey it turns out that Hal the supercomputer was indeed failing and the humans were right. Sometimes that’s the case in our world as well. The Audio Geek Zine recently reported that ProTools 8.0.4 has some serious issues for Windows users . But most of the time, frustrations with music software have more to do with a faulty user than a faulty program. So, before you go blaming your computer or your software, please think to yourself, “What have I done to prove that I am capable of making an informed judgment about the benefits or limitations of my software?” It sucks to enter notes with a trackpad on a tiny virtual keyboard. Buy a fricken $100 controller! The beats won’t line up? Get some rhythm, or at least learn how to quantize! GarageBand won’t loop? Yeah, it’s probably because the program is glitchy. That recycle sign that comes up when you move your cursor in the upper right hand corner of the region has no purpose…it’s just there to look cool. I agree, you’re right: buying Logic will solve all your problems. Increasing the complexity of a piece of software usually results in an easier learning curve. You are detecting my sarcasm, right?

MY ADVICE: before you throw up your hands in despair because your gear sucks, please first make sure that the problem is not “due to human error.”

For daily tips on recording, songwriting, music production, and ProTools, follow Create Music Productions on Twitter @CreateMusicPro