The Stereo Bus Blog - Daily Music Production Tips

This post is about sharing our work with other musicians, producers, and folks in-the-know that we trust to get a second opinion on things.

A couple of days ago I was sitting on my computer getting ready to do some work when a friend of mine from high school came online.  He’s been doing very well for himself doing commercial music for film and advertising, while also performing his own music as Glorious Monster.  Every now and then we’ll contact each other and get a feel for what we’re up to.  It’s really nice to have other people who produce music to talk to and geek out with.  Anyway, he was working on a potential soundtrack for a theatrical trailer and wanted to get my opinion of the piece.
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This post focuses on the somewhat strange practice of humming to compose music.

At some point in my songwriting process I got tired of the pressure of trying to perform parts as I composed them.  Ever since I  was a kid I would hum and form musical parts with my mouth by vocalizing what, in effect, were the sounds of drums, guitars, brass and whatnot.  Surprisingly , this can be a very effective improvisation method when documenting musical ideas.
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This post focuses on some of the basics of nearfield speaker placement, where and why and a little how.

It used to be that studios had huge wall-mounted speakers that required equally large rooms to work properly.  Commercial studios are carefully acoustically tweaked.  I won’t go into acoustic treatments here, but needless to say a properly tuned room will make any monitor system work much better.
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This post focuses on Creative Commons, a collection of licenses designed help give creators of intellectual property the ability to reduce the strength of their copyright.

Creative Commons was created in 2002 and has since shown a substantial amount of support from the community.  Essentially, when a person creates something they receive a copyright for it automatically.  This copyright gives the copyright holder exclusivity with respect to the rights to sub-license, duplicate, make derivative works, etc. But sometimes the creator wants to share their work and doesn’t want everyone to have to ask them permission to do so.  This is where CC comes into play.  CC is a collection of licenses that strip away varying degrees of your copyright.  You just need to choose the right one for your application.  All CC licenses give up the exclusivity of the right to duplicate the works.  This is extremely helpful in the digital medium, particularly online.

There have been some high profile uses of Creative Commons lately, including Nine Inch Nail’s latest release, Ghosts, MIT’s OpenCourseware and much of Flickr’s content is CC licensed.

One benefit of using Creative Commons is that it increases your chances for exposure on the Internet because people can legally distribute it.  If your market is particularly ethical or committed, you might even be able to earn some money by requesting donations. ala NIN.

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This post focuses on what sorts of adaptors or connectors you’ll likely want to have handy in your production studio.

It’s usually cheaper and more flexible to have raw connectors and cable than it is to have a ton of pre-made adaptors.  Tomorrow’s post I’ll go into how to make your own cables.

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This post focuses on some basic techniques for keeping your DAW running in primo shape.

It’s easy to take our computers for granted, but sometimes it seems like if you turn your back for a moment, your computer will destroy itself.

The reality is that computers are incredibly complex machines and that small, day to day things add up to create a catastrophe that seems to have come from nowhere.  Since we digital artists invest so much time, money, and love in our digital media, it’s important to treat the medium with respect.  Enclosed are some tips to help keep your DAW runnings strong.
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This post focuses on the basics of the differences between various amplifier (and preamplifier) types, namely class A, B, and AB.

When we first start out learning about audio equipment, there’s an awful lot of terms to sort through.  One in particular that escaped me for years was what exactly the various ‘classes’ of amplifiers amount to.  You hear ‘Class A’ thrown around quite a bit in the preamp industry.  What does it mean?

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This post focuses on things to look for when you want to live and record in the same space.

Not too many of us producer types actually have the benefit of a dedicated studio space, working in rented rooms, in rehearsal spaces, or *gasp* where we live.  But what are some of the things that we can look out for in living spaces that make for great recording spaces?

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This post focuses on the use of predelay to allow reverb to be added to a sound without muddying it up too much.

A lot of producers are really reverb shy these days.  It’s true that reverb can really date material… it was used so much in the 80s and 90s that a lot of what gives modern music its edge is its dryness.  You’ll find that simply plopping a reverb effect on a track with often decrease its clarity or, in the case of vocals, its intelligibility.  One way to account for this is to reduce the mix or length of the reverb.  But sometimes you really want a long reverb tail and a really wet sound.  What to do?

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This post focuses on the classic challenge of how to record a band in a single room and not have it sound completely awful.

Lots of us have small production studios and tons of bands have single room practice spaces.  Inevitably the question arises: “How can I record the band live in a single room and not have it all turn to mush!?”  There are some strategies for accomplishing decent results from this situation and, although it won’t sound like a record that was recorded in a multi-room facility or overdubbed, for some music that’s for the best.  It’s an incredible challenge that can be really rewarding.
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