It’s no news that the music business has some major problems. Record sales are down, music is being pirated, dogs and cats are living together, bla…bla…bla. But, one of the cool things is the opportunities that are now out there for independent artists. In fact, isn’t that where it’s all going? Everyone is now a independent artist. Paul McCartney did a direct distribution deal with Starbucks, then the Eagles did a deal with WalMart. This was just the beginning: Now Metallica is doing cooperative releases with video games and AC/DC is the newest mega band to strike a deal with WalMart. (a company who in AC/DC’s hey day would have never stocked their albums) Hell, Cracker Barrel is selling their own releases. So, where am I going with all this? In theory, the days of the manufactured stars are numbered. It takes more. The audience demands more. If music fans are expected to pay their hard earned money on your music, it better damn well be something unique or atleast be free in a box of Cocoa Puffs. Originality is making a comeback and we need it more than ever. Enter: Leticia Wolf.

I first met Leticia a couple years ago in Murfreesboro, TN. She was opening up for a mutual friend of ours doing a solo acoustic set. (Let me briefly state how much I usually loath singer/songwriter shows and “writer nights”-but, that’s a topic for another time.) Anyway, I ended up running sound and was forced to actually pay attention to what was going on-and I’m glad I did. Leticia commands the stage on a couple levels. First off, she reads the room. A lot of songwriters these days are so concerned with playing their songs correctly that they have no regard for their audience, or that there even is an audience. Also, she bases what she plays and how she acts around the needs of the audience. This caught my eye. Second, she’s talented. Leticia has a great voice-very soulful and soothing. She also works with her guitar, flowing with it as she performs-not just strumming chords to randomly sing across. This caught my ear. Lastly, she’s a great songwriter. In fact, as I have gotten to know her and by working with her in the studio, I have learned she is one of the most adaptive songwriters I know. She’s not afraid to re-think parts and/or lyrics, step up to challenges that you put in front of her, or just trash something entirely-only to come up with something better. This three things are called talent.

Late last year we started getting together in the studio. Eventually we decided that we wanted to record an EP with a full band sound. Since Leticia has played in and out of bands her entire life, some of her writing really leans in that direction. Now the literal double entendre here is that Tish writes around a variety of different themes. This can be great and this can be tricky all at the same time. Recording a selection of songs that weaves in and out of a variety of different genres walks a fine line of confusing you’re audience or giving them a reason to keep listening to your album. In my opinion, and to make a very long story short, I think we came up with the latter.

Leticia’s new self-titled EP is available on iTunes. For $6.93 you won’t be disappointed. You can pick up the enhanced CD (with all the killer artwork and photos) at cdbaby.com and check her out on myspace at http://www.myspace.com/leticiaisdamaged.

“The Lamb” was a 23 song epic prog-rock concept album released by Genesis in 1974. The album tells the story of a half-Puerto Rican juvenile delinquent named Rael living in New York City, who is swept underground to face bizarre creatures and nightmarish dangers in order to rescue his brother John. This was also the last album Peter Gabriel recorded with Genesis, and later became a cult classic.

So, why re-record it? Believe me when I say that’s the very question I’ve been asking myself these days. “The Lamb”, to me and a lot of other people, has been one of those albums that has remained intriguing over the years. The ideas, the lyrics, the story, all seemed very open ended to me. Genesis’s performance of these songs was based around the electronic equipment they had available at the time and was part of their “sound”. There’s Mellotrons instead of choirs, Arps instead of orchestra, not to mention a roller coaster of meters and time signatures that opens the door for many kinds of interpretations. If you’ve heard our cover of “The Colony of Slippermen”, it’s apparent our goal was to honor what Genesis did, but at the same time take the whole thing one step further.

Now, the Lamb (our Lamb), has horns, strings, accordions, whistles, walls of vocals, rock guitars, and plenty of groove. Not to mention a more dynamic, clearer sound-which is cool for the storyline since it’s sometimes hard to make out what Gabriel is talking about on the original.

Our “tribute” to the Lamb is do out in October/November and hopefully will be a good listen for Genesis fans and those that have never heard the original.

Also, you can check out studio footage as it becomes available on my you tube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/mhornsby13

More later…

Mackie 402-VLZ3 (http://www.mackie.com/products/402vlz3/index.html)

-A small compact mixer. How many times have we needed one of these? To edit, monitor, or just to have an extra mic pre at the last minute.

Massey Plug-ins (http://www.masseyplugins.com)

-Great plug-ins for Pro Tools that don’t cost a lot of money: Amen! The demos don’t make pops and clicks either;)

The Redeemer (http://www.creationaudiolabs.com/redeemer)

-In case you forgot, impedance makes a huge difference in guitar and bass tone. This will solve that problem. (The MW-1 is really cool too)

Behringer Cable Tester (http://www.behringer.com/CT100/index.cfm?lang=ENG)

-Not that I’m a fan of Behringer, but a $30 cable tester that’s this versatile is pretty hard to beat…if you can find one.

Melodyne Uno (http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=products_uno&L=0)

-Melodyne rocks for pitch correction. Celemony is also the only company in the pitch correction world that offers a cool “lite” version of the software that is actually really useful. A must have for the laptop if you don’t already have the full version or another solution for the road.

I’m Mark Hornsby and I approve this message.

The session is up and can be downloaded here:

http://www.recordingmag.com/DownloadsSPPT.html

February’s session consists of the Drums, Bass, and Piano tracks and is broken down into two downloads to “lighten the load” (so to speak) when downloading the files. After downloading the files, you’ll want to make sure and put all the audio files in the same folder. You also might want to import the scratch vocal from the pre-production session so you’ll have that as we move forward. More info is available on Recording’s site if need be. Good luck and enjoy!

Being the Pro Tools guru that I am, I have been asked to do a twelve part series on producing a song from start to finish inside the box. The cool thing is that the actual session files will be available as a download each month so those of you that have Pro Tools systems can follow along at home or in your own studio. The song is called “Childhood’s End” and was written by Kevin Gilbert and is being performed by my good buddy Nick D’ Virgilio (remember the Slippermen song we did?) We also have some other session friends here in Nashville that are being part of the project including Dave Martin, Phil Naish, and Tom Hemby-just to name a few. The series will use the song to cover topics like: pre-production, tracking, overdubs, virtual instruments, track and vocal editing, mixing, and mastering. So…check out the article, I promise it will not only be musically stimulating but a good experiment in correspondence education…whatever that means;)

(Nashville, TN) – A Nashville-based recording engineer and a Los Angeles-based performer have teamed to produce a unique twist to a classic Genesis recording. This fall, Nick D’Virgilio of Spock’s Beard fame and engineer/producer Mark Hornsby recorded The Colony of Slippermen. Produced at Java Jive Studio in Nashville, the song features some of Music City’s best musicians, taking the song in a whole new direction.

“We wanted to see what would happen if we exposed the song to a different climate of musicians,” says D’Virgilio, “The early Genesis recordings are so musical and very bluesy when you get right down to it.. They really lend themselves to some different interpretations.”

Although all of the original elements of the song are still included such as drums, bass, guitar and piano, the recording now takes on a more “acoustic” vibe. This, coupled with accordion, electric sitar, and a fantastic horn arrangement, the song enters an entirely different place.

“We had talked about doing something like this for awhile,” says Hornsby, “With the recent success of the Genesis reunion tour and the re-release of the Genesis catalogue in 5.1, the time seemed right to see what we could come up with.”

The Colony of Slippermen is part of a larger project that has yet to be announced. The song is currently available as a free download at http://myspace.com/ndvmusic. Additional information is available at: www.markhornsby.org.

Credits:
Lead Vocals, Drums: Nick D’Virgilio
BGVs: Nick D’Virgilio, Kat Bowser
Bass: Dave Martin
Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Sitar: Don Carr
Piano, Accordion: Jeff Taylor
Trombone: John Hinchey
Trumpet: Steve Patrick
Saxophone, Flute, Clarinet: Sam Levine

Produced by Mark Hornsby and Nick D’Virgilio
Recorded at Java Jive Studio and The Garage by
Mark Hornsby, Jon Craig, and Nick D’Virgilio
Mixed at Java Jive Studio by Mark Hornsby
Mastered at Digital Domain by Bob Katz

Those Were The Days

Technology has given us the ability to do some amazing things, but what we don’t realize is that sometimes it paints us into a corner. Back in the days of analogue tape, and when people would actually record in a studio together, (I promise, this actually happened for a period of time) players would typically tune to the piano, each other, or whatever else was in arms length before cutting the song. Inherently, what is or isn’t in tune at that point became a lot “looser”. Nowadays, everyone is using sampled pianos, sampled drums, sampled guitars, electronic tuners, so on and so forth. I’ll be the first to admit that all of these can be great things, but if you’re not careful, you might leave your vocalist with the uphill battle of being 100% dead on 100% of the time, hence making the call on whether to tune most of the vocal track a decision that has already been made for us.

So What Do You Do?

Well, aside from running out and buying a two-inch twenty four track tape machine, and throwing your DAW off of a pier, (just kidding–however, ADAT machines would be a different story) I suggest the age old wisdom of: Using Your Ears. Despite how your session came to be be, be it loops or real players, be judicial in your vocal editing. Just because a vocal editing program has a grid that illustrates what is and isn’t in pitch, that doesn’t mean it’s right all the time. Use your ears, don’t tune every note just because the almighty program shows a note or two that’s not right on the sacred line. Instead, spend your time getting performances from your singers that both of you agree feels good. Then, go in and tweak the notes that you have decided beforehand need it. Don’t just open the tuning program and start moving notes around. Sometimes it’s not what you tune, it’s what you don’t tune.

Things Aren’t Always What they Seem

I’ve been reading a lot of the pro audio forums lately, and I have begun to notice a common trend in the posts. There’s usually a handful of veteran engineers, graciously taking their time to answer questions and share their knowledge, and an entire army of up and coming engineers, filled with questions and still searching for that Holy Grail when it comes to getting certain sounds in the studio. “How do you get that vocal sound?” or “How did you get those drum sounds?”. Although it’s not always overlooked, I have noticed that there’s a consistant lack of re-emphasizing where 90% of “the sound” comes from: The Talent.

For Example:

I remember doing a drum session with Ed Greene on a project I was producing for a music software company. (Some of you might remember that Ed has played on countless albums for artists like Steely Dan, BB King, Glen Campbell, Barry White, just to name a few). Part of the project was to go back and capture some of the grooves from albums Ed had played on for a drum library that would be sold in major music stores. When Ed showed up at the studio, he brought in a five piece Tama kit that he had apparently just purchased from an online music store and paid less than a $1000 for. Honestly, I wasn’t very impressed with the kit. Being a big fan of Gretsch and DW myself, I was kind of hoping to use the studio kit we had provided, or something of the equivalent. Nevertheless, Ed was comfortable with his kit, and that’s what matters most. (If the artist isn’t comfortable, don’t expect to get a great take, despite how many thousands of dollars you’ve spent on your mic/instrument collection). So, that being said: Tama it was!

Watch This!

I didn’t really notice it when we were getting drum sounds, in fact, it wasn’t even until we started recording. I remember thinking at the time: “This kit doesn’t sound that bad at all”, but I wasn’t amazed just yet. The first groove we cut was off of Steely Dan’s Aja album. We played the CD, listened, charted, made notes, talked about what we were going to do (we weren’t cutting these loops verbatim like the record) and away we went. As soon as Ed started playing, the whole issue with the drum kit went right out the door. It really was amazing, it sounded just like the record–not just the groove, (obviously) but the sounds, the way he was striking the drums, everything about it. It was Ed. Not the drums, the mics, the engineer, or the room. It was just Ed.

Case And Point

Afterwards, my friend Dave and I were talking about what we witnessed, and as he put it: “That’s just all part of the magic.” Enough said. So, the next time you’re wondering how to get a certain sound, try also asking the question: “Where can I find that certain player who can help give me that sound I’m looking for?”. They’re out there and would probably be happy to help.

It’s not that scary

There is always a time and place when it comes to going into the studio to record a project. Obviously, when a group of artists or a band are writing and/or performing music together, it usually becomes apparent when they’re “ready” to go into the studio. Arrangements have to be agreed upon, performances need to be solid, lyrics should be worked out…there’s certainly a lot of factors. Okay, so after all this has been worked out and the material has been performed live on numerous occasions, you would think that over time and feedback from their audience, it would become pretty evident when it’s time to start laying down some tracks. Right? Well, I used to think the answer was pretty clear.

Don’t worry, it happens to everyone…

I recently ran into a vocal group that has been performing together for several years. They are consistently touring and have even won several competitions in vocal performance. When I asked them for a copy of their latest CD, I was stunned to find out out that they didn’t have one. When I inquired why not, their response was: “Oh, we’re not ready to go into the studio yet”. Through deeper inquiry, I learned that their paradigm on this subject was rooted from constantly comparing themselves to other groups that had been around longer, had recorded several CDs, and won far more awards. Hmmm…

Just get started

I refuse to believe that anyone can continue to grow as an artist by basing their professional decisions solely on the actions of others. If you are a touring group, at any level, and people are showing up to your shows (let along buying tickets), every show that you don’t have a CD or other merchandise to sale, you’re not only losing money, but missing out on the opportunity for that CD to be played for other potential fans, hence increasing your following in that region. If John Mayer never recorded his first demo because he was intimidated by one of James Taylor’s records, he wouldn’t be where he was today. Studios are abundent and more affordable than ever, and there are plenty of talented engineers that will be more than happy to go out of their way to to make you feel comfortable in the studio. Be smart, shop around, and give it a shot. If you don’t feel 100% confident what you end up with, play it for some fans or some other people that aren’t professionals in the music business and see what they think. Not only will you learn alot, but I think you’ll be surprised with what you come up with. All it takes is a little confidence.