13 Books Every Musician Should Read Yesterday

Notice: In this piece on books every musician should read, you will see affiliate links in this post and I may make a commission from sales – rest assured, however – these are all books I have read, have on my shelf, and recommend. There are other books I think suck 🙂

As a musician or any other independent creative, not only are you an artist, you’re also a marketer, content creator, and business owner. As such, education should be one of the main ongoing investments you make. That’s what going to help you avoid the pitfalls most of us fall into when building our business.

But sometimes all online courses and YouTube vids and blogs can be a bit disjointed and overwhelming. Not to mention, when it comes to “making it” it can be hard to know who to trust.

Plus, online courses can be expensive. They’re awesome – but expensive. So, sometimes the best thing you can do is turn off the screen and read an actual, old-school book. With that in mind, here are 13 books I’ve read that I think every musician should read ASAP.

The Artist’s Way – Julia Cameron

The quintessential and necessary foundational mindset book for any creative professional. This is the book on how to deal with what it means to have art as your mission and/or job.

Confessions of a Record Producer: How to Survive the Scams and Shams of the Music Business – Moses Avalon

A must-read in its millionth edition, for getting a real perspective on how the old-school music industry works. Necessarily foundational.

How To Make It in the New Music Business: Practical Tips on Building a Loyal Following and Making a Living as a Musician – Ari Herstand

One of the very few books on “making it” or being in “new music business” that I would recommend.

The Musician’s Guide to Licensing Music: How to Get Your Music into Film, TV, Advertising, Digital Media & Beyond – Darren Wilsey and Daylle Deanna Schwartz

Not the only knowledge you’ll need about licensing, since the game has evolved so much since it was written, but important foundational information so you don’t get confused by people’s unclear explanations of the business.

Master Handbook of Acoustics, Seventh Edition – F. Alton Everest and Ken Pohlmann

Before you screw around with audio, it’s helpful to understand the physics of sound itself. This is a slog, but it’s the root source of everything else you’ll learn about sound.

Mastering Audio, Third Edition: The Art and the Science – Bob Katz

Incredibly valuable for fundamentals of audio, not just for aspiring mastering engineers.

The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook: 5th Edition – Bobby Owsinski

I consistently go back to this book as a reference. Super concise, clear, and systematic methodology for improving mixes.

Zen and the Art of Mixing – Mixerman

Totally different approach than Bobby Owsinski’s book. This book is more of a philosophy around mixing, including being a mixer for hire. For me, this book and Owsinski’s go hand in hand to give a well-rounded picture of mixing.

Zen and the Art of Producing – Mixerman

More of the same basic philosophy, but from a producer’s perspective. Great for actually understanding what the word “producer” means, which is an important thing to understand.

How to Shoot Video That Doesn’t Suck: Advice to Make Any Amateur Look Like a Pro – Steve Stockman

Like it or not, music is a visual art as well as aural. In this world, you need to at least have some competency with video.

The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help – Amanda Palmer

The famous Dresden Dolls singer who then raised about a gazillion dollars in the early days of Kickstarter has always been ahead of her time when it comes to nurturing fan relationships. This is philosophical and inspiring but also fundamental knowledge.

No B.S. Direct Marketing: The Ultimate No Holds Barred Kick Butt Take No Prisoners Direct Marketing for Non-Direct Marketing Businesses – Dan S. Kennedy

Dan Kennedy is one of the premier digital marketers on Earth. Don’t get squicked out, digital marketing is what music marketing is, largely, and digital marketing is simply direct marketing online.

The Copywriter’s Handbook, Third Edition – Robert W. Bly

I read this to help with launching my copywriting business, but as it turns out, strong copy is the biggest difference maker you can hope for in any business endeavor. It pays to understand it.

I’m a producer, vocalist, and writer. I’ve been in this indie game for 28 years and this list of books I think every musician should read is a small piece of a vast firehose of knowledge I’ve come by – some of which is hogwash. This list is good stuff. Let’s talk about it on Facebook or Instagram

The Abbey Road Trick and Friends

How to EQ Reverb Sends to Free Up Space in a Mix

This article about the abbey road trick first appeared in FlyPaper by Soundfly. I reprint it here with permission and I encourage you to check out their courses. You can get a 15% discount code on a subscription using the promo code AJTRUMM15.

Also – you may find an affiliate link here and there and I may get commissions – it’s part of how I keep afloat!

Reverb may be the most important effect you can use in your mix (besides all the others). It’s reverb that gives your mix depth, makes it sound “real”, and creates a sense of space and character. Often, the use of reverb is the defining characteristic of a particular mix or even an entire style or genre.

Can you picture 80’s hair metal without copious amounts of reverb? Of course not!

But reverb is by nature messy. By definition, you’re taking clean, succinct sounds and spreading them out, adding to them, and generally putting more into a mix than is there naturally. This means using reverb is one of the easiest ways to make a mix muddy.

Abbey Road to the Rescue

One of the easiest and most straight forward ways to free up space in a mix is to use EQ to clean up your reverb sends. There are a few ways to do this, and we’ll mention a couple forthwith, but first and foremost there’s the Abbey Road Reverb Trick.

The Abbey Road trick is so named because it was invented at Abbey Road studios, to help create space in mixes that may otherwise be overwhelmed by reverb. The technique is quite simple and surprisingly effective.

It goes like this. Set your reverb plugin up on its own buss (you should be doing this anyway, rather than inserting reverb directly in tracks). Use the send on your dry track to send your preferred amount of signal to the reverb. Make sure your reverb plugin is only outputting wet signal (most plugins mix the dry and wet signal by default).

Now the Abbey Road part. Insert an EQ plugin before the reverb plugin. It’s important to insert this EQ before the reverb, because you want to tame frequencies that are hitting the reverb to begin with.

Now set up a high pass filter and filter out everything below 600 HZ. That’s not a typo. You want to take off all that low-end mud. Next set up a low pass filter and filter off everything above 10 KHZ.

And that’s it! This simple trick opens up space in a mix in almost magical fashion, by eliminating boomy, low frequency tails in the frequency range that tends to get jumbled anyway, while also taking out distracting high-frequency tails that can sound unnatural.

Oh, and you could try this on stage with hardware reverbs too….just sayin.

Other Tricks

Notching

Once you’ve set up an Abbey Road style EQ before your reverb, you can also try notching in particular spots for certain instruments. For example, on vocals try a 1 to 4 db drop at around 2 KHZ to smooth things out (especially for a yelling tenor).

You might also try a small boost to enhance certain frequencies on the way in to the reverb, but be careful if you’re trying to create space.

Band-Pass Adjustments

When you’ve gotten a handle on the basic function of the Abbey Road trick, you can start playing with the band-pass. For some reverbs, perhaps a purposefully boomy kick drum that appears sparingly, you might drop the high-pass some to allow a little more low end rumble. Or you could try increasing the amount of low-pass filter to clean up even more of the high-end shine. Often, adjusting to 6 KHZ instead of 10 KHZ works great for this purpose.

EQ After Reverb

You can also use an EQ to fine tune the reverb’s output after the fact. You can do this to further tame your sound even if you’re already using an Abbey Road EQ before the reverb.

In this case, you still might want to apply high and low pass filters, cutting below 250 HZ or so and above 10 KHZ, depending on the signal. In addition, solo the instrument or vocal plus reverb, and listen for any resonances that might be getting in the way, and apply a narrow cut in these areas.

Using The Reverb’s EQ

While we’re at it, don’t ignore the EQ setting in the reverb itself. Most reverb plugins include some sort of rudimentary settings, if not a full-blown EQ section. Often this setting is a simple low pass frequency which you can adjust or remove entirely, and many reverbs have both a low and high pass filter.

Be aware that in most reverb plugins, the EQ section is affecting the signal post reverb, so you can’t specifically apply the Abbey Road trick in this way. Nevertheless, the EQ section in your reverb plugin is still a good place to rough in a cleaner sound.

Listen Critically

The key to any EQ job is critical listening. Listen to your moves in the context of the entire mix, not just on solo. The Abbey Road Reverb Trick is a great starting place and will instantly clean up your mix in almost every case. Especially with vocals, this trick creates space for the voice to remain clear and up front, while maintaining a sense of space and depth.

In any case, when making tweaks to either your Abbey Road EQ or your post-reverb EQ, make sure to listen carefully, because the exact same fine-tuned settings won’t apply every time. And finally, don’t be afraid to experiment and spend some time with your reverb EQ. Treat the reverb as carefully as you would any instrument and it will play just as important a role – without getting in the

I’m a producer, vocalist, and writer. I have “Abbey Road” presets in all my EQs, that’s how much I love that trick. Let’s talk about it on Facebook or Instagram

Start With the Drums: Cleaning Up Your Stage Sound from the Ground Up

This article on cleaning up your stage sound was written originally for the blog at Carvin Amps and Audio. I repost it here, and encourage you to check out Carvin’s amazing line of products! Also – notification: I sometimes use affiliate links. Some purchases may earn me a commission! 🙂

We’ve talked at length about why you might want to turn down on stage, and how that can improve your stage sound overall. This conversation usually centers around guitar cabinets. There is ample justification for that, as an out-of-control guitar can be problematic, especially in a small room.

But the ongoing volume war doesn’t always start with the guitarist. After all, there is another instrument that gets pretty loud and at almost every frequency.

No doubt you guessed it’s the drum kit. Drums are by nature loud, explosive, transient beasts, and that’s without adding in the cymbals. Add in the wildness of a typical rock-n-roll drummer, and things can get out of hand fast.

It’s no wonder then that guitar, bass, and vocal P.A. usually end up cranked up to eleventy twelve.

So, one of the best ways you can create a clean, solid stage sound that is audible, tolerable, balanced, artful – and still powerful – is to start from the ground up with the drums.

Cleaning Up Your Stage Sound: Volume First

It’s probably obvious, but the first thing you want to do is talk to your drummer about volume control. The best of the best can keep a solid beat and get a good tone at a variety of volumes. If your drummer has this skill, great! If not, try working on it in rehearsal. Try practicing fully acoustic with no vocal amplification and task the drummer with finding a way to groove so you can still hear.

If a room is particularly small and it proves difficult to cut enough volume with playing technique, try changing sticks. Softer, lighter sticks or even bundle sticks may do the trick. Brushes may even work depending on your genre, but that will obviously change your sound quite a bit.

Then again, adjusting your vibe to a space might be the perfect way to get it right. Experiment with different set ups – an all acoustic setup with hand drums, cajon, or any number of alternate rhythm sections might work, for example.

In many cases, you may just want to bring smaller drums. Opt for the 16” kick instead of the 22”, the lighter snare, and one small tom, as opposed to the full monster rig you might bring to a big stage. Or – gasp – you could use electronic drums (sometimes?).

It’s Not All Volume

Raw volume is just the beginning, and you can go a long way with simply adjusting the pure loudness of your drummer. But just as in studio mixing, it’s not all about fader levels. You can get a lot more bang for your buck in a space if you look at competing frequencies and raw noise.

First, consider the cymbals. A little bit of high frequency sizzle can go a long way in a small room, so think about reducing the size and number of cymbals, and again, help the drummer practice various ways of playing them.

Next consider the ring of the drums. Left unchecked, many drumheads resonate and ring out for a long time, and while that may be desirable at times, you can tighten up your sound by dampening them. Judicious use of moon gels, wash clothes, foam rubber dampers, and other accoutrement can help tremendously.

With drums hitting and dying back, you not only leave room for other instruments to cut through, you also stand a better chance of being tight rhythmically, as room reflections won’t make such a soup of the beat.

During set up, spend time tuning the drums to the room so that resonances are in check, windows aren’t buzzing, chairs aren’t travelling, and so on. And finally, manage creaks and pops and wiggles with proper floor covering, kick pedal lubrication, and so on. The more you can remove excess noise, the more room you have for musical elements.

Worth It In The End

It’s not a lot of bands who take the extra time to address how drums work in a room, but when its done, everything else tends to fall in place. Guitars can sit in the mix, bass can thump, and vocals can cut through without over-compressing. Drums are really the key to cleaning up your stage sound.

In the end it may take some extra thought, planning, and effort, but starting with drums to clean up your stage sound will definitely be worth it – even for the drummer.

If you have questions or want to talk, just hit me up on Facebook @AaronJTrumm – or email me aaron @ aarontrumm.com

6 Tips for Audio Mixing on the Go

This article about audio mixing on the go first appeared in FlyPaper by Soundfly. I reprint it here with permission and I encourage you to check out their courses. You can get a 15% discount code on a subscription using the promo code AJTRUMM15.

Also – you may find an affiliate link here and there and I may get commissions – it’s part of how I keep afloat!

Let’s not beat around the bush. You probably got stuck at home for a long time due to the virus which shall remain nameless. So maybe “on the go” is an ironic thing to say, but the concept of mixing outside of the normal studio setting is what we’re talking about here.

You can use some of these tips to help you get quality mixes while you’re stuck at home, and even if your actual studio is at home, and in an open world you can take them out to all the coffee shops, park benches, and hotel rooms your heart desires.

So, without further ado – let’s talk about six tips for mixing on the go.

Listen More Ways

The fact is if you’re doing this audio mixing on the go thing, you’re probably doing so in headphones. If not headphones, you’re listening in rooms that aren’t treated well. If you’re at home, you could start treating the room you’re in, but if you don’t want to go down a home studio rabbit hole, or if you’re actually out in the world, consider various listening devices.

Try listening to mixes on your main headphones, then your laptop speakers, then a set of earbuds. Try exporting the mix to an mp3 and listening with your phone. Or connect an old boom box with aux input. Listen on your TV. Listen in your car. Take notes everywhere you listen so you can make adjustments.

Believe it or not this was common practice even back when everything was mixed in big fancy commercial studios.

Small Tweaks

When you make adjustments from listening to various speakers and devices, make them subtle. If you hear too much hat on the laptop but it sounds fine in the headphones, pull it down a bit so it starts to sound better on the laptop but doesn’t get lost in the headphones.

Remember the name of the game is having mixes translate on various devices, so making subtle tweaks is usually best. It’s also better in general when you’re not in the best circumstances to make small tweaks.

Develop Over Time

Since you have a DAW and you can save mixes, and even save alternate mixes, you don’t have to do it all at once. You can use this to your advantage to let a song develop over time, rather than trying to get it all right in one go.

This evolution of a mix over time is sometimes the best way to get past the limitation of being in less than ideal mixing environment.

Get Feedback

Since you do have the luxury of letting a mix develop over time, take advantage of other people’s listening environments (and ears!) by getting feedback. Take notes and try to make subtle adjustments based on what other people hear. Usually, you can implement everything everyone says in a subtle way and strengthen your mix over the course of a little time.

These people don’t have to be experts either. A healthy mix of expert ears and lay-listeners can really give you the best bead on how your sound is landing.

Use Reference Tracks

Starting off a mix session by listening to a view great mixes that are in the ballpark of the sound you want is always a good idea, but it’s especially necessary when you’re in unfamiliar territory. You still won’t be able to hear sub bass your headphones can’t reproduce or shimmering highs missing in your temporary speakers, but you will be able to calibrate your listening so you can more quickly get to the sound you’re looking for.

Come back to your references periodically, especially if you’re in headphones, to keep your perspective right.

Corrective Software

Finally, you may be able to improve your ability to mix remotely with the use of corrective software such as SonarWorks. Although not the only game in town, SonarWorks is the best at calibrating headphones so that you can get a reasonable even, reliable sound to mix with. Other calibration packages include IK Multimedia’s ARC, ToneBoosters, Dirac, and Waves NX. All these packages are simply filters you insert between your master buss and audio output, which eq the sound according to a headphone or room profile, evening out the sound for a more accurate mix. You may be surprised at how game changing this can be. (By the way, you could probably use some room correction in your space too – check my video on how I do this for – basically – free).

Go Forth – Or Stay Home

Whether you’re languishing in a house with no studio, or you’re living in the post COVID utopia of travel and socialization, you can get a great mix on the go with your laptop, DAW, and a little bit of tenacity and inventiveness. And you can always check your mixes later at the real studio to see how well you did. Using some of the tips here, we hope you’re pleasantly surprised!

I’m an artist, producer, and writer. I used to mix all over the place. Now I stay more put. Let’s talk about it on Facebook or Instagram

The Value of Real Musical Instruments in the Time of Computer Magic

This article on real musical instruments first appeared in Recording Magazine. I reprint it here with permission, and I encourage you to subscribe to that publication, as they are a stand up bunch of folk! PS: you may find affiliate links in this post and I may get a commission if you buy something. 🙂

It wasn’t long ago that you could spot an amateur a mile away by the cheesy sound of their fake drums and lame piano samples. Back in the dinosaur age – aka 15 years ago – you couldn’t make a record if you didn’t have a bunch of great players, instruments, and a tricked-out studio to record them in – unless you were specifically making “synthy” music.

Oh, how times have changed. Now even the most experienced of us are hard pressed to tell what’s “fake” and what’s not. You can create a convincing drum track from samples or pre-recorded loops (which aren’t actually fake…), piano soft synths are phenomenal, and many film scores are done entirely with virtual instruments. Even sick basslines are often virtual (see Charlie Puth’s “Attention”, done with Trilian Bass Module).

Not only that, but certain genres of music aren’t exactly trending toward “organic”. So, is there even any value in recording real, live instruments? This month’s theme should tell you where we stand on that.

Real Musical Instruments Do Have Value!

Real instruments aren’t getting replaced any time soon, for a variety of reasons. Some of the biggest include:

Convenience – Sometimes creating a virtual track that sounds “real” takes a lot longer than just plugging in and playing – especially for a great player.
Live music – Not all recorded music gets played live, but when it does, it’s still cooler to actually play it than call up a track.
Some fakes don’t cut it – Horns are a great example of an instrument which is still really hard to get right virtually. As a backing track maybe, but solo horns are still just better in person, as are guitars (mostly).
Collaboration – It can be a lot more satisfying to work with other people than all alone – unless you’re Deadmau5. Using real players is a great way to do it.
Human performance – Even the best pre-recorded drum loop is still a loop. Sometimes a drummer – or a bassist, or a guitarist, or a pianist – just gives you that extra something.
Really real stuff – Some genres are still not cut and paste, computery genres – Jazz ensembles, for example.
Fun – It’s super fun to mess with big things like cellos and Hammonds and oboes and microphones and rooms and knobs! Why would we stop doing that so we can look at a screen all day?
Skill – Some people are better at playing and conceiving music with instruments than with a computer – and not just old farts.
Who’s going to record the loops – Many drum loop libraries are actually recorded by drummers…you see where this is going.

These are just a few of the reasons real instruments still have value – and why it’s still important to study and improve the technique of recording them. But it’s not really an either/or situation. The fact is that now more than ever, recordists have a multitude of tools at their disposal, and there’s no rule about which instruments should be “fake” and which should be “real”.

Combine Real Instruments with Everything!

Use EZ drummer and a MIDI bass line and record your shredding with a PRS and a virtual amp, then get a real cellist to overdub a track and top it off with a virtual choir – nobody cares! As the great Andrew Scheps has said, “all that matters is what comes out of the speaker”.

It means that all of it – from vintage Steinways to ultra-modern soft synths – is valid. It is indeed a beautiful thing that a whole world of sound is available to anyone with a laptop and an idea, and nobody wants to go back to the days where only rich folk could make something great come out of the speakers.

But if you’re a player, don’t count yourself out just yet. After all, the technology to record a real, live instrument is also much more accessible now, so there’s a lot of need for great instrumentalists too – and people who can record them.

Still, at the end of the day, who’s to say what’s “real” or “fake”? If it sounds good it is good, as they say -which is a case for virtual instruments and old-fashioned playing.

It’s all just a matter of making something beautiful with whatever tools you have.

I can play a few things, program a few things, and I spent decades waiting for it to be “ok” to use MIDI drums on a track. Talk to me about it at Facebook @AaronJTrumm or Instagram @AaronJTrumm

Proper Stage Volume: Why (and How) You Might Want to Turn Your Amp Down on Stage

This article on proper stage volume was written originally for the blog at Carvin Amps and Audio. I repost it here, and encourage you to check out Carvin’s amazing line of products! Also – notification: I sometimes use affiliate links. Some purchases may earn me a commission! 🙂

It’s no secret house sound engineers fight with guitarists about proper stage volume for amps, especially in small venues. It may even be a bit of a cliché to mention it. “Turn it down!” often becomes “I’ll turn it down for you!” and “I need it louder!” turns into “I’ll just sneak over here and turn this up…”.

Whichever side you fall on, it turns out both sides have valid concerns, and everybody just wants to achieve the best sound possible. So, let’s look at how and why you might achieve a good balance with house sound, while still achieving the great tone you’re after (and maybe not having to take forever setting up!)

The Can’t Hear Myself War

Here’s the crux of the situation on a stage, especially where a loud rock band and a small venue are concerned: Everyone need to hear themselves (and each other), but no one can!

This actually usually starts with the drums, which are almost always too loud for a room. We’ll tackle how to start at the bottom with this problem in another article, but suffice it to say, if you can tame your kit, the sound engineer/guitar feud will be easier to manage.

Focusing on the guitars, the major problem the sound engineer faces is guitars tend to overwhelm vocals, keys, and other similar elements very quickly. Since the P.A. is the only amplification these elements have, if the guitar amps defeat that, there’s no way to hear anything else in the room.

But The Tone!

The best way to handle that from a purely house audio standpoint is to eliminate the guitar amps, and put the guitars directly into the P.A. This means everyone on stage can get what they need in their monitors, and the house mix can be controlled.

Unfortunately, that can all but ruin the tone many guitarists seek, and that can destroy a band’s signature sound.

To make matters harder, most guitarists achieve their tone by “opening up” the tubes in their amps – by turning them up to eleven. In this scenario, when the engineer asks you to turn your amp down, it means changing the tone.

But in almost every venue outside of a big stage, this volume level will fill the room, blast the audience’s ears, and make the mix impossible to achieve. Even amps that are completely absent from the P.A. mix can’t be overwhelmed in many cases, which means if you turn up to eleven, you’ve just defined your sound as “guitars only, with a guy lip syncing to nothing at the front of the stage”.

If that’s not enough on why you might want to consider lowering your stage volume, consider a few other factors:

Your ears – Hearing loss can occur after only 2 hours of exposure to 80-85 DBs. A typical guitar cabinet measures 115db one meter from the speaker.
The singer – Maybe vocals aren’t your concern, but if your singer can’t hear, they’ll scream. If they scream, they’ll lose their voice, and your next gig may be cancelled.
The audience – In a small venue, guitar amps can overwhelm and hurt audience’s ears quickly, which may cause them to disengage.
Your band – If the guitars are too loud, the bass will turn up. The drums will play louder. The keyboardist will crank the volume. Eventually everything will sound distorted and no one will know who’s who.

Achieving The Balance

So, what’s the solution? You may not want to hear this – but turn it down. Fortunately, there are a number of ways you can reduce your overall volume without ruining your tone.

Elevate Your Amp – If your number one problem is hearing yourself, start by elevating your amp closer to ear level, or pointing it toward you.
Use a smaller or lower power cabinet or a preamp pedal– In many smaller venues, you can opt for a smaller amp such as Carvin Audio’s V112E extension cabinet, or use a preamp pedal like Carvin’s VLD1 Legacy Drive – or this little badass:

Use a post-phase-inverter master volume (aka PPIMV) – An amp using this technology places the master volume after after the phase inverter, allowing you to keep a cranked-up tone while controlling output volume.
Use an attenuator – Patching a power attenuator between the amp and speaker cabinet can also help reduce volume while maintaining tone.
Use an amp shield or baffle – If you’re not having problems hearing yourself, you can use a shield to reduce overall stage volume while maintaining your tone.
Point it back (or to the side) – Known as “backwashing” or “sidewashing”, pointing your cabinet toward the back or side wall may work to reduce in-your-face volume and help tame the sound engineer’s mix.
Try a speaker simulator – Famously used by Rush’s Alex Lifeson, speaker simulators take input from an amplifier and feed it directly to the sound system.

It’s Possible

The encouraging thing is, it’s more than possible to achieve a best-of-both worlds, opened up, high quality guitar sound on stage, while still leaving room for the rest of the band and the sound engineer to help you put your best foot forward. For more discussion on proper stage volume, check out How To Improve Your Live Shows By Reducing Your Stage Volume, on this blog.

And let us know your best techniques for keeping the balance on stage!

If you have questions or want to talk, just hit me up on Facebook @AaronJTrumm – or email me aaron @ aarontrumm.com

5 Creative Ways to Use Delay in a Mix

This article about creative ways to use delay first appeared in FlyPaper by Soundfly. I reprint it here with permission and I encourage you to check out their courses. You can get a 15% discount code on a subscription using the promo code AJTRUMM15.

Also – you may find an affiliate link here and there – it’s part of how I keep afloat!

Delay is one of those staple effects. No DAW is without at least one delay plugin, and most mixes utilize this bread-and-butter effect in some way. Not to mention, hardware delays are a lot of fun too. There’s a good chance you’re using it regularly, perhaps to create a repeating effect, make a ping-pong happen, or any number of creative things. There are, in fact, a whole host of useful things you can do with a delay, so we thought we’d go over five creative ways to use delay in a mix.

Create and change rhythms

One beautiful use of delay is to create or change rhythm tracks. You can take an otherwise boring drum beat, say boom bap boom boom bap, and make it swing and sway, turn it into a whole different thing, or just make the snare do a few interesting flims and flams. Try sending both kick and snare through a tempo delay set at factor one half (8^th notes). This will turn boom bapp into Boom(boom) Bap(boomBi) Boom(boomboom) Bap (boom Bi). Adjust the wet dry mix to emphasize or deemphasize the original rhythm and use decay time to adjust how long the new delayed rhythm plays out.

Or try using a stereo delay that’s locked to your project tempo. Set one side to factor three quarters and the other to one half. You can use feedback to mess with the rhythm further, and if your delay has a crossfeed setting, you could even automate that to come up at certain times to create variance in the pattern and pseudo fills. You could even combine feedback and crossfeed to create crescendos. Use your imagination, try a whole bunch of different things, and you can create a ton of rhythms you wouldn’t have thought of.

Use delay instead of reverb

To get quite technical, reverb is simply a kind of delay. You can set your delay to basically give you reverb, or even better, use delay instead of reverb to create space without washing out the sound. For example, here’s a trick that adds depth and presence to a vocal track:

Send the vocal to a buss and insert a tempo-locked stereo delay. Set one side to a 16^th note and the other to a 16^th dotted or triplet. Set the feedback to something low like 7% on the left and 9% on the right, so that you get one or two repeats. Bring the buss up until you have what you want. You can use this effect instead of a reverb, or in combination with one. It works as an in-your-face effect in some mixes, and sometimes it’s appropriate to use it subtly, like something you only notice when it’s gone.

Make a mono track stereo

If you’ve got a mono track, perhaps a synth or guitar and you want it to be stereo, you can use a delay to do this. Just copy the signal to another track and pan each copy hard left/right. Then insert a delay on one side and set it somewhere between 5 and 20ms. Make sure the wet/dry is set to 100% wet, with no feedback or crossfeed (unless you want to see what happens!).

Alternatively, use three tracks with the original in the center. Insert a separate delay on both left and right with a similar setting, say 5 to 20ms on the left and 10 to 30ms on the right, making sure they’re different. Bring the two sides down or up to taste to create your new stereo track.

Create a metallic effect

If you set your delay to a very fast response, say around 15ms, and set feedback to a generous setting, say around 50%, what you’ll get is a very metallic effect, akin to some kind of robot sound. This effect is enhanced by a high pass filter cutting out low frequencies.

Play with the feedback and crossfeed settings to create more metal effect or decrease the delay time even further to inch toward a flange-like sound.

Delay the delay

Finally, there’s no rule against combining delays. To put some of the previous examples together, I created a simple pattern with kick and snare. Next, I inserted a delay and set the delay time to around 17ms, with a feedback of 40% and a wet/dry mix of 44%. Then I inserted a stereo delay, this one tempo locked, and set the left side delay time to factor one half (8^th notes) and the left to three quarters. I set the feedback at 26% and the wet/dry mix to 34%.

That was cool enough, but the fun part was automating the crossfeed setting in time with the rhythm. On the metallic delay, bringing the crossfeed to around 50% at the last beat of the measure created a kind of synth accompaniment, and jamming it all the way to 100% created basically a wobble bass, as the low end from the kick modulated, then interacted with the second delay. Next, I tried automating the crossfeed on the second delay, which created fills and variations in both the drum track and the new pseudo synth.

All of this coming out of only one drum patch, with a simple kick and snare pattern.

Put it into practice

If there’s one thing that comes up over and over in audio, music and mixing, it’s that there are no rules. You can find creative ways to use delay any way you see fit, and it’s a great idea to experiment. Play with settings, break the rules, and find your next crazy, interesting, beautiful sound.

I’m an artist, producer, and writer. I’m very punctual, even though I love delay. Let me know your creative delay tricks on Facebook or Instagram

Finishing Touches: Tips for finishing more songs

This article on finishing more songs first appeared in Recording Magazine. I reprint it here with permission, and I encourage you to subscribe to that publication, as they are a stand up bunch of folk! PS: you may find affiliate links in this post – it’s part of how I make things go. 🙂

It’s one thing to have a good idea. But ideas are a dime a dozen. What you really need if you’re trying to make something of yourself as a songwriter is finished songs. Even if you’re not trying to make anything of yourself, it would be nice to be able to belt out an original that doesn’t end with “and then it’ll continue but it’s unfinished”.

After all, tears are rarely shed for works in progress.

So, we thought we’d close out this month with a few tips on actually finishing more songs.

Get away from the studio

It’s fun to go in the studio and come up with new stuff, and often times a fresh timbre or new synth patch will cause inspiration. But it’s often hard to actually write a song in this environment. Things get jumbled and inefficient. Instead, try taking that new idea away from the studio and just writing it out, perhaps with a lone guitar or piano – or even simply on paper. You’ll really be glad you did this if you’re paying for studio time.

Write horizontally

Picture a DAW window. The horizontal plane is time. The vertical is various parts, instruments, etc. When you have an idea, it’s tempting to start layering parts in right away before the song is actually a song. This isn’t wrong, but it’s easy to get lost in layering and “production”, running out of time or energy to actually finish the song.

Modular writing

No rule says you must write the song in the order it will be sung. Sometimes songs come faster when you come up with a chorus or a bridge first, get that written down, then go back and find a verse. Or vice-versa. Think of the different sections of a song as building blocks which you can move around and attach to each other. You may have even written the chorus 6 months ago, and it’s waiting for the verse you just wrote. Maybe what you thought was a bridge should really be the chorus.

Finish lyrics to finish songs

Lots of songwriters attach lyric to melody, writing while they sing. This is great, but often you get stuck at verse one. Not to mention that to write the rest, you have to keep playing. Instead, try stopping, putting verse 1 in a notebook, and leaving the instrument and melody behind. Sit with the words and finish the story. Then you’ll have a solid skeleton, without having to rehearse in real time just to get to the next section. Here’s a pretty cool book on lyric writing. After all, finishing more songs means finishing more lyrics!

Don’t edit

Well – do edit – just not while you’re writing. If you get caught up in critiquing before you’re through a draft, you’re liable to never finish. On the other hand, if you go ahead and follow the path to the end, editing is usually easier. While we’re talking about editing – do so later. Preferably days later or weeks, to give yourself some perspective.

Limit yourself

Creativity shouldn’t be boxed in and you should be free to do anything you want – and you are. But you may notice things fall into place a lot quicker when you have some limiting parameters rather than just the open, unending space of possibility. This is what we old dinosaurs call genre. Try it, it’s useful!

Plan recording sessions

When it’s time to lay down a song, go in the studio with completed songs and a plan for the session. Eg: “Today is for tracking piano.” It may sound obvious, but it’s easy to forget this simple, time-honored practice. This also connects back to writing away from the studio. When you go into the session with finished songs, you’ll know exactly where you’re going.

Take breaks – sometimes long

Our final tip is to take breaks – not only during sessions, but over time. Get out of the studio to take a walk. Stop work to have a date night. Get out of town for a week and don’t write. Resetting and refilling the well proactively is one of the best ways to prevent writer’s block, and nothing well slow you down like a bad case of writing constipation.

Hopefully, these tips will help you consistently finish songs, which is more satisfying than regaling open mics with 10 verse 1s and a half-bitten chorus/bridge every week. Either way, happy writing!

I write a lot of stuff. Some of it is music. Discuss at Facebook @AaronJTrumm or Instagram @AaronJTrumm

How To Calibrate A Studio Subwoofer

This article on how to calibrate a studio subwoofer was written originally for the blog at Carvin Amps and Audio. I repost it here, and encourage you to check out Carvin’s amazing line of products!

If your studio is lacking the low-end punch you need to hear what you’re doing with the bass frequencies, you might want to add a subwoofer to your setup. You may have even picked up something like Carvin Audio’s TRX3118A active subwoofer, but what you may not have thought about is how to set the level of your new sub.

As it turns out, it matters a good bit how you do this or what you hear (and what you do to your mixes) could be skewed from the rest of the world. This could make your mixes worse rather than better.

Luckily, it’s relatively simple to calibrate a studio subwoofer properly. Let’s get to it!

Pre-Requisites

SPL Meter – It doesn’t take a lot to get a good calibration, but you will need an SPL meter, either standalone or an app on your phone.
Proper placement – We’re assuming you have placed your monitors properly, and that your mix position forms an equilateral triangle with your monitors. Your subwoofer’s position is more flexible, but it shouldn’t be in a corner, and it probably sits somewhere under the desk. Make sure you’ve settled on its position before you start.
Zero out the board – If you’re using a mixer, make sure everything is zeroed out and there’s no funny eq or effects doing anything to the main signal.
Tone generator – You can use a software tone generator, hardware generator, or a plugin in your DAW. Just make sure it can generate full-bandwidth pink noise.

1 – Make the connection

The first step is to connect your subwoofer. This may be obvious, but there are several options for how. Some subwoofers have an input and an output, so you can connect your monitors to the subwoofer, and the subwoofer to the audio output of your interface or mix console.

This may not be your preference, or you may not have this option, in which case you might send main outputs to your monitors and an aux output or other send to the subwoofer.

Decide this first and make your connections, using appropriate audio cables.

2 – Calibrate the monitors

Lo and behold, we’ll actually need to talk about calibrating your monitors too, because after all, we’re trying to get the right relationship between the monitors and the sub.

There are various calibration methods, and all are acceptable, but here we’ll use a standard 85dB at mix position when the output source is at 0dB. When we say output source, that could be your mixing console, or it could be your audio interface, if you’re sending those outputs directly to your monitors. At the software level, you’ll be setting your test tone (pink noise in this case) at unity as well.

To do this, we’ll actually calibrate each monitor separately, shooting for 82dB.

Step 1 – Turn down monitor inputs all the way (on the back of the speakers themselves). Turn output source down all the way.
Step 2 – Start playing full bandwidth (20Hz to 20kHz) pink noise.
Step 3 – Turn up output source to unity (marked as “0” or “U” usually – on an interface unity is often all the way up on the output level dial).
Step 4 – Hold your SPL meter at the place where your head would be during a mix session and slowly turn up the left speaker input (on the speaker itself) until the meter reads 82dB.
Step 5 – Turn OFF (leave input level intact) the left speaker and turn up the right speaker’s input level until the meter is at 82dB.
Step 6 – Turn both speakers on. With both speakers now playing pink noise, your meter should read 85db at the mix position.

3 – NOW calibrate the subwoofer

Now you’re ready to calibrate your subwoofer.

Step 1 – Turn off the monitors (don’t mess with the input level!)
Step 2 – Turn down your subwoofer’s input (on the unit itself) all the way.
Step 3 – Play full bandwidth pink noise again (at unity in your software).
Step 4 – Turn up the output source to unity again – remember this might be a separate aux output or send.
Step 5 – Fade up the subwoofer’s input level until the SPL meter reads 79dB at the mix position.
Step 6 – Turn your monitors back on and play some music with plenty of bass. Switch the polarity on your subwoofer and listen for an increase or decrease in bass response. Leave the polarity switch in the position that gives you the loudest bass.

4 – Almost done – don’t forget the crossover

Monitor speakers vary in their frequency response, and some may faithfully reproduce audio down to 60Hz or lower. At the same time, your subwoofer may produce only up to 80Hz or its range could extend to as high as 200Hz. First find out the specs of your monitors and your subwoofer.

Next, your monitors may have a high pass filter with one or more options for cutting off their response below a certain frequency. Your subwoofer may have a lowpass filter setting. You may have to experience with where you let the two cross over to get the best sound.

The best place to start is to set your monitors to cut off right about where your subwoofer cuts off. For example, set the subwoofer’s lowpass frequency to 80Hz and set the monitor’s high pass to 80Hz. If you have a truly variable cutoff (aka a fader or dial rather than a switch) then you have fine control to tweak the crossover. If not, you can experiment with different switch settings.

The key thing to listen for is cancellation or undue boosting. If you find a setting that makes everything sound worse, don’t use it!

Last thing

That’s it – now you should be properly calibrated, and the only thing left to do is listen to a lot of music and get used to the sound of your new system. The last thing we’ll mention is if you find that 85dB is just too loud for your room, you can set your monitors up for 79dB instead, and decrease the subwoofer’s level to 76dB.

Other than that, enjoy your new room!

If you have questions or want to talk, just hit me up on Facebook @AaronJTrumm – or email me aaron @ aarontrumm.com

OH! On a related note – if you’re interested in room correction, check out this video on how I do it!

Share The Spoils, Or Pay Up Front?

December 28, 2022 by Aaron

Instructional Stuff, Music Business, Published Work, SonicScoop

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, home recording, making beats, music business, music collaboration, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording, should i pay my music partners, SonicScoop

When and why to cut collaborators in on the backend

This article first appeared on SonicScoop.com. I reprint it here and encourage you to check out their super informative site!

Imagine this scene. You’ve laid down an incredible piano part, a great vocal, and a passable drum line. You’re thinking this song would really be better with a real drummer, and you know just the person. You call them up, send them the track and they love it. You know how to integrate their performance, you know how to be flexible and collaborative, and you’re confident the track will soar because of your friend’s influence.

But when you think about paying for that work, things get a little iffy. Maybe your budget is tight and you’d rather not spend anything, but your friend normally costs $200 a session. What can you offer?

If you’re like most of us, what comes to mind is offering a piece of the backend. When you make money, your friend makes money. It costs you nothing now and if the song gets big, he makes more in the long run. Great! But wait. Is it wise to share on the backend, or would it be better to simply scrape together some money and hire your friend as a session player?

The answer depends on a lot of things, including what your friend wants, where you both are in your careers, the nature of the work, and just your preferences. Regardless of all that, however, there are some things you should bear in mind before jumping headlong into a backend sharing scenario.

To make this decision, you need to think through what it really means to share a percentage and how that will affect you in the long run.

What Does Backend Even Mean?

First, you should probably know what it means to “share the backend”. At its simplest, this means when you make money with a track, you share that money with your friend. But its important to consider everything that entails, and all the different ways a track can make money.

Rivers Of Revenue

There are many ways a recorded song can potentially make money. You can think of those revenue streams like a river with two major branches:

1. Songwriting – Songwriting revenue goes to the writers of songs. Songs are intellectual property defined traditionally as lyric and melody. They exist separately from any performance of them, and any media those performances may be captured on.

2. Recording – Otherwise known as “master rights”, recording revenue goes to the owners of a recording of a song.

To understand the difference between a song and a recording, think of this scenario:

Harry writes a song called “This Is My Song”. Johnny records “This Is My Song” as an acoustic ballad. Suzy records “This Is My Song” as a heavy metal dirge.

Johnny owns his acoustic recording. Suzy owns her heavy metal dirge recording. Harry owns the song. Harry gets the songwriting revenue on both recordings, but not the recording revenue.

So, before you even begin, you have a decision to make. Assuming your project is a song you wrote, you’ll be the owner of both the songwriting and recording revenue. Are you sharing both sides with your drummer friend? Or, are you only sharing the recording side?

Tributaries Of Tribulation

Next, you need to understand the various ways each major branch can make money. This can get really complicated and an in-depth explanation is beyond our scope here, but you can start with understanding some basics, including where money comes from in each branch.

Songwriting

In the songwriting branch, there are several possible streams, all of which are paid to the owners of songs. In the simplest form, they are:

· Performance Royalties – paid (usually) by Performing Rights Organizations (PROs) like BMI, ASCAP or SESAC

· Mechanical Royalties – paid either by recording owners (labels, traditionally) or digital music services like Spotify.

· Sync licensing – paid directly to song owners by video producers when they want to use a song in a movie, commercial, TV Show or other video production. Note this is a different fee than the fee paid to the owners of recordings.

The thing to understand here is that depending on your activities, you might end up owing your collaborator directly. If you intend to shop your songs to music supervisors and you land a license, you’ll have to track what you’re paid and pay your friend their share.

You and your partner both need to be registered with a PRO to collect performance royalties, and possibly also a publishing admin service for mechanical royalties.

One of the major things to understand about sharing songwriting with say a drummer or a session guitarist is that if you (or someone famous?) produces an entirely different version of the song without that performance, you will still be splitting songwriting revenue with your partner. If you feel generous, or you feel like their contribution deserves to be recognized as part of the songwriting process then by all means share and share alike! Just be aware of this beforehand.

Recording

In the recording branch revenue is a bit simpler, but as you might expect, it can get complex the more you dive in. Keeping it simple again, there are only two tributaries in the recording branch:

· Sales – If you sell a CD at a show, that’s a sale. You owe your partner their portion. If your distributor pays you 47 cents for streams and downloads, you owe your partner their portion. If you sell a download directly, you owe your partner their portion.

· Master Use Fees – If you license your track to a video producer, you could be paid a “master use fee”, and you’ll owe your collaborator their portion. As noted above, this is separate from the “sync” fee paid to the song owners. This can be confusing, because often these fees are combined for purposes of simplicity.

What it boils down to on the recording side is that you will have to track your sales and fees. This can get complicated when you consider that a typical quarterly report from your distributor might have thousands of lines of miniscule transactions for all your songs. It’s your responsibility to track that data, determine how much you owe your friend, and pay them. You’ll also need to track direct sales at your shows or from your website.

This can be a daunting task, especially if you have a lot of collaborators, but there are some services and software available. The author uses DashBook, and there are relatively affordable monthly services by Label Engine and Royalty Worx, as well as a lot of higher priced services aimed at bigger companies.

There’s also the option of using a distributor that will split up payments and send directly to your partner(s) and many people are moving to that solution. As of this writing there are five such distributors: DistroKid, Soundrop, RouteNote, OneRPM and Songtradr. The only drawback there is you can’t deduct expenses before paying out – the payments are made and it’s up to you to manage how much you’ve spent. If you’re the only one who will spend money promoting your work, you might consider a little higher percentage for yourself.

Will I See You Again?

Once you’ve considered how you’ll handle money, you should consider the relationship. When you enter into an agreement to share the revenue from a production, you’re bound together forever, or at least until you discontinue the release.

You need to know that you’ll be able to contact your partner, and that they will let you know if their contact info changes. You need to have reliable payment information, and you need their PRO information so you can register songs properly (if you’re sharing songwriting). Even if you’re just paying by PayPal, you’d be smart to have a physical address on file, and you’ll need to remember to send them a 1099 if you pay them more than $600 in a year.

Even if you’ve decided to use a distributor that will split monies for you, you’ll still need to contact them if you get paid a sync or master fee or make money in other ways. Another thing to consider is that some distributors require your collaborators to sign up or ALL the revenue is frozen (your part too!). Finally, some distributors have an annual fee for membership, so it might not seem worth it to your friend to join up if they think their royalties won’t cover the expense (a valid concern).

Just as in a marriage, you’ll have to consider the possibility of a falling out down the road, and know that you’ll still have to maintain contact sometimes. That can take maturity that some musicians lack. If your friend is likely to disappear or cause a lot of trouble, you may consider paying them up front instead.

Communication (In Writing) Is Key

If you’ve considered all the ramifications of “getting into bed” with a collaborator and you still think that’s the way to go, then you’ll want to communicate very clearly about everything. You should discuss business up front and if possible you should sign paperwork ahead of time.

Speaking of which, all your agreements should be in writing, and you should consult a lawyer to give you boilerplate templates to use for your productions. A proper contract will not only mitigate possible conflict, it’ll also make it a lot more clear how to go about things.

You’ll need to be clear about what the percentage splits are, who has control, who can pitch the song to opportunities, who can distribute or sell it, what the title is, what the act is, and what promotional activity is allowed or expected. The more you can talk about, agree to and sign off on ahead of time the better.

A contract is also a good place to gather all the necessary information like real name, email, physical address, phone number, PRO ID number, and any payment information.

It may seem a little overwhelming at first but in reality, clear communication and complete paperwork aren’t hard and they save a lot of time and effort down the road. In addition, you will not be able to enter into a licensing agreement without signed paperwork documenting all contributors.

The Other Side

There’s another side to this coin. What if you’re the partner? How do you decide whether to allow someone to pay you on the backend or ask for a fee up front?

Well, you should consider all of the above, but ask yourself whether your potential partner is equipped to handle all that. Also ask yourself whether the royalties on the backend will be equal to or more than your potential session fee. If the answer is an absolute no, then you obviously won’t say yes, unless you just happen to love the project or the person and don’t care.

If you really think that a production will make a lot of money, then 10% of master rights for life may be a whole lot better than a $200 session fee. You’ll have to balance your need for money now with the possibility of more later.

Of course, from your point of view, the best case is to get your fee and some backend points. If you can secure that deal, more power to you!

When You Should Just Pay

Even once you’ve educated yourself, set up your systems and put yourself in a position to properly share the backend on a production, you don’t necessarily want to do that in every case. In fact, your life will be easier if you can do it as little as possible.

Some reasons you might choose to come up with a session fee include:

· The player won’t do a backend deal

· It’s unlikely you’ll maintain contact

· You want to minimize the amount of admin you have to do

· You think you will make the session fee back and then some and want to maximize profit

· The player is flakey or might block release by not filling out paperwork, returning calls, etc.

· You want to just use the track and not worry about credit and who did what

· You’re using a service like SoundBetter to hire a freelancer.

Even when you do choose this easier path, have your session player sign a waiver that releases you from any further obligation once the fee is paid.

It Can Be Great

After reading this, you may feel like sharing on the backend is just too much hassle. Admittedly, that’s partly the idea here; to show that “sharing” is a little more involved than a lot of people think, and sharing responsibly is necessary if you want to stay out of trouble.

That said, once you get organized, sharing properly is perfectly doable, and the benefits are undeniable. Sharing can make productions possible even when you have zero budget; it can allow you to work with people you couldn’t afford (if they’re willing); and in general collaboration is one the most fulfilling aspects of making music. Not to mention that when a partner has ownership of a project, there’s a completely different sense of pride and care. It’s often the only way to get someone’s level best. Of course, you need to be generous and you need to show that you’ll live up to your end, but if you do, the results can be magnificent.

I’m a vocalist, producer and writer who is always collaborating. Look me up if you have an idea on Facebook or Instagram