Swiss Army Recording Rooms

October 11, 2022 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Instructional Stuff, Published Work, Recording Magazine

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, acoustics, do it yourself recording, home recording, home studio acoustics, mixing, mixing music, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording, recording magazine

Acoustic treatment for multi-purpose studio spaces

This article 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!

Not everybody has the luxury of a multi-room studio complete with control room, recording space, and booths. Many great recordists make do with one room which serves all these purposes and more. Some people even prefer it that way. After all, who wants to run back and forth between two rooms every take? Other than fitness buffs, that is.

Still, while it may be true that a most recordists work in one room, when we talk about acoustic treatment, we usually talk about specialized rooms such as mix rooms or live rooms.

So, we thought it’d be good to talk about treating multi-purpose spaces – the kind of space most people actually record in.

Many bedroom studios are literally bedrooms.

Lows First

One thing that doesn’t change if your room serves multiple purposes is the potential issues low frequency reflections pose. So, as with any room, deal with the low frequencies first. Owing to large wavelengths, absorption is best here, but one-inch absorbing panels or Auralex style foam on the walls won’t cut it.

If you have enough room to use 4-inch panels, spaced 4 inches away from the wall all over the room, go for it, but most likely you’ll need to use other strategies such as corner traps and broadband panel traps.

Start by treating the corners where lows build up. A great solution is the super chunk (figure 1), which is easy to build, and consists of corner pieces of rigid fiberglass or rockwool, enclosed by breathable fabric. You can stack an entire corner this way or you can build them in small modular chunks (figure 2) for flexibility.

Panel traps (figure 3) are broadband absorbers using a resonating membrane principle. They’re reflective at high frequencies – handy if you don’t want the room too dead. Space panel traps around the room for an even distribution of low frequency absorption.

It’s probably wise here to go for an even distribution of low frequency absorption, leaving no spot in the room with any major nulls or peaks.

Changeable Highs

When it comes to high frequencies, various rooms are dealt with differently. Vocal booths may be entirely dead, whereas recording rooms may be kept live, using diffusion randomize reflections. Mix rooms usually go for a reflection free zone to the sides and above the mix position, sometimes leaving the back wall live or diffused.

If you intend to mix in the room, you’ll still want a reflection free zone around the mix area, but you may want to deal with the rest of the room differently.

Diffusion is a great way to give a multi-purpose space an even high frequency response, but unless your room is pretty big, it won’t do much. Smaller absorptive panels, usually two inches thick, can be distributed throughout the room to create a kind of pseudo diffusion, evening out reflections, but keeping the room from being overly dead.

This is where modularity comes in handy. Consider small, light panels which can be rearranged to create different acoustic environments. You can even use a light frame and artful fabric covering, hanging these acoustic art pieces like you would any painting (figure 4).

In addition to moveable panels, solutions like absorbing curtains that can be rolled up or drawn back or gobos that can be stored away give you the opportunity to change the space to your advantage. For example, you can cover your reflective panel traps with a curtain or blanket to transform the room into a dead space for vocals or acoustic guitars. (Just be sure your temporary absorber doesn’t touch the front of the trap, lest it lose its low frequency absorption properties).

Similarly, you could remove absorbing panels to create a live space or use gobos to create a temporary booth. Double points if your hangable treatment can come off and stack. Always listen to the results of your changes so you don’t just recreate the boxy sound you were fixing to begin with.

Look Up

We often forget about the ceiling as a source of problematic reflections. The ceiling can also be thought of as a treasure trove of surface area to place low or high frequency absorption. Mix rooms usually have some treatment above the mix position, but in a multi-purpose room, you may want to have a go at the entire ceiling.

You can deal with the ceiling in a variety of ways, including alternating panel traps with high frequency absorbers or spreading absorbers around and creating a pseudo drop ceiling. Again, you can use movable panels for flexibility, but it’s a little more of a hassle to move overhead panels. Either way, ceiling treatment light so it’s easy to hang (figure 5).

If you can, give some space between the ceiling and the panel itself. Ideally this distance is equal to the thickness of the panel (ie: 2 inches for 2-inch panels). This increases the effectiveness of the absorber.

You can strategically place ceiling panels to create zones, or simply go to town on the ceiling to create a kind of acoustic foundation, as it were.

Flexibility and Planning

At the end of the day, your multipurpose room is still unique to you. Think about what you plan to do in there – ie: you don’t need to treat for drums if you never record drums. And think about flexibility. Keep things modular and light, and you’ll be able to adjust your room as needed. Finally, think about evenness first, because a room with a good foundation is already most of the way toward super useful.

Here’s to the bedroom recordists! May we all win Grammys in our jammies.

I’ve built out home studios from Oakland to Albuquerque to Austin to Houston, and hold a master’s degree from Stanford University, where I had the distinct privilege of learning acoustic science from the author of the textbook. 🙂 Talk acoustics with me on Facebook @AaronJTrumm or Instagram @AaronJTrumm

Share The Spoils, Or Pay Up Front?

October 5, 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

The Rhythmic Turnaround: How to make your beats interesting

September 26, 2022 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Instructional Stuff, Published Work, Supreme Tracks

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, flypaper, home recording, how to make beats interesting, making beats, music business, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording, rhythm, supremetracks

Why boom bap boom boom bap is not enough for your beats

This article first appeared on SupremeTracks.com. I reprint it here with permission and I encourage you to check out their services.

There’s a fine line in rhythm-based music between repetition and variance. It’s certainly necessary to introduce new things to keep listeners interested, but repetition is equally important. In beat making, it’s really all about repetition – without being overly repetitive.

Striking this balance can be a little tricky, but one of the best places is to start is with the beat. IE: the actual drum track. Drum tracks are by nature the most repetitive part of most songs, and they need to be. The drum track is there to keep the beat and give the song a foundation to sit on. So, they need to establish a pattern and basically stick to it. Too much noodling around and you lose the groove. But a drum pattern can also be too repetitive, which can suck the life out of a track.

What to do? There are a million options, but one of the best is what I call the rhythmic turnaround. Before we get specific, let’s talk a little about why this works.

Rhythm and The Brain

Keeping it simple, let’s just say the brain responds to rhythm differently than other aspects of music. In “This Is Your Brain On Music”, Daniel Levitin says “Our response to groove is largely pre- or unconscious because it goes through the cerebellum rather than the frontal lobes.” In other words, music is visceral. You move and react to it without thinking.

Sam Brinson points out that when “we’re surprised by an off-timed beat or a different rhythm altogether, the blood flow increases to this area, our brains are surprised… and a little excited because it’s these surprises and deviations that make the music interesting.”

This means that a little bit of variation will go a long way toward keeping your listener engaged on a very fundamental level. Not only that, the brain tends to respond well to certain types of variation, namely ones based on simple integer ratios.

That’s just a fancy way to say what we said above: changes are good. But repetition is also good, because listening to something again and again, whether that’s a whole song or a phrase repeated during that song, causes the brain to listen differently, and pay better attention to subtle changes and differences.

In other words, repetition and variation work together to make an interesting beat.

The Rhythmic Turnaround

Quite technically, what we’re about to talk about isn’t a turnaround in the strictest sense, but I call it that because it occurs over the last part of a phrase and serves to lead back into the repeated phrase in an interesting way.

Consider the quintessential pop/hip-hop/rock rhythm – the boom bap boom boom bap:

This is a one measure phrase that’s often-repeated ad nauseum throughout a song. While it sometimes works, played on its own it can feel a little wrong. You can make it feel more balanced by turning it into a two-measure phrase with some kind of change at the end of the phrase:

Here I’ve simply added another kick hit which leads the phrase back into itself. A lot of times, this tiny change can make all the difference. For some songs, though, you might need a four-measure phrase. Something like this:

Here I’ve varied the back third of measure four, leading the rhythm back into the first measure. This not only creates a little interest, it also makes the track feel more balanced.

Something interesting to note here is that the longer the phrase, the longer the variance. When we varied the most basic one bar rhythm, we changed the last beat of measure two. In the four-bar measure, we changed a proportionately longer bit of the end of the phrase. In an eight-bar phrase, we might vary the last measure or two to create this turnaround.

The Power of Silence

In the previous examples, we added or moved notes to create a rhythmic change, but it’s just as powerful to take things away. Let’s take the other ubiquitous rhythm- boom boom bap boom boom bap:

You may recognize this rhythm from Queen’s “We Will Rock You”. In their case, it works perfectly, partly because of Freddy Mercury’s vocal groove, and partly because the point of the track’s intro is simplicity.

You can create variants to turn this beat around in a number of ways, including removing notes:

We only removed one kick note and moved another, but it changes the feel drastically. For another example, let’s put silence where there was a note before:

This four-bar loop omits the snare on the four of measures two and four, which creates a short drop. I’ve further varied the rhythm by adding an extra hi-hat hit on measure four. And for good measure, the hi-hat sample has a slight delay effect, further altering the rhythm.

Fills vs. Variants

A drum fill is any variation between sections which marks the transition from one part of a song to another. There’s a small difference between that and a variant, which serves to keep interest and lead the listener back into the loop.

In practice the two may not be all that different. A fill could be as small as one beat or as long a couple of measures, and a variant might be just as long. That said, a true fill is usually more complex:

This is the same rhythm as above, only instead of leaving the snare out at the end of the four-bar phrase, we’ve added sixteenth notes, creating a simple quarter measure fill. This kind of fill pulls the listener forward and can also be used in the same way as a simpler variant, or as a turnaround.

Some longer fills don’t necessarily work as variants because they cause the listener to leave the groove. For example:

While still in time, this whole measure fill temporarily interrupts the basic groove, which helps demarcate a new section. This would be useful for moving into a chorus, or simply into a new part of a verse.

One Of Many Tools

A great beat starts with the rhythm itself. A great rhythm can be banged out on a table, worked up in Ableton, or written out as sheet music. These patterns are the foundation of a great track, so it’s useful to know how to write rhythms that are interesting and compelling, even before you start tweaking timbres and effects.

A rhythmic turnaround is just one of many tools you have at your disposal in this endeavor, and now you can try it out on your next track, if you haven’t already! Just make sure to listen and trust your ears – after all, rules were made to be broken!

If you want to try it out with a partner, you might try looking up an arranger on Supreme Tracks or look up a drummer and talk about it with them.

Until next time, may your beats stay fresh and your grooves tight!

I’m a producer, writer and artist. Sometimes I make beats, sometimes I hire a drummer. I always spit on one-measure loops. Discuss with me on Facebook or Instagram.

Everything You Need to Know About Picking Audio Cables

September 21, 2022 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Flypaper by Soundfly, Instructional Stuff, Published Work

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, audio cables, flypaper, home recording, music business, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording, sound wires, soundfly

This article first appeared in FlyPaper by Soundfly. I reprint it here with permission (and I also stole their pictures of connectors – I hope they can forgive me!), and I encourage you to check out their courses. You can get a 15% discount code on a subscription using the promo code AJTRUMM15.

Unfortunately, you can’t connect audio gear with brainwaves yet – or even wifi (with notable exceptions). So, even in the modern world of digital awesomeness, cabling is still the heart of a studio and a stage, and something you should take seriously.

Here is everything you need to know about picking out cables – which isn’t as much as you may fear (what you could know – that’s a longer story).

Balanced vs. unbalanced

First you need to know the difference between balanced signal and unbalanced signal.

Balanced signal uses three wires – ground, positive, and negative. Plus and minus carry the same information with opposite polarity. Balanced devices receive signal and flip one side’s polarity, bringing them back into phase – which happens to put noise out of phase with itself – cancelling it out. Sound like Greek? The key takeaway: Balanced connections reject noise.
Unbalanced signal uses – you guessed it – only two wires. Simpler, cheaper, and noisier.

Unbalanced cables may work in short runs (under 25 feet – under 6 if you’re naughty), and some gear is unbalanced. If all your gear is unbalanced, using balanced cables won’t help you much, though it won’t hurt either. If your gear is balanced, you’re better off using balanced cables all around if you can afford it.

Older gear like vintage outboard gear, anything with RCA type connectors like record players, and instruments such as guitars and basses are all unbalanced.

Microphones, mic preamps, and mixers are normally balanced. Again, pick balanced cables unless money is an issue, the runs are short, and/or every single piece of gear is unbalanced (unlikely).

Speaker vs. instrument

If you’ve skipped ahead, you’ve noticed that you can tell a balanced cable from an instrument cable by looking at the connector. Unfortunately, that’s not so with speaker cables vs. instrument (aka guitar) cables.

Nevertheless, it matters. Speaker cables are unshielded, which means if you grab one to connect your guitar to your amp, you’ll pick up noise from other sources (the “Mexican radio” problem), interference from devices – and generally have a noisy, ugly result.

It’s even worse in reverse. Using an instrument cable on a speaker such as a powered monitor or separate amp/loudspeaker can cause major-league harm to your amp. Because instrument cables have smaller wire, you’ll be sending a high amount of current to your amp – way more than it can actually handle. Things may be fine at first, but eventually you could cause a short in the amp, melt the cable, or worse yet – look stupid.

So how do you tell the difference? Read the package and keep track.

Connectors

Here’s a run down of typical audio connectors. Pro tip: if you can tell the difference between the first two, you’ll know if a cable is balanced or not by looking at the connector.

TS

TS stands for tip/sleeve. Think of a guitar cable or a speaker cable (see above if you skipped ahead). Also known as quarter-inch mono or phone jack. Notice there are two terminals. The tip (literally) and the sleeve (below the little line). That’s two channels. Three guesses whether this is a balanced or unbalanced connector, and the first two don’t count. (Hint: Unbalanced.)

TRS

TRS stands for tip/ring/sleeve. AKA quarter-inch stereo or quarter-inch balanced. Notice the extra little line in the connector, creating a tip (literally!), ring (the middle part), and sleeve (as before). TRS connectors are – you guessed it – balanced. Or they can be stereo. Why? Because they have two discreet channels – so they could carry stereo information instead of balanced mono information. Take a look at your headphone connector and you’ll see a tip/ring/sleeve connector. This signal is split into two before it gets to each side of the headphones.

You’ll also see TRS connectors on one end of insert cables. In this case, the signal is split into two not for stereo purposes, but for output and return.

Mini TRS

1/8^th inch tip/ring/sleeve connectors are used for earbuds, many y-cables that you would use to connect your laptop’s headphone outputs to a mixer, and some headphones. Look for the three terminals on the connector – if you only see tip and sleeve, it’s not a stereo connector.

XLR

Mic cables. Old-school blokes call them cannon connectors. Unlike other types of cables, XLR cables are male on one end and female on the other. This is handy. Output is male (you know why). Input is female. Notice the three pins. XLR connections are balanced. Mics and mic pres aren’t the only place you’ll see them. They’re also used in AES/EBU digital cables (although the cable itself is a bit different), and you may come across an XLR patch bay.

RCA

Also called phono connectors. These are unbalanced. You’ll see the female side on mixers labelled “tape in/out”, on the back of consumer electronics such as TVs and video game consoles, and interestingly – as S/PDIF digital inputs on audio gear. Technically, S/PDIF cables are more robust, and it’s better to opt for a true S/PDIF cable for these connections, but a regular old RCA cable will do in a pinch. RCA connectors are also typical in the y-cables mentioned above.

Other types

There are of course many other types of connectors you’ll see less often. These include but are not limited to banana plugs (speaker/amp systems), speakON (stage monitors and pro PA stuff), BNC (word clock and video connections), optical (digital audio), DB25 (computer-like connections with multiple channels in a small space), Elco (similar idea to DB25), and tiny telephone or “bantam” (miniature TRS connectors typical for large studio patch bays – very space-saving).

That’s it. In fact, that may be more than you actually need to know. You’ll notice we didn’t talk about Monster cables and Mogami cables and gold lamé cables and thousand dollar per foot custom-made cables from Japan. All those things may be great, and they may float your boat, but for the most part, any solidly made cable will do the job – as long as you pay attention to balanced vs. unbalanced and speaker vs. instrument cables – and your connections.

Until telepathic wi-fi enabled audio is invented, we hope this helps.

I’m a producer, writer and artist. I’m not always spacey, but when I am, I prefer lush and classy reverb – sometimes. Let me know your favorite reverbs on Facebook or Instagram

Tips For Setting Up Quickly On Stage

September 12, 2022 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Carvin Amps and Audio, Instructional Stuff, Published Work

aaron trumm, carvin, carvin amps and audio, live music, music, music tips, stage, stage setup, tips for setting up quickly on stage

This article 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!

Nothing saps your energy on stage like running late and being in a rush. To boot, you can’t always get into a venue at 9AM like the big shows do and set up. So, getting your stage set up done quickly and efficiently is crucial to ongoing success as a gigging musician.

Here are some of our best tips for getting your setup done quickly and easily, so you might have a chance at a good sound check and a little break before rocking the crowd.

Get Organized Today

Spend some time on an off day to organize gear. Label cables, fix equipment, and pack gear so you know exactly where everything is. Make sure you have fresh batteries (and backups) in all your battery powered gear such as wireless receivers and pedals.

You can even go so far as to carry an inventory checklist, color code cables, or preassemble racks and pedal boards.

No matter what you do, use high quality cables and coil them properly.

Stay Organized Yesterday

An easy setup starts before the gig. In fact, it starts at the end of the previous gig. You’ll be tempted to just throw everything in a bag and get going after a long night and plenty of peer pressure to either get to the party (or bed). Fight that urge and pack up gear properly – especially cables.

Plan Ahead

If possible, visit the venue days ahead of time and get the lay of the land. Note the size and location of the stage, the parking situation, when and where you’ll be loading in, and any obstacles you may face on show day. Get to know the staff and management well enough that you can ask for their help with things like getting in the door and moving furniture.

Especially important: find out whether you’ll need to provide a P.A.

As an extra bonus, prepare a stage plot even if the venue doesn’t need one. This will help you lay things out consistently, which is faster than re-inventing the wheel every show.

Practice

Setting up gear is like any other musical skill. The more you practice, the more proficient you become. So, dedicate some rehearsal time to starting from ground zero, setting yourself up, setting up a P.A., and getting ready.

Arrive Early

Things almost never go as planned. Arrive at least a half an hour before planned load in time to get your bearings, introduce yourself (again) to the staff, and get the process started. In some cases, this will mean waiting half an hour for somebody to arrive and open the door, but that’s better than being late and looking unprofessional.

Manage Space

When you start loading in, don’t put gear directly on the stage. Find a designated area off stage for prep, and load only what you need onto the stage when you’re ready. This may be required if you’re closely following another band. In that case, you can use the between time to pre-assemble drumkits, tune guitars, and generally get as much done as possible before taking the stage.

Focus

As much as you love your entourage and those rabid fans that come three hours early, you should ignore them during setup. Be friendly, of course, but set up the expectation beforehand that when you’re setting up, you’re not available for chit-chat and beers.

While you’re at it, stay focused on your own task, rather than managing the work of your other band members. When you’re completely done with your part, you should offer to help, but be sure to take direction and do what actually helps.

Load In Help

If you’ve got extra hands, use them! Minimize the number of trips you take from the car by getting multiple people to carry or using carts.

Keep Calm and Get Er Done

Finally, relax. Probably the number one reason for arriving early, not being in a rush may be your number one efficiency tool. If you’re well prepared, organized, and calm set up will run smoothly, you’ll iron out any problems quickly, and the night is very likely to go well.

Try these tips out at your next gig and let us know how it went. And for tips on keeping your stage clean and tidy, check out Streaming Lining Your Band’s Stage Setup.

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

The 5 Best Reverb Plugins Compared

This article 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.

Reverb is like water. You can live without it for a few days, but eventually you’ll die. Ok, it may not be that necessary, but without a few good reverb plugins in your DAW, you’ll be hard pressed to get a good mix, as reverb is one of the most essential tools in mixing. Reverb creates a sense of space, makes a song come alive, and gives mixes depth.

So, we’ve compiled five of the best reverb plugins around, in case you’re in need of an upgrade in that department. It would be hard to claim that this is the only possible list of five top verbs, as there are so many incredible plugins out there, but these five come up repeatedly and have become staples in many a studio.

Without further ado, in no particular order, and a drumroll please….

Valhalla VintageVerb – $50

Overwhelmingly the most mentioned plugin in our informal surveys of producers and musicians. VintageVerb is a simple, intuitive plugin that offers three distinct modes:

1970’s Color Mode uses algorithms inspired by digital reverb hardware from the 1970’s. This mode reduces bandwidth to add artifacts.

1980’s Color Mode emulates digital hardware reverbs from the 80’s. Bandwidth is less limited here, and the mode does just what it says – makes 80’s sounding reverb.

NOW Color Mode gives you a more modern, clean reverb sound.

Valhalla VintageVerb is great for vocals, and while it may not be everyone’s go-to for other tracks, it has a flavor all its own, and as such is loved across the board.

Audio Ease Altiverb – Around $650 to $1100

Altiverb an expensive choice, but the love shown for this convolution reverb is as much as any other. Altiverb comes in two flavors – regular at 499 British pounds and XL at 849 pounds. This translates to somewhere around $650 and $1100 depending on current exchange rates, although you can do a good bit better at a dealer like Sweetwater.

Expense aside, Altiverb is sophisticated and rich, and arguably the top convolution reverb on the market. If you don’t already know, convolution reverbs take impulse responses (IRs) from real world spaces – cathedrals, concert halls, bathrooms, anything, and use complicated computer mumbo-jumbo to allow you to place your source in that space.

Altiverb has a massive library of IRs from around the world, all exquisitely crafted. This includes more than just music spaces. It also includes responses from vitage gear, specific stage locations, experimental responses and more. If you’ve never tried a convolution reverb, do yourself a favor and at least try out Altiverb’s demo.

Uaudio Lexicon 224 – $299

Uaudio’s Lexicon 224 is a digital emulation of Lexicon’s famous hardware reverb, which was the most popular studio reverb from its release in 1978 well into the modern era. If you’ve heard U2, Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, Grandmaster Flash or any number of other artists, you’ve heard the 224.

UAD’s emulation does the classic reverb justice, using the same algorithms as the original hardware and adding presets from famous producers who used the original, such as Prince’s Chuck Zwicky and Peter Gabriel’s Kevin Killen. Even Lexicon endorses UAD’s plug-in version, and for good reason.

The 224 is another great vocal reverb, but it shines in almost every situation. Its characteristic lush tails and classic 80’s sound will transport you back, but the truth is the sound of the 224 is equally at home in a more modern production. It’s a pretty simple plugin, with only 5 faders (just like the original remote control), so it won’t be hard to start experimenting right away.

Fabfilter Pro-R – $199

Fabfilter’s Pro-R makes the list not only for popularity and a decent price tag, but because it’s so innovative. The company claims the Pro-R plugin works in a more “musical” and less technical way, and that’s a pretty accurate statement. Some features that set Pro-R apart are a stepless room size control, tempo sync’d pre-delay, and probably the coolest thing ever – delay rate eq, which allows you to control the decay time of different frequency ranges independently.

Besides offering these cool features, Fabfilter’s Pro-R has an incredibly natural and smooth sound, almost never introducing artifacts or producing ugly, nasally “reverb” sounds.

Softube TSAR – $199

Last but certainly not least, Softube’s “True Stereo Algorithmic Reverb”, or TSAR. Softube’s sell on their reverb plugin is that it is NOT an emulation or a “static snapshot” of a space (a possibly unfair potshot at convolution reverbs). TSAR also boasts a “true stereo” response, which simply means it responds to a stereo input in a more realistic way. IE: if you pan an input hard right, the reverb won’t just be heard in the right speaker.

TSAR is another simple reverb. It’s got a few faders and only one algorithm. There’s no low-cut option, but you can always add an EQ to your chain to do what you need to there.

In the end, TSAR makes the cut because of its excellent sound quality, relatively low CPU usage, and of course because of its sheer popularity in our surveys. TSAR is a fair-priced, effective and high- quality solution.

There You Have It

In all honesty, we could have gone a hundred ways with this. There are a plethora of awesome reverb plugins out there. Companies like UAD, Waves, Liquid Sonics, and Eventide are just the tip of the iceberg. Even your DAW’s stock reverb plugins are likely to be awesome. That said, the five above showed up repeatedly in surveys, always get great reviews, and when we tried them, they all sounded magnificent in some unique way.

So, go out there and try some, and let us know your favorite!

I’m a producer, writer and artist. I’m not always spacey, but when I am, I prefer lush and classy reverb – sometimes. Let me know your favorite reverbs on Facebook or Instagram

In Studio: Track Band Together, or Separately?

August 29, 2022 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Carvin Amps and Audio, Instructional Stuff, Published Work

aaron trumm, audio basics, carvin amps and audio, carvin audio, home recording fundamentals, nquit music, recording basics, signal flow

This article 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!

By now it’s an age-old question: should we track the band together as if we were playing live or should we try to get the cleanest signals and performances possible by tracking separately?

The truth is there’s no right or wrong answer. How you go about recording depends not only on you – your chemistry, skill, and tightness – it also depends on the studio. Is the space tight enough that bleed will be a major problem? Will you be able to properly hear each other? Is there a drum booth? Do you need eye contact can you get it?

Your genre is a big determiner here too. Jazz ensembles and jam bands who improv a lot and feed off each other may need to track together regardless of the tradeoffs. Pop groups who need to sound as clean as possible may want to opt for fully separated tracking.

The good news is, it’s really an either-or proposition. In fact, in reality most groups use some sort of hybrid, and most projects exist somewhere on a spectrum between fully together and fully separated tracking. Here we’ll go over just a few common ways to answer this question.

Authentic Live Capture

The most extreme end of the tracking together spectrum. An authentic live capture seeks to track the band exactly as it is on stage with no overdubs. The advantage here are authenticity – you’re really capturing the group as it is on stage – and efficiency. A well-rehearsed group may even be able to knock out 10 songs in the time it takes to play 10 songs. Potential disadvantages include instrument bleed, performance errors, and edit issues.

Some ways to mitigate these issues include separating drums and amps into booths, using headphones to monitor, and playing to a click or reference track. Playing to a consistent tempo reference can be crucial for editing takes together or making fixes later. Isolating amps and other loud sources to minimize or eliminate bleed gives you the opportunity to overdub later – even if your goal is not to. Finally, rehearsal is crucial if you track this way. Tiny mistakes and inconsistencies come through loud and clear on a record, so if you’re recording this way, you need to be tight.

The Basic Band With Overdubs Method

With this method, the intention in initial tracking sessions is to play together as a band, but the focus in the control room is capturing the main foundation of the band. This usually means drums, bass, guitar, and piano if it’s in the band. In this tracking session, the vocalist is singing, everyone is doing their part, but the main focus is to get the foundation right. You don’t go back on a bad lyric or a flubbed note from the singer, because the singer will come back later to overdub the “real” vocal take. Backup singers may or may not participate in initial tracking, and extra fillers like bells or extra percussion wait until later to overdub. This method may be the most common method for bands, as it captures the chemistry of the band while still getting clean vocals. Extra leads and solos may be overdubbed too.

Guidelines for mitigating bleed still apply here, as does the advice about playing to a click or other fixed tempo source.

The Rhythm Section First Method

In this method, start with the drums, bass, rhythm guitar, and piano if you have it. The focus is entirely on putting together a solid rhythm section, without the “distraction” of vocals and leads and what not. This method may be good if the vocalist also plays guitar, piano, or bass and doesn’t always feel comfortable doing both at once. It’s even more useful if the vocalist is the drummer, because capturing a clean vocal take in the midst of a drum kit can be pretty hard.

Play to a click and isolate as well as possible without messing up chemistry.

The Hip-Hop, Pop and Everything Else Method

If the group is not a band, the whole question is nearly moot. Beat makers make beats which are always locked to tempo, performers perform over the top of those beats, and there’s no question about separation, unless there are multiple vocalists.

If there are multiple vocalists, you’ll have to decide whether they should sing or rap together and if so whether they should be in the same room, share a mic, be in booths, etc. It would be easy to decide to give everyone their own mic, but there are plenty of times you might choose to let vocalists share. For example, a really skilled 4-part harmony might be better captured with a great omnidirectional condenser than with isolated microphones. “Gang vox” where a room full of people chant together might be hard to deal with if there’s 40 separate signals come mix time. Instead, that group might be better captured in a room with a stereo pair.

Two rappers feeding off of each other, however, might be better tracked in isolation, but perhaps together in the same room.

The completely separated method is the best and sometimes only way to go about things if you’re capturing sources in a variety of home studios or collaborating remotely.

These are just a few of the most common answers to the question of whether to track together or to track everything separately. As you can imagine, there are infinite ways you can tweak to make it work for your group. The best way to come up with the plan of action is to first think about the abilities and idiosyncrasies of the players, the genre, the end goal, and of course the budget. After all, if you’ve only got the studio for an hour total – the question is answered. Similarly, if you’re working with 4 or 5 people all in different towns, you know what you have to do. In any case, there’s no one right answer to the question “should we track all together or separately?” – only your best solution.

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

Do You Need That Upgrade?

August 24, 2022 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Instructional Stuff, Music Thoughts, Rants, Randomness, Published Work, Recording Magazine

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, do it yourself recording, home recording, mixing, mixing music, music equipment, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording, recording magazine

This article 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!

Black Friday will be upon us soon and you’ll be inundated with discount offers tempting you to buy while you can. But unless you’re filthy rich, “discounts” can break the bank. In fact, it may be the number one way to stay poor: spend money you wouldn’t otherwise spend on something you don’t need, simply because it’s less than it might have been.

Still, when it comes to your studio and your creative output, there are times when you need to make purchases. Around the holidays is a great time to make upgrades, not only because of sales, but because at end of the year you’ll have some idea how much room you have for tax deductions.

Generally, it’s wiser fiscally to respond to a need (or a want!) and see if you can get a great deal than to react to an offer – unless you’ve been patiently waiting for exactly that offer. But that doesn’t mean offers won’t come your way, so there are a few questions you can ask when one hits your inbox:

Have I been waiting for this exact thing?
Is there a quality issue in my studio that this would solve?
Is there a productivity issue in my studio that this would solve?
Is there something I can’t do at all without this (eg: recording vocals with zero microphones)?
Do I already have this functionality?
Is something broken that this would replace?
Have I exhausted the possibilities with my current gear?
Am I excited about this?

The first six questions here come down to practicality. You can solve many problems with resourcefulness and handywork. There’s a lot of creativity in that, but sometimes you’d rather apply your creative energy to music, so it’s perfectly alright to solve these problems with money. But you can save a lot of money, time, and space by asking these practical questions before buying. If the answer is “no but so and so says I need it”, back away slowly.

The last two questions deal with creativity.

The first – “have I exhausted the possibilities with my current gear?” means a lot. Most of us don’t read the entire manual when we start using a new gadget. We just jump in and make it make noise and as we go we get really good with certain aspects and neglect others.

This is fine – there’s no reason to use audio snap if you only use MIDI. But the downside is you may have missed something a piece of gear or software can do that you’re about to buy a whole other thing for. Your existing gear may even do it better!

Not only that, you may find that exploring an undiscovered function could lead to a bunch of ideas. Why NOT record audio and see what audio snap does? Why not explore the omnidirectional setting on your condenser? What happens if you use the sequencer on this vintage synth instead of the DAW?

It’s worth it to really get to know the ins and outs of your current rig before you add to it. You might discover that you don’t need something you thought you needed, or you may discover a different new purchase that would suit you better.

That leads into that last question – which other than pure practicality may be the only real reason to buy something new. Inspiration! Sometimes you just need a fresh something to jazz your juice! There’s nothing better than diving into a new toy – maybe a hot new analog synth or some insane, revolutionary plugin that does something heretofore not done in sound.

There’s definitely nothing wrong with that. After all, you may be a musician at heart but if you’re reading this, you’re also a recordist at heart and that’s all about playing with toys.

So, ask yourself “does this excite me?”. Believe it or not the answer is often no. As Derek Sivers, famed founder of CD Baby, has said many times, “hell yes or no!”.

At the end of the day there are a million things that everybody says you need lest you not be good enough and you almost feel obligated to buy just to keep up with the times. This is financially prohibitive. Instead, you can maintain the health of your studio with practical purchases and leave just enough room for those new toys that will cream your corn and make you make a new masterpiece.

This is the way of the wise upgrader.

I’m a producer/artist who stays just behind the cutting edge, stays efficient, and thus can afford healthy food. Ask me about it on Facebook @AaronJTrumm or Instagram @AaronJTrumm

Mix Fu:

May 31, 2022 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Instructional Stuff, Music Thoughts, Rants, Randomness, Published Work, Recording Magazine

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, do it yourself recording, home recording, mixing, mixing music, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording, recording magazine, the art of mixing

Learn, Practice, Forget

This article 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!

In martial arts, there’s a concept that goes something like this: learn the technique, practice the technique, forget the technique.

Music mixing is similar if you think about it. As we’ve mentioned in these pages before, there are two sides to mixing. One is artfulness and intuition – your ability to feel a track with your heart. One is technical knowledge, skill, and science – your ability to understand a track with your brain.

The Brain Side

On the technical side, it behooves you to study, study, study and practice, practice, practice; learn the techniques and rules of the masters, drill the technique, gain skill over time.

You should never stop learning new techniques and practicing the skill and science of mixing records. You can hone your listening skills by listening to great tracks. You can train your rhythm or do ear training work. You can read magazines and books, watch YouTube videos, and attend seminars. You can continually find new songs to mix and evaluate each mix you do with critical ears. And the more you understand the physics of sound, the science of audio, and the engineering concepts behind the gear and software you work with, the more refined your mix fu becomes.

All this will help you develop a skillset which will make you a technically great mixer. All the practice will deepen your skills and help you learn faster, becoming more confident in the mix. Building your mixing brain may even help you improve your intuitive side.

The Heart Side

Learning, understanding and practice is crucial. But when mix day comes, it’s time to stop thinking about all that. Learn, practice, forget. Mix day is the day to be an artist, and let your intuition take over.

Most great mixers will tell you to mix quickly and there’s a reason for that. Letting yourself follow your gut and move quickly will allow you to tap into your deep well of knowledge efficiently, without overthinking. Overthinking can kill a mix, because you’ll start to make technical changes that aren’t needed and fail to trust your ears.

After all, if it sounds good, it sounds good. The day you mix is the day to forget with your brain, and let your intuition take over. You’ve trained the scientist, now you can be an artist.

Many of us take a deliberate approach to this process, with rituals or methods that remind us to let go and feel the music. One famous story involves a famous Jamaican producer arriving at a studio to finish a mix and refusing to start before getting high. According to lore, this mixer got just high enough and spent the next few hours with his eyes closed and his hand on one EQ knob on the high hat, simply twisting and grooving until at last – voila! It is done!

You will probably do more than tweak one high hat, and you may prefer not to be really high, but you get the picture.

Sometimes a little darkness is good. Some mixers clear the room. Some meditate. I clean the studio and clear out all the physical clutter. I also set up many of the more technical, tedious aspects of a mix in a separate session (a job for the engineering assistant, if you have one).

It doesn’t matter what you do, only that you allow yourself to stop thinking and fall back on your accumulated knowledge and skill intuitively.

It Takes Both – Train, Practice, Forget

Some newer mixers rely only on feel and intuition. This is what Bruce Lee would refer to as the “brawler” – fighting only with passion, flailing and usually falling to the better trained “classical man”. It’s true, without passion and heart, you won’t find the magic in the mix. And if you overthink it and get too technical, you’re likely to create cold, lifeless (although sonically flawless) mixes.

But if you don’t do the work to train yourself and become technically adept, your passion will often fall flat. This kind of mix is often muddy, distorted, or overly odd. I have often suffered from this affliction myself.

To achieve music mixing greatness, you truly need both sides. Learn, learn, learn. Practice, practice, practice. Then call up the mix, turn off the brain, and let your bones do the talking.

Aaron J. Trumm is a lifelong martial artist and music producer. Talk to him about all these things on Facebook, Instagram, or email at aaron at aarontrumm.com!

Making money in music is scary. Subscriptions may help.

May 25, 2022 by Aaron

Instructional Stuff, Music Business, Published Work, Rebilly.com

aaron trumm, making money in music, music business, music subscriptions, nquit music

This article was written originally for rebilly.com. I repost it here because maybe it’s useful information. This isn’t comprehensive, and the point was to sell Rebilly as the subscription service you need, but still. Rebilly might indeed be the right way for you to do it, or perhaps Patreon or another solution. You’ll have to decide for yourself, but hopefully this at least is a start.

Look, I get it. I’m a musician and It’s tough out there. Traditional ways of making money in music have blown up.

Streaming is killing download sales. Downloads killed CDs. Touring is expensive and rarely profitable.

With so much scrambling, so many musicians, and such widespread devaluing of music, making a living – or even a buck – can seem like a lost cause.

It’s daunting, but there is good news!

It turns out, with the right kind of innovation and willingness to leverage new technology, now is actually the best time in history to be an independent musician.

A Possible Solution

There are many ways out of the mire, but a couple solutions seem particularly suited to indies. Many musicians are leveraging fans directly to fund records, tours and other creative projects.

You may remember Amanda Palmer from her wildly successful Kickstarter campaign, which convinced the music world that crowdfunding might actually work. The Pixies were almost as successful with their “PIXIES: A Visual History” campaign, and Music For Cats (yes, it’s actually an album for cats) raised over $240,000.

Since crowdfunding a single project has proven workable, now musicians are taking the next logical step. Amanda operates a subscription business on Patreon, and rakes in $37,000 every time she releases something. In fact many musicians are finding subscription services to be a great way to create predictable income while simultaneously building a strong fanbase.

Virtually unknown to the main stream, rapper Nino Bless makes a tidy income which allows him to remain fiercely creative and free of label influence. Using a combination of his subscription service and well placed product offers, he was able to grow from nothing to 17,000 rabid Facebook fans, all while actually making a profit. It took him a mere four months to reach that stage, largely because he was able to fuel growth with subscription income.

Could it be you?

Let’s be real for a minute. Subscriptions could be perfect for you – or not.

Here are a few things you need to succeed with subscriptions:

Consistency. Subscription based businesses can’t earn predictable income (or trust) if content and communication are sporadic. If you only make art when the muse happens to float by, you should learn how to be consistent first.
Popularity. This may be a hard pill to swallow, but the truth is “if you build it they will come” does not apply to crowdfunding. It’s best to build a following, remain consistent and when the time is right, launch your subscription service for your most loyal fans. For help with this stage, check out some thought leaders in digital marketing for musicians: Indepreneur and Music Marketing Manifesto.
Reliability. Once your fans start paying every month, they’ll expect you to be there for them, deliver whatever goodies you’ve promised, and provide support. You can delegate some of this, but it won’t work if you’re not seen as reliable.
Service. You’ll be interacting a lot with your fans who you’re trying to make ongoing customers, so your customer service skills need to be on point. That shouldn’t be hard for rock-star types who love interaction. It’s just a matter of making sure you’re putting your customers’ needs first.
Patience. Your wildest dreams are possible, but it could take time. The big numbers artists like Amanda Palmer pull in look great, but the reality is those are outliers. In fact only 2% of Patreon creators make more than minimum wage. Don’t get discouraged or quit too soon. Let your business grow over time, rather than hoping to explode.

If you can create those things (and you can!), you’re on track for building a business that works!

The tools

In order to make your fan club go, you’ll need a few tools.

As it turns out, Rebilly has a thorough rundown of the tools you’ll need to launch your subscription business. Nevertheless, here’s a quick rundown of the tools you’ll need.

A Website – This should go without saying!
A merchant account (services like Stripe or Square come without upfront fees).
A way to take payments.
A subscription billing service, like Rebilly.
An email marketing tool. MailChimp and AWeber are great examples.

You might also like to use a customer relationship manager, a support tool, and a shipping tool, if you’ve got physical product.

What to deliver

What you give your subscribers is entirely up to you. People love exclusivity, and you can create a feeling of being one of the in crowd with a variety of digital products, subscription only content and access. Most successful acts get quite creative with what they offer their diehard subscribers.

Here are a few ideas to get your juices flowing:

Music. What a concept! You can simply give your subscribers regular access to new songs. You can release a new single every month which they get before the public, release exclusive remixes, even do a cover song every month. Jim Guthrie gives access to his entire back catalog of 14 albums – quite a lot of music.
Video. Video is super engaging, and it doesn’t have be all full music videos. Behind the scenes videos, explanations of songs or special performances are all options. Andrew Huang’s whole shtick is live performance videos, with a lot of cross collaboration thrown in.
Access. Fans love having access to musicians. This may be the biggest advantages indies have over major label artists, who are typically hidden behind a veil of mystery. You still seem like a rock star to your fans, and people will pay to get behind that wall. You can do live video with interactive chat, online performances, Facebook interactions, and even perform in person for your top tier subscribers. You can also seek feedback and let your fans be part of the process. Nino Bless takes the time to live stream, email and even call subscribers, and his fans really appreciate the attention.
Merch. Also known as physical stuff. For your higher paying subscribers, you could ship regular goodie boxes with shwag like shirts, buttons, stickers or even CDs. Just make sure to budget for shipping, production and packaging based on what subscribers pay, and leave yourself a profit margin. For $25 per creation, Amanda Palmer will send physical artwork that she makes. You can also increase revenue beyond subscription fees by offering awesome exclusive merch or discounts.

Above all, provide value and an ongoing, engaging experience. You’re beyond just making music when you gather paying subscribers. You’re creating an experience, and it can be quite effective!

It’s up to you

It’s an exciting time to be a musician, even if it’s a little frightening. Fans are gobbling up new music, and they’re dying for an experience beyond the anonymous, boring pop radio phenomenon. As an indie with some ingenuity, you’re situated perfectly to fish the teeming waters of people who want to be touched, moved and inspired, and want to be a part of the process.

It might take a little time, effort and new thinking, but it can be done, and it can be very rewarding.

I admit it, I don’t have a subscription program yet. I may do that at some point, but in the meantime just hit me up on Facebook @AaronJTrumm – or email me aaron @ aarontrumm.com

aaron-trumm

Swiss Army Recording Rooms

Acoustic treatment for multi-purpose studio spaces

Lows First

Changeable Highs

Look Up

Flexibility and Planning

Share The Spoils, Or Pay Up Front?

When and why to cut collaborators in on the backend

What Does Backend Even Mean?

Rivers Of Revenue

Tributaries Of Tribulation

Songwriting

Recording

Will I See You Again?

Communication (In Writing) Is Key

The Other Side

When You Should Just Pay

It Can Be Great

The Rhythmic Turnaround: How to make your beats interesting

Why boom bap boom boom bap is not enough for your beats

Rhythm and The Brain

The Rhythmic Turnaround

The Power of Silence

Fills vs. Variants

One Of Many Tools

Everything You Need to Know About Picking Audio Cables

Balanced vs. unbalanced

Speaker vs. instrument

Connectors

TS

TRS

Mini TRS

XLR

RCA

Other types

Tips For Setting Up Quickly On Stage

Get Organized Today

Stay Organized Yesterday

Plan Ahead

Practice

Arrive Early

Manage Space

Focus

Load In Help

Keep Calm and Get Er Done

The 5 Best Reverb Plugins Compared

Valhalla VintageVerb – $50

Audio Ease Altiverb – Around $650 to $1100

Uaudio Lexicon 224 – $299

Fabfilter Pro-R – $199

Softube TSAR – $199

There You Have It

In Studio: Track Band Together, or Separately?

Authentic Live Capture

The Basic Band With Overdubs Method

The Rhythm Section First Method

The Hip-Hop, Pop and Everything Else Method

Do You Need That Upgrade?

Mix Fu:

Learn, Practice, Forget

The Brain Side

The Heart Side

It Takes Both – Train, Practice, Forget

Making money in music is scary. Subscriptions may help.

A Possible Solution

Could it be you?

The tools

What to deliver

It’s up to you