What is a Record Label?

This article asking what is a record label? 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. Finally, you may come across affiliate links, and I may make a commission if you buy.

Twenty, even years ago, the answer to this very basic question – What is a record label? – would have been pretty straightforward. Now, it’s a philosophical quagmire, and you’re likely to get a hundred different answers if you ask a hundred people.

It’s true, the role of the record label in music as a whole has changed. The role a label may play in an individual artist’s career may even be different, but contrary to popular opinion, the record label is not dead, nor is it likely to be soon.

So rather than spend a thousand pages (and we could) on the subtle history and nuance of record labels, their role in the music industry, and all the varying opinions on their usefulness or morality, let’s start by sticking to the basics, and get a fundamental understanding of what a label does.

So, first things first: The standard definition which you will see a thousand times if you Google “what is a record label?”:

A record label is a company that manufactures, distributes, and promotes music recordings.

A Simple Proposition

In the real world a record label may be complex, but at its heart what a label does is simple. A record label monetizes recorded music.

That’s it. Record labels’ sole business mission is to find ways to make money from recordings of music.

They do this by contracting with music artists who make recordings either with a production team or on their own or in collaboration with another company. They may fund the recording process or not. They may fund manufacture of recorded media such as CDs. They may not. They may fund distribution of recorded media, say to old fashion record stores. And most importantly, they put money into promotion of music.

If you’re an artist signed to a record label, you’re an independent contractor contracted with the label to make recordings.

Before we go any farther there is one thing to understand about a record label: A label is not a publisher. A publisher finds ways to make money from the songs themselves. This could get confusing, because many companies operate as labels and publishers, but the two are separate.

Make Money How?

This is where things get more complex, as there are myriad ways to make money with recordings, and a ton of complexity gets introduced in contracts, with even more confusing twists and turns added almost daily due to streaming, new internet thingamabobs, and various and sundry other craziness.

So, let’s boil it down to basics again.

Recorded music generally is monetized in one of these ways:

Sales – Sell a CD in a store. Sell an MP3 download. Sell a vinyl record. Sell a tape. This means sales to customers who then listen to the music for their own enjoyment.
Licensing – If the producers of a TV show or movie or any other project such as a live show or a YouTube video want to use a recording in their production, they need to negotiate and pay for a Master Use License. Remember this is separate and distinct from licensing the song itself.
Digital Performance Royalties – A recent addition to the list. Traditionally, broadcasters of recordings such as radio stations are only required to pay songwriters/publishers for “performing” their songs, not the owners of recordings. Now, however, labels can make money from performances on digital platforms such as the internet or satellite radio.

That’s the list! Every way of making money directly from music falls into one of those categories.

Of course, in today’s world, record labels don’t necessarily stick to these two categories – labels nowadays often do more than just sell music. That makes most record companies more than just record companies.

A modern label might make money from merchandise like shirts or stickers, YouTube monetization, licensing the likeness or name of an artist, live appearances and concerts, or any number of things that are traditionally not the purview of a label.

What IS a Record Label??? Another Way Of Thinking About It

Now that we have the basic picture of what a record label is, if you’re an artist you may want to think about it another way (this is going to help you when deciding who to submit to).

From an artist’s perspective, you could think of a record label as a service. This service is the business structure that allows you to make money being a musician. The label provides services like recording funding (think of this as a loan you could never get elsewhere), manufacturing, graphic design, marketing and promotion, and distribution.

If you sign with a label rather than building that structure yourself, you will have to pay them. Luckily, you don’t pay up front. Instead, you share the revenue generated from the monetization of your music.

Of course, in most cases you won’t be getting the majority of this money – in fact you might only be entitled to 10 to 25%. It’s up to you to decide if that’s worth it, but the idea is your ability to build the structure and promote your music is so miniscule compared to a big company that even 10% is a world better than 100% of what you could make on your own.

This theory was definitely true in the beginning. Even to have access to a recording studio was such an expensive proposition that artists had no way to make a record without a label.

Now Things are Different

Now of course, it’s only partially true. Not only can you make a recording on your own, with a little knowledge and work, you can even build a following, distribute music, promote, and create the entire structure yourself, skipping the label entirely. Think of Chance The Rapper and you’ll see how far its really possible to go.

That doesn’t mean there’s no place for a company that can do all that for you. The fact is, not all musicians want to become graphic designers, recording engineers, digital marketing gurus, concert promotors, and agents.

Still, many musicians have trouble with the idea of sharing the wealth. If you think of a label as an organization you’re paying to help you with your music career, a lot of what you see in the contract might make more sense.

There It Is, In A Nutshell

Record labels and the music industry in general are complex things. We haven’t even scratched the surface here, but we hope that understanding what a record label is at the most basic, fundamental level will be a good first step toward your understanding of the industry.

So, there it is in a nutshell – the basics of record labels.

While you’re here, if you’re going the independent route, take a look at one of the most important pieces of your music business structure – distribution.

I’m a producer, vocalist, and writer. When I asked myself “what IS a record label?” my life became all roses and puppies. Do you believe me? 🙂 Let’s talk about it on Facebook or Instagram

How to Beat Writer’s Block

February 8, 2023 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Flypaper by Soundfly, Instructional Stuff, Music Business, Music Thoughts, Rants, Randomness, Published Work

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, home recording, how to beat writer's block, music business, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording, songwriting, writer's block

This article about how to beat writer’s block 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. Finally, you may come across affiliate links, and I may make a commission if you buy.

I don’t know what to say about this. Blah blah blah. Doop dee doo. La la la writer’s block shmiter’s block.

As you can see, anyone can run into a little writer’s block from time to time. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, the waxing and waning of creative energy is an important part of the process, and everyone experiences a lull in creative flow at least once in their career – and usually it comes at regular intervals.

So, creative professionals have an entire toolbox dedicated to getting back their mojo in a predictable way, so they can go on meeting deadlines, writing hits, and winning Grammys.

And as it turns out, generating creativity is a predictable process, and writer’s block is not some mysterious demon that rears its ugly head because you’ve some how angered the muses with your unworthy lyrics or dastardly lifestyle.

Writer’s block usually indicates something in you that can be addressed – an emotional blockage, physical exhaustion, or a simple running out of ideas.

Here, we’ll go over some of the best, most tried and true remedies for the dread blockage (besides just using this thing), so you can get on with penning your next great work of art.

Fill The Well

Writer’s block is often the result of putting out a lot of creative energy and not getting any back. So one of the best ways to get your juice back is to consume other people’s art. Read a new book, explore new music, get out and enjoy a movie, take in a play.

Pro tip: in-person experiences like going to see a live concert or comedian usually have more impact.

Exercise

Writing music isn’t exactly physically taxing. Getting up and moving around will not only help you maintain your health, exercise has also been shown to increase creative thinking. Getting a good workout in on a regular basis is a necessary part of being a healthy person, and also an important part of a strong creative flow.

Get Out

One of the best authorities in the business of building up creativity is Julia Cameron’s “The Artists Way”. Walking is a crucial part of Julia’s method, and for good reason. Not only is it exercise, but it gets you out of the house, seeing new things, interacting with the detail of the world, and refreshing your perspective.

Sleep

Artists tend to romanticize the all-nighter. While the creative vibe at night can be super compelling, in general lack of sleep does damage to clear thinking and creativity. Best to get plenty of sleep to go along with other healthy habits, if you want to remain creative for long.

Play

Sometimes you just need to get out (or stay in) and have some fun! Make something weird, run around the room, rock out with your…ahem…friends. Socialize or play a game or do whatever it is that makes you forget everything and just be. If you’re lucky enough to get juiced up like this by being on stage, then you can use your gigs to have a blast and rejuvenate your creativity.

Freewrite/Jam

Sometimes the way to get out of writer’s block is to write your way out. Journaling in the morning or taking your instrument and just improv’ing for half an hour can work wonders. When journaling or brainstorming, make sure not to edit, or even think about what you’re writing. Write three or four full pages by hand without stopping. Even if the whole first page says “I have nothing to say” over and over again.

Perfectionist? Stop It

We’re always hearing about some great maestro or famous producer who’s just the ultimate perfectionist. Every little detail has to be right and she never quits and never accepts anything until its absolutely, totally, unequivocally perfect.

Poppycock. Perfectionism will stop you dead in your tracks. There’s a point, when you’re finishing a song, or if you’re a mix engineer, where you’ll need to be thorough about the details. But even then you have to let things be, and when you’re thinking about your next song, you should not be concerned about how great it might be or trying to get it right, much less perfect. Leave obsessiveness to the people writing about you.

Get Away From It

Sometimes you just have to let things lie. If you’re in the middle of something and you’re stuck, let your subconscious work on that puzzle while you take a walk or learn to cook. As a creative, you shouldn’t try to prove your worth by sitting in front of the computer 16 hours a day. Creativity is as much about letting it happen as it is about doing something.

Another pro-tip: try hanging it up for the day before you’re out of ideas. Just stop working while you’re still into it and come back tomorrow.

Find A Purpose

It’s amazing what having a reason to do something does for creativity. Not just a deep, spiritual drive to create. No, what we mean here is a real, tangible, reason. For example, getting paid to write an article about writer’s block. Money can sometimes be a mind killer in the arts, but sometimes doing a job that has a real, tangible purpose will be just the kick in the pants you need.

It doesn’t have to be specifically about money and you don’t have to wait to get hired. Book a gig in 3 weeks and promise to perform all new songs, for example.

Look Back At Your Own Stuff

It may sound a little self-aggrandizing, but sometimes you can get a real spark from listening to your own old stuff. If you’re like most of us, you remember your old stuff as being absolutely terrible, but with a fresh perspective, you may be surprised at your own talent. This exercise can help you remember how creative you really are.

Pro-tip: Watch out for wanting to re-do your old work. You know more now, so you might hear something you could fix. Better to move on, letting your former self inspire you.

Get Help

Finally, it’s worth acknowledging that writer’s block can happen when your emotional state is not its best. Psychologists have identified a number of deep-seeded reasons that writers and artists get stuck for long periods of time, and there’s no shame in admitting you may have reached an impasse that’s bigger than normal. After all, artists do deal in some pretty heavy emotions, and life does throw us a lot of curve balls. So, if you find that nothing is working, or the joy you once had for creating seems gone for good, it’s not a bad idea to seek the help of a qualified counselor.

It doesn’t mean you’re crazy! It means you’re a dedicated craftsperson, who knows how to do the work to keep in top shape. Just like an athlete would seek the help of a physical therapist when injured.

Ok, Let It Flow!

Every creative person has their own way of working, and that includes getting past blockages. Let us know some of your favorite techniques, and the next time you’re stuck, see if something – or everything – from the above list helps.

And now – let it flow!

I’m a producer, vocalist, and writer. I get writer’s block when I have to write what I don’t want. Let’s talk about it on Facebook or Instagram

13 Books Every Musician Should Read Yesterday

January 24, 2023 by Aaron

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

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, books about music, books about music business, home recording, making it in music, mixing, music business, musicpreneur books, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording

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 way.

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

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

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

Sharing Backend Royalties (or not!)

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, sharing backend royalties, should i pay my music partners, SonicScoop

Share the spoils, or pay up front?

This article on sharing backend royalties first appeared on SonicScoop.com. I reprint it here and encourage you to check out their super informative site! Also – You could come across affiliate links, and I may get a commission from sales.

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 sharing backend royalties. 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 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 “sharing backend royalties” actually means. 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. I use 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. Or with DistroKid at least, you can set a recoupment amount per track.

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 sharing backend royalties is 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 backend royalties 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.

Go Deeper…

If you want to go deep into this stuff and really super duper understand, try out these books:

All You Need to Know About the Music Business: Ninth Edition
This Business of Music, 10th Edition (This Business of Music: Definitive Guide to the Music Industry)
Confessions of a Record Producer: How to Survive the Scams and Shams of the Music Business
Music Money and Success, 7th Edition
The Plain and Simple Guide to Music Publishing: What You Need to Know About Protecting and Profiting from Music Copyrights, 3rd Edition

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

8 Pitfalls to Avoid While Building Your Music Business

October 5, 2022 by Aaron

Instructional Stuff, Music Business, Published Work, SonicScoop

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, building your music business, home recording, making beats, music business, music business pitfalls, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording, SonicScoop

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

It’s a jungle out there. Or a forest. Or maybe a desert. It could be an ocean teeming with sharks. Whatever it is, we can probably all agree the music business can be a frightening journey.

Whether you’re a full-fledged professional musician or just trying to get the word out about some tunes, you’ve probably gotten a lot of advice about the path to take through the quagmire. A lot of that advice may have been helpful, and some of it was probably misleading and maybe even flat out wrong.

The truth is, the path is yours, and we can’t tell you exactly where to go. But we can post a few warning signs so you don’t sucked into a pit of quicksand or a magical whirlpool to nowhere.

Here are 8 of those pitfalls you’ll encounter while building your music business, laid out in no particular order.

1. Inconsistency

Inconsistency is probably the top cause of failure in creative business. Have you ever turned on the T.V. expecting to see your favorite show, only to find that one of the cast members didn’t show up, or the script just didn’t get done in time? No. Period, end of sentence, never.

This doesn’t mean you need to create crazy, impossible promises and die trying to fulfill them. What it does mean is that if you can’t consistently show up and create, you should learn that skill before going any further.

You can still let your muse do what it does but learn how to drip that sporadic output to the public in an even way. This is easy enough to do using scheduled posts, future release dates and (contrary to the big TV model), NOT overpromising. If you’ve got 18 songs in the can and ready to go, create an 18-month release schedule. If you’ve got zero, don’t promise you’ll do one every month unless you know you can.

If you don’t have much content, just make sure you’re showing up regularly. That may mean checking your Facebook daily and responding to comments, sending a monthly email, doing a live video, or simply showing up to open mics predictably. Whatever you can do consistently, do it consistently.

Consistency also means emotional consistency. Give every contact the same great experience when they interact with you. Let your emotional whims and brilliant insanity out in the studio, not in your relationships.

2. Lack Of Focus

Here is an area where you’ve probably been given some bad advice. I’m sure you’ve heard something along the lines of one of these:

Start a podcast to draw attention to you and your music
Write sync cues to fund your act
Write a blog post every day
Post on Facebook 3 times a day every day
Learn to play all the hits so you’ll always have a gig
Put your music in every licensing library
Be present on every social media platform
Send your music to blogs, radio stations, magazines, etc.

The problem with advice like this is that it encourages you to dilute your focus and creates – wait for it – inconsistency. If you’re trying to release music, play shows, do licensing cues, write a blog post every day AND do a podcast, you won’t be focused enough on any one of them to do it justice. Podcasts will be late or sporadic, blog posts will come when they come, and disappear for months, and guess what? You will eventually stop making music.

When it comes to social media, it’s tempting to think that being on more platforms will get you more traction. But try spending two years solid responding to every Facebook comment, Twitter mention, Instagram post and LinkedIn request, and you will quickly find yourself drowning. Better to pick one than do three poorly.

Similarly, you may have seen advice about reaching out to blogs, radio stations, Spotify playlist curators, internet radio, magazines and labels. Before you spend time on that, think through your goals and decide what will do the most for your act. Again, one push done well is better than 8 done halfway.

3. Wasting Time And/Or Money

This is another version of focus.

Yes, it feels good to get that little bit of validation every time you get a review in a cool publication, a radio play or a Facebook like. The question is, is investment of time or money in those vanity metrics going to create a return?

If emailing blogs is taking you days and days and you’re getting a response rate of 1 out of 100, and an actual review in another 1% of those, and some of those don’t even have a link to your music, AND the only link to your music is a Spotify link, AND you have no way to capture, track or communicate with people who read the post, your time is probably not worth that effort. If you spent money on that effort in the form of a PR company or virtual assistant, you’ve probably wasted your money.

Maybe you’re convinced that two or three music business courses at $1000 a pop will do the trick. Or someone told you that you need a bunch more gear, or you think you’ll do better if your album is mastered by the absolute best mastering engineer in the universe. Or worst, you’ve bought into some pay-to-play scheme.

SOME of these things might help you in building your music business, but most will waste your time AND money. So instead of falling for the old “if you’re not willing to invest in yourself” line, stop and take a hard look at anything you’re about to put money or time into, and ask “how likely is this investment to return or forward my career in a specific and measurable way?”

4. DIYing Everything

While you don’t want to waste money on every service and gadget out there that may not feed your bottom line, you also don’t want to be doing everything yourself. If you’re trying to write music, mix your songs, master your songs, build your own websites, take your own photographs, write your own press releases, do all your own promotion…well you get the picture. Not only will this waste time, it will also lead to a lack of focus, which will hurt your quality.

If you happen to be a web developer or a photographer or a graphic designer for your day job, it makes sense to use that skillset to further your music career, and if you have absolutely no budget, then you’ll be forced to do things yourself for a while, but as soon as you can, get the things that you aren’t good at into the hands of people who are.

5. Trying To Bootstrap

Speaking of having zero budget, don’t. That may seem a bit harsh, but the truth is it’s a rare business which doesn’t start off with some outside funding. Especially in music, and more especially with recorded music, you’ll find yourself stuck at almost every turn if you can’t spend anything.

Obviously if you can make money playing live or with a sync license or two, you can put at least part of that back into your business, and you should! But you will find a whole world of ease and grace available to you if you let yourself fund your music business with your other endeavors – like your day job.

It can be quite a trick, finding time for a job AND your business, but there are plenty of ways to strike a balance. Flexible work, work that you can do remotely, part time work, and reducing your personal expenses are all really helpful things. Striking the best balance you can when it comes to what you do yourself and what you delegate is wise as well, and is easier to do if you stick to actions that really have heavy value. As mentioned above, do take the time to evaluate any potential spend of time or money in terms of how well and how fast it can return.

6. Making It About You/NOT Making It About You

You’ve probably been told it’s not about you. That’s true, to some degree. If you are the only one who loves your product (aka your music), you’ll have a tough time making a living. So you need to think about who your fans and customers are, and what they need. You want to move, touch and inspire people, which means whether you love the sound or not isn’t top priority.

By the same token, if you’re not true to yourself, good luck moving people. You must be authentic to your own inspiration in order to be inspiring to others. This is where making it about you IS important. The fact is, people don’t care about music. They care about people. Your fans will be fans because they care about YOU. They care about your story, the value you can bring to them as a leader, and the difference you can make in their lives, simply by being brave enough to put your creativity out for them to see. Remember to tell your story, create an experience, and think about how that story affects other people more than how it affects you.

7. Shallow Relationships

It’s tempting to try to build as many relationships as possible. We all want to get as many fans as possible, as many business connections as possible, and as many touches on social media, radio and blogs as possible. But if you’ll refer to pitfalls 2 and 3, you’ll remember that many of the quick, one -off relationships you gather will end up being valueless.

Instead of forgoing a deep connection in favor of more, be sure to cultivate your best relationships. Take great care of your super fans. Build lasting partnerships with a few incredible collaborators. Be truly there for businesses who fit value you.

When it comes to building new relationships, build them slowly. Introduce yourself, add value to the relationship, and be patient. Nothing alienates a potential fan more than spamming their messenger box with a link to buy your record when you don’t even know them.

This is yet another version of focus. It’s far better to have 1000 super fans all spending a $100 a year on you than 10,000 followers who spend a dollar and forget about you.

8. Not Vetting Music

Here is a thing that gets swept under the rug too much: most music sucks. There, I said it. You can do all the right things with your promotion, your relationships and your branding, but if your music is terrible, you’re facing an uphill battle. The truth is, though, if you’re serious enough to read this, you’ve probably got what it takes, so don’t sell yourself short just yet.

But be honest. Do you really take the time to get feedback and actually make changes? This is the thing that separates professionals from amateurs when it comes to quality. It’s not expensive gear (ps: be smart about this too), it’s not flashy studios and it’s not that major label musicians magically have 50 times your talent. It’s simply that truly professional work is vetted.

Professionals seek feedback at every stage, from ever-widening circles of unbiased listeners. Over the course of a production, change after change after change is made, until what is finally released to the general public is polished, crisp and excellent. If it’s not, it’s scrapped or continues to be honed.

Processing your work this way will give you confidence when it comes time to promote it, will virtually guarantee that your audience is impressed, and will involve more people, meaning more people will spread the word. So, vet your work!

Go Forth!

When you go down this path called Art-For-A-Living, you really can’t predict how it will look, and everyone’s path is different. Heck, it’s not even the same landscape every time. The music business can look like a jungle, an ocean, a vast expanse of barren space, or a warzone.

However, those of us who have been meandering, careening and bumbling through the land for years can tell you what to avoid. There’s not much we can tell you about where you’ll go and what you’ll do, but hopefully with some of these warning signs posted, you’ll be able to get somewhere beautiful.

Go forth, then, and create and thrive!

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 on how to make beats interesting 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

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TS