In today’s blog, we catch up with HowToLicenseYourMusic.com’s resident producer, Gary Gray, for Part One of a much-requested Four-Part music production blog and video course, called “How to Get a Killer Vocal Sound.” This course contains detailed video capture footage of an actual vocal production session, with each step
clearly and concisely explained by Gary.
In conjunction with the new course, Gary and I will be hosting a live webinar, exclusively for members of How To License Your Music Premium this Friday, June 30th at 11 AM PST. If you’re a premium member you’ll get access to both the course and the webinar, as well as dozens of more courses, music
licensing leads and much more. Visit http://www.htlympremium.com/ for details on everything included with your premium membership.
Check out this amazing, 15 minute excerpt of the course that Gary put together, to get a taste for what the course will be like: Though you haven’t heard from Gary for a few weeks, he’s been busy behind the scenes helping me with webinars, putting together content for the new HowToLicenseYourMusicPREMIUM website (http://HTLYMPremium.com), and working night and day in the studio on several deadlines for 20th Century Fox (his latest project for 20th Century Fox garnered this response from the Director of Licensing for Fox Music, “Wow! This sounds fantastic Gary! Very Well Done!”). Gary has also been busy at work on my new upcoming EP, as well as mentoring students around the world on music production,
music theory and sound design.
Coming off a series of music licensing placements with my own music produced by Gary (including a virtual reality video game placement), I’m proud to also announce that Gary recently won a Telly Award as Sound Engineer, Mixer and Mastering Engineer for the soundtrack of “Path of Totality,” composed by award-winning AI Scientist David Fogel! Over to you, Gary…
Thank you Aaron! To those of you who know me, and to those of you who are brand new to HowToLicenseYourMusic.com and HTLYMPremium.com, I’m honored and humbled to be able to share my experience and expertise with you, and to help you succeed, just as my mentors helped me succeed.
I’m especially excited about the new course Aaron & I are releasing called “How to Get a Killer Vocal Sound.” The course will be available to members of the new HTLYMPremium.com website. The course will also be available to purchase as a stand alone course in the near future, if you’re not yet a member of the Premium website.
There is such a vast amount of information that goes into creating a killer vocal sound in the studio, that I ended up creating a four-part series, with each part a full course in its own right.
Part One
Part One covers
the Philosophy, Priorities & Initial Steps To Take right now in order to achieve a killer vocal sound in the studio. Parts Two, Three and Four cover additional steps to take, such as basic fundamental workflow steps, the vital practice of A/B’ing as applied to vocal production, reverbs, delays, compression, advanced vocal production techniques that can be heard on commercial recordings, such as “3D Reverb,” side-chaining compression of reverbs
and other vocal effects.
Philosophy
There are two basic hats that every person with a home studio wears (or should be wearing) while recording and/or mixing music. This is especially true of vocal production.
The first hat is “producer.” The second hat is “engineer.”
In my 30 plus years as a producer, engineer, and mentor, it has become painfully clear that, in most cases, only one of these hats “shows up for work” in the home studio (or pro
studio for that matter!). Which hat shows up? The engineer. The engineer seems to be the exclusive hat worn by most home studio owners while they toil away on their tracks.
The Difference Between Engineer & Producer
The engineer is the person with their nose stuck to the computer screen, continually diving down rabbit holes to solve this, solve that, create this effect, trying to find that brand new sound, etc. The engineer pays attention to the immediate task(s)
at hand, and eagerly (or not so eagerly) attacks each one.
The producer, on the other hand, is the person who has the “big picture” always in mind. The producer steps back, away from the computer screen, away from any rabbit holes, and makes broad, big decisions regarding the project at hand.
When it comes to mixing vocals, the engineer, when hearing a vocal track, is already deciding what needs to be done in order to make that vocal track sound the best it can be,
which is the correct viewpoint for an engineer to assume, for sure.
However, as stated earlier, the engineer is usually the only hat being worn in the studio, and so, the quality of the final vocal production suffers accordingly.
If, on the other hand, you were to wear the hat of producer as well, then you would tap the engineer on the shoulder and say, “Chill. We’re not going to necessarily finish mixing this track just yet.
Let me hear this rough mix from beginning to end first.”
Mind you, these two “individuals” inside of you – the producer and the engineer, do not listen to tracks with the same purpose in mind. While the engineer is constantly figuring out ways to improve what is there, the producer may put everything on pause and say something like, “This singer is not the right person for this track, let’s find a voice that aligns more with the emotional flow and musical statement of this song.” Or,
“Instruments sound great. However, this song is in the wrong key for this singer, it’s out of his range. Get the instruments transposed down two half-steps into the key of B Flat and then let’s re-record these vocals. Chop-chop, let’s do it.”
Or, even more boldly, the producer might state something as radical as, “You know what? This song is not cutting it. We’re not going to work on this song anymore, it’s a mess. It doesn’t really live up to the quality of the rest of this album. Let’s
hit stop on this track and reconvene and go over the full list of potential songs for this project.”
You see the pattern here?
Producer = Big picture. Engineer = Small details. And even more importantly:
Producer = He or she is in charge. Engineer = Listens to the producer.
And so it goes as the project moves forward. The producer is in charge making the big calls. He’s there to facilitate the vision of the artist. The
engineer is there to facilitate the vision of the producer. The engineer rolls up his sleeves and gets his hands dirty, puts his nose on the computer screen, and dives feet first into various rabbit holes of technical challenges and sonic puzzles.
To get an idea of how in-depth this course goes, I invite you to watch a short excerpt video of the course right now. This course gives you
extremely important tools, workflow ideas and techniques that result in you getting a “Killer Vocal Sound” in the studio, every single time. Take The 180 Day Music Licensing Challenge For Free!
This is the last week to save 33% on your membership to How To License Your Music.com premium and
take the upcoming 180 Day Music Licensing Challenge (see below) for free when you sign up as an annual member.
When you become a premium member, in addition to getting access to the 180 Day Music Licensing Challenge (annual members), you'll get access to our new course ( as well as all our courses), our live monthly webinar, our music licensing leads and much, much
more.
The best way I know how to describe this new premium site, is to imagine a Netflix or Amazon Prime for the music licensing industry.
As a member of How To License Your Music Premium you'll get access to:
Regularly updated music licensing leads - Find out who is looking for music, what they're looking for and how to submit your music (no extra fees ever).
Comprehensive Music Business Courses - Get access to all of our in depth, niche music business courses. New courses added monthly! (The next course we're releasing will dive into how to produce vocals for music licensing.)
Music Industry Directories - Get access to up to date, comprehensive contact information for music supervisors, music libraries, music publishers,
film and tv music departments, video game companies, ad agencies and more!
Hundreds Of Audio Interviews - Get access to my complete archive of over 100 in depth audio interviews with music licensing industry insiders. You'll hear from music supervisors, music publishers, songwriters and producers, and much more.
Music Licensing Reference
Library - In our music licensing reference library you'll be able to access hundreds of songs that have already been licensed, so you can hear what kind of music gets licensed the most. You'll also be able to gauge the production value of music that's being licensed, to make sure your own music meets the necessary standards.
Live Monthly Webinars - As an annual member to How To License Your Music
Premium, you'll also get access to our live, monthly webinars. Each month we're doing a live webinar that will cover a specific topic related to music licensing. You'll also be able to access the replays to all our past webinars. We've done three so far, and will be doing a new webinar every single month!
Private Facebook Group - Connect with other members inside our private Facebook
group. Share your tracks, get feedback, meet other people to collaborate with and more!
Quarterly Coaching Calls - For a limited time, when you sign up on an annual basis, you'll also get a one on one quarterly Skype consultation with How To License Your Music dot com founder, yours truly, Aaron Davison. We won't be able to offer this feature forever, so be sure to lock in your annual membership now to take
advantage of this feature while it lasts.
No longer do you need to buy multiple, stand alone, ala carte courses or multiple memberships to different websites. For one, low monthly price you’ll get access to all of our courses, leads, interviews, webinars, interviews, tutorials and more.
Imagine the time and frustration you’ll save by being able to access
everything you need to get your music licensed in one, convenient place.
The 180 Day Music Licensing Challenge
You'll save over $1,000.00 off the cost of what it would cost to purchase all the products separately when you sign up as an annual member of How To License Your Music premium!
If you're interested in getting an in depth education on all things music licensing related, be sure to sign up this week as a premium
member to get access to all the great training and lock in your savings of 33% off the full price for life!
We're adding new content, leads, courses, webinars and more on a regular basis!
I thought the best way to show you how cool the new premium member site is, would be to give you a video tour inside the site, so you can see all the great features for yourself.
There are just a few days left to join for just $25.00 a month, or $197.00 per year. After that the cost goes up to $35.00 per month, or $297.00 per year.
See you in the member's area!
Best, Aaron Davison |
|
|
