General Music Chat

Ive been coming on line a while marveling at how easy you guys make it look getting your songs in your profile and all,but im an old plumber who is just now catching on to it. The guys i play with arent much better than I either. We dont have a web site or try to promote our stuff too hard. We have a good fan base and play at least 2 times a month at an art gallery where some of us sell our art . Id like to learn how to get some our songs out where it would be heard by others to see if we could expand our fan base. We record about all of our jams and I have hundreds of Cds weve recorded. The biggest problem I have is we dont know anything about remixing or base editing to make our Cds sound as pro as say philby was when he sampled all that stuff from garageband. We are a pretty tight group when we play. but i wouldnt care to put an inferior mix up for fear i would lose a fan for the wrong reasons. Going into a pro studio isnt something the guys have talked much about as no one has done it before. And I fear might be expensive to say the least. I see a lot of people asking about recording tech , but havent seen a lot of advise about it. Is there a chance we might find a guy to put in the band for the sole purpose of promo and sound production. Or should we stay cavemen in the modern world and put it out anyway. Also there is the copyright issues we havent done anything with . Any help on this is most appreciated. Doby

put an inferior mix up for fear i would lose a fan for the wrong reasons

You wont lose a fan here. You will get constructive criticizm Be Brave. Put a song up

If your songs are tight and you know which ones you want to record I would definitely go to a pro studio. Tell the studio engineer exactly what you want the band to sound like, each song mapped in advance. With the equipment they have today it makes it much easier to get the product you want. Make sure everyone knows their parts backwards and forwards and just relax when you record. The last studio experience we had was awesome. It turned out very well and we only spent 13 hours at $25 per hour. Not a bad price divided by four band members. I'm not very knowledgable about home studio technology, but a lot of people are doing their own recordings. I can't give you any advice there but for me I'd rather go to a pro, it makes my life easier. Good luck. When you get a good result post it on Bandmix. Most of us enjoy listening to material posted on the profile pages here. Later...

thanks for the advice ,but could someone give us a name or studio they might recomend in the SC area. We see ads for a lot , but dont know anyone who has recorded with a pro. Did you find 1 in the book or ad somewhere .

The one time we tried to set up a reording session with someone we felt like we were getting ripped off. his prices were a whole lot more than 25 an hour. more lke 300.
would you put a song out there thats not copyrighted any advise on that

thanks for the advice ,but could someone give us a name or studio they might recomend in the SC area. We see ads for a lot , but dont know anyone who has recorded with a pro. Did you find 1 in the book or ad somewhere .

The one time we tried to set up a reording session with someone we felt like we were getting ripped off. his prices were a whole lot more than 25 an hour. more lke 300.
would you put a song out there thats not copyrighted any advise on that

Your best bet is to first, upload a song or two and people here will give you an honest critique of the recording quality, and advice on how to proceed to make it better, if needed.

You can take it down a few days later with minimal exposure. You can also edit your account settings to make it so the song is only listenable and not downloadable, so people cannot "steal" it, copyright law is in your favor just by you having a dated copy, but there's a few threads you can search for that offer copyright info and advice.

You guys should drive up here to Asheville NC. There are tons of great studios and more opening all the time. Because there are so many, competion keeps them very affordable and the most are run by very good honest folks. I used to love going out of town to record. Something about being away from distractions and just being somewhere different and scenic made it more of an event. It's an easy drive, plenty of good food and live music. Fresh mountain air

Here's a great place that's $35 an hour but if you search around you'll find a bunch. I know there are several options that are $25. You can come up for a day and tour a few before hand.

http://www.landslidestudio.com/

#1dude - the garageband stuff that I put up was super easy to mix as you go, & also very easy to edit. The thing I would do in your situation is to get an el-cheapo recording device like a Zoom & experiment with it.

You might be an old dog, but so am I. I figger that if I can do it, any idiot can, cuz I'm basically an idiot. The tune "Heads Up!" on my profile is something I did over 10 years ago on a simple 4-track, writing, recording & mixing on the fly. I don't think I have any particular aptitude for it, but it sounds pretty okay, if you ignore the mistakes...heh heh heh

Be brave, man. Get something to play with, & you'll most likely not only get into it, but enjoy it as well. There are a slew of such devices out on the market these days. If you want to do something super-professional, then you'll have to bite the bullet & pay through the nose. If you're looking for ideas on how to save money in the studio, or to make some demos, there's nothing finer than a good lil recorder to play with & learn with, and the more you use it, the better you'll get, & the shorter time & less money you'll blow at the pro studio in the end.

And when you get that home-made CD done, be sure to put your art work on the cover & the CD itself. There are CD stickers & printer stuff to make that happen for you, so that even your home-made work can LOOK like a pro's. That's pretty much what we did when I was in the hippie jam band, & our music got air-play on NPR & a few college stations, for whatever that may be worth. We sold quite a few at gigs & even on CDBABY, too.

Talk to some local ppl you're friends with. I'm sure there are those in your area who are doing these very things, & can help you through the rough spots.

Best of luck in your projects.