Quick Hip-Hop/Rap Tip

Time to put in work. As most of you know I am working on a hip-hop album for one of my friends being his first EP. As I breakdown the tracks into sections I then look at how to make it better. Mixing is going to be involved but I won’t mix fully until I have the whole song recorded. In the editing process I make everything sound clean and crisp by cutting out clips and pops. After everything is cleaned up I begin to level and pan the tracks to get a main balance. Once the song is balanced I give this to the artist to write to. This gives him an idea of what the song will sound like. Once the recording process starts I record main verses at least three good takes. I record two different adlibs. And anything other recording the artist wants. In the chorus I record about five good takes, which gives room for creativity in the song. I like to make my songs sound really big and in your face so people can really vibe to the music. The mixing part of a song gives you the control to make the song your own. I would suggest using some modulation to sounds during the chorus or adding in some drops when the artist says a line that’s really catchy. These little things give the song some excitement to it. Besides adding modulation and drops, add some volume change automation to the song so the listener distinctly knows the chorus and verse sections. Once you mix the beats down then add extras to it including the vocals being mixed in will change the song for the better. Using imagination is the half of it. Hope you guys use some small techniques like these to help your songs create excitement. Mix Master Rozay Out!

Drum Microphone Selection

Time to put in work. Hello all, this week I am going to talk about microphone selection. I got the idea after I had a session this past Friday. I was recording a band and had to decide how to capture the sound of drums, guitars, and bass sound. When recording a band it definitely takes awhile to setup and get the microphones placed. Now microphone placement is for another post since that is one of the most important parts of a session. However getting the correct microphones will only make it easier for yourself when you are ready to record. As we should all know the three main types of microphones dynamic, condenser and ribbon, each play a factor in live recording. Before I get ready to choose the microphones I look at how many pieces the drum set has. This gives me an idea of what drums ill capture during the recording. In my session I recorded 4 piece cymbals, kick, snare, high tom, and low tom. Now I did some research and used some of my friends experience to get the best out of my recording. This is how I did it. Note that the studio I was recording in has about 20-25 different microphones so I have a lot to work with. First I placed the drummer in the isolation booth to contain the sounds of the kit. I didn’t know what to expect I was just experimenting. I then started to select and place the microphones. I used a Beta 52 on the kick since the AKG D112 was in for maintenance. I used 2 Beta 57’s one behind the kick and one on top of the snare. I used 2 Sennheiser 421’s on the high tom and low tom. I used 2 Neumann U87’s as the overheads. After using that setup and placement of the drums it worked out better than I expected. The recording was the best I ever had on recording drums. Everything sounded crisp and clean; the isolation booth reduced the room reverb, which makes it easier for mixing. So if you have a studio and record bands try this setup or a similar one and see how the recording comes out. Mix Master Rozay out!!

Pro Tools Automation

Time to put in work. Hello all back with some more information regarding a special parameter in Pro Tools. This week I will be talking about Automation. Automation is a great tool in any style song or genre of music. Automation lets you have total control from panning, fading, gain, plug-ins, among many other options. When you set automation in Pro Tools it automatically alters the parameter you set, hence automation. I never really used automation until the past 3 months. Automation is my go to when I am done editing to help give the track life. Automation is set by drawing in exactly what you want to happen in the song. In hip-hop, the verses and chorus are definitely distinctly known. In my own mixes I have started to do the same. Once you know where the verses and choruses are in each track, you can raise the volume in the chorus and lower the volume in the verse. This lets the listener know when each section is happening. Also, the stereo image of the chorus needs to be big, loud, and in your face. Another case where automation is used is drum fills or rolls where they pan from left to right very quickly. This helps when you are getting ready to drop the beat or drop into a verse. Plug-in automation has a whole lot of ways where it can be used. Most recently I have used it for a master bypass. I like to turn the plug-in on and off as I like after I set it. With automation you can do that and it helps saves time when you mix. All you future engineers I would dabble around with automation and use it. This is a low down quick post on Pro Tools automation, now go enjoy. Mix Master Rozay Out!

Samples

Time to put in work. Hope everyone had a great week. Today we are going to talk about samples that are used in hip-hop. This is for beginner producers that are making beats in the hip-hop world. Samples are the most important part of a beat. Now when I say samples I mean sounds and drums that you use to create the beat. There are so many programs that you can use to create beats that have stock sounds in the banks of each program. There are alternatives to just using stock sounds. You can also buy expansion packs that have more sounds added to a specific program. Now I know a lot of producers are using the Native Instruments Maschine to make their beats. What people have done is buy Komplete and then you have an entire library of sounds. With Komplete you have over 110 Gigabytes of sounds and drums that are nice sounding. I would suggest producers to find a bundle deal with Native Instruments Maschine and Komplete combo and buy it. It’s definitely pricey but you won’t go wrong with the awesome sounds. Enough about that what I really want to talk about is drum samples. This is the bread and butter of any hip-hop beat. Drum samples are great to use but you have to get really good quality drum samples. Komplete however is ok but I have a better solution. When engineers get the beat of a track they more than likely switch out the samples with better one that the industry uses. Two of the best samples are Modern Beats and Sounds in HD. These packs come in .wav format so it’s easy for any program to use. These have the best drum samples for hip-hop and rap style beats. So stop having your beats come up short with dead drum sounds and check these kits out. I am definitely still figuring out the best solutions for myself. I will post the sites where you can find these and check them out. You can also demo a few of the samples so you know what you are buying. Good Luck and keep making heat. Sites: Modern Beats http://www.modernbeats.com/ Sounds in HD http://www.soundsinhd.com/

Pro Tools Shortcut Basics Tutorial

Time to put in work. Hello all my last post I explained what Pro Tools shortcuts were. I am now showing and explaining how they work. These are just a couple commands to get you future engineers going. However if you have not read my last post, please do before watching this so you understand why I am doing the tutorial. Alright that's enough from me lets get right into it, hope you all enjoy. Mix Master Rozay out!

Pro Tools Keyboard Commands

Time to put in work. Hey everyone hope you all are having a good weekend so far! This week I want to talk about shortcuts or hot keys. This is one of the most important elements for an engineer. Most programs have shortcuts or hotkeys but I am talking about the industry standard Pro Tools. So what are shortcuts or hotkeys? They are premade commands within the program to help you work faster and not use your mouse for everything. Now these are very important to use because once you get clients you may not have all the time in the world. You need to be able to work fast and be able to use the keyboard for almost everything. You can learn the Pro Tools shortcuts from a free PDF that Avid has put up. This PDF explains every single shortcut for the Macintosh and Windows operating systems. It explains what the action is and the keyboard command(s) for it. I am suggesting that you download it and open a blank session and practice some of the basic shortcuts first. After you feel comfortable with the basics, move onto the more advanced commands. Now you will not remember every single command because there are way too many to memorize. This is just to help you have a more efficient workflow and they are good to know. Another option is to get a skin or stickers that are custom made for a mac or windows keyboard. These are color-coded and go right on the keyboard with the shortcut so you don’t have to memorize the shortcuts. I think that it is very useful and that is how I started with a custom made Pro Tools keyboard shortcuts skin from Amazon. They are fairly easy to find and price is good for what you are using it for. The link below is where you can find the Pro Tools Shortcuts. Hope this helps and enjoy. Mix Master Rozay out! Link: http://akmedia.digidesign.com/support/docs/Pro_Tools_Shortcuts_74634.pdf

Reverb Part 2

Time to put in work. This blog is a video tutorial on reverb. I explained reverb before and gave screen shots. I feel like that didn't do justice so here is a video tutorial with a full explanation. This is in Pro Tools 10 on a track that I am currently working with. I hope you all enjoy!!! Mix Master Rozay out!

Networking

Time to put in work. This week I am going to talk about networking. This is an important part for artists or anyone who is trying to make a career choice as an artist or musician. Most people just use the online presence as a good way to network with other musicians, beat makers, or artists. This is a good way to get started but there is more than just the online presence that makes a person network better. Social media networking is a way to reach out and get attention from people like friends and family. You should also be looking forward past friends and family since those people will support you on every single thing that you do. Social media networks can also be very time consuming and take a lot of time and patience to check each individual social media site daily. There are a lot of sites that help you manage your Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites together and post one time and it post onto all of social media sites at once. This is a great way to always post and have people on all of those other sites to see what you are doing at one time instead of individually. Beyond social networking sites you need to get out and meet people. My best suggestion is meet DJ’s, other artists, and music managers that manage artists. Even though you as an artist do not have a manger you have to do all the networking yourself. This shows people you are serious and striving to get that record deal. Once you get into contact with people and make some connections you will only better yourself in the long run. This can help get you shows, or have someone host your album or mix tape. If you make the right connection someone can even show major music labels your music and you can get your foot in the door. So young artists don’t be afraid to go outside your comfort zone and get your music out to the people that can help you. If you don’t try you will never know what it could have been. The worst thing that people can say is No. Don’t get discouraged just move onto the next connection. Be open and be respectful. Have confidence but don’t be cocky. Hope this help good luck and keep networking.

The Use of Sends

Time to put in work. Last week I was explaining how to use inputs and outputs on auxiliary tracks in a Pro Tools session. Now today we are going to talk about the use of sends in a Pro Tools session. You maybe asking, what’s the difference? Well the difference is that sends are used more for effects like reverb and delay. Now when you use a send you have more control over the amount of reverb and or delay that is used on that track. Now if you route it through the output to aux input then you are controlling the gain of the track and not the amount of reverb or delay, so it doesn’t work properly. So lets say you want to add some reverb to a snare drum on one of the tracks that you have created. I will do the same in one of my sessions. First thing you want to do is create an auxiliary track Aux track. And name it “reverb.”

Next you want to set a bus input for the reverb to an open bus mine will be Bus 1-2.

Select the reverb that you want on the snare and put it in the inset tab on the Aux channel.

Now go to the snare drum track and click on send and select bus 1-2 so it routes to the Reverb Aux channel.

When you select bus 1-2 an additional fader will pop up like this:

Now put that fader from 0 to unity gain like this:

Now play back the track and adjust the aux reverb to your liking. This helps you control the amount of reverb you want the snare to have. This helps out when reverb is overpowering in the mix. Well that is all good luck and keep mixing.

Distribution

Time to put in work. Distribution I know I have touched on how to distribute your music very briefly. However distribution of your music is only going to help you get closer to your dream of the next hottest artist. Don’t wait for something to happen because you will not get anywhere and you will never get close to that dream. Gaining a following of artists is a must for upcoming artists. The best way is to network and get your name out there to the public. If you don’t have any social media networks you need to get some that are for your music career base. This is an easy way to upload your music and so your following can spread the work to other people by word of mouth. Now if you create an EP album consisting of 5-7 songs officially then you would want to make money on that album unlike a mix tape. The two best sites for distribution are CD Baby and Tune Core as I explained a few weeks ago. CD Baby is the better way to go if you are on a budget. It is free to have an account to get ready to distribute music. There are several options that you can take to get your music distributed out. The “Album Signup” is $49 but you get a lot of perks. Your album will be sold on 60+ download stores including Amazon, iTunes, Spotify and more. You don’t have any annual fees and you can track your sales when people buy your music. The best thing is that CD Baby handles all the logistics such as payment transactions; download fulfillment and customer service details. This is a good way to know that your music is getting taken care of by a good service. Now there are plenty of other services such as wristbands and download cards to give out at your shows. This is a really good way to get your music out physically and each individual service has its own price based on quantity. Now again this is CD Baby I would go check it out and click on the tab pricing and look what appeals to you the most. I am going to be using this service when I distribute my artist Chi Smitty. Hope this helps and good luck!

Mix Routing

Time to put in work. What’s up everyone, hope you guys took those basics of a mix session from last week and started using them to your advantage. This week we are going to talk about routing. Routing is all done in the DAW by sending instruments to one track called a Bus. Why would you want to do that? When you set all your levels to either all your drums or instrumentation of the track you probably want to leave them set. You don’t want to move each individual sound every time you want to make an adjustment in the drums or instrumentation. When you bus all your drums to one track you have total control over all the drums with one fader. Here is what it looks like. The steps to do this is selecting all your drums and go to the output select an unused bus like this. Side note when getting ready to select the bus make sure each instrument is highlighted and hold option + shift and select the bus. This is so all the tracks will go to the bus at one time or else you will have to do it individually.

Next create an AUX track and select the input to the same bus you put at the output of the drums. I usually Label it Drum Submix. Meaning all your drums are on this one fader.

Now all your drums are routed to this track and this controls all the drums instead of individually. Mixing is an important part of the entire track and this helps with only 2 faders instead of every fader that I have for each instrument. Now Auxiliary tracks are not only used for routing groups of instruments together. They are also used for processing and dynamics, which I will explain next week in a more, detailed blog post. Try this out and let me know if this helps with mixing your track. That’s all for today Mix Master Rozay out!

Editing A Track

Time to put in work. Today we are going to talk about the most critical point in a track before the mix, the editing stage. There are three stages that I take when I engineer or produce a track: the tracking stage, the editing stage, and the mixing stage. For you hip-hop beat makers out there editing is the most important stage for you. Editing ensures that everything flows right and you do not have any click, pops, or audible complications. When you make a beat always work with the desired tempo instead of the default 120 beats per minute or bpm. Not every song is going to be 120 bpm. The next thing is to work with a grid so that everything lines up and is on time with the track you are making. This makes it easier when you start your edits after you lay down the track. Not only will working with a grid helps in editing but breaking down the track into sections, such as the chorus or hook, verses, intro/outro and drops. Hip-hop music is about how unique that beat sounds once you get ready to lay that vocal down over the beat. The best tip is to change up the song so it doesn’t become repetitive and boring. Making the listener hear different sections will keep the listener engaged in the song. The next tip is to use quantization on everything. Quantization helps keep everything in time and ensures that no instrumentation sounds off which can destroy a track. To avoid clicks and pops in your track use fades. This helps so your transitions can sound clean without those audio clips and pops. This can be very time consuming when adding in fades on each instrument. In the end you will definitely be grateful when you get ready to mix. Lastly, take your time don’t rush this process. Make critical edits and take frequent breaks. Most importantly have fun and be creative. Mix Master Rozay out!!!

My First Podcast Recording

Time to put in work.

Producer Professionalism

Professionalism is key when it comes to music production. I am talking about when trying to reach out to clients or getting in contact with labels. One key factor is distribution of music. Since there are so many ways of doing this you want people to take you serious when you talk with them. So how might you stay professional? Fist and foremost having an email address. You might be thinking that’s it, no but you need a professional name email. Don’t have an email that says bestbeerdrinker@gmail.com. That’s not something you want to talk to a serious label or distribution company with. Create an email address for professional work only. Having your name is a common way to be a professional. Here is an example of a professional email address: John.Doe@gmail.com. If your first and last name is taken put a number after your last name like a 1 or month you were born. Don’t go overboard with the numbers just add one number to differentiate you from the other taken email. Adding a signature to your ending message is another important element. A signature is something that you put at the end of an email to explain who you are.

Here is an example:

Respectfully Submitted

John Doe

Engineer/Producer

John.doe@gmail.com

That is really basic but it helps people look at how you present your work to them. Ok now you have a good email. Social networks are another way to get you a professional look. Make sure that you use the same name for every social network you are on. This helps people follow you quickly and easily on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. Having these social networks remain professional steer away from posting things you normally would on a personal social network. This can hurt your following and how people judge you if you are acting out. It can be time consuming to go into each and individual site so; a good way is link them together. This helps you to post one time and have that go to all of your sites. There are so many sites that can help you do this and I suggest doing this. I hope this helped to give you some guidance toward your producing career.

That is all,

 Mix Master Rozay out!

Pro Tools Session Organization

Time to put in work.

This week I am going to be explaining the setup of a pro tools session. Being an organized engineer is one of the most important things of being an engineer. Not only does it make you look and be professional, it also helps if sending a session to another engineer. Sometimes the session is sent out to be mastered or another engineer may take the session over they need to see and know what things are. If you send them a session that’s not labeled, color-coded, or organized is not a good look for you. Now you don’t have to do these things at all but I would suggest that you take the time to setup a session and make it easier for you. A side note is that if you are going to be using the same type of session over and over, setup the session and save it as a template so all your setting save.

I will be explaining setup in Pro Tools so follow along if you are using this same software. One you have a blank session open figure out how many tracks you will need. Usually drums, synths, strings, vocal etc. This will depend on what music you are doing. I am explaining this as a hip-hop genre. After you have the number of tracks you need, create that amount of tracks. Next go to the mix window and begin the setup process. Here you can label all of the tracks however you would like. I usually do all of the drums, instruments, vocals, and master fader. Always have a master fader no matter what in any case that is very important. Once you have all the tracks labeled and in an organized manner, color-code them however you like. I usually have red for drums, instruments are green, and vocals break down from verse to hook being orange and yellow. This just help you know where and what things are once you begin editing and mixing a session. Next set your inputs to your microphone or whatever you are using. Set your outputs to your speakers. That’s it simple basics of making a session organized so when you begin recording you are ready to go.

Once you get familiarized and used to your software you find your own way of doing things. I figured that out being an engineer for myself. The way I set things up is how I am efficient and feel comfortable working. Every engineer has their own way of doing things. So keep working and making your session better for you. 

Stay tuned next week for more advanced session setups.

Q & A Interview Vlog

Time to put in work.

Hello all here is a little Q & A about me and who I am. This gives you an idea of who I have worked with and what I have worked on. I also give a few tips and some experiences that I have had. Hope you ll enjoy. Mix Master Rozay out!

Promotion

Time to put in work.

This week I am here to explain how to get the music you own on the right path. Before I go into any details I want to explain a little bit about what I am doing as of right now in present day. I am part of a group called Musical Mercenaries consisting of one artist, two beat makers, and myself the engineer. We are our own production team and have been becoming very successful. I am working with Chicago’s newest underground rapper named Chi Smitty. Chi Smitty has a big Youtube presence with lots of good music and 2 music videos. We are now working on his first 5 track EP Album that will be coming out in December. Not only will I be engineering the project but I will also be producing the entire album. We will distribute the songs through various websites and establish an official online media presence.

That’s a little about what I am doing and learning a lot as I go. I have never played the producer role in a big project like this, however it’s a long and grueling task that has a nice reward. So how do you get your music online officially? There are many steps that I advise you to take. First setup your ASCAP or BMI certification. What this does is protects the rights of your music so people can’t steal it and use it for themselves. It’s a very important thing to have for any artist or beat maker. Second check out Tune Core and CD Baby. This is the best way to distribute your music and eventually get paid. These sites are like an online manager, takes care of all the hard tasks of individually finding out how to get copyrights, put music on iTunes, and etc. Once you have those two things setup, its time to get social media sites. This is to help promote your music and attain a fan base. Now there are many websites and different ways to get you out to the world. I will leave the URL’s for the sites down below. So people do your homework and comment back for any questions. Stay tuned for next week when we begin basics of a mix session.

ASCAP: http://www.ascap.com/

Tune Core: http://www.tunecore.com/

CD Baby: http://www.cdbaby.com/

(1st music video) I engineered the track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7l7kIvZD8w

Newest Song I engineered the beat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIoPZKedLxQ

Introduction

Time to put in work.

 

 Introduction to the blogging world, we are here to talk about audio my friends. This is a new thing for me but I am excited to let everyone know, that I take pride in working with music. Along with music comes the artist or band that you work with. Everybody that is in music is looking for that record deal. However, most people that are starting out have no idea how to get their name out to the public. This blog will give the average person the tools that you need to get started. Now a day’s people have the opportunity to just buy a microphone, laptop, and recording software. This gives them the free roam to record whatever they want when they want. Now this is a good idea if you are just trying to dabble around and don’t have the money to pay for a studio. To become a Producer and/or Engineer it’s more than just a microphone, laptop, and software. Anywhere you go, people want to hear the quality of the track and the vibe it has. The word on the street is that everybody says, “Everyone can rap now a days”. Why, because everything is becoming so inexpensive. The only thing that I can really advise for people is don’t do everything yourself. This means don’t make the beat, record yourself, or engineer yourself. If you do all of these things you will not find room for growth. It’s about collaborating with people finding a group of people who are into the same things as you. This music entertainment business is not something that can happen on your own. Take these things into consideration and make a team of people like I did. In my next post I will explain more and how to get started.