Mac Law Music-Scholarship Foundation

02/13/2020

02/13/2020

Unestablished bands often have the experience of being in the middle of a long tour they’ve booked themselves with having no idea if what they’re doing is paying off or not. DIY touring can be filled with unpleasant experiences, whether it’s playing in front of empty rooms night after night or having to skip meals and sleep in the van to save money. Most bands know the end results of what they want to have happen through touring, but it can be tricky recognizing the small successes it takes to make big things happen. If these three things are happening for your band through DIY touring, then you’re doing something right:

You’re seeing an increase of national and regional press
In the age of playlists, blogs and newspaper coverage are still big exposure opportunities for artists. One of the biggest benefits a band can get through a small-scale tour is an increase in regional and national coverage. Obviously, what pretty much all musicians want from touring are larger audiences for their music, and tasty write-ups in blogs and newspapers based in the cities you perform in can help bring the masses to your music. But here’s the thing: In order to actually get some decent press as a small band, you’ll need to do tons of work to make it happen. In addition to the duties of booking a tour, a separate DIY press campaign will need to be launched and maintained to bring meaningful media attention to your tour.

More song plays, views, downloads, and playlist adds
It might be hard to gauge while you’re up on stage playing in a tiny venue, but your touring efforts could be paying off in ways that have nothing to do with crowd size. Believe it or not, audiences often check out and become fans of artists they hear about coming through their cities without going to shows. Listeners might want to check out your stop through town, but are sometimes too busy to make it to the show. A surefire indicator of a successful DIY tour is a noticeable increase in your song plays, video views, social media interactions, and playlist adds. You might need to return to a city multiple times to build a meaningful fan base there, but an important measure of DIY touring success can be found in the numbers of new fans listening to your work at home and not necessarily in person at the venues you play.

The shows you’re playing are at solid venues
A sign that you might need to head back home and go back to the music career drawing board is if your project is playing terrible, bottom-of-the-barrel venues night after night. Every band has rough nights, but if your tours only play out in bad venues, something fundamental needs to change about the way you tour. Even under the best of conditions, touring can be a difficult experience for bands, so it’s simply not worth doing unless you’re playing in venues that will showcase your work and effort in the best light.

If your project isn’t experiencing real success on the road yet, don’t let it get to you. It can take years to build meaningful touring momentum, and having a hard time getting there doesn’t mean your music isn’t promising. The answer almost every time is for artists to keep tweaking and creating until something works in a big and clear way.

02/10/2020

02/02/2020

This is a Fan Video clip from a "Shake it Up" Show from High-Energy Variety-Dance band: "The MixX" - Taped on: 1-10-20 Cover of John "Cougar" Mellencamp's HI...

01/26/2020

5 Things I’ve Learned as a Songwriter
Looking back on what will be thirty years of writing songs this year, it occurs to me that above and beyond learning more about the actual nuts and bolts of songwriting, I’ve gained some often hard-won experience about what it means to be a songwriter and how to take what I’ve learned from my mistakes and move forward. The best part of spending this much time in the metaphorical songwriting trenches is that I’m happier now than I’ve ever been in my career. So, in an attempt to repay my good karma, I’ve listed five of the major lessons I’ve learned and - since we’re close to the new year - the resolutions you can make to improve not only your songwriting, but also your enjoyment of the journey.

Lesson #1 - Write songs because you want and need to
You need to write because you’re genuinely moved to do it, not because you think you can make a fortune. If - and when - you DO make “money” with your songwriting, it’s more an indication that your motivation and work ethic are aligned. Even the most successful songwriters write many, many more songs that don’t make any money than they do hits. This same lesson also applies to trying too hard to follow songwriting trends. As I’m fond of saying, by the time you’re aware of a trend, you’ve already missed it. Don’t make the mistake of writing what you think people want to hear. Write the song you’re genuinely moved to write. Listeners can absolutely sense the sincerity of a song. Also, by writing because you can’t help it, you’re setting yourself up to add genuine meaning to your songs and your life. So, in the future, why not resolve to take a moment and think about not only “what” you’re writing but also “why” you’re writing to begin with.

Lesson #2 - Your lyrics can be much simpler than you think
In the early days of running my recording studio, I became aware of a unique Nashville phenomenon. What would happen is that experienced/hit songwriters would find the “new guy” with decent studio chops and ridiculously low studio rates and work him to death. I was grateful for every moment I could spend with these writers, so it was definitely a win-win. I’m mentioning this because I’ll never forget working on a song for a couple of writers and casually glancing over at their lyric sheet during the session. There was practically NOTHING on it! Just a couple of lines for each verse, a short chorus and that’s it. Yet, the song sounded complete. What I learned from this, and other experiences after this one, was that songs can work beautifully with a simple, short lyric. Not only that, but while there is always the temptation - and occasionally the place - to be “clever” in your writing, sometimes plainspoken, sincere lyrics hit harder and work better. All this to say, make a resolution to simplify and shorten your lyrics in the months and years to come. Remember that the faster a listener can learn and remember your song the greater the likelihood it will get stuck in their heads. And that’s a good thing.

Lesson #3 - Save the editing for later
Early on, because I was trying so hard to remember all the “rules” about songwriting, I would agonize on a small section or single line of a song sometimes for hours. While occasionally I’d find the line I was looking for, more often than not I’d exhaust myself and my co-writer in the bargain so that we’d have to come back to the song another day to finish it. What I’ve learned since that time is the genuine value of songwriting momentum. Another way to put this is, that it’s better to put in a “good enough” line knowing that you’ll most likely come back and improve on it later, than it is to stop the proceedings entirely in search of something perfect. The power of flow and momentum in songwriting is huge. I believe it’s better to get to the end of your song without editing too harshly and then go back and try to improve it. It makes everything easier and it also makes your songs better. Make a resolution to stay out of your own way and not to edit too much while you’re first writing your song and, instead, get the song finished first. There will always be time for editing later, but you’ll only have one chance to start - and finish - your song without bogging yourself down in the editing details.

Lesson #4 - Don’t wait for opportunities to come to you
I can honestly say that for almost the entire first decade of my songwriting career, I believed that if my songs were just good enough, then the world would beat a path to my door in search of what I had to offer. Now, two additional decades down the line, I know this is simply not true. The way good things happen with your songs is that you have to put them out in the world, market them and actively look for placement opportunities. I hate to say it but there will always be many more good songs than there are recognized songs. Having a great song is a strong start but it’s making the effort to get those songs into the hands of the industry decision makers that makes all the difference. This isn’t the fun part of what we do, but if you’re hoping to make a living as a songwriter, writing good songs that no one hears isn’t a business plan. Resolve to take the business side of songwriting more seriously in the future and you’ll be amazed at what happens.

Lesson #5 - Everything is going to take longer than you think
The blessing and the curse of having a passion like songwriting is that patience is in very short supply. The best advice I’ve ever heard is to be micro impatient and macro patient. “Micro impatient” means you should be impatient with yourself on a day to day basis to write as much as possible and to get your music out in the world. “Macro patient,” on the other hand, means that you have to realize that beyond what you can do every day, the big stuff never goes as quickly as we’d like. It has not been unusual in my career to have songs I’d written five or even ten years earlier, end up on album projects or in film and TV. Make a resolution to keep as many irons in the fire at a given time as you can so that you can stop worrying about the things that are beyond your control and give yourself permission to be patient.

The longer you write songs and the closer you pay attention the more there is to learn. Even now, I’m still surprised at how much I don’t know about songwriting and a career in music. I hope that some of what I’ve learned along the way will help you as you continue your songwriting journey.

Good luck!

Bio
Cliff Goldmacher is a GRAMMY-recognized songwriter, music producer and educator with recording studios in Nashville, TN and Sonoma, CA. Through his studios, Cliff provides songwriters outside of Nashville with virtual, live access to Nashville’s best session musicians and demo singers for their songwriting demos, find out more. Download Cliff’s FREE tip sheet “A Dozen Quick Fixes To Instantly Improve Your Songs”.

01/26/2020

How To Use New York Compression
The drums in your track are the foundation for your song.

They play an important role in conveying the emotions that you are trying to capture through your song. This makes it a top priority for you to mix your drums in a way that is powerful and impactful.

But how do you add this weight, punch, and power to your drums?

In this article, I am going to go over how you can apply the New York compression technique to any of your drum tracks to create a more impactful and emotional song.

What is New York Compression?
To understand what New York compression is, we must first understand what parallel compression is.
Parallel compression is the process of sending a dry audio signal to a heavily compressed signal and having these two signals play at the same time or in parallel. Parallel compression is a great way to add depth to any audio signal while preserving the transients of the audio.

New York compression is a form of parallel compression. What makes New York compression unique is how we set up the compressor, which we will cover later in this article.

Applying New York Compression
The goal of New York compression is to bring out the quieter parts of your mix without having to destroy the dynamic range of the audio that it is on. Having a compression technique that thickens up your audio without destroying transients makes it the perfect technique to use on your drums as they need to retain the punch, power, and transients.

There are multiple ways to set up your New York compression routing, but I like to use a return/send track to accomplish this. The first step is to send your drum track or group of drum tracks to a return/send in your DAW.

If you are needing assistance setting up return/send tracks, please consult your DAW’s manual. Once you have sent your drums audio to a return/send track, place a compressor on this channel. Any compressor will work here. To set up New York compression all the controls you will need to change the ratio, attack, release, and threshold which most compressors will have.

The first parameter we are going to adjust is the ratio. The ratio is the strength of the compressor.

Remember, New York compression involves a heavy amount of compression and will be more compression than you would ever want to use directly on an audio signal that is not a return/send track.

Knowing this, we are going to crank the ratio all the way up to 10 to 1. This is going to make the compressors grip on the audio very strong.

Next, we are going to adjust the attack of the compressor. We want the compressor to add weight and body to the entire compressed signal, so we will want the compressor to start compressing immediately.

To do this, we will adjust the attack to be as your compressor will allow you to. Having this fast attack will destroy the transients of this audio, but this is okay as we have the uncompressed signal that will be providing these transients.

Next is the release control. The release control tells the compressor when to release its grip on the audio. We want our compressed signal to be heavily compressed but have a bit of life to it so we will place a 50 millisecond release on it. This will allow the compressor to reduce the compression enough to give the sound just enough dynamics so it does not flatten out the entire signal.

Finally we will adjust the threshold. To set the threshold correctly, you will need to listen to your audio and then make adjustments. Again, the idea with this compression is to heavily compress your audio signal.

When adjusting the threshold, look to gain reduce around 15 – 25 dB. This will require the threshold to be rather low around the -30 dB mark.

After we have set all of these controls on the compressor, it is time to blend in this processed channel with the unprocessed channel. Begin with the volume fader of the compressed signal all the way down. Then slowly bring up the audio of the compressed signal while listening to both audio tracks. A little goes a long way here, so once you start to hear the compressed signal, you have blended the signals together well enough.

There you have it!

You have just added New York compression to your drum track and have thickened up your drums.

Conclusion
New York compression is an incredibly powerful technique for adding weight and power to your sounds. The drums in your music require this weight and power and the mixing in your tracks must reflect this. By applying the steps outlined above, you can add this form of parallel compression to your drums and make them stand out in the mix.

01/26/2020

01/21/2020

Listen to CRB-The MixX on Jango Radio. Jango is personalized internet radio that helps you find new music based on what you already like. Unlimited listening, no commercial interruptions!

12/30/2019