Recording Artist Advocate: Big and Small labels...

On a blog about recording artist you would think “Labels” refers to recording labels.

Not this time.

Today I’m talking about the labels that go on clothing. Have you noticed some clothing logos getting larger? I’m all for taking an iconic logo and blowing it up so that a specific feature is highlighted. My own Rough Wood Studio logo is a close-up of either the Texas flag or a super close-up of the American flag. But some clothing lines are just making their clothes look silly with 4 or 5 inch versions of their logos in place of the regular ones.

It’s lazy and it cheapens the brand.

This comes into play for recording artist in two places; sponsorships and merch.

Sponsors want you wearing their logo. You should think long term and realize that what’s popular today may not be tomorrow. You also don’t want to be all-in for a brand that becomes unpopular. You are much better off wearing really good looking clothes that happen to have smaller labels. Timeless good looking clothes don’t lock you into a time period. Seriously, who do you see wearing those 80’s rodeo shirts with flames these days?  

Apply this to your merch. Think authentic and timeless. Choose designs that would have looked good in the past and will look good in the future. Tie-in with what you’re known for. Find out what fans are saying about you and reinforce the best ones. Plant your flag, but don’t make it about trendy things that go out of style.

The main point I try to get across to artist is that you want a long term career. That doesn’t mean you have to be bland. But don’t be so current that you’re on your way out. The next big thing will be replaced by the next-next big thing. Be known for more than that and you can have a long career.   

Recording Artist Advocate: Criticizing Success

“The Trees” is a Rush song from 1978. The premise is that the maple trees are upset that the tall oak trees get an unfair share of the sunlight, and they pass a law that the sunlight must be shared equally.

So their “equality” is enforced by “hatchet, axe, and saw.”  They force equality by destruction, and everyone suffers.

Let me apply this to you and your own music career. Let’s say you write some great songs. Then you practice playing and performing. You play bigger and bigger venues and even get some attention from radio and music bloggers. Things start to happen for you. Great! Congratulations.

But then you’re told that’s unfair. You should share with other bands that don’t write or play as well. You have to let them share your bill and take part of your pay. You had an unfair advantage somewhere along the way. Natural talent or parents who encouraged you… or something in your past that made it easier for you. You unfairly took too much fame/money/sunlight.

So you share, but they don’t rise to your level; they won’t practice or show up on time. The shows suffer and the crowds quit coming. Now there’s nothing for anyone.

This same scenario was posed to college students. They were asked to share their GPA with less fortunate students. They all said “GPA redistribution” would not be fair to them.  They said, “I worked hard for those grades.” And, “Why should I have to give points off my grades to someone who didn’t work as hard?”

You may not be making much money now, but this is a business where you can go from making a few bucks a night to several hundred – to several thousand. It can happen faster than you think. You will work harder than you ever thought you could. If everything works out you can be very successful. With every success you’ll need to do more to top that. Keep doing that long enough and you’ll be a tall oak among maples. No one else can do it for you.

Do yourself a favor now while you’re working your way up. Don’t set a trap for yourself by criticizing the successful. When you become successful you could get caught in it.

Recording Artist Advocate: Authentic?

Think about any movie with a scene in a "young" persons room. The camera pans across the walls to reveal band posters and trophies - all the trappings of youth. Except it's always a set director's version of youth. The band posters are out of time or something just seems wrong. It's not authentic. Go into a real young person's room and you'll see something completely different.

It's as if someone said, "What do kids like? Lets put that in there."

I like to see establishing shots where it's obvious that people walking along the sidewalk, or otherwise living their lives, didn't even see the camera. They just do what they do without any affectation. You really see them just as they are.

We crave things that are authentic and hate fakery. We do like to make fun of the fake or insincere. And you don't ever want to be the brunt of one of those jokes.

Are the songs you write today going to make sense in 10 or 20 years? Would they have made sense 10 or 20 years ago? Strip away the things that nail it to right now, and you can write something that is truly timeless.

Anything that's new is on it's way to becoming old. So be timeless. Be sincere. Be Authentic.

Recording Artist Advocate: Brain, What is brain?

That’s a line from an old Star Trek. You may remember the episode where Spock’s brain is stolen and used to keep a society’s infrastructure working. I think it replaced a broken AC unit or something like that. (Those control boards are expensive and the repair guy was light years away. And it was the weekend.)

Anyway, they rescue his brain and put it back in his body with the help of a teaching machine that could make anyone a genius… at least for a little while.

The people in that society had become docile and simple minded after generations of having everything done for them. One of the most simple minded learns the complicated brain surgery and does all the work while “Bones” watches with his usual weird/amazed/horrified look. As soon as she finishes up she forgets how to do it and goes back to her regular life.

There is some social commentary there for us today, and it’s really amazing that the writers thought about that so many years ago, but that’s not what I meant to talk about.

We have access to that “Knowledge Machine” right now. Really, there is no longer an excuse to say, “I don’t know” about anything.

Ask the Google about anything and its right there; the answer and several conflicting opinions in less than a second.  

Last night I needed to create a click track that would change several times during a song. I couldn’t remember how to do that in ProTools. But in a few minutes I had it done after watching a YouTube video from Graham at The Recording Revolution.

Someone, somewhere, has made a video or written an article about anything you want to know.

What do you want to learn? How are other bands promoting themselves? TuneCore has hours of videos with fantastic advice from industry leaders. I really can’t believe how much they give away – for free.

There was a time when knowledge was guarded and doled out a little at a time. Not anymore.

If you want to know, it’s there for you.

Recording Artist Advocate: 2 is better...

Once I recorded a guy who was so consistent in his singing and playing that we actually couldn't tell the difference between 2 takes. I finally pasted them on different tracks and lined them up together to compare. At first I thought I'd just made a copy of one track, but they were slightly different. 

That is rare. And when you are stacking vocals or layering guitars it's not uncommon that you have to massage the tracks a little to make everything line up right.

One solution with guitar parts is to feed the signal from the guitar into several amps at once. The resulting tracks will line up perfectly and each amp delivers it's own unique sound.

But you can't just use a splitter cable, and even pedals with multiple outputs can be a problem if the outputs aren't isolated. Nasty hums and ground loops can result. Lift the ground from one of the amps and you could get a shock when you touch your mic.

There are several boutique solutions, some with 5 or more outputs. But they can be expensive, and do you really need that many outputs? Through guitar playing friends I found a simple fix. Google "Lehle" and you'll see several solutions. 

We've used the P-Split and the Dual Amp Switcher. the Dual also has an output to feed a tuner. The best thing about these splitters is the high quality isolation. Your tone is preserved and noise floor kept as low as possible. 

Stacking or blending tones is not new, but there are smarter ways to do it. Get the best sound you can and do it safely.  You're welcome.