Modes and Key Signatures have a variety of different characteristics and are great for outside-the-box songwriting. Here’s a cheat sheet to remember them! Nick Jameson’s story is almost as interesting as this song’s bass part itself. After having previously worked as a
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When recording acoustic guitars, most of the tone is going to come from the guitar itself, the microphone you chose, and the room you record in. You can find some great-sounding acoustic guitars for under $500 that can easily be used for
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Pedalboards too cumbersome for your setup? We just launched a new free course with one of our favorite guitarists of all time, Kaki King, on how and why she uses a digital pedalboard, a MIDI foot controller, and expression pedal, in replacement of
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Going on tour soon but don’t know how to get the word out? Here’s a list of amazing strategies to put your band on the map and make your travels count! With the advent of systems like the Kemper Profiler and Fractal
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We all have friends who spend more time in their virtual worlds, and video games have some pretty interesting soundtracks to keep players coming back. Many songwriters have been quite successful in creating music for video games. Kotaku, the popular gaming site, profiles
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Let’s examine the guitar more closely. Imagine that the guitar’s low E string has a frequency of 1 Hz. (It’s really 82.4069 Hz; feel free to multiply everything in this next section by that number if you want actual frequencies.) You want
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While the basic idea of sectional form can be stretched pretty far, it’s not uncommon to hear songs with additional types of sections. Pre-verses, post-choruses, breakdowns, ad-libs — there are plenty of examples of alternate forms. Now that I’m a professional touring
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My sister is a TV comedy writer, and she once told me all she wants to do when she gets home is watch CSI or some other dark, dramatic show — because all she does all day is write jokes! I’ve noticed
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There’s an old studio saying: “Crap in, crap out.” No amount of mixing is going to save a bad vocal recording, so it’s important that you get it right at the source. Unfortunately, you probably don’t have much say over the recording
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In a nutshell, mastering incorporates all of the audio work done on the master output from a mixed song or album. While originally intended as the mechanical preparation step for putting music into its final media format for playback, mastering later began
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