But how do I do it? Obviously I’m not sitting there and playing all of the musical instruments at once, and obviously I am mixing together separately recorded elements. But there is another part of it that might also be a bit more puzzling – virtually every single portion is recorded with an early 1990′s computer microphone, not designed to output anything near studio quality. Yet, some of my songs sound fully polished, mixed, mastered, as if they belonged on a commercially bought compact disc.

My first secret is my software. I use Adobe Audition 2.0, an audio program that allows you to mix more than 50 audio tracks simultaneously, apply effects like delay and chorus, and do live digital recording. This program was famous among internet users prior to its release from Adobe Systems Inc. when it was known as Cool Edit Pro. Adobe Audition is not the only great piece of software to use, however, another great program that I would recommend is ProTools from Digidesign.

To get a sense for what the song creation, recording, and post-recording process is like, I’ll explain a tiny bit about my musical background. For one thing – I have none. That is, I have no official background of having been trained by a music teacher or music school. In fact, between my ability to play guitar, drums & percussion, my limited singing ability, and my luck with a piano – I’ve not ever had a single music lesson for any of it from anyone!

The great thing about music is that since the start of its existence it has always been a natural thing for a human being to take part in. You are born with the elements necessary to make music. The terminology, the ability to communicate skills and other processes, however, does take some instruction and time. I began learning how to play the drums when I was just 10 years old, where for a year or two before I even sat down to play at all I had been watching my brother play. Purely from watching him and taking a hint or two here and there I learned the essentials of rhythm.

And rhythm is the first step in the creation of any song at all. During my time living in limited living spaces, I was not able to set up my entire drum kit to record it live. So I had to improvise. I use a piece of software called Reason, from a company called Propellerhead. Reason is a music generation program, but it allows you to use a sequencer to create drum licks that sound totally natural, and there are also studio quality. I would not recommend going straight to software to put drums into your songs if you’re a serious musician, because when you leave it to software to fit drums into a musical composition, you can run into serious problems.

To record the drums live, you have a number of options. If you are recording everything with a single microphone, then the first thing to mic is snare drum. The microphone needs to be facing the snare drum itself, but be positioned at a slight distance of about a foot and a half or two feet from the snare and high hat. This single mic is capturing what will most likely be your most important drum elements – snare and high hat. You record your first portion, playing the same pattern again and again without silence or interruption. Separately, you will want to record a mic that is right next to the bass drum.

The real secret to doing great sounding drums in a recording with a single microphone is to record small bits and pieces separately, then take a single lick and put it into a loop with your software. You want to add the different portions into the loop to get the recording sounding more refined and multi-dimensional. You then re-encode to get your final, polished drum loop. If you do not want to do loops, you can do the same process for each individual beat, but if that is your course of action I hope you have plenty of time to spare!

Often times, since I do not have a band to play different portions, I will practically write the song as I’m recording it. In a sense, it’s like having a jam session with myself. A rough version of a song will come out in recording, and then if the song has potential, it goes into individual practice sessions by myself where it will later be re-recorded and re-polished.

After I have drums and rhythm to work with(always recorded using a metronome, by the way), I then move onto getting some solid guitar riffs into the work. I will sometimes do more than 50 takes for my first guitar riff, primarily because your opening riff is something you want to play with a lot. If the song is intricate, I will start with something simple and then slowly add more and more in as I play an evolving riff or verse, over and over again, recording it to the drums, being played through headphones, each time. Each guitar portion is recorded twice, then doubletracked. One take of the guitar being played can be heard in the left speaker, a different take of the exact same thing can be heard in the right speaker. The result is a symphonic, depth filled tone and sound for the guitars and their distortion/crunch.

Piece by piece, a song is made. If I had a bass, the bass would then be recorded to the guitar, with the same basic process. An intro, chorus, verse, another chorus, another verse, and a possible outro are all recorded more than once. The final, finishing touch, always, is the vocals. Vocals are also the most challenging. In my article, Getting Started as a Singer or Vocalist, I talk about some things you can do to get started. Vocals recorded into a mix are challenging. After you have recorded everything, you will then want to adjust decibel levels, equalize frequencies, and make other tweaks/adjustments.

Step number one – get a microphone. The music I have recorded for Eternal Exhaust was created using a microphone that was purchased in either ’92 or ’93, made solely for the computer. It’s the kind of thing you would use with voice over IP, or chatting with someone over an instant messenger client. It is NOT designed for recording singing, yet that is what it is being used for with some success. So basically, I do not think it matters what kind of microphone you get, how much it costs, just get one to start off with. In addition, you will also need something to record with, like a tape player, or preferably, a decent home computer with some great software.

Digital music software 101 – there are now dozens of different really great digital music programs. Personally, I use Adobe Audition 2.0, because of its ease of use, its versatility, and its excellent continuous design structure that allows Adobe to constantly improve upon the program itself. The other powerful tool that exists, however far more complex, would be Digidesign’s ProTools. Either piece of software would be something that I would highly recommend, however, I should say that while I haven’t done much with ProTools I feel that Audition has a simpler interface for live recording.

Being a modern singer means knowing what you’re talking about, and knowing what you’re doing. Having said that, you may have noticed that I have already laid down a lot of talk in regards to digital recording and equipment. To me, I do not think there should be any way of getting around it, the modern musician must know what they’re doing these days, and musicians do indeed include singers in my book.

The place every singer should start is the lessons of Roger Kain. Are you a soprano? Roger Kain has an attitude of, “who cares?” Roger Kain is the author of The Complete Vocal Workout: A Step-by Step Guide to Tough Vocals. Out of any resource I have been able to lay my hands on short of a well qualified vocal instructor, Roger Kain’s book and practice CD’s have aided me in getting started better than any blog, article, website, book, or other source. If you cannot afford the lessons of a vocal instructor(or even if you can), I would recommend picking this up as a definitive resource for any singer, new or old.

Learn to feel the “crystal” synchronization you’ll hear when you’re in harmony. I’m not quite sure how to describe it, and many singers who try to teach other people how to sing tend to leave this one out. If you cannot hear when you’re in harmony or cannot learn how to get your voice to match a tone, you’ve missed the first step of good vocals. The real key to starting off your journey as a good singer right is to learn how to hear the ‘crystal’ sort of tingling that happens when you’re in harmony with another tone or note, as well as when you’re either slightly out of harmony. If you’re totally off key, you will not feel or hear anything. For me, vocal harmonization is one of the most soothing activities I have ever experienced in music, and it is something that other people outside of you will not experience – you are the only one who can get the real physical sensation of the relaxation harmonies induce.

Higher pitch is higher volume, deeper pitch is lower volume. Many new singers, myself included, have had the problem of starting out completely monotone in their singing. The real way to break out of this starting habit is to experiment with your voice’s volume. You probably know how it sounds to talk to someone when you need to be quieter rather than louder, and how it may sound when you have to shout over an amplified crowd. Learn the differences between these as a fundamental place to start, because volume in relation to pitch in singing is one of the most important aspects you’ll ever learn.

Learn to sing all different kinds of music, not just the kind you want to sing. This one can be a tough one for the teenager in their garage band wanting to become a rock star, or the wanna-be opera singer who has no desire for anything different. But the value of learning to sing multiple kinds of songs is imperative, because it reinforces a number of fundamental vocal ideas in your brain. One of those ideas it that you can harmonize with anything, no matter what the voice is, no matter what the music. Another idea would be that no matter what kind of song you’re singing, it is still just musical notes and tones, nothing more, nothing less. For those who have no respect for the abilities of vocalists like Jonathan Davis of Korn or even Scott Stapp of Creed – see how long it might take you to reproduce their sounds the way they do them. You’ll likely find immediately that they make it sound a lot easier than it really may be. Similarly, you may find out some songs are recorded to sound well but sung live by a single voice rather than two doubletracked will allow you to hear the differences in real talent between singers. A doubletracked voice might be good to strengthen the feeling behind a chorus or particular verse, but some songs doubletrack the entire way through simply to cover the lack of ability of the singer singing it. Doubletracking is a process often done in studio recording where two voices are recorded singing in harmony to produce more depth to the sound.

If you’ve got the time or money, invest either into learning to play a musical instrument. Playing a musical instrument is not a necessity for a singer, but like singing multiple kinds of music, this is a simple tip that can aid you in more ways than I can probably count. Myself, I play drums and guitar, two skills which allow me to practice all of timing, rhythm, pitch, harmonies, and tone – sometimes all at the same time.

I think the key to it all is the blend of the different elements. Over the past several days I have been taking a lot of time off to start feeling good again after a long series of many challenges and tough transformations. Every single time I’ve felt down, the power of music has always been the one thing, above all else, that has been able to lift me back up. The great thing about music is that it is something that virtually anyone can do if they are given the knowledge, time, and practice to develop it.

After reading This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, by Daniel J. Levitin, I am reminded of the fact that historically, music has been something that was common among all people, and was something that everyone participated in, not just the talented. Old, primitive songs are often times very simple in their structure and especially simple in their instrumental elements, probably in part for the reason that more people can get involved. Similarly, we see modern music of today beckoning its audience to grasp onto particular familiar riffs and notes that, down to the science of a musical formula, people can pick up on and follow.

Music was not always a series of shows, a giant promotional escapade that went on all day long on the radio stations, or a series of magazines that were highlighting the different bands of the future as opposed to the music of yesterday. In fact, it is only recently within the past several centuries that we have seen the rise of the rock star, the rise of concerts, the seating of an audience to watch the performance that takes place on a stage. During the classical era, people would sit politely and quietly in an auditorium or stage area while music would be performed by some particular artist like Mozart of Beethoven. What is interesting to note is that while rock and roll is so new in musical history, its passionate audience that continues to follow it in dance, aggression, and primal emotion is as primitive as music’s beginning origins.

My life has consisted of almost nothing but creative media for several years now. And as I drive around town looking at all the different people that live here, seeing all of the various different businesses that operate here, I am struck by the lack of creativity that is existent in modern society. A large portion of my life has been music, film, photography, and art. Yet, you do not see these things often outside the bounds of major cities. To see a museum, I’ve got to drive about 20 minutes to half an hour or more to get downtown. To see fine art anywhere, I’ve got to drive at least 10 to 15 minutes to go to a campus. To hear music, I’ve got to either own music already or go buy a CD, or pay several dollars for a ticket to a show, which may not happen at the time I’d like to hear it. Lucky for me, I own a guitar and know how to play – but sometimes I don’t want to make my own music, I want to hear the music of others.

People of ancient Rome, of the old Greek civilizations, and other old cities of the past the public could merely walk right outside their front door or even look out a window to see art. To hear music? Walk down the street, people would be playing it, singing it, all the time. Some cities of the world are still like this. London, England, for instance, is very much like this, especially at night. I loved it! I wanted to ride the subway just so that I could hear the music that the different musicians would be playing. And it was diverse. Not just guitar, not traditional rock, it was everything from accordion to violin.

The key to the power of music is the way its very nature mimics that of our modern view of reality. Consciousness narrows its perceptions down to things it can repeatedly recognize. When we build cities, roads are everywhere. When we walk outside, the environmental elements present are everywhere, so for you that might be grass, sand, or snow. But we repeatedly recognize these things. We recognize these common environmental elements to a point that we can begin to see patterns. Emotions, relationships, our daily activities that we take part in as our role in being one with society are also recognizable patterns. It’s official – human beings love patterns. Having said this, music is nothing but auditory patterns, some of which are naturally more attractive than others.

In essence, it is amazing to think that the majority of the music we love is nothing more than the same 12 basic notes played in endless different variations, rhythms, tempos, and changes in delays or pauses. We are, technically speaking, not hearing anything new anytime we hear any one single piece of music. Yet, somehow songs in music can always be made new for us. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, right? On top of that, we come to the variability that can be made possible by musical instruments and auditory effects. Still, in theory, on a long enough timeline, it would theoretically be possible for no new music to ever be created ever again, just the same as it is possible for no new story to ever be told again, or no new piece of poetry, because there are only so many words and word variations to use within any given language. Still, we will not see this anytime in our lifetimes, and it’s possible that the mere behavior of history will allow old material to be wiped out over time and be reinvented again for others to enjoy.

The last time I wrote about music was in my article entitled Sublimation Through Music & The Science of Music. It is interesting to note the sheer power of music as an outlet for emotional expression. Historically, music served as the basis for a way to serve emotional health. Music, by the power of both auditory pattern and the way the brain will interact with that perception, as well as the basic associative connection people build with any given piece of music, can change any mood at any time, no matter what its prior state. If you’re ever feeling down, listening to a beautiful song just might be the solution you need. Music has the ability to alter brain chemistry on the basis of how the brain processes music itself. As a result, any past government that has wanted to manipulate a populace will use media giants and even musical artists to help in their control of a populace. Nazi Germany during the World War II era even kept certain singers under their watchful eye, and kept them singing about the glory of the country. The power of music is undeniable, whether you’re talking about a situation like that, or the positive use of elevating a depressed state.

When it comes to earning money, perhaps the most important thing to the majority of society is using a system that works. And for the majority of the American population, or even the global population many places, that follows a single, simple formula.

Early School >> Middle School >> High School >> Job >> College >> Job+Career >> Create Family >> Die

Has anyone else besides me noticed this common trend? Does anyone else besides me see the problem with this picture?

The fact of the matter behind that common societal expectation is that it is simply too boring, too simple, and can even be more risky than we initially thought. The number of people who attend their first year of college is drastically different than the number of people who graduate college in their final year. The number of drop outs is astounding in high schools, but even more astounding in colleges. So where do these people go who have failed to meet expectations? The first answer most people around me give is: McDonalds! But please, McDonald’s only has so many people that can work for them. Not everyone goes to fast food.

The real truth of the matter is that whether you have got a college degree or not, the real test of time is how innovative you can be when interpreting and using the whole of your life. The public education system is designed in such a way that it does not tend to teach children a CEO mindset, rather it teaches them a follower mindset. Right from the very beginning, year one, they are taught to stay in a single file line, to remain orderly, to follow the rules, and in mathematics, it is all about following formulas to solve repeating problems. But is this how the new generations of people should be educated? Should we be coloring inside the lines? Should we be solving the same old problems using tools that are preset for us? Why not develop our own formulas to solve problems that have never been solved before?

The short answer to these questions is that if everyone went after problems that have never been solved before, the same old ones that require us to keep checking up on them would eventually catch up with us and the global economy as a whole would crumble – and that’s assuming the full outcome of a global society that has a very large degree of free choice to pursue what it wants, as well as the courage to pursue what it wants. But perhaps we could be thinking about this a different way.

The economy is a system that is based upon the flow of money. And when we say that the economy is doing well, really what we mean is that money is flowing. Well, how does money flow? Does money flow under the rules of a process that must be pushed or do the cycles that we’ve laid out for the economy – depression, recession, or growth – happen naturally? The answer, of course, is that it is natural, and that the entire economic system itself, no matter how much effort is done on the individuals themselves with a case-by-case basis, the overall nature of the machine is automatic.

If you intend to start a business, I whole heartedly believe that it should be the same way for you. The reason certain businesses dry up and expire is because they operate under work, or the expenditure of energy, and not automated process. This is the reason that the railroad companies no longer do much of anything new and do not have the same market value they did during their pioneering days of the railroad itself. This is the reason that the world will eventually run out of oil, and the oil companies will become energy companies(many already have), and the reason that construction workers will not have any work making many new buildings at all in the long term future. When you are dealing with work as work, it does not function under the same system as say, solar power, or an automatic cash flow system like the economy as a whole.

Think about the concept of music for a moment, and the rise of the rock star. Perhaps the first guy to really get this thing called rock off the ground, was Elvis Presley. Elvis conveyed ideas that, to the youth market, were universal, fun, uplifting, and also universally appealing to a certain demographic. This was the reason behind his financial or business oriented success. Something about the formula that has developed for mainstream music allows the masses to latch onto certain universal ideas, become attached to them emotionally, feel a passion for them, and as a result, the record labels get money from people buying into it all. Most rock stars do not realize what they have done. Are the rock stars better than normal people? No, in fact, the very first rock stars, and especially the new ones, are simply reinventing what many before them have already done. It does not take talent so much as the mere action of following a process for you to become talented with music.

Like anything else, if you were to spend enough time learning how to play an instrument, you would likely get very good at playing it, even if it was something you hated doing! So it is not so much the music that made these rock stars great, it was the ability of their songs to travel as memes, or communicated ideas, to the masses, and it was also a result of an automated marketing system in which the music could be played again and again by recording, and thus would market itself by just being played over the radio. This creates the market of advertisers to be heard in between songs, a market for the musicians to make money, and a market for the music labels to be paid. This simple system has existed for decades. The sad thing is, poor teenage garage bands compete with millions of others, and only a handful of them get picked. It is almost as if you’ve got all the talent you could ever need as the music label – you’ve just got to wait for the talent to come to you. It is an automated system.

So here is the final word. If you want a successful business, design a business from the ground up that does not use expended energy much at all. Make every piece of energy create a residual effect that repeats itself down the line, and preferably – a repetition that is indefinite.  Maybe if you followed this particular idea to create residual effect of your business oriented energy, you might see a different pattern.

Early School >> Middle School >> High School >> Business >> College >> Business+Secure Future Family Generations

For musicians, music is looked at in a totally different way that what you might consider the listener to view music as. But there are two main appeals as to where the interest of music stems from. The first is fame, and girls. The second is the creative sublimation of emotions. Sublimation is a term that refers to taking negative psychological energy, or negative emotions, and converting that energy into a form that is beneficial to society in some way. So when we think of the bulk of the entertainment industry, much of it likely is, or originally was, in the form of one’s own sublimation. Virtually all music and a huge chunk of the rock stars in existence got into what they did for having a way to cope with their emotions.

I have personally used music as an emotionally expressive tool through my music, Eternal Exhaust, but it was only recently that I really began to focus on improving the musical end of the process. Perhaps one problem from an external point of view in using music as an expressive tool is that aspect of the external opinion itself. If no one likes your music when it is being used as an emotionally expressive tool there is a probable chance that the music’s emotional benefit will be limited to you, as you will feel just as alone or isolated as you did before writing the song.

But what a powerful thrill it is to see music succeed. In thinking about the nature of what music is, its ability to entertain and fascinate is perplexing and confusing. All it seems to be is a set of auditory patterns played in a compiled structure that we would call a composition. Also, as far as we can tell, human beings are probably the only species to really interact with music in the way that they do. Daniel J. Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, is likely one of the first authors to take a true scientific look at what music is in the perspective of our human experience, and how it interacts with the brain. For some reason, the human brain has a particular knack for latching onto rhythm, frequency, and pitch. Levitin describes:

“The neural basis for this striking accuracy is probably in the cerebellum, which is believed to contain a system of timekeepers for our daily lives and to synchronize to the music we are hearing. This means that somehow, the cerebellum is able to remember the ‘settings’ it uses for synchronizing to music as we hear it, and it can recall those settings when we want to sing a song from memory. It allows us to synchronize our singing with a memory of the last time we sang.”

Levitin’s extrapolation of this aspect of the mind’s time keeping method is interesting and also seemingly spot on. The brain has a method for memorizing and reproducing both the exact frequency of rhythms, but as well as the way that certain beats and notes are grouped together. A common concept in both general psychology and neuro-linguistic programming is “chunking,” which is the process by which the mind groups together pieces of information, like phone numbers, into individual grouped pieces. This is part of how the entire song memorization process works and could partially explain why we prefer to hear songs that are shorter in length. For a song to be “radio worthy,” it must have certain elements that qualify it as a single, and often most singles follow something of a mainstream formula that is preferred by the masses. Hardly any singles in any of musical history have been under 3 minutes in length or over 5 minutes. Often the place where the song reaches its “hook,” or the main chorus portion that repeats over and over most often is right around 30 seconds into the song, on average.

You can immediately guess that the record companies have gotten music down to its real science. If you’re in a band, or writing music, and looking for a record deal – it would be wise to take a look at these scientific aspects of how the brain interprets music to produce more appealing songs. But again, it is always subjective. Some people do not listen to the radio – they can’t stand the mainstream formula and mainstream pattern.

As an emotional outlet, music can have an incredible therapeutic effect. While many are pointing their finger at music for causing suicide, most stories you hear about music point to music being a very large suicide preventer. My favorite band for years, Korn, has an incredibly loyal fanbase, largely because of the emotional difference Korn has made in listener’s lives. The lead singer, Jonathan Davis, has talked about the hundreds of letters and e-mails they have received telling them that “Korn saved my life.” A band often known for creating the late 90′s nu-metal grind, Korn’s music and lyrics often center around deep, dark depths of negative feelings, but the benefit many get from hearing it is the knowing they’re not alone in what they face. The overall perception for how music can capture emotion and how well that can be done makes a dramatic difference in its emotional impact.

But there is a downside to music. While many can gain tremendous benefit from its emotional release concepts, the real problem with music, and why so many attack music with a seemingly negative or depressing message is its ability to amplify and also to trigger emotions by association. Like any other activity, music can become an addiction, believe it or not! I believe that while it might be beneficial for one to listen to an angry song when they’re angry, I do not recommend they listen to that same song all the time just because they like the song. Music and what is listened to should often reflect mood, unless the proper mindset is given to the listening session. If you are sad, listen to a sad song. If you are happy, listening to something uplifting or inspiring. Learn to gain a musical outlook that is filled with variety and is vast in scope.

Someone I know went through a tough period with music, during a period of depression. During the time that they were depressed, the music was something to grip onto, something to uplift them and celebrate where they were more than dread it. After a while, though, it began to wain on their conscience, and they even claimed it was beginning to become painful to listen to the music when it no longer reflected who they were. So it was put to a stop, and the taste changed. This same person(I can’t mention by name) now listens to more uplifting music.

At the end of it all, I think that it is important we all learn how to cope and control our associations. Just because a song calls up a painful past experience does not mean that we must view that painful experience as any longer. Music brings you either an opportunity for emotional perspective confrontation or it brings you an unnecessarily uncontrollable recall of painful associations. But always remember that you determine your own perspective and your own view on your music, and your associated experiences.

• PhotoReading
• Lucid Dreaming
• Law of Attraction
• Intuitive Analysis of People
• Love & Relationships
• Musicianship
• Photography
• Writing Techniques
• and much, much more…

So this kicks it off for the future, and we’ll see where this goes!

Download DMPodcast #1 – Introduction.
(Time: 8:46, Size: 8.03MB)
NARRATOR: Scott Lee (Read about Scott Lee)
MUSIC: Kreese (Visit Kreese on MySpace)