Dave is the Master?

A few weeks ago, Whitney posted a timeline of how his friend recorded a song and video-- a song with lyrics written by Whit-- in five days. 

I was really jealous. Or envious? I didn't want to storm into an apartment and strangle an adulterous ex-lover in post-coital bliss, and I loved the song. Maybe that's envious?

Anyway, the fact that they got this done in five days boggles my mind. I dabble in audio recording and I NEVER finish anything.  I use Logic on my iMac and it's a black hole of effects and AI drummers and digital instruments and extremely powerful tools. It's way over my head.

I'm often staring at screens like this, sliding things and clicking things. These various moves make a BIG difference in the way things sound. And while I've watched a view instructional videos-- usually while riding the exercise bike-- I don't really know what I'm doing. People get paid for this kind of thing.

Once you've recorded all your tracks and you're happy with how things sound-- you've compressed and EQed and all that-- then you've got to mix stuff. Pan things left and right-- get all the levels to the correct volume, and listen to the track on both speakers, computer speakers, and headphones (and maybe even in the car).

THEN-- apparently-- there's another step that I never really figured out, called "mastering." This is when you take that final mix of the track and prepare it to be distributed and played on various media. You can do this in Logic, but you need to know how to use the following tools-- and really use them, not just screw around with them.

EQ
Compression
Multiband Compression
DeEssers
Reverb
Stereo Wideners
Limiters

I have a passing familiarity with these tools so I tried to do my own mastering in Logic a few weeks ago with a "song" I made based on one of Zman's comments on Sentence of Dave. Apparently, if you write a comment that's funny enough, I'll write a song about it. The result was okay, but I definitely didn't know what I was doing. 

First, you squeeze with compression, then you maximize! Don't forget the exciter! Get rid of the low end on the bus reverb BEFORE you use Multiband Compression! 

Here's the final product.

 

Greasetruck · ZmanandtheAnts

This video was actually kind of useful and less overwhelming. "Use the limiter last so your beat don't sound like trash." Thanks Courtney!

Anyway, this was difficult and exhausting, to say the least. It's a race against time because your ears get tired and can no longer differentiate or remember between what you've done. Usually, artists hand their stuff off to a professional for mastering. 

There is another option: mastering software. My friend Neal recommended iZotope Ozone 9, a plugin that has a lot of AI mastering options. He calls it "the turd polisher" because it takes a musical turd and cleans it up (as much as possible). It's kind of expensive, but I qualified for an educational discount so I got it for half price . . . $132. It was money well spent. I still don't understand half of it-- or maybe 90% of it-- but there are enough presets and automated elements to help me play around. And then you've got to trust your ears (and use reference tracks). 

Here's one screen (there are lots of these).

Now that I've "mastered' a couple of songs, I can't listen to any of my old songs. They sound muddy and not loud enough. So I've got to go back and "master" those. Yeesh.

This is still not going to help me finish songs all that much faster. I'm always tackling things that are a little beyond me. My newest song is inspired by all the Vietnam movies that I've rewatched with my kids. It's good to revisit that clusterfuck. It reminds you that being in lockdown isn't nearly as bad as being a POW in 'nam. There was no Netflix in the shit.

I wanted to incorporate some samples from Paul Hardcastle's song "19" in my song. "19" was released way back in 1985, when I was fifteen-- and it's stuck with me. Not only did I want some samples from the "19," and a reflection on what it's like to be 19 years old and across the world, mired in a morass of a war with no clear mission, no clear communication, and a major gap between what was happening on the ground and what was being discussed by the brass, but I also wanted the center of the song to feel like a trip to a foreign place.

If you want to read something to understand this, I recommend Mark Bowden's Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam. He recounts the Tet Offensive, the capture of the ancient provincial capital city of Hue by the North Vietnamese, and the ensuing epic 24-day battle waged by the Marines and the ARVN to recapture the city . . . the book is a monumental day-by-day account of the heroism, atrocities, propaganda, misinformation, strategy, blunders, civilian casualties, destruction of ancient wonders, Communist purges, political failures, and-- amidst great effort and honor-- the futility of top-down command in warfare. I've read a bunch of Vietnam books and this is my favorite. I've also heard Apocalypse Now is a decent movie.

Here is my Vietnam song. It took WAY longer than five days to make (and I'll probably hear something weird in it and pull it down a week from now!) I wish I could just record something and move on to the next thing, but there are so many buttons and dials and switches and things. I just get lost. Lost in the jungle.

           19 (Revisited)

I can't breathe, I'm on the run--

It's all green, but I've got my gun.

I can't see, I'm in the mud--

the flies buzz around my blood

O Lord he is gone

across the world in Vietnam,

Lord I know my son is gone,

MIA in Vietnam

I'm nineteen, I've had my fun--

nineteen, it's been a damn good run . . .

O Lord he is gone

across the world in Vietnam,

Lord I know my son is gone,

MIA in Vietnam