the blind horse’s 13 steps to recording
1. Educate yourself. Good recording can be reduced two three things; talent, grit, and knowledge. Knowledge is like a road map. Isn’t it generally true that when you want to find a place that you ask for directions? Ask questions.
Realize that “there is nothing new under the sun.” In other words, the wheel has already been invented. Seek out resources to answer your questions. You know it don’t come easy.
2. Listen, listen, listen. That is why you have two ears, and one mouth. Save yourself some pain and find a recipe for success. Recipes for success do exist. If you want to be popular emulate popular music. If you want to be avant-garde hang upside down on the tree. Be forewarned, often times recipes for success have nothing to do with creativity, but more with getting on your knee. Decide where you stand or do not stand, but realize may not always be time to change the road you’re on.
3. Be discerning, be discerning, be discerning. God’s little acre is out there somewhere, but willy-nilly is the most circuitous route to finding it. Music and mixing are as much about science and math as they are about sense and feeling.
In my opinion, you may not have one without the other; thinking and feeling that is. Knowledge is your friend. With that said, feel free to take a leap, others before have found the gossamer wings. Why not you?
4. Know yourself, know your strengths, know your weaknesses, know your wants, and know your desires. Ask yourself, why do “I” want to take this path, and what do ”I” expect to find?
If the answer is that you want to be loved and honored worldwide, then either you are 17 years old, or you should just stop yourself right now. Go move a pile of sand from one place to the next.
5. Conversely, know the strengths, know the weaknesses, know the wants, and know the desirers of your significant others. If they don’t get the vibe, understand that they may know more than you do.
If you are coming late to the party, and your significant others are averse or confused by your new found love, tread slowly. Honestly though, what do they know?
A good way to win them over is to Write a song about them, or the kids, or something they love, or something you love about them. (Hopefully throughout your life the dice have rolled in your favor and you are surrounded with people that think like you do.)
6. Realize the recording bug will come and go. Up one day, down the next. The muse, arrrrghhhh, she likes to go dry well; especially on those who vacillate, procrastinate, or who are bombastic.
7. Find a SPACE to record. Much ado is made about acoustics and rooms, and so it should be. You are only as good as you are able to tame your space. With that in mind, understand that many musical super novae have been recorded in less than ideal conditions.
Think about it like this, the night you were conceived may not have been over caviar and champagne, but rather soda crackers and sardines. Arguably though, you are special and unique. Don’t believe otherwise that a great melody may become a worthy progenatate.
8. Learn the tools at your fingertips. Sonar, and all other Daws for that matter, are powerful tools.
Probably only 10% of the people who dabble with any particular daw ever know more than 90% of a chosen daw’s potential. The other 90% of us only ever know 10%.
SO COME TO THE FORUM, Nero awaits.
You will often get the response RTFM, and that is a valid response, but it would take many hundreds of hours to read and understand the manual.
I say “use” the manual. Imagine something that you want to achieve, and search for it in the manual, or search for an answer online, or as a last resort start a thread on some forum.
The Cakewalk forums are generally very forgiving, but like everywhere else they are quick to tag a troll, so be genuine.
9. Loudness is bad 90% of the time. Loudness compensates for inadequacies. Learn to listen at lower levels, learn to mix at lower levels. It is a fact that loudness excites the senses, but always remember that “silence is golden.” Sometimes it’s not about what you include, but what you edit away. If you have to turn your JACK up for impact, you may just have a “work in progress” on your hands.
10. Synthesis. Take everything that you know, feel, believe, want, imagine... and turn it into something YOU. Just because someone says that your stuff reminds them of “insert popular artists name here,” does not necessarily mean it is a compliment. Sometimes you cannot sound like the artists you wish to emulate, but there comes a time when you must cut the umbilical cord, and get out from under Mommy’s protection, and cook your own dinner, and scrub your own underwear.
11. Record, record, record, record, record, record, record, record.....EVERYTHING. The muse is a fleeting one, and many a bonfire will be lost; unless o9f course you hit “R.” There’s Magic Round Here...yep.
(Just don’t put it all on social media.)
Put your best foot forward. Most people respect a genuine effort over a glossy canned wannabe turd 20% to 40% of the time.
12. If the horse is dead, get off, and find a new horse. Or get yourself a dad-gum forty mule team. Embrace the fact that two heads are better than one. Invite others to contribute to your meanderings. Know this, a vacuum of self love stilts creativity, and ultimately renders an artist celestially impotent.
Music is a buffet, and if you really want to be unique, learn to work with others. Accept criticism; offer others a chance to help you flesh out your image. Hey? remember when? in kindergarten we all learned about sharing? That was cool; inversely at birth we were endowed with ego or greed.
13. There really isn’t a blind horse thirteen. However, there is a sentiment, and that sentiment is this; May you realize that life and music are one in the same. Whether you know it or not, every thought and action that you have, or execute, is a reflection of the being that you are becoming. Do you want to give? Or do you want to take? Or do you want to have a balance of the two?
Take a color wheel, take a circle of fifths, take a dictionary, take a lover, or take a quantum brain search engine;
you still come up with a YOU;
a YOU (not I) that is music
...nothing more
....nothing less.