Can You Learn How To Become a Songwriter? | Songwriting Help
Can you learn how to become a songwriter? Songwriting is a gift, there is no doubt about that, and some of the most successful writers in the world never had songwriting lessons at all, but then they probably wrote hundreds of unsuccessful songs without any songwriting help before they had their first big hit. So you can learn by first writing hundreds of badly constructed, half-inspired tunes for years, or be taught the shortcuts straight away. It’s the same with any skill – cooking, windsurfing, playing the guitar, using...
read moreBabyshambles Star Does Our Logic and EMP Courses
Straight after Placebo’s Stefan Olsdal on the last cycle, Adam Ficek of Babyshambles fame did the EMP course too. He also did a Logic course last year, and was kind enough to spend a minute to answer a few questions on his experience with us. So we know you as a rock star with Babyshambles, but EMP stands for Electronic Music Production. Why did the guitarist from Babyshambles do an EMP course? I’ve always had a healthy interest in electronic based music alongside traditional guitar music. My first record deal was...
read moreRecording Techniques – Putting The Courses Into Practice
Logic and Mixing learner Nick Burns (Captain Mermaid) tells us how he put the recording techniques he learnt on the Logic course and even the Mixing course into practice when he recorded and mixed this collaboration with singer Rebekah Anne Steele. “I used two SE small capsule condenser microphones on the guitar and arranged them in a XY pair to get a nice stereo image. I did record a DI signal, but didn’t end up using it in the mix in the end. If you want to know how not to record a guitar, see the video! I got Rebekah to sing...
read moreRock Star Does EMP & Logic Courses
Stefan Olsdal from Placebo did our Logic and EMP course recently, and kindly agreed to let us interview him about his time here at GSS. So we know you as a rock star but EMP stands for Electronic Music Production. It’s easy to understand why you did a Logic course, but not so much the EMP course given the genre you’re known for. Placebo has fused rock with electronica over the years by using some of the producers we have in the past such as Jim Abbiss and Timo Maas. I’ve also dabbled in electronic music with a side...
read moreCreative vs. Technical
Dance Music Production – Creative vs. Technical by Steve Powell What does it take to make a record in terms of equipment? A four track? A Mac Pro? An SSL4000E? What people use and how they use is of course crucial to the quality and type of dance music production that’s made. The equipment heavily dictates many of the attributes of the music that’s created, probably far more than many people realise. It was commented by one well known electronic music producer that “I realised that I was getting bored with a lot of the music I...
read moreSampling Frequencies & Bit Rates: 96 v 44.1Khz & 24 v 16bit
Sampling Frequencies & Bit Rates: 96 v 44.1Khz & 24 v 16bit by Stephen Powell I had a conversation recently with a guy who described himself as a “glitch-dubstep-lo-fi composer” He went on to describe a couple of his tracks which turned out to be pretty much what you might expect from such a description. When I asked him about his production he said to me: “I make all my tracks with a low sampling-rate and bit-rate for the whole project”. At this point I was a bit confused and so asked him to elaborate. Apparently all his...
read moreMixing Music with Creative FX
Mixing Music with Creative FX | Mixing Desk by Mr Steve Powell The signal chain is something always at work whether you’re in the studio, playing around with beats on the computer at home or playing a synthesiser live at a gig. If you are purely a performer, your worry with the signal chain ends when your voice seeps melodically into the microphone, or perhaps at the point your electric guitar strings leave their mark in the magnetic field of the pickup. However, if you have anything to do with the recording or production of sound, the...
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