So let me throw some titles out there that caught my ear and the ears of a few of my musical friends. These are some selections from 2009 that are great examples of independent songwriting and producing. I look forward to hearing what 2010 has to offer.

These CDs are listed in no particular order, they’re ALL damned good! Please click on the album art and visit the artists’ websites and buy the music. Support Independent Music!

Happy New Year,
~Darryl

Thanks to Cameron Mizell, Steve Lawson, Cindy Smith D’Adamo for their suggestions.

“Old Man Dreamin’” by, John Batdorf
Track – ‘What D’ya Got?’

“Happinesss + Victory” by Donna Fullman
Track – ‘Stone’

“Solitary Songs” by, Miriam Jones
Track – ‘Helicopter’

“On Your Back Porch” by, Lauren Zettler
Track – ‘Shapes’

“Moonlight and Theremin” by, Karen Ramos
Track – ‘Raincoat’

“Bony Jars” by, The Bootz Orchestra
Track – ‘Our Daughters’

“Vinyl” by, D’Haene Band
Track – ‘Wouldn’t You Like To Know’

“Chase You” by, Mike Stocksdale
Track – ‘The Old Band’

“Uncovered” by, Coco & Lafe
Track – ‘Introduce Myself To You’

The discussion I had with my Songwriter’s Circle was centered around how we can take a cover and transform it. The song that we were tossing about was AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”. That hard rockin’ song is difficult to do on acoustic guitar and have it sound like AC/DC. Well then, that’s the point: don’t allow it to sound like AC/DC. So we played it slower and with a bluegrass edge to it and man did it sound great! All of a sudden I started to really hear the lyrics and feel the intent of the song.

The discussion I had with myself as I listened to Roseanne Cash involved honesty and soul. If you’re going to sing classic country songs that everyone knows, then you had better understand your reason for singing it. How are you, the singer, going to make an audience hear this song differently from the way we are used to hearing it? Do you really understand the lyrics and can you convey the meaning to an audience that may understand them a totally different way.

I have a few covers in my working songbook that I take out every once in a while. The latest song I’ve added is “One” by U2 and I am struggling with it. First of all how do I make it mine? How do I change it up with out ruining a beautiful melody and lyric? And how do I make it travel from the first line to the last line like Bono does? And – how do I create atmosphere with my acoustic guitar the way The Edge does with his electric and a lot of delay?

In my head I had a picture of Tom Waits doing this song. What would he do? Slow it down? Be more accusatory in his tone? Speak some of the lines? I tried to approach it from this angle. I also have a lower voice than Bono does so I couldn’t do the vocal calisthenics that he does and that gave me another indication that I should think of Waits.

The more times I sung the lyrics the more I felt the real anger that was hidden between the lines. Even though Bono sings this in a ballad style, I felt that there needed to be some punch to a few of the lines so that the person being sung to (and about) really gets hit in the face with the words.

I’m still working on this One, but check out the video of me and let me know what you think. I take the covers I do very seriously and I try to find a balance between original interpretation and keeping true to the writer’s intent.

Peace

~Darryl

(You can check out the video to this cover at The Weekly Drip – my creativity blog)

There was a time when I referred to myself as a drum purist. I hated the sound of processed drums and electronic drums and I especially harbored great disdain for the “Drum Loop”. I could smell them a mile away when I heard songs on the radio and I looked down my nose thinking that the engineer/producer either didn’t have the time or talent to add a live/real drum track to the song. Well I’ve changed my tune recently and I’ll tell you why.

In my studio I have a very nice set of Pearl drums and I can play well enough to lay down tracks for a demo song. I had been doing just that for a while, but as time began to get more and more of a rare commodity I found that getting a live drum track was just not feasible. Not only did I have to learn a part, I also (as engineer) had to set up a battery of microphones in order to capture the sound of the full set and then process the tracks with EQ/compression etc, to get the right tone.  I also got a few jobs that came into the studio that required me to play outside of my ability and outside of the sound of my set – hard rock with a big layered sound. I needed a solution.

My solution came to me because I started to look closely at the ads for drum sample engines: the kind that are plug-ins for a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). I use Pro Tools in my studio and so I was attracted by the ads for drum engines that were RTAS (real time audio suite) compatible. I looked at a few of them and settled on one called EZDrummer (www.toontrack.com) for it’s affordability and  ultimately for the quality of its sample sounds.

Now I don’t want to go into a review of EZDrummer or its big brother Superior Drummer because I’m not endorsing either. What I am endorsing is the concept that drum sample engines have come a long way in the past 5 years to the point where I don’t mind listening to an instance of one on a commercial pop song or a demo recording.

What is it that has made today’s drum sample engines different? First of all the samples are excellent and the midi files that trigger the samples are played by top-flight studio musicians. The midi files are also tweaked in such a way by the producers to make them sound and feel like a human is playing them. Samples are triggered at different velocities to mimic a player’s inaccuracies that give a groove its ‘feel’. Every tim a human hits a drum it sound different because a human never hits the skin/rim/stick in exactly the same place/way every time. Timing is also tweaked so the track doesn’t sound like a robot is playing. When you look closely at the track you can see that some of the triggers are put slightly off the beat like a when a drummer slightly drags the beat or lays back (except that mine would be laid way off the beat…).

Most drum samplers come with a large selection of grooves and fills that you can be combined seamlessly and are played in the same style. So if the groove is playing the ride cymbal the fill coming out of it also uses the ride so that it doesn’t abruptly switch and make it sound like the drummer grew another appendage. The sample libraries also encompass a wide range of genre specific grooves such as: Latin, Country, Rock, etc, so you are sure to find some groove that fits your song style.

So how do I use my drum sampler? One of the simplest things I use it for is a better metronome. If I’m laying down a scratch track on guitar or even if I’m just practicing, it is much better to play to a drum beat than it is to play to a sterile sounding CLICK-click-click-click. I also use the groove styles as inspiration. Sometimes I have a chord progression idea but there’s just no motion to it. I go through the sample library and choose a groove and start playing around the groove. It’s amazing what comes out.

The most amazing thing that has emerged is how I use the sampler to construct a drum track for a song arrangement. After I’ve finished writing a song and I can play it through as a solo piece I begin mapping out a demo arrangement. A demo arrangement for me is usually guitars, voices, bass and piano/organ.

I start out by laying down a scratch guitar track over a groove from the sampler (usually one that I will ultimately use in the song). I then go back and insert the fills and change the groove for the intro, verses, choruses and bridge. After I have the drum track completed I mute the scratch guitar and add the bass, really zeroing in on the kick drum from the sampled drum track. I often get great bass groove ideas from listening to the kick that comes from the groove library. With the bass and drum track locked in I can then add the guitar-piano and finally the voice and other instruments. But it all centers around the drum samples I assembled from the groove library.

So don’t be ashamed of using sampled drums in your songs. With the quality and wide range of sample styles and grooves listeners will be hard pressed to tell whether it’s live or it’s sampled.

Here are some websites of sample engines:

www.toontrack.com – EZDrummer
www.fxpansion.com – BFD

Here are some examples of my songs using the drum sampler EZDrummer. Can you tell if the drums are live or sampled? Leave a comment, let me know what you think.

Peace,

~ Darryl

I will not be accepting any new CD submissions at this time and I will be instituting a new submission policy.

So stay tuned for new shows in the coming weeks.

~DG

There is an ongoing discussion in the design world regarding the importance of CD package design as we move forward into an age of music free of physical media. The halcyon days of album art are behind us; the foot-by-foot square canvas that gave Roger Huyssen and Gerard Huerta space to create some of the best-loved album art in history is gone forever, in its place the barely 5 inch square package of various configurations. There are opportunities here for interesting design solutions, however and there’s no reason to despair.

Until all music is sold on USB Flash sticks, that is.

Naturally, the most important piece of the design puzzle is the music itself. I listen to the CD as many times as necessary to get a feel for the music and it is from these repeated listenings that I find design ideas. They may be suggested through overall sound or approach; rarely are they based solely in the lyrics or melodies, though I’ve found inspiration for a successful package in a single word in a song. Many times it’s a question of realizing a vision that the artist already has for the packaging and trying to successfully manifest their ideas. Whatever the origin, the end result must have legible typography inside and out. Type can be very distressed or even hand drawn and still be clean and legible.

More important than ever before is creating a package with graphic elements and palettes that will translate to the artists’ website or other online promotional material – this should always be considered from the beginning of the design process. Which elements can stand on their own when pulled out for web banners, promotional package materials, etc. Also important to consider is the how the CD package art will translate into a 200 x 200 pixel .GIF or .JPEG file (or smaller) for online retail or display in the media player or browser.

I often tell clients that it is important not to try to tell the whole story of the band or of every song on the record on the cover. If there’s one particular element or idea the musician wants to get across, fine, but the general feeling of the recording is what the design should convey. Every artist should be able to identify the desired emotional response from a listener, and the same can be said of a design.

Many clients will find art or photography on the web and request that I use that on their package. Increasingly, the average man on the street is learning that graphic files generated for web use can NOT be used for print; the files for those two applications are different animals entirely, but there is still some confusion. If you as a musician want a specific picture of something on your CD package, you’d best investigate the rights clearances necessary to obtain the high-resolution file of the image (and be prepared to pay for it if it’s a rights-managed image), or provide the picture yourself via photo-shoot, etc.

However assembled, good ideas and powerful, dynamic typography will always help a CD package.

· David Cole Wheeler is a freelance graphic designer. Contact him at www.davidcolewheeler.com

In the scramble to get your press kit completed you want to have several essential things included: a good head-shot or picture of the band, a snappy description of your album, a short bio and some press clips. Ah the press clips. Where do they come from and how do you go about enticing some unknown author to write something nice and constructive about your tracks? Can just anybody write something about your work? Does it matter if the byline of the author is Rolling Stone or Podunk Weekly? And, should a review be free or should you pay?

So how do you get a decent review of the music that you have just released? After spending a year in the studio and thousands of dollars you don’t want to have some bozo just say something like – Nice effort-. You want substance and you want a review that you can pull a nice blurb from to put on the front of your press releases and you website. So where to turn? Chances are, unless you have a really good PR person with connections, you’re not going to get a review from a major publication for your first or second album. So here are some simple, easy places to look for a review.

You may be living with, went to college with, or work with a reviewer and you didn’t even know it. Those same people are probably your fans as well, so why not ask them for a quick review? The best reviews I have read come from fans because if I really want to know whether a CD is going to be good, I’ll ask someone who really knows the artist. There is usually space on the pages of digital distribution sites (like CDBaby, iLike, etc.) for your fans to write a quick review, so why not get yours to write a few? It’s free and your fans will be flattered when you ask them.

Another free source for a music review are bloggers and podcasters. There are a lot of people out there trying their hands at both and they need material. Often bloggers and podcasters are one in the same so they can play your music and write a review. If you ask one of these new media people to review your work, look at theirs first. Read a few of their reviews to see if they 1, can write well and 2, are generally positive. You don’t want to send your CD to a curmudgeon who just wants to cut things up. Also send your CD to a reviewer that understands your genre of music so they can say something insightful.

Seeing my name in print, ink print that is, is still exciting to me. Don’t totally focus on web-based media as they are still a thin slice of the pie. Try to get your CD reviewed or at least mentioned in a print periodical that can be passed around and accidentally picked up at the doctor’s office.

Your local newspaper is a great resource for reviews. You can often just call up and speak directly to the writer and ask them for a quick review. Local papers love doing articles on local talent. I live in a small town in Connecticut and I have been in the local paper several times with out really trying.

Magazines are still in circulation last I checked and there a few that do reviews of indie musicians. Again, check to see which ones review your genre of music and then usually you can check their website to find out where to send a copy of your CD for review. The ones that immediately come to mind are Performing Songwriter, Alternative Press, Paste Magazine, and Blender. To find more, do a search at www.world-newspapers.com.

Now here comes a question that I can’t seem to resolve in my mind because I am part of the conundrum. Should you pay someone to write a review for your CD? How much is a review worth to you in dollars and cents? And does a review that you pay for carry any more cred than a review written by a friend?

I recently came across a new site ReviewYou.com where, for $34.95, you can have an experienced music writer pen a 500 word review. A few of the writers on this site had had articles in Creem and Rolling Stone so you would expect their writing standards to be quite high. So in essence you are hiring a professional writer and not your brother-in-law Sid who never finished a term paper.

Here is where I get into the fray: I write reviews for indie-music.com and yes, I get paid to do so, not a lot, but I get paid. Because indie-music.com is an eZine and a resource for indie musicians and a place to post mp3’s you get more for your membership fee than just a review. Yet, it is still a paid review and the rule of thumb at this eZine is that no one gets trashed. I try to find constructive criticisms that point out a CD’s weaknesses and yet don’t make it sound like the artist is incompetent. The whole idea is to help the indie musician, not to stick daggers into them with nasty phrases. But I ask myself sometimes when I do get a clunker to review: Would I be more ruthless if the person wasn’t paying for this review?

I feel that, like anything else in this business, you really have to do your homework and spend some time researching avenues for your music to get reviewed. There are services like submitmusic.com that will, as their name suggests, submit your music to many more outlets than you can. You can also hire a publicist that can use their connections to get a review for you. Then again, here you are paying for it and who has cash these days? I just did a Google search on the words: indie, music, review. The search came back with over 900,000 related sites, so I’m sure that there is someone in there that would be willing to give a free review that you can use. Good Luck!

~Darryl

Derek Sivers’ new Blog
· Anyone who has any interest in the indie-music business should subscribe to this blog. Derek is the founder of CDBaby.com and not ony does this blog cover music, but it also talks about the business mindset and how to approach your music as a business. Must reading! More on what Derek is up to…

Facebook Tackles Music, Movies
· Do you use Facebook? This is an interesting article concerning those Musician Pages you’ve probably put up and the new Facebook templates.

ReverbNation
· It seems there is a new platform for digital distribution all the time. But so far it doesn’t seem that one site has everything a band needs to keep in contact, have a webpage, send emails, locate venues and create a general web-presence. It seems that ReverbNation has created something close. Try it, it’s free… See my RN page…

- Measure for Measure blog
As a subscriber to the NY Times, I noticed this blog and got hooked right away. The posts from Roseann Cash are heartbreaking.
With music now available with a single, offhand click, it’s easy to forget that songs are not born whole, polished and ready to play. They are created by artists who draw on some combination of craft, skill and inspiration. In the coming weeks, the contributors to this blog — all accomplished songwriters — will pull back the curtain on the creative process as they write about their work on a songs in the making.
- Digital Cafe Tour
I found this to be an interesting new development in the ever expanding frontier of web-exposure. For those of you lookng to produce a high quality video, this may be of interest. Check it out.
- Rode University
This site apealed to me because I own a studio, but as I looked over the site I thought that this might be a great resource for an atist that doesn’t know a lot about the recording process. The tutorials are very “Recording 101″, but they’re good for the person that is going into the studio for the first time. You can get an idea of how to mic your instruments, what types of mics they might use and where they might be placed. Of course Rode is trying to sell their mics, but hey, it’s still a cheap and informative course. Check it out.

The application I use is called Melodyne, but there are others like Pitch-n-Time, to name one, and they all basically do the same thing. The software analyses the audio track and then the user can manipulate the pitches up or down. All I had to do, once the audio was loaded, was take my mouse and move the wave forms up or down in microtonal increments to where they should be. The voice sounded the same, no artifacts, no change of timbre. Cool. But it was too easy. I could see how this could be used as a crutch and an easy way out of a difficult session. “Don’t worry, I’ll have the engineer fix it later…”

Well I just used Melodyne on an entire vocal line. There was no way to get this (young and inexperienced) singer to sing the line in tune all the way through. So I comped together a reasonable take and then “fixed” it in the box. Did I feel dirty and cheap, you betcha, but the vocal line sounds great and my client is satisfied. So I guess a happy medium needs to be found. A little out of tune-ness can be interesting, a lot is annoying. The question for the producer/artist is when to go fix it in the box.

So what’s the lesson here? A performer should be prepared to give the best performance they can so as not to waste valuable time. As a performer going into the studio, you should be aware of the things that an engineer can do to help your performance. As a performer you probably shouldn’t rely on tricks to save your tracks – record it right. And, unless you plan on lip-syncing, you’ll have to perform it live sooner or later.

Happy Singing -

~ Darryl

• The John Lennon Songwriting Contest is up and running for another year. $30 to submit a song – Have some confidence in your songs and see where it can take you… you never know
• This is something I picked up from Sonic Bids about Creative Common Licensing. I had not heard the term before, but it sounds like someting we should all look into. The following is reprinted from Sonic Bids:The Creative Commons license is a happy medium between the usual give-it-all-away/protect-it-all copyright choice. Call it “some rights reserved.”Under a Creative Commons license, artists retain whatever rights they choose. You can allow users to use your work elsewhere, but only with attribution to its authorship. You can allow anyone to use it, but only for non-commercial purposes. You can allow its use only in totality (which means no chopping it up, or sampling it, or any other monkey business). Or you can allow people to distribute derivative works only under licenses identical to the ones that govern the copyrighted work. The best part is that a Creative Commons license is non-exclusive, meaning that once your music has been heard, you’re free to make whatever commercial-use deals you like.There are several platforms for distributing your music that protect you with a Creative Commons license, but the largest and perhaps best is Jamendo. Simply upload your music, choose how you want it protected, and relax, knowing you’re solving the oldest puzzle in music history: how to simultaneously set your music free, and hold it close. Find out more at http://www.jamendo.com

• FizzKicks.com – Now this is a new twist in getting fans to download your music. FizzKicks is a service that allows you to create a plastic card (like a credit card) with your band’s logo/picture that you can then give out to fans. Your fans can then redeem the card for downloads. Go to their website for more info.