Category: This & That

English · This & That

Mix Asylum is offering free mixing and mastering services for Music2Deal users

Music2Deal1 Comment

mixasylum

Music2Deal is happy to bring a great opportunity to all artists looking to get their music professionally mixed and mastered free of charge for limited time only!

Mix Asylum is a new, online, mixing, mastering and production venture with the emphasis on affordable work for bands/artists.

Founder and Music2Deal user David Jones, is a newly qualified graduate, gaining a 2:1 in BSc Honours in Music Technology and Production.
“My sole purpose is to help bands/artists achieve their potential without costing them a fortune.”

Having a soundproofed and fully equipped, industry standard studio using some of the best software including Logic Pro, Universal Audio, IK Multimedia and Slate Digital to name a few he can provide you with top quality mixing and mastering services.

As a Music2Deal user you can get your FREE mix (until 31st January) by contacting David via www.mixasylum.co.uk / info@mixasylum.co.uk

Q&A

Why Mix Asylum?

I have only just started my studio and need to increase my portfolio. I know there is a lot of competition but want to prove my dedication and passion to the industry. I also want to help new singers/bands/artists to get a professional/industry sound without costing them a fortune.

What can our users/customers expect?

I am currently offering a FREE service (until 31st January 2014) of:

3 FREE Mastering of songs

AND 1 FREE Mix of a recording

AND 2 HALF PRICE Mixes

Mixes can take anything up to 4 days depending on the amount of tracks involved hence only one song for free!

Could you tell us bit about your experience and equipment / studio?

My Experience:

I gained a Distinction (across the board of 18 subjects) on my college course of BTEC National Diploma in Music Technology Level 3 (2008-2010).

I have just been awarded a 2:1 University Degree in BSc Honours in Music Technology and Production (2010-2013).

During the University course, my final assessment was creating a music recording portfolio, where 6 recordings had to be made in 6 different genres, and I had to organise all of the bands/studio recording time at the University myself (as well as the 30+ other students!). It was high pressured, but it was a good learning curve for me, to get the hands-on experience of a true working studio. I completed the portfolio and obtained a ‘first’ classification (75%).

As part of a final year unit about the wider entertainment industry, the task was to interview people who do a similar job as to what the student wished to do after graduation (so this could have been session musicians, software developers etc) but I wanted to interview producers who have inspired my feelings of a great “sound” on recordings over the course of my music exposure. I was blessed to personally arrange and conduct interviews with:

             Terry Brown (Rush, Cutting Crew)

             Keith Olsen (Whitesnake, Scorpions, Top Gun Soundtrack)

             Tony Platt (AC/DC, Foreigner, Gary Moore, Dio)

             Michael James Jackson (Kiss, Hurricane, LA Guns)

Every one of these interviews was an incredibly humbling experience, and was fascinating learning about their start-ups in the industry. I think they all subconsciously inspired me in my desire to succeed with my own studio, as all of these people had to work hard in their studio, so why can’t I in theory?

I have recently been working with and recording a band (Abandon Her), samples of which can be found on my Soundcloud site and my Music2Deal profile.

My equipment/studio:

Equipment:

I use an iMac Snow Leopard10.6 with Adam A7x as my primary monitors and Sony CMT-MX550i’s as secondary monitors. My main production software is Logic Pro9 but I also have a MacBook Pro with ProTools, Cubase, Reason etc.

I have Universal Audio – UA-2 Duo Custom featuring many top analogue  plug-ins including:

Ampex ATR 102 Tape Machine

Lexicon 224 Digital Reverb

Fairchild Compressor

Neve 88RS Channel Strip

I have many more professional plug-ins including:

Line 6 – Professional Amplifier emulation giving access to 100s of classic guitar and bass amplifiers.

EastWest – Professional industry MIDI Emulation

Symphonic Orchestra

Gypsy (Emulating Spanish/Middle Eastern Instruments)

Ministry of Rock (Emulating Rock guitars, drum kits)

          Fab Four (Emulating instruments with a 60’s production vibe)

For full details please see my website (http://www.mixasylum.co.uk/equipment-page/4578584468).

Studio

“Mix Asylum” is the name of my production studio, based in Tamworth (near Birmingham) in the UK. It is a home production studio, but a lot of time and effort has been made to professionally change the space into a working studio. For example, it has been acoustically treated with professional foam panels to stop all reflections from emanating in the space, and these are covered all over the studio. The floor has also been acoustically treated so that there are no build up of bass frequencies in the space. What you hear from the monitors is exactly what you get, so someone recording here has got a professional recording space for a fraction of the price of commercial studios.

For photos, please see my website (http://www.mixasylum.co.uk/studio-pictures/4578590366)

Where can users listen to some of your previous work?

People can listen to examples of my mixing work on my soundcloud page http://www.soundcloud.com/mix-asylum. I’ve tried to do songs with as much variety as possible so that you can see I am a versatile mixing engineer. I also have a small selection on my Music2Deal profile.

If you like what you hear and would like to take advantage of my FREE offer,I have my own wetransfer page, a site that allows FREE, secure transfer of files, so there is no need to post me a CD, memory stick etc. This can be reached at http://www.mixasylum.wetransfer.com and step by step instructions of how to use this page can be found on my website at: http://www.mixasylum.co.uk/sending-your-files/4578999871

 

English · This & That · Tips

A New Strategy For Your Music

Music2DealLeave a comment

Article by Lars Deutsch

www.larsdeutsch.net

 I have attended numerous events with titles such as “Which Brand Fits Your Band” or  “How To Get Your Song on TV”, where experts talk about the right color for a CD sleeve, how to wine and dine music supervisors or how to use social media.  After events like this, musicians go out and spend money for promotion and spend more time on the internet than with their band or instrument.  The end result is they find themselves at exactly the same place a year later.

Maybe it is not time yet to use your last cash to master your songs, hire a publicist, get more photos, shoot a video, etc…   All products need the right photos, packaging and campaign to be successful.  However, these steps make sense only if you actually have a working product. Unfortunately, even the most talented artists and bands usually do not have that product.

Before anyone could just record at home, bands played their songs hundreds of times in rehearsals and on stage.  It took real people in a real room.  The songs grew and changed with the band, and there was time for feedback and fine-tuning.  In an ideal scenario a band would bring their best songs to the studio, where a producer would work with the band to get these songs in even better shape.  A good producer would not only record what was handed to him, but provide input on instrumentation, performance and storytelling.  An experienced arranger could add a little magic by writing a delicate string arrangement echoing the melody.  A good recording engineer would then track the songs and mix the music, while the producer kept his eye on the bigger picture.

Today, it is often one person in a bedroom studio recording an unpolished idea and then trying to immediately push it into the market.  There is no time to mature, no feedback and no pool of experts. So when I meet an artist who is struggling to get placements or develop his or her career, I always encounter exactly the same issue:  the material is simply not good enough.

Often the songs contain great ideas, but vocal phrasing, arrangement and harmonic control (to list just a few points) are not up to a professional standard.  To this day, I have not heard a single “homemade” ballad with a solid string arrangement.  Yet almost all the ballads on the radio have solid string arrangements.

Your songs are the core of all your plans as an artist.  They deserve the best.  They deserve more attention.   

Your favorite singer or artist might be a great performer, but the reason the material sounds polished and “finished” is because of the team of experts behind each song.  You will see the same producers, arrangers and engineers on a number of successful albums for a reason – because they are the experts your favorite artist needs and trusts.

I will never be a great singer and I need someone better than me to sing my songs.  Chances are you need someone who understands songwriting and production better than you in order to get your material to the next level.

I don’t want to compete with people who focus full-time on developing their voice and stage persona.  So why would you want to compete with people who have developed their craft full-time over many years?  Just like I get help from a singer, you can get help to get your material in shape.  An artist needs grooming and objective feedback.  This is why bands such as U2 and Coldplay rely on Brian Eno for conceptual thinking, Daniel Lanois for musicianship, two engineers and a string arranger.

Here is my recipe for quality:

Go back to the standard process before home recording.  Perform your songs, let them mature, do demos and build a team.

From a producer’s standpoint, it takes a thorough pre-production with an artist who is willing to polish every note, regardless of whether this process is outside of his or her comfort zone.  It also takes an artist who is willing to fight for a vision and at the same time understands that good communication is all about the listener.  Both artist and producer need to be open to trying new things and to keep going until both are pleased with the result.

To sum it up:

Save your money.  Do not book a studio (yet), do not print 1000 CDs, do not hire a publicist and do not spend the time you should be practicing using social media to promote your unfinished product.  Spend your money to study songwriting and composition and / or work with someone who has the training, a solid track record as a songwriter and who has successfully coached and produced artists.  This might cost some money, but the up-front costs will save you time and money in the long run.

Once you have developed a number of songs that are so well-written and tight that they work in a simple acoustic form, you can take the next step and create a detailed demo.  After all the issues are ironed out and you have all the parts arranged, you can enter a studio or start the real recording.

All social media, CD sleeves and band pics come after that.

English · This & That

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Music2DealLeave a comment

Without inspiration, writing a song is a chore – with inspiration, the magic happens! But where do songwriters and musicians get their inspiration from? Let us and the community know what inspires you the most when you are writing a song :-)