A lot of people email me questions about my recording process after I post a demo, so I thought that I would write an entry about it in hopes of answering some of those questions.

First let me say that a decade ago I didn’t even demo songs at home, I just wrote them and continually played them until they were either performed, recorded, or demoed in a studio. Prior to the business imploding, there was a time when you would actually demo material in studios, as was the case with the songs on Beautiful Midnight for example. In fact, they were demoed in the exact same studio that the record was recorded in months later. Those demos also costs literally tens of thousands of dollars to record, which is ridiculous when you think about it given the quality of the demos that I can now produce at home by myself.

Anyway, that’s the past.

I didn’t start recording demos on my own until I switched to using Macs and GarageBand was released. In the beginning, like anything, I sucked at it. It’s a very simple program, but given my inherent impatience it took a while for me to wrap my head around it. So I spent a lot of time refining the process until the songs became workable outlines of the final product. In fact, when we tracked Hospital Music we just muted the drums and Pat Steward simply played along to the demos for the most part. On a few songs that didn’t happen, but on most of them it did. But that process took a few years and a lot of trial and error to master – and again, we’re talking about a very rudimentary program here, something that is nowhere near as complicated as Pro Tools HD or Logic Pro, both of which are very expensive and come with manuals thicker than telephone books.

All of that said, let’s start with the program that I use.

GarageBand

GarageBand comes standard on every Mac as a part of iLife. Over the years they have made a lot of improvements, and have also released what are known as Jam Packs, which provide countless tools and sounds with which to work. Of all five of the Jam Packs available the only one that I do not have is the World Music one.

Besides these additions, I don’t use any other programs or plugins when I record – everything is done in GarageBand, from guitar and bass sounds to effects.

Now, if you’re seriously thinking about using GarageBand as a tool with which to demo, and want a wide variety of sounds with which to work, then I highly suggest getting the Jam Packs, especially Rhythm Section and Remix Tools. Personally, I couldn’t live without the Symphony Orchestra pack, I use it all over the place. In fact, there wasn’t a single live string on all of Hospital Music. All of the strings were played on a keyboard using GarageBand sounds that I just messed with here and there.

Drums

One of the toughest things to master is the drums. While GarageBand comes with countless loops, using them is rather pointless if you’re working on something that requires beats to change to support original arrangements. That said, you’re left with using a keyboard and your fingers, which is challenging to say the least.

When I record drums, after selecting the kit that I’m going to use and making a few adjustments to the sound, I go about it in five steps.

The first is the main drum track. On this track I record kick and snare and, on occasion depending on the beat, toms. The second is the first of two cymbal tracks, which I use to record hats or ride. The third is a duplicate of the first main drum track that I use to record complicated fills. The fourth is used to record crash cymbals and the fifth, if needed, is used to record percussion, such as tambourine or hand claps. It’s important to remember that you can use a variety of different kits for each of the tracks.

Obviously you don’t just sit down and start recording drums to nothing but a click, so I always lay down a scratch bass or guitar track to click first. I then go back and play the first drum track to the scratch track. It’s important to remember though that if you play to guitar that your kick placement might change when you lay down bass, so after recording your initial drum track you might find yourself confronted with having to map out a pattern and then replace the guitar with a bass track to ensure that a proper groove is established.

After that, for the sake of ensuring that time is solidly established before recording other instruments, it’s best to record hats or ride. You can then record whatever complicated fills are required and then crashes to help establish dynamics if you like.

Once that’s done you have a base to work from.

Bass And Guitars

When it comes to both bass and guitars I simply plug straight into a USB M-Audio MobilePre that I purchased some years ago. I believe there are better ones available now, so check the M-Audio website. Beyond that, I use the different guitar and bass sounds that come in GarageBand and simply tweak them until I get what I want. Unlike most people, I have a lot of different guitars to work with, so I also have the ability to alter sounds using different instruments. But with all of the different sounds available in GarageBand you don’t need a big guitar collection to get what you need.

Keyboard

I use a small USB keyboard to play a variety of different instruments, from drums to synths, strings to piano. Again, I just tweak the various sounds until I get what I’m looking for. One trick with regards to strings is to add a touch of distortion to them and concert hall reverb. If you start there and then mess with compression and EQ you can produce some pretty realistic sounds. There are other ways to go about it as well that don’t involve using distortion, but I can’t give all of my secrets away.

Vocals

Most of the time I have my Neumann at home, which I also use on stage. Obviously, given that it’s an expensive microphone, it’s head and shoulders above what your average enthusiast is going to be using. That said, it’s been packed away with the rest of my gear for months now, so I’ve just been using a Sennheiser E935. The bottom line is that you don’t have to spend a lot of money on a microphone to get decent results.

As with guitar and bass, I simply plug the mic into the MobilePre and sing. I don’t use headphones, so there’s bleed from the speakers. If you want to eliminate bleed then just use headphones while tracking. And just like anything else, you can record them dry and then work on the sound or your can work on it as you go along. I do both, it all depends of how fast I want to get something down.

Mess Around With It

The best way to get acquainted with all of the different functions in GarageBand is trial and error. Just make sure that you’re constantly saving as you go, and that if you’re going to try something drastic that you save your changes under an alternate file name.

Unlike a lot of recording programs, which require a lot of knowledge to use properly, GarageBand is perfect for people that just want to have fun and make music without being intimidated. You don’t have to be an inspiring musician to use it either – it comes with tons of fun features that allow anyone to create music, even if they don’t have instruments and can’t play or sing a note. Even my mom has messed around with the samples that come with it and created fun little projects.

Anyway, I hope that answered some of the questions that people have asked.

I got a new Macbook Pro in July. What does that mean? It means, of course, that a brand new super awesome version of it has been released three months later! Mind you, I’m in no position to complain given what I paid for mine.

Speaking of super awesome, maybe your desktop should be.

If you happen to be a billionaire, you might want to get your ass to Germany. There’s a fair going on that you might not want to miss.

A lot of people have contacted me lately about the Daniel Johnston documentary The Devil And Daniel Johnston given that I have posted photographs of Johnston paraphernalia in my house and that I covered one of his songs on my last record. I purchased the DVD the week that it was released, so have owned it for some time now, but thought I would mention for those of you that haven’t checked out the special features that there is a special segment in which Daniel meets Laurie Allen, his life long love and muse, for the first time in 26 years. It’s very moving and certainly worth watching. Obviously, given his struggles with mental illness, I feel a special connection with Daniel’s work. He is, in many ways, an idol of mine. And while many people, and understandably so, don’t ‘get’ his music, I urge everyone to watch the film and then delve into his material. I think you’ll find you have a greater appreciation for it having been exposed to his story.

I was going to go and see W. tonight but am too under the weather. That said, the film’s star, Josh Brolin, is hosting SNL tonight and there are rumors that Sarah Palin will also be there. Anyway, here’s a few SNL clips to hold you over…

Updated:

Palin opens SNL (Baldwin is awesome)…

Today we’ve made a few minor changes to the menu appearance, and fixed some of the display issues on browsers like IE6 (mostly the comments appearance). Please refresh your browsers to make sure you have the most current version of the pages and files available.

Also, we’ve re-enabled the MG iPhone version of the website, a theme which shows only to iPhone and iPod touch users when visiting matthewgood.org.

The matthewgood.org iPhone/iPod touch theme was the original WPtouch, later reconditioned for a public WordPress theme release. If you run a WordPress blog and want to support mobile browsing on Apple’s breakthrough devices, please check out WPtouch.

We’ll be adding multimedia to the theme shortly, along with other features unique to the devices.

Enjoy.

As a quick side note, someone has already tried to break into the bus here in Barrie this morning. How wonderful.

It’s Finally Here…

At long last the iPhone will be available in Canada on July 11th. Even more exciting is that it’s the new 3G version of the phone.

The iPhone will be available through Rogers and Fido, though I could not find any information about pricing or data package rates on the Rogers website – in fact it’s not even mentioned on the Rogers site whatsoever. If anyone has any information, please do leave it in the comments.

In an entry earlier today I mentioned that iTunes might very well become the #1 music retailer in the United States by the end of the year. Having read the entry, a friend at Apple sent me a link to the following. It seems the end of the year has come early…

“April 3, 2008 - Apple today announced that the iTunes Store surpassed Wal-Mart to become the number one music retailer in the US, based on the latest data from the NPD Group. With over 50 million customers, iTunes has sold over four billion songs and features the world’s largest music catalog of over six million songs.”

In just five years, iTunes has overcome every major retailer in the US. Congrats to Ryan, Dave, and the rest of the iTunes team.

76%How Addicted to Apple Are You?

I’m an Appleholic, there’s no arguing that. When it comes to my knowledge of PC’s, it’s pretty much nonexistent. In truth, I haven’t touched one for the better part of six years – though on occasion have been forced to use a few in various places during that time (I know enough to click on the IE icon to get online).

Given my profession, and extreme right-brained character, Macs simply work for me. In music they are the industry standard, though some might argue that PC’s are just as useful, which I’m sure that they are, but they’re not widely used. And while my conversion to Macs was entirely based on my work, I have come to consider them superior in many aspects.

That said, and as I’ve already mentioned, my knowledge of PC’s is extremely limited. Yesterday I made several entries about various Mac related things, one of which was iChat. In the comments of that entry a few readers informed me that the same features that the newest version of iChat offers have been available on PC’s for years. Of course, I had no idea that was the case, though have tried this morning (without success) to find which PC application is comparable to iChat in that regard.

There is also the never-ending debate regarding operating systems as well. Some prefer Linux, others Windows, and some OSX. There are others, of course, though less popular. The same goes for browsers. There are advocates for almost every browser out there, not to mention chat applications, video applications, and a whole host of other things.

As I’ve said, my main reason for using Macs is because of my profession. Ten years ago, drop dead simple technology did not exist with which to quickly record ideas. Fifteen years ago, the majority of musicians used four tracks, which were massively limiting. These days I have the ability to roll out of bed, stumble three feet, and record ideas in minutes. True, I could use far more sophisticated software, such as Logic Pro (the latest version of which I do have) or Pro Tools. But neither of them offers the same simplicity that Garage Band does for putting down ideas in very little time. It is, in the simplest terms, like a notebook that you keep in a drawer on which you scribble reminders to yourself and phone numbers.

An example of this, for the next few hours at least, you’ll notice an audio stream at the bottom of this entry that provides an example of what I’m talking about. While it has its obvious flaws, keep in mind that it’s just a quickly recorded idea, one that started with a simple bass line to which layers were quickly added. All of the instruments and effects are available in Garage Band, their use easily mastered after only a few hours of initially messing around with it (for those of you that haven’t). No external effects were used (though it should be said that my Neumann had a blown diaphragm at the time which is currently being fixed, which would explain some of the vocal distortion).

*All done.

It’s been over a month now and my iChat AV is still not working. At first I thought it had something to do with my new iMac, but I’ve been able to use Skype’s AV features without any problem, and Photo Booth also works perfectly, so it can’t be the built-in camera.

Not only that, but when I first got my iMac, and prior to installing Leopard, which Dale and I did when I got home from last fall’s tour, it worked perfectly. Others have been having the same problems, so it’s not limited to me alone.

Given that I do a lot of video conferencing for work, it’s something that’s been a huge pain in the ass. I have tried absolutely every remedy offered me and still cannot launch the video function in my iChat Preferences or begin an audio or video connection without the application crashing. I’ve even had friends at Apple try and troubleshoot the problem with me to no avail.

I am hoping that a fix is released, or an updated version of the application, so that the problem is remedied. In truth, when it’s working properly, iChat is leaps and bounds ahead of pretty much every other application of its kind. Not only does it allow you to have multiple audio/video conversations at once (conferencing basically), but also allows you to grant someone remote access to your computer so that they can help trouble shoot problems or access everything from applications to your hard drive itself – and all in real time, while you watch, and are in direct communication with them via video, audio, or text.

Say, for example, you’re a new Mac user and are having trouble figuring something out. If you have a friend that is an experienced user, you can jump on iChat (by either having a .Mac account or a free AIM account) and you can ‘share your screen’ with them, allowing them control over your computer and, in essence, giving them the ability to walk you through things right in front of your eyes.

It’s a rather spectacular feature, even with regards to those that don’t use it for such purposes. As another example, let’s say that I was working on a new web design and wanted to show it to Dale and allow him to meddle with it. I could share my screen with him and he would be able to access my Photoshop application, changing aspects of the design, and so forth.

Now, all I want is the damn thing to work!

Given that I’m forced to watch Benji rather closely, I spent most of the day at home lying next to him, getting some work done, catching up on some reading, and so forth.

One of the things that I did for fun was to configure the new Mac Pro on the Apple Store to reflect its fullest potential.

Here’s what it looked like:

Two 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (8-core) processors.
32GB (8 x 4GB) of memory.
Mac Pro RAID Card.
4 independent Hard Drive bays, all 300GB 15,000-rpm SAS.
AirPort Extreme card (Wi-Fi).
Two 16x Optical SuperDrives.
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 1.5GB (Stereo 3D, two dual-link DVI) graphics card.

In addition to this I also added one 30-inch Apple Cinema High Definition display.

If you’re at all familiar with computers, this configuration of the Mac Pro pretty much represents the Bugatti Veyron of the computer world.

The price tag?

$22,148.00 before tax.

Now, obviously very few people need a computer that is this powerful. In truth, it would only be practical for those in high-end film post-production and animation (something this serious isn’t even required for the production of world class recordings with the use of Pro Tools HD, though it wouldn’t be kicked out of bed, that’s for sure).

Alas, a boy can dream.

The MacBook Air

While it’s sexy, and thin, I’m curious to see how its heating issues stack up against a MacBook Pro. Given that my 15” MacBook Pro gets hot enough to fry eggs and bacon, will something that’s 0.16 to 0.76 inches thick produce some considerable lap burning heat.* Dale says “no”.

Did I mention that it’s sexy?

Pink Nano

Just in time for Valentines, the pink Nano will probably become one of the line’s top sellers simply because it’s pink. Girls love pink. Girls love Nanos. It’s a no brainer.

Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Speakers

If you’re an interior design fashionista and have your iPod glued to you at all times, it might be time to think about picking up Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Speakers. Shaped like a giant black egg/football, you and your fellow fashionistas can pretend that you’re in a scene from Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey.

The iSheer

Whether you’ve recently invested in a new front end or have been endowed with spectacularly natural ones, the new iSheer might be for you.

If you’re somewhat of an exhibitionist, and prefer to go braless, the iSheer provides tantalizing scenery for bar crawling lechers (every woman’s dream) and is a sure fire way to get you into the hottest night spots without having to endure the embarrassment of waiting in line. As an added bonus, it goes seamlessly with Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Speakers.

And if, by some insane chance, you also happen to have a completely done up Mac Pro, you could be seriously eligible to compete in both the Miss World and Universe pageants this year.

I think I did something wrong there and lost a post while trying to edit it. We’ve been having a lot of weird things happening lately, which has been driving The Hobbit up the wall. So sorry about that. The link to the story that I mentioned is here if you want to read or bookmark it.

There seems to be a lot of ghosts in the machine lately. For one thing, my iChat on my new iMac is completely screwed and I have absolutely no idea why. I have tried everything that I, and a host of others (including friends at Apple), could think of with zero results. Basically, the chat function works fine, but once I try and video chat with someone the application crashes. Another bizarre thing is that every time I open it up, an empty chat window appears that is linked to the last person that I was talking to, even though I closed the application and the window. I have to admit, for all its advances, Leopard is becoming a bit of a pain in the ass.

Plus, my fucking caps lock key is still screwed.

Music Crap

I have been doing a lot of demoing recently and have completed half of my next release. I most likely won’t step into a studio until the fall, at the earliest, so you just know that I’m going to forget 90% of the guitar parts and have to spend two weeks figuring them all out again.

Damn it!

My DVD War With John Amato

John Amato, owner/operator of Crooks & Liars, and I have been engaged in an all out contest to see who can watch an entire television series on DVD in the shortest amount of time. And while that might make us sound like slackers, the reality is that John has been rather ill, and therefore bedridden, and I just haven’t been able to sleep for two weeks.

So far, John is ahead, though I did recently watch all of Ken Burn’s ‘The Civil War’ (for the 400th time) in one sitting, so I might have stolen the crown. I’ll have to wait and see what he comes up with next. Of course, he has the ever-evolving Presidential race to cover, among other things, so his time is going to be limited.

An Observation Regarding One Of My Favourite Blogs

It’s no secret that one of my favourite daily reads is Hot Chicks With Douchebags. Why, you ask, given the altogether serious nature of my own website? Well, probably because of the altogether seriousness of my own website.

That said; if you spend some time looking at the photographs on the site you’ll begin to see an eerie pattern emerge. 98% of the girls in those pictures look identical. The same blonde hair, the same wavy extensions, the same facial expressions, the same clothes. Is there a handbook out there that details this stuff? Come to think of it, given my past, I suppose I should be able to answer that question, now shouldn’t I.

Shit, my coffee’s cold.

If you check out the new tutorial for iTunes, you’ll notice a certain artist. Being that we’re all Mac heads here at matthewgood.org, it quite excited us.

Yes, we are now corporate whores. And we like it!