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   Thursday, September 6, 2007

Immortality is so much better when you can stay around long enough to realize it ...
In that respect, the Ramones endured to at least have a hint it was being bestowed upon them.
Once again, you've got a chance to see why. If you were among the many who missed them in their heyday, you can now relish their legend --- in sound and sight --- with a cleverly-packaged collection entitled 'Weird Tales of the Ramones.' If you have any favorable inclinations toward rock music or pop culture, this is an essential item for your edification and enjoyment. Not only does the set contain 85 Ramones songs and 18 videos, it features an impressive array of works from top pop comic artists, such as 'Simpsons' creator Matt Groening and 'Mad' magazine's Sergio Aragones (there's even a 3D comic, glasses included).
The band probably had an inkling of their icon status in the late 1970s when Rolling Stone magazine named them as one of the seven most important groups in Rock-&-Roll history. However, even then, the relative squalor of their daily existence was threatening to put them in the ironic company of Mozart and van Gogh, two titans of their art whose earthly rewards fell far short of their legacies.
Actually, all the Ramones ever wanted was a hit. They were New York misfits who grew up humming to the Top-40 charts, so perhaps that yearning was understandable. It was yet another irony of their careers, as their ultimate impact on rock music was that of being iconoclasts. They ultimately didn't need the Top-40 to make their presence felt.
A recent movie scene hit this nail right on the head. When Jack Black's faux-teacher character in the wonderful 'School of Rock' diagrammed the influences of virtually every esteemed band of this era on a blackboard for his elementary-school students, the name at the center of that chalked universe was, rightfully, etched in all capital letters: RAMONES. Another indicator of their impact is the lineup of artists who covered their tunes on a 'tribute' album compiled by the late Johnny Ramone and Rob Zombie (if your musical tastes are merely mainstream, he contributed 'Dragula' to the 'Matrix' soundtrack). The album was produced to generate proceeds for lymphoma research, which claimed the life of Joey Ramone. Those who paid homage with their performances were a veritable Who's Who of today's rock industry:
- Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder (who was a close friend of Johnny Ramone),
- U2
- Metallica
- Marilyn Manson
- Tom Waits
- The Pretenders
- Red Hot Chili Peppers
- Offspring
- Garbage
Even glam-rockers Kiss made an appearance, perhaps as a subtle acknowledgement that their own style-over-substance circus act has been well and truly outlasted by the stripped-down sound of the Ramones. Kiss' contribution to the cause, though, may have been to first establish that a group didn't really need a Top-40 hit --- their only noodling of note that made the hit list was a ballad, 'Beth' --- to become financially independent. Merchandising was their meal ticket and years later, that was the route that finally served the Ramones so well. Their first roadie, Arturo Veja, designed a distinct logo and hawked a ton of clothing and posters at their concerts. The logo imitates seal of the USA's Defense Department, which in a sense, embodied the essence of the group:
- They were proudly American,
- Their sound was aggressive, and
- Their compact compositions seemed to defend the roots of Rock-&-Roll.
To this day, items adorned with the Ramones logo can be found everywhere in the world. A further show of the band's ever-growing effect on current consciousness is seen in sports, as hockey arenas all over North America have turned the seminal 'Blitzkrieg Bop' ('Hey, ho, let's go!') into an anthem that raised the song's mainsteam familiarity to such an extent that it now provides the 'zeitgeist' attitude portrayed in Pepsi-Cola commercials and elsewhere.
In a way, the Ramones finally have their hit. With the third passing of the original four band members --- bassist DeeDee Ramone --- only drummer-cum-producer Tommy Ramone has survived to completely bask in the belated glory.
Besides the release of the boxed anthology, the other reason to wax poetic about the Ramones right now is the announcement that the Sex Pistols have finally been accepted into the Rock-&-Roll Hall of Fame. To many, they were the clarions of punk rock, but both the Pistols and The Clash owe their origins to the Ramones, who were inducted in 2002, when all but lead-singer Joey were still alive.
The Pistols and Clash were in attendance for the first Ramones concert to rock the UK. Both met the group, who encouraged them to forsake perfection and embrace energy and get their sounds recorded as they were. Even the term 'punk rock' was created in New York by underground diarist Legs McNeil to describe the Ramones (and Iggy Pop's Stooges) as well as the genre that was emerging from the dark shadows of disco, appealing to the disaffected and disenchanted who clung to the late-60s ideal that music still mattered.
One pleasant surprise on the boxed set is the inclusion of a song the Ramones only released in the UK, 'I Don't Want to Live This Life Anymore.' It's DeeDee's melodic projection of the last moments in the drug-engulfed murder-suicide of Sex Pistol bassist Sid Vicious and girlfriend Nancy Spungen. This concise, haunting opus, composed late in the group's career, served to further illuminate the torch being passed, from the influence the Beatles' early songs had on the Ramones --- the band took their name from an alias Paul McCartney commonly used when registering at hotels --- to their own influence on the British scene that grew from their presence.
The Pistols substituted anger for the Ramones' wit, but they still had the artistic 'edge' that all great rock acts possess. They, and so many groups after them --- including Nirvana and Green Day --- took their cue from the Ramones that the music was more than just a catchy tune. Much more. The Ramones returned the music to its adulators by making it accessible again. They hit the raw sensations that powered Rock-&-Roll in the first place.
And that may have been the Ramones' greatest 'hit' of all.


The Songwriting Habits
Some songwriters just wait for inspiration, those are not likely to succeed. Inspiration comes as a result of work; to get inspired you have to work hard and practice. So, how can you practice songwriting?! The habit of sitting down to actually think about a subject, to look up words in rhyme dictionaries, to play the piano for just the right chord...etc. All this is just the habit of practicing.
As you practice more, HIT IDEAS will suddenly come to you out of the blue!! Writing hit songs is the inspiration that you worked hard to get. For example, you might spend a lot of nights wearing your brains out writing melodies (that is practicing, and organizing your songwriting thoughts), and then while shopping for shoes an amazing melody starts echoing in your head: That's your hit song.
This means that practicing doesn't get you hit songs or hit ideas, instead it trains your brain to function better musically and to become more aware of "songwriting potential" in things occurring in your environment. There are other habits, besides practicing, that are useful too. These habits are tools to help the songwriter collect the fruits of practicing. Here they are....
Habit One. Have a notebook with you at all times:
Any time a song idea hits you, a good verse, creative metaphor..etc. Write it down for review later.

Habit Two. Have a digital recorder with you at all times:
You can use any thing to record sound with...Your "hit" melodies will not be lost. (Sometimes I use the notebook to write the notes of the melody -like D B A G..etc.-, you can do that too and save yourself the trouble of having to sing in a supermarket ;).

Habit Three. Ask people what they think about your creations:
Showing them to friends is always a good idea. However, showing them to other songwriters means great advice and "professional" comments that would go beyond "Good work, where are we going to eat?" :).

Habit Four. Keep your hit ideas organized:
Now that you have kept every amazing melody and every interesting lyric that hit you on paper, It's time for you to put them together in a great song. But how are you going to keep track of every single melody, title, chord progression or lyric that you think of or write?!! The answer is to have them organized in a way that makes them easily searchable and accessible. You can still do your organizing the old way using paper put in folders besides the folder-sub folder organizing on your computer. There are softwares that might help, like "TrackNotes" from "Virtual Studio Systems".

Habit Five. Practice:
I have talked about this a lot. It's really important...You will not be musically inspired unless your brain gets used to music. Inspiration is HARD WORK!! Practice by reading for successful lyricists, by listening carefully to great songs, by struggling for days with one line to get the right word for meaning and rhyme, by experimenting with chord progressions...etc. There are lots of stuff you can do...PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!!

Now that I have let you in on the songwriter habits, there remains a warning: Not every idea that you get is an inspirational moment, you will get a lot of "junk ideas". Nevertheless, do not try to judge your ideas the same moment you get them; record every thing and keep track of every thing you think of. You can later review these ideas, save the good ones and throw away the bad ones (you can better keep them in a safe place too, every thing may come in handy!).

Finally, you don't have to go with all these habits. They are habits that I developed because they were comfortable to ME. You, also, can discover and develop your own useful habits. The only habit that is crucial is!?!! You guessed right: PRACTICING.
This article is part of "How To Get Started" free songwriting online course.


Music Production and Mixing Tips & Tricks
What makes a pro recording pro? What is the "sound" that the pros get and how can you make your recordings sound more professional?
The simple answer is - there's no simple answer. But with careful listening and a little experience you can create excellent results with modest equipment.

Good mixing starts ear
The first and most important item of equipment is - who knows? Anyone? It's your ears! Sorry to tell you this, but listening to ten hours of Rave at 110dB will do nothing for them and you might as well give your mix to a turtle as try to mix with misused ears.
Listen to commercial recordings of mixes you like, analyse them, listen for the effects and get to know what constitutes the sort of sound you're after.

Mixing secrets
There's no hidden secret to getting a good sound, but if we had to sum up the secret of mixing in two words it would be this - EQ and compression. Okay that's three words.
These are probably the two most important tools used by professional producers. However, like any tools, if you don't know how to use them you'll be carving Habitat tables instead of Chippendale chairs.
That's where your ears and experience come in. Here we have assembled some production ideas, suggestions, tips and tricks but they can only be guidelines and need to be adapted to suit your material. There are no presets you can switch in to make a bad recording sound good. And if your original material has been poorly recorded not even Abbey Road could salvage your mix. But follow these suggestions and see how much your mixes improve.

Get the level right
You can't push the levels when recording digitally as you can when recording to tape but you still want to get as much signal into the system as possible. This means watching the levels very carefully for clipping, and recording at an even and constant level.
Some recording software lets you monitor and set the input level from within. Some expect you to use the soundcard's mixer while others have no facility for internally adjusting the input level and expect you to set this at source.

Monitors
Your ears are only as good as the monitors they listen to. DO NOT expect to produce a good, pro mix on tiny computer speakers. It may sound fine on a computer system, but try it on a hi fi, in a disco and through a car stereo.
Oddly enough, you don't necessarily need the most expensive Mic. Many top artists use what some might call "average" Mics because they work well and get the job done. You can spend a wad on a large diaphragm capacitor Mic (yes, they're good for vocals) if you have the lolly but check out dynamic Mics which are much more affordable and can be turned to several tasks.

Mixing MIDI and audio
One of the great things about computer-based recording is that the parts can so easily be changed, edited and processed. It's also so easy to combine MIDI and audio tracks and many musicians use a combination of sample loops, MIDI parts and audio recording.
Audio recordings are generally guitar and acoustic instruments such as the sax and vocals. Incidentally, the best way to record guitars is by sticking a Mic in front of its speakers. You can DI them and process them later and this may be cleaner but for a natural guitar sound a Miced amp is hard to beat.
It's not necessary to record drums live and, in fact, it's difficult to do and retain a modern sound. You can buy off-the-shelf MIDI drum riffs and audio drum loops, or program your own. The quality of the gear which makes drum noises these days is such that anyone with a good riff can sound like a pro.

Mixing MIDI
As MIDI and audio parts appear on the same screen in modern sequencers, it's very easy to arrange them into a song. However, when you come to mix everything down there's another consideration. If you are recording to DAT you can simply route the audio and MIDI outputs through a mixer and into the DAT machine.
However, if you want to create a CD you must first convert the MIDI parts to audio data. The entire song can then be mixed to hard disk and burned to CD. Converting MIDI to audio can have another benefit and that's the ability to process the MIDI tracks using digital effects.

Effects
There are three positions for effects known as Master, Send and Insert. Use the Master for effects you want to apply to the entire mix. These will often be EQ, compression and reverb.
Although giving each channel its own Insert effects is kinda neat, each one uses a corresponding amount of CPU power. So if your computer is struggling and if you're using the same effect on more than one channel, make the effect a Send effect and route those channels to it.
Many pieces of software let you apply an effect Pre or Post fader. With Post fader, the amount of sound sent to the effect is controlled by the fader. With Pre fader, the total volume level of the signal is sent. Post fader is the usual default and the one you'll use the most.

EQ
EQ is the most popular and the most over-used effect. Yes, it can be used to try to "fix a mix" but you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear as me Gran used to say and what she didn't know about mixing could be written in the margin of the book of honest politicians.
But before you start messing with EQ - or any other effect for that matter - make sure you have a decent set of speakers. Have we said that already? Oh, must be important, then.
There are plug-in effects such as MaxxBass which can psychoacoustically enhance the bass frequencies to make it sound better on smaller speakers. However, this is by no means the same as getting a good bass sound in the first place by observing good recording principles.
EQ can enhance a mix to add gloss, fairy dust, shimmer, sheen, a sweetener or whatever you want to call it to the final production. It can be done with enhancers and spectralisers, too, although these tend to mess with the harmonics which some producers don't like. However, don't dismiss them out of hand.
General EQ lore says that you should cut rather than boost. If a sound is top-heavy, the temptation is to boost the mid and bass ranges. But then what usually happens is you start boosting the upper range to compensate and you simply end up boosting everything and you're back where you started - only louder!
The reason why cutting is preferred is that boosting also boosts the noise in the signal which is not what you want. Try it. Boost every frequency and listen to the result. If you think it sounds okay, fine. What do we know?
But when you're fiddling, do keep an eye on the output meter. Boosting EQ inevitably means increasing the gain and it's so-o-o-o easy to clip the output causing distortion which does not sound good.
Finally, check EQ changes to single tracks while playing back the entire piece. In other words, listen to the tracks in context with all the other tracks. It may sound fine in isolation but some frequencies may overlap onto other tracks making the piece frequency rich in some places and frequency poor in others.

Reverb
Reverb creates space. It gives the impression that a sound was recorded in a hall or canyon instead of the broom cupboard. Recording lore suggests that you record everything dry, with no reverb, so you can experiment with a choice later on. You can't un-reverb a track once it's been recorded.
The more reverb you apply, the further away sound will seem. To make a vocal up-front, use only enough reverb to take away the dryness. Vocals don't want to be mushy (lyrics can be mushy) so use a bright reverb.
A common novice error is to swamp everything with different types of reverb. Don't - it sounds horrible!

Mixing down
You've done all the recordings, done the edits, applied the effects and now it's time to mix everything into a Big Number One Hit! Before you do, go home and have a good night's sleep. Have two. In fact, sleep for a week.
Yes, we know you're hot and raring to go but your ears are tired. They're falling asleep. Listen carefully and you might hear then snore!
There is a phenomenon known as ear fatigue and consistent exposure to sound, especially the same frequencies, makes our ears less responsive to them. Goes back to the bit about spending your life in a Rave club - you'll never be a master producer. If you try to mix after spending a day arranging, your ears will not be as responsive, so do them and your mix a favour by waiting at least a day.
Now, go forth and mix! And don't forget - you get better with practice. For more information about mixing, pick up a FREE copy of Creating The Perfect Mix at www.making-music.com
***********
Ian Waugh is one of the UK's leading hi tech music writers and creator of www.making-music.com. He has written for most of the major - and not so major - hi tech music magazines in the UK and many general computing titles both offline and online.
His output numbers over 2,000 articles, features and reviews and he has written several books and albums. He is author of the "Quick Guide to..." series which includes the Quick Guide to Dance Music, Digital Audio Recording, MP3 and Digital Music, and Analogue Synthesis.