5 ways to inspire yourself when you get writer's block

Have you found yourself stuck in front of the computer, desperately attempting to make those musical cogs turn and get your next super-mega hit started?

Well grease up your musical mechanisms with 5 suggestions that never fail me when writer's block strikes!

1. YouTube-ing spree

The related videos in YouTube are endlessly useful - find a song you know and love, then explore!   Chances are you'll wade through tons of crap, but eventually you'll find that gem you've been looking for.   Listening to new tracks is always helpful, try your own spin on the quality songs you find either in the form of a remix or an original tune - you're sure to find something that inspires you during the process.

2. Movies and Games

Some of the best music is in the background.   Get some friends over and tuck into some popcorn (ideally not whilst playing a game like Modern Warfare 2, or you'll probably lose) then keep your ears pealed.   Movie music is great for sampling since it's such high quality and so epic!

3. Ask the Audience

I can't count the number of times that my listeners have introduced me to awesome new music.   Just send out a status update on facebook/twitter or have a chat with them at your next performance in the real world.   You already know they love music because they're listening to you, so squeeze their brains until some aural gold comes out!

4. Tutorials

Not only will it expand your horizons and inspire, but you'll improve as a producer.   When you learn how to do something new, you're going to want to test it out, right?   So have a search for some tutorials (there are literally thousands of free ones available on YouTube - Shockingly enough, I suggest checking out boyinaband.com for a starting point) and tuck in!

5. New Plug-ins and Samples

Same principle above - give yourself some new toys and you will want to play with them.   There are more free plug-ins on the internet than you can possibly conceive, so dive into Google head-first and crunch your way through them!

Top 5 Musical Philanthropists

For those that don't know, Philanthropy is the inclination to increase the well-being of humankind.

This generally takes the shape of rich people giving starving children money.   As you'll know if you saw Live 8, or have been to an Oxjam festival show, music and charitable work often go hand in hand.   But which musicians are the most philanthropic?

Let's take a look...

Justin Timberlake

After capturing the hearts of children through the boyband N*Sync, JT went on to found the imaginatively titled "Justin Timberlake Foundation" which initially funded music education, but now does all kinds of charity work.   One of his biggest charitable endeavours was a celebrity golf tournament, raising millions of dollars for children's hospitals.

Shakira

For a pop starlet with hips that seem to be epileptic, Shakira is a deceptively intelligent woman.   Speaking 5 languages and with an IQ of 140, she's technically a genius and has put her smarts to good use - founding the Pies Descalzos Foundation that helps educate poor children in Colombia, working on the Live 8 and other charity concerts, and campaigning heavily for education for all. She's strongly of the belief that it's a quality educational system that will solve the majority of the world's problems.

Michael Jackson

As one of the most famous people in the world, MJ used his position to great philanthropic success, with millions of dollars donated to countries around the globe to assist where famine, war and disease had hit.   Also, his "Heal the world" foundation brought underprivileged kids back to his personal amusement park where they could enjoy the rides and forget about real life for a bit.   Aww.

Bob Geldof

The lead singer of the band "The Boomtown Rats" pretty much pioneered the modern musical philanthropic concept, founding band aid and raising millions through the single "Do they know it's Christmas" and founding Live aid, raising further hundreds of millions.
His shaky voice and shakier etiquette (throughout live aid he frequently swore at the British public, ordering them to give money for the cause) belie his steadfast belief in charitable causes.

Bono

It's undeniable that U2 frontman Bono has become one of the most iconic musical philanthropists in living memory.   He's become the go-to-guy for comedians wishing to mock charitable musicians and for good reason; not only does he give money to causes, he gives time.   He's organised many charitable campaigns, including live 8 with the aforementioned Bob Geldof and the ONE campaign, which raised literally billions of dollars for poverty and disease in Africa.

Not bad for one Irish musician whose band-mates decided to kick him off guitar and onto vocals because he was so bad with a 6-string!

5 DJ Rises to Fame

Ever seen a DJ performing to thousands of people, producing massive pop artists and getting ridiculous amounts of YouTube views and thought; "How did they manage that?   My tunes are way better!"

Well give your bruised ego a hug, then check out 5 choice rises to fame of some of the world's top DJs and see if you can learn something...



Tiesto

Arguably the most famous DJ in the world, Tiesto has one hell of a story to tell...

He started out DJing professionally at age 14 at school parties, then proceeded to become a resident DJ at several Netherlands clubs, refining his DJing ability.

He began producing and releasing material on "Noculan Records"' sub labels, nothing like he makes now - hardcore and gabber tracks were the order of the day, and he was known as "Da Joker".   I guess that was his rebellious phase.

After being discovered by the manager of "Basic Beat Recordings", he was signed in 1994 and released a bunch of records, beginning to veer towards trance.   In 1997, however, he left and made a label called "Black Hole Recordings".   Creating the "Magik" series amongst other things funded his continuing rise to success.

In 1999 he made a trance duo called "Gouryella", which was massively successful.   Trance was huge at the time and he played some massive shows, such as the renowned "Gatecrasher" in Sheffield on a monthly basis.

It was in 2000 that he went solo and released his remix of Delerium's "Silence".   This charted well and he made his own label "Magik Muzik".   He proceeded to release several major charting hits on it from his first solo album "In My Memory" over the next few years.

2004 saw the release of "Just Be" and his fame grew - being the only DJ to sell out an arena on his own.   He played one of the biggest gigs ever - the olympic games opening ceremony, for 90 minutes and he released several new tracks on an album "Parade of the Athletes".

Releasing more compilations, touring around the world, winning countless #1 DJ polls and making several more albums has brought him to his current status.

Lesson to be Learned: Making your own label, even if you're already signed, can be a great way to take control of your career.


Pendulum

Starting out in Australia as a rock band called Xygen, Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen decided to turn to Drum and Bass after hearing Konflict's "Messiah".

In 2002, Pendulum was formed between the duo and Paul Harding, a veteran Perth DJ.   After releasing "Vault" on 31 records, an underground anthem, they made several more tracks and eventually two legendary DJs Adam F and DJ Fresh asked them to join their new label "Breakbeat kaos".   In 2003, they followed their dream to the DnB capital of the world and moved to the UK to join the label.

After a #1 on the UK Dance Chart on this label, they released "Hold Your Colour" - this sold over 300,000 copies and they soon began playing live with a full band - the first popular DnB act to do so.

Continuing to combine their eclectic influences of Drum and Bass, Rock and Pop, they released "In Silico", which, while alienating some of their core DnB fan base, brought them massive success, hitting #2 in the album charts.

Playing ridiculous amounts of festivals, releasing another album "Immersion" and Rob Swire co-producing for Rihanna (Rude Boy went straight to number 1), they've just continued growing and growing.

Lesson to be Learned: Follow your music no matter what - if Pendulum didn't move to the UK, they might never have achieved all this!


Deadmau5

For someone who doesn't want to be known as a DJ, Deadmau5 is a pretty famous DJ.

After learning to produce chiptune music as a young Canadian kid, Joel Zimmerman proceeded to grow up into a web and software developer.   Creating several pieces of pioneering computer music software and thoroughly immersed himself in the technical side of music production.

His personal music creation took a back-seat.   It was only when he released a track on beatport.com as a joke with a friend and it reached number 1 that he knew he had things the wrong way around.

After his friend had to go home he created a track called "Faxing Berlin" under the moniker "Deadmau5" - the same name as his web development company (he once found a dead mouse in his computer and was inspired).   He sent it to DJ Chris Lake, who sent it to Pete Tong, who played it on Radio One in England.   Blam - massive hit.

Donning a large mouse helmet for his image, he was an immediate internet sensation.   He made several more hits and proceeded to learn how to perform live.

Performing at massive venues and working with Rob Swire of Pendulum are just the start of his career.

Lesson to be Learned: Knowing your software inside out results in quality production and it's always worth releasing random songs; jokes or not, they might hit it big!


David Guetta

So how did a young French entrepreneur grow into a world-class superstar?   Let's take a quick look...

At 17, he began DJing at a club in Paris, then after discovering house music, he decided to host his own club nights one year later.

in 1992, a few years later, Guetta had his first lucky break - at one of Guetta's club nights he met Robert Owens, a Chicago-based house artist.   After playing Owens some of his own tracks, Owens agreed to sing over one of the tracks, which became a minor club hit.

He proceeded to become the manager of "Le Palace" nightclub and organised more and more parties.   Eventually, in 2001 (Yeah, it took a while), he founded "Gum Productions" with Joachim Garraud.   His debut album, released on Virgin Records, sold 300,000 copies.

However, his real breaks started in 2004 with his album "Guetta Blaster".   Tracks such as "The world is mine" and "Walking away" charted well, the latter appearing on a popular car TV advert and getting massive attention as a result.

2007 dawned with his album "Pop life" - after playing all over the world to promote it, he and his wife organised a show back home in France with Tiesto and Carl Cox amongst others.   He must love his event management!

2009 brought his 4th album, "One love", which contained the track "Sexy Bitch" with Akon amongst others - around this time he also produced Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling" which was a massive number 1.

Now he's working on productions with Akon, J. Lo, Rihanna and is even rumoured to be producing with Lady Gaga.

Lesson to be Learned: Take things into your own hands - by putting on his own club nights, he was able to perform to loads of people and talk to all the famous faces that popped in.



Rusko

For a relatively new producer to the scene on a relatively new genre, Chris Mercer aka Rusko has done alright for himself.

Pioneering an upbeat, danceable type of Dubstep in 2006 on the label Sub Soldiers, he's gone from strength to strength.   His more mainstream-friendly approach to the stereotypically underground genre has brought a plethora of popular artists asking for his production.   Who you ask?   Oh, only Rihanna, T.I. and he's currently working on a track for Britney Spears.

Lesson to be Learned: Try taking an underground genre and make it more listenable to the masses.

5 ways to make robotic voices

So you're entering the dehumanising world of robotic voices...

Attempting to find the right sound for you amongst the sharp, emotionless and downright alien sounding tones you can get from digitally processed vocals can be a veritable nightmare - so here are 5 different paths you can take to start your computer communicating with you!


1. Ring Modulation

Ring modulators multiply two waveforms together and output the sum and difference of the frequencies present in each waveform. This creates a signal with lots of harmonic overtones from both signals, making some mental metallic sounds.

While ring modulation has an uncanny habit of destroying melodic sounds, it works wonders on speech.   I fact, chances are you've already hear the effects of ring modulation on vocals exclaiming "Exterminate!" at you - the Daleks in Doctor Who are great examples of the robotic tones that can be achieved.

2. Speech Synthesis

If you just don't want the bother of recording, then speech synthesis is for you!   This method entails the computer generating the vocals from scratch.

Great if you're going for that entirely artificial "A computer is talking to you" or "This is what they thought robots sounded like in the 1950s" effect with your Robovocals.

3. Pitch Correction

Automatically correcting pitch can have more uses than just on singing vocals - Crank up the speed and auto-tune amount to full and get that Cher - Believe vocal effect.   Then, simply run your speech through it to give it a very synthetic tone!

4. Comb Filter

For a cheap and quick metallic voice that gives an unmistakeable air of robosity (I just invented that word, hope you don't mind), a comb filter is the way to go - it's essentially a really quick delay (under 10ms) with a really high feedback.   The sharpness of the metallic tone is ideal for Decepticon-like vocals.

5. Vocoder

Speaking of Decepticons, "Soundwave" from the original transformers series was brought to life (kinda) by running the voice actor through a vocoder!   This device removed all the original tone and changed the pitch to whatever the synth plugged into the vocoder's carrier signal played.   This allowed the Decepticonic tones to come through when the sound engineers played his voice through a minor second chord.   Pure evil.

And a bonus suggestion:

Vocaloids - computer programs that generate singing vocals from just lyrics and melody without a microphone in sight!   These are programs that are getting better by the year and soon we'll no doubt see them hit the charts.   Another example of robots coming over here and taking our jobs...

Pop Loves Games

Over the past few decades, video games have become a vital part of the music industry.

With licensed soundtracks, original theme songs and games that are entirely music-based dominating the video game charts, they certainly pack a punch when it comes to promoting popular music.

So let's take a look at some of the matches made in heaven between popular music and video games...


Licensed soundtracks

Many games have opted to include soundtracks from popular artists to accompany the on-screen action.   One of the first was...

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

Setting a precedent that still goes on today, the Tony Hawk's franchise incorporated tracks from punk bands and rap artists to perfectly reflect the energy of the extreme sport.   Or "X-treme" sport as their marketing team has been trying to tell us.

Anyway, bands like The Vandals, Anthrax and Papa Roach adorned the soundtracks of the first few titles in the series, going on to add Motorhead, Xzibit, House of Pain, Red Hot Chili Peppers and zillions(ish) more.   Many young gamers developed their first love of alternative music through these games - I'm sure they played no small part in attributing to the success of some of the younger bands.

However, taking the idea of licensed music a whole step further was...

Grand Theft Auto 3

Amongst other ground-breaking video game firsts, GTA had an in-game radio with multiple stations featuring multiple licensed songs, including from artists as popular as Debby Harry!   This theme has continued through the games, with different genres of music on different stations, making the game's soundtrack appeal to a massive range of gamers with different music tastes.


Original Music

It's not just licensed music that's been affected by video games, however...

Nine Inch Nails and Quake

Trent Reznor was the first popular musician to take to video game composition after working on the score for the violent first person shooting game "Quake" in 1996.   An inspired teaming as the industrial music fit the grimy, similarly industrial looking visuals in the game.

Kumi Koda and Final Fantasy

However, it's not just evil music, more recently in Japan, Kumi Koda, essentially Japan's version of Britney Spears, recorded the vocals for Final Fantasy X-2's theme songs "Real Emotion" and "1000 words", even releasing the former as a single!   She also did the motion capture for a large introductory CG scene at the start of the game where the main character is performing the song.   Now if that doesn't show the popularity of video games, I don't know what does.

Halo 2 

Going back to the alternative scene for a moment - artists such as Joe Satriani, Incubus, Breaking Benjamin, and Hoobastank all contributed to the soundtrack for the best selling Xbox game ever - Incubus even went as far as to call their album "light grenade" after an in-game weapon.


Music Games

And then we come to games that rely entirely on pop music - these have become so popular that they've already made billions, saturated the market and declined in sales.   That market saturation has had quite an effect on popular musicians, however...

Guitar Hero

The series that sparked it all in the western world, Guitar Hero put legendary rock band's songs in the hands of untrained gamers and allowed them to live out their dreams - whilst listening to a host of popular music.   This meant a young audience was exposed to older music, giving bands like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple new audiences that may have completely missed them had they not had these games.   Newer bands such as Sum 41 and Franz Ferdinand were included as well, however - and there's little doubt that this propelled their fan base through the roof too.

Singstar

Karaoke has always been popular, but competitive karaoke was popularised by the Singstar games, which actually measured the pitch of the player's voice.   A scary amount of Singstar titles have been released (over 70!), essentially adopting a "NOW that's what I call music" approach and releasing whatever's popular at the time.   This has become a huge sales phenomenon and opened up a new level of interactivity with the charts for music lovers and a new method of accessing music for gamers.

Audiosurf

It's not all licensing, though - games like Audiosurf generate the in-game content from music.   Audiosurf makes racetracks based upon the music loaded into it, for example.

There are loads of innovative musical games about; as the music industry declines, the ever-growing video game industry will be able to give it a breath of life in the form of vital promotion through popular games.   The music charts are already being affected by what people have heard in-game.

Things have come a long way from the blips and bloops of yesteryear, that's for sure.

How to make your songs louder - without making them louder

Have you ever compared your track with a professionally produced tune and asked yourself; "How come my track is so much quieter?"

In today's age of maxed-out, dynamic-range-less tunes, where louder songs make you noticed on the dancefloor as they hit harder and make the punters dance similarly harder, it's never been more important to sort out your volume issues.

When even limiting the hell out of it doesn't seem to do the trick, it's time for you to look deeper into your track and explore the frequency spectrum...


Frequency analysis

Man, that sounds scientific.   Frequency analyser plug-ins are all over the place - you can get good ones for free, such as Voxengo's "SPAN".   These allow you to see what frequencies are playing in your song as well as hearing them!

For a beginner producer, it is often hard to hear where different sounds are hitting in the frequency spectrum, and the dynamically generated graphs by these plug-ins allow you to see it pixel-perfect so you can adjust your sounds accordingly!

So how can this help to make your track louder?   You'll need to...


Maximise the available frequencies

It's important to differentiate two terms - apparent volume and actual volume.

Imagine you've got a track that's got a really loud bass part.   When you limit it, it will only bring the track up to the level of that bass part, meaning all the other parts will be left in the metaphorical dust, desperately clamouring to be heard - The actual volume might be at the 0dB point, but the apparent volume, what it seems to sound like, will be much quieter.

If the bass part is brought down, this means that all the other parts can be brought up to a more equal level when the track is limited.   The actual volume will be exactly the same as before, but the apparent volume will be much louder overall.

The idea is to have as many of the frequencies in the frequency spectrum hitting the same volume at the same time as possible.   If your frequency analyser looks like the himalayas, it's not as loud as it could be.   If it's a big ol' block of frequencies, you're on the right track for volume mastery!

So how can you change the frequencies?   There are several methods...


Altering the Frequency content

1. Sample selection

Make sure you're using samples that hit the right frequencies!   If you've got a snare and a kick drum that both punch around 150hz, you'll have a muddy, quiet mix.   If the kick hits at 100hz and the snare at 200hz, there's more room to breathe and it'll appear to sound twice as loud when they hit at the same time!

2. EQing

If you've got a space in the spectrum that isn't quite filled up, use EQing to bring up an instrument in that area.   For instance, say between 500hz and 700hz is a bit low, try EQing a pad to boost around the 600hz mark and fill the gap!   Be careful though - make sure the sound you're boosting actually has some frequency content in the area you're trying to boost.   You can try boosting a sub-bass at 15khz all you want, but it's not going to make it louder since there's nothing there to start with!

3. Compression

It's important to think in the dimension of time as well!   Some sounds will be too snappy, hitting hard and loud, then immediately dropping.   Compressing these sounds will mean they last longer - and we all know things that last longer are more satisfying!   Sounds that are louder for longer result in more consistantly loud mixes!

So take a look at your latest track through a virtual microscope and see if you can make it reach its volume potential!

Introduction to Chorus

This week's introduction to a production technique involves a nice thick effect that can help make your synths and samples deeper and more filled out with virtually no effort on your part!

Sound far too good to be true?   Well, welcome to the world of chorus!   Let's get started...


What is chorus?

In music production terms, chorus is when multiple instances of a very similar sound with minor differences in pitch are played simultaneously, resulting in what seems like a single sound with a thicker tone.

This authentic chorusing technique is often done in sound design when multiple oscillators are slightly detuned against each other to thicken up a tone.

However, a digital chorus effect emulates this - it makes multiple instances of the same sound and slightly detunes them from each other - this gives that much thicker, bigger sound without actually needing more than one initial source sound.

In order to avoid a static kind of hollow effect, an LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator) is usually added to make the chorus effect pulse very fast and give a more interesting tone.

Some chorus devices also pan the sound slightly with each slightly detuned version of it, widening it in the stereo field as well as tonally.


What does a digital chorus contain?

Some of the controls you might find on a run-of-the-mill digital chorus effect are...

Delay - This determines the time before the sound is re-sampled and added to itself to create the chorus effect.

Feedback - This governs the amount of effect signal fed back to the input - this changes the tone and character of the effect, and can make some crazy sounds if you're into experimental noise making!

Rate - This is the rate at which the LFO that modulates the delay time operates.

Mod Amount - This is how much of an effect the LFO has on the delay time.

Wet/Dry - This controls what percentage of the output from the chorus unit has the chorus effect applied and what percentage is the original source sound.


Some useful techniques

1. Dalek-style sounds

Turn the rate and mod amount up high on some vocal samples and I dare you not to record yourself shouting "Exterminate!" in a variety of violent inflections just to run it through the chorus effect and see how it sounds!

2. Weird FX

The feedback knob on any device is always a way to get some crazy noises!   Just turn it up to full and see what comes out!   Sample it, cut it up and have some fun!

3. Chocks away!

Keep the LFO rate and mod amount low and the delay similarly low... et voila!   Suddenly your sound seems to be soaring off into the sky on some sort of jet engine!   Or at least it sounds like it.