-John Allan

I know that I have skipped a week, but week 7 and 8 have all been about selecting a Niche. Now that sounds as if it should be easy, but I haven’t found it too easy! I seem to have been drawn towards a niche that I have the most experience in and that is; Playing Guitar, Writting Songs and Recording Studio Techniques but my research indicates that there is not a great  need for more ebooks or course’s in those area’s. 

I started writing an ebook about ‘learning to play guitar’ a little while ago, I’m about half way through writing, but I got put off by all the free ebooks and course’s that are already available to download free of charge. So how do I put a price on something that takes quite a while to write when other people are giving away similar information for free?

I need to think about this some more, so all the best and see you next week.

The 7 Steps to a great vocal

Most problems that occur with recorded vocal tracks can be remedied by getting into the habit of using pre-recording routine. This section will help you to establish a check list for your pre-recording routine.

1 : Lyrics:

Be ready, make sure that you give your vocalist a copy of the lyrics and a rough mix of the song that they are to perform, a few days in advance of the recording date. To give them plenty of time to become accustomed to the track.

2 : Mic setup:

Before the session begins, check and make sure that the mic, preamp and compressor are all set up, routed correctly and tested before your vocalist arrives. You may have to tweak some settings later but a good generic setting will be a good starting point.

3: Reverb:

Only route the reverb to the monitors and headphone and not to the recording bus. Your vocalist will perform better with a good sounding vocal in the headphone mix, and recording dry will allow you to try out different reverbs later at the mixing stage.

4: Songs Ready:

Check that your songs are loaded and playing back before the session, also create several tracks ready for the vocals. Check that your CPU is not overloading, you can also disable or freeze some of the plugins to allow more processing power for the vocal recording.

5: Vocalist:

Make your vocalist feel comfortable and at home, have soft drinks available for them, but don’t allow hangers on into the studio as they may distract the attention of the vocalist. Some singers prefer to lay down there tracks in a one to one situation with the engineer.

6: Practice:

If you have given the vocalist plenty of time to prepare in advance, then just a couple of runs through the song to warm up his or her voice will be enough to get a good performance from them. You will be more likely to get a good take from the first 2 or 3 performance’s. If you need to try out different mic’s then record a few line’s with each mic and audition the recorded results. Don’t have your vocalist sing the same song over and over again.

7: Confidence:

Help your vocalist to perform better by passing only positive comments about there performance, if you feel a particular section wasn’t as strong as it could have been, ask the vocalist, what they thought? mention the positives about the particular section but let the decision about trying it again come from the performer.

Follow the 7 steps above to achieve the perfect vocal track.

Looking for a Great Vocal Coaching Program?  Click Here!   For only $7.00 You can add Power to your performance and see an almost instant improvement in your vocal ability.

 
Part I:

The Recording Process:

The most common mistake is recording vocals too loud or even too quiet. The goal is to record the vocal at a good signal level without going into the red. That’s probably easier said than done with some vocalists. Depending on the song being recorded, it will determine which, is the best way to record that particular vocal. In an ideal world we would record the vocal dry, without any effects at all, which would allow us to add whatever effects we wanted at the production stage, but as I said earlier, with a vocal that has a big dynamic range we would have to consider using a compressor in the recording chain after the pre amp. We’ll discuss the use of compressors later in the article.

Microphone sensitivity:

The bigger dynamic range the vocalist is, the less sensitive the mic needs to be.  Certain condenser mics will distort the input signal when a singer gets to close and sings loud.  If this happens, we can not repair the recorded signal, because the distortion happened before the compressor.    There may be a -10 or -20 pad on the mic, use it with untrained wild vocalists.  Otherwise, you could consider using a dynamic mic which is less susceptible to break up under high sound pressure levels (SPL).   Or you could consider moving the mic away from them a little.
A good mic doesn’t need to be a large diaphragm one, there are some really good dynamic microphones available, and they are sometimes more suited to certain vocalists.
TIP:  Try out different mics with your vocalist, don’t assume that, if you use an expensive microphone that you will capture the best performance. A cheaper mic might just do a better job.
Proper Mic Technique.
Every vocalist will have a different mic technique, it is your job to get the best performance out of your singer.  A good starting point is to have your vocalist stand about one foot away from the mic. A vocalist with a quiet voice may need to be a little closer. The vocalist should back away a few inches for loud sections and move in closer for quieter sections, in other words, provide a natural compression for the track. The vocalist should not sing directly into the mic, or bassy wind noise will get in the way. Just a few degrees to the side is better.  A pop filter should always be used.   This is not only a good device for getting rid of plosives and pops, but can be used to keep the vocalist from getting too close. Again if the vocalist moves too far away you will have the sound of the room to contend with.
TIP: If your vocalist moves excessively during a performance, try standing them with their back against a wall, this will limit their movement, but still allow them to apply natural compression.
 
Pre-Amp or Gain:

The amount of gain applied to the mic signal and it is calibrated in db (decibels) from 0 to typically 60db. All mics may differ a bit on how much gain they need.  Condenser mics need phantom power to power the preamp, but dynamic mics don’t need phantom power. Most mics will fall between 15-40db of boost. Have your vocalist practice singing and using a compressor in the chain try to get the loud peaks close to 0db.  This will give the compressor a healthy level to work with.  If you are not using a compressor you will have to lower the gain to ensure the signal never reaches 0db.  That is a much lower signal than you might think. 
 
TIP:  For a quiet song, move the vocalist up close to the pop filter to get a great breathy vocal.

Compressor Settings:

 Should I use a compressor while recording the vocal?  The one thing to remember when recording vocals or any instrument for that matter is; you can’t undo the compressor if you record with it in the chain.  The best advice I could give here is; if you can capture a good performance without using a compressor then do so.  You can’t undo compression once you record your vocalist through it. If you are recording at 24 bits, then there is no longer as much need to squash down and boost the vocal while recording.   At the mix phase you will have more time to experiment and try different compressors until you are sure that you have the right one.  That is today’s preferred way of thinking, but as with many things in recording, every recording session is going to be different from the last. Recording dry is not a hard and fast rule, but rather a general practice for clean and clear tracks. There are reasons why some people still do record through compressors and want to. Those who are sure they want to record dry might put their compressor on the monitor bus that the vocalist hears (but is not recorded). At the end of the day, it is the vocalist that will perform the song and all we can do is help them achieve their best performance.If your vocalist likes to hear a compressed vocal in the monitor, it is possible to put the compressor on the monitor bus. Just like reverb on the monitor mix it helps the vocalist perform to a better standard. It calls up a different singing style, particularly for soft intimate parts, as the compressor brings up the perceived volume, letting the artist hear and therefore express themselves better. I think it can make them more relaxed and confident. They will hear their subtle inflections better–again leading to a better performance.
TIP:  Set up the monitoring bus the way the singer prefers, and that will help you get the best performance from them.

Setting Gates:

Compressors can add noise to a signal, and they will reduce the dynamic range of a performance.  The noise is taken care of by gating the signal.  When it dips below a certain threshold, the audio signal is muted which cuts out noise.  This is effective for getting rid of low level noise that you do not want in the recording, such as bleed from headphones, or the vocalist moving, turning pages on lyric sheets, etc.  Gates have two parameters: 1) The noise floor threshold, and the Rate.  The Noise floor threshold eliminates all of the signal when it dips below the threshold, which is set from -50db to -10db. I keep mine set to -30db. Yet one has to be careful.  If the gate is set too high, then the attack of the vocalists words may be cut off or come in too abruptly.  The Rate parameter  “fades out” the audio signal as the gate come on.  This is effective to prevent the gate from chopping off the tails of the words.  Usually a rate of 1-1.5 sec is enough.

Setting Threshold: 

The Threshold is the all important level at which the compressor kicks in.  If you set the threshold to -10, it will leave all of the signal under -10 alone.  When the signal exceeds -10 then it starts compressing at which ever ratio that is set. -10 is a good starting point. Though the threshold seems like it is a volume control, it is not. It is merely telling the compressor at what input level the compressor kicks in at. Setting the Ratio   2:1 is probably the most common setting for a compressor recording or playing back nearly anything. This is a good setting to start with. What this means is simply, that it takes 2 decibels of sound energy to raise the output meter by 1db. You can read the 1st number as the db IN and the second as the db OUT.  Again, 2db IN equals 1 db OUT.  Easy, huh? Yeah, with 2:1 you simply divide by two.  

If your vocalist was singing at -10db and suddenly got 20 db louder, without compression, where would the meters post?
Answer =  -10+20=+10.  The meters would post at +10
Which, as you should know is way to loud and would ruin the track. Now, if you had 2:1 compression applied, where the output is half of the input, where would the output meters post?
-10+(20/2)= is… is….is….zero db!
Yes! It’s Perfection.  Why is that? The vocalists 20db burst was compressed to an actual 10 db difference in gain. (the ratio 2:1 is the same as 20:10, or half).  Makes sense?  Cool.  (Note, you don’t have to record all the way up to 0db, leave a cushion for the best sonics)
Lets go one step further, make sure you got this in your head.  If you had the compressor set at a 10:1 ratio what would that mean?  It would mean for every 10 decibels of gain the meters would only go up one db.  So in our example, then, the 20 db burst would only let the meters go up by 2db  (10:1 is the same as 20:2, or 1/10th of the original sound),  Since they started at -10, the overall level would be only at -8 during the sudden 20db boost.  Hardly any change in the output level at all.  This would make the track sound too squashed, without dynamics. Unless: that is what you are trying to achieve.

Setting Attack and Release: 

These settings can be tricky as they can “delay” the effect of compression on the attack and make is hold on a bit too long on release if set improperly.  I suggest till you get these tricky settings figured out (which takes quite a bit of experimentation) you simple use the fastest attack and enough of a release so the vocal is not boosted as the word trails off.  Otherwise a word may pump on you unnaturally.
Setting the output:  This is the final adjustment as the signal leaves the compressor.  It’s sometimes called the “make-up gain”. They call it that because compression often lowers the overall signal and you may need to boost it back up.   Basically you want to optimize this so it does not ever go over 0db in the recorder.  With luck you should see a consistent healthy level on the recorder’s input meters regardless of how loud the vocalist is singing. 

TIP:  You can compress again after the vocal is recorded as you prepare your tracks for the mix.  So, don’t go overboard with settings at the input (recording) stage.  You want the recorded vocal to sound natural, where the compressor just makes it an overall more useful signal to tweak later with exciters, harmonizers, pitch intonation correctors, and effects like reverb, delay. etc….

Don’t forget to check out this Great Vocal Coaching Program for only $7.00  Click Here!  Add Power to your Performance with an almost instant improvement to your singing ability.

If you want to be kept informed about future posts that I make relating to Music and Recording then please fill out the sign up box below and I will send you some free gifts, just for signing up.

My first attempt at home recording was in the seventies, when I used an Akai Stereo reel to reel which had a feature called sound on sound. That meant that after you had recorded your first track in mono and while recording the second track you would simultaneously bounce down the first already recorded track with the live recording to track 2. Then bounce down track 2 while recording another live instrument to track one. In this way it was possible to build up a song by your self, but the more tracks you bounced down the more tape noise would build up, so you had to be aware of the noise created when track bouncing. Although this all sounds quite complicated now it was an innovation in those days. Before the Akai reel to reel was on the market, the only way to record more than 2 tracks, was to go and pay a lot of money in a commercial studio.
In the eighties I was given a loan of one of the first cassette based 4 tracks (Tascam Portastudio) on the market. After a few days of learning how to use it I recorded my first song. To build up more tracks with the Tascam you would use a similar technique as the Akai, i.e. Record instuments to tracks 1, 2 and 3 then mix and bounce those down to track 4 which freed up tracks 1, 2 and 3 to add more instruments or vocals, but you had to make sure that you got the mix right first time as you didn’t  have the luxury  of virtual tracks as you have now.
As soon as Tascam brought out the 488 MK 2 I just had to have one, It was the ultimate in cassette based 8 track recording. This was when I first became hooked with recording seriously, a group of like minded guys in my area got together and would pick each others brains about; what mikes to use in certain circumstances or the best way to record guitar, but it wasn’t long before we learned about a program called Cubase, and the commodore 64 which was one of the first home computers. Running a sequencing program called Cubase on the Commordore 64 allowed us to sync up the Tascam and computer so that all the midi instruments were recorded on the commodore and then synced to the Tascam for the audio, which meant; when you pressed play on the Tascam, Cubase would run in perfect time to the multi-tracker allowing you to use the seven spare tracks on the recorder for guitars, vocals or any other live intsrument. The Tascam had a very warm and individual sound all of its own, I’m sometimes tempted to get it out the loft to use  today, I may do sometime.
Today I’m using the Yamaha AW4416 linked up to Cubase SX on the PC. The desk has an auto mix feature; a full range of effects from reverbs to compressors, all in all a great piece of kit. I know that you can get 24 track recorders now but I;ve never tried any thing that comes up to the standard of the AW 4416 in build quality, sound quality and ease of use. For Vocals I use the MXL valve mike through a TL Audio preamp and for guitars I don’t think you could do any better than Line 6. For midi I use the M-Audio Pro 88 (Piano weighted key board) and the Roland XV 5050 sound Module.
Within Cubase there are a whole host of plugins and VST instruments available which make the quality of home recording just as good as the professional studios. If you would like to listen to some of my current recordings, then please visit : Impact Studio

Week 6 started with a webinar, my first and probably the first for many other students, but firstly, I must give a lot of credit to John, Daniel Sumner and Dave Nicholson as they did a great job of hosting the meeting. There were several interesting topics brought up and John with his team answered all questions fully.
Dave Nicholson made a fantastic gesture of offering students access to his Total Web Traffic Site, there are some very instructive information videos and articles their, Thanks Dave, Top Man!
The rest of the week has been spent visiting  the other Students Blogs, and what I have seen so far is a testament to John Thornhill’s coaching ability. Every blog that I have visited so far (I’m about half way) has been well written with good content and as a whole look very professional. So well done to all my fellow students, now I’m looking forward to the next phase of the course, ‘Product Creation’.

That’s all for this week, see you soon.

Hi,

Ding, ding, ding! Sound the alarm!

Listen up! There are three *IMPORTANT* reasons you need to secure your copy of Dan Denley’s Acoustic Guitar Secrets course by
midnight (EST), Friday, March 21…

REASON #1) Limited-time bonus: 5 video tutorials (47 min) on harmonization, chord structure, rhythms and Roman numeral system.

The other 6 bonuses are LONG GONE. They got snapped-up in matter of hours when the course was re-released last week….

REASON #2) Price could jump at anytime after March 21. There were *tons* of people who missed out the first time around (because the course sold completely out and was off the market for two months). So, the “old” introductory price is still around through Friday. But after that, all bets are off…

REASON #3) This could be the LAST time you ever see this course sold as a complete “course.” Let me explain…

Dan is considering breaking the course up into different products. DVDs 1-3 could easily be sold as an entire course on acoustic chords, fills, embellishment and progressions. DVD 4 is two complete hours on fingerstyle. And DVD 5 is a journey into different songs: blues, country, bluegrass, jazz, Latin, etc.

But here’s the catch…

If you purchased these separately, you’d pay of LOT more than if you get them right now as a “package.”

But actually, there’s a more important reason you should get in by tomorrow night…

YOU DESERVE IT.

Yup, I said it. The fact is, I’m sure you do a lot of things for other people. You work hard. You make sacrifices. You give, give, give.

Isn’t it time you did something for YOU?

Seriously. And if you *REALLY* want to learn how to be proficient at playing your acoustic guitar, I know of NO BETTER WAY than this.

Acoustic Guitar Secrets course. Yes. It really is THAT good.

Look, there are probably at LEAST a year’s worth of lessons in this thing:

* 7-hrs of video on 5 DVDs
* 2 CDs with 127 tracks (100% pure acoustic)
* 135 pg. workbook (tab included) with 158 musical examples…
* 43 songs in various acoustic styles…

If you took private lessons for a year you’d spend at least $1,700. And this course is less than 10% of that…

And yes, I realize it’s not cheap. But there’s a REASON. It’s extremely high quality. Not only the materials, but the instruction is by a guy who KNOWS his stuff (4-yr degree in music).

So, throw away every excuse you’ve made to yourself about *why* you aren’t better at playing than you want to be…

No more excuses! It’s high-time for YOU to take action and *invest* in your own happiness, joy and peace of mind. Because,
frankly, if you don’t, then who will?

So, go here now and grab your copy of Acoustic Guitar Secrets:

All the best,

John Allan

P.S. You won’t risk a skinny-penny. You get plenty of time (90 days) to check out everything in the course.

And if for *any* reason (or no reason at all) you don’t like it, then get refund. It’s that simple. But don’t let fear hold you back. Do
it because YOU deserve it.

Here’s the link:

This week John Thornhill took a back seat and Daniel Sumner presented the video lesson’s, and he did a fine job! This weeks lessons were all about customising your blog and giving it a personal look. Daniel offered some good advice and I managed to pick up some great tips from him. I have had a look around a few of my fellow student’s blogs and they are all starting to take on a very professional look, so it looks as though Daniel has had a big influence over us all. Well done Daniel and thanks for the video’s.

PLR Monthly is it worth it?

Let’s find out.

Private Label Right products in a nut shell are yours to own, edit, sell, resell, grant resale rights to and more. Basically you are the author of the product without writing or creating a thing. So it does not take a genius to realise the value of these products. You can use PLR as your own and sign your name as the creator. Putting it simply, you have a business in a box within minutes, with all your own back links and up sells without writing a single word.

When you have your own PLR products you can:

Sell them on their own mini site – Use the PLR material to create your own mini website and sell your products from there.

Add them to bigger packages – Take 3 or 4 related PLR products and add them to a larger package. This is turn will allow you to sell your
package for a much higher price.

Convert them to CD or DVD and sell them on auction websites – Place your PLR on a CD with your website links and affiliate links inside and not only create an income from selling your created items on auction websites, also make a massive residual income from the other
sources of income.

Create a home study course with a variety of PLR products and sell them for a huge profit – You can create and sell home study courses
with the help of PLR. Package your PLR onto a CD, box it up with check lists and help manuals and you can create a home study course
which you can sell for 100’s of dollars.

Split your private label into articles – Place them on article websites with your website links, mini site links, auction links and generate traffic you never knew existed.

Create a mini course and distribute them to your mailing lists – Convert your PLR to a mini course and send it to your subscribers. This really makes PLR work for you.

Convert your products to physical books, print and sell them as your own – By converting your PLR to physical books you can them place
them on auction websites such as eBay and Amazon and create huge revenue potential.

Add your affiliate links to your PLR – Create affiliate sales which will earn you a residual income for years to come. By adding your affiliate links and website links to your PLR eBooks and articles and granting resale rights the viral effect is in place, your eBooks and articles will be around for years …

What else do I know about PLR?

Well I know that PLR can be very very expensive and can be a minefield and I mean a minefield. There are a lot of cheap and copy PLR websites out there to choose from. However beware of the guys who do not care about fresh content or content quality, who are simply trying to make a quick buck from the unwary buyer. Well PLR Monthly are most certainly not this type of business these guys are all out to help you and their members succeed to the max.

No joke here! PLR Monthly has so much to offer I nearly passed out at the amount of content you actually get when you join them.

Here is an extract from their sales page and just what you will get from them:

Niche Market PLR eBooks – PLR eBook are Very expensive to develop and hard to find. Such top quality private label fresh content has been
sourced for you as we strive to provide the best service possible. With the Niche Market PLR package you can use the 3 PLR eBooks as a niche collection and provide your potential buyers with more than a single eBook, you can give them a multimedia experience.

Bonus PLR eBook per month – You can use the bonus PLR eBooks the same way as the package PLR. We supply all you need to get your products ready to sell.

Audio eBook with resale rights – You can place the audio book as an auction or include it as a bonus in your eBook packages. All audio sales letters are graphics will be provided for you.

Mini website graphics to use with all PLR products – Use the mini websites and sell your converted PLR to the public directly from the internet. You can use Paypal or any online banking system to do this and completely automate the process.

25 PLR articles per month – Use your PLR articles with your affiliate links inside to generate you traffic for years to come. Submit them to article directories blog, and content hungry websites to earn your affiliate commissions and a steady influx of traffic.

An eBay sales template – Simply paste the template to eBay and we host the graphics for you. there is no need for a website hosting service for this one!

CD graphics – Use your CD graphics on your auctions and your mini websites. Print the covers to your CD’s and sell them as physical items.

DVD graphics – Why not advertise your product as a DVD and burn it to a DVD! You can charge more for a DVD than a digital delivery item.

eBook graphics – Use the eBook graphics for your auctions, your mini sites, your sales letters and your physical printed Book creations.

Header and Footer Graphics – we supply for you the graphics for your headers and footers for your mini sites and your auctions, which are all professionally prepared by our graphics team.

A PLR request service – This service will give you mini sites*, websites*, graphics* and PLR eBooks* terms apply.

As you can see the amount of content you get is phenomenal. Not only do you get all of this, you get full support for your products and a bunch of tutorials to help you move your business along. All in all this is one of, if not the best PLR website I have seen. It’s a complete no brainer so get involved with PLR Monthly today.

Thank you for reading,

John Allan

It’s great to finally see that somebody has thought of the little guys when creating a product.

Dave Nicholson has just released an excellent new product called ‘Total Web Traffic’ and it really

does offer exactly what is needed for the every day user.

Total Web Traffic is a great traffic course with loads of high quality videos that show you where to

get started and there is a whole load of information, advice and tips that is separated into tidy

little modules so that is is simple to follow.

There are even interviews with some massive marketers who explain their own methods that they use to

gain immense amounts of targeted traffic to their sites.

I would really recommend this for anybody, either starting out or even fully established. Because,

like Dave says: “Why settle for a few hundred if you can have a few thousand, and why settle for a

few thousand when you can have a few hundred thousand visitors”

Here is the link, I think he still has a 30% discount on at the moment,
I can very highly recommend Total Web Traffic for all you web traffic needs!

Take a look at the site

Regards,

John Allan.

If you or someone you know is interested in collecting, then Ebay selling is something you need to get familiar with!  Ebay is a huge Internet site that allows people to sell or buy at auction almost anything you can think of.  There are very few restrictions on what you can buy or sell.  Are you fond of antique toasters? Bicycles?  Vintage rhinestone jewelry?  Stuffed toys?  Elvis memorabilia?  Whatever you are collecting, Ebay selling will probably have what you want.

Ebay is essential to know about if you are enthusiastic about your collecting.  For instance, if you collect a particular type of antique or vintage dishes, such as Fiesta, you can search Ebay for exactly the piece you need to complete your set.  In addition to finding the exact item you are looking for, there is a possibility you’ll get it for a great price as well.  That tangerine colored pitcher might be yours for a song.  You just have to look.

Collecting is one thing, but what about when the collector gets more items than he or she can store?  What if they inadvertently collected duplicates of the same item.  Or what if you just have stuff you don’t want anymore?  That’s where Ebay selling can help.  You can list your item on Ebay, and another collector can find it and make a bid.  Ebay is a great way to recycle unwanted used items and make a few dollars as well as helping you with your collecting.  Ebay selling is not hard to learn, either.

For just about every item you can name, someone somewhere collects it, and they are probably searching Ebay for what they want.  So whatever you are collecting, Ebay selling can help you generate the money needed to add items to your own collection while getting rid of things you don’t need.  In addition, you can be gratified to know that the item you didn’t want, like the bikes your kids have outgrown, or your vintage clock, was exactly what some other collector was seeking.

Just like collecting, Ebay selling can get almost addictive.  It’s a fun hobby that many people are discovering.  So where do you go if there’s something special you are collecting?  Ebay!  Selling, you’ll find, is almost as fun as collecting, so be sure to try it, too.  Remember, too, that Ebay can not only help you complete your collections.  It can also be a source for the things you need for other hobbies, interests, and needs in your life. Sign up to my blog on the home page  and I’ll send you some free gifts that can be sold on eBay.