Composer, Musician, Freelance Writer & Technologist
Contributed by Music Tech Talk & D. M. Gardner Music
A discussion about music, technology... And sometimes other stuff.
It thought about re-titling this post “Why it is Dangerous to Play with DAWs” or “Knowing Just Enough to be Dangerous” or “Don’t Try This at Home” or “How to Ruin a Perfectly Good Brass Quartet,” but since I couldn’t decide between them, I stuck with the original title. After all, this is a re-post of the very first article I wrote for Music Tech Talk, at which time, no one even knew this blog existed. Now that a few more people have run across my ramblings on various musical and technological subjects and I can post to multiple platforms all at once using (you guessed it) Posterous, I will re-introduce the first couple of articles. Besides, I doubt too many people really have time to go back and look at every article on someone’s blog archives. I know I don’t.
Though I state this in the original article, before you feel the need to comment on how terrible this project turned out, realize that is the point of this article. Unfortunately, the first time out, I spent 99% of the time learning the software and only 1% of the time actually writing music… Well, maybe 0%, because the brass quartet portion was already complete. I just experimented with a bunch of stuff in Sonar and, in retrospect, made the mistake of using Sonar’s internal synths. …But I know how everyone loves a good train wreck story, so enjoy. :-)
Original Article:
The first thing the professor told us was that if we were unable or unwilling to purchase a few hundred dollars worth of Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software, we should drop the class. So, we all quickly forked over the cash and hoped for the best. I was able to find Sonar 8 Studio Edition on eBay at a student price of around $200. The Producer Edition was also available at around $400, but some reviews I had read led me to believe the extra expense was just not worth it. Here is a list of what I am missing using only the Studio version:
http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/English/default.asp
http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/English/exclusives.asp
Of those exclusive features the one's I think I might find useful are any reverbs, compressors and sound effects in general. You can never have too many tools for sound manipulation. V-Vocal sounds interesting, but I question its usefulness in comparison to products like Melodyne. Any of the synthesized sound features will just add more unrealistic sounding midi voices to your library... Unrealistic, because, even if they sound completely real, you will get terrible results unless they are played into Sonar live. In which case, you will probably want to use an external keyboard/synthesizer/microphone instead of internally generated synthesizers. One other important note... You'd better have a fast processor and a heck of a lot of RAM if you plan to use a lot of internal synthesizers. Sonar likes to work best with straight audio files. Overall, there are a few features that would have been helpful, but I like saving $200 right now.
TIP: If you choose to use a lot of synthesizers and Sonar decides it does not want to open properly anymore, try this: Hold down the Shift key while opening the file you want. This will start the file in Safe Mode, allowing you to choose which synthesizers, etc. to load.
Ok, so now you know a little about what Sonar has to offer, let's take a look at what I was able to do with it first time out. For starters, keep in mind that I had only a week to do each project for this course and had never before used any DAW software. The first thing I had to learn was what one does with such software. In short, it allows you to record from various sources such as midi, mic, or internal synths (or, you can import any audio file you already have) and digitally edit/manipulate/mix your music.
What does this mean? Well, if I want to make a recording of myself playing all the parts of a band, I can do that. If some of those parts are midi, some are live and some are pre-recorded, I can do that to. I can take all these elements, add proper reverb, panning, compression, normalization and balance (all stuff that I will discuss later), then properly down-mix the project into an audio file that sounds good on just about any audio system... Even to the professional level, given the right recording/audio/mastering equipment. As with any audio project, the better the initial recording, the better the output (I.e. Live recordings of professional musicians using $1,000 mics in a recording studio will always sound better than midi played back using a synthesizer). There isn't much yo can do to make a bad recording sound better. But, there is a lot you can do to make a decent one sound good. You might be surprised just how much you can do with just a good microphone and a keyboard at home.
My first project is an excellent example of WHAT NOT TO DO. In fact, it is so bad, that I hesitate to use it as an example... But it taught me many lessons.
LESSON 1: If you don't have a fast enough computer, a good enough microphone or keyboard, you won't be very happy with your products. Invest in some good equipment.
LESSON 2: You will not be able to adequately use Sonar in just one week. There is a huge learning curve if you have never used this type of software.
LESSON 3: Trial and error is really the ONLY way to discover what effects and processes work best for your music. Your trial and error will also be very important when trying to export/down-mix your finalized audio project, and may actually be the most frustrating part of the whole process.
LESSON 4: Never take a perfectly good piece you have already written and ruin it by trying to experiment with it in Sonar, adding effects, instrumentation, hip-hop beats and playing it back using the internal synths in Sonar.
LESSON 5: If at all possible, play everything into Sonar live, even if it's midi generated. It is the only way to avoid making your music sound mechanical.
LESSON 6: Unless you have 100% realistic sounding midi generation capability, always use real instruments when possible. There are cases when midi can be great, but they are always context specific.
LESSON 7: If you don't very much enjoy the process of learning new software, recording music, performing and creating, then DAWs are not for you. If you do, then Sonar 8 will open up a lot of possibilities for your creative process.
Below is my first disastrous project. Most of my time was spent learning the features of Sonar and how to implement them, rather than writing any good music. Good News: There was only one way to go from here.
If you want to hear a much better version of the original brass quartet, follow the link below. It was made using the Garritan internal synths in Finale 2009:
http://dmgardnermusic.bandcamp.com/track/prelude-in-g-brass-quartet?permalink
It's still midi, but it sounds a lot better. You can go to the detail page for Prelude in G to see a sample of the score.
I'll post the embedded players on http://Musictechtalk.net.
Composer, Musician, Freelance Writer & Technologist
Contributed by Music Tech Talk & D. M. Gardner Music
Composer, Musician, Freelance Writer & Technologist
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