ANSWERS: Demos V. Master Recordings

Danny Tadde

Let’s just start with what is a great song and we’ll get to the recording part later. First of all, a great song should be defined as one that does a great job of filling its intended use.
What?

While most people think of songwriting and hit songs as great songs, with great lyrics, that are recorded perfectly for their styles, there are other uses for music. Those other uses may need something completely different to accomplish their intended use. An example would be, let's say, a film where a lady is walking down a sidewalk dressed properly and clean and the scene calls for her to be completely offended by kids playing music in a garage. Well, your recording needs to be noisy and loose, hollow and loud as if it is inside a garage. So the point is, define your music before you record it. Do you want to sound raw, polished, and time-stamped in the ’50s, or what?

Once you figure out what you are looking for, then the next step is to decide what the finished will be. Art is never finished; it is only abandoned.

A demo is a quick recording that presents what you want the recording to present. A master is the best recording you can do for a budget that will keep people happy in a commercial medium such as radio or TV. 

How do you get a world-class, master recording and what gear do you need?
A world-class master recording can be made on less than world-class equipment if you know what you are doing. A world-class master recording will never be made on world-class equipment if you don’t have a grasp on what you doing with the equipment.
An imagination to hear a song before it is done, techniques to reproduce your imagined sound, and ears to know when the sound is right, are essential.

OK then, we have our start.
What we do here in our studio when it comes to a demo, is to use top gear and techniques that produce masters on a regular basis but what we don’t do is spend countless hours polishing and fine-tuning each note of each track. We use great musicians and as much imagination as we can but we don’t work on a lead guitar part for 4 weeks to get that perfect brand new sound no one has ever heard before. We don’t spend 200 hours dialing in a bass sound. We do a really great job at getting a song done in a fantastic way that suits the needs of its intended use, and on a fixed budget.

We try to fit a few songs of the same general style, in one day. We hire the best people for that style and have them come in on that day. We hand them charts, play any pre-session demos we have worked up and rehearse the songs a few times. If someone has any cool ideas, we share them and work them out. When we’re ready enough, we hit record and track your song. We get the levels nice, the tone right, and voila, we have a demo or the tracks at least. We usually have the lead singer stay after and redo all the vocal tracks to make them as good as we can get them.

We like to record 4 songs a day so sometimes we put a song on the wait list for a few days until we can get it done right. Some of our players exceed in one area and are only good in another. We figure that waiting a few days to get it done the best it can be done is a worthwhile wait.

If you have any questions, ideas, thoughts, or issues, please contact us. We love to give you the confidence to try us the first time. 

It only takes one demo from us to keep you coming back forever. 

To get started, just email me, by clicking my name  Danny Taddei

ABOUT Videos AND SONGS:

I get quite a few questions but two that pop up all the time are how I get so many video views and how do I get DJs asking me for my songs so they can put me on the radio. Those two questions can be answered with the same idea format since the answer is relatively the same for both.

So here we go for both -

If you want people to like your songs or your videos then make good ones. To do that you need to do a few basic things and follow a simple format. I'll work forward then back to the start just like if it were a song - get it?

First - You MUST give them an emotion from your first words or your first few seconds of video.

If you want someone to like what you do, song, video, book, advertising or whatever, you must make them to feel the emotion of being where you are trying to put them. It is ALL about emotion. Paint a picture, tell a story!

You need to establish a few things right out of the gate OR establish one thing and let the others sit in suspense. BUT if you want something to sit in suspense you need to make people feel that suspense from the gate too!

Give them emotions they WANT to relate to or they WANT to hate. Step outside of your knowledge base and think to yourself, if you were someone else and had no idea at all about what you were about to hear or see, would you get it and how fast would it be before you got it.

To do that, you need to use an establishing shot/or words in your song. Like a painting, when someone hears your song or sees your video, as it unfolds, will the first image they notice be so strong that it catches their attention. If you don't have someone's attention in a few seconds you have lost your audience. Long drawn out intros that say nothing about the song will bore anyone to death.  In contrast, if an introduction gives the highlight of the melody of the song, it will hopefully be good enough to make the listener want more and watch on. You want to keep them intrigued or in suspense to hear that part again with the words or see what's down that road.

Next, after you have made your statement (establishing scene or words and music) you need to support that statement with proofs. The imagery of what you just boldly stated now needs a reason for why it put there. If you write a song about how great pizza is you better show a pizza shop in the front end, then people eating pizza and being really happy, having a great time and maybe love in the family.

Lastly, you need a conclusion that takes your statement, looks at your proof and closes with an argument that cannot be denied. (Everyone goes home smiling and hugging, therefore, pizza is the best thing on the planet).

Write within your ability to perform the song or shoot the image. Make sure you can get the phrasing into the song in the fewest words without losing the meaning or make sure you have the smoothest video shots to tell the story without long delays and breaks. Don't write a song about loving your dog that talks about going to the store to get motor oil. Stick to point with both words and imagery.

To reiterate, Paint a picture and tell a story. Every word or every scene must be it's best in telling that story without boring the watcher or listener. That statement of a few words must have not only the words but the emotional and logical melody line to make sense. If you write a song about your dog dying you certainly don't want a chromatic scale in a major key leading the melody from a low note to a high note hitting tonics, subdominant, and dominant notes as you go up. That would sound like you love the fact that your dog died. If you are singing about loving a woman, you don't want to descend with a minor, Phrygian or Dorian scale. That would sound sad.

Have a picture board in your or outline of what you want to say. Make notes on what goes where. If you are doing a video, storyboard out your videos with each line of the song and a quick description and rough drawing of each shot. Know where you are going before you start. The most important thing is the ending but you will lose them if you don't grab them in the beginning. The only way to be successful in both is to know where you are going before you start. Then, from the ending work backward to get to the start.
It is helpful to write the scaled you are in above your song and look at that scale as you write. Think about writing that melody out as you go. It is more common than not these days to have writers that don't know a thing about music trying to write music. It is one thing to write lyrics but music is a completely other language. Team up with someone If you need to. Your melody is essential just like a storyline. A good melody sounds great on any instrument. If you rely on a sound to make something sound good you better start over. You are not actually writing a good melody.
Though it should be obvious, use proper instrumentation and if its a video, use proper lighting, camera angles and cast your talent to fit the part. Your work needs to be believable. If you write that song about your dog dying, a bright horn section giving sharp stabs for rhythm is probably not a good choice.

Danny Taddei: Missing You (just me and my guitar in my living room)

Danny Taddei - "I Met God In Mexico" The Tequila Drinking Song!

Check out my video for I Met God In Mexico!
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpEIwYrOKp4

I hope you like it and if you do, please leave a comment, like the video, and if you want to see more soon - subscribe to my channel.

Have a great day and thanks for being a fan - it is because of you that I make music.

Danny Taddei~

#24 on the Trop-Rock Top 40

Radio A1A listener voting brought "A Change Will Do You Good up to #24 this week. I consider that pretty good considering the CD is a year and a half old by now.
Thank you to all my friends that listen and vote.

I'll have a new CD soon (As soon as my son finishes my new website). My son does all of that for me but broke is arm like all sons seem to do when doing tricks on a skateboard. We're postponed a few weeks but the wait will be worth it.

Thanks again

Danny ~
http://www.radioa1a.com/#!top-40/jsffc