Happy New Year’s everyone! It’s hard to believe a whole year has flown by…again! Well to celebrate and to kick 2010 into high gear right away, I’ve decided to give you a challenge. That’s right. I want to challenge you (and me) to write/record/produce more songs this year than last. I want you to prove to yourself that you can and will make more music this year…BEFORE this year gets too busy. To do that I have created what I’m calling simply “The One Song One Month Challenge”.
Here’s what’s going down: every Friday (starting today) I will post a tutorial video of me going from the beginning of producing a song in Pro Tools to finishing a mix…in one month! There are 5 Fridays in the month of January so there will be 5 videos. Your challenge is to watch them each week, then take the weekend and following week (whenever you have time) to move forward on the challenge. By the end of the month you will have written and created a new song and gotten a jump start on music making productivity in 2010!
Here are the categories for each week:
- Starting Your Song – Creating a session, setting tempo, initial recording
- Rhythm – Using loops and drum machines to fill out the track
- Virtual Instruments – Using MIDI tracks to enhance your arrangement
- Editing – Comping vocals and overall cleanup
- Mixing – Basic mix and bounce for the web
I won’t be able to go into great depth in these videos so consider them more of an outline and a jumping off point. My hope is that this challenge may be just the “boost” you need this year. So without any delay let’s dive into the first week of the challenge. Enjoy the video below…and please don’t hesitate to comment with any thoughts or questions. Here’s to a productive and happy 2010!
Comments
I tried playing around a bit this afternoon with ProTools open just to try to get used to playing with a click track. I hope to finally record something this month once I get used to the click and your tutorial will be great in helping me along.
Stick with the Click, even if it’s frustrating at first. You’ll get better, no question about it!
Great, straight-forward video, Graham. I remember when I first started recording acoustic guitar. I couldn’t figure out HOW they made the guitar sound so big and wide. It took me forever to discover the art of DOUBLING. MMmm…so nice.
Thanks Joe! Yeah, gotta love doubling guitars. Saves the day most times!
[...] to Week 2 of the One Song One Month Challenge! Hopefully you joined us last week as we started 2010 with a bang of creativity and productivity! The goal of this challenge is to get [...]
[...] Starting Your Song – Creating a session, setting tempo, initial recording [...]
[...] Starting Your Song – Creating a session, setting tempo, initial recording [...]
[...] Week 1 – Creating your session, setting tempo, initial recording. [...]
[...] Starting Your Song – Creating a session, setting tempo, initial recording [...]
From
Samson Manohar (Sound Engineer Student Pvt)
India
Respected Sir,
Greetings to you in the name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I felt happy to see such a warm welcoming words about One son One month challenge video tutorial. It’s a great blessing to me. I” forward to my friends as soon as possible.
I just learned the perfect thing about the multitrack recording. It’s a great sir.
Thanks for your wonderful service. I need a Protool software for the installing.
I need your grace. Happy New year
God bless you.
Yours in Christ
Sam
[...] you are using Pro Tools to record for example (perhaps you’re sitting down to take the One Song One Month Challenge and you want to lay down your main guitar parts) then you want as little latency as possible. What [...]
love this!
I’m just getting started on Logic..
Should have read your advice and stuck with garageband but alas.. the money is gone and tbh I love logic.
Will definitely be watching for more great videos. Thanks
Let me get this straight.. you played your guitar twice to record the parts twice to double it?/