Advanced Stadium (Cools)

- Introduction

The essential thing to remember when you're at this stage is that
everything must be professionally done, whether it's sampling,
tracking, and use of effects, absolutely everything must be at top
quality. Take your time over your tracks, and make sure that they
are as perfect as you can get them.

- Vocals

Chances are that some time or other you are going to want to
incorporate some sort of vocals into your music. This can be very
hard, and there are two important things to remember: the vocalist,
and the words. Both should be of equal importance in your mind. A good
vocalist singing crap words sounds unprofessional, the same goes for a
crap vocalist singing great words. Few people can sing well, and even
fewer can write respectable songs.

Your best chance of getting good vocals is to find someone who is
willing and able to write some lyrics for you, and then hire a studio
and a vocalist for a couple of hours. The main reason for hiring a
studio is that it'll probably have VERY expensive and VERY nice
microphones. They'll know all about using them and have the best
environment to record in. Remember that you'll probably want to take
a recording of your tune with you so the vocalist will have something
to sing to! You can then sample the vocals and incorporate them into
your tune. Obviously you'll have to check that the studio has a sampler
that can save onto disks that you can use. The actual sample format
isn't too important as there are plenty of converters around.

An alternative method would be to find out if the studio has a CD-
Recorder. You can then record the vocals direct to CD and rip or
sample them at your leisure. The same goes if you have a DAT machine,
you could record to DAT in the studio and then sample the vocals
when you want.

Using vocal samples does have a number of drawbacks. One, your
modules will instantly increase in size. We’re not talking a few
hundred KB here, more like a good few megabytes, depending on the
amount of vocals used.

Another problem is one of performance. Although this may not bother
you, if you’re playing a song to an audience, and there’s no-one
singing it, the performance will look quite strange!

- Going Commercial

Releasing commercially when you use a tracker is nigh on impossible,
due to the lack of respect trackers have from 'proper' musicians.
There have been, and will be, a lucky few who have done it. Names
that spring to mind are Bjorn Lynne (Dr. Awesome), Dex + Jonesey,
Eric Giesen (Sidewinder), Vivid, Ganja Man, Holy Ghost, Oona,
Assign. The main problem with getting your music released is the
output format. Here's a short table to determine whether or not
you'll have this problem.

Soundcard quality DAT machine CD-Writer Problem?
----------------- ----------- --------- --------
Good, with digital Yes Yes No
output
Good, with digital Yes No No
output
Good, with digital No Yes No
output
Good, with digital No No Yes
output
Bad, no digital Yes Yes No
output
Bad, no digital Yes No Yes
output
Bad, no digital No Yes No
output
Bad, no digital No No Yes
output

Basically, as long as you have a CD-Writer or a good quality digital
output and DAT machine, you won't have a problem getting a good
quality recording. Which means you'll be able to produce good quality
demos without the need to hire a professional (!) studio or mastering
company.

Something else to consider when you're going professional is the
quality of your samples. The number of times I've heard a tune good
enough to be released that has been spoiled by bad samples is
ridiculous. Drums are generally the culprits,especially those with
high frequencies in them. Synthetic hi-hats and cymbals pitched up
too far lose their distinctive sound, and get changed back into what
they really are white noise. Don't settle for anything less than CD-
Quality, unless you specifically want that "lo-fi" sound.