Greg Wells Start to Finish pureMix Assignment Student Submissions

Greg Wells Start to Finish

James

There's a lot more that goes into songwriting and production than I thought. I was surprised by how little of the song Bryce had written at the very beginning. I'd always envisioned song writing as a fairly solo endeavor, rather than the more collaborative environment I saw in the videos. Another thing that never occurred to me is that everything would be recorded separately. It seems super obvious now, though.

I've had essentially no experience with music production of songwriting, the most I've done is written a couple short pieces for the piano. I have a lot of songs in my head, though, and I'm excited to learn how to get them into the world from there.

Anna

The Greg Wells Start to Finish videos have been full of really helpful tips and fascinating insights. For example, I learned that it's important to figure out the right tempo for your song from the start—which makes sense, since you'll be recording all your tracks according to that tempo. Greg also emphasized the importance of trying different things while recording to see what feels right or doesn't feel right. One of my favorite lessons that Greg taught is that it can be helpful to mix your scratch tracks a bit to try to make them sound reasonably close to the final product—that way, you can hear an accurate representation of what the song will sound like as you work on it. Another insight of Greg's that I appreciated is that "nothing is really scratch"—you should try to record your scratch tracks as best as you can, since sometimes you can find magical, inimitable moments in those first takes. I'm looking forward to trying to put Greg's tips and lessons into action as I produce my own music.

I've written a few songs over the past several years, mainly in the "singer-songwriter" style. I actually hired a professional producer to produce three of my songs several years ago, and it was a really fun, interesting experience. I collaborated with the producer on the song arrangement and recording and consulted on the final mixes, so some of what Greg Wells does in his Start to Finish videos is familiar to me. I don't have much experience in music production, but I'm learning a lot in this class and am looking forward to using what I learn to produce some new songs.

Cole

I haven't been able to watch the Greg Wells videos because I haven't gotten pro access since the textbook version is still on backorder.

Regardless, my experience with songwriting and music production has been great these past few weeks. Drawing inspiration from friends, professionals, and even people on youtube, I've gone outside of my comfort zone and have been willing to try doing things musically that I would have never before. I even bought my first actual plugin for the first time the other day, after cracking them for years. I've never seen a professional producer in action with an artist recording a song before, so it's something that I have on my list to see before I finish the class.

Scarlet

1) To summarize what I've learned in Wells's videos, I learned and got a chance to experience what it would be like in a recording studio and session with an artist. I learned the importance of a producer having songwriting skills to make little changes to the melodies and chords of a song to make it shine. I also got to understand some basic mixing and recording techniques, although some of it seemed somewhat advanced with me with certain gear or plugins I don't have. However, I will try to keep his more general mixing and recording tips in mind even if I don't have the exact gear, and one tidbit I found interesting was him sharing his vocal effects chain and mentioned it was based off of Grace Kelly by Mika. I was surprised at how much work went into recording this one song and the types of setups involved in recording actual instruments vs just dragging in samples, but the final result seems worth it especially in an acoustic guitar singer-songwriter song like Lucky Number.

2) My personal experience with songwriting and music production has been more limited compared to the skill shown in the videos by Greg Wells and Bryce Drew. I have been trying to produce music for a few years but haven't gotten farther than making 8 or 16 bar basic loops with a couple instruments. I've also recorded my guitar through an audio interface before but it's sometimes hard for me to follow along to a click track or record a good take. In terms of songwriting, I've taken a songwriting class before but always feel too self conscious to write lyrics. I think it would be a good idea to push myself to write full songs, even if they aren't good.

I like watching process videos where a song is made completely from scratch since they show how a very simple melody or idea can form the basis of a complete, professional song and find that inspiring. Or, in the case of the Start to Finish series, it's possible for a person to come up with a such a captivating song with just singing and a guitar, and in my opinion, and even in the first playthrough before the recording process began, I could tell it was a good song.

I haven't been to a studio before, so I found the video series very valuable as it felt like I was in the room with the producer and artist. In the past, I really liked listening to podcast or youtube videos of artists/producers breaking down their popular songs, and recalling how it started with a simple idea or chord progression, but not as in depth. This series really went into the technical details and processes into recording. I want to develop my skills as a producer and songwriter and hopefully get an opportunity to record or experience a studio.

Blake

1. Sound waves are made of molecules traveling through the air. Solid, liquid, and air are part of the acoustic domain. (Where sound can travel) Timbre: Part of what makes one instrument or voice sound different from another. Wavelength: The measure of the length of one cycle. Three Domains of sound: - Acoustic Domain - Analog Domain - Digital DomainAcoustic Domain: All Sound starts here. Where all sound has to go for it to be heard. Tools are acoustic musical instruments, to get acoustic domain into analog domain it needs to be electronically converted with something like a microphone. Analog Domain: You record and edit sound, manipulate, edit and synthesize sounds. Manipulation of time, tape, vinyl, electricity. Digital Domain: We take analog signal and convert it into numbers that stand for the soundwave in a proces called sampling which works by taking thousands of measurements of the analog signal every second and storing that stream of numbers on a computer hard drive. We can manipulate those numbers pitch tone and speed can be edited independently.

Finding Right Tempo: - See what is too fast and see what is too slow and work your way to that perfect middle

• Nothing is truly scratched because sometimes on the first tries we get something that can not later be recaptured easily, so often some things from scratch make it into the final recording.
• You can adjust tempo within pro tools
• Plug-Ins help a lot
• There is good use in trying multiple mics out depending if you have multiple to try out.
• Serial Compression on a vocal is a good move.
• If there is a hum sound from mic it will record that and will be hard to remove.
• When Vocal sounds gret everything else sounds better, vocals is most important part of the track.
• Want things to sound and feel dynamic, volume balanced
• Drums have use in using multiple mics for different parts of the drumkit.
• Sandbags can help weigh down mics that may move during drumming

2. My experience with music production is very minimal, having been in studios before but been just a watcher until now.

Edward

I've learned from Greg Wells videos is the term for something that I've been doing in creating my music tracks, which is Punching In, a recording technique that lets you record new material within a previously recorded track. Instead recording full takes of the song until you get it exactly right, punching in lets you record section by section. And, relaxing the timing of the singer to a little later than the beat...true tricks of someone who is very experienced in the industry. Or, as Wells calls it "back phrasing." What is really cool is that Wells, is a quadruple threat...he can play numerous instruments (piano, guitar, drums), as well as sing. With the technology/production part of it, he is a true genius in this arena.

The closest I've seen to a Greg Wells was during this past summer when I sat in on a Music Tech class at SFSU with Professor Ben Stamey. He had the production set up, played the piano and punched in to an existing track. But, there wasn't a singer, nor do I know if he knew how to also play the drums, guitar and sing himself.

I would love the opportunity to see producer, Metro Boomin produce another track with rapper, 21 Savage!!! Fire!!!

Maribelle

1. Brief Summary

• Not being afraid to trying things out, as well as voice likes and dislikes
• Playing around with sounds
• Trusting your own expertise and also the expertise of your collaborators
• Adding the vocal in a way that owns the track
• General idea: “Don’t over salt the soup”
• Overall I was really impressed and inspired by Greg’s knowledge–not just his knowledge of how to produce a song, but also of the music theory, the different kinds of recording and production equipment, and the history of different processes and sounds and the studios that created them

2. I have very little experience with songwriting and no experience with music production. In terms of songwriting, it's a process I've often thought about. When I was in middle school I tried writing a little, but I always thought what I wrote was cringey and that put me off. I know it's a practice that you get better at as you continue, but up until now it has been a major block for me. I'm excited to get rid of that block and try again.

I've never seen a professional producer work with an artist before. It was really great to gain insight into what that process looks like by watching Greg Well's videos.