I must confess, I'm a bit of gear junkie. I love gadgets… old and new.
I've had studio gear since I was a kid. I've had large mixing boards, keyboards, guitars, outboard gear… you name it, plug ins of all kinds and tons of real synths.
That's why this event was such a shock to me.
I saw a listing on one of those music submission sites. A publisher was looking for an uptempo pop tune. I had an existing tune I thought might work, except the tune was a slow acoustic type neo folk song.
I figured I could to revamp the whole thing. I quickly created a mock-up in Apple Garage Band with fake guitars, loops and soft synths. I sped up the tempo and added a current sounding pop beat. I ended up changing the key too. Changing the key and tempo meant that I had to digitally alter the vocal. To me, it sounded a little weird, but it was ok for reference.
My plan was to have my guitar player redo the fake guitar tracks and get the singer to come back and redo the track, but time was running out on the listing. I submitted the track as is, with a note explaining that it was a demo.
You can imagine my surprise, when I got an email back saying it was perfect AS IS.
I wrote back saying I would be happy to fix the vocal and replace the guitar. The publisher wrote back asking why I would change anything. He said the vocal sounded current and guitar playing was great.
LESSON #1: Don't talk down your work or make excuses ever. Apparently, whatever I had capture inadvertently was magic. The odd vocal and the fake guitar sounded completely intentional… like cool effects.The song sounded current and unique.
LESSON #2 It's not the gear. Although I have some fantastic equipment, I didn't use any of it. I did the whole thing on a lap top in garage band… recorded, mixed, mastered. That's the version they took.
BOTTOM LINE: No more excuses. If you have the talent and drive you can do it with the gear you have. Now, Go MAKE MAGIC!
Sean Carbone is Los Angeles based composer and educator.
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