How do you "fight" your "sound"?

Boom! I like me some "quotes"!

Let's talk about your "sound" ( I swear I won't use them any..."more").


When I sat down with Sound Designer Brian Preston a few months back, he talked about finding different ways to expand the sound of your final music productions. Go back and listen to your recordings from the past 6 months. Do you notice anything? If you always record in the same studio, with the same gear, and the same instruments, all your music starts to sound...the same.

Now don't get all defensive, I'm not saying it's a problem...it's just something to be aware of.

Brian came up with a solution to this issue...

1) Find a musical partner. Someone that you can bounce ideas and arrangements off of. Heck, have them bounce your mix on their gear! Your running ProTools, they're running Logic, so the bouncing process, compressors, and reverbs all sound different.

Here are a few idea's from me own head...

1) Change keys! You know what's fun? Listening to an inexperienced singer-songwriter's album. All their tracks are in C or G. The whole album sounds like oneeeeeeeee longggggggggg songgggggggg.

2) Try different instruments. Have you tried using a glockenspiel lately? Consider it.

3)Listen to music you don't like. I have not always had an appreciation for country. However, if you can listen to country for more than 5 minutes, you might notice how sweet the pedal steel sounds behind a singer. And "shazaam", listen to that telecaster, that's not how I would have mic'd it... now I've got a new perspective for my own output.

4) Try producing tracks based on major label recordings. At Berklee, we called it "sound-a-likes". Doing this will help you gain additional perspective on achieving different sounds.


Watch out for my upcoming interview with JASON CAMIOLO!!!