Mixing with BIAB MIDI tracks and/or RealTracks

PG Music Home

I am wondering if an experienced, highly paid, Grammy winning, Nashville mixer man, if he wanted to, could use only BIAB tracks and have a demo come out just a good as if he had recorded the tracks in a studio with real instrumentalists?

(Not including any vocals, obviously)

The thing I want to know is can BIAB tracks, which seem to sound perfectly fine to my rookie ears, can be used in the production of a demo that people in the industry would take seriously?

You see, I am a student of mixing arts, and the answer to this question, from some one who really knows, is very important to me.

I know producers at professional studios would probably pish-posh the whole idea, but could a really good mixer do it and fool them?

Are there any examples of BIAB users who have made real professional demos with just BIAB instruments (Not including any vocals, obviously)

Skyoma

Why not?
You did specify demo right?

Even beyond that I would imagine that you could use some realtracks mixed in any kind of professional recording atmosphere.

WSS

Short answer: "Yes." A forum member named Harvey Gerst, a long-time studio professional (not sure exactly what his function is) has posted several demos made with BIAB plus vocals that sound perfectly fine to my somewhat less experienced ears. You may still be able to to find the links if you search the forum. He doesn't post very often lately.

Quote:

Harvey Gerst has 40+ years of experience as a songwriter (with a gold record), studio musician, recording engineer, producer, musical instrument designer, and manufacturer. He's worked with: the Association, Buffalo Springfield, the Byrds, Bob Dylan, Sweetwater, Albert King, Jefferson Airplane, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Kenny Rogers, Mike Bloomfield, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and many other famous dead people. He's been behind the board at most of LA's top recording studios.

Harvey has worked for: JBL, Fender/Rhodes, Acoustic Control, Gibson, Akai, Charvel, Jackson, Cerwin-Vega, Morley, Ross, Peavey, Roland, Emmons, Yamaha, and AMP. He just finished helping VST speakers with their reissue of his original JBL musical instrument speakers. He also writes the popular "For Musicians Only" column in the Texas Harder Beat magazine, and he's had a full page article about the studio appear in Fort Worth Weekly magazine, as well as a featured article in TapeOp.

Post with some of Harvey's BiaB based recordings here (click).

Tips and Tricks from Harvey Gerst

Indian Trail Recording Studios

--Mac

.mp3 links are gone from Harvey's post.

I think the larger question is whether or not to bother with record companies. I think your chances of reasonable financial return are much better on the DIY side of things these days than in the past when you had to have radio play.

You can raise funds for your CD project through kickstarter.com or indiegogo.com . Fully professionally pressed and published CD with artwork through discmakers. Distribution including digital rights management and so forth through CD Baby. Websites through Discmakers. Merch production and sales through Discmakers.

Advertising and fan base increase through Facebook, twitter, google+, reverbnation, etc.

In the end you will see much more return on your dollar going that direction on a probability basis alone.

So, don't go wringing your hands about what record companies would do with your demo. Work on making a finished product from the outset - on your own; then polish that thing like Harvey did - with real singing and real guitar playing and real mixing skills.

The music biz is not what it used to be, sorry to say... That's all thanks to piracy and downloads. Only the older generation tend to buy CDs these days (because they want physical product).

Seen on FaceBook today...

Quote:

...
I think the larger question is whether or not to bother with record companies. I think your chances of reasonable financial return are much better on the DIY side of things these days than in the past when you had to have radio play.

You can raise funds for your CD project through kickstarter.com or indiegogo.com . Fully professionally pressed and published CD with artwork through discmakers. Distribution including digital rights management and so forth through CD Baby. Websites through Discmakers. Merch production and sales through Discmakers.

Advertising and fan base increase through Facebook, twitter, google+, reverbnation, etc.

In the end you will see much more return on your dollar going that direction on a probability basis alone.

So, don't go wringing your hands about what record companies would do with your demo. Work on making a finished product from the outset - on your own; then polish that thing like Harvey did - with real singing and real guitar playing and real mixing skills.

Thanks for that, rockstar_not! Sounds like sage advice.

Is there a book titled "Distributing Intellectual Media on Social Networking Sites for Dummies"?

There are so many different websites. Whew!

Do you work for DiscMakers?

Quote:

The music biz is not what it used to be, sorry to say... That's all thanks to piracy and downloads. Only the older generation tend to buy CDs these days (because they want physical product).

You are probably right WienSam.

But you know what.

I would get greater satisfaction and fulfillment, by far, to hear little kids in China singing parodies of my songs, or getting viral hits on the you-tube videos, having hundreds of thousands of people 'stealing' the mp3's, and basically having the world singing/liking my songs.

Vince Gill is right, it's an akward time, but I still want to say my stuff until someone figures out how to plug the hole.

Cawn't be bothered with all that other nonsense. Let the lawyers hammer it out.

Amen

Quote:

Let the lawyers hammer it out.

Amen

If they ever will

Skyoma

Quote:

Is there a book titled "Distributing Intellectual Media on Social Networking Sites for Dummies"?

There are so many different websites. Whew!

Do you work for DiscMakers?

No, I don't work for DiscMakers. I do know several family and friends that have used them, however - with generally little complaints and mostly praise.

There is almost no reason to use record companies these days. The chances of 'making it big' are much better through social media than with a major label. Now, you have to know how to get social media to work for you and you generally have to have something that makes one person want to share it with many.

With social media, you rely on the average joe and mary telling his or her friends about you. Some type of gimmick, physical attractiveness, etc. is helpful (as it always has been), but the power of the shared voice is now in the hands of Facebook, Twitter and so forth - not some A&R person at a record company.

Look at what that band 'Walk Off The Earth' was able to do with a share-worthy gimmick of several people playing a guitar simultaneously. It helps that they picked a song that worked with that idea, and that they actually can sing and do the trick.

Look up Tyler Ward on YouTube. I can tell you that 2 years ago, he was a no-name here in Colorado. He was one of the worship leaders at our little church. Now, his YouTube channel has the following stats:

916,516 subscribers
260,288,303 video views

No record company involved. Not that they haven't come knocking.

I think the last time I mentioned him here those numbers were perhaps 1/10th of what they are today.

His covers of pop tunes done better than the originals are what built his original '1000 true fans' type of fan base.

If you do some searching for '1000 true fans' you'll see some answers about the ways of going about doing this kind of life without the labels.

It's not without hard work or talent. Tyler knows how to edit audio and video and how to arrange, how to get people to click links on YouTube, etc. But all done without the intrusion of a record label.

I'd pay to see lawyers hammer each other at a UFC event

For using the internet and social media, you might try IndieGuide.com. They're the guys who wrote The Indie Band Survival Guide, and they have LOTS of good advice.