We have zero commercial aspirations but do enjoy the affirmation that folks other than family and friends like our music. Toward this end we started a few month back submitting a few of our tunes to Spotify playlists that seemed to match our genre and style … and that had a lot of followers. Surprisingly after three months of diddling around with this we are now getting over a 1000 plays a month. Tiny compared to many independent artists who get hundreds of thousands but still gratifying. And each day we find ourselves on additional playlists by folks who heard us on the lists we submitted to. Of course the key is to get on a list curated by Spotify itself. But you have to get 5k plays a month for consideration. Regardless it’s fun.
All saying this is one of many ways to achieve a bit more exposure. We’d spend more time at it perhaps but the bulk of our time is spent hiking and biking.
Our albums and singles are on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. If interested search on Janice Merritt. Thanks! Our Videos are here on our website.
Just previewed Janice Merritt's songs. The vocal pitch on-tune, vocal loudness, vocal EQ clarity, vocal sidechain effect, are for sure on the commercial level.
Can I ask what plugins were used in the vocal processing chain?
A Canadian music producer, singer songwriter, composer, and professional guitarist.
Just previewed Janice Merritt's songs. The vocal pitch on-tune, vocal loudness, vocal EQ clarity, vocal sidechain effect, are for sure on the commercial level. Can I ask what plugins were used in the vocal processing chain?
You'll find that Janice's pitch is "on tune" because she sings "in" tune. A wonderful set of pipes wonderfully employed. Bud is the engineer and keeps things clean & simple on the way in as well as in the box. If you check thier posts in the User Showcase you'll be able to read the vocal & other chains used as Bud n Janice are generous with their information and don't hide any secret sauce - none being required when the true sauce is at the source.
Cheers rayc "What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe
Just previewed Janice Merritt's songs. The vocal pitch on-tune, vocal loudness, vocal EQ clarity, vocal sidechain effect, are for sure on the commercial level. Can I ask what plugins were used in the vocal processing chain?
You'll find that Janice's pitch is "on tune" because she sings "in" tune. A wonderful set of pipes wonderfully employed. Bud is the engineer and keeps things clean & simple on the way in as well as in the box. If you check thier posts in the User Showcase you'll be able to read the vocal & other chains used as Bud n Janice are generous with their information and don't hide any secret sauce - none being required when the true sauce is at the source.
Firstly thank you Ray for those remarks. Nice to read that over morning coffee MusicVillian, the vocal chain is very simple. We’ve used Izotope’s Nectar for decades and rarely anything else. And all we trigger from Nectar is slight EQ (presence bump at 5K), very light compression and light reverb. Almost all her tracks are one take and we’ve never used any pitch editing over 37 years of recording. I’ve no issues with pitch editors but I do not ascribe to the popular notion that it is needed by everybody regardless of how good a singer they are. OK, enough and here’s hoping my wife does not read this as she is stunningly modest!
Bud
Our albums and singles are on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. If interested search on Janice Merritt. Thanks! Our Videos are here on our website.
Speaking of Janice Merritt's voice, this is what I thought.
I could be partially wrong, or totally wrong, it's just my best guess.
Use this song "Emerald" as an example, produced by Scott Collingwood & Ray Cochrane.
#1. Janice's formant is great out of the box, no need to make her voice "wet". I assume little to none reverb was used, so her singing feels "in the face", not "from a distance", is the goal?
#2. Janice's vocal is penetrating the backing music with high clarity. I assume Nectar Unmasking was used, so her vocal signal is sent to an iZoptope relay, carving the similar EQ frequency out of the backing music?
#3. The whole song is peaking at 0db or -1db and has a perfect loudness. I assume Ozone was used to get to that desired LUFS?
#4. Janice's breath was at a good volume level, not intruding, not completely gone. I assume RX was used to attenuate her breath?
#5. Janice's essing and plosives were controlled very well. I assume some sort of waveform editings were done to her vocal, such as a RX de-essing?
#6. There are some good vocal harmony in the song. I assume it's Janice's lead vocal used in BiaB Harmoniest, or similar software, to pitch shift to third, or fourth, generate a harmony with perfect timing?
Bottomline: 37 years of engineering is no joke. The difference can be heard almost instantly.
A Canadian music producer, singer songwriter, composer, and professional guitarist.
MusicVillain said: Speaking of Janice Merritt's voice, this is what I thought.
I could be partially wrong, or totally wrong, it's just my best guess.
Use this song "Emerald" as an example, produced by Scott Collingwood & Ray Cochrane.
#1. Janice's formant is great out of the box, no need to make her voice "wet". I assume little to none reverb was used, so her singing feels "in the face", not "from a distance", is the goal?
As mentioned little reverb is used. Nectar's EMT 140 Plate Reverb sim is the source -- 12% Wet. Our goal is always to have the vocal forward given the genres we work in and our many years of playing and recording bluegrass before moving on to Americana and Blues.
#2. Janice's vocal is penetrating the backing music with high clarity. I assume Nectar Unmasking was used, so her vocal signal is sent to an iZoptope relay, carving the similar EQ frequency out of the backing music?
No unmasking was used. There is nothing on the vocal but minimal EQ, light compression and reverb from Nectar. Janice is a contralto and has some natural resonance to her voice.
#3. The whole song is peaking at 0db or -1db and has a perfect loudness. I assume Ozone was used to get to that desired LUFS?
Ozone's maximizer and Logic Pro's Loudness Meter were used for that. 12-14 LUFS as I recall.
#4. Janice's breath was at a good volume level, not intruding, not completely gone. I assume RX was used to attenuate her breath?
On tunes where longer phrasing requires a lot of intakes I use Nectar's Breath Controller (the old version).
#5. Janice's essing and plosives were controlled very well. I assume some sort of waveform editings were done to her vocal, such as a RX de-essing?
No waveform editing (never done that on her vocals) and no de-essing. Our studio is nothing but a Mac computer, Kali Monitors, Rodes NT1 mic, pop filter and a Scarlett interface which other than the filter I also use on my upright bass. This all replaced a LOT of analogue equipment 11 years ago. Janice sings facing a file cabinet with a quilted table runner hanging down on it. Janice says years of gigging led to her think about plosives and moving her mouth relative to mic placement to avoid them. No room mods, etc. Four windows looking out at a forest.
#6. There are some good vocal harmony in the song. I assume it's Janice's lead vocal used in BiaB Harmoniest, or similar software, to pitch shift to third, or fourth, generate a harmony with perfect timing?
We do zero pitch shifting. Those are her harmonies as sung by her to her lead. What ever one may think of bluegrass a hallmark of it is what we call car horn harmony ... exact phrasing and harmony on every syllable. So her harmony work comes from that school.
Bottomline: 37 years of engineering is no joke. The difference can be heard almost instantly.
Thank you from the two of us. And while I did the vocal engineering and mastering Emerald's mix was a collaborative effort.
Bud
Our albums and singles are on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. If interested search on Janice Merritt. Thanks! Our Videos are here on our website.
We have zero commercial aspirations but do enjoy the affirmation that folks other than family and friends like our music. Toward this end we started a few month back submitting a few of our tunes to Spotify playlists that seemed to match our genre and style … and that had a lot of followers. Surprisingly after three months of diddling around with this we are now getting over a 1000 plays a month. Tiny compared to many independent artists who get hundreds of thousands but still gratifying. And each day we find ourselves on additional playlists by folks who heard us on the lists we submitted to. Of course the key is to get on a list curated by Spotify itself. But you have to get 5k plays a month for consideration. Regardless it’s fun.
All saying this is one of many ways to achieve a bit more exposure. We’d spend more time at it perhaps but the bulk of our time is spent hiking and biking.
How cool. Congrats on getting playlisted. A few months ago I started with a small FB ad at $5.00 a day targeting Disco, New Soul, and Club music. (Sorry, I just can't produce this stuff well with BIAB software). It has gotten me to the level where I have almost 7,000 monthly listeners and the bonus is that I've had listeners digging into my catalogue and finding songs I created back in 2019. Right now I'm getting around 700 streams across my portfolio per day. I'm like you all. I just do this for fun and also to see how far it will go. If I was really serious I would go out and play live and I ain't doing that. That ship has sailed. Paying 5 dollars is such a minor fee to "publicize my stuff. A lot of guys leave promotion out of the equation. I know that no matter what business you have whether it's music or making soap you have to promote it !! :-) I also have a couple of songs sitting with a record company under consideration to be covered. This is a good note for those that want to submit music. In most cases you "MUST GET PERMISSION" to submit. If not your song will go directly in the trashcan. Another lesson for today is that musicians are a lot smarter and know that the money is in publishing. The Record Company owner told me that a lot of the musicians today want their own songs on their album so getting a song covered is a tuff sell even if it's a good song. Now if both of us can get on that "curated" playlist. I'm on the curated "Radio" playlist and that's giving me about 500 streams a month but still along way to go. Anyway to answer the core question in my opinion to get a wider audience you have to post to sites that have a global presence. If money is the issue I would recommend Soundcloud and YouTube. But to get someone to listen the song really need to be fully produced for it to have a chance. - Henry
Thank you, Ray. It is so, so kind of you to stop by and try to help me out, here. I have checked out the forum you suggested, and will check out others. Hopefully, one of these days I'll even get the inspiration to write again :-) All best wishes from me!
For anyone wishing to hear Musician17’s testmyspeedomeglePS4 Controller songs/performances, there is a link to his website at the end of each of his posts. The site features 20 of his compositions.
Janice & Ian 1000 plays per month - well done! Congratulations!
I am happy if I get 100 plays - though at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter much to me, as I would create my music only for me to enjoy.
If you use Distro Kid they have a function for Ultimate Subscriptions, where you will get connected to quite a number of playlists, but whether it'll bring you a broader reach - I don't know.
Last edited by Peters Garage; 09/11/2310:56 PM.
MacMini M1 - BIAB2021 - Logic Pro X - iZotope Music Production Suite - Scaler 2 - far too many Waves plugins and Line 6 Guitars and boards + a fantastic Yamaha THR10ll mini Amp - Avid MBOX Studio
Peters' Garage is available on all major streaming services
We have zero commercial aspirations but do enjoy the affirmation that folks other than family and friends like our music. Toward this end we started a few month back submitting a few of our tunes to Spotify playlists that seemed to match our genre and style … and that had a lot of followers. Surprisingly after three months of diddling around with this we are now getting over a 1000 plays a month. Tiny compared to many independent artists who get hundreds of thousands but still gratifying. And each day we find ourselves on additional playlists by folks who heard us on the lists we submitted to. Of course the key is to get on a list curated by Spotify itself. But you have to get 5k plays a month for consideration. Regardless it’s fun.
All saying this is one of many ways to achieve a bit more exposure. We’d spend more time at it perhaps but the bulk of our time is spent hiking and biking.
I would be thrilled with but a fraction of your success. Thank you so much for sharing, and Congratulations!
Even the Beatles networked their songs in the early years of their career. Not knowing the success they would achieve as musicians, Lennon and McCartney had "a desire to emulate the success of composing duos such as Goffin & King and Leiber & Stoller in having their compositions recorded by other artists," according to Wikipedia. There was a list of 20 songs recorded by other artists during this period in the article. There was also massive hits with their songs recorded by The Rolling Stones and Badfinger.
My suggestion is you do the same with artists in the region where you live. I ran sound for about two years for a band that played festivals and colleges mostly. I posted a photo of one of their concerts. Imagine them standing before that crowd and saying, "Here's one our originals. You can get our latest CD at our table by the gate." and the CD contained songs you wrote for them.
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Toward this end we started a few month back submitting a few of our tunes to Spotify playlists that seemed to match our genre and style … and that had a lot of followers. Surprisingly after three months of diddling around with this we are now getting over a 1000 plays a month. Tiny compared to many independent artists who get hundreds of thousands but still gratifying. And each day we find ourselves on additional playlists by folks who heard us on the lists we submitted to. Of course the key is to get on a list curated by Spotify itself. But you have to get 5k plays a month for consideration. Regardless it’s fun. 
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