As you're defining the sonic signature

of the record that you're going to make You want to ask yourself, what do
you want this record to sound like? How does sonics fit into the prosody
of what you're trying to accomplish? Do you have a sound in your head already? In
the sound is the performer on stage. What kind of a hall are they in? Or is the
performer inside your head
talking directly to your thoughts? Or is this maybe pillow talk,
between two lovers? Or, perhaps, out on the street
singing to the passersby. Think about what you
want it to sound like. Also, is this modern
production style perhaps? Or is this a production style from
the 60s or the 70s or the 80s or the 90s. It's a good idea, if you have an idea of
what kind of production sound you want to go for, that you listen and
immerse yourself in records from that era. And really notice what the sounds are,
what instruments are being used? And what type of instruments,
what are the sounds of them? You could probably get a long
way even using midi instruments. And some of them are even labeled,
60s Rhodes piano or something like that. So you can find the sounds that you're
looking for, if you have the intention in mind and you know what it is
that you're trying to find. And how about the overall
sonics of the record? How bright do you want the record to be? Most popular records
are very,
very bright, and they've gotten brighter as
the decades have gone on. Through the use of really
bright microphones, and also even amping up
the high end of the record. But you do have to watch out for something called
sibilance when
you start getting very bright. Which is the s's and
things like that popping out. Then how wet or
dry do you want your record to be? Wetness is generally how much reverb or
delay or echo is on the record. How much does it sound like you're
in a large hall or a cathedral or a cavern or something like that. We're going to
talk this
week about wetness and getting some ambience on the record, even
if you're using single point recording. So you're recording with your phone or
your laptop. But then, you can also do this,
of course, in your digital tools. And not just reverbs and delays, but compression,
which is something
that limits dynamic range. And at the outset that may sound like
not a great thing to do to your music. But this has been something that we've
been doing to music ever since we started recording it. And it's been a real staple
of
recorded music throughout the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond. And now most of the
recordings you grew
up listening to have compression as a component in them. And learning how to use
that is also important. There's so many tools at our
disposal right now in terms of in the digital domain, and
they're not very expensive. Also there are a lot of tools including
here in Coursera and Berklee Online. Where you can learn how to use
all of these different effects, all these different devices,
to make your recordings even better. So think about what you want
your record to sound like and why, and
then go after that sound with intention.