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track. This also applies to the singer you choose for the song. If you want a female dance pop singer to cut your song, don’t use a male jazz crooner on the demo. It’s just common sense. If you know a singer who can sing in all different styles, simply reference a song that clearly shows the style of singing you want for yours, and also sing your guide vocal in that same style or as close as possible. And how do you find and audition a new singer? Social media is the new audition platform. Nowadays, I don’t think a lot of producers audition singers on the spot because it takes too much time and there’s too much commitment involved. You’ll get word of mouth or article “buzz” recommendations and you check out their stuff on Soundcloud, Facebook, Myspace, iTunes, ReverbNation, etc.. It’s pretty clear from several songs what the vocalist can do, and if they’ll work for you. ...as long as you can believe what you see and hear... Right—my advice to singers is to put only your best work up on the web. Avoid exposing vocal recordings of yours that are obviously tuned because you couldn’t nail it—this could cost you the gig. It’s one thing to hear Auto-Tune used as an effect on T-Pain and Cher, and it’s another to hear an over-tuned “cleaned-up” vocal. To anyone who is only half seasoned in vocal work it’s night-and-day obvious. I’ll hire someone who has three great tracks that show their honest passion and vocal abilities before one who has three albums on iTunes of which two are poorly produced and written. My reasoning behind it is that anyone who puts out poor material constantly just doesn’t care enough, so—why bother? With a new singer, how do you go about picking the right mic? Over my years of recording there have been several mics I keep coming back to as my favorites on vocals. Of course, it so happens that they’re legendary—for good reason. For male voices: Neumann U87 (vintage if possible), Neumann M149, and AKG C12. For female voices: Neumann M149, Blue Kiwi, AKG C12. There are many others, but I usually don’t go beyond these. Which of these I pick in a given situation—again, to me everything is about serving the song. Whatever makes the song as good as possible. In a way I always feel like a movie director when I’m producing, because I have to remember the script (song) came first, so my choices have to align with that. It doesn’t mean you can’t experiment and write on the spot, change direction, etc., it just means that there was always

make fellow musicians and writers misunderstand the melody and hate the song. How do you match the singer to the song? I’m quite a versatile writer so I’ve used male rock singers, R&B singers, intimate singer/songwriter types, latin salsa singers, etc.. It all depends on the genre and market for whatever I’m doing. I’ve said in interviews before that I don’t do demos, but I’ve clarified that I don’t do demos for albums. I do, however, make songwriter demos to pitch my songs to other artists. There’s a big difference. I am a producer and a songwriter; when I get hired to produce, every instrument and sonic choice needs to be the best. I try to use the best gear available and I use all the tweaking tricks I’ve learned for my synths and drums to be unique. All the producers I admire have a sound, a sonic stamp, whether it’s Dr. Dre, Dr. Luke, Trevor Horn, Quincy Jones, The Neptunes, etc.. Their records sound like them. The reason for that is the choices they make at every single step of the way, from mics to preamps to drums to synths, everything. On the flipside, if I’m trying to get a song I wrote cut by Andrea Boccelli, I’m not gonna use distorted Moog bass and sequences from my Virus Ti. Chances are a simple piano-and-vocal “demo” would be a better presentation. When you are doing songwriting demos, try to make them as broad-reaching as possible. You want to be able to pitch that same song to many different artists without having to make 10 different demos for it. Sometimes simple is the way to go, that way they can imagine it however they want. You’re there to sell the lyric and melody more than the
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an initial idea that made you begin a track, add chords etc.. Something made you decide the instruments and everything else, all the way up to the vocal stage where you are now, so just trust your gut and go for what you instinctively feel goes with everything you’ve already done. By what criteria do you choose mics according to style? Mics have a certain sonic signature, just like guitars and keys. Tube mics like the Neumann M149 are great for intimate gorgeous detail and warmth, but sometimes, on big dance tracks for example, a mic with more midrange, like a Blue Kiwi, can help the vocalist cut through and sound very energetic. Sometimes mics as

Recording - February 2012

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