How I Write and Produce Songs With BAND-IN-A-BOX
by Bob Buford
For me songwriting begins with a story…
What is it you have to say to your audience and the world in
general? What’s moving you to write this song? An event? An emotion? Another
song you heard? An artist you like?
You can write a song about anything. But will it be worth
all the work to get it to a final product and will anyone else care when you’re
done? These are important questions. Because if you’re excited about the
subject or theme of your song, you’re more likely to put your true feelings and
emotions into it. Besides, I think that is the core reason for writing anything.
While it’s true that a lot of songs begin with a melody
riff, a beat, a chord progression, .I think it’s just as difficult, maybe more
so, to begin with any of those methods as it is to begin with a great lyric or
song idea. Also, I really think that the mood of your song idea i.e.
heartbreak, love, anger, whatever it is,
will suggest the key, the tempo, the chord progression, and the overall “feel”
of the song. That’s why I always begin with the story.
To me the hardest part of writing a really good song is
coming up with a great song idea, hook, or title. I believe this is where you
need to spend some quality time with yourself, thinking about what it is you
have to say. You need to get a little personal and bare your soul at times. We
all share many common experiences in our life’s journey even though we might
think at the time our own experience is fairly unique. Look for that
commonality in your songwriting and then put your personal experience into it.
If you’re someone who finds it difficult to share your emotions and experiences
you may find this a very big challenge. But if you can get past that hurdle
you’ll most likely be rewarded with something meaningful and lasting that also
moves others.
A now here’s a little enlightenment on the technical side of
songwriting. If you’ve ever spent any time at all in a commercial recording
studio you’ll really understand what I’m about to relay here. If not, let me
give you a bit of an education.
If you think you have a great song, with a fabulous hook, a
great melody, and a unique song structure, that the world just has to hear,
you’ll have to record it so you can get it out there. If you want a quality
production, and who doesn’t for their future hit, you’ll probably need help. If
you decide to go the conventional route and take it to the recording studio
here is some of what you’ll encounter:
- Commercial
studios are NOT cheap. You can expect to pay anywhere from $75 to $150 PER
HOUR or more for studio time. Even the most basic songs will take several
hours to track, edit, master, and copy to a CD you can take home. The
average for most studio songs is ten hours or more. If you’re math is any
good at all you’ll realize you’ve already spent somewhere between $450 and
$1500…for ONE song. If you’re only recording a guitar/vocal or you’re
lucky enough to have a competent, well-rehearsed band, you might actually
be on the low end of that cost estimate.
- If you
don’t have a band and you need to hire other quality musicians to play on
your song you’ll have to pay from $100 to $200 per song for EACH musician.
So a four piece band say, bass, keyboard, drums, and guitar could cost you
another $400 to $800 per song. Starting to get the picture?
- If you
need to rehearse the band so they can get comfortable with your song,
that’s more studio time, and band time expense. If you need to have
someone arrange the song and create charts for the band, that will be
extra.
- If
your song requires harmony or background singers that will be another $200
to $600 per song just for their performance, extra for rehearsal space and
time. Even if you can sing your own harmonies, you’ll still have to pay for
additional tracking time.
- Final
editing and a take-home copy of your song, even if you don’t have it
professionally mastered, will add at least an hour to your cost. Professional
mastering will set you back another $100 to $500 depending on how you have
it done.
- Time, that
is your own personal time, to accomplish the above tasks will probably be
weeks, not hours. To coordinate with the studio, musicians, etc doesn’t
happen at a moments notice. You have to schedule it based on the studio’s
demand and the availability of musicians and singers.
- The final cost for recording one song, as you can see, can easily be thousands of dollars. And you won’t really know how your song will sound until the process is completed. Hopefully you’ll like it or…it’s back to step one.
I haven’t outlined all these costs to discourage you but to
show that turning a song idea into a final produced product can be amazingly
expensive. My first album of original songs cost over $20,000 to record, edit,
master and duplicate, so I know what I’m talking about. There is, however,
another way.
BAND-IN-A-BOX: The Songwriter’s best friend.
I’ve been preaching to other musicians and aspiring
songwriters about this program for over twenty years. And I’m always surprised
how many are not familiar with it or think it’s a toy or a gimmicky piece of
software. It’s not. If you’re songwriter YOU NEED THIS as much as you need a
great song idea, an instrument, and a voice. Yes. It’s that important.
BAND-IN-A-BOX
cuts through all the cost and red tape mentioned above and it does it at a
fraction of the cost of even the least expensive studio-recorded song. Not only
that you’ll get some of the best studio musicians in the world playing on your
song at a moment’s notice. They will play for hours and days for no additional
cost and you’ll be able to experiment with as many different musicians as you
like to get that perfect sound. They don’t care if you change the key or the
tempo or even restructure the song progression. The don’t need charts and they’ll
even give you alternate performance takes to consider.
The Acid Test
The Acid Test
Several weeks ago, I had this same discussion with hit
songwriter and platinum producer, Jim Mason, while recording some twenty-three
new song demos for him to submit to his record company. Jim has produced hit
albums for Poco and Firefall and many others. He penned the lyrics for the hit
song “I Dig Rock and Roll Music” with Paul Stooky (Peter, Paul, and Mary) many
years ago. But for all his experience, Jim was not familiar with BAND-IN-A-BOX. Oh, boy. This was my big
chance. I could actually introduce a successful producer, songwriter to the
software and get a professional opinion.
To say Jim was amazed would be to understate his response. I
know how Jim produces because he produced my first album and I know how he
works and what he looks for. So, I was able to show him how BAND-IN-A-BOX is able to create an
equivalent studio experience and a quality final product with minimal cost and
maximum convenience. He was particularly impressed with the list of
professional musicians, many of whom he knows personally, that were on REAL TRACKS and the ease with which
their performances could be changed. I remembered one of his favorite lines
working with sidemen in the studio: “I
like what you did there. Now let’s do something a little different.” BAND-IN-A-BOX can do that with ease.
As soon as I introduce Jim to the STYLEPICKER window and the over 5,000 styles and song demos, I
totally lost control of the recording session. Luckily, we were done tracking
his songs for the day. Because for the next two hours he listened to every band
style that caught his eye and ear, the related demos, and commented how “This is great. I’m getting all these ideas
for songs just listening to this.” Really? Imagine that.
I’ll end this part of the article by saying that this was
the highlight of all my years of promoting BAND-IN-A-BOX
to musicians and songwriters. If a pro like Jim Mason is blown away by BAND-IN-A-BOX it seems to me anyone who
aspires to create music would do well to seriously consider it.
Your Action Steps For This Article:
- Sit
down with your computer, or a pad and pen, and put some thought into your
next song. Really think about it. If you need help try a book like “Song
Starters” by Robin Frederick or any of the many other helpful books on
songwriting. Whatever you do, come up with something you love. A great
idea. A great lyric. A great melody. Time spent on this step is the most
important in the whole process. BAND-IN-A-BOX
can then take you the rest of the way on your songwriting journey. This
step should take as long as it takes. It’s the foundation for everything
else that follows.
- Write
a short paragraph about your song that tells any reader in a few sentences
what the song is about. There should be a beginning, a middle, and an end
to the story you’re telling. What is the repeatable theme or hook that
describes the story?
- Expand
your paragraph into lyric form, without worrying about rhyming, or song
form, at least for now. Verses give the story details and choruses repeat
the theme or hook of the song. This is a very generic exercise. Keep it
simple for now by putting only one thought or statement on a line.
Continue until you have the whole story.
- Once you’ve decided on a story or theme for your new song and you have at least some basic lyrics, decide which individual artist or band your song would sound best with. Is it folky like a John Denver song? Country like Hank Williams? Country Rock like the Eagles? If you can identify a band you’d like to emulate you can open the STYLEPICKER and begin auditioning styles and bands for your song. Listen to the demos with styles you like. You can even load the demo and edit the chord progression, pick a key and tempo of your song. Be sure to save your song with a new song name in a new folder (MYBIABSONGS) so you don’t overwrite the BIAB demo or something else important. Now go back to your lyrics and see how you can fit them into the new chord progression. Make changes until you find something that you like. This is an important step. You will be building your song on the decision you make here. Make a good one. Personally, I would never go beyond this point until I was totally satisfied with my song. Exporting tracks to your DAW, sweetening with intros and breaks, adding vocals and harmonies, and mixing are for FINISHED song ideas. But, we’ll get to all that later.
Once you’ve progressed this far with a song title or hook
and found a band you like you’ve done most of the hard work. Start polishing
your lyrics and chord progression. Remember you can change any of this at any
time. All you’re investing is your time.
There’s More To Come
There will be other articles in this series coming up. So
please stay tuned for the more personal technical and creative aspects of my
songwriting with BAND-IN-A-BOX. This
is gonna be SO much fun.
Bob Buford
No comments:
Post a Comment