Christmas Music, Christmas Song by James Limborg

[TantrumJas]

Hi James, thank you very much for all the details you provided. We use Cubase for recording. The most number of tracks we have used was 3 - one for piano, one for lead vocal and one for backing vocal, for Family Portrait video. We tried to add drum but it didn't go very well so we didn't use it in the end. Even with three tracks we still mucked up the final mix:) That is very kind of you to spend so much of your precious time to answer my question!!! I really appreciate it!

[JamesLimborg]

@TantrumJas - Well... You should try and make your music sound as professional as you can... It's a lot of work, but very rewarding when you finish. For the lead vocal on the verses use one track, for the pre-chorus and chorus sections use two tracks over-dubbing the lead vocal part (which means sing the lead vocal part two times)... Then you can try them both in the center, or pan them out a little for the pre-chorus, lots for the chorus.

[JamesLimborg]

continued... Pan them out means to take lead-vocal track-1 and pan it to the left, and lead-vocal-2 and pan that to the right... It creates a natural chorus-effect type sound... Very pleasing to the ear. And instead of 1-note harmony... do at least 2 or 3-note harmonies... and over-dub each-note you sing (so you could have 6 tracks of backup vocals)... Then have fun panning each harmony so they sound full and wide and beautiful... Just like you hear on the radio.

[JamesLimborg]

continued... The piano I would record on two (maybe 3) tracks if it is a real-piano... place one microphone close to the bass notes, one in the middle note area, the 3rd microphone by the high notes. Then pan the low-note mic far left, the middle-note track leave center, the high-note track pan far-right... And now you are starting to get an awesome piano recording mix.

[JamesLimborg]

continued... Reverb sounds great with a piano so you'd probably want to add lots of reverb. I would recommend music software that includes these effects that you can use to make each track sound good: Noise Gate, Compression, Limiter, Reverb, Delay, Chorus mainly. Noise Gate you add first which MUTES in-between your singing or playing. Compression raises the volume of quiet things and at the same time decreases the volume of very-loud things making the track more equal in volume

[JamesLimborg]

continued... Limiter chops off the loudest notes (the spikes) allowing you to get the volume of a single track or the whole song louder by chopping off maybe 2dB to 4dB off the top of the music... and after doing so... allows you to increase the volume of that track or full-song 2db to 4db making the track or whole song much louder (in your face) like you hear songs on the radio. Multi-band Compression helps with that as well. You can use the internet to learn how to use all this

[TantrumJas]

James, can I ask what you used to produce the music for this? Thanks a lot!

Jasmine

[JamesLimborg]

@TantrumJas - You can ask anything you want... But I don't know exactly what you want to know. I used a BOSS DR-660 drum machine (which took a days work programming I am sure for this song), I found the sleigh-bells, chimes, concert band bell sounds from the internet (were probably soundfonts I used with my Creative SoundBlaster sound card), Roland D50 synthesizer for the keyboard parts, Other sound effects you hear I got from the internet.

[JamesLimborg]

continued... But the sound quality comes from the hours (perhaps a week) of mixing the music, molding it into what you hear. After recording the drums I then edit each drum (kick, snare, toms, cymbals, etc.) individually... Adding noise gate which MUTES between each beat, EQ-ing (changing bass/mid/treble frequencies), add compression, reverb, maybe delay, other effects (chorus, flanger, etc.). It's a long, slow process to get all the instruments to sound like a finished song.

[JamesLimborg]

continued... I had friends and family help with the lyrics on this song. I was trying to make a fun Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer style song when I made this song. More of a kids Christmas song. I am very happy with this song I made. I used Creamware TDAT16 audio card, A16, TripleDAT software which is all the hardware and software I used to record this music into my computer... They don't sell this Creamware recording hardware or software anymore.

[JamesLimborg]

continued... ProTools is the industry standard music recording equipment... Top music and film industry people use ProTools... ProTools sells affordable music recording software and hardware for people like you and I as well. Probably best to get hardware (which is the audio card that installs inside your computer) and software that work together... rather than buying them separately (which may have glitches and cause problems).

[JamesLimborg]

continued... Try to get music recording software that lets you have 16 (or even better 32) stereo audio tracks playing at the same time. My Creamware software lets me have unlimited stereo tracks... I had 50-tracks filled with a song I wrote with my friend Steve Laws Anderson titled How Come I Don't Have Anyone. Eventually (after editing each instrument) you can merge all the drum tracks together into one stereo track if you want. But it really helps to have lots of tracks available.

[JamesLimborg]

continued... I'd want 30 or more tracks available to me because I always use 30-tracks at least when recording a song... drums take up lots of tracks (kick on one track, snare on another track, each tom tom drum on a track, I usually put all the crash cymbals together on two tracks stereo with one track panned left, the other track panned right, the hi-hat I put on its own track, and somethings there are sleigh bells, maraca, other percussion instruments that need to be on its own track).

[JamesLimborg]

continued... guitar goes on two tracks (one track panned left, the other right), same goes for keyboard parts... each keyboard part on two tracks (one track left, one track right). Lead vocal on one track, each backup vocal on a track. But for lead vocal during the chorus section of the song you might overdub the vocal which means record the same vocal part 2 times (one on each track) which creates a cool natural CHORUS effect... You can put both vocal tracks in the center or full left right.

[JamesLimborg]

continued... So you can see there is LOTS of information when it comes to recording a song like this. I spend lots of time on each song rather than write and record a song in a week. I spent 2-years tweaking the song I wrote with my friend Steve Laws Anderson titled How Come I Don't Have Anyone. It's called producing... when you take the music you recorded... and edit it, making it sound different by adding effects, removing parts, adding more parts, changing things, etc.

[JamesLimborg]

Continued... I am 41 years old. I started on drums in 3rd grade, guitar in 5th grade, keyboards and writing music in 11th grade, bass guitar after 12th grade... and have been casually writing and recording music since. Over the years I have learned how to produce my music (which means after recording all the instruments... editing them by adding noise gate, compression, effects like reverb, delay, chorus, etc.). Even removing parts (or muting them) to make the song sound different.

[Melissa11rocks]

nice song:) now i am getting in the christmas mood:)

[JamesLimborg]

@Melissa11rocks - Indeed.