I geek out about custom, well crafted made things. Objects where you can feel the quality, know it’s one of a kind, and that’ll last you a lifetime. The other thing that is of the utmost importance to me, is that the company I’m dealing with has great customer service.
StrapGraphics is a guitar strap manufacturer that’s been making straps in the U.S. since 2008. They’re based out of Portland, and offer a range of straps that are incredibly customizable. When I’m talking about great customer service, I’m talking about Nate from SG, who helped me along with the process, and was a breeze to deal with.
If you’re reading this post, congratulations! In the past 3 weeks we wrote rhythm and lead guitar, bass parts, maybe even keyboard parts and programmed drums. Last week we worked on recording our track, and now we get to the final week which is all about mixing and getting your song out into the world - this is exciting!
I want to talk about some of the trials and tribulations I’ve faced when mixing my own song, and some tips I’ve gathered over the past couple of decades of mixing music.
Hopped on YouTube, Twitter, and for the first time, Twitch to talk about the Song Challenge's last week, and some of my tips and tricks for recording and mixing. Thanks to everyone who stopped in to the live streams!
I'd really appreciate it if you subscribe to me on YouTube and Twitch!
Wow, it has been a super busy May! This Song Challenge has taken over Chasing Sound for much of the month. In week 1 we talked all about how to spark inspiration and get rhythm ideas down. We picked our key and quality, and started brainstorming ideas.
For week 2 we worked on finalizing our chords and developing leads over the chord changes we wrote. We tried recording a simple rhythm scratch track to practice our ideas over.
This week we’re going to focus on a basic recording primer - how to really record your song, before we head into mixing next week. There already are a number of great articles on how to record guitar. If you want to find the best I’ve ever seen, you should check out this post from one of the best engineers I’ve ever met in my life (RIP Tim!). It’s hilarious, NSFW, and incredibly informative.
Welcome to week two of the Chasing Sound Song Challenge. Last week we focused on getting the basic idea of our song down, and I gave you some ideas on how to spark new song ideas. If you missed that post, you can check it out here.
This week we’re going to work on making sure our rhythm section is solid, and how to compose lead lines on top of our chord changes. I’ll show you some smart ways to get your song going quickly, and what pitfalls I ran into myself.
Welcome to week one of the Chasing Sound Song Challenge for 2023! If you’re not sure what the challenge is, recently in the Six String Sunday Club newsletter, I asked you to join me in writing, recording, and mixing just one song in the month of May. I’m going to share my progress with how it’s going, and I’d love you to share your progress too. I’ll be posting information about the challenge here, on Twitter, on YouTube and more!
Here’s how the weeks will work: Week One (this week) we’ll go over how to get the base structure of your song down (the “bones” of the song so to speak). Week Two we’ll work on getting lead lines, bass and drum parts done. For Week Three we’ll focus on recording the song, and adding any final elements (maybe keyboard, cowbell anyone?) Finally, Week Four will focus on how to mix your song and share it for people to listen to.
If you missed it over the weekend, I brought back Chasing Sound Live! For the first time in the show's history, I streamed both to YouTube and to Twitter. Next time I do a stream, I'll be streaming to both of those plus Twitch!
On this week's episode I weigh in on all the "Kirk Hammett sucks" drama, talk about May's upcoming song challenge, and geek out about why I think the new Discord practice rooms I opened up will be so helpful for guitar players.
I also had Simon Allaway stop by to talk about building your own guitars, make some music recommendations and more.
You can check out the replay below!
Kirk Hammett, Song Challenge, and Practice Rooms https://t.co/fpaZhKjfqQ
— Chasing Sound (@ChasingSound) April 22, 2023
Back when I was doing the Amped Up! podcast, I talked about 50 of my favorite guitar players for the 50th episode of the show, and why they were so influential. I wanted to bring back that list today, and share 50 songs you should check out - 1 for each guitarist. Be on the lookout for an “honorable mentions” post, as I couldn’t bring myself to stop at just 50!
For this month’s subscribers only edition of Six String Sunday Club, I sat down and talked about one of Chasing Sound’s most visited posts. I first wrote “16 ways to get better at guitar” back in April of 2018. Since then it’s had tens of thousands of visits over the last 4 years.
In this audio retrospective, I look back at all 16 ways I mentioned to see if all the tips still ring true. I also add a bunch of new commentary to each and every tip. I had so much fun doing this, and I think you’ll get a lot out of it! Let me know what you think in the comments section.
