Greg Wells Start to Finish

Assignment Instructions

Brief summary of your notes and reflections of what you learned from the Greg Wells Start to Finish videos!
Whats been your experience with Songwriting and Music Production?
- Have you ever seen a professional producer, like Greg Wells, in action in the studio with an artist?

Student Responses

James

There's a lot more that goes into songwriting and production than I thought. I was surprised by how little of the song Bryce had written at the very beginning. I'd always envisioned song writing as a fairly solo endeavor, rather than the more collaborative environment I saw in the videos. Another thing that never occurred to me is that everything would be recorded separately. It seems super obvious now, though.

I've had essentially no experience with music production of songwriting, the most I've done is written a couple short pieces for the piano. I have a lot of songs in my head, though, and I'm excited to learn how to get them into the world from there.

Anna

The Greg Wells Start to Finish videos have been full of really helpful tips and fascinating insights. For example, I learned that it's important to figure out the right tempo for your song from the start—which makes sense, since you'll be recording all your tracks according to that tempo. Greg also emphasized the importance of trying different things while recording to see what feels right or doesn't feel right. One of my favorite lessons that Greg taught is that it can be helpful to mix your scratch tracks a bit to try to make them sound reasonably close to the final product—that way, you can hear an accurate representation of what the song will sound like as you work on it. Another insight of Greg's that I appreciated is that "nothing is really scratch"—you should try to record your scratch tracks as best as you can, since sometimes you can find magical, inimitable moments in those first takes. I'm looking forward to trying to put Greg's tips and lessons into action as I produce my own music.

I've written a few songs over the past several years, mainly in the "singer-songwriter" style. I actually hired a professional producer to produce three of my songs several years ago, and it was a really fun, interesting experience. I collaborated with the producer on the song arrangement and recording and consulted on the final mixes, so some of what Greg Wells does in his Start to Finish videos is familiar to me. I don't have much experience in music production, but I'm learning a lot in this class and am looking forward to using what I learn to produce some new songs.

Cole

I haven't been able to watch the Greg Wells videos because I haven't gotten pro access since the textbook version is still on backorder.

Regardless, my experience with songwriting and music production has been great these past few weeks. Drawing inspiration from friends, professionals, and even people on youtube, I've gone outside of my comfort zone and have been willing to try doing things musically that I would have never before. I even bought my first actual plugin for the first time the other day, after cracking them for years. I've never seen a professional producer in action with an artist recording a song before, so it's something that I have on my list to see before I finish the class.

Scarlet

1) To summarize what I've learned in Wells's videos, I learned and got a chance to experience what it would be like in a recording studio and session with an artist. I learned the importance of a producer having songwriting skills to make little changes to the melodies and chords of a song to make it shine. I also got to understand some basic mixing and recording techniques, although some of it seemed somewhat advanced with me with certain gear or plugins I don't have. However, I will try to keep his more general mixing and recording tips in mind even if I don't have the exact gear, and one tidbit I found interesting was him sharing his vocal effects chain and mentioned it was based off of Grace Kelly by Mika. I was surprised at how much work went into recording this one song and the types of setups involved in recording actual instruments vs just dragging in samples, but the final result seems worth it especially in an acoustic guitar singer-songwriter song like Lucky Number.

2) My personal experience with songwriting and music production has been more limited compared to the skill shown in the videos by Greg Wells and Bryce Drew. I have been trying to produce music for a few years but haven't gotten farther than making 8 or 16 bar basic loops with a couple instruments. I've also recorded my guitar through an audio interface before but it's sometimes hard for me to follow along to a click track or record a good take. In terms of songwriting, I've taken a songwriting class before but always feel too self conscious to write lyrics. I think it would be a good idea to push myself to write full songs, even if they aren't good.

I like watching process videos where a song is made completely from scratch since they show how a very simple melody or idea can form the basis of a complete, professional song and find that inspiring. Or, in the case of the Start to Finish series, it's possible for a person to come up with a such a captivating song with just singing and a guitar, and in my opinion, and even in the first playthrough before the recording process began, I could tell it was a good song.

I haven't been to a studio before, so I found the video series very valuable as it felt like I was in the room with the producer and artist. In the past, I really liked listening to podcast or youtube videos of artists/producers breaking down their popular songs, and recalling how it started with a simple idea or chord progression, but not as in depth. This series really went into the technical details and processes into recording. I want to develop my skills as a producer and songwriter and hopefully get an opportunity to record or experience a studio.

Blake

1. Sound waves are made of molecules traveling through the air. Solid, liquid, and air are part of the acoustic domain. (Where sound can travel) Timbre: Part of what makes one instrument or voice sound different from another. Wavelength: The measure of the length of one cycle. Three Domains of sound: - Acoustic Domain - Analog Domain - Digital DomainAcoustic Domain: All Sound starts here. Where all sound has to go for it to be heard. Tools are acoustic musical instruments, to get acoustic domain into analog domain it needs to be electronically converted with something like a microphone. Analog Domain: You record and edit sound, manipulate, edit and synthesize sounds. Manipulation of time, tape, vinyl, electricity. Digital Domain: We take analog signal and convert it into numbers that stand for the soundwave in a proces called sampling which works by taking thousands of measurements of the analog signal every second and storing that stream of numbers on a computer hard drive. We can manipulate those numbers pitch tone and speed can be edited independently.

Finding Right Tempo: - See what is too fast and see what is too slow and work your way to that perfect middle

Nothing is truly scratched because sometimes on the first tries we get something that can not later be recaptured easily, so often some things from scratch make it into the final recording.
You can adjust tempo within pro tools
Plug-Ins help a lot
There is good use in trying multiple mics out depending if you have multiple to try out.
Serial Compression on a vocal is a good move.
If there is a hum sound from mic it will record that and will be hard to remove.
When Vocal sounds gret everything else sounds better, vocals is most important part of the track.
Want things to sound and feel dynamic, volume balanced
Drums have use in using multiple mics for different parts of the drumkit.
Sandbags can help weigh down mics that may move during drumming

2. My experience with music production is very minimal, having been in studios before but been just a watcher until now.

Edward

I've learned from Greg Wells videos is the term for something that I've been doing in creating my music tracks, which is Punching In, a recording technique that lets you record new material within a previously recorded track. Instead recording full takes of the song until you get it exactly right, punching in lets you record section by section. And, relaxing the timing of the singer to a little later than the beat...true tricks of someone who is very experienced in the industry. Or, as Wells calls it "back phrasing." What is really cool is that Wells, is a quadruple threat...he can play numerous instruments (piano, guitar, drums), as well as sing. With the technology/production part of it, he is a true genius in this arena.

The closest I've seen to a Greg Wells was during this past summer when I sat in on a Music Tech class at SFSU with Professor Ben Stamey. He had the production set up, played the piano and punched in to an existing track. But, there wasn't a singer, nor do I know if he knew how to also play the drums, guitar and sing himself.

I would love the opportunity to see producer, Metro Boomin produce another track with rapper, 21 Savage!!! Fire!!!

Maribelle

1. Brief Summary

Not being afraid to trying things out, as well as voice likes and dislikes
Playing around with sounds
Trusting your own expertise and also the expertise of your collaborators
Adding the vocal in a way that owns the track
General idea: “Don’t over salt the soup”
Overall I was really impressed and inspired by Greg’s knowledge–not just his knowledge of how to produce a song, but also of the music theory, the different kinds of recording and production equipment, and the history of different processes and sounds and the studios that created them

2. I have very little experience with songwriting and no experience with music production. In terms of songwriting, it's a process I've often thought about. When I was in middle school I tried writing a little, but I always thought what I wrote was cringey and that put me off. I know it's a practice that you get better at as you continue, but up until now it has been a major block for me. I'm excited to get rid of that block and try again.

I've never seen a professional producer work with an artist before. It was really great to gain insight into what that process looks like by watching Greg Well's videos.

Daniel

1. Greg has stressed wanting to hear the final track in his head over the course of these videos, whether in the songwriting, setting up the vocal chain, or adjusting the compressor for a scratch track. I can see the importance of this, both in terms of potentially wanting to keep some of the scratch, and properly setting the mood for the subsequent parts to be recorded (for a film I'm doing sound for, we're having the actors do ADR as the final step in recording/acquiring so that the mood is entirely there).

It's been interesting how in the first couple of videos, he was very much into trying out things in terms of songwriting and micing to see what sticks, as well as establishing the boundaries of what couldn't be done (mainly in songwriting and tempo) whereas with the most recent two videos, he has his own more methodical way of doing things in terms of mic placement, what signal processing to use in what order, etc, and then dialing it back a little if needed.

I'm trying to get a good handle on good general signal processing order of operations (which I know isn't one-size-fits-all), and watching him on the scratch vocals do: digital reverb (“thicker vocal plate” preset) --> rolling off some high-end around 3k --> de-essing --> compression --> limiting --> EQing gave me one idea.

The drum recording video was a great crash course on mic placement and basic EQing of drum mics, as well as sandbagging and cable management tips. I did make a note to look more into phasing and how I might address this if it comes up.

Greg really likes compression, and has many specific applications for it.

2A. My experiences with songwriting have been solo and with a band (both music and lyric writing), where songs were brought to the studio fully-formed. My own stuff is almost all MIDI, so the writing and "recording" is all integrated. With production, a lot of it has been turning various knobs to see what sounds good

2B. I have not seen a producer co-write a song with an artist, or offer the level of creative input that Greg is providing here. Outside of home studio setups, I've recorded several records at Hanzsek Audio in Seattle and one at Earhammer in Oakland. With one record I did at the former, the recording engineer suggested an amp that we ended up using, and offered technical suggested for the sonic vision we were going for, but didn't guide the already-completed songs creatively. As a vocalist, my setup was always significantly more simple, but watching the process of the other people in my band get mic'ed up has always been interesting, and now it's cool to have a better idea of what was happening.

Curtis

1. I got a lot of insight into the overall process of what making music is like. I had a general, big-picture idea of the process but it was always in a mechanical sense (ie, songwriting, then recording, then mastering, etc). I got to see just how music really is made on the fly, and that part is what made the series so interesting. Bryce didn't have much outside of a tune and a first verse/chorus; and seeing how the idea was fleshed out over a session was fascinating.

2. I have next to no experience in songwriting but have dabbled in music production before making very simple hip-hop-style beats that are more so fit for a freestyle verse then an actual song (ie, no real build ups or hooks, just a melody and drum pattern that doesn't really have a beginning or an end). I have watched electronic artists live streams where they build out a song from scratch, but I have never been in an actual studio with an artist.

Justin

It took me awhile to get through all the videos so far. I even rewatched a few of them. On one hand, it's very intimidating. All that equipment, and a seemingly endless amount of options for the most minute details, most of which I can't hear any difference.

This Wells guy is obviously very good at his job and very impressive, as is the artist. But I have enjoyed seeing it all in action, and it's given me a lot of insight and ideas into tackling this beast of recording. I haven't thought to about starting with a scratch track, which should seem obvious. Or two mics for a guitar, one being mono. Lots of stuff about vocals, changing autotune to a tenor setting, for example. All in all, so far it's made me more excited to try recording some of my own things (eventually).