No autotune, lip sync or tele-promters!

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).

Sophia

One of my major thoughts was how crazy it was that Greg Wells could wear so many hats in the studio, playing piano, guitar, drums, and knowing his way around the producing and engineering. It really hammered home just how long it takes to get the song just right, or the sound just right. While my ear isn't good enough to tell the difference between different compressors or other plugins, I thought it was interesting how after years of experience, people do have a preferred plugin or hardware (or combination). I also thought it was interesting how adjusting the timing by mere milliseconds can contribute to a track sounding cleaner or more natural.

I have never seen a professional producer in action in the studio before. I have a little bit of experience with songwriting casually, writing whatever I feel like, but I don't usually have an organized structure or process in mind. I've never really done any producing, but I've been around to help adjust audio balance/patches for marching band, which has resulted in a little bit more familiarity around the technology than I otherwise would have.

Joong

1. I watched most of the part of the clips, starting from the song writing till the mastering. I had a pretty much hard time to catch up the terminology and context since I'm not musically trained person except the basic guitar chord playing for my singing.

But it was basically a very nice video showing the aspect of music production and mastering that I someday expect to be involved on those work and busy with tools and controlling for my composing and producing.

I found the first episode was impressive that they were so much struggling to find the right sonic envision on that bridge. I think that required a sense of imagination and experience with building up the final sound in your brain, Interesting.

I also enjoyed the vocal recording part, since my music activity is mostly singing along the songs that I know at home. I'm also currently joining a local amateur band where I do vocalist there sometimes.

I would like to watch these videos more times in detail to learn and get used to the work they are demoing in them.

2. My song writing experience is bare minimum. I once much loved some kind of traditional song in Korea (Trot) which is something like country song in US. I wanted to write a song and dreamed about producing it for my favorite singer.

I realized song writing was really hard, I used my cell phone to record the melody that I came up along that fits well I think. but a very small part of change in the verse could result in a very different types of chorus every time. How can I stick to the original idea and being consistent? Also I think it's very important to get a sense to know how they ends up being heard by audience who listens to it for the first time.

Sometimes while I'm sleeping I hear some kind of sounds and melody, which were very good. but when I wake up they are sometimes lost or if I could remember and record it. later they find not to be that impressive.

For the last question, I haven't got a chance to work with and see a producer working by myself. The only experience is just watching and observing what our band sound engineer is doing on the mixer and stuff.

Darian

1. From the Greg Wells Start to Finish videos, I learned a lot about music production. Having experience with a lot of different instruments seems to help a lot, as Mr. Wells knows a lot about different ones and how to use them. Seeing him work through the structure of a song was really interesting. Since I've learned some about jazz standards, some of the terminology, such as the bridge of a song, was familiar to me. I was interested to learn about the pre-chorus and how to write songs with meaning, however, so that was cool. It was also nice to see that the chord progression of the song is really important and backs up the lyrics, so maybe my classical and jazz experience will be able to help there.

2. I've had basically no prior experience with songwriting and music production. Moreover, I've also never seen a professional producer like Greg Wells in action before, so it was really cool to be able to see something like it for the first time. I also learned a lot from the videos about music production, which was really cool. I have done basic composition before, but songwriting is pretty different. I hope my previous musical experiences will be able to help me out in that regard.

Kevin

1. Brief summary of your notes and reflections of what you learned from the Greg Wells Start to Finish videos! My notes are for the voice and piano segments. My plan is to watch around a segment or two per week since there's a lot of subtle stuff to pick up. I really enjoyed watching his videos since they do provide a a good look of the production flow, and most importantly, all of the nuances.

Creating a song is quite organic. It starts with an unfinished motif (like Bryce's song), then goes from there. I noticed that the motif needs to have "potential"; meaning it is hard to "make roses out of poop."
The sound recorded should be as close to the sound that's envisioned to the final bounce. Be picky of what the sound is before the tracks are laid down; that is, sound check is very important.
For vocals, adding the outboard compression (1176) during recording and not in post production.
For the piano scratch, using the Focusrite EQ and Neve compressor plug-ins in post production to solidify the sound.
Old tube based mics need to be carefully used especially since they're tube based and have those external power supply (which can be a source of noise).
Always record everything. Storage is cheap compared to the tape reel days.
Noticed important PT skills to have:
- Beat adjustment
- Quickly trimming and composing the clips in the scratch tracks
- Adding markers to important parts to the song
- Smart Tool is always on
- Playlist for vocal takes

2. What's been your experience with Songwriting and Music Production?

My experience with Songwriting is nil. I did have one experience in music production many years ago, as a session player for a Bank of America radio jingle. It was pretty good money for a HS student.

3. Have you ever seen a professional producer, like Greg Wells, in action in the studio with an artist?

A few years ago I've watched the Netflix documentary on Taylor Swift. Couple of the segments showing her create songs with producers such as Joey Little, Max Martin, Jack Antonoff. Just like the Greg Wells videos, coming up with her songs was quite organic. She's writing down her lyrics on her phone, humming the melodies as it comes to her head, and the producer is adding the plug-in synths into the tracks on the fly. All the producers used PT, and the mikes were U87s.

Matthew

GREG WELLS START TO FINISH

Intro: Episode 00

Communication and creativity is key, things go wrong without talking

Songwriting: Episode 1

Sunset Sound Recorders in Hollywood (original soundtrack for Jungle Book!)
Uses the Di Media console
Lyrics originate from singer’s experience with feeling lost and then seeing her “lucky number”
“Overturn the applecart” means get away from current key center
He really seems to miss sax solos
Like really really miss sax solos
Chords to song listed at 24:28 in video
“New city, no car” becomes theme, aka things are good then suck
Most brutal part of song writing, fitting entire experience into 2 words

Recording The Piano: Episode 2

Determine the proper tempo: Start with singer at their wanted tempo for the song, snap along (I need to practice my snapping metronome skills), match that with computer then tinker from there (79-85bpm)
Brain can be greatest enemy, so scratch takes should never be deleted
Nothing is ever truly from “scratch” because first and second takes are often the best
135 to 136bpm not felt as much as 79 to 80bpm
Using the Polyphonic, Elastic Audio to find tempo
Tracking and editing the piano
Piano compression: UAD Neve 33609 compressor
Limiter: Allows recording to sound loud annnnd quiet, shaves off the peaks
Lowest ratio, needles should barely move with the compressor, allows for better volume control

Setting Up The Vocal Chain: Episode 3

Troubleshooting mic issues (hummmm) : singing acapella continuously to get everything right
- Check all chord connections, turns out it was the mic!
Settings for tracking vocals with 1176 (99% of the time his favorite, almost invisible) and LA-3A (think drunk uncle, holds the vocal in a place that doesn’t sound too compressed)
Slowest attack and fastest release, reversed on the 1176
He takes mental note of his memory with settings from hit “Grace Kelly”
Most important instrument on this track is the vocals
Changed clicks to 1/4 to allow for recording of scratch vocals on just 2 tracks
Sculpts tone with Pultec EQ

Recording Acoustic Guitar: Episode 4

Different ways to tweak mics
Vocal compression and what role the lead vocal plays
Combine AEA R88 and Neumann U47
Don’t leave things uncooked and untasted while prepping a meal
Favorite “De-essing” draws down the volume or clip gain
UAD 33609, on 2:1 catches the loud stuff at 100ms
Sometimes a little turn of the R88 will change everything

Recording Drums: Episode 5

Setup
- Choose mic (sounds like another language, but the mics you choose and placement of the mic are key)
- Mic placement and setup (aim for just above the tom, center to outside)
- Measured from snare for the overhead
- Dial in initial drum sounds
- Get the kick right
- Check phase relationships between microphones
- Position stereo sets to reflect stereo image
- Review the drum sounds after adjustments
Recording
- Adjust drums to taste
- Compress and EQ mono kit
- Use beat detective to edit
- Use parallel compression and EQ

1. Above are my notes from the first 5 Greg Wells videos (it didn't copy and paste as well as I would've liked). He has a way of making things so so simple, but at the same time I can't help but feel intimidated and jealous of his abilities as a producer. It must be difficult to battle from finalizing lyrics all the way to the final recording of the drums without getting extremely tired of hearing the same song over and over. I admire his way to troubleshoot and locate a problem, he was fixated on that humming but didn't let it throw him off.

2. My experience with song writing and music production is extremely limited. If I'm being honest, I have never once written an entire song from start to finish, just bits and pieces that never seem to fit. The furthest I've ventured into music production is basic recordings on Garageband and FL Studios. My brother and most people I know use Pro Tools so I decided to take the leap and start from scratch. Even with FL, I never truly went from start to finish without the help of friends.

It has been about 5 years since I last attempted to write or produce so needless to say I am a bit rusty. The most I've seen of a professional producer like Greg Wells in action is through music documentaries, but never in person. One of my absolute favorite things to watch is a producer when they are truly feeling themselves and their music, the head bob or subtle hand gesture always makes me laugh and or smile.