The political singer songwriter Woody Guthrie is known to of influenced a lot of musicians through the years including Bob Dylan, he started playing guitar as a young man and eventually started focusing on social commentary in his lyrics while he was working at a radio station in LA after being forced to leave his home town of Oklahoma due to the economic issues. His music career saw him sticking up for the working class with songs like ‘This land is your land’ a song that was written after he had listened to ‘God Bless America’ too many times over the radio station that he was working at. ‘He was irritated by Irving Berlin's "God Bless America," sung by Kate Smith, which seemed to be endl

Continued... Although it influenced a lot of songwriters during this period, I would argue that Bob Dylan was one of the artists to whom it touched most. One of the songs on the album by the Bentley Brothers (originally recorded in 1929) known as ‘Pennie’s Farm’ was even reincarnated by Dylan in the form of the song ‘Maggie’s Farm’ from the 1965 album ‘Bringing it all back home’. ‘As Dylanologists have long noted, “Maggie’s Farm” stands as the second appropriation of the traditional song “Penny’s Farm,” first recorded by North Carolina’s Bentley Brothers in 1929. Dylan would have known the song from the the 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, widely called the “Harry Smith Anthology, “whi

Introduction For decades, singer songwriters have dominated the music charts, from bob Dylan all the way to Ed Sheeran and his continued success. In this blog I will be talking about the history of the singer songwriter, as well as, what it means to be one today. Bob Dylan & The Origins of the Singer Songwriter Despite their global success, the term singer songwriter did in fact come from very humble beginnings, in fact, many people would agree that the term 'singer songwriter' as we know it today can be traced back to folk singers from as early as the beginning of the twentieth century. people like Woody Guthrie and before him, singers like lead Bely and Jimmie Rodgers. The Anthology of Ame

Multitrack Recorders according to Carlos Lellis Ferreira - 2013. “Multitrack recorders (MTR) allow for operators to capture numerous sound sources simultaneously, while storing them in isolation”. Multitrack recorders have been around for some time now, originally starting with Les Paul in the 1940’s along with some of his incredibly innovative tracks for the time such as the classic “How high the moon”. Over time this technology developed from 2-track recorders (like the ones the Beatles used on their first album) to 4, to 8, and eventually to 24 until the mid 90’s when computers had started to become more and more popular with recording studios, since then multitrack recording has been tak

Microphone Design Types There are many types of microphones that have been produced through the years although only a select few have become successful enough to be used in studios regularly, the following groups of microphones are some of the most widely used today. Moving Coil & Ribbon Based Dynamic Microphones These types of microphones are known as being the more durable type of microphone hence their popularity in live music scenarios, moving coil based dynamic microphones can also withstand high sound pressure levels as well as working well when used to close mic an instrument. Whist they have some very obvious advantages these dynamic microphones do however suffer when it comes to hig

Dynamic Processors Dynamic range processors are a fairly large group of devices, all of which are designed to have a certain effect on an audio signals gain/volume level hence the term ‘Dynamic Processor’. The four most widely used dynamic processors are Compressors, Limiters, Gates and Expanders. Compressors and Limiter controls Compressors are generally used to reduce the level of a single or multiple signals, whilst compressors are incredibly common in the world of personal recording, limiters are slightly rarer. Whilst the adjustable options vary with different models, the following are very common adjustable options and are what you would expect to see with most compressors and limiters

Introduction In next few blogs i'll be going over all of the main types of equipment that musicians use on a daily basis, from hardware to software, effects and even microphones. Reverb Reverberation is the natural sound that we hear everyday, it is simply the effect that is produced when sound waves reflect off of surfaces in an enclosed environment. Reverb also happens to be an incredibly popular effect when recording. This is for good reason; tracks that have very little or no reverb may sound unnatural to a listener and so adding reverb would definitely help to improve the listening experience for any listener if used well. Natural Reverb can often mean a more high budget approach, such

Business & Marketing Skills Marketing is a highly important aspect of any business (particularly in the modern age) any business must be aware of the market they are working within as well as the competition which surround them. For managers starting out this kind of knowledge is critical to the success of the project, this is where planning comes in. ‘It is very satisfying when an opportunity opens a door to implement an active plan to take advantage of it. For example, young Josh Groban was asked by award winning producer David Foster to replace an ailing Andrea Bocelli in the 1999 Grammy television rehearsals with Celine Dion. His performance at the rehearsal was powerful enough to help l