Author: randy

  • Home Studio Tips: How To Get Balanced Mixes

    Home Studio Tips: How To Get Balanced Mixes

    Home Studio Tips: How To Get Balanced Mixes

    1. Set all your track faders to Zero dB. This allows for much more control of your track level – if you look at your faders, the level increments are much smaller as you go down the fader.
    2. Using a Gain Plugin, decrease/increase the level of your tracks so that they all hover around -18dB. This makes all your instruments the same level, giving you a better overall balance before you even begin mixing. Make sure your track faders are all at Zero dB when doing this.
    3. Using an EQ Plugin, remove all unwanted low frequency sounds. For example, you can cut all frequencies below 30Hz for Bass, around 100Hz for the Vocal – the trick here is to Solo the frequencies you are cutting and stop cutting when you start hearing the instrument/vocal and then pull it back a bit so that you don’t cut out any frequencies. This will massively clean up your mix and give it space.
    4. Pan your instruments. The only tracks that MUST stay Centred are Vocals, Bass, Kick and Snare
    5. Spend as much time as you can balancing your tracks before even touching a plugin.
    6. Take a break and then play your entire song all the way through, making notes. Listen out for what sounds are inconsistent in the mix (sometimes the correct level, sometimes too loud or too soft). If you do find any instruments doing this, it’s a clear indication that you need to use a compressor to control the dynamics of that track so it is more consistent throughout the song.
    If you follow the above steps when beginning your mix, your song will instantly sound clean, clear and balanced.

    Checkout my FREE Training: How to Turn A Song Idea into A Sync Deal Without Entering A Recording Studio: https://www.randykalsi.com

     

    FREE Ebook – Make A Living Songwriting: https://www.randykalsi.com/ebook

     

     

  • How To make Home Recorded Vocals Sound Pro

    How To make Home Recorded Vocals Sound Pro

    In today’s video I will show you how to take your home vocal recording and make them sound professional.

     

    Checkout my FREE Training: How to Turn A Song Idea into A Sync Deal Without Entering A Recording Studio: https://www.randykalsi.com

     

    FREE Ebook – Make A Living Songwriting: https://www.randykalsi.com/ebook

     

    Hey, how you doing Randy here.
    Welcome to another one of my video tutorials. Now I know that
    most of you nowadays are recording your vocals in your
    bedroom or your home studios so today, I want to show you how
    you can mix your vocals to make them sound professional. So let’s
    dive right in. Joe is a in Canada and she recorded
    the vocals for me I’m in London. In her one of the rooms in her house,
    it’s not the perfect room. It’s a basic setup and I just wanted
    to show you what results you can achieve in in that kind of a
    situation. So this is my vocal chain on the left here before it
    gets to the stage what I’ve done is I have comped the vocals,taken
    the best parts and put them together. I have removed any noise. I have
    treated the vocals I’ve pitch corrected them and timed them and
    now they’re ready for being mixed into the song basically.
    Normally I would take a lot more time on it and I wouldn’t just mix it into a full instrumental track but for the
    purpose of showing you the results we can achieve I’ve done
    it this way. This is how it sounds like without anything on it in
    the mix. The first thing I like to do, because Jo gave it
    to me in a dry room and I’ve asked her for it to be as dry as
    possible. I need to now place that sound in an actual room and this
    basically places Joe in a beautiful studio. I’ll just
    bring it in while the vocal is being played so you can hear the
    difference. I then add some analog
    processing to it. So it’s subtle but it adds a nice bit of
    colour to it. Next is eq’ing So what I’ve done here, i’ve cut out all
    the low-end which is usually where all the rumble the rumble and everything
    is. I’ve cut here at 260 Hz. It was boomy and boxy and also here at 500Hz.
    Then i’ve boosted 2KHz to bring up some of her main
    frequencies and just added some brightness here as well and this is how it sounds. so it just brightens it up
    that fullness will come back in what I wanted to do next before
    compressing. I just want to tame the S’s a little bit, for Jo it’s
    around 10k Hz. Again it’s subtle. I put it through a compressor. This is theCLA76.
    It’s modelled after another analog compressor and what I’m
    trying to do here is tame the peaks before I put it through another
    compressor and it sound like this it’s important to make sure the output is the same volume as the input so that
    you know what difference you’re making. Let’s do a before and after. So that’s tamed
    the Dynamics a little bit and then added some colour because it’s
    emulated after analog hardware and the same with theCLA3A. This
    is more of a slow attack compressor and just brings everything together nicely. Okay and then I’ve added a little bit of widening to the
    vocal. and then another De-esser to tame the S’s
    after all the processing that we’ve been through. What I’ve done next. Just want to bring her vocals out a little
    bit more and this Maag EQ is awesome. I usually use it for the
    air band, I’ve had it on the 2.5 and I’m just got less than a
    couple of Db gain just to bring out a little bit. so through the Ocean Ways Studios
    early reflections, It’s already got a really nice ambience
    and natural reverb but what I want to add is some plate reverb.
    This is the EMT 140 and this is how it sounds before and after. I have some pre-delay, so it doesn’t wash out
    the lead vocal. And it comes in just after Joe singing so it just
    keeps it clear and upfront. What I also like to do is some automation just to bring up
    words that are quiet,bring down any words that too loud. So I’ve
    shown an example here and you can see where I’ve made some
    automation tweaks. So that “never” is a bit quiet.
    I felt that “will” is a bit quiet It’s more obvious with the instrumental in So for me, like and day is too quiet
    even after compressors done It’s work. So that’s
    it guys if you have any questions leave them in the
    comments below. I’ll try my best to answer every one of them and
    if you’d like to know how I can help you with your songs check
    out my website, the link is below and if you enjoyed the video please like follow
    subscribe. I have new videos coming out every week and I’ll
    see you on the next one.

  • 8 Steps To Recording Pro Vocals At Home On A Budget

    8 Steps To Recording Pro Vocals At Home On A Budget

    Grab Your FREE Home Recording Ebook by clicking on the link below:

    FREE EBOOK

     

    Checkout my FREE Training: How to Turn A Song Idea into A Sync Deal Without Entering A Recording Studio: https://www.randykalsi.com

     

    FREE Ebook – Make A Living Songwriting: https://www.randykalsi.com/ebook

     

    What If I Could Teach You A New Skill In An Afternoon & Help You Turn An Expensive Cost Into A Profitable Side Income?

    Hi, I’m Randy Kalsi and I am a Singer Songwriter and Music Producer who works full time from my home studio and has helped literally hundreds of Independent Singer Songwriters set up their home recording studios remotely, with basic equipment and showed them how to record professional sounding vocals at home, which has not only saved a ton of money in studio costs but also helped them earn an extra side income from their new skills by showing them how to organically create a presence online and attract producers and songwriters who are willing to pay good money to Vocalists who can provide them with High Quality Vocals, which saves them time and effort.

    In this Ebook, I am going to show you a step by step process of creating professional vocals at home, on a limited budget. I’ve also added a Bonus Section, where I talk about how you can setup yourself up online to start generating an income from what you have learned in this book.

    Thank you for taking the time to read this ebook and remember, I was where you are and now I’m earning a great living, full time, making music…from my own home studio.

    Here’s to making that dream come true for you too…

    Randy Kalsi

    The Bedroom

    room setup

    choosing the right room

    There are two main things that we want to avoid when recording: 1. Background Noise
    2. Room Reflections
    The bedroom is usually the best choice:

    – it is in the back of the house, where it is usually quieter, further away from the street and surrounding noise.

    – it is already full of high density material that can absorb reflections (reverb) such as the bed, sofa, curtains, rug, even a bookshelf.

    For example, if we look at the above photo. The Red ‘X’ marks the spot where you would stand, facing the door, with the bed behind you. The rug underneath you prevents unwanted reflections from the floor and the bed soaks in the reflections from the back wall. The curtains should be completely closed to prevent sound bouncing off the glass.

    There will be a reflection filter attached to the mic stand (see recommended gear section) and will protect the mic from unwanted reflections infront of you coming from the front wall.

    More often than not, most of us will be living with or near others, whether it’s a

    partner, family, pets and even neighbours.
    Important things to consider:
    1. We don’t want anything except your voice being picked up by the microphone. 2. We don’t want to upset any neighbours.

    3. You don’t want to be interrupted during the recording process, nor do you want to record your best take, only to find that the neighbours dog was barking in the background and it can’t be used.

    Therefore the best time to record is when neighbours and partners are at work, when kids are at school or in bed and when the streets are quiet.

    In order to be able to record high quality vocals at home, there are certain pieces of equipment that you must have. This doesn’t mean however that the equipment needs to be expensive, and you may already have some of it, if not all.

    Recommended Equipment: (under $350)

    1. Condenser Microphone 2. Audio Interface
    3. Studio Headphones
    4. Cables

    5. Mic Stand
    6. Reflection Filter 7. Pop Filter

    * Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software program (Free Protools Subscription included)

    Before we start getting into the technical stuff, I would like to talk to you about How the process of recording actually works:

    It all begins with the condenser microphone, which has a large diaphragm inside it. As sound passes over the diaphragm, it vibrates, creating tiny amounts of voltage. This voltage travels through the cables into the audio interface. The audio interface has a pre-amp built into it that increases the voltage current to a level that can be interpreted by the interface. The audio interface then converts this electrical current into computer language (binary code) so that the computer can read it. The DAW then reads this information and records it. Upon playback, the binary code is sent back to the audio interface, which converts the information back into an audio signal, and then leaves the interface and comes out of the headphones.

    CONNECTING YOUR EQUIPMENT

    1. Connect your Audio Interface to your Computer with a USB Cable (provided).
    2. Follow the instructions on your computer to download and install the driver for

    the audio interface.
    3. Open your DAW and create an Audio Track
    4. Set the Input of the Audio Track to Input 1
    5. Connect you Condenser Microphone to Mic Input 1 using an XLR Cable and turn

    on Phantom Power
    6. Adjust the Mic Input Level on your Audio Interface until you see a signal coming

    in to your Audio Track inside your DAW.
    7. Connect your Headphones to the Audio Interface. You should be able to hear

    yourself speaking in the microphone.
    8.Set the microphone level using the Mic Input Level Knob so that the signal inside

    the DAW peaks at around -6dB and averages around -12dB
    9.Press Record inside your DAW and test your levels before committing to your

    performance.

    The “perfect take” is always what we are trying to achieve and it is usually made up of a mixture of different performances. For example, you record yourself singing 6 times and then pick the best parts of each performance and put them all together on a separate track as one final “perfect” performance. There are some important things to look out for when recording:

    1. Timing 2. Pitch
    3. Emotion

    It is also important for you to warm your voice up before recording – I still always record the warm up takes, incase there are some golden parts in the performance that can be used.

    Here is how I always recommend recording:

    Two takes of the entire song as a warm up
    One take of the entire song focusing only on timing
    One take of the entire song focusing only on pitch
    One take of the entire song focusing only on emotion
    One take completely forgetting everything and just performing from the heart

    What this process does is provide you with options. More often than not, your “best take” will be the final take, where you are singing from the heart. However, nobody is perfect and there will be parts of the performance that need improving. If there is a section where the timing feels off, you can go to the ‘timing take’ and replace that section. Same goes for the pitch take and the emotion take. By the end of the selection process, you should have one perfect performance take.

    Once you have chosen all your takes and you have one final “comp” take that you are happy with, the next step is to clean up all the unwanted space in-between the words.

    Often at times the mic picks up some background noise that our ears cant always hear and when you are singing, those sounds are covered up by your voice. However, when you are not singing, unwanted sounds and noise could pop out and be heard in the mix, making it sound unprofessional.

    When editing, be sure to fade the beginnings and ends of each cut so that the transition is smooth and you don’t get any pops or clicks, which can be clearly audible if not taken care of.

    Below is an example of a well edited vocal track:

    Once the entire vocal take is cleaned and edited, the next step is to work on the pitch and timing of

    the vocals.

    In today’s modern world, everyone is used to hearing a flawless vocal performance in recordings, so we need to make sure that every word is both on pitch and in time, without it sounding robotic or unnatural (unless it is intended to sound processed).

    Even the best vocalists in the world need timing and pitch correction, its just the way of the todays demanding industry.

    The Pitch Correction plugin I recommend is Melodyne. Below is a link to a Melodyne tutorial, which shows you exactly how to use the plugin.

    Sound is made up of frequencies. The human ear can hear between 20Hz and 20,000Hz (or 20kHz). EQ can help shape the sound within the frequency spectrum, picking out certain frequencies and either boosting them or cutting them.

    EQ is usually applied for 2 reasons:

    1. To remove unwanted low end rumble & frequencies picked up by the microphone 2. To shape the sound of the vocal (for example make it brighter)

    Below is an example of common eq moves I make almost every time. There are no hard and fast rules and every single situation requires its own decision making. However, I do find myself making the following moves almost every time:

    1. Cutting below 120Hz

    This removes any low end rumble and noise picked up by the microphone from the room. This also makes space for the bass and kick that usually lives in this part of the frequency spectrum.

    2. Small Cut around 400Hz
    I usually remove between 2-3dB of this frequency area that usually causes a bit of boxiness in the vocals and results in a cleaner sounding vocal.

    3. Small boost around 2-4kHz

    This is the area where the fundamental frequencies live for the Vocals and boosting in this region helps the Vocal stand out in the mix amongst all other instruments.

    4. High Shelf Boost around 10kHz

    The High Shelf is a boost that covers the entire frequency spectrum above (in this case), 10kHz. This eq move helps give the vocal some air and expensive sounding sheen.

    A brief understanding of compression – it was invented to help control the dynamics of audio signals and prevent them from distorting and becoming inaudible.

    In the modern world, we use compression to tame the dynamics of all types of audio signals, whether its vocals, guitars, drums and any other instrument.

    When we sing, there are quiet parts and loud parts in our performance. There are also quiet and loud words within those quiet and loud parts. When the vocals are put inside a music track, there will be moments where the vocals are too loud in the mix and moments where they are too quiet and cannot be heard. This is where compression comes in and helps tame the dynamics, making the louder parts quieter and the quieter parts louder, giving a much more even performance and making it possible to hear each word of each line clearly.

    1. Input Level – Level of audio coming into the compressor
    2. Output Level – Level of audio leaving the compressor
    3. Threshold – The level at which the compressor starts working
    4. Ratio – The amount of compression that occurs above the threshold
    5. Attack – How quickly/slowly the compressor reacts to the signal coming in 6. Release – How quickly/slowly the compressor releases the signal
    7. Make Up Gain – Adding level to the compressed signal
    8. Compression Meter – Shows the amount of compression occuring

    Setting a Compressor:

    1. Set the Ratio at 4:1. This means that every time the audio signal goes above the threshold (which we will set in a minute) the compressor will reduce the amount that it goes above the threshold by 4:1. So…lets say the audio signal goes 4dB above the threshold, the compressor will turn the audio signal down to 1dB, reducing it by 3dB.

    2. Set the Attack/Release. We want a relatively fast attack and release so that it is catching the peaks of the audio signal. 10ms of attack is where I usually set it and put the release time on auto (or at the factory setting if there is no auto button).

    3. Set the Threshold. The threshold is the point at which the compression starts to work. Lets say the audio signal is averaging around -12dB and peaking around -6dB. You need to pull the threshold down by turning the knob to the left until you start seeing around 5-6dB of reduction in the meter. This is a good amount of compression and will tame the peaks of the audio signal. If you feel your vocal needs more compression, add another compressor after it with the exact same settings and you will achieve your desired result.

    4. Set the Makeup Gain. Usually when you compress a signal, the overall level of the output is usually lower than the original input. The make up gain knob helps add more level to the compressed signal bringing it back to its original level. It is super important to make sure that the level coming into the compressor is the same as the level going out of the compressor. You can test it by switching the plugin on and off, checking the level difference with your ears.

    PERSONAL BENEFITS

    The benefits of learning these new skills is not only financial. There is huge satisfaction in knowing you are now a professional recording artist. This will give you confidence as an artist and empower to you continue down the road of success, in every aspect of your life.

    FINANCIAL BENEFITS

    We all know how expensive it is to have our songs recorded and produced to a professional standard. For recording alone it can add up to $500 per song, let alone the production which will set you back another $1500 at least.

    By learning these new skills, not only will you never have to pay again for recording studio costs, you can actually leverage your new talent – producers will hire you as a pro vocalist and/or songwriter and Artists will hire you to record them. Then, from this extra income you make, you can put that towards getting your songs produced and all of a sudden, it doesn’t cost you anything at all to have your songs created to a professional standard. Thats a saving of at least $2000 per song!

    On the next page I will show you some examples of how you can earn an income from your news kills.

    Some Examples of Income Streams
    1. Song Licensing – License your songs to TV Shows and Movies
    2. Local Artists & Friends – Record local artists and friends in your home studio

    3. Music Producers – offer your services as a freelance professional vocalist
    4. Setup a Niche Service – e.g. custom made songs for weddings and birthday parties

    Tips on Getting Clients Straight Away

    1. Create a website – simple landing page with your services and portfolio

    2. Optimise your FB Profile – setup your personal page to show that you are a professional recording artist and display your services and portfolio – when you engage with people online, they will click on your profile and see what you do

    3. Use FB groups to engage – engage with prospective clients in facebook groups, where you can find and meet producers in need of your services

    4. Make Profiles on Freelance websites – open up an account on sites such as soundbetter.com, where you can create a profile and start connecting with producers who are in need your services.

  • 5 Steps to Licensing Your Songs to TV and Film – Part 5: Monetising

    5 Steps to Licensing Your Songs to TV and Film – Part 5: Monetising

    Welcome to my 5 Part Masterclass Series, where I show you the 5 Steps to Getting Your Songs Licensed to TV & Film. This is Part 5 – Monetising

     

    Checkout my FREE Training: How to Turn A Song Idea into A Sync Deal Without Entering A Recording Studio: https://www.randykalsi.com

     

    FREE Ebook – Make A Living Songwriting: https://www.randykalsi.com/ebook

     

    Hi, I’m Randy Kalsi. Welcome to my video tutorials. Today, I’m going to share with you my Master class, it’s a five-part series on how to make a living with your songs using my CPM system. ok, so this is final part number 5, monetizing. So this is where you find music creators dying to pay you for your skills for an immediate income, where you can make a lot of money from this. You know at least you can reinject this to create more having more time, creating more songs to then licence them and then you just got this system that keeps going that keeps bringing in money for you. So with an impressive portfolio website, even one decent song but it looks professional and a professional online presence with that you know priming your personal Facebook page you can start selling your services online to artists who can’t write, songwriter who can’t sing, to produces who can’t write and everything in between, who are
    in need of your skills and there are so many people out there that are in need of your skills you just put yourself out there and this is an immediate income stream. It can provide you with a full-time income all from the comfort of your basic home studio. So by this time you know you already have an awesome website high-quality portfolio and professional-looking personal Facebook page. So then you join facebook groups where musicians hang out, But this time with the intention of finding clients. So you start networking, helping.
    You know people make comments about you know songwriting advice, vocal advice, production advice and you just there and you’re just providing value and helping people out and then start building relationships. And then you can offer your services. You cna add them as friends, speak to them about what you do. Send them links to your stuff and eventually you’ll start finding paying clients and everytime you, you know they’ll be in your pool in your system, so what you do is post once a day or couple of times a week and every time you post something everyone in your ecosystem now, is going to hear, listen to and see your songs, skills and talent and when they see it they will want to work with you and you can start offering your services. So that’s it guys. I hope you found the masterclass helpful if you have any questions, leave them in the comments below, I’ll try my best to answer every one of them and if you’d like to know how I can help you with your songs check out my website, the link is below and if you enjoyed the video please like follow subscribe. I have new videos coming out every week and I’ll see you on the next one.

  • 5 Steps to Licensing Your Songs to TV and Film – Part 4: Pitching

    5 Steps to Licensing Your Songs to TV and Film – Part 4: Pitching

    Welcome to my 5 Part Masterclass Series, where I show you the 5 Steps to Getting Your Songs Licensed to TV & Film. This is Part 4 – Pitching

     

    Checkout my FREE Training: How to Turn A Song Idea into A Sync Deal Without Entering A Recording Studio: https://www.randykalsi.com

     

    FREE Ebook – Make A Living Songwriting: https://www.randykalsi.com/ebook

     

    Hi, I’m Randy Kalsi. Welcome to my video tutorials. Today I’m going to share with you my master class. It’s a five-part series on how to make a living with your songs using my CPM system ok, so let’s move onto part Four, pitching. So now we want to do as we have this amazing song right. We know 100% that this song is going to be licensed and make us money because we’ve been through the first three steps and we have this amazing awesome song that’s in high Demand. So all we need to do now is find the perfect home for it. The easiest way to get the song heard by music supervisors, for those of you that don’t know, music supervisors are those who are in charge of Ashley choosing the song for the TV show or movie and the easiest way to get your songs heard by them are through agencies. Many reasons for that, a couple of the main reasons are. Agencies work as a buffer, they can check which songs are high quality and which songs fit the submission guidelines and what they’re looking for and also it helps them, also helps them with the legal side of things with the contract with the paperwork side of things. You know this is a massive thing in song licensing and you have to have all your paperwork and all your legal documents in order ready to go because if somebody wants to licence, they’re going to want it within 24 hrs if you’re not you know if you don’t have all that in order, you’re going to lose the opportunity if something happens in the legal paperwork in order and you know the agency or the supervisor gets in trouble for it, you’re going to damage your reputation massively, so this all need to be in order. You can contact music supervisors directly. But the chances of getting consistent results through this channel is tough and text years of networking and building relationships. So again you know in the beginning we want to work smart, and we want to increase our chances of success I’m not saying don’t do this try everything everything and when something starts working for you. You can start focusing more of your time and attention on that in that avenue. It’s important to be creating songs consistently to give your agent as many opportunities as possible to get a placement, the more songs you have the more chances you have, that’s just the way it is. When contacting agencies, you need to do your research on them properly. Find out whether they work within the songs in your genre. Find out what their submission guidelines are as well. They have a very strict submission procedure, you can usually find that out online, some of them like Crucial music you can submit online, some of them you need to email them. If you do need to email them do some homework on them, check them out, find out something that you love about them or respect about them or like and when you send them an email be very personal, tell them what you love about them, what they’re doing and that you have a song that’s similar may suit their catalogue and that you’d love for them to hear it. And send an mp3 link only, you don’t want to be clogging up their inbox. Send them a link and also make sure that that MP3 as your message data added to it. For those of you who don’t know you that don’t know metadata is your personal information and your PRO information that is stored inside the song so, let’s say for example a music supervisor or agency, they love one of your songs, but it’s not a right fit for them now. What they’ll do is they’ll put you in their own library and their own category with tags, of your sound and one day when they’re asked for a certain type of song, they’ll go through their list and they’ll come across your song and they’ll right-click. get info and there’ll be no information there and you’ve lost that opportunity to potentially make thousands of dollars. Having your info there allows them to contact you by phone by email. It shows them that you and all your paperwork is order that you’re signed up with a PRO and bamn, you’ve got that opportunity.

  • 5 Steps to Licensing Your Songs to TV and Film – Part 3: Production

    5 Steps to Licensing Your Songs to TV and Film – Part 3: Production

    Welcome to my 5 Part Masterclass Series, where I show you the 5 Steps to Getting Your Songs Licensed to TV & Film. This is Part 3 – Production

     

    Checkout my FREE Training: How to Turn A Song Idea into A Sync Deal Without Entering A Recording Studio: https://www.randykalsi.com

     

    FREE Ebook – Make A Living Songwriting: https://www.randykalsi.com/ebook

     

    Hi, I’m Randy Kalsi, welcome to my video tutorials. Today I’m going to share with you my master class. It’s a five-part series on how to make a living with your songs using my CPM system. This is part 3, production. So for the production, again super important use the reference song as a guide for the production, Create a similar sound production so that you can guarantee that the songs you’re creating are in high demand. You chose that reference song because it got licenced. It means that there is a demand for that the type of a song right now, so create something in that ballpark without copying it. Reference it, once you have it in your mind put it away and then create something in your working with a similar production. So that when you are working with a producer you can give them that song and say, look this is the idea that we’re going for and then just make sure the songs and finished to a high standard. Fully mixed and mastered and most producers are able to do this themselves nowadays from their own studios.

  • 5 Steps to Licensing Your Songs to TV and Film – Part 2: Songwriting

    5 Steps to Licensing Your Songs to TV and Film – Part 2: Songwriting

    Welcome to my 5 Part Masterclass Series, where I show you the 5 Steps to Getting Your Songs Licensed to TV & Film. This is Part 2 – Songwriting

     

    Checkout my FREE Training: How to Turn A Song Idea into A Sync Deal Without Entering A Recording Studio: https://www.randykalsi.com

     

    FREE Ebook – Make A Living Songwriting: https://www.randykalsi.com/ebook

     

    Hi, I’m Randy Kalsi, welcome to my video tutorials. Today I’m going to share with you my master class. It’s a five-part series on how to make a living with your songs using my CPM system. Here is part 2 songwriting. When you have the idea. We have everything researched and you’ve got the ideas down then it comes to songwriting and there is a way to – many of of you here are songwriters if not all and you have your way and maybe it’s very similar to this way. May be your way is already successful. This is this is how I found the exact system that works every single time and removes writer’s block. So, using your chosen reference song pick a song title/theme that’s similar for example the song that I got the first song ever I got licence music, the song was “not gonna break me” by Jamie n Commons. My title was “strong”. So completely different but same kind of theme right? So you map out the song structure of your reference track first and the song structure that works best is the pop song structure but in this case will be talking about referencing songs and you’ll find that most of them to follow that pop song structure. Just write down the song structure of the reference song and just have it there. And then what you do is you just create a brain dump that theme. So mine was strong and spend 30 – 60 minutes just dumped everything on a piece of paper don’t even think about if it rhymes matches. It doesn’t matter just write everything down because then you can start tweaking it afterwards and then when you have all that written down then you can start filling out the lines of that structure. I normally start with the chorus hook and then go back to the first and just fill it out. Can you make an Excel timer tweaks, but then you have to commit and move on. Trust in the system, trust in the process, commit to the song and then move on.

  • 5 Steps to Licensing Your Songs to TV and Film – Part 1: Researching

    5 Steps to Licensing Your Songs to TV and Film – Part 1: Researching

    Welcome to my 5 Part Masterclass Series, where I show you the 5 Steps to Getting Your Songs Licensed to TV & Film. This is Part 1 – Researching

     

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    Hi, I’m Randy Kalsi. Welcome to my video tutorials. Today I’m going to share with you my masterclass. It’s a five-part series on how to make a living with your songs using my CPM system. ok, so let’s get into it. This is part one: researching. So the CPM system is Create Pitch Monetise ok. Now in order to be able to make money with your music, hands down, you know you must have high quality fully mixed and mastered music that’s in high demand. That’s fact. You know, very few places now will accept demo quality and even with demo quality you need proper vocals on there. It’s not worth taking a risk and we want to be working smart. We have to think about our music as a business and work smart and in order for us to get somewhere with our songs they have to be high quality, so that’s the 1st part of the CPM system. The 2nd part is the pitching Pitching your songs to get them licenced to TV and film and ads where you get upfront payments and backend royalties. Now as I mentioned before, this is great for independent songwriters and producers artists. It’s an amazing long-term strategy and you can be making six figures doing this but you know especially in the beginning we want some immediate income so that we can make money and we can reinvest it into a business and keep re investing and making some money to live off until this whole system works, so that’s where monetising comes in. This is where you hone in on your skills, learn skills at home make sure you can create something professional whether it’s professional vocals you know. Songwriting professional productions, mixing, something that you can hone in on and leverage to make money online which is an immediate income and you do that through organic Facebook strategies which i will go through with you today. The reason why it says 5 steps to 5 figures figures with the song. I wanted to say 6 figures because it’s possible. I wanna be realistic. five steps to High five figures with your songs, and 3 steps to creating, right? So Step 1 is the research. This is imperative. This is a must that you cannot carry on without this cannot carry on without researching. go online to websites like tunefind.com on where they list all the songs that have been licensed to TV and film ads entire list for going back years. You only want to check the last couple of years so you know what’s current and you look through there and you’ll find songs that are similar to your genre because in the beginning you want to do what your comfortable with you. Don’t want to be training stuff that you’re not comfortable with and pushing yourself too far that it doesn’t end up being high quality, so, literally almost every kind of song and genre can be licenced nowadays. It’s about doing that research and finding songs that are similar to you and what that also does it confirms that there is a need for your style of music so it removes all that worry or that uncertainty like “Is my music good enough or You know my music isn’t mainstream” and all these kind of things. No, just go there and find it and when you find it, it will give you that confidence and that passion and drive to continue doing what you’re doing. So you go through a few songs. Pick five that you are comfortable with and then have a listen to them, these sites play half a minute so go onto YouTube type in the song and make a playlist play all of them and pick one. Pick one song, and study the song structure, the theme, title, melody the lyrics and the idea is to create something similar but original, unique. and it is possible by doing this system. Trust me. Why do we why do we research and reference. Because there is a massive ocean of successful songs out there with a working formula that are being licensed today. There is way too many, way too much need for songs and not enough songwriters artists producers doing it the right way, so there’s a massive need. and you know like I said we’re a business here, you know we wanna work smart. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel reinvent some kind of style. Follow works in the beginning. We’re here to make a living doing what we love and this is the way Let’s follow those who are already successful.