Ask the Musician: “Do You Record Video & Audio Together on Your Acoustic Music Videos?”

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By Jim Fusco:

Well, back earlier than expected for another edition of “Ask the Musician” with me, Jim Fusco! If you’ve never seen this column before, let me give you a brief introduction. I’m Jim Fusco of the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs and original music video series on YouTube and on our blog here at guitarbucketlist.com. Every day, I get thousands of views on my cover songs and original music videos on YouTube. With that popularity comes some great questions from people all around the world. They want to know technical questions, music theory, and other great general music tidbits. I’ve completely submerged myself into making music these past few years and I’m happy to share what I’ve learned- hundreds and hundreds of hours reading, researching, playing, writing, singing, and recording. I’m glad to answer these questions here on “Ask the Musician”!

Tonight, we have an email from christianamagic on YouTube. She writes:

Hi. Just wanna ask. So when you record song, do you only record the audio? or record both audio and video??
and what did you use to edit it all together? Thanks

Well, that’s a good question. She’s asking about the acoustic music videos I perform on YouTube. You know, sometimes I’ve considered going back and recording the audio over the video to make a better take, but I can never bring myself to do it. To answer your question: I record the audio and video at the same time!

That’s not to say that I don’t have to tinker with it sometimes. I remember on a Ben Folds song, “Time”, I recorded the video with the microphone facing backwards! So, you could hear a LOT of piano and a little of my voice. Well, I had recorded this in a remote location, so I couldn’t go back and re-record the video. My solution was to work some EQ magic. I brought out the vocals in the mix. It’s not perfect, but it made due for the video. I guess I could’ve gone back and re-did the audio, but believe me, that would be much more of a burden than it seems. Imagine syncing the vocals up perfectly to a live performance like that?

For hardware, I use a ZOOM H2 microphone that plugs into USB. This thing is great. I used to use the built-in microphone on my Macbook laptop. It’s actually a pretty decent condenser microphone, but my computer’s fan would run so much (and SO loudly), that I had to think of a better solution. Sometimes, you’d hear more fan than song! So now, I keep the microphone close to me (and only turn the front mics on as to not hear the fan noise behind it) and record on the laptop. For ease of production, I use iMovie to edit the video and audio. If I didn’t do so many videos, I might use Final Cut Pro, but even still, it’s nice to have a simple solution to get the song out there in a nice neat package.

I hope this helps and answers your question. Just like Peter Griffin’s advice on Family Guy is “To grow a beard,” my advice to you here is, “To get a Mac!” It’ll make your life a lot easier when putting music videos on YouTube.

Submit your question to admin@guitarbucketlist.com and comment below to tell us how you record your videos!


Editor’s note: this post was originally published before December 2015; the exact original date is uncertain.

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Counting Crows’ “August and Everything After” (1993) – The Weekend Review

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By Chris Moore:

RATING:  3.5 / 5 stars

If you’re compiling a list of the best debut albums by nineties rock bands, August and Everything After certainly deserves a place beside other great first releases like Cracked Rear View (Hootie & the Blowfish) and Gordon (Barenaked Ladies).

The question is, of course, just how high it should place.

There is no question that Adam Duritz and company establish a characteristic sound on this album, a sound that formed a solid foundation for their career.  Duritz’s vocals are such an important component — perhaps the key component — of the band’s sound that the instrumentation and background vocals have very little wriggle room to achieve a fitting mix.  In that sense, August and Everything After highlights the configuration that has clicked: a largely acoustic arrangement with subdued electric guitars.  mandolins, and the Hammond B-3 filling in the gaps in all the right places.

As a band, the Counting Crows strike the rare balance between sounding as if they are playing off the cuff and as though every note is planned and purposeful.  Steve Bowman’s drums seem to be the pin holding all the other aspects together, rising and falling in tempo and volume as each song unfolds.

What holds this album back from true greatness is its adherence to this arrangement.  On first listen, several of these songs could blend together in the listener’s memory, as the band seems more concerned with stretching out and getting comfortable than ripping any of these songs apart and driving them home.

Counting Crows' "August and Everything After" (1993)

Counting Crows' "August and Everything After" (1993)

Still, there are some absolute gems here, and Duritz clearly established himself as one of the most unique, interesting, and versatile vocalists on record.  “Round Here,” for instance, is the perfect specimen of a Counting Crows track, a moving song that set the bar high for all of their songs to come. 

On “Omaha” — a song that always conjures BnL’s excellent “Straw Hat and Old Dirty Hank for me — they take it up a notch.  “Mr. Jones” provides the proof that the Counting Crows were destined for radio hits, if on their own terms.  This is no cookie cutter pop song; instead, it settles in at some points and rocks out at others.

Later, Duritz and company treat the listener to two gems, “Rain King” for those looking for an infusion of rock and “Anna Begins” for those more inclined to the heartbreaking beauty that few songs pull off so poignantly.

After this, August and Everything After requires patience to fully appreciate its purpose.  There are some standout deep tracks like “Perfect Blue Buildings” and “Time and Time Again,” but these songs would probably benefit from having a minute or so trimmed off.  And this is not my pitch with A&R in mind, hoping to appeal to the masses.  Rather, I have to believe that if a song doesn’t offer something significantly different or compelling for the listener after three minutes or so, then it’s time to reign it in.ZZZMARKE

“Sullivan Street” needs not fall under scrutiny, though: this is a flawless deep track that deserves all four and a half minutes of its duration.

The remainder of the album suffers a bit from the self-indulgence most prevalent here on the final two or three tracks.  There are some moments of brilliance, and yet at other times, you might be left wondering when the song will be over.

Perhaps mine are the antsy rantings of an impatient man, but I’d like to believe not.  And I have a great respect for this album.  After all, it is a debut, and one that is imbued with such honesty, passion, beauty, and potential that there must have been no question of the great work that was to come from this young band.

(To be certain their follow-up release, Recovering the Satellites, more than makes good on the promise implicit in that aforementioned potential!)

Editor’s note: this post was originally published before December 2015; the exact original date is uncertain.

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The Weekend Review New Music Report: 2010 Edition

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By Chris Moore:

In the past, before the Weekend Review was officially a segment on the Laptop Sessions blog and my articles had the oh-so-clever title of “Music Review” — and I know, I know, “the Weekend Review” isn’t all that much more clever — I have been accused of writing reviews that were positive to a fault.

This may well be true, as I have found it challenging these past couple years to define and refine my voice as a music critic who is also a singer/songwriter.  After all, it has been difficult to find a comfortable middle ground between praising music simply because someone labored over it and pointing out flaws to bring others down a notch.

Being an “amateur” has allowed me the opportunity and relative privacy to hone my craft.

I’ve come a long way from the every-so-often, knee-jerk nature of my early “CD Reviews,” articles that I typed and saved on my computer long before the Fusco-Moore Productions blog — now known as the Laptop Sessions blog — was launched.  I’ve also come a significant way since the aforementioned “Music Reviews.”  And, I’d like to think that I’ve progressed as a writer over the past year of “Weekend Reviews.”

So, this being my fifty-second and final Weekend Review of 2010, I decided to dedicate it to laying out a table of contents of sorts for the fifty-four reviews I’ve written this year (including “Yes, No, Maybe So?” one-sentence reviews).  They’re arranged below in descending order from my one five-star rating down to my handful of one-star reviews.

What it all amounts to is a lot of music from a diverse range of artists that run the genre gamut.  The one common denominator here, the one solid link between all subjects of the Weekend Review, is the presence of the singer/songwriter.  With the exception of a couple of cover song albums, these are albums of original music released in 2010.

The best I can offer as an overall statement for the year’s music is that this was, overall, an excellent year for new music.  The range tended to follow the bell curve (1 five star, 14 four stars, 23 three stars, 13 two stars, and 3 one stars), but this should not undercut the fact that there were fourteen very strong, interesting, entertaining albums released this year.

In all fairness, what the year was lacking was any albums that really blew everything else out of the water.  Although several have argued this point with me, I do not hesitate a moment to give All in Good Time (BnL) the full five-star nod.  That being said, I do not consider it their best album, not by a long shot.

So, where does that leave us?

In my opinion, it leaves 2010 as a very strong year with at least fifteen strong reasons to buy new albums, but it also leaves a gap for those attuned to and awaiting the next, best classic albums for the ages.

I hope you’ll also read my final post (at least for a while) on the blog, and that you’ll consider checking some of these albums out — they’re worth a listen.

54 New Albums, 2010: Arranged in descending order of star ranking (out of 5).

All in Good Time (Barenaked Ladies) – 5 stars
Bad Books (Bad Books) – 4.5 stars
Be in Love (Locksley) – 4 stars
Broken Bells (Broken Bells) – 4 stars
Heaven is Whenever (The Hold Steady) – 4 stars
Kaleidoscope Heart (Sara Bareilles) – 4 stars
Lonely Avenue (Ben Folds & Nick Hornby) – 4 stars
Mines (Menomena) – 4 stars
Mojo (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers) – 4 stars (4.5 w/o “Candy” & “Takin’ My Time”)
Night Work – (Scissor Sisters) – 4 stars
Sea of Cowards (The Dead Weather) – 4 stars
Suburba – House of Heroes – 4 stars
The Grand Theatre Volume One (Old 97’s) – 4 stars
The Suburbs (Arcade Fire) – 4 stars
Volume Two (She & Him) – 4 stars
A Postcard from California (Al Jardine) – 3.5 stars
A Singer Must Die (Steven Page with the Art of Time Ensemble) – 3.5 stars
American Slang (The Gaslight Anthem) – 3 stars
American VI: Ain’t No Grave (Johnny Cash) – 3 stars
As I Call You Down (Fistful of Mercy) – 3.5 stars
Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin (Brian Wilson) – 3.5 stars
Brothers (The Black Keys) – 3.5 stars
Dark Night of the Soul (Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse) – 3.5 stars
Death to False Metal (Weezer) – 3 stars
Destroyer of the Void – (Blitzen Trapper) – 3.5 stars
Easy Wonderful (Guster) – 3 stars
Everything Under the Sun (Jukebox the Ghost) – 3.5 stars
High Violet (The National) – 3.5 stars
How to Destroy Angels (How to Destroy Angels) – 3 stars
Hurley (Weezer) – 3.5 stars
Light You Up (Shawn Mullins) – 3 stars
Lo-Fi for the Dividing Nights (Broken Social Scene) – 3 stars
Page One (Steven Page) – 3.5 stars
Sigh No More (Mumford & Sons) – 3.5 stars
Something for the Rest of Us (Goo Goo Dolls) – 3.5 stars
Stone Temple Pilots (Stone Temple Pilots) – 3.5 stars
To The Sea (Jack Johnson) – 3 stars
Transference (Spoon) – 3.5 stars
Court Yard Hounds (Court Yard Hounds) – 2.5 stars
Crazy for You (Best Coast) – 2.5 stars
Eureka (Rooney) – 2 stars
Everything Comes and Goes (Michelle Branch) – 2 stars
Familial (Philip Selway) – 2.5 stars
Forgiveness Rock Record (Broken Social Scene) – 2 stars
Heligoland (Massive Attack) – 2 stars
Infinite Arms (Band of Horses) – 2 stars
National Ransom (Elvis Costello) – 2 stars
Realism (Magnetic Fields) – 2.5 stars
Women & Country (Jakob Dylan) – 2.5 stars
Write About Love (Belle & Sebastian) – 2.5 stars
Y Not (Ringo Starr) – 2.5 stars
100 Miles from Memphis (Sheryl Crow) – 1.5 stars
Clapton (Eric Clapton) – 1 star
Interpol (Interpol) – 1 star

Editor’s note: this post was originally published before December 2015; the exact original date is uncertain.

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Music Review: Cory Brown’s “Days In A Life” is acoustic, soulful, and takes us on a journey

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By Jim Fusco:

Cory Brown is a songwriter with quite the pedigree.  Growing up in California (my personal favorite breeding ground for musicians), he had his father Barry (of the 70s band Morning) to look up to while he learned to play guitar and write songs.  Clearly, he picked something up from the genre of music that his father helped pioneer: the melodic tunes and soft-rock style is in great form on Cory’s 2012 debut album, “Days In A Life”.  But, Cory’s music still sounds fresh and relevant today.  His songwriting ability and style will fit well on any contemporary rock station.

This may be the debut album for Cory Brown as a solo artist, but he’s garnered some success already in his young career with a band called 7th Direction.  Clearly, Cory’s first solo album allowed him to express himself more- the songs on “Days In A Life” are introspective and poignant.  They’re the kind of songs that would only sound right on a solo record.  It’s kind of like Brian Wilson when he made “Pet Sounds”- even members of the Beach Boys have said that “Pet Sounds” was essentially a Brian Wilson solo record.  And they were correct- with the raw emotion and personal tales of longing, as in “Days In A Life”, it’s work that comes from the heart of only one person.

My favorite track on the album is “Her Eyes”.  The guitar hook and the well-crafted unique harmonies on the chorus really make this a stand-out track.  The track features just the right amount of that Crosby, Stills, and Nash semi-country-rock feel with the great guitar soloing throughout.  The track just begs for multiple listens.  I have a feeling I’ll be listening to “Her Eyes” for quite a while.

One theme I noticed throughout the whole album is the theme of traveling.  In many tracks, from “Wingman”, “Grass on the Highway”, and “Lacy Ann”, Cory weaves in visions of traveling.  He talks about driving across the country and even living life on “overdrive”.  He asks various people not to leave him and travel away, but also talks about the youthful need to run away.  As a songwriter myself who has gone through those same emotions early in life, I can definitely relate.  And, with Cory’s God-given talents, his songs and subject matter will only get more complex and interesting as time goes on.

Cory Brown’s music, tour dates, and bio can all be found on his website at http://corybrownmusic.com.  And, make sure to go get “Days In A Life” on iTunes right now by clicking here!

Editor’s note: this post was originally published before December 2015; the exact original date is uncertain.

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