This clip goes into how the inspirational riff was "stumbled on" while sitting monkeying around on the guitar. How that riff was "milked" for the rest of the parts of the song, and how the parts all fit together because of that. It also goes into how the initial melody was crafted and how it was woven into the riff element of the song.

This clip goes into how I took the various song parts I had developed from the initial riff and put them together into an arrangement in ProTools. A whole lot of shortcuts, tips, and helpful advice is sprinkled throughout. Hearing a very rough mix of the song AFTER you've heard the final product is a real "ear-opener" and makes you want to come back for the rest of the videos to see how THAT bland mix turned into the intense final product.

This clip goes into the various roles a scratch track plays; the benefits of a scratch track; how best to record a scratch track; some of the do's and dont's of adding a scratch track, plus numerous helpful tips on how to maximize your time at this stage of putting together a song on a home studio.

This clip goes into the finer details of how I put together my drum tracks in such a way as to allow for free form creativity early on, then showing you how I distill the intensity into a tight drum track—while adding the "all-important" funkiness along the way.

See the demonstrated details of how I recorded the 7 uniquely-signatured, interwoven guitar tracks to give the song GIMME it's unique, somewhat curious sound.

Adding Guitar Solo Tracks to your home recording can be fun, or a painstaking chore. See how I make it simple, and fun by setting up criteria and objectives to guides the composition process. I show you the intricate ways I develop my guitar solo parts as I demonstrate how to I record my songs on a laptop using ProTools and a little ingenuity. An entertaining AND educational video on the topic of how to record music on your computer.

In the course of the songwriting process, lyrics: it’s a puzzle. If you have enough pieces you can always assemble it in a new way. Sometimes I start with a title. Sometimes it's a great line. Sometimes it starts out as a jam song and evolves into a song with lyrics....

I can’t tell you how to sing. No one can. Yeah, you can get all the coaches in the world, but you know what? They’re going to tell you how you SHOULD sing, or "how the pros" sing, or how THEY would do it, but they won’t, and they CANT tell you how YOU should sing, well... YOU. You have to find that out for yourself. If you are a songwriter who wants to see how someone else record their vocals on a laptop, this is a great video series.

I like to think of the overall effects of a song as the "atmosphere". The "aura" of the sound. Most listeners will never consciously "hear" that atmosphere--but they WILL feel it! AND it doesn't matter that you're recording your songs on a laptop, you still need the songwriters home recording method to truly realize your song. It's a true "definer" of a song, I think.

Mixing. That mysterious gray zone where a true Zen master can take take dog poop and turn it into… well… shiny cool dog poop. There is certainly an art to mixing. A true art. But … that doesn’t mean that you or I can’t master that art… to a degree… as it applies to our own junk that is… That sounds a little flimsy. Let me put it this way:
 
I’ve shortcutted OUT a lot of the agony of mixing. The excess knob twiddling. How? By baking in my effects.
 
I’m going to bring you along the mixing process. I’ll tell you how I go about it, and THEN provide audio examples so you can hear the layers of sound slowly pile up and how it all gets blended sweetly together...!!

My plan was to dis-assemble a song I recorded on my PC-based, home studio laptop recording setup running ProTools, and put it all back together in 10 "How-To" videos. The song is GIMME, and the objective was to provide a rich, engaging way of showing how to record music on laptop.
 
I wanted to create something I didn't see anywhere online. And I thought, to make it even more accessible, you'd be able to hear my completed song BEFORE you invest any time in watching the How-To videos to see if you even want to know how it was done. Then I thought, now THAT would be cool.
 
I'm Dale Wozny and I hope you enjoy these videos.