Hip Hop Producer Standards - Part 3

Delivering Individual Tracks to Your Client or Studio

Being a Hip Hop Producer/Beat maker is about creating hit songs that artists want to record lyrics over. That is the fun part, the sexy part, the part that makes you get up every day and grind until you find that perfect bass sound or horn part that separates you from every other producer in town. The not so glamourous or fun part is getting your song/beat out of your system and into a form your client can take to the studio and use for the base of his/her platinum hit. As discussed in part II of this series on industry standard production techniques, you can not simply burn a CD and be done with your producer duties. A stereo two track version of your music will not cut it once you get past the local hood hero that does not know better. Regional, national, and even established local artists know that the music they buy must be tracked out into individual tracks that are ready to import into a session with little or no problems while doing so. This article will discuss the industry standard method for delivering your music or beat to clients or studios.

The Technical Side of Production

When you get ready to export your individual tracks as audio files you need to maintain as high a resolution as possible. Meaning, if you recorded your tracks into a system at 44.1 or 48k you need to keep them at that resolution when you export. The same goes for bit depth. If you recorded your music at 24 bit then keep it at 24 bit when you export. If, on the other hand, you recorded at 16 bit, you will need to export your files at a 24 bit rate. Why, most studios record at 24 bit/44.1k and when you deliver your files you want them to be ready to import without having to go through a conversion process first.

MP3 files will not work for professional delivery. Many producers feel that they can simply export their music as individual mp3 files and email them to clients and that will be good. It is not. PERIOD! Mp3 files are extremely lofi compared to a full resolution wav. or aiff file. If you have not done so, I highly suggest exporting one of your songs as an mp3 file and as a full resolution wav. or aiff file. Then do a comparison listening test. You will find that the mp3 sounds very thin, brittle, and the high end sound smeared rather than crisp. You will also hear that the low end is mushy instead of solid with a thump. If you can not hear the difference you have one of two issues. The first may be that your monitoring system is not up to par. Meaning you have crappy speakers that are not telling your the truth about your music. The second is much more serious. You may be tone deaf. LOL. Really. If you have a decent set of speakers and still can not hear the difference between an mp3 and a full resolution wav. or aiff file you may need to consider a career change. I am in no way trying to dog anyone, but the difference is substantial enough that you should be able to hear it without hesitation. I promise, if you have never done a side by side listening test, once you do it you will never again question the difference between an mp3 file and a full resolution file.

As discussed in the fist part of this series, Pro Tools is the industry standard recording and mixing software used in recording studios today. As you prepare to export your files keep in mind that Pro Tools only recognizes 16 bit and 24 bit files. If you are on a PC using other software than Pro Tools to create your music, you may be recording at 32 bit . Do not export anything at 32 bit that is to be used by Pro Tools. It will not recognize your files and you will have to re-export. Industry standard is 24 bit.

You will have an option during your export for bit depth, sample rate, and mono or stereo. The most common configuration would be 24 bit, 44.1k, mono or split stereo files. Pro Tools does not recognize stereo wav. or aiff files. If you export your files as stereo Pro Tools will have to convert your files before import. This is not a deal breaker, but if you have the option of exporting your music as split stereo files it is much better. A split stereo file is basically a stereo file split into a mono left and mono right file. It will be named something like: bass.L and bass.R.

Effects

As you are creating your music you will most likely want to use reverb, delay, EQ, compression, etc. so that your music pops when you are in the creation mode. While making your beat/song this is OK, but when you get ready to export you need to remove all effect from your music before exporting. The only exception would be effect that make the sound such as a delay you set a certain way that is the base of the sound. Reverb, EQ, simple delay, compression, etc. do not make a sound. These effect only help with how a it sounds. This is very important to understand. The effects contained in sampling software, keyboards, or sound modules is not of the highest quality. The studio where your music will be mixed with the vocals will have far better effects than you do in most cases. Once you apply effects to a sound and then export you leave the mix engineer no choices or the ability to truly mix the song.

As the producer of the music, you do have a right to say that you would like a certain reverb on an instrument or something similar. The artist will most likely take this into account when mixing the song. How you can demonstrate your desires is to create a stereo mix of your music with all the effect turned on before you export individual tracks. This way your client and the mix engineer have the ability to listen to your music the way you intended and recreate your effects using higher quality equipment.

Exporting

As you create your beat or song, you will find that not all sounds start at the beginning of the song or end at the same time. It is very important that when you export your individual tracks that they all start at the same place. This means you may have to highlight the entire track and duplicate the track before exporting. There are far too many recording software options available for me to give you step-by-step instructions on the exact procedure needed to export your music with the software you use. But I can tell you that you need to make sure that you duplicate each individual track so that the individual files starts at the same place as all the others contained in your beat/song. This does not mean the actual sound starts at the same spot. only that your audio file starts at the same spot as the others. For example, you may have several sounds that play from the start of the song and go for the entire song, but you will have other sounds that only come in on the hook or bridge. Even the sounds that only come in on the hook need to start at the same spot as the other sounds in the beat/song.

Once you duplicate your individual tracks you will need to name the track. In Pro Tools you simply double click on the duplicated file and a window will pop up for you to rename the file. Other software has other means for doing so and if needed consult your user manual. Be sure to name each track you will export. When these individual tracks get imported by the engineer Pro Tools will automatically import the names of the tracks and create channel names determined by the track names. This is not a “make or break” item, but it will make you look a lot more professional.

You will want to create a new folder on your hard drive for your files to be exported to. Be sure you name the folder and know where it is located on your hard drive before exporting your individual tracks. As you begin, be sure you export your tracks to the folder and in the industry standard format as discussed earlier.

Delivering Audio Files

Once your files are exported you will need to either put them on CD, DVD, or Flash drive for delivery. In some cases you may need to upload the files to a server for your client or studio to download. If you are creating a CD, do not create an audio CD from your files. Your CD creation software will convert your files to 16bit/44.1k files and the conversion process will be horrible. CD software is not in the business of quality conversions. It is in the business of burning CDs.

You will want to create a data CD that is compatible with mac and pc computers. Your CD creation software will have the ability to do so. If you do not know what you need to select to do so, you need to consult your user manual. Again, there are simply too many options and software resources available for me to discuss each and every one of them within this article. If you are going to deliver your files on DVD or flash drive you simply need to copy your folder to the DVD or flash drive and prepare it to be read on any computer it is inserted in as data, not video. (DVDs)

Internet delivery is fast becoming the industry standard delivery method for audio files between studios. producers, and clients. I highly suggest looking into “Drop Box” and downloading their free software. “Drop Box” is an online hard drive located on the companies server that allows you to upload 2 gigs of files for free or unlimited for a fee. I use the free option and have never needed more. If a client wants to upload multiple songs that would be larger than 2 gigs I simply download each song as they are uploaded to free space. “Drop Box” allows you to share your folder with anyone you wish. What you see inside your folder your share buddy can too. It makes transferring files online much easier than in the past using a dedicated server or a transfer provider like sharethisfile and others. To share your files using “Drop Box” all you need to do is copy your folder with the audio files into the Drop Box located on your hard drive and it will automatically upload the files to the shared folder.

Conclusion

Once you understand the methods for delivering your music under the industry standard guidelines you will find that clients, project producers, and studios consider you a “go to” producer. It will make people want to work with you because they know you will deliver what they need to be successful themselves. Recording studio engineers do not like to have to jump through hoops to get music in their system. As an engineer I can assure you that when I have to do this, I try my best to get my clients to work with other producers that can deliver files within the industry standard specifications. That means the producer who can not, or worse, will not deliver files in a manor I can use will start to get less and less jobs. Harsh? Yes, but it is reality. As an engineer I am paid to provide outstanding quality in recording and mixing. If I am starting out will sub-par files it means I have to work twice as hard for the same pay.

As always, good luck, keep your head up and your grind on. THe music industry does pay off.... but you have to work it to make it. There is no such thing as luck, there are only opportunities that arise from being prepared!

Previous Articles in this Series:
Hip Hop Producer Standards - Part 1 - Music Industry Standard Software

Hip Hop Producer Standards - Part 2 - The Art of Working With Others