Everything is written from the perspective of our band The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad, a costume rock band that makes fans of Ween, Guns n' Roses, Frank Zappa, & KISSvery happy.
All things considered, I, Horsepower, am most likely the least talented member of the Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad. I can't play a guitar to save my life. I can't kick ass and take names like Captain Mediocrity. I certainly can't crunch numbers like DrumBot 200X. So what am I good for?
Us horse-headed folks are most likely good for only one thing, and that's "sticking out in a good way."
On Boneslinky!, I wrote a few tunes, one of which is a personal favorite: Big Fist. My brief description of it is something like "how someone with big hands solves all their problems: smashing whatever's in their way."
But where would such an idea come from? I'm not a violent person, by any means. I'm more a lover than a fighter (opinions of ex-girlfriends are the exception here). I can't remember ever smashing things with my average-sized mitts. So how did I do it?
I watched Saturday morning cartoons.
I remember the day clearly. I was sitting at the bar of a vegetarian restaurant at breakfast time. It was a clear Saturday morning in early Autumn, and I was chowing down on a big-ass plate of tofu scramble. The weight of Nikc's offer to contribute to the album was heavy on my shoulders, particularly since my offerings for the new album had all been shuffled off to the side for one reason or another, and I wanted to do something about it. I looked up at the television whilst taking a sip of my coffee, and there was a hyperactive kid's cartoon show playing, the sound muted so that all the important conversations that happen in bars at 9am wouldn't be interrupted. Seeing all the strange characters jumping around, blowing things up with energy blasts and other craziness, struck a chord in me. I immediately wrote down the first three ideas that came to my mind regarding the characters in the show I was watching:
A song about a kid who has molten lava in his skull in place of a brain, which causes him to be obsessed with geology.
Someone with huge fists that crushes buildings or causes earthquakes when punching the ground.
A sea shanty-style song about a group of sailors fighting a giant octopus.
Perhaps it was the fact I was watching those cartoons, and I saw plenty of examples where people were smashing things already. But out of the three, the story about someone with big fists was the most vibrant in my head at the time. So I casually munched on more tofu scramble and put pen to paper, jotting down what eventually came to be "Big Fist."
Now, the following practice may be standard operating procedure for most bands, but I fall back on my lack of experience for my testimony to the process that undoubtedly unfolds.
I presented my lyrics for "Big Fist" to the rest of the band through e-mail, explaining to them a few things
I wrote this song at breakfast, putting down the first words that came to mind (truth be told, it took maybe 10 minutes to write, and that's probably overestimating)
It's one of three current ideas I wanted to submit for consideration on the album
It simply MUST be an old-skool, thrash-punk song...I love singing those in the car, along with my tape deck.
Murmurs of approval were sent around the band in various messages, and I was feeling pretty stoked. Then the eventual happens: Nikc writes back and says something like "I'll fuck around with it this weekend." I wrote back and said, "Okay, just remember: thrash punk song!"
Two days later, Nikc sends out an e-mail with an MP3 attached labeled "bigfistdemo." I download it, turn on my speakers, and start up the song. And true to form--as this always happens with lyrics I had written and submitted--the song I hear from Nikc surpasses all expectations I had set for it. Big Fist (demo) by flutesquad
No, it's not quite thrash punk. It's more like this blistering mesh of psychobilly and surf punk from another planet...A planet inhabited by speed-snorting NASCAR fans wearing jetpacks and armed with nail-studded baseball bats and rusty chains. It fucking rocks, and whenever the breakdown happens, I'm running and jumping all over whatever club it is we're playing it. Plus, it ends on me calling out, "Muthafucka yeaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
If that's not sticking out in a good way, I don't know what is. So, it has my vote.
A few months back The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad went on a rant about “The Loudness Wars”, bemoaning how music now sounds like shit because it’s being crushed in the mastering stage. Symptoms of said shittiness include loss of dynamics, smeared low-end, distortion, and disappearing snare drums. We said we’d never screw our fans over by giving them an album with RMS (average loudness) of more than - 12db, compared to the -6db of some new releases.
Then Steven “Bang” Slate (maker of Steven Slate Drums, who actually is a real guy – and a pretty cool one considering he didn’t yell at us for making fun of his nickname) came out with Steven Slate FG-X Virtual Mastering Processor and made us look like jerks. This new and fairly revolutionary software package allows much louder masters without all of the aural destruction usually associated with “The Loudness Wars”. With this tool we’ve been able to push the masters from our new album Boneslinky! to at least -10db and they still sound better than they did with the tools we were using to get them to -12db.
So let’s just get this out of the way: The Flute Squad is taking back what we said!
With FG-X we’re now more than happy to release our masters at -10db, and maybe even louder. The proof is in the audio! [audiophiles can download the .wav version of these clips by clicking the link underneath each clip]
First up is an unmastered clip of “Bitchmade”, from our new album Boneslinky!
Next is a mastered version of the same clip, made with our old “secret sauce” blend of numerous compressors, clippers, and limiters. It took months to tweak this mastering chain for best results, and even with all of that work the low end is still a bit flabby, the high-end is reduced, and the whole thing seems somehow constricted. But it is louder, and it sounds pretty good. Turn down your speakers/headphones before listening to this one.
Finally, here is the FG-X version, at the same loudness. It took about 5 minutes to get it to sound this good. Notice how it sounds almost exactly like the unmastered version, except louder. Punchy kick and snare, intact treble, and an openness that is not present in the old mastered version. Now, this isn’t a massive difference from the old master, but it is a very noticeable improvement, and it only took one plugin as opposed to three or four painstakingly tweaked plugins.
According to Slate Digital, software designer extraordinaire Fabrice Gabriel designed some crazy new algorithms for this plugin. In their words, “The ITP [intelligent transient preservation] process uses a complex lookahead detection algorithm to analyze oncoming transients and groups of transients. It then optimizes a specialized set of saturation curves for that specific transient. For example, if the ITP algorithm’s lookahead identifies a kick drum transient, it will optimize the algorithm so that it preserves low frequency energy. For a snare drum transient, it will optimize the algorithm to preserve upper mid range punch.”
Or something. I don’t claim to understand this voodoo magic, but it does work.
Installation Installation was easy, with a simple installer. Authorization, however, involves an iLok, which is kind of annoying. You have to buy this little blue USB dongle, put it in your computer (thus permanently taking up a USB slot), authorize the dongle on the iLok site, upload your FG-X license to the site, and then associate it with the dongle. The upside to all of this nonsense is that the dongle can be moved from computer to computer, so in theory you can use the software anywhere. Bring it to rival mastering houses and laugh as you get better sounding masters with one plugin than they do with a whole rack of gear!
As an aside, this thing does eat up a fair amount of processing power. Unless you have a super crazy computer you’re probably not going to want to stick this on your master buss and mix through it. On the plus side, it didn’t cause my computer to crash, which is more than I can say for a lot of other software I own.
Features There are a few different sections/features in the software that take some time to learn. Presets are included, but I’m not 100% sure how useful they’re going to be for anyone. If you’re relying on presets in the mastering stage, you probably shouldn’t be doing mastering. But I guess they do give a good jumping-off point for your own customization. There is also an A/B switch that lets you easily compare two different configurations, which can be helpful if you can’t decide which settings sound best on a given song.
First up is the Compressor section.
To be honest, I didn’t end up using this much. While it does sound extremely transparent even at high gain reduction, I don’t usually use compression during mastering, preferring the sound and feel of a “color” compressor in the mixing stage. But people seem to be spazzing out about the compressor, so it’s probably worthwhile for those of you who do use compressors during mastering.
Next in line is the Limiting section, which is where the real magic happens.
The two crucial controls here are the gain knob (self-explanatory) and the ITP slider. The ITP slider controls the “hardness” of the transients. Turn it up and you have a ton of punch, turn it down and everything is smoother. Here are two examples of the same clip that should give you an idea of what ITP does: the first has ITP set to the lowest setting, and the second is set to the highest setting.
What I found is that at high gain settings, sometimes if you crank the ITP you end up with crackling distortion in your audio. According to Steven, this either means that
a) you need to turn the ITP down because you’re pushing the limits (no pun intended) of what the software can do, or
b) the mix sucks and has way too much low-end content.
If the mix sucks, ask for a remix, or be prepared to do a lot of surgical cutting in the low end. In this respect FG-X ends up being a great tool for finding any low end issues in mixes. If the mix is fine but you still want the punch that a high ITP setting offers, it’s very easy to simply automate this control. Set it lower for the parts of the mix that crackle (shouldn’t be more than a second or two here and there), and crank it back up for the sections that are fine. I personally tried to keep the ITP on 8 or higher for our rock songs, and lowered it for the less aggressive mixes.
The next control is Dynamic Preservation. To be honest, I have no solid idea of exactly what this does, but I like it. What I found was that this control increases the perceived volume of your mix without increasing the actual level (i.e., the peaks stay the same), so in this respect it seems to be working like a compressor. It’s hard to describe, but I ended up setting it at 5 or higher on most mixes.
The two other controls in the limiter section are the ones I used the least, but which are still very helpful: Lo Punch and Detail.
They pretty much do what they say. Lo Punch boosts the low end of the mix, meaning that it brings out the kick drum almost exclusively. Detail adds snap to transients, which has the effect of increasing the crack of the snare and the click of the kick drum. I can see how these would be very useful if you’re given a shitty mix where the kick and snare are buried (either by too much compression in the mix stage, or just by a crappy mixing engineer). I personally used them occasionally out of pure laziness, finding it easier to turn these knobs instead of going back and re-mixing and re- exporting an entire song just because I wanted the kick .5db louder.
Not to be ignored is the Constant Gain Monitoring button, which gives you an easy way to tell what FG- X is doing to your audio. It turns down the volume on the master to match the original mix, so that you can toggle FG-X on and off and not have the volume shift dramatically. This is awesome because you can use it to make your master sound exactly like your mix, just louder. Or you can use it to hear what the Lo Punch, Detail, and Dynamic Preservation controls are adding to your master compared to what’s in the mix. My theory is that if you can hear a huge difference you’ve probably overdone it and should turn down the knobs, unless you’re starting with a really bad mix that needs a lot of work (although in that case you should probably be tackling the issues with an EQ and multi-band compressor before touching FG-X).
I should also mention that there are two other important settings in the limiter console that can be accessed by pressing “dither and ceiling settings”. Here you set your dither bit level (16 bits for export to CD) and absolute output ceiling, meaning that no peaks will get louder than this setting. The manual doesn’t say what kind of dithering is used, and while this might be important to some people, I found that it was transparent, which is all I ask out of dithering. I also kept the ceiling at -0.2db; you can set it wherever you want, but this level has always worked out for me in that it doesn’t cause distortion on any of the CD players I’ve used.
Finally, FG-X includes a nice metering section. It displays both peak and RMS values in a bar graph and needle formats, with lots of customizable settings for both. I tended to use another metering plugin just because I’m more comfortable with how it translates, but these meters seem very accurate and are nice to look at to boot.
Value
At $300 this is a great deal, especially considering that this is pretty much the pinnacle of what’s out there now as far as limiters go. Given that quality, Steven Slate could easily charge thousands for it and mastering engineers would buy it, no questions asked. But it seems like Slate is on an almost fanatical mission to make the horrible artifacts of “The Loudness Wars” a thing of the past. In his words, with FG-X, “music will sound better, and maybe instead of ‘loudness wars’, we can have ‘loudness parties.’”
Bravo, Steven. You bring the chips, and DMFS will bring the beer.
Rating
Usability: 9 out of 10 The FG-X interface is a pleasure to work with and gets you results quickly. Pretty much any moron could slap this on and instantly get a nice loud master with minimal artifacts. iLok is annoying, though.
Features: 10 out of 10 Includes a whole bunch of stuff aside from the main limiter, including a nice compressor, transparent dithering, and metering.
Performance: 10 out of 10 Sounds amazing. Probably the best limiter out there right now. Extremely stable.
Value: 9 out of 10 It’s definitely worth the price, but possibly out of range of amateur home recordists.
Total Score: 9.5 out 10
If you've used this plugin, we'd like to hear what you think. Leave a comment!
"Hey you guys shut up, if you shitty bands weren’t so any good you wouldn’t half to worry about it!!! You guys suck!"
Although the chronic spelling errors hurt my feelings, the comments make me laugh. I can't help but feel that the reader is missing the point of "Weird Experiments in Band Marketing."
We started this blog a year ago to start defining "success" as it applies to being in a band. In my opinion there's a severe lack of useful material out there related to music marketing or running a band. If it is good, it's usually written by someone who has crossed the chasm to find success somewhere other than playing music. In fact, look at what happens when you type in “Music Marketing” in Google. Besides a few top-ranked blogs, the results are truly retarded: a bunch of half-assed articles trying to sell bands a duplication service. A lot of times they’ll add “101” to the end of the title to make it sound educational like “Music Marketing 101”, or “How To Start Marketing Your Band 101”.
Ooh, or maybe you’ll find a video of some dude pontificating on the magic of posting fliers to promote your show (this video cracks me up):
No wonder bands don’t really look to the web for advice on how to promote their band, good content on music marketing is a relatively new concept!
Do you know what musicians actually search for? Despite all the evidence that a record deal may be the worst kind of strategic partnership, bands are mostly looking for info on how to get signed.
According to Google:
"Promote Band" - 8,100 Global Monthly Searches
"Get A Record Deal" - 18,100 Global Monthly Searches (!)
Holy shit that's frustrating! What about the DIY spirit? What happened to that?!?!
If you want skip past record deal pipe dreams, and all the trash marketing advice, read this free ebook by Derek Sivers:
This book has been out for a while, but concisely states everything that you would ever need to know about music marketing. See, I don't make this stuff up!
Coming up with original marketing ideas is not the focus of this blog. But if you want to read about a band that's putting these ideas to work, then this is where you want to be.
Well that didn't take long. Within a week of posting our Kickstarter fundraiser, to fund the physical production of Boneslinky! we reached our small goal. Kickstarter is definitely a great tool for music promotions.
We are truly grateful for people who have donated and purchased the new album before hearing even a few tracks of the finished product.
Even more astonishing is that a few people decided to give us a little bit more to have a pizza and Raven beer party at their place while playing a few tunes. That's pretty fucking awesome if you ask me.
BUT WE STILL NEED MONEY! Well, we're not begging or anything (yet) but if you plan on buying the album, this is probably the most bang your going to get for the buck. Check out the page. We have a ton of cool prizes for different levels of donations. But at the very least you get the album and free entry to our Baltimore Beer Week release party!
As a reference for touring bands we are attempting to create a library of reviews of the venues we have played. Most of these venues are in and around the Baltimore area. We attempt to review the venues from the perspective of a performing band (sound, environment, staff, money situation, etc.) For more specific information, requests, or complaints feel free to CONTACT US
The Ottobar reviewed by Curtis Crispin 2549 North Howard Street Baltimore, MD 21218-4506 http://www.theottobar.com/ Pros: Great sound and performance area, good merch placement, decent band drinks; in-town venue with non-shitty parking
Cons: If you have a crappy show, it’s your own fault
The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad has been blessed with several opportunities to play at The Ottobar. Like The 8x10, The Ottobar hosts a mix of major national acts and local bands. We’ve played supporting and headlining bills there, including a show with Duff from Ace of Cakes, and opening for national touring act World Inferno Friendship Society. Also, probably to their regret, we've even been asked to organize our own show. Our most recent, and probably most memorable show at The Ottobar was Super Art Fight 6 last January. We were the musical support for an improv street-art cage match (a valuable lesson: be open to non-traditional shows and alternative ways to showcase your band; the Super Art Fight crowd was very receptive to our unique brand of nonsense.)
As you would expect from a dedicated music venue featuring national touring acts, you’ll get excellent sound support. The stage area is great too: sufficiently large and elevated, with good, unobstructed views for the crowd. The band drink deal isn’t lavish, but with two drink tickets per band member neither is it stingy. The Ottobar excels on the merch front. Unlike some of the major venues in town, they don’t make you hawk your wares in the basement. The bands get a nice stretch of table space across from the bar and adjacent to the bathrooms, ensuring good traffic by your merch.
Parking is a real plus. The Ottobar has its own free lot behind the venue. It does fill up (unless nobody’s coming to your show, of course), but since you’re a professional and you’re showing up at the appointed time for load-in, it won’t be a problem for you. It’s one of the few places we play in the city where we know there isn’t going to be some kind of hassle with parking.
If you get an opportunity to play The Ottobar, there are not a lot of drawbacks. However, you need to be diligent with your promotion. Although the venue is beloved and is a place where people will randomly drop in to check out the music, there’s not a lot of restaurant/bar foot traffic like you’ll get in Station North, Fells Point, or Federal Hill. You need to get your fans out, and call in your favors. Unless you’re incredible dumb-lucky like us, you won’t get asked back if you don’t bring people in.
If you get a chance to play The Ottobar, step up, get your fans out to support you, and be ready to kick some ass. It’s one of the best opportunities you’ll get in Baltimore to feel like a rock star.
*** If you like this post check out:
Venue Review: Fletchers - Where we openly bash one of the shittiest, now defunct, clubs Baltimore has ever known.
Venue Review: The Windup Space - Where we praise (and secretly wish to play again) one of Station North's best multipurpose spaces.
The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad is a costume band from Baltimore, Maryland. Suitable for fans of Ween, Guns n' Roses, Frank Zappa, and Kiss.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 12:00PM 
