HC Confidential #148

Issue 148

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“Wanted: Guitarist for up-and-coming band with major label interest.” There was a time when, if you were advertising for a musician, all you had to do was print the magic phrase “major label interest,” and the world would beat a path to your door—if you were foolish enough to include your home address in the ad. Once the masses arrived, you could qualify the statement with, “Well, there’s no money yet, and we have to travel far distances and play long hours at obscure and under-attended venues, but we have major label interest.” And to a person, the teeming throngs would cry, “Sign me up!”

Although I still see this cliché in classifieds, I’d like to think that musicians searching for opportunities and positions are a little more discerning these days, and wouldn’t fall for the “major label interest” hook—at least to the exclusion of any other compensation or benefit. Why? Because there is no “major label interest.” This is primarily because the majors aren’t majors anymore, and the surviving recording companies simply don’t have the resources to cultivate a band from obscurity to stardom the way they once did. ruggedness of a dynamic model. But another consideration is that a loud amp can vibrate other objects in the room, and while the loudness of the amp itself might drown out any obvious sounds, they’ll still be in your track and contribute something you don’t like—but can’t really identify.

The obvious place to start is the drum kit—making sure the snares are turned off—but there are plenty of other noise sources. Doors or windows that aren’t sealed can vibrate as can thin tabletops. Objects sitting on top of surfaces that vibrate can also cause problems.

One way to track down some of these potential noise sources is to feed a sine wave (e.g., from a synthesizer) into your amp and go for the cleanest sound possible. Turn it up, and because the signal shouldn’t have harmonics, it won’t mask spurious noises as readily. Use your ears, but also use your hands—touch a variety of surfaces, find out which ones are vibrating, and apply pressure to damp the vibrations and see if that reduces noises. Sometimes all it takes is a little magic from some duct tape, applied in strategic places, to neuter these nasty noises.

— Craig Anderton