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Recording Ear Candy |
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What the heck is ear candy? Ear candy is that part of the song that you can just barely hear but makes you listen all more intently. Sometimes, it’s picking up on a harmonic from a vocal or guitar part and emphasizing it with feedback or another instrument. Sometimes, it’s words spoken just loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to interfere with the music. Sometimes, it’s other sounds like the cash register from Pink Floyd’s “Money”. The choices are strictly up to your creativity. I even recorded some traffic noises for one song. This can be like guilding the lily but it can also turn a so-so song into something fantastic. It’s not required for every song. Ballads, for instance, rarely need this sort of tweaking because the lyric is what you want people to listen to. For pop songs, however, it’s a must and when you get into some progressive rock music, some songs rely so heavily on this it’s almost not music anymore. Use this judiciously. It’s kind of like having super powers of some sort—you want to use it for good, not for evil. One thing I’ve done that has been very interesting is to take an acoustic/electric guitar tuned to the key of the song and place a speaker close to it. Then play back the song while recording the guitar’s output. The strings will vibrate sympathetically with the chords in the song and will great some amazing overtones. You can use it as a pad or you can just pick out certain parts that seem to complement a particular passage. Using effects to change the sound can also be very interesting. For another song, I recorded my daughter going on and on about some high school experience she had and then I speeded everything up gradually so that at the end of her rant it was so fast that it almost became a constant buzz When recording ambient sounds like traffic noise, etc. I just used a simple cassette recorder with a battery-powered microphone. The results were really amazing. I’m sure it would have been better if would have had a real shotgun mic but it worked fine for me. Don’t’ be afraid to experiment with different environments or equipment.
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Copyright 2006
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