Jody Whitesides

Author: Jody Whitesides

Not A Bad Thing Video Cover

Sit down with me and take a little ride as I knock out a cover of Justin Timberlake’s “Not A Bad Thing” with my Taylor Guitar. Like many people I found out about the song last week when it popped up at #10 on the iTunes chart – when I looked at the chart. It’s actually the first time I had glanced at the chart in a while and I was surprised to see some of the songs in the list. Because of this surprise, I’ve decided that I need to check out the chart each Tuesday so I can stay on top of the changing landscape of the music world. Seeing Justin’s name pop up made me think “Hey, I need to hear that.” I took an instant liking to it. So much so that I grabbed my guitar and started working out the chords.

Later that night I video chatted with my buddy Chris Hellstrom to provide a little sounding board as to how I should approach arranging the song (which is a complex pop arrangement with lots of little parts mind you). Chris made the suggestion that I ought to work it out in an alternate tuning. Thus if your wondering why I don’t look like I’m playing the changes of Gmaj, Emin, Dmaj/F# you now know why. The tuning is an open G tuning (D G D G B D) which actually allows for playing the right inversion voicing of the song’s chords and gives the guitar riff a neat, easy way to play it in the bass register.

I recorded the vocals with a Telefunken C12 and ran the Taylor Guitar 615ce direct into Logic X. I used the Izotope Nectar 2 plugin on the vocal to give it a nice shine. Then blended the direct guitar in with the sound of the acoustic as it leaked into the vocal mic.

If you’d like the Tabs of what I’m playing. Contact me on twitter and I’ll tell ya how you can get it.

Not A Bad Thing

Justin Timberlake

Said all I want from you
Is to see you tomorrow
And every tomorrow
Maybe you’ll let me borrow, your heart
And is it too much to ask for every Sunday?
An while we’re at it throw in every other day to start

I know people make promises all the time
Then they turn right around and break them
When someone cuts your heart open with a knife and you’re bleeding
But I could be that guy to heal it over time
And I won’t stop until you believe it
‘Cause baby you’re worth it

So don’t act like it’s a bad thing to fall in love with me
Cause you might fuck around and find your dreams come true with me
Spend all your time and your money just to find out that my love was free
So don’t act like it’s a bad thing to fall in love with me, me
It’s not a bad thing to fall in love with me, me

Now how about I be the last voice you hear tonight?
And every other night for the rest of the nights that there are
And every morning I just wanna see you staring back at me
‘Cause I know that’s a good place to start

I know people make promises all the time
Then they turn right around and break them
Then someone cuts your heart open with a knife
Now you’re bleeding
Don’t you know that I could be that guy to heal it over time
And I won’t stop until you believe it
Cause baby you’re worth it

So don’t act like it’s a bad thing to fall in love with me
Cause you might fuck around and find your dreams come true with me
Spend all your time and your money just find out my love was free
So don’t act like it’s a bad thing to fall in love with me, me
It’s not a bad thing to fall in love with me, me
Not such a bad thing to fall in love with me

No I won’t fill your mind with broken promises
And wasted time
And if you fall
You’ll always land right in these arms
These arms of mine

Don’t act like it’s a bad thing to fall in love with me
Cause you might fuck around and find your dreams come true with me
Spend all your time and your money just to find out that my love was free
So don’t act like it’s a bad thing to fall in love with me, me
It’s not a bad thing to fall in love with me, me
Not such a bad thing to fall in love with me

Enjoy and please share it around!

2014-04-01
We're Going To Be Friends By The White Stripes

I’d like to start by writing that you and I could very well be friends. Heck I’d hope that Jack White and I could be friends.Actually there is a Jack White that I am friends with but it’s not the same Jack White from the White Stripes. The Jack that I know is a drummer from the 80’s era of pop music. He helped me get a leg up in the industry a few years back. However, the Jack White that wrote this song We’re Going To Be Friends I’ve not yet met. It took me a few years of ignoring his music before I saw “It Might Get Loud”. That movie is what gave me a sense of respect for him. Massive respect. Shortly thereafter I had another friend who made me a playlist of their favorite music. In that playlist was this song “We’re Going To Be Friends”. It was a great bonding moment.

The odd thing about the timing on getting that playlist was it was probably one of the darkest points in my life. So it was a breath of fresh air. Thus I’m extending a pay it forward thanks to Jack White for writing a cool little ditty about getting know other people and being friendly. Who do you thank for such things?

We’re Going To Be Friends

Fall is here, hear the yell
Back to school, ring the bell
Brand new shoes, walking blues
Climb the fence, books and pens
I can tell that we are gonna be friends
I can tell that we are gonna be friends

Walk with me, Suzy Lee
Through the park and by the tree
We will rest upon the ground
And look at all the bugs we found
Safely walk to school without a sound
Safely walk to school without a sound

Here we are, no one else
We walked to school all by ourselves
Theres dirt on our uniforms
From chasing all the ants and worms
We clean up and now its time to learn
We clean up and now its time to learn

Numbers, letters, learn to spell
Nouns and books and show and tell
Playtime we will throw the ball
Back to class, through the hall
Teacher marks our height against the wall
Teacher marks our height against the wall

And we don’t notice any time pass
We don’t notice anything
We sit side by side in every class
Teacher thinks that I sound funny
But she likes the way you sing

Tonight I’ll dream while I`m in bed
When silly thoughts go through my head
About the bugs and alphabet
And when I wake tomorrow Ill bet
That you and I will walk together again
I can tell that we are gonna be friends
Yes, I can tell that we are gonna be friends

Remind you of anyone you know?

2014-03-27
One Trick You Didn't Know For Loud Mastering

One thing these days that lots of people have complained about is extremely loud mastering of music and how it tends to kill the song. I’m someone who has heard many a song released where the mastering and/or mix was so brick wall limited that it ends up sounding distorted, lacking dynamics, and it’s disappointing. It destroys the vibe of the recording, all in the name of attempting to stand out above all others when broadcast to the world. The end result of these loud mixes that are overly compressed and limited is one of making the song sound small and shitty. Small and shitty is not necessarily the result any self respecting musician would ever want for their releases. However, many record labels now force this concept of “make it LOUD” to the mixing engineers and the mastering guys.

Once in a while, a mistake can lead to a new discovery about how to approach doing something. Said mistake can end up starting a new way to look at a problem. Such is the case with an approach George Leger III stumbled upon while putting his mastering skills to the test for my song Touch. I have a version of Touch that has been mastered by the great John Rodd. But before I end up releasing the song, I’ll consider going with a second master based on George’s new technique. To put it simply, it’s mind shredding loud mastering, without sounding distorted or compressed.

Watch as I get George to discuss the process of super loud mastering he stumbled upon, to my buddy Jesse Stern, who is also the co-writer on “Till We Meet Again.”

Loud Mastering

Transcript:

So we can get the low down on all this trickery.

Well really all it is… is this is a 32 bit hard… uh, software mixer right.

Yeah.

But because it’s 32 bit, you can crank the crap out of the levels internally. So I can take this fader and ride it up to say +9. And it won’t clip.

Hmmm.

It chops the top off, but it does it in a way that it doesn’t sound dynamically compressed.

Like a soft clipping type thing?

So you can push it up and it sounds loud without sounding [distorted] compressed. Or distorted. Jody was just like: I don’t know what you did man, but the file you gave me, the mastering… It’s the loudest I’ve ever heard and it’s like doesn’t sound bad at all. It sounds great.

Well, yeah. He did a master of Touch.

Uh huh.

That he gave back to me and I was like it was just… what did I say? Mind shredding loud?

Yeah. It was super super loud. [it was so loud…] I didn’t even realize I had done this when I did it. Until I went back and looked and I went, oh wait a minute I didn’t go through this whole thing that I thought I was going through.

And I’m looking at the meters of my thing and my meters are still going up and down with all the dynamics. I’m like how the F^#$ is it so God damn loud!

Yeah. And not like: Phhhhfffftttt! Like crushed. Normally you do that and it gets crushed. What I discovered is that you can actually use this internal little mixer to jack the heck out of your levels, but it doesn’t distort.

Wow.

And it doesn’t sound compressed.

That’s cool.

It is really cool. Cause it’s like you can add 6 to 9 db of limiting without it sounding at all like that’s what you did. The nice thing that I like about the master that I did is… The attack of the kick and the snare are still there. Dynamically it’s like BAM BAM it just sounds so good. I couldn’t believe it. I was like, what the hell.

Okay, are we ready?

We’re ready. We’re ready. Anybody ready?

Have thoughts on loud mastering for your music – chime in in the comments below. I’m happy to discuss.

2014-03-25

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