Why Use Digital Tools in Songwriting?

Series Summary

Digital music began in the late seventies and early eighties with the introduction of synthesizer keyboards into the instrument arena. Although digital music fell into the background during the rise of grunge in the early nineties, it slowly began to pick up pace until it finally exploded back into the music world with the release of Radiohead's "OK Computer" and has been pushing music and its increasingly diminishing boundaries into the next millennium. It is difficult to find an album released now without some form or element of digital songwriting. Digital recording is the norm for studios across the globe and programs like Reason, Ableton Live, and Logic Pro are becoming as common and necessary as microphones to many musicians. Needless to say, digital music and songwriting is here to stay and songwriters are at a disadvantage if they aren't familiar with digital tools for songwriting.

In this free video series, watch as songwriter David Jackel teaches how to use digital tools in songwriting. Learn how non-linear editing affects songwriting, the tools necessary for digital songwriting, how to play along with loops, how to use digital tools to capture song ideas, how to write a digital song from scratch, how to write harmonies with digital tools, how to do midi sequencing, how to write orchestral parts using digital tools, how to record a demo with digital tools, how to write songs with loops, how to convert files into mp3's how to utilize digital distribution for your songs. Let Thom Yorke be your hero, Dntel your muse, and Reason your vehicle, and start forging through the new digital wilderness of songwriting with the help of this free video from the experts at Expert Village.

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm David Jackel on behalf of Expert Village and I am going to talk to you about why you should use digital tools for your songwriting. Now digital tools often get a bad rap among songwriters because they are considered artificial and people will say that it robs you of your creativity. Everything is automatic. That couldn't be further from the truth. Digital tools are a fantastic way to go about songwriting because so many more opportunities for how you can write different approaches and they give you the ability to plan out ideas. To plan out layers which is something that you couldn't do previously unless you were actually writing down sheet music and you could hear everything playing along in your head. Anoither wonderful thing about digital songwriting is you have a really small investment in terms of what you need to do it. Whether you are using the tools specifically just to write songs and not to do a final recording or you are working on something you want to put out as a release, really with just a home computer, some speakers, some audio interface and a few other things, you have a real working studio. Now there is some debate over whether or not digital tools are as good as the original analog tools for recording. So people often talk about tape as being superior. If you speak to older engineers, they are going to tell you that there is a wonderful sound that you can get on analog tape recording that digital cannot replicate. Now if I had invested 10's of thousands of dollars into recording equipment, I would probably said the same thing. But that is simply not the case. The truth is that it is easier to be an amateur and use digital recording so I think that is where that idea comes from but if you know what you are doing, you have so many opportunities with digital than you ever would with analog and I am sure you can replicate the sounds you would get with analog if there was actually a sound test done, people really wouldn't know the difference. One last reason why you really should be using digital tools if you are a songwriter is that they are a way of the future. There are going to be so many more possibilities out there if you are willing to explore the new technology that is out there and you are going to have the ability to communicate with other songwriters. Over the internet you have the ability to chop up your songs. There are so many things that you can do now that you couldn't do even 3 years ago and that is why it is good to learn the new technology so that you can stay ahead of the game and have sophisticated songwriting. "