Do you know why a country music sounds so different from pop and rock music? This is primarily because it’s been produced using different music production techniques. This could either be the songwriting, vocal styles, instrumentation or mixing and mastering techniques. This post would be helpful if you are self-producing your music and targeting country music.
Getting that Country Sound
Country music from all over the world share common similarities. If you listen to American or Australian country music, you could not tell the differences between them; the same with Canadian country music. So how does the record producer give that song a country sound?
It does not start everything at recording but more on the song and the artist itself. The record producer would primary look at these four aspects:
Vocal/singing techniques – country artist has a unique style of singing. They tend to sing more warmly and calm with lots of emotions, feeling and clarity. Unlike other genre, country singers are not ultra-high-pitched singers or too low pitched singers but tend to sing somewhere in the middle. If you are used to listening country music, you can easily distinguish country vocal styles from the rest of the genre.
Songwriting – country artist are often songwriters themselves. They write personal songs with topics focusing on relationships, family and friends. There is a story in the song which the listener could relate to. A country music writer strongly focuses on the song hook because this highly correlates with the song success.
Instrumentation – country music has some music instruments which are not used in other genre. For example banjo, twelve string guitars, ukelele, mandolins, piano are often used in country music but not with other genre.
Mandolin string instrument
Mixing and mastering techniques – if you have listened to a lot of country records, it’s obvious that the vocals are the most important instrument. They give focus on the vocals and the engineer would make it sound dry (less or no reverb applied). The engineer would also give emphasis to the clarity of the instrumentation particularly banjo, guitar, drums and other strings.
The way the guitar sound has been produced has a profound effect on the country sound. For example, record producers would not be using a metal or overdrive distortion on guitars but instead settle for a clean sound most of the time. Overdrive can be used but with little drive to make it sound cleaner than the overdrive sound in rock.
Acoustic guitars are used in all country music album projects making this one of the most important instrument in the music production. Therefore making the acoustic guitar sound great is essential to the success of a country music album. Guitar playing technique is also very important in providing that country sound. Producers would want a majority of the track rhythm to be consisting of strummed six or twelve string acoustic guitar in common time signature.
The bass is used conservatively, making sure that it won’t mud up the entire mix. It is common for the bass guitar notes to be emphasized more than its subwoofer frequencies. And this will make the bass guitar frequencies above the kick drum in the mix. In mastering, vocals and instrument clarity in the middle frequencies is given more emphasis than the bass or high frequencies. This will ensure that the country album would sound great on radio and even in low fidelity systems.
Listening and Observing Country Music Style
The best way you could learn how to produce country music is to listen to a lot of great country music recordings. It could be your favorite country music artist or new artist. It is recommended to observe the following aspects while listening to the song:
a.) How the song was written – observe the lyrical style, theme, stanza, chorus, bridge and the length of the song.
b.) Arrangement and melodies – observe the chord sequence and arrangement of the song.
c.) Vocal/singing style – take note of the singing style.
d.) Instrumentation – observe how diverse are the instrumentation. Take note how many guitar tracks would the song used in its production, as well as other string tracks like banjo, mandolin or ukelele.
Banjo
e.) Mixing and mastering aspect – listen closely how the vocal was mixed as well as the panning, effects, presence of other key instruments in country music such as the acoustic guitar, piano.
Content last updated on July 29, 2012