[Exclusive Engagement] Fuad Murad and the power of simplicity
At the first shake of a hand, Fuad Murad is a quiet and unassuming personality. His soft spoken tone and extremely humble body language can easily be mistaken for a simpleton’s take on life. Getting to know him though, as you will find out, is a fascinating and truly absorbing experience. Learn about the man, House Hold productions and why he believes that professionally recorded and mastered music doesn’t have to only be for people with money to spend.
What is the vision behind “House Hold productions”?
It’s basically me. The name came because you can mix and master music professionally from home. My vision is to help artists achieve excellent results with minimum costs and high quality.
For the mixing and mastering service, in Kuwait there are very few places like ramco, nazaer and they are usually overpriced, and you’re not getting a multinational experience. Nazaer deals with Arabic music, and some basic rock. I’ve lived in the middle east so I have the Arabic music ear, and then I lived abroad and got into hip hop, electronic dance house and the like. So it offers an ear for every genre of music, so the quality of the mastering and mixing process is based on an international approach.
There is a lack of versatility in the music industry in Kuwait. You can see through Kuwait music that there are a lot of genres, rock metal, electronic but most of the bands and DJ’s are typically hooked onto 2 or 3 genres.
I’m also offering a distribution service internationally, and nobody will own what you have except yourself. I’m not a record company but if you want to make music , mix it , master it and distribute it then I can help you and on a budget. There is no contract.
What is the differences between home based productions utilizing software and laptops, as opposed to full studio set ups?
First of all this is not a recording studio this is a post-production studio. So if you wanna go record your instruments you go to a studio. Then there is a whole mixing, eq, compression process that makes it sound good and master it, so what we do here now is post production. If you are a musician who wants to record you go to a studio . Mixcraft is 80 usd, a software that I master my songs on.
I am currently writing an article on how to setup a home studio.
You provide sound and light services as well. What is your typical process from concept to completion?
First you have to estimate the band member count, instruments, number of songs, and the style and vision for the lights and sound. So take the musician’s vision and reflect it in reality. Even if you don’t’ want to pay a lot of money you don’t have to have a poor quality show.
What genres of music do you specialize in?
In terms of mixing and mastering it doesn’t matter what genre because it’s the technical process that makes a difference. For example if you give me a country song, I know how a drum kit is supposed to sound , I know how the guitar is supposed to sound . But in terms of composing the music my style is hip-hop and electronic music because I don’t play any instruments.
Progressive house is my favorite, I just recently got into electronic music, unlike traditional music you are not limited to the instruments. But in electronic music it’s limitless, so if you’re creating a song and you have a certain sound in your head you can create it there is no limit on its effects creatively.
My influences are “Deadmouse” He is Canadian and is very unique in the sound he has defined and created. Adam k is another one..
Watch Fuad mix and master Caesar’s guitar piece:
Kuwait Music Exclusive – Fuad Murad and..
You’re a self-taught artist . Can you tell us the experience you gained through this time? It’s tough to keep up with the latest tools.
I’m always researching and listening to music. If you wanna produce music you need to listen to music. I listen to what they do, listen to the sounds they use, the techniques they’re using. I ask myself how they did that. It’s a lot of experimentation, and a lot of the time musicians come up with sounds by experimenting. You can focus on a certain genre but you need to keep up with the latest music .
Do you believe there is a future for the recording and mixing industry in Kuwait?
I definitely think there is a future in Kuwait even if its’ underground. And the rules change all the time and it’s a big issue in Kuwait, musicians don’t have a platform and they don’t have the venues. And the more things get shut down, the more people are scared and stop doing what they’re doing.
That’s why musicians here they need to go to someone.
What resources did you have to use to learn what you have learned?
I started singing, then rapping when I was at AIS, and my friends were break-dancers, so we did a show. Then I went to Canada and studied nutrition and health science. I met a friend who used to play a lot of instruments and he had his own studio so I said “you know what I wanna try this”. This was back in 2004.
I came back to Kuwait in Jan 2007, and I got a job. Then I realized it’s not working out. So I wanted to produce my own music. So I started learning from scratch. I started by watching videos downloading protools logic, and every software you can imagine. I don’t’ know how to play any instrument…. Yet.
I design the sound, so I don’t take anything from anywhere.
My philosophy is that you don’t need to go to an expensive studio to produce your music, you can get a microphone for 100 usd and the rest you can do on software.. so whoever is doing music now is really lucky. I am also working with Ali Sleeq on an electronic jazz project right now.
With all the internet cloud computing technology available, how will you compete ?
Online distribution is to get your music to services like amazon, itunes, etc and actual music stores around the world. I deal with a lot of companies and stores that are specialized in indie music and my business model is different.
Picture Gallery:
About the Author
Caesar (Kuwait Music) Caesar is the Founder and CEO of Kuwait Music. A passionate musician and web nerd, Caesar spends most of his time thinking about how to build a healthy music business in the region Follow Caesar at the below links: Google+
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Great another option to consider for post-production. I’ve done soooooo many mistakes while going through that process so this is really exciting to me on a personal level. I wonder if Murad was willing to provide basic mixing and mastering lessons on KM. I know I’d be interested.
Surprise , Surrise Ahmad! Fuad has been graciously awesome and is going to be contributing regularly and provide some cool articles on KM as well as on his site
All the best!
Awwwwwesome. NOOOO MOOOORE SAILING WITHOUT A MAAAAAAAP!
Lol
Brilliant stuff! keep up the good work and all the very successes with your business…
Thank you guys for the wonderful comments, Ahmad, I will definately be doing mixing and mastering lessons on Kuwait Music and am actually planning to do seminars and workshops as well, and of course you can always send in your music for mixing and mastering through the website too.
There you go Ahmad , you heard it from.the man himself !
keep your excellent job and let me know when decide doing lessons….I really need it, would help me with my main problem -I am classic piano performer and at this current moment in my life I realized that old method of creating music is more than not enough for me
:):)
Thank you so much Didi, I will let everyone know when I get things setup, for now you can just visit the website and join the newsletter so you can stay up to date with any news and I will let you know
, just click on my name and it will take you to the website
awesome!!
respect , spread the music !
Duplicating a mono track and panning the tracks hard left and right will definitely not turn them into a stereo track because the audio signal is identical. The duplicated modulation and/or time-based effects, inserted on the tracks, might widen up a bit but the track itself will always remain mono. If you want to really turn a mono track to stereo, or just give the track some width, you have to delay the duplicate track around 20-30ms in the timeline and drop around 4-6db of the original track’s volume.
If you just want the effects to be in stereo (basically this is what you are doing in your video when you pan the identical tracks hard left and right) then simply send the mono track to a stereo aux/bus for time-based effects processing for an instant “huge” sound.
Cheers
Hmm, interesting Sarj- Fuad , what’s your take?
Caesar… there is no other take or other side of the coin in this matter. This is not just my opinion, this is a fact.
I.know , but want to know what Fuad thinks as well
Fair enough
You can of course record straight into stereo if you have that option with your input device, the idea here is to make the sound wide and come out of both speakers or out of the left and right in your headphones, not too many people know how to use the stereo delay method and will tend to overuse it which will cause phasing in the sound, what I was showing here is the simplified version of the stereo delay method and I find that the panning method gives a bigger and more satisfying sound. I personally have never used the stereo delay in my music accept for when I want to further bring out the stereo effect of an already stereo sound or for a little extra widening. There is no one right way of doing things in music production and every producer has his/her own way of doing things. Stereo delay will also not make your tracks stereo because they are still only coming out of the center of the stereo field, but when you pan them left and right then they are actually coming of the left and right and not longer in the center, then with some delay and reverb you can bring them back to the center and allow them to take up even more of the stereo field.
My point is there are alot of ways you can achieve a stereo effect, even though the sounds are still in mono when panned hard left and hard right, you can use delay, reverb, alternating eq’s, different amp settings for each sides, stereo delay, phase inverting, and there are even more I can talk about. The example you’re talking about (the Haas effect) in only one way of achieving this, but you would have to use a combination of effects and techniques to get the illusion of stereo separation
I completely agree that the sample delay trick is awesome and is probably the best way to give a wide stereo effect when combined with things like reverb and delay, but this video was not meant to be in depth and technical tutorial, it was just meant to be a simple demonstration on how quick and easy it is to get guitars sounding great in under 5 minutes
Interesting thoughts there Fuad- Im a novice when it comes to this, so I’ll let Sarj comment if he has more to say!