Cheer Music and More

As a new gymnastics/dance coach do you ever find yourself without the one driving factor that is crucially compelling to the rhythmic composition of your routine? The MUSIC is what so often drives the energy behind competitive coordination! So why on earth would a team with the goals of being stylish and most importantly winning settle for anything less than the best in music? Just as uniforms and choreography are coveted, so should the musical rendition. At Cheer Music & More we understand that technology has improved the ability for DIY artists to record, mix, master, and arrange music. In spite of this, we have never experienced quite the same results as in our world class recording studio. So to cut to the chase, here is a brief introduction of things to start with when attempting to compose your own custom mix…

Getting Started on Your Cheer Mix

1. Choice of Computer.
While for most general computing activities (such as internet browsing, or creating text documents) PC is more than adequate, for high powered and equally capable digital editing software Mac is the preference of all entertainment industries. One reason for this is due to the seamless and easy installation of programs onto Mac OS X. We don’t know about others in the field, but here at Cheer Music & More we use tons of process intensive applications and plugins, sometimes all at the same time and can’t possibly afford to have driver conflicts like those that so frequently occur in the Windows platform. Sue us for wanting to have an array of sound effect libraries to make you the best possible cheer mix! The quality of our mixes simply cannot be achieved with a run of the mill laptop.


2. Choice of Editing Software.
They call it “Pro Tools” for a reason! This leads us to the obvious declaration of yet another industry standard; Digidesign Pro Tools. Without getting into too much detailed explanation, the other most notable digital editing software among music producers is Ableton, Acid Pro, Cubase, Logic, and Reason. To digress to the Windows vs. Mac operating system analogy, those that crave (or craved I should say) the user friendliness of Windows will understand why Pro Tools is the most prevalent visual editor on the market. Different strokes for different folks rings true but our experienced professional studio engineers have unanimously agreed on Pro Tools. We literally cannot pry it from their user friendly accustomed cold dead hands! In my humble opinion the only other editor worth even considering is Ableton (which is very popular among DJ’s) for it’s program capabilities. It is also worth noting that while heavily used by some of our own advisers, Acid is strictly a PC based application.

3. Choice of DAW.
Since we (like any other professional audio engineer on the planet) don’t typically use headphones as a primary monitoring source, a digital interface is absolutely necessary. There are only a number of audio interfaces that will be compatible with a given editing software, so I will address those that are compatible with Digidesign. There are a couple of options and depending on your computer setup it will be a Firewire, USB, or PCI based interface. Firewire setups for the amateur rig are not quite as important, so we will omit these. PCI setups are primarily manufactured by Avid subsidiary M-Audio and apply only to CPU tower computing but are a nice choice if that is your desired setup. USB will be the most likely candidate of the DIY’er and comes in the most common form of the revolutionary MBox. This would be my natural recommendation as it compliments a Pro Tools based Mac system quite nicely, however I believe there are some cheaper M-Audio based interfaces that will be equally as suitable and conducive to crafting a great mix.

4. Choice of Speakers.
Some of the more subjective topics of choice boil down to our friendly transducers (wacky tech term for speakers and microphones.) While the industry standard loving side of me would like to point you in the direction of used Yamaha NS10′s, the practical and cost effective side says to go with something like a pair of KRK Rokit monitors or my personal favorite the Adam A7 ribbon tweeter monitors, especially since they are self powered and don’t require an external power amplifier. Anything but computer speakers!


5. Choice of Microphone.
Also subjective, but nevertheless a pivotal element in crafting cheer mixes depends on the voiceover and microphone used. A quality dynamic microphone is probably going to be your cheapest and most augmenting bet. While something like a Shure SM58 can be used, there is a higher quality popular radio broadcast mic that would be better named the Shure SM7B. Once again, I reiterate; anything but a computer mic!


Thus the conclusion of the first step to creating your own cheer music by outlining the audio setup needed to perform. Here at Cheer Music & More, we have the luxury of a professional recording studio therefore we combine to mix and match the tools of the trade for the best possible outcome!
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