GPT Recording

Record ALL the genres!

2013-02-27T00:15:00.003-08:00

Recently Mike (guitarist/roommate/guy with long hair) and myself have been doing a lot of recording/mixing/production work and I’ve got to say, it’s been going awesome. I really think the key to how awesome this whole thing has been is just the diversity of stuff we’ve been working on.

The majority of the time we’ve been living together we’ve been working on our own stuff which obviously is amazing to work on and I feel blessed we get to do this ourselves everyday, but we got into formulas. I have a certain way I like to do drums for us. Mike has certain way we do guitars and so on and so on. But lately we’ve had hip hop tracks (Vinnie 1000 shout out) and we’ve had indie tracks and metal (more metal than ourselves) tracks. Trying all sorts of new styles of mixing and editing have been incredibly rewarding so far and I definitely think they will continue to be.

Now I know what you’re thinking, “Dave, I hate [insert the genre you hate here, probably country] and I NEVER wanna work on that.” I then will say, “Hey guy, I hear ya. Or at least I did and now I think you should stop whining and try it.” Yeah you may hate that style (if it's country, I agree, can’t stand it) but that certainly doesn’t mean it has nothing to offer you from a learning standpoint. OR lets think best-case scenario, you bring something to a country mix that you learned recording hardcore yodel punk (probably not a real genre) and it’s the coolest thing anyone in country music has ever heard. BAM! Your album goes platinum. Don’t hold your breath, but hey, it could happen.

Regardless of that ridiculous scenario, everything’s worth doing once because if nothing else, you’ll learn something from it.

Finished Projects and You

2013-02-12T20:22:00.002-08:00

So recently my band Gunpowder Temple finished our first full release (you can find it here). Since then surprisingly, I haven’t been able to listen to more than one song in a sitting. The idea of going back and listening to these mixes is just an awful thought. Something about finishing the EP was so satisfying, but now that it’s done, it’s not so much. After talking to a few other engineers, I realized that this is not an uncommon phenomenon. I busted tail for a month before the release, editing and mixing and going over every detail of each song and basically all it did was completely ruin my own work for myself. So I wanted to address this issue in my blog because as I’ve recently come to find, this is a good thing.

A mix engineer’s job is never done. You could mix forever and never truly be happy with what you’ve put out. This could be because of your mood or just how you feel that day. Either way I’m here to say, “it’s okay.”

Just last week we started recording drums for a set of three songs we plan to put out in a few weeks. The drums tones and workable tracks are so much better than anything we got on the EP and of course this makes looking back on the EP even harder. If only we knew then what we know now.

I’m a firm a believer that every 5 years you will look back and realize how stupid you were 5 years ago. This philosophy applies to everything, even mixing, and honestly can help keep you grounded. I find that knowing this, when I listen to the EP and can’t stop knit picking and wishing I did things differently, what it really means is, I’m growing as an engineer.

Recently I was forced to sit down and listen to our EP all the way through on a home theatre system (ouch!) and thought the whole 30 minutes was pure torture. But looking back I’m glad I had to do it and have learned every time I now re-listen I can think of new techniques and ideas for new projects. Anyway, despite the rambling, the lesson here is, don’t sweat your old mistakes.

Online Resume: Dave Nelson Mix Engineer

2012-12-07T16:35:00.001-08:00

Dave Nelson

dave@gunpowdertemple.com

Objective

Highly motivated individual looking for an entry-level position in the music industry to utilize my experience and education in the recording arts and music business.

Qualifications

Proficient in Pro Tools 9 and Logic

Experience in Audio Post-Production for film and

video games

Proficient in MIDI programming

Experience on SSL Duality, SSL 9000J, AWS 900+, Amek9098i, and Control 24

Experience in soldering/cable repair

Avid musician with extensive musical

background, including:

- Five years in Lead Vocals

- Six years playing guitar

Professional, hard working, fast learner, and works well with others

Education

Full Sail University, Winter Park, FL

Bachelors of Arts in Recording Arts 2011

Studying for a Masters in Entertainment Business with expected completion in first quarter of 2013

Academic Experience

Full Sail Studios A and B: SRD Group Project

Recording/Mix Engineer

- Tracked a 4-piece band to tape through an Amek 9098i. Used a Studer Tape Machine. Project was mixed on an AWS 900+.

Full Sail Audio Temple and Studio B: ASR Group Project

Recording/Mix Engineer/Producer

- Tracked a 5-piece band to Pro Tools through an SSL Duality and SSL 9000J. Project was mixed on an AWS 900+.

Full Sail Mastering Suites: DMS Project

Mastering Engineer

- Mastered a 5 song EP and prepared it for printing/distribution.

Related Experience

Gunpowder Temple (gunpowdertemple.com)

- Orlando, FL

Singer/ Producer/ Recording Engineer/ Band Manager with Gunpowder Temple

- Orlando, FL

Recording Engineer/ Mix Engineer/ Mastering Engineer for Gunpowder Temple “EP”

- Available at gunpowdertemple.bandcamp.com

Work Experience

Spin Street, Mohegan Sun, Uncasville CT June 2008 – February 2009

- Worked in inventory, customer service, and cashier

Hypocritical Rantings About a Contest I'll Probably Enter

2012-11-15T20:49:00.002-08:00

So I just came across this article about Universal and Ubetoo pairing. For those of you who don't know what Ubetoo is, don't worry, no one else does either. It's a site similar to CD Baby and offers artists self-publishing and distribution options. Anyway, Universal is partnering with them to basically run a huge contest to find bands to sign. I'm finding the whole thing a little weird.

Ubetoo's main selling point is that it allows the artist keep 100% of the royalties from their music. Yeah, you read it right, 100%. So the idea that people are gonna compete to get a record deal so they can receive maybe 15%, seems odd to me. You venture to Ubetoo to experience self-distribution and to have a completely different model than a conventional label. And while you're at Ubetoo you can compete to win a chance to be involved in what you went to Ubetoo to get away from? I don't know, seems funky.

I get that maybe some aren't out there searching for self-distribution because they don't want a record deal, but because they can't get one, but still.

Anyway after all that ranting, I'll confess that I'll probably give it a shot. I mean GPT is trying to do the self-publishing thing, but I'll take the cut in royalties for some power behind our record. Lets face it; they have connections, marketing ability, and money we probably won't ever see.

I suppose you could do worse than Universal as well. At least it’s not like Fueled By Ramen or some other indie label that’s probably using Ubetoo for their distribution. As a business student, the idea and details I have come to learn about record deals leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but the musician and kid in me wants nothing more than to be a rock star. If I can maybe do it on Ubetoo, I guess I’ll give it a shot.

You there! Tube it up!

2012-11-15T20:24:00.002-08:00

Recently I've been really getting into a lot of these Youtube artists. Ya know these guys and gals who put all their music out on Youtube and have cool videos that go with their songs. This has actually become it's own form of distribution in a way and I think it's amazing. I can't seem to wrap my head around wanting to do it, but it's cool nonetheless. I mean every time you've got a song, not only do you have to write one, but you then have to film yourself recording it and post it up on for all the world to see. And all the world does see it. And comments on it. In one respect it's cool that you're going to get immediate feedback, but you know that half of the comments are coming from jerks who have nothing better to do than talk crap about your videos. Anyway, I digress.
As far as Youtube for distribution goes, it's not a bad deal. After a certain number of views Youtube pays you and their are plenty of people out there making a living off it. There's vloggers and reviewers and comedy shows that all get payed simply to talk about how they feel about stuff in front of their computer cameras. Talk about a sweet gig. Artists get found all the time, especially hot girls with acoustic guitars (which there seems there will be no shortage of anytime soon.) A lot of times these Youtube success stories can bleed over into the real film and TV world. One of my favorite Youtube acts, Pomplamoose, was featured in a slew of commercials for Honda. One of the members, Jack Conte, does his own side project music that is weird and much more technical and still is surprisingly popular. People just seem to love everything these guys do.
There are tons of artists doing creative original things like Freddie Wong who does better than movie quality CGI from his home and Trudbol who does 50's style acapella covers. I just can't get enough of any of it. This might just be a gimmick that really isn't so gimmicky.

Liability Stuff, ugh.

2012-10-16T21:35:00.007-07:00

I listened to two separate podcasts dealing with entertainment law and the liabilities that can be found. The first podcast I listened to was a Suffolk University podcast on Overprotection in the IP world. While the podcast itself contained a lot I really want to just sum up what was discussed in his talk. Basically what was being described was the difference between what IP law was set up for and what it has become. When IP law was originally designed it was meant to encourage creation. By protecting work and making it not able to be stolen, people would want to create and receive the credit they were due. Now IP law has become a way for people to never give up their rights, even after death. The big example he gave was how Google, as the physical website, is registered as a design and as a utility. Google as a design eventually would loose it’s copyright and eventually become public domain but since it is also registered as a utility (as long as it’s in use) it’s protected. Another example being the 21^st Century Fox song, which is registered as the companies trademark as well as the sound recording. This means even when the sound recording copyright expires, it won’t as a trademark, as long as it’s in use. For an IP holder this is great. For the public it’s seriously limiting to rights we are owed as a society. IP should be allowed to be used by everyone at some point. This overprotecting fad is just going to allow business to keep greedy hands on things that should belong to everybody for as long as they want. I’m sure Disney is studying up.

The second podcast I listened to was the Entertainment Law Update. The episode was called “Cease and desist, but nicely.” This podcast was over an hour and had much too much information to talk about everything, so I’ll touch a few I liked. The first thing they discussed was a lawsuit with the movie 50/50 from music group with the same phonetic name. The music group said they were infringing on the name and the judge apparently watched the movie. He defined that the name was so descriptive on the content of the movie it couldn’t be infringing. Also, in this case and most others, titles of works are generally not copyrightable. I thought this was interesting because when he first was describing the case it seemed so cut and dry and found myself wondering how they would fix it since the movie was already out. But apparently doesn’t matter movie and the music get to both have the name since the movie did such a good job making the name meaningful to the movie. Win for 50/50 and I’m glad. That movie was dope.

Another case they discussed that I really liked was this new technology available in NYC called Aereo. It apparently is this little antenna that connects via Internet and gives you cheap cable to all sorts of devices. Now obviously network companies went berserk when they heard and sued em’. In the preliminary trials the big discussion was that it was infringing on their work based on the fact that it’s a public performance of their work. So far the courts have said this isn’t the case. Apparently, since everyone gets their own antenna, this arguments null and void. Courts said it doesn’t count as public performance and, on those grounds, it’s not infringing. I’m assuming that’s not the networks only big gun defense, but hopefully it’ll help a bit. Either way, I love creative technology getting the best of huge corporations. Makes me feel so proud of my generation.

The last piece I wanna talk about here is more of a morale case. Pretty simple really. Some political group finds a picture of a gay couple making out in front of Manhattan. They take the photo, Photoshop it, and put it in a mailer and send it everywhere. The couple is like, “Whoa, now way you can’t do that.” The political group says, “We can do whatever, people do it to us.” Now apparently the big fuss here is that the political group doesn’t like gays. I have NO idea why they’re putting gay couples kissing in their mailers if they don’t, but that’s beside the point. This case hasn’t been brought anywhere, yet. They’re just spitting fighting words at each other for the moment and I can’t wait to see where it goes.

Anyway, after listening to an hour and a half worth of podcasts I’ve concluded this: people will sue you over everything. I myself am gonna hire myself a decent lawyer before I do anything.

Some Liability Stuff

2012-09-26T21:42:00.003-07:00

For this weeks blog I’m focusing on liabilities within the recording industry and the entertainment industry as a whole.

The first case I came upon was rather disturbing in nature really. A woman named Nicole Westmoreland is suing Cash Money Records because she was allegedly sexually assaulted in the studio’s bathroom. She said she was at the studio to make a business proposal and was assaulted before giving the presentation. Her serious claim to liability was that the alleged assaulter was a friend of the studio owners and they were aware that he was dangerous. I find myself agreeing with the woman in this case that the owners are liable. The owners claim that her story about what occurred is incorrect and that the company “is not liable for criminal acts of an employee, unless they should have foreseen those acts were going to occur.” As owners, they are responsible for knowing who is in their studio and that the people they allow to be there, whether employees or friends, on the company’s property and on the company’s time, represent them. While no one should plan for sexual assault on their studio’s premises, criminal acts are something that should be considered when thinking about liabilities.

The next case I found was much simpler and definitely a cut and dry outcome. Recently, Dr. Dre has been sued by Paramount for failure to pay his bills. They are claiming breach of contract and over a large sum of time that Dre had rented out the studio. The Studio is suing for $1,220,500 and it seems they’re going to get it. These kinds of cases always seem so ridiculous to me. Dre’s got plenty of cash to pay and all he had to do was pay it by July 13^th. Now I’m sure he’s going to have to pay more and he looses a valuable industry relation over money he’s now going to have to give them anyway. Without knowing more details, shame on you Dre.

The third I looked into is more of a movie issue, although the premise is the same across many more media outlets. Back in 2011, the company behind The Hurt Locker (Voltage Pictures) decided to sue 24,583 different people over sharing their movie over the Internet. Now this is by no means a new issue and companies are suing over this torrent stuff everyday, but what I found interesting is some of the defendant actions. ISP information is tricky and has a lot of available loopholes. If the ISP information is stored in RAM it’s not solid evidence what’s its relating to. Some people claim it was others using their Internet that committed the offense. And where the servers are located that provide the files, may make the United States unable to even touch the information. But in 119 motions the judge decided to dismiss all of them. Now I am an avid believer in the fact that downloading is a good thing and unstoppable at this point. The industry needs to learn to adapt and change the way it does business. This is such a horrible step in the wrong direction and simply a money grab. The article states that Voltage is interested in offering settlements to the parties. If half of the people accused accept, the company makes more money off of them then the movie made in the box office. Why not just make them pay double blu-ray rates for the loss? 24,000 people giving up 120 bucks is still almost 3 million. Can they really justify loosing that much? Regardless of how I feel about it, this whole torrent thing isn’t going away. Studios and other entertainment companies should just start to anticipate and compensate.

Native Changes the World

2012-09-12T22:01:00.001-07:00

Avid has just released the new Native Thunderbolt. This amazing new device allows any Pro Tools user the ability to use Pro Tools HD on any computer. Instead of shelling out 13k for cards and 3k for an interface, this devices takes the position of the cards at just 3k. For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about here, here's a small breakdown. Pro Tools is available for anyone for a few hundred dollars and can be used on any computer. Pro Tools HD is far more powerful and far more expensive and normally requires specific cards and computer abilities to run. This has in the past made HD only available to full production studios or rich pricks who feel they need this sort of system in their home. Native brings this price pont way down. While the number is still high for the home user, it's perfect for small studios.

Now you may be thinking, "Changing the world is a bit strong, don't you think?" It may be, but it just might change the music world. I have discussed a multitude of times about how home studio recording is a bittersweet movement that may threaten the integrity of the recording industry, but I think that this kind of stride is PERFECT.

The price point means that it won't be idiots in their garage buying it. It'll be start up studios who do amazing work with little money that will realize the potential of an investment into this technology. The analog to digital battle is still roaring and while analog will never be dead completely, this a step in the direction of digital. This is also a step in the direction of smaller budget albums and more money for artists. While this may seem like a leap, I assure you it's not.

With this new technology, small studios can make better recordings. These small studios won't charge as much and produce the same quality recordings. Bands can use less money to produce an album and ultimately no have to recoup as much for the recording process. This can lead more overhead and give bands the ability to try and experiment with new pricing options to counter the loss on record sales. Assuming any of this happens, Native changes the world (music world).

In a sad attempt to round this out to something about Management, I would say this why I feel it's important for managers to keep up on technology. Maybe look for a studios with this sort of technology in it. They can be guaranteed that lower cost studio really knows what they're doing and they get a little bit more security that they're doing all they can to get the best quality. Either way when I can afford it, I'm buying one.

iOs Recording, really?

2012-07-18T21:14:00.004-07:00

Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of news on iOS recording. If you’re not familiar with any new technology and haven’t seen the internet or TV before, this is recording using iPads or Ipods and software that runs on these and other mobile devices. Many people are talking about how this is the future of home based recording. So is this a step in the right direction?

It’s no secret that professional studios are running scared of all this new technology available to consumer market. Just a decade ago, recording in your home and getting a sound even a tenth of the quality of a pro studio was impossible. The equipment wasn’t available but more importantly the computers weren’t there. Sure the early 2000s saw a huge jump in technology and computers were faster than anything we’d ever seen but they weren’t quite yet comparable. Now the cell phone everyone is carrying around in there pocket is more powerful than half the computers that were used to launch the first space shuttles to the moon. Everyone and their mom can make professional sounding music on a laptop, and the worst part is they do. Horrible recording are made everyday at home and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Now you don’t even need a computer, just an iPhone and minimal amount of equipment.

Now it’s hard for me to bash on the idea that everyone can record and not feel a bit hypocritical. I mean, I record at home, what makes me better? Well for one, I went to school to become an audio engineer and I have enough experience to make claims about my quality that I can live up to. But that aside, just because everyone can afford to buy a paintbrush, does that mean anyone who does is a world-class painter? I’m not knocking the at home musician who makes songs for himself and friends. That’s fine. Have a hobby and enjoy yourself doing. I’m knocking the guy who buys a Macbook Pro, downloads Garageband and tells everyone he’s got a studio and starts charging for recordings. It’s insulting to the education I spent time and money on.

I know that Mac really loves money, and I get that they just want to make more of it. In their position, I would probably do the same. But giving everyone the same tools makes it seem like the line between professional and consumer should be allowed to blur. Recording on tablet and phone devices is the beginning of the end of an era.

Auto-tune, good or bad?

2012-07-10T21:38:00.003-07:00

There’s a new trend in music today. Someone goes into the studio, they sing crap, and polished, shiny vocals some how end up on the track. The culprit: Auto-tune. I myself, as a singer, use auto-tune and Melodyne and I will openly admit that I do. But I use it to clean and make sure everything is just how I want it. It’s not a fall back for me and certainly do just let bad takes get recorded because, “Whatever, it’ll get fixed later.”

For all the good Auto-tune has done, it has done some serious bad as well. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive it for making Lil’ Wayne and T-Pain’s careers possible.

But what I am really upset about it that for these years, Auto-tune has been tricking me. Making me think everyone who uses it must be a god-awful singer. Now I love to judge, and I certainly love to judge singers, but now I can’t. I listen to radio and everyone sounds perfect, all the time. There’s no dynamics and no emotion. Skills cannot be properly assessed. How would I know if any of these cookie cutter pop singers were good?

Auto-tune has become so popular that the tone and overuse is a DESIRABLE sound. I cannot even get over how crazy this is. People in studios are actually saying, “I want this singer to sound like they can’t sing at all.” I’m sure not why I get so heated about this because the music it affects isn’t music I even listen to. Maybe it’s that all this overproduced crap is threatening my integrity as a singer. Or maybe it’s just that I hate Katy Perry and anything she endorses just turns into a steaming pile in my eyes (goodbye Pepsi).

Like my favorite super hero says, “With great power comes great responsibility.” While this seems a bit heavy to be about Auto-tune, I think it fits. Auto-tune is a powerful tool that used subtly and correctly can make a great singer sound incredible. This does not mean it should be used to make horrid rappers talking, sound like they have any musical skills at all.

RIAA and a Dying Industry

2012-06-10T22:24:00.003-07:00

It’s no secret that downloading has affected the industry greatly in the past decade. Everywhere you turn there’s new music out there and no one is paying for it. The idea that this is a bad thing is one I don’t agree with. Record labels are constantly struggling with the idea that they need to stop piracy and get back to fans paying for their music again. I think that the system is broke and we need to accept it. Things are never going to go back to the way they were. The Internet has made this impossible. We never going to have a huge genre wave again and no one is going to think that music shouldn’t be free.

The RIAA is one of the major organizations that are trying to hold on and keep people paying for music. In some ways what there are doing is a good thing and in others a bad. They’ve made it possible for bands to license their music out to other forms of media and this has become a huge source of revenue for artists. There are now over 400 licensing companies and the digital licensing revenue for 2009 was 3.8 billion dollars. But they are also responsible for copyright infringement acts which have really only become a nuisance. Anyone with semi-decent Internet skills can find millions of other ways to download and they do.

They also unsuccessfully brag about the streaming services they’ve helped create, which on the surface look great but really are just hurting artists. “Spotify racked up one million plays of Lady Gaga's 'Poker Face', and paid the artist just US$167 (GBP100) in royalties,” according to Gizmag.com. Lady Gaga is obviously huge and any artist who can’t pull that kind of play weight, which is most, could never dream to see a check even that big.

Luckily a lot of artists have just come to accept they aren’t going to make money from their recorded music anymore. They try,along with others, to come up with other sources of revenue to make up for the income that records can no longer bring in. A site called BandHappy.com gives fans the ability to take lessons from some of their favorite artists for a preset price by the artist. New and exciting things like this are the direction the industry needs to head.

The RIAA is a great organization that has been doing a great job in the industry for years but it needs to adapt to the times. The ideals of the company and the music world need to take a hard look at the future and make the changes necessary to keep artists alive and fans interesting in contributing.

This is Broken

2012-06-03T23:48:00.005-07:00

I watched a speech by Seth Godin last night called “This is Broken.” The point of the video was him talking about how and why things are done incorrectly and not fixed. This is an idea I think about everyday. I am constantly running into things in my life that don’t work and there’s no reason they should be like this.

Mr. Godin is certainly no the best speaker I’ve ever seen but he’s relatable and that seems to be his strong point. He comes off like someone you know and stays that way throughout his speech. Often times I see speeches, especially on TED, from “gods among men” and they are difficult to relate with. Their intellects are staggering and their resumes are endless. But back to his topic.

In his speech he identifies a base seven reasons for why these things are created. These seven things are: Not my job, Selfish jerks, The world changed, I didn’t know, I’m not a fish, Contradictions, and Broken on purpose. Now the most glaringly apparent in everyday life are not my job, selfish, and I’m not a fish, which is personally my favorite and a serious oversight in most designs.

Without going through all the examples and essentially restating his speech, I’ll go through the important ones. Not my job is obvious in that if something doesn’t work well or is broken, if it’s not your job, who cares. Selfish is another easy one because everybody is familiar with using things that work horrendously just because it’s better for someone else. The, I’m not a fish isn’t so direct and basically means whoever designed it was not the intended market of the product. They never had to use it and therefore, never saw it’s flaws. This seems like something that should never be overlooked in the design phase, but apparently only a select few designers feel this way.

Now these all are horrendous reasons to ever make something work terribly, but it happens constantly. Personally if nothing else, Mr. Godin’s speech makes me feel like this kind of thought process should be present in the creation of anything. I should never put my name on anything without going through all the ways my product could be used, looked at, or judged and make sure on every level it makes sense. Releasing products that make anyone question its purpose or design is unacceptable, ever.

Good god, those speakers are how much!? : Beats by Dre Studio Review

2012-05-08T12:40:00.003-07:00

Recently I’ve been seeing Beats by Dre everywhere. And honestly, I’ve gotta say, I’m appalled. These things are on the head of every idiot who thinks he’s a producer. The things are a goddamn three hundred dollars and the claim to be all that you need in headphones. Well, if you’re thinking about buying a pair and you don’t have a smart audio friend who’s already said this, DON’T. So anyway, here's my Beats by Dre studio review.

I like Dr. Dre for the most part, although I’m pretty sure he’s really only a doctor like Dr. Pepper is a Dr., but these past big moves of his are really starting to make me doubt whether I can respect him as an artist. I’m not a big fan of the Coachella Tupac thing, but if that goes anywhere I’ll have another separate post on that mess. As a businessman though, I really can’t think of anything more genius. Make a terrible pair of headphones for next to no cost, say they’re amazing, get Monster to endorse (ensuring quality ha ha), and laugh your way to bank twirling a tiny moustache and spinning your monocle.

First off you can tell the headphones are crap before you even buy them by checking online for specs. They can’t be found. No self respecting headphone company would put up “studio quality” headphones without AT LEAST frequency range. But check on Musiciansfriend.com, and there are none to be found. That being said, you could even read reviews because frankly, they’re not very good, to say the least. You could go to studios and search you’re little heart out for anyone professional using these headphones to ensure that Dre couldn’t have possibly lied to you. But alas, you wouldn’t find them. Lastly look at the damn price. 300 dollars for these junky things!? Why!? There are a million things you could do better with 300 dollars. Someone could start their own blog with that idea. “A million things that could be done with 300 dollars instead of buying Beats.” I’d read that blog. Everyday.

Besides all my ranting, I heard em’ the other day and they just sounded terrible. You can create the same bass boosting effect on you iPod’s EQ for nada. Don’t play into the fad and waste your money. Go buy some Sennheisers or if you really wanna drop some big dough, buy some Grados.

Anyway, off this subject, Me and Cody are starting up some freelance work out of the home studio called “Saxony Lane Studios.” I’ll be posting about what we do here when it starts to take off. If you want some work done or whatever after reading my rantings, I’m amazed, but as always go to the about page for some contact info.

Live Instruments with MIDI, Make MIDI Work for You

2012-05-02T00:57:00.001-07:00

With the advent of MIDI becoming fast, easy, and cheap, I hear a lot of people's home recordings filled to the brim with MIDI sounds and instruments. MIDI has changed the way we record and will continue to, but is it really a good thing?

For those of you who don't know what MIDI is, it is Musical Instrument Digital Interface. In short, it is a way to take electronic signal and convert into a piece of data that tells a plug-in to a play a sound when triggered. This means anyone who knows how to play a keyboard can basically play any instrument ever made. It can also be used for sequencing which is the same process except that you "write" the notes in on the computer, making even knowing to play a keyboard unnecessary. To most this idea sounds great. I can play any instrument without having to know how to actually play it? Yes, but should you?

In the case of a low income studios or home studios, MIDI is great for creating instruments too difficult to record in a small space or with a lack of gear to accommodate. But now what we're getting into is overkill. Many hip hop tracks and rap tracks feature no musicians, other than the rapper or singer. What you get out of this digitalized process is stale, overused sounds again and again. Even worse than this is a song that has great sounding MIDI tracks and horrible sounding live tracks. Often I come across tracks where the drums sound great because they're not real and the vocals sound terrible because they didn’t know how to record live musicians well.

It has always been my theory that MIDI is last resort or only there to add to the live instruments. In this case there are tons of new plug-ins and tricks to help you use MIDI to your advantage. Here's just a few.

Add MIDI Sounds Behind Real Ones

On a track I recently worked on, we decided that we want a choir during the chorus to really fill out the mid section and give full feeling to chord progression. Obviously we don't have a choir at our disposal so we had to make due. Most people would then pull up a MIDI choir then sequence or play in a chord progression and leave it. Anyone who doesn't have an eight thousand dollar choir samples knows, they all sound terrible. Instead we recorded a couple of us singing the main lines and layered over and over again to make 4 people sound like a choir. Then we put a MIDI version of the progression low, behind the makeshift choir to fill out voices we didn't have. Now what you're left with is choir that has real human elements and full sounds without ever having to record a full choir, but also not resorting to an awful sounding MIDI choir. East West has some great samples that don't break the bank too bad and we have a great time using. I’d recommend them for almost any situation.

Use MIDI Samplers for Drum Replacement

Common practice now is to replace certain parts of your drum kit with samples and this is a newer technique I couldn't agree more with. Using samples for your kick and snare are usually essential, especially in rock and metal. The great thing about this is that your whole kit otherwise, is usually real. Most of the time, for a more human element, you can layer the sampled sounds over the real ones to add differences to the samples. The best drum sounds I've come across so far is Toontrack's Superior Drummer. It has amazing sounding samples and works great just for demo-ing out things where all MIDI isn't an issue. Superior drummer is a little expensive but worth every penny. If it's still too much, Toontrack's EZDrummer has more modestly priced options. Another great plug-in for this is Drumagog. It does drum replacement in real time and saves some serious time if you've got the processing power.

Make Your Own MIDI

Most modern DAW's allow you to assign your own samples to MIDI notes. This a great technique for a lot of reasons. If you're creating your own drum samples you can record each drum specifically and get exactly the sound you want out of your own drums. You can "record" your set even if you don't have the means to record it all at once. The great thing about spending the time making great samples is other people want them. You can sell a sample library and good ones go for quite a lot of money.

By no means do I hate MIDI and I don't want to make it sound as if that's the case. I think it a commodity that is being overused in the wrong applications. MIDI is great for assisting your recordings and helping add to the sound, but it shouldn't be your whole sound. Hopefully these tips can help you use it in more creative ways.

Gauge ECM-84

2012-04-24T00:31:00.000-07:00

So here's the first blog post of GPT recording. The idea and point of this blog is going to be ideas for those of us recording with low income. I'm gonna start this first blog with a review of some mics I picked up recently. The mics I purchased were the Gauge ECM-84s. I purchased a pair for 84$ a piece and so far I'm really happy with the purchase.

The cost alone is enough to make these mics worth it. Personally I am a stickler with small diaphragm condensers and I don't normally find myself in need of any. I've found that overall for cymbals they can't add the beef I'm looking for and most other situations can be solved with a good large diaphragm. That being said these mics sound great and I've had a lot of luck with acoustic guitars. Usually I throw them around the 12th fret and they gather the right amount of string noise coupled with clarity of notes.

We did a lot of comparison with the Rhode NT-2A, which is a tried and tested mic I like a lot and in situations where low end isn't the goal, they perform just as well. The frequency response is nice and clarity is in all the right places. It's got a bit of a bump around 5 and 8k, which is typical for a mic like this. The nice thing about this mic also, is the capsules. Gauge provides capsules to switch the pattern from cardioid to omni which is a great feature they didn't have to include.

Another thing I really like about the mic is how fast it arrived after I bought it. This new company is making sure they initially treat their customers’ right, which is the best way to go about it. With a pad and a low frequency roll off you can't beat this mic for the price.

To check out specs or purchase one you can go to their site: Gauge. When I was thinking about purchasing, I perused the Internet for other reviews and everybody seems to come to the same conclusion I have. For another opinion that really pushed me in the right direction you can read RecordingHacks review. Be on the lookout for this company getting more followers in the future and make sure you pick up some of their stuff before the prices rise.