Scooter Music Blog

Moving my Blog

2010-11-29T07:52:00.001-08:00

I've decided to make my life easier and move my music blog to my website. Follow this link http://www.scootermusic.com/ScooterMusic.com/BLOG_NEWS/BLOG_NEWS.html

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Thanks!

Why Did I Ever Break Up With That SuperModel and Why Haven’t I Been Using This Piece Of Software I Paid Good Money For?

2008-10-30T08:25:00.000-07:00

Life is full of many important questions. Here’s one of mine. You’re read a great review of a piece of software, you buy it, install and run thru the presets and then you get busy, you go back to your old tired ways. You load up that same overused Metamorphosis loop or the boring conga samples you always use. WTFN? – it’s not like the deaf producer you’re workin’ for can tell a difference between Tito Puente and your stiff, grimy fingers poking at your keyboard-right? Why am I not currently using something I bought?

So I stumble across a piece of software the other day – launch it and begin messing around, thinking it sounds really good an why the fuck I haven’t been using it - and decide to really dig into it. It’s kinda like finding the phone number of that booty call you used to frequent, then kinda forgot cuz you were in love, and just looking at the number makes you all dizzy and makes your stomach churn like a 13 year old girl at a Jonas Bros show.
The booty I called up is Drumcore and it’s inner child Kitcore. Drumcore is a standalone working thru Rewire and Kitcore is an “in your host app plugin.”

I originally bought the Submersible Music product (hence lovingly referred to as Sub - www.submersiblemusic.com) because of the reviews, the sound quality online, the variety of sounds – and my frustration with Stylus’s lack of real drummer grooves and kit selection. Don’t pressure clamp my balls and rant about Backbeat – I burned out on those grooves 3 years ago. The Sub products fell into the area I like – killer sound with a quick and easy interface.
Well, Drum/Kitcore and I got to know each other again with some really great makeup sex involving wire brushes.

The Preamble (aka Scooter rants on making music not clicking the mouse or staring blankly at computer screen):
1. Manuals: I never read manuals. Believe me, after I have gone thru the usual excruciating process of installing my new purchase, authorizing it, getting it working inside my host seq – well, Martha – I just want to fucking play the thing - not read another intolerable manual.
2. Interfaces: All software interfaces should be at a 3rd grade reading level or lower. Developers need to put all the usual knobs/sliders, the actual knobs/sliders people use - really big and obvious on the first page. Put all the fancy shit programmers jerk off to on another page.
3. All developers should be required to have short tutorials on their website on how to setup their product on various DAWs. Some do, including Submersible, most do not.

Back to the story . . .
Sub did a good job here meeting most of my requirements of great software for working fast and making money. Talk about easy? Kitcore is like a drunk, soon-to-be divorcee perched on a barstool looking to get even with her cheating Ex. Even the bass player has a chance!

48 Pads of drum samples divided into 2 pages – Drums & Percussion. You select kits in a pull down menu. Sub violates one of my cardinal rules here on the interface – where’s my humongous forward/backward preset kit button to change kits???? To beat a dead horse – I’m pretty sure everybody who buys a soft synth at some point is going to want to change patches – and since it seems more likely that Sarah Palin will win the Nobel Prize in Physics before manufacturers come up with a standardized method for keystrokes, I want a big damn UP and DOWN button. OK, rant over, I’ve cried in the shower and I feel better.

Thank God Kit’s list pops up to the last one you selected and you don’t have to scroll down to the bowels of hell to find what you want - like when selecting a font in Word.
Hold Control (never read a manual just try either Control or Option while clicking anything – never fails to work) and click on a drum sound to substitute another kick from another kit – that’s sweet and easy. Basically you have to stick to the layout though – kicks only go in the kick slot. Snares only in the snares slots. Fine 99% of the time unless, of course, I wanted to record my multi movement symphony of cowbells – a brilliant work, btw, that features 71 players with different cowbells all playing as loudly as they can.

Hold on – let’s talk sound quality for a moment. What I’ve been doing is like telling you I just got laid and never once mentioning how beautiful and charming the girl was. Because when it comes to picking up girls – uh - working with software, easy is one thing – but quality - that inescapable desire to hit it over and over – is where the nectar is. And Sub has it. The kits are built from famous drummers the world over. These guys have slapped more skin than a bipolar foster parent with an empty beer fridge. These kits really, really sound great. Lots of samples per key. Easy to play, easy to make sound good – even if you lost half your digits in the wood chipper. Of the drummer packs that I have, by far the strength of Kit is in creating a realistic drummer vibe. But HipHop, drum machine, processed collections aren’t absent – just not as profuse. Kitcore’s real strength is real drumming.

I found a few patches (Ben Smith Oil, Alan White Brownesque) that I felt the kick drum was too low in volume compared to the snare. No big deal. I highlighted the kick pad, then in the “Pad Settings” raised the volume slider and I got the mix I wanted. I then changed kick drums but when I went back to one of those patches – Kit had kind of saved my settings. But it didn’t save it. Hold on, what if I change to another drum kit preset? Does Kitcore automatically change the one I just left? Yeah, it does. Now I fucked up my Alan White kit. Ahh, but if you reinstantiate Kitcore, Alan White is back! I talked to Sub about this and they had two ways of going and it makes sense. Say you are working on a HipHop track. You’ve picked the kit you love, now you want to hear all of their famous drummers play their licks with this kit. That’s the way KitCore works now and that’s the way most of us would work in real life. However when you first load it up and you’re just bouncing thru sounds, it was a little disconcerting to hear Matt Sorum’s big badass rock kit playing New Orleans style rhythms. If Sub did it the other way, where the original kit was loaded when you selected a groove, then you’d have to keep reloading your HipHop kit to hear it the way you want. I suggest Sub keep it the way it is and add a button that says something like “Load Original Kit Used On This Groove”. See? I just solved another one of the world’s problems - now onto corrupt Italian politics.

Each drum pad has Pan and Pitch as well – easy – right in front – the pitch is a nice feature and simple – I do wish “Option Click” reset the fader to the original pitch cuz it slows me down trying to get the slider exactly back on zero. The pitch has the word “original” that pops up when you get back to center – Vol and Pan do not – which led me to notice that panning is subtle in the presets. All of the samples are super high quality stereo 48k/24b files and Sub is leaving it up to you to get more extreme, dare I say risqué, in your panning if desired. I like a wide stereo image – just like my women - so I found that I was pushing the Pan sliders pretty far left and right – and because this is all about me - I wish Sub had set things up in a wider stereo placement as part of the preset – just to make my life easier – and then let me pull the cabassa more center if I wanted. All this pushing and pulling and pulling and pushing. I’ve got this weak, arthritic wrist thing going. My Mom warned me about going blind – but she never said I might not be able to thrust and tug on my sliders. Small gripe? Absolutely.

KC (cuz we’re BFFs now) has a thing called Live Drummer, which is a slider that brings some realistic feel into your lifeless midi grooves by subtly changing velocities on samples – this thing really works! No more messing with velocity on individual drum hits – I love this feature. The newer libraries with lots more layers on each drum work best. Now if only Sub made it for that Euphonium player that was in here last week! Talk about no feel, no emotion! I’m going back to bass trombone from here on out. I might have had some fun with the labeling of the slider though– you get only Off at one end, Default in the middle and Max on the right (with 100 variations in between) but how could they not have labeled these “Stiff Republican Robot Drummer With Nonexistent Feel” on one end and “Doped Up Groove Meister Most Likely Carrying Weed You Can Bogart From Him” on the other??

Groove Section (midi grooves) – this is too easy! Like hooking up with your sister (shout out to my Nashville friends – what’s up????!!!!!) Select either Drummer or Style. You can further filter by selecting Feel. That reminds me of the only good line in “Leatherheads” – Clooney says “You’re only as young as the women you feel.” You can also cut to the chase by going with Fills or Loops. Thank you Submersible for allowing me to search fills – all the fuckin fills (yeah, you hit ALL on the left, unclick LOOPS on the right and make sure you have selected FILLS and sure as mommy did the milkman, every fill in your Kitcore library is there.) Do I want more Fills? Always, but being able to list the fills and choose? Priceless. Why is it that every time I hear a drummer play all they do is fill, fill, fill. Then they make a drum loop library and there ain’t a fill to be found!

Attention Drum Loops Makers!!!! The fills are the hard things to create for us rhythmically challenged Neanderthals. Please add shitloads of fills to your libraries – better yet, release libraries of fills only.
Also! The ability to search for all fills should be required of all drum software makers under penalty of death! No even better – torture them first – then kill them.

Time to import your groove to your seq? Just drag either the name of the loop or the cool little midi graphic to your Seq – blam! AC/DC is on the phone.

KC has a cool window under the midi groove that displays original tempo, meter, duration and feel - this is where Sub could tell me which kit was originally used to create the groove - especially when it comes to Latin styles and quirky grooves where the right samples on the right pads is key to the sound. Yeah, I know a Latin groove with 808 samples is dope and “I’m a genius cuz I swapped out some drum sounds on a midi loop” – but if I want authentic Latin, I gotta keep bouncing around thru drums sets till I think I get the right one. And did I? Is Luis Conte gonna beat down my door when the timbale part is erroneously being played on the conga rim?

When you have both Kitcore and Drumcore installed, you have a choice of pointing to either data library. I have mine pointing to Drumcore. But if you do that, not all of the audio grooves in Drumcore exist as midi files and Kitcore only plays midi grooves. So if you open the folder from MPC Lockbox, there aren’t any midi grooves because none exist – which is stylistically weird since all the grooves are Hiphop/dance things. Also, my MPC Lockbox single drum hits won’t show up if I steer the Kitcore Data location to Kitcore and not Drumcore. This seems awkward and I feel like I would be missing some killer sounds by pointing my Kitcore to the wrong data. Granted, I imagine not many users own both Drumcore and Kitcore so they’d never notice it but still, it should be addressed. (Sub says they are going to put up a FAQ that explains how to incorporate the KitCore kits into the DrumCore database so you only have to have one Uber library going.) – Note to self: Can we get an editor in here to make sense of that paragraph? It was long-winded and confusing and started to sound like a typical review in a music magazine.

Which one should you get? If you absolutely love the audio only grooves that some of Sub’s drummers recorded, and you like to roll your own, i.e., load custom drum samples into DrumCore and make your own presets – you have to go with Drumcore. On the other hand, Kitcore is easier to use than Drumcore. The drums are plainly laid out, the controls you need are handy, it’s just right there at your fingertips, all on one page. Drumcore is a bit deeper but you get more. When you select a groove, you get all of the audio and all of the midi and all of the fills laid out before you. It seems quicker to get a full groove laid out for a song. But you also gotta open another window to change individual drum kit sounds. And with Drumcore you’re working in a stand alone program so you gotta keep switching back and forth and remembering to either turn on the Transport/Sync button to control your host and vice versa – or not. BTW, I found it disconcerting that when you load a kit in DrumCore, no sound is made the first time you hit the key. I had to gliss up and down to load all the samples so that I could play a groove. The default is that the sounds are not loaded until a midi event is sent to that pad. It saves on memory because you’re not loading a bunch of sounds you aren’t using. There is a setting in the DrumCore preferences to check that says “Preload drum kit on startup or select.” Personally, I don’t care about memory. I’ve lost most of mine thru careless, immature behavior so why should I give a damn about the memory on my MacPro? Sub is considering changing the default to loading all the drum sounds on select and I agree 100%. Coincidentally the same amount I think Obama should be President.

Since I have both Sub programs (visualize blatant boasting and displaying of large male genitalia) – I use Kit for my drums and midi grooves cuz it’s easy and I prefer plugins over standalone software. I use Drumcore for all of the audio grooves I can’t get in Kitcore plus I’m toying with creating a couple of custom kits.

Kitcore is my go to realistic drum sample program now. I’m even beginning to transition to using it on some dance tracks but I have to run it in multi out mode in order to get the separation for each drum (which usually has some kind of effect/processing going on).

For me, there’s always a fine balance between killer sounds and ease of use. I won’t touch anything that doesn’t sound great. And that includes female singers. But if an app is too difficult, I won’t use it. When you’re on a deadline or too drunk to screw, you don’t want demanding and complex. You want instant, straightforward satisfaction and no last names. Or cell numbers. Yes, you can buy drum software that comes with varying mic placements and effects and 1,000 options and 14,000 ways to waste your day. Or you can hire a real drummer. Submersible covers that middle ground where most of us work most of the time and does it really, really well.

Be sure and download their latest manual online since it has more info than the one on my install disk and check out the nicely done video tutorials at www.submersiblemusic.com.

Also, I’ve been told that Submersible will be releasing a new drummer pack from Stephen Perkins of Jane’s Addiction fame on November 25th. That will be sweet and rockin’.

The “If I Controlled The World” Section:
I wish dance/techno/rave/house/breakbeats were better represented but that might be in the works. I also believe -because of the effortless interface - film grooves – you know, cool, atmospheric, phased, filtered, odd drum grooves – would be extremely popular for Sub to release.

HEAVYOCITY - EVOLVE - Feel The EVOL

2008-10-04T10:24:00.000-07:00

Got a lot of response from people about the OMNISPHERE blog I posted so I thought I would try and keep up with all the stuff I buy and use – talk about the stuff that works for me. Talk about things that will improve your life, make you a better man, help you better understand the intricacies of choosing a qualified running mate.

When it comes to learning a new interface, my level of patience is on a par with a pissed off Bill O’Reilly. I load the new software up and just start poking at it until something oozes out. Apparently I have time to write blogs but not fiddle with software or read manuals. Because of this unbecoming flaw, I like software well organized, easy to use, with simple interfaces, big buttons - things a monkey(or a tv composer) can use even if their faculties have been – uh, compromised.
So I loaded up Heavyocity’s EVOLVE (www.heavyocity.com) – and btw – I tried real hard to come with some clever pun on the title involving the word LOVE and EVOLVE but kept getting stuck on EVOL which I realize is love backwards but figured you’d rather hear about the product than me complaining about the “jumbled word syndrome” I’m seeing a doctor about.

Heard about the product from a composer friend who heard from other composers in LA who are using it and loving it. I figured I should rush out and get it so I could sound like everyone else in LA and land that next weight loss reality show gig. Fingers crossed! You gotta buy EVOLVE direct from the website - $400 – no street price –– Heavyocity tells me they have made a distribution deal and it will be in stores soon. (Translation: cheaper???)

EVOLVE runs in Kontakt 2 - so that’s easy. It’s made by composers who know what it takes to score 4,000 minutes of music in a day. It’s geared towards tv/film/game composers who like to be dramatic. Wishy washy, namby pamby, “I’ll just score this bandsaw decapitation scene with flute and harp” maestros need not apply. The website blurbs claim it works on dance remix material as well but it didn’t strike me that way on my first pass but I’ll give it a spin around the block on this techno record I’m doing and let you know how it turns out.

THE ONE SENTENCE REVIEW:
Great sounding hits, FX, weirdness, rhythmic and tonal sequences that are well organized, easy to find and well suited for dramatic scoring.
Should you get it? 99% Yes. The only people who might not need it is the few freaks who already own 20 other pieces of software like both Storm Drums, Omnisphere, Stylus RMX, both original Distorted Reality sample CDs, another 100 sample CDs, and a bunch of other weird shit – and these people have spent 6 long months pulling the best stuff off them and reorganizing them into an easy to use interface in categories that make sense, making sure all the looped material syncs correctly to your sequencer, all the levels are balanced, blah blah blah. If you’ve done that, you can probably live without EVOLVE. The rest of us will buy Evolve and spend our time writing music and making money.

EVOLVE isn’t a band in a box. Evolve is the cherry on top, the specialty freaky groove in the middle, the ominous on the bottom, the bitch slap when you need it. There are no strings, brass, or other typical bullshit. Evolve is meant to slip over the top of your usual instrumental genius - kind of like a musical condom - only this one has sharp creepy prongy things on it.
EVOLVE comes as instruments and multis – so I loaded a multi first cuz I’m lazy– they have descriptive names like Trailer Smash or Ghost Stories. I threw some keys down in Logic for each of the 8 parts and had a scary weird cue done in about 5 minutes. It didn’t have much pitch or melody but then again if you add this to your habitual cheesy string parts I think you’ve got yourself an Emmy nod. I then tried an experiment where I loaded a new multi and kept the exact same midi tracks and voila! Another scary weird cue done. I muted one part cuz it was just too weird but the rest of it wasn’t bad. Time for me to enlist my gardener writing cues! I tell ya, loading up one of their multis really gives you about all you’ll need to amp up your track. I like things that are quick, easy and make me feel good. That’s why I like beer and girls with big boobs.

LIBRARY CONTENTS:
Looped grooves tonal, rhythmic, weird: real nice stuff in here. Definitely usable. One groove per key so you can just keep adding keys until you run out of fingers. Want more intensity? Have more fingers sewn onto your hands – do I have to think up everything for you?
Don’t be fooled by names in the rhythmic grooves section that say things like Tambourines or Hand Percussion – these have all been effected and fucked with so they aren’t your grandpa’s perc (there are some traditional instruments in the “Traditional” folder but you already own all that stuff.)
Don’t look for traditional rock drum kits – the kits here are all high on acid. Look for the unique here not the mundane.

HITS – I like hits that make me rectally bleed. And the hits here are top notch. I had to double up on my Depends just to get thru them all. In fact, although I said there weren’t many trad instruments – there is a bass drum that is the best I’ve ever heard. Not that washy, tubby, boomy realistic, authentic sound – but a ballsy, slappy, belly fat slap sound you can really rattle the viewers with. Kind of like the big Remo tom on Storm Drum 2 only better!
METALS & CYMBALS – Heavyocity knocked this shit out of the park. I am so sick of regular cymbal whooshes I wish I couldn’t hear above 2k. A while ago, I went so far as to effect my own cymbals so I didn’t have to use the same old thing again. Well, Heavyocity did it here too only they did it better. Prepare yourself for soggy Levis my friends.
The Dumpster Scrapes are the Distorted Reality sounds for 2009. Updated, rougher, meaner. I mean these scrapes are from the streets! You can almost smell the decaying food and discarded hookers in the dumpster they sampled. Use these now or forever be branded boring.
ODD NOISE & BUILDUPS – lots of different ideas in here. Ignorance alert! And I fully admit I write music and not software – but since these are all one shots that whoosh up to a climax, why make me waste my time backtiming the effect to land in the right place when a bit of programming would release the climax part when I release the key? That would make me happy. And when I’m happy, I drink less – no, wait – maybe I drink more – whatever – the point is for a piece of software meant for composers, everything needs to be geared towards saving time.

BASSES – there are only a few so you should really rely on your old standbys not Evolve. The few they threw in have standouts like Gnarly Piano Gods and Nuclear Bass Strike. Those 2 patches made me think that I want a section called something like “Final Notes” – huge, cranium exploding single notes that you would use to accent a very dramatic moment – like THE END! I do things like those 2 patches all the time but it takes me 10 minutes to stack the 5 synths and samples to make it. Evolve needs more of them.
There are a couple of drone type things but they didn’t really rock my world. Again, they’re fine but you probably have something better somewhere else. And I have a nit to pick about any synth or sound design patch made by anyone out there. Why doesn’t every programmer make my mod wheel do something? It is so ingrained in me to play a pad, a drone, etc and reach for the mod wheel expecting something extra to happen. I don’t know why I do it because most of the time no one has assigned the controller to do anything. But still I keep on twiddling my wheel hoping for some hot action. Now Heavyocity has done a pretty good job of assigning the mod wheel on quite a few patches but it seemed to me that it missed some opportunities. I’m not talking something fancy – hell, resonance only would be fine – I know I could assign it myself – but that slows me down – and if 1,000 composers have to do the same thing then we’ve all wasted time – time that could have been better spent smoking weed and watching Soul Train.
Lots of strange and different sounds can be found throughout. I have no idea why there’s an unaffected Toy Xylophone in the library – kind of oddly normal for the rest of the collection but still it’s A REALLY NICE TOY XYLOPHONE. There’s a bunch of female opera licks – again, surprised me to find it but when you need a diva hitting the high notes – you’ll be glad they are there. There’s a Pads and FX section – limited but good quality (alas almost no mod wheel assigning). It won’t replace Omnisphere by any stretch but they aren’t trying to. A lot of the collection feels like these sounds were created throughout the careers of the composers behind the software and they’ve pulled the best of them together in this collection. Sure, it’s eclectic but if you’ve created a killer Toy Xylophone, why not spread the love?

Overall, Evolve covers a lot of ground for the dramatically hip. The action/energy grooves are really great, the single hits fantastic, and the scary/weird factor is covered extremely well. Evolve has become my defacto sound design generator. But don’t expect this collection to be the only thing you need to land that Oscar. So lay it on top of your VSL, EWQLSO or your trip hop didgeridoo collection and sit back and wait for that call from the Wachowski brothers.

OMNISPHERE THE OMNIFICENT

2008-09-18T09:47:00.000-07:00

Any monkey can now do your job! Hire one immediately!

OMNISPHERE – the new synth from Eric Persing with the name that makes my mouth feel like I’ve been eating peanut butter straight out of the jar – without milk.

The one line review – it’s a badass Atmosphere that is modernized, tweaked and all jacked up on coffee, crack and crazy good.

Composers making a great living holding down one key will have a field day with this thing. I wrote 17 cues while I was just testing it out! Sure, all of our cues will sound basically the same but the first to get paid - wins!!!!

I guess the closet comparison to Omnisphere would be the incredible Rob Papen stuff. Predator, Albino and Blue. Those lean a bit more towards pop/club/dance styles (I still use them constantly on scoring gigs but they work extremely well on records too.) Omnisphere seems to lean more towards scoring gigs but I can easily see myself using it on some records. Eric obviously steers his products towards this elaborate multi layered sound – and thank God he does cuz it makes all our lives a lot easier. On the other hand, the majority of records to my ear, use much simpler vintage synth sounds. You could make Omnisphere do that – but it would be like taking a Maserati and putting a Prius engine in it.

Suffice to say that if you ever plan on scoring anything – Omnisphere is the one synth to own.

I soiled myself multiple times just bouncing thru the presets. There are lots of very useful arpeggiator patches – lots of ambient things, lots of weirdness – even some hits and bangs and FX. It’s a one-stop shop for drama and creating moods that sound super super pro – and it’s all at the touch of a key! No talent required. The only decision you will have to make is which key to hold down and hold long you hold it! You never thought a monkey could do your job – but now they can! Better yet, hire some kids - pay them like $1 a cue - put one in each room with an Omnisphere and run your own musical sweat shop! Hey wait a minute – I already have that job! I write for TV!

Damn Eric and his team of evil geniuses! Load up 4, 5 or 6 elaborate patches in the multitimbral Stylus RMX-like interface, and within seconds it sounds like you’re a soundscape genius. Coming from a world where tv and film producers rave about the talent of a composer who has strung together some Apple loops – the heaps of praise for composers who use Ominsphere – will be – gosh, making us all blush. (I’m still waiting for the day when someone wins an Academy Award for holding down one note.)

I suggest all of you Ominsphere users – and trust me – all of you WILL be users – write a letter to Eric and thank him for making you appear more talented than you really are. Thank him for allowing those of limited work ethic to finish their cues quickly, allowing you to get to bed earlier. Thank him for the many accolades you will undoubtedly receive in an otherwise cruel and brutal musical world.

Maybe write something like my letter.

Dear Eric:

Thank you for Omnisphere. I apologize in advance for all of the credit I will be taking for your sonic genius. Even though I will be the one cashing the checks, I want you to know that I think of you every time I hold C3 and some big Hollywood producer tells me how talented I am. Gotta run now, its 9:30 am and I’ve already finished the 30 minutes of music I had to write today. Off to the beach!

Your friend,

Scooter

From Here To The Infirmary . . . Why Is Finishing A Record So Very Hard To Do?

2008-08-20T09:23:00.000-07:00

Why is finishing a record so goddam hard? Oh, the writing, recording, overdubbing, arranging, mixing, editing – they’re all hard as shit too. But finishing? Locking it up? Admitting there is no more to be done or that you are out of time? Out of money? That’s the crunch time that demands balls of steel. A will power unequaled by mere mortals. Starting is easy. Fuck starting. Any moron can start. Finishing separates the men from the boys. Or is that a crowbar?

I just finished producing and cowriting a new CD for my record label (blatant plug) with two amazingly talented singers and songwriters, Jessica New and Dannielle DeAndrea. (paid endorsement) The group is called Sweet 17 and the name of the CD is SupaBeat. Order yours now! (Call to action in infomercial parlance)

It couldn’t have been a more pleasurable experience. We laughed, we cried, we spilled juice on our good pants, we got along like best friends, we pushed the limits of our creativity, we learned a lot about each other – like who likes to get spanked when in the throes of passion but that’s another (much more interesting) blog, we learned about ourselves, we all grew as writers and artists, and we all enhanced our lives. Goddam love fest, huh? This time yes. But it doesn’t always turn out that way. I’ve learned that the hard way.

So this enjoyable experience got me to thinking about two things that are guaranteed to happen while you make a record and how embracing these two concepts will make your life better. And by better I mean, enjoyable, fulfilling. Concepts that steer you away from aneurisms and stress inflicted strokes.

1. “You’re going to spend a lot of time on it so do it with people you like.” Don’t bother trying to keep count of the hours – you will spend a lot more time than you ever thought possible working on this record. Alone. With your partners. With musicians. With those voices in your head. Morning. Night. Weekends. Holidays. Funerals. Making a record nearly kills me every time – sheer exhaustion - and if I had to do it with someone I didn’t like? Either it would never get done or someone (I’m in favor of the unlikable character) would have to die a slow painful death. It’s just too much pressure, too goddam hard, too demanding – and to attempt it with people you don’t admire, people you don’t like? You did that in your marriage – why do it with your music? Pick your partners for their creativity AND their likeability. Who cares if some asshole is really good at lyrics if being with them gives you the runs? You’ll never really love the song you write together. It might become a hit and it might make you some money – and you will like that – but you will never like the song because that song will always make you shit your pants. And not in a good way. Work with talented people you like. Aim for less soiling of shorts. It’s unattractive for artists of your stature.
2. “It will never be perfect.” Yep, no matter how many lap dances or Christmas mornings you miss, it will never be perfect. It’s like one of those gameshows where they give you the winnings at the beginning and you try desperately to lose as little as possible throughout the show. Although every project starts off with aspirations of 100% perfect. 100% amazing. We slowly fuck it up until we decide we’re done and that’s the number we’re left with. I guess I could be less pessimistic and say that a song begins at zero and your unrivaled genius raises it day after day until you begin to approach God-like perfection of 100% perfect until you run out of steam, time or money. But it feels more to me like creativity is handed to me in a kind of confused state of perfection and my job is to sort it out as best I can. Get out of the song’s way, gently guide it, coax it to the perfect spot. It’s a puzzle, that inherent in it’s design, is the fact that you will never be able to fit all the pieces together. Some pieces will be left out. Pieces fall by the wayside. Like sand falling thru your fingers. To try and hold all that sand, to tighten your grip, often makes the process less enjoyable. And the outcome less desirable. I think we’re supposed to drop some of the sand – or maybe a lot of it. Maybe by dropping the sand we find the beautiful shell hidden in it. We started with expectations of what perfect is and as we dig deeper into our project we realize it isn’t that at all. It is what it is. So it will never be perfect. And it isn’t supposed to be. Perfect doesn’t make you feel welcome. Perfect isn’t personal. Perfect doesn’t make people happy. When you get down to picking the nits on your recordings, by far most of them have been scrutinized with a Hubble telescope clamped to your head. Give them some damn distance. Look at your nits with regular old human eyes. Embrace the charm of human error and randomness. This is your recording; you are allowed to be human.

And to that point, as the girls and I got down to the end of the record, and we were living with my 5th version of “final mixes” – we all had comments and/or notes to address. Most of the fixes went quickly. A couple we fought over – it wasn’t that anyone was right or wrong (but since you asked . . I was always right and they were wrong) – they were differences of opinion with no right answer. But there was one line in the first verse of a song. It just didn’t seem right in pitch, or rhythm or something. I fiddled, fucked and fondled that line with Autotune and Melodyne and editing and just about every trick I could come up with and it seemed kind of OK. Pretty good. We were on a deadline to finish. We all agreed it was fine – OK, one of us was still unconvinced. But we beat her into submission.

I boarded a plane to Hawaii, recording done – free upgrade to First Class – congratulations from the captain – sex in the bathroom with the flight attendants. All of the things normally associated with finishing the recording of an independent release. Three days into the trip, I throw the CD on to take a listen. Might as well have one more listen while the graphics guys finish up - before we press ourselves into posterity. When I heard that troubled vocal line, I knew it wasn’t good enough. Maybe I convinced myself before that it was good enough because we were out of time. Maybe not. Doesn’t matter. I knew the girls had to resing it. Record on hold. Not what I was looking for, but we had already delayed once because we thought one or two songs could be better – and we were right. We fixed it when I got home. And now the recording was done. Almost.

And this is where finishing the recording feels like only one small part of finishing the record. Graphics, mastering, duplication, marketing. . . . (loud scream heard behind back shed)

Off to mastering. I used Brian “Big Bass” Gardner at Bernie Grundman Mastering. Big Bass does all the big hits out there. The guy is the Zeus of mastering. But I gotta wait 3 weeks for an appointment. Sure, I should have scheduled ahead of time. Don’t bust my balls here. After numerous postponements, I wasn’t really sure when we would finish. But we get in. Brian massages his knobs, tweaks and twiddles, caresses and coos – OK, maybe I didn’t hear any actual cooing from Brian, it might have been me ogling the double platinum records on the walls. Next day, reference CD. I want to remix a song. Mastering can change things. Change things a lot. Especially at the levels of compression we’re all used to nowadays. I remix. I drop off the new mix and give Brian a couple of brief notes on a couple of other songs. A new reference CD. Somewhere in the shuffle, the new mix doesn’t get mastered. The other fixes sound great. Brian finds the right mix. Another reference.

As I pick up this latest reference, I’m on cloud 9. The record is done. Nearly. I can smell victory. I’m in Hollywood so victory smells like summer sweat and day old dog urine. One more careful listen in the studio and it is off to the pressing plant. I can’t resist. I shove the CD into my car CD player. I’m rockin’. I’m really diggin it. No traffic, I’m home in ten minutes. I hit the eject button – ready for my final listen in the studio – the CD JAMS IN MY CAR STEREO! It’s stuck. I get the tweezers. A long screwdriver. KY jelly. I reach for the hammer. I’m ready to tear the fuckin dash out of the car. I want this record done so bad. I feel like that female marathon runner a few Olympics back who crawled to the finish line like she’d had a stroke and there was nothing that could stop her from finishing. Finishing. Why is it so goddam hard?

I’m beat up, bloodied, bruised and sober. It’s a bad day. I drive to the car dealer and beg the service technician to get the CD out. He takes my predicament to heart and says “You’re fucked maestro, we have to remove the whole stereo and send it to the factory.” As a favor, he can put a rush on it – 6 weeks. Then they’ll send me the CD. 6 weeks - $600.00! Another reference cost $175. Not a call I want to make. I make the call. 5 hours later I have another disc. (Thank you Marie!) 11 at night, in the studio. I load the disc. The music starts and with the first few notes, the hassles, the difficulties, the hurdles, the obstacles – they begin to melt away. And I realize the importance of this. The important thing is NOT how good the record is. The important thing is the miraculous human ability to conceive something and then execute. To finish. To create. To be alive. To finish.

And that feeling is so rewarding it is worth putting ourselves through almost any amount of suffering.

Of course the record isn’t finished yet. Graphics and pressing still to go. More to come.

DID ANYONE SAMPLE THOSE OLYMPIC FOU DRUMS AND WHERE THE HELL CAN I BUY THEM?

2008-08-11T08:50:00.000-07:00

Eric Persing? Doug Rogers? Nick Phoenix? Where are you when we need you the most?

Watching the stunning opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics was witnessing a moment in history. China is back and bigger than ever. But the most spectacular part of the performance for me – and probably most musicians – was watching and hearing the 2,008 fou drummers pounding out rhythms, yelling, chanting and subsequently stirring up our tribal urges. I was fascinated in how much emotion can be wrought from drums and the human voice. Was the emotion brought about by a great musical composition or are we genetically predisposed to react to tribal drumming and chanting because our ancestors did it thousands of years ago and we’re still doing it?

Emotional. Powerful. Dramatic. Stunning. Well that’s about all I need to hear and I’m sold on those samples. So where was Spectrasonics? Where was East West? Native Instruments? I want those fou samples and I want them now. Surely someone thought to multi sample 2,008 people pounding on drums. Right? Preferably with 20 velocity layers, different sticks, hand slaps – both with the natural ambience and dry? Oh, and while you’re there, I could go for some of those yells and shout outs.

So here is a bit of the history of the fou drum I found at http://www.chinalyst.net/node/44347.

The style of fou used in the ceremony was unearthed in 1978 and comes from the Xia and Shang dynasties (2070BC-1046BC). It was used primarily as a piece of furniture, a buffet. Wine was stored in the fou and apparently as the drink readily flowed, people wanted to pound out a little music to go with the liquor. So they beat on the fou table. It became a drum. And a badass one at that.

So bring it on sampling geniuses. What is the sound of 2,008 fou drummers with a convolution stadium reverb setting?

If that won’t trigger the infamous brown note, what the hell will?

RUSH on COLBERT

2008-07-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that every executive in TV and every network has decided that viewers do not want music on television, The Colbert Report featured prog rockers RUSH on the show last night. It’s been 33 years since the band has been on TV. They played “Tom Sawyer.” Or at least part of it. Playing off the fact that so many Rush songs are long and not TV friendly in terms of cutting to commercials, Colbert interrupted them once to cut away, failed and reappeared a second time in great comedic manner before throwing to the ads. It was a great moment in music and in television.

Before the song performance, Colbert interviewed the band with hilarious questions and absurd answers in which Rush more than held their own and got bonafide laughs. The quality of comedic writing and ingenuity that Colbert and staff generate every night is astounding. Their track record over this past year is damn near perfect. It’s the funniest show on TV at the moment and it ain’t gonna let up. They’re on a roll and I’m eating it up.

But just what is the magic mojo cooking in the writer’s room? What other show on TV would consider booking Rush, then actually do it, create a great bit around it, allow them to give a fantastic performance, and most importantly, put music on the pedestal where it belongs?

I was never a huge Rush fan, small leaning towards medium I’d guess. But hearing Tom Sawyer and seeing the guys having a great time with Colbert, well, it made me realize that music can be fun. It can be entertaining. It made me like the band more. It made me consider buying some more of their music. It made fall even more in love with Colbert. And his writing staff. I have to think other viewers felt the same way.

So contrary to the “all knowing” MTV think tank, music and television worked very well together last night.

But it was all about the presentation. It was all about setting it up right and delivering music in a way that is entertaining. Straight up performance footage just won’t cut it. I stopped on some HD channel the other night and watched about 6 minutes of The Pussycat Dolls in concert. Under normal conditions, scantily clad girls shaking their groove thang can keep my finger off the remote and somewhere else for upwards of 30 minutes, but not this show. Within seconds of watching them, I had the underwhelming feeling that these girls were going through the motions. There was no gusto in the humping. No joy in the gyrating. No love in grinding. They were singing Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” and just butchering it. All rock, renegade and revolt was missing from the song. They turned it into a filler song. One of rock and roll’s most beloved songs became something to dance to for a couple of minutes wedged between their own material. And they dedicated it to “all their classic rocker fans”, which, if they had any, would be appalled, not honored, by the shout out.

So TV execs are right in that music presently badly on television is bad business - no one will watch. But when music is presented in clever, original, and yes, even hilarious circumstances, it can be wonderfully rewarding. Wonderfully entertaining. Like Rush on Colbert. Watch the clip. Feel good about music.

You Are A Part Of The New Renaissance Of Music: Don’t Screw It Up

2008-04-10T13:38:00.000-07:00

This blog is about music. And what it means to me, you and everyone else in the world. I’m taking a moment to realize, absorb, appreciate – fully – what I am a part of. What we’re all a part of.

Music is the most powerful art form in existence. More memories, experiences, and emotions are tied to music than anything else. Music was here when man was debating the pros and cons of walking upright. Music accompanied every war and every coronation. Music was there when my son was born, for someone’s first kiss, someone else’s favorite movie, and it will be there at your funeral. Some of us are lucky enough to spend our lives creating it. All of us spend our lives listening to it. Music time-stamps our lives. It makes us more aware that we’re here and breathing. A great song makes us appreciate our loved ones more and helps us work up the proper amount of “pissed off” for our ex’s. A great melody is like a water fountain from heaven that we can tap into and drink from at will. The perfect rhythm brings up desires and thoughts that later make us blush.

And yet, all I read about music right now is that music is in trouble. Music is heading downhill. Music has no value. Music is going nowhere. The glory days are gone.

And that fucking pisses me off. Believe me. Nothing is further from the truth and we should all be down on our knees thanking God for the sheer luck of being alive to write, record and create during this time in history.

Music is better, more alive, more influential and more important that at any point in history. Music is everywhere. Music is the catalyst for everything that anyone cares about. Have you ever watched a movie with out music? A TV show? A 30 second commercial? They’re unbearable! Commercials are unbearable even with music. Music makes them tolerable. That’s how strong music is. A movie without music? No one would go see it. Of the few that exist without music, a couple are important to the development of movie making as an art and surprisingly relegated to the eerie, macabre, horror genre – but most aren’t any good. Anytime a filmmaker really wants to move an audience, make them feel something, he has to rely on music. TV is the same. Ever wonder why reality TV has wall-to-wall music? It’s the only way producers can convince you something dreadfully important is happening on screen. Without it, it would be like watching your neighbor cut his lawn. With scissors.

120,000,000 iPods sold so far. People are listening. Lots of people.

As of this month, iTunes is the biggest music retailer in the world. They have sold 4 billion songs. They carry, every day, 6 million songs. And it’s growing. If you’re counting by CDs, that’s 500,000 different CDs (at 12 songs a CD). A Virgin Megastore carries about 150,000 CDs – many of which are duplicates.

Check out this headline from a couple months back: “World’s Greatest Record Collection for sale on eBay.”

Paul Mawhinney collected 6 million songs stored on 3 million records and 300,000 CDs. Same number of songs as iTunes? Of course, Paul has rare, limited release, obscure recordings. Priceless. Historical. He most likely doesn’t have any of my records so you kind of have to really call it “Almost The World’s Greatest Record Collection.” But, more importantly, you can buy my music on iTunes. Or yours. Anybodys. Without verification from a company or a store or a collector that your music is the greatest in the world.

It took Paul 50 years to collect these songs. iTunes has been in business for 6. iTunes will eventually carry nearly every recorded piece of music – known to mankind! - in it’s library. Available for purchase. Amazing. When you tell your grand kids that you used to browse through the defunct local, mom & pop record store (Tower Records) and gander at your choice of 50,000 different CDs, they’ll stare at you in amazement. “How did you ever find anything you liked with such a limited selection, Grandpa?” It’s Chris Anderson’s Long Tale economic theory times a billion.

Don’t buy into the crap that mega record companies are losing money because the music business sucks. They’re losing money because they’re not taking advantage of opportunities to make more money. They made money one way and are extremely reluctant to look for new ways. They’re complaining because they’ve lost control. Feel sorry for them like you feel sorry for Bear Stearns & Co.

Ask them about their music licensing business. The side of the business that controls the copyrights, the issuing of licenses for use of their music other than sales of CDs & digital downloads. It’s fucking booming! They can’t set goals high enough each year. It’s a goldmine. And 100% profit. They paid for the product 25 years ago. Everybody and their hairless Chihuahua is licensing music for the internet, commercials, tv, movies, DVDs, infomercials. And this is because the record companies own all of the “good shit.” The recordings you and I were brought up on. The songs we hold near and dear to our hearts. And the memories tied to those songs help sell product. Advertisers know that. So they’re licensing the shit out of those songs. Target & The Beatles – a match made in Madison Avenue Heaven. I hear “Hello/Goodbye” and I suddenly have a burning desire to buy toilet paper and a very reasonable price.

But with the record business changing, the conglomerates are in a dangerous position. 25 years from now, they may well not own “the good shit.” I will. Or you. Or our kids. They know if they don’t make hits now, they’ll have nothing to license in 25 years. So they want to lock us into agreements. Keep control. Maintain the staus quo.

But they can’t. They’re losing the war. And they’re desperate. So they sue their customers. They whine and cry about how tough business is.

And that is why it is only going to get better. Better for you and me. Better for the listener. Better for music. Music is being put back into the hands of those who make it. Musicians today have an opportunity to write exactly what they want, record it and release it – directly to the listener – without the obstacles of lawyers, executives and marketers who have only one thing on their minds – control. Oh, and money. OK, 3 things, control, money and commercially friendly acts they can manipulate to reinforce the first two things. Go check out Seth Godin’s incredible speech to Columbia Record executives about the state of the music business. I’m sending you here to see it before it is gone forever. Seth took it off You Tube for some reason. It’s brilliant and will affect you.

http://www.softlord.com/cat/industry-info/seth-godin-speaks-the-truth-to-columbia-records/

Music should be in the control of those who make it and those who listen. And it will be. Very soon. And that means you and me. This new world will finally allow music to be democratic. You, the makers, and you, the listeners, will decide what you want. The time has come for us to be the leaders of what is heard and what is talked about.

The music that will come out over the next fifty years will be the most innovative, original and phenomenal music ever heard by mankind. Our time will be looked back on as the new renaissance of music. Composers, songwriters and musicians all over the world will be cut free from the dictatorial chains of mega conglomerates and allowed to roam free, creating, recording and pillaging. The latter preferably only when the first two aren’t going so well.

Instead of just one artist every now and then releasing exactly what they want, imagine a world where what you listen to is always exactly what the artist wants. What YOU want. The music will be more pure, less homogenized and ultimately vastly more satisfying and entertaining to the creator and the listener. And everyone will be able to have access to it. At an extremely reasonable price.

And here go the naysayers. “$1 per song – we just can’t go any lower! It’s the number we’ve all come to - after much deliberation!” Don’t get hung up on price. Price is an old concept from an old world. Remember, music pricing was arbitrary and continues to be so. The record companies’ pricing comes straight out of their asses. Competition has not bred lower pricing – unlike every other business in the world. Someone decided long ago that music will sell at such and such a price point. And there it has stayed. There are more important things happening in music than the price of a song. But for the hell of it – run the numbers.

Here’s the scenario: You sign with a major label, get your measly $1 a record royalty (for all songs on the record), and if you’re lucky and were one of the writers, you then get your ridiculously low, government approved, mechanical rate (further lowered by your inept attorney) of about 6 cents per song for a whopping total of under $2 a CD. Divide $2 by 12 songs. You’re making 17 cents a song. You’re kinda famous? 25 cents a song. You’re really famous? 40 cents a song. Trent Reznor made $750,000 selling collector sets of his new music. By himself. The way he wanted. Exactly the way he wanted.

How much is that worth? A lot more than $750,000 because he will do it again. And again.

Will there be only great music in this new world? Absolutely not. Actors will continue to strum and models will continue to warble. Terrible songs will still become popular and genius will still lie hidden and undiscovered. In fact, there will probably be more bad music than ever before. But more art makes a better world. Even bad art. Creativity keeps people aware of what’s important in life. It keeps people loving and experiencing. It keeps people sharing.

Everyone, from artist to listener, will have a closer, more intimate relationship with music. There has never been an opportunity like this in history. You’re a part of it. A big part. Be a believer. The best is yet to come.

MADONNA, MONEY, MUSIC AND MAGIC WATER

2008-01-14T16:17:00.000-08:00

So Madonna spends about $10,000 per month on bottled Kaballah water. Shock? Amazement? Jealousy? Thirsty? Let’s wade into the velvety spiritual liquid and find out how special water can make all of us better composers. Ohh! It’s cold. And deep.

I have no idea why this headline moved something in my naughty bits prompting a long over due blog. I apologize for not writing more but one can only fit so many “not for profit” ventures into one’s schedule. I’ve over committed to the whales who can’t read, bald llamas, goats with VD and American Idol’s without a record deal retirement home fund raisers. It’s the holiday season and it’s been nothing but give, fucking give, fucking give for me. But I’ve been feeling the pressure about the blog. I know how many of you had “more blogs from Scooter” on your respective Christmas lists and I’m ashamed that, unlike Santa, I didn’t bring it on Christmas morning. Copious tears were no doubt shed, crushing disappointment at an all time high, raging side by side with unsupervised doses of Prozac just to make it to New Years. I could ramble on about how every project wants to finish up before the holidays so the lazy producers won’t have to work, or that I was busy readying my new retro jazz CD, available at Amazon and CD Baby, or that I was just totally jammed up scouring the internet reading about how much Kaballah water Madonna uses every month.

The story goes that Madonna pays about $5 a bottle for the blessed water, rumored to have healing and energy potential, and that she exclusively uses this water to the tune of about $120,000 a year. Set aside for the moment the sort of implausible math involved, $120k divided by $5 divided by 365 days a year and you get almost 66 bottles of water a day. Enough to cause at least minor abdominal cramping. Outrageous you say! And yet it’s coincidently about the same number of beers your average classic rock cover band downs between Freebird and Stairway To Heaven on any given Tuesday nite no cover spectacular. And they STILL rock the house. Unbelievable! What talent.

Set aside the quantity and talk about the money for a minute. $120,000 divided by 365 days. For those of you who don’t have that many fingers, it’s almost $329 per day. Out-fucking-rageous, right???!!! Well, dig deeper my cheap friends. Madonna earns about 20 million a year from her various ventures. Almost $55,000 a day. Or the equivalent of the bass trombone player’s cut at a wedding casual after he won the Powerball lottery. Percentage-wise, Madonna is spending about half of one percent of her salary on water. Let’s say one of us makes $100,000 a year selling our souls to the musical devil. Your daily take is a whopping $274 – mind you, $55 less than Madonna’s water budget – but hey, you’re creating art! Not just sitting around drinking holy water and pissing all day. Half of one percent for you is $1.37.

Reader uprising #1: Hold on now, Scooter. You’re fuckin’ crazy if you think I’m buying this malarkey. You probably flunked math in school.

It’s right. Had it checked by the great and powerful Oz - my daughter.

$1.37. You’re damn near homeless at this rate. You’d be spending a bigger percentage of your income than Madonna if you walked into your nearest Starbucks and bought a Tall Coffee of the Day for $1.40! And God forbid you craved a Venti Iced White Chocolate Mocha ($4.15). Greedy capitalist swine.

I’m mixing apples and oranges here. Unfair to compare coffee and water. What’s the price of a bottle of your beloved Evian?

(INTERESTING FACT ALERT – There are more than 119 different bottlers of water in America alone – tell a friend!)

A very quick, unsubstantiated search on the internet puts Evian at $.99 per bottle. Aquafina $1.49. Fiji $1.99. So to stay even with Madonna, you can only have a bottle and a third of Evian per day. Or spread your Fiji over 2 days. That definitely cuts out washing your long gorgeous “80’s rocker” locks with it. You’re not getting enough water in you to work up even a mild whizz. Forget race horses. You’re dribbling like a 90 year old with a prostate the size of a basketball. And take your monthly colonic off the appointment book. Even with tap water you’d be blowing (literally) your budget right out your ass - so just get used to that dull aching wad jammed in your intestines or hope for the flu.

Reader uprising #2: What in God’s name does this have to do with me making more money or writing better music??? I don’t come to your blog just to read your exaggerated takes on negligees and farm animals. Oh, wait, yes I do! Please continue.

The point of this math lesson is that we all spend money on different things. Things that make us individually able to accomplish what we have set out to do. You may feel that what I spend money on is absolute shit (you’d be wrong) and I know for a fact that what you spend your dough on is absurd. But it’s what makes us tick. And how much you spend is your right. Your choice. I like The Four Seasons. You bask in the glory that is Motel 6. But don’t rage on me about it, it helps me to write.

I had an assistant years ago at Disney who amazed me at how she spent her money. Everyday, the Disney cafeteria would offer a “special lunch.” It was priced for the economically challenged Disney employee (there were many). Each and everyday my assistant would complain that she didn’t want to eat it. But she bought it anyway because it was cheap. I asked her why she just didn’t spend the extra $1.50 and get a burger. She loved burgers and she’d been working hard all day. Didn’t she deserve a meal she liked? No, to her it was a waste of money. Food didn’t matter that much. Then came the weekend. She would hop in her car with her friends and drive to Vegas. Come Monday morning I’d ask how her weekend was. “Fantastic!” she would say. How much did you lose? And she’d tell me $400. Lunch came around again along with her usual complaining and bitching. I pointed out that her loses on one trip to Vegas would cover her having a burger for every workday of the entire year. She looked at me like I was crazy and said “But I had FUN in Vegas!”

So as I look around at what I choose to spend money on and just as importantly, what I choose NOT to spend it on, I’m trying to pay attention to the actual outcome – the results, if you will, of my investment. I love new toys in the studio. I love new software. I get all jittery during Steve Jobs’ announcement of new products at MacWorld (and I wear a safety diaper just in case.) We all love gear and technology and cool shit. We all love cheap hookers and free beer. It keeps us writing. Keeps us creating. It allows us to justify spending 3/4ths of our lives in a room banging on plastic keyboards. Spending money on frivolous things, crazy things, hocus pocus bullshit fake whacky energy infused Jesus juice things keeps us creative. And that’s a good thing. It is a necessary thing.

Put aside the moral implications of Madonna’s water allotment. Think of it in pure economic terms. At the level at which she delivers commercially viable music product, requiring no doubt a huge staff, does $10,000 a month sound like too much to keep 100 people employed? If that’s what it takes to keep the Madonna money machine turning, is it worth it? What about the Kaballah organization she buys the water from? They make a nice tidy profit on their tap water and then use the money for worthwhile community causes. Maybe Madonna should actually drink more of it. Maybe she should fill her toilets with it. The world might be a better place.

I’m saying that it is not only good, but it is critical that each and every one of us spends our money on what makes us create. More people creating makes a better world. Creativity makes a more tolerant world. It makes a more interesting world.

So go out and buy that double headed dildo with the ice maker attachment or the magic pen that makes you write like Hemingway. Indulge yourself. Eat grass or dress only turkey skin. Treat yourself like the artist you are and allow your environment, your mind, and your idiosyncrasies to reflect you. Reward yourself and you will enrich your creative output.

Me? I drink Sparkletts but my accountant says to cut back on my budding collection of used celebrity underwear. He obviously doesn’t understand my creative side.

Improvisation, Fake Breasts, Meticulous Counterpoint or Penile Enlargement?

2007-12-06T11:41:00.000-08:00

Improvisation, Fake Breasts, Meticulous Counterpoint or Penile Enlargement?

Gosh, they all give such pleasure, but what is morally right?

Recently I’ve been having some conversations with colleagues about improvisation and composition. Composition, after all, is just controlled improvisation, right? Sure, for your concert pieces or cuts on your next bass harmonica album, you may ruminate ideas for months on end and pen doesn’t hit paper until you have a pretty clear idea of where you’re going. But it’s still improvisation – just done very, very slowly. When it comes to my hired gun work though, for the most part, I have no idea what I will write until I sit down to do it. While getting my 13th cup of coffee I’ll contemplate the purpose of the music, maybe the modes and scales likely to achieve that goal, some basic instrumentation or style considerations and then, I just put my sausage links on the keyboard and plunk away. Controlled improvisation. I’ll try this, try that. Narrow down my choices. Make a million decisions.

And then, every once in a while, I nail it. I write the whole damn cue while I’m playing it, from top to bottom. And it works. Theoretically, with a little added orchestration, I should be done with this cue, moving on to the next, one step closer to sharing some quality time with my family.

But because of my Catholic upbringing, I’ve been taught that nothing great comes from anything less than debilitating sacrifice. Nothing great comes from anything less than being crucified for your egotistical desires to write perfect music. Take the easy way out and you rot in bad music hell forever. So what happens when I play through that cue, improvise my way around the dialog and mood of the scene and when I listen back, it works? What happens when there is no need to do it again? No need to throw myself on the sacrificial fire?

Well, I feel a touch guilty that I got off so easy. I feel dirty. And cheap. And not in a dirty cheap good way. After all, isn’t writing music supposed to be hard? All the time?

Without a doubt, some of it is Catholic guilt. But my research says many others feel the same way. As though they haven’t bled enough for it. As though, if they don’t finish a piece of music battered and bruised, they didn’t work hard enough for it. They don’t deserve to be done this easily, this quickly. We’re musicians - and endless repetition, endless hours of practice, is the name of our game.

The dreaded “it can’t be good because I did it in one take” syndrome. One take. Why do those two words have such a negative connotation?

Years ago, I was a music supervisor for Disney and had the pleasure of overseeing a session with Stan Getz. He’d been brought in to play a solo for the film “The Marrying Man.” We sent a car for him (yeah, you get that kind of shit when you’re a Stan Getz) to bring him to Oceanway Studios. He headed right into the tracking room, opened his case up, blew a few warm up notes, glanced at the chart, and said “Roll it.” No “Hi nice to meet you.” No “let me contemplate life and how my morning bowel activities effect the chord changes on your chart” bullshit. He was here to play. You want to socialize, go to a massage parlor.

The engineer hit play. Stan laid his part down. The track ended. Stan started packing up. The engineer leapt out of his chair like it was lunchtime and frantically grabbed the talkback.

“Uh, Stan? Thought we’d get maybe another take on that, you know, as a . . . , well, backup or something, I mean, shouldn’t we do another take?” He sounded like some very important union rule had been broken and we needed to rectify this dire situation before it caused the end of civilization. His pleading sounded as if he was suggesting “Aren’t we supposed to fuck with this thing, try it every which way from Sunday until everyone is just sick of it and no one has any idea what to cut together?”

Stan said, “No. That one felt good.”

The control room was silent. Stan headed back to his limo.

I suppose you would have handled it differently. You would have contradicted Stan Getz and told him the solo he played didn’t feel good? His solo was great. Fantastic. It was everything the track needed. Nothing more, nothing less. Sure it was a rather straight forward blues track. Nothing strange or out of the realm Stan worked in most of the time. Yes, the changes were ones Stan had probably played 50,000 times in his life. Did he nail it? At his level, there never is a “didn’t nail it” moment. There’s only minute degrees of feel and vibe and self fulfillment. There ain’t any wrong notes on his sax. He put all of the combined knowledge of his 60 years of music into that take. Was it the greatest solo ever played? No. But it wasn’t supposed to be. If it had been the world’s greatest solo, then no one would have noticed Alec Baldwin on the screen acting in a movie. Stan’s solo was brilliantly perfect for the intended use of that particular piece of music.

Stan died a few months later. No retakes on that either.

Writing music is like making the toughest decisions of your life, one after another, all day long. Every note, every rhythm, every nuance must be thought about, evaluated and eventually agreed upon and only then, committed to paper or audio. How long you decide to take making those decisions – is yet, another decision.

Lurking at the distant edges of available writing techniques are:

1 - OCD anal retentive, pain in the ass types who will never be satisfied with anything – writing, rewriting, editing, throwing out, fucking with, fucking up, fixing, substituting, polishing, refining, second guessing, pissing on, etc, etc until their original concept is obliterated and unrecognizable and they end up with shit. Or brilliance.

2 – The lazy ass mother fuckers who throw any old damn thing down and just go with it, nary an edit, fix, redo, Mulligan or gimme to be found. This “easy road” leads to absolutely uninspired dreck. Or brilliance.

Before any of you go thinking you’re doing it the wrong way, most of us swing our respective meters between these two extremes - frequently, and without thought, and probably only because swinging our meters feels good. The great thing about art is that the end product has absolutely nothing to do with the process and conditions with which you choose to get there. Whether you feel it necessary to gnaw your tongue off and swallow it in order to get some decent notes on the page or whether smoking a joint and noodling on the piano for 10 minutes is your magic potion for greatness, it doesn’t matter. But we all must choose a path, Grasshopper. Each and every time we create. This has always intrigued me so I’ve spent a shitload of time contemplating my work methods. Graphing, plotting, analyzing, running the equations. Doing all of the dirty work for you lazy fuckers. Lifetimes of research to find out whether more time equals better music.

And the answer I’ve come up with is –

and BTW, you’re getting this wisdom for free here – yeah, you didn’t have to climb some fucking mountain in Tibet and sit with some smelly bearded old fart for it – all you had to do was plop your fat ass down and read some worthless blogs on the internet – do we live in a wonderful world or what?

And the answer is . . . “Who the fuck knows??!!!”

We need to avoid thinking we have only two choices of looking at what we create. If we only put our noses to the table and examine the tiniest of details of our work, deal exclusively with fermi and planck, ensuring that the nuclei of our creations are all in perfect order, we miss what happens when we step away, go all the way to the other side of the room and have a gander at our little bundle of joy. And maybe see the forest.

Chick Corea releases records that are recordings of actual events. He played this music live, no edits, no fixes. If you were there when he played it, you would hear that performance on the CD. Note for note. Glenn Gould chose to edit the shit out of his recordings. Instead of documenting his performance at a particular stage in his life, he perhaps was thinking long term, and wanted what he considered a “perfect” performance to last through the ages.

Who’s right? And if someone is right, that makes someone else wrong? Right?

No. And why do you have to be so argumentative? Can’t you discuss something without getting all pissy? Cuddle up with your anger asshole, you’re sleeping on the fucking couch tonight.

I have some perspective now on some of my early music. What I’ve noticed is that none of the shit that bothered the living hell out of me, at the time I wrote and recorded them, bugs me now. None of it. Amazing! I used to lose sleep over the shit! Stomach aches, Diarrhea, Vomiting. (OK, those last two might have been me screwing up the dosages of my meds). But, heartache. Definitely heartache. Here was my big revelation about my old music . . .

I got a whole NEW set of shit that bugs the living hell out of me.

I’ve grown. Gotten better. Things I didn’t hear before that I hear loud and clear now. Maybe I had my nose resting on the damn manuscript paper and missed the big picture. Maybe I wasn’t experienced enough. But I’ll tell you this, the shit that bugs me now is more encompassing. It’s less miniscule and more esoteric. Things like feel, overall vibe, form, pacing, and development of ideas rather than slight pitch problems, snare EQ, one note in a passage or a vintage spring reverb setting. I can see now where I went wrong in the composition itself. I can see how to make the piece of music 50% better by taking shit out – Yes – I finally learned that the eraser is the composer’s greatest tool! (Thanks Lloyd!)

How good is good enough? Is too good unemotional? Is perfect robotic and inhuman? Do flaws and imperfections make us who we are? Is that sloppy, pattern based, repetitive hard rock guitar solo viewed 732,512 times on YouTube more honest than a 100% quantized synth arpeggiator randomly generating tones?

The important thing in all of this creating, is to be aware of what works when. If we insist on labeling ourselves as the perfectionist who never prints his take until the 11th hour, we set ourselves up to miss the happy accidents, the rare quirks that break old habits, the nuggets of gold in the river, the once in a lifetime Stan Getz solo. Because in the end, when you look back on the hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of creations you had a hand in, when you have essentially stepped back away from your baby the equivalent of the expanse of the universe, the teeny details of how, how long and by what means these were created will have shrunk to imperceptible levels. And you’ll be left with the music.

And good will be good. And bad will be bad. And I hope to God we all have a little bit of both in there.

Dumpster, Goodwill, Garage Sale, Obscurity or Posterity? Your music. Your choice.

2007-11-29T21:43:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine called and said he just scored big. I assumed he meant hookers and blow at Black Friday sale prices.

“No” he said. “I picked up some original music. Dirt cheap.”

My stomach turned, familiarly.

“Big deal,” I said, “Original music dirt cheap. Welcome to the world of modern music.”

“No, dude, this is different. This is music by someone famous! I got it at a garage sale, well, more accurately an estate sale. One of those “somebody famous died” yard sales. It’s written by Famous Actor Guy.” (I can’t reveal the details – sworn to secrecy etc. Plus this friend really does have pictures of me not only with a goat but with a very drunk manatee. Now THAT was some crazy shit I’ll tell you what!)

He goes on to tell me Famous Hollywood Actor Guy had died and the family was selling everything. Right here in Bev Hills. On Dead Guy’s own god damn lawn no less. His life’s accomplishments, belongings, memories, underwear, scattered amongst the crab grass and aphids. For pennies on the dollar. You can’t pass up deals like this!

Although my friend was elated, it depressed the shit out of me. Is this what will become of my music after I’ve gone to the great strip club in the sky?

What my buddy purchased for $20 – twenty fucking dollars - FYI your Starbucks tab for this week – was famous guy’s original sheet music. Hand written lyrics. Musical ideas. Sketches. Complete songs. The dead celeb wrote music when he wasn’t acting. Songs. With lyrics. Charts. Pro charts. Done by a famous arranger from way back when. I’ve seen the charts. They’re beautiful. The tunes are nice. Obviously this was more than a hobby to the guy. He finished the songs and then laid out real cold cash to someone well known in the music business to arrange all of them. Was probably planning to book a high-end studio in Hollywood and record the tunes. Maybe with a famous big band. Probably pull in a couple of favors and get some famous singers on the tracks. Shit, he probably wanted to sit in on one of the tunes. Hell, probably had wishes of signing a record deal, putting the record out and climbing the Hit Parade. Changing his business card to read “Actor/Composer.”

Reality sets in. He works his ass off. Career just won’t let up. Gets lucky. But got the family obligations. Can’t turn down that next gig cuz the fickle Hollywood power moguls may never call again. Got bills to pay. This show could be his last. Blah blah blah.

The charts sit on the piano for a couple of years. The maid cleans around them. The pages yellow. His wife nags him and tells him to get the fuckers out of the living room - “They’re cluttering up the place and our guests can’t see my Hummel collection.”

Famous dude sticks them in a box, puts them in a back closet, and as he does, he swears to himself that he will record them as soon as he finishes his next job.

No one touches the box. Not Famous Guy. Not the maid. Not for 30 fucking years. He drops dead. Oops. That wasn’t on the agenda. He’s gone but there’s still his shit everywhere. All over the damn house. The kids start going through it. The box of music gets pulled out. None of them know what it is. Dusty old box with yellowed scribbled black dots. His name at the top.

“Hey, Dad wrote some songs! Cool!”

“Hey, cool! I bet we could get $20 at the estate sale for those!”

Shhh! If you listen carefully, you can hear his dreams being flushed down the toilet. Out of all the successes, the accolades, the honors – you know he went to his grave with this thorn stuck in his side . . .

He never fucking got around to recording his songs.

He meant to. Oh, he tried. Promised himself. Time and time again. Honest. Next week. I will do it. I promise.

Promise broken. Dream crushed.

I don’t blame the kids. Or his wife if she’s still around. Hell, I don’t even blame the buck toothed fourth cousin with a third nipple – or whomever sold his music.

It’s Famous Actor Guy’s fault.

His half baked relatives sold it because it wasn’t presented to them in a state that screamed, “This is important shit and you should always keep it because it meant a lot to me and it’s really, really good.” Third Nipple Cousin went with the cliché – “If it looks like shit, don’t eat it. Sell it for $20.”

It’s always been about presentation. You send out a shitty looking demo and people think shitty music is on it. If your band doesn’t present itself with the right attitude, lighting, makeup and properly front packed tight jeans – you’re next stop is Boise. At the bowling alley. Cleaning balls, bitch. Had our famous actor gotten around to recording his stuff – pressed the albums, with requisite sexy girl on the cover, impeccable recording cut into the vinyl, then his kids would have known it was something. Known it was worthy of posterity. Worthy of honor and respect. Worthy of keeping.

It got me to thinking.

What’s the state of my music now? And then, only because I care so much . . . What’s the state of yours? If you or I were to die tonight, would what we leave behind? Would our music be treated as trash or treasure?

I’m in a kind of halfway house situation on that front. (And a few others, badda bing!) I’ve managed to get a few CDs out there. I’ve documented some stuff that I think is worthy. And then there’s the rest of it. There’s good stuff in there but I haven’t put it in any kind of order so anyone could ever find it. My kids will chuck it. What else are they supposed to do? All those boxes and boxes of crap lying around when we’re laid in the ground. They’ll be overwhelmed. Not with grief, but because you left all this shit for them to clean up! And I’m not even counting the porn! At least they can give that to your gardener who will love it. No, I’m talking about your music. A lot of your music. You’re dreaming if you think cute little Sissy is going to store that shit for decades. I’ve got thousands of, really, dare I say, brilliant underscore cues sitting around on backups, manuscript paper, yellow stickies, cassettes, CDs. I’m not fooling myself. Years from now, my kids aren’t going to curl up on the couch with my grandkids and listen to Dead Grandpa’s score from episode 312 of some cable show they’ve never heard of. No, out of guilt they’ll probably move this steaming pile of intellect from place to place until inconvenience outweighs guilt. Then they’ll rent one of those huge, double ass wide dumpsters and heave the shit in. Jewel cases all cracked and split. CDs glistening in the sun wet with the sex lube they awkwardly found. Scores stained with left over Red Bulls I never got to finish. Rusty coke spoon. Kim Kardashian photos. Days later at the dump, some homeless guy will pick through my music. He’ll stare and study them. Flip through the CDs like he’s at Amoeba. Ponder the names and titles. And then come to the shocking realization that even he can’t come up with a reason to keep it.

Unless you’re famous – like Hank Mancini kind of famous – where some unknown university in Bum Fuck Egypt sends a low level grad student to cart your skidmarks on Hanes back to a shrine in the desert, you’re fucked Maestro.

It hurts to think about it. I know, because we’ve all spent countless hours bleeding rectally to get done what needs to be done. Nobody works harder than the modern composer. Day in, day out. Always trying to do our fucking best. All that wasted time driving across town to blow yet another producer hoping to get that movie or network series. Long nights searching for the lost chord only to end up with the brown note.

Yes. Believe it or not, worthy or not, brilliant or not, there is music that will be thrown out upon our demise. Stepped on, shit on and burnt.

But there is also our “Best of” music. The special stuff. The stuff you love. Somewhere, in everyone’s studio, lies the good shit. It doesn’t matter if it’s a cue from Baywatch or a commercial for Depends™, you know the good shit. We owe it to ourselves to be gathering, planning, recording, packaging and storing our good stuff. Preserving it. Protecting it. Guaranteeing its future.

I’m making a promise I really hope to keep. You should too. All of us should each make a “Best of” CD. If need be, we should make ten different ones. A lifetime box set if you will. Package them up nice. Write some liner notes. Put a picture of yourself on the cover – no matter how fucking ugly you are. No one will ever throw away a “Best of” CD. The title demands, “Keep me around forever.” Go all the way – dedicate it to those who follow in your gene pool.

And that album you’ve always said you would record? Record it! Just fucking do it. Don’t take another job just so you can put a big screen plasma in the guest room shitter. No more excuses. Make it incredible. Call in every favor. Pay a really great graphic designer to make it as beautiful visually as it is sonically. Sell it, don’t sell it. It doesn’t matter. Money is not important. Posterity is important. Respecting your music is important. Documenting your talent is important. Documenting your place and your contribution on this earth is important.

And when you’re long gone, and when one of your loved ones is reluctantly picking through your crap, when their hands land on something you made, something you created, something that would not have existed had you not lived and breathed here on this beautiful planet, they will stop what they are doing. They will play your music. Your music will move them and they will close their eyes and they will think of you. They will thank you. They will not throw it away. They will keep it. And they will listen to it every now and again and they will remember you.

And that is better than $20 at some fucking garage sale.

20 YEAR VETERAN GEAR SLUT SELLS EVERYTHING; STATUS DEMOTED TO JUST SLUT

2007-11-15T07:05:00.000-08:00

Wife On All Time Euphoric High As Chronic Compulsive Knob-Turner Directs Bored Fingers Towards Her

You read it right. I’m done. I just force quit a life long passion. An obsession. My quest of owning every single piece of cool music gear ever made is done. Blasphemer! The end is near! (perfect timing since the end of the music business is here too – cool!) But, really, I think it’s just the beginning. Who woulda thought there’s a life to be lived out there? A world full of wonder. A world without a room full of musical equipment. The search for the Holy Grail is over.

Not that the Holy Grail has been found, mind you, just that I’ve stopped looking for it.

I’ve stopped flipping through Keyboard, Remix and Electronic Musician magazines like a 16 year old with a Playboy and a chubby. Yes, the articles are still informative. The reviews a must. But that craving, that drooling stare at all those gorgeous spreads of sexy new gear? They are nothing to me now. I’m above it all – like a drummer who can read music. I’ve sold all my gear. Not most of it. All of it. It sounds like I quit the music business. I didn’t. I downsized. I cleaned house. And I’m a richer($) man for it. (snort, hike up britches.)

A month or two back, I actually stopped writing music. Took stock, assessed and analyzed my work method in the studio. A full day just for that. I noted how much I used different pieces of gear. I wrote down how often I repeated certain tasks. I contemplated a world without so many buttons, knobs, switches and keys. A simpler life. A life as head music Quaker in LA.

As composers and musicians, we are on the brink of a new age. The time has come to break our chains. We are free! I say to you, rise up. Unburden yourself from unused gear and over abundance. I did it. And now I have more time for the important things in life - family, friends, socially responsible drinking.

Is it scary? Even more than that 10 Day Thai Sex Travel Tour you booked yourself on.

Are our collective dick sizes (girls graciously included here) tied to how much gear we have? Only from our own skewed personal perspective.

Should our talent be measured by our latest and greatest finance-threatening acquisition? Be brave – don’t fall into that trap.

Does it go against everything you’ve been taught as a cutting edge musician? Stabs it in the heart. Dead.

Does it make those pictures of Keith Emerson in front of a thousand keyboards kind of silly? No. Well, kind of. Those pics document another age. Another time when abundance and complexity were the norm. It’s called THE PAST. Today, we can be leaner and meaner. It is time to be the Lara Flynn Boyle of music.

Instead of looking at it as “what I have to lose” we must think of it as “what I have to gain.” And that, is FREEDOM!

Kick The Shit Out 101:

Took stock of the synths I had. Rolands, Korgs, Yamahas, Nords, Emus. Yes, each in their own right has served me well over the years. There are killer sounds on each and every one of them, but as I noted how often and for what purpose I was using these, I realized it wasn’t much as I’d thought. I ordered some new soft synths to cover those; Arturia’s Jupiter-8V, FabFilter’s Twin, all of the Rob Papen stuff, the Native Instruments bundle. (Complaint Alert!™ – why isn’t every great classic synth a plugin already? I’ll buy ‘em all! Here I stand cash in hand, waiting, wondering . . . ) Hey – I need some advice, should I drop $2500 for the newest hardware synth or buy 12 plugin synths for the same amount?

Added Bonus Alert™ - I was also able to hurl my four (4) midi interfaces (i.e. doorstops).

Next, my beloved Yamaha 02R96 mixer. Impeccable design. Easy to use. Handles every format under the sun. When we’d switch from Protools at 96k back to my normal 24bit 44.1 working mode – it was literally a push of the button. But again, when I noticed how much I was actually utilizing its incredible features – nada. I was already moving towards “mixing in the box” and hadn’t accepted it. Toss it. Because it’s like the rule in your closet – if you haven’t worn it in over a year, you’re not going to wear it (that doesn’t mean the leather pants. Because if you even claim to be in the music business you better have a pair hanging in there or you’re just a poser. And preferably they should be 2 sizes too small – you know, the size you USED to wear. The size you swear you will wear again as soon as you figure out a way to quit that Popeye’s dependence.) And what about that big ol’ Mackie Midi Controller? Chuck it. One word. Faderport. Or AlphaTrack. Or Goatse. Why do I need 8 faders? If I’m controlling all of my BG vox, I’ve already bussed them to a single fader in Logic. Now I control them with my middle finger on my only fader. (Please note aggressive physical insult thrown towards all manufacturers of multi fader midi controller systems. In your face!)

Next up – cutting the dark side completely from my life. I don’t mean Scientology. I mean I had a rack of 6 PCs running a variety of things from Gigastudio to Kontakt 2 to Forte running various VST plugins. Again, I found, at most I was using only one or two of these at a time. My new “Titanium Testicle” Mac Pro 8 core can handle that! Fuck Microsoft - again! Had them taken away - like Britney’s children.

I barreled on like a spring cleaning suburban mom amped up on prescription meds.

Video playback. WTF. DVD. DAT. VHS. Video switcher between all this caveman shit. My Canopus box. Now with each job, I tell them “Quicktime” – that’s it – no other choice. And they do it. Because I said so. Or I asked politely. 42” Plasma TV - Poof! – I bought two 30” Mac monitors.

Cassette (sure, I still had one - in case by brother showed up with that Honk “Five Summer Stories” soundtrack and we wanted to reminisce over some medical cannabis.) CD Player – why?

And suddenly, it all began to snowball. Multiple Big Ben word clocks – don’t need ‘em. Blackburst generator – unnecessary. Computer monitor switcher for all those damn PCs – Can you spell Goodwill donation and exaggerated tax write off??!!!

Furman patchbays! I was tired of shaving them every week. Ewww! Cables? How 2006! Cabling of every type and description on the planet running the perimeter of the studio. Hundreds of feet of this shit – vanished.

In addition to Protools I was running a MOTU 2408. Finished! What was I thinking with all this stuff?

I bought big “Hungry Man” size drives for the computer. Got rid of all those small “Fun Size” ones I was collecting over the years.

And I stood there looking at a near empty machine room. A lonely Apogee Rosetta 800, Furman Power Conditioner (with five o’clock shadow) and my Mac Pro. Oh, and my beloved Neve mic pres. And instead of feeling like the boy with the smallest dick in the locker room, I felt liberated. I felt comforted.

First Glaring Conundrum™ - whether I should put a stripper pole or a wine rack in the rest of the machine room. Vote online now!

I started working. Yes, there were some moments of pause where I sat there and said “OK, I used to do it this way, I need to find a new way.” And I did. And it all felt rather new and different. Fresh and exciting, if I may be so bold as to quote Kool & The Gang. (BTW™, is that bass part loud enough in that mix or what!!!???) The whole writing experience seemed, well, actually more about writing than technology. I got a call the following day about some changes the producer (wanker) wanted to the music I had written (already perfect). I toweled off from the pool, and opened the sequence – WHAM! – it was up in seconds. My old setup template took FOREVER! to load. All that extraneous bullshit needed to make all that extraneous bullshit work = sit around with thumb up ass. I hit play on the keyboard – and I’ll be damned. It sounded exactly like it did yesterday. I don’t know about you, but in my previous setup when I brought a mix back up it sounded “kinda” like it did before. There’s no instant recall when you have 15 other sound sources going through 3 other devices in addition to the rumored “total recall” elements in your computer. I would have had to spend valuable drinking time, tweaking the mix to get it right and then making the changes. This time, I muted the unwanted (although very hip and really, quite musical Autotuned chainsaw & trombone duet) sound the producer “hated.” Hit “Bounce” and in 90 seconds was emailing the revised cue back to them and heading back to the pool where 3 supermodels with margaritas awaited me and my thong.

This never would have happened in my old, archaic, complicated, clusterfuck™ system. There’s a rule, it’s not Murphy’s but some other Irish dude’s, and it says “The more shit you have, the more shit breaks.” I might be paraphrasing. And shit did break – or kinda not work – or got a buzz in it – or wouldn’t read midi today – or – or – or. And I would waste time. I would stop writing. I would don my NTGH (Nerdy Tech Guy Hat™) and attempt to fix it. I was convinced I couldn’t live without this piece of gear. When it got bad, I gave up and called in a tech guy who wears a VSNTGH (Very Special Nerdy Tech Guy Hat™). I shit money into a bucket for him while he tried to solve said problem. And I wasn’t writing.

I sold all of my gear. Got lots of money for it. Enough money that I could have bought another complete system like mine and had it standing by – just in case my main system blew up. Fortunately, I was smart enough to invest it all in hookers and blow. C’mon, we’re in the music business – who needs a savings account? I’m gonna write a hit! Like Hey Jude or some catchy shit like that.

Now there’s nothing short of an infuriatingly itchy STD or a massive earthquake that can keep me from working.

OK, I’ll admit, if you took the guitars and my keyboard controller out of the studio, my new setup looks like I do graphics for a living. And we all know how much graphic designers don’t get laid. Who cares? When I sit here, it feels like this system is all about the music. The notes. The sound. It ain’t about mixed marriages of PC/Mac, or Protools/Logic, or Midi/LAN/Word Clock/Lightpipe group sex animosity.

This is the future and it’s yours. Sell your shit. You don’t need it. From now on, the only things I will buy are new plugins and a new Mac. Oh, and tequila. My yearly expenditure on gear probably dropped 90%. Think of it as a pay raise.

Go forth and write – and give yourself a pay raise.

P.S.
Helpful Tip Alert!™ ™ symbol created with Option 2 – cool! Use it often and for no apparent reason.

A Kinky Threesome Ends Amid Name Calling, Tears And No Regrets

2007-11-06T15:18:00.000-08:00

A long, long time ago, I thought I had it all. I was shacked up with two of the hottest songbirds on the market. Oh man, was it good. The three of us tangled up together, unable to tell where one started and the other began. Late nights pouring our hearts and souls out. Exploring every nook and cranny. Pushing our limits. Day after day, night after night. I diddled and experimented with them till I was spent. I felt like a sheik with his harem. There was nothing these high price gals wouldn’t do. I broke every rule, bent every cable, and they loved me for it. All of it without so much as a safe word. Exciting. Dangerous. Potentially deadly.

Everybody wanted what I had. Only a chosen few were unlucky enough to get it. You see, I would love to paint a rosy picture consisting solely of kinky authorization sessions and blissful musical climaxes together, but, alas, it was not to be so. There were issues. Serious issues. Who was I to think you could put two sexy, top-of-the-line supermodels in the same room and expect them to play well together? Sultry vixens can be vicious. First, one would sulk and threaten to never put out again. Then the other would act up intermittently, leaving me unsure of actually pulling off yet another tonally satisfying intercourse. And here’s why.

There’s something fundamentally different in their coding, man. Avid and Apple hate each other. Sure, on the surface they try and make it look like everything is hunky-dory but deep down, oh, these guys hate each other. Like drummers used to hate LinnDrum machines. An ugly, vindictive hate.

As their bickering and fighting increased over the years, I became less and less willing to coax them back together. The results of these “reconciliations” were less than optimal. At one low point, when I just couldn’t take it anymore, I screamed at them. Called them dirty, foul, disgusting names. I’m not proud of it. I threatened to throw them out. Kick both of these harlots to the curb. Yes, it was partially my fault. I had stupidly brought home the latest in computer porn, Apple OS X. What was I thinking? I knew they’d get pissed. I knew they’d lock me out of the studio, make me sleep on the Korg Workstation in order to deliver. Pure chaos. Their petty arguing and posturing had pushed me to my limit. I couldn’t take it anymore. It took multiple counseling sessions with studio tech extraordinaire Bob Rice and a couple of thousand bucks but we kissed and made up.

But it was never the same. People hold grudges. Some people just don’t like forgiving past indiscretions. Sure enough, only six months later, all hell broke loose. This was back when BT, another delusional composer like me, hell bent on trying to pull off this musical ménage a trios, said in Keyboard Magazine that he’d fly cross the country and pay more than top dollar for someone’s Protools/Logic rig on the spot if anyone had one running that wouldn’t crash. No one ever took him up on it! Crash after crash after kernel panic after kernel panic. I contemplated taking a hammer and mutilating their pristine interfaces. It was beyond frustrating. It was a million miles beyond unbelievably unfucking unbearable.

One night, the three of us were alone in the studio. We’d had a couple so we were getting along. I was using my best moves. I was being gentle. I was being careful not to offend. I did nothing that could have been remotely construed as in appropriate or “out of the social norm.” And wham! Ms. Princess Protools decides she’s not going to let uppity little Miss Logic slut recognize her hard body badunkadunk hardware anymore. “You can look at me right here in the equipment rack, bitch, but I will NOT permit your copyright-protected protocol attempts at greasy digital access to penetrate my most private of areas!” And with that came a grinding halt to my income stream. Late night calls to tech support, technicians, friends and even Jesus himself (albeit “in vain” at points), could not rectify what had become the beginning of the end of a very tumultuous relationship.

What a sucker I am. I cried for a couple of days. Took long hot showers curled up in a ball on the tiled floor. Buckets of tears later, I turned all of the gear back on again. It worked. And so I struggled through. Again. I dealt with it. Again. For another couple of years. It was tough going most of the time. Occasionally, I was painfully prick teased by the system running without incident for hours, even half days, at a time. There were moments of karmic harmonic bliss. Fleeting moments when I felt the nectar of technology couldn’t taste any sweeter. But undoubtedly, whenever the job was on the line, whenever it was the absolute worst time for the shit to overflow, I was swimming in it.

A couple of months ago, I decided I’d had enough. I wanted peace and harmony in my studio. I wanted to put away the chainsaws and light some damn candles. I wanted to use software that likes each other. Software that gets along. Can’t we all just get along? I was forced to choose. I was given an ultimatum. Backed into a corner. Bitch slapped into the reality that these companies do not care one fuck about the greater good of music. Do not care for one brief second about creating a situation that allows a composer to create at the top of his or her game. They insist you pick one of them. They insist you choose. It’s like pre-midi days when several manufactures were reluctant to allow other synths to violently penetrate their sacred ports. And what happened to them when they finally opened their manufactured legs? They sold more shit than ever before. Because it allowed all of us to do what we do unencumbered by their need to dominate.

No, it wasn’t entirely Ms. Protools fault. I love her dearly. She’s a smooth running, sweet singing hussy. The dictatorship of Emperor Steve of the kingdom of Apple aren’t 100% to blame either. They both make great tools. But they’re both playing the same cruel game on the side. Each one of them wants to rule the world and will suffer no competitors. Kill or be killed. I’ve got the scars to prove it.

I had to choose. Do you marry for sex or brains? Money or love? Complicated as fuck environment setup or plugins that cost 3 times more than the other formats? With the switch to Intel chips and Leopard, I could see into my troubled future and knew I had to pull the plug on one of them.

I went with Uncle Steve. The Big Apple. Current ruler of music. I had to. For Christ’s sake, I’ve been married to Logic longer than my wife! Protools will live a long and healthy life without me. They are the de facto standard. I just don’t need them right now everyday of the week. I’ve got an Mbox sitting on a shelf here so I can deliver in PT when necessary.

So now I’m running the Apogee Symphony, only using Audio Unit plugs. I added more packages like the Sonnox Oxford suite of things to cover stuff I really missed from PT. Yes, I miss Impact but Inflator does some serious signal boosting damage. Yes, I had to wait until the brilliant SoundToys effects were available in AU. Since I’m on an Intel Mac now, I’m forced to get by without Spectrasonics Trilogy and Atmosphere but how the hell long am I suppose to honor our marriage vows and not fool around on the side? Hey Eric! WTF? I’m sorry but I got a little tipsy a few times, got a little randy and loaded up some other developer’s pads (like the amazing Rob Papen synths) - I didn’t want to but you said you’d meet me at the bar later for a drink and some updated plugins but you never showed and I had to get this thing done, and well . . . Marriages have been ruined for less!

I’m happy now. Things run smoothly. My life is simpler. I download lots of pictures of kitty cats and pretty flowers.

Do I miss the wild and debauched times? The “hanging from the rafters” crazy out of my mind nights? That feeling building inside you that makes you realize you’re capable of destroying $30,000 worth of gear in a rage and not care?

Now, when my wife tucks me into bed at night, I have a smile on my face. I didn’t crash today. Not once. And that, my friends, to my ears, is beautiful music.

SP

How To Build An Orchestra And Live To Tell About It

2007-11-02T11:02:00.000-07:00

I have been complaining (a lot and mostly to myself) about the lack of useable support for orchestral libraries. The massive amount of hours each of us has spent experimenting, learning, reading, and listening, in a futile effort to create the optimal orchestral template is staggering. The outrageous cost of the sample libraries themselves pales in comparison to the cost of our “wisdom.” I’ll pay any amount (and I think I already have) just to get something that sounds great and works.

None of us could ever look, with pained, exasperated faces, to the supreme sound developers for help. There wasn’t any. “Everyone uses our products in a different way so there’s no point in us trying to explain it.” I actually saw (drugs may have been involved) “Good luck trying to make this shit work all at the same time” written in 2 point on the back of one sample library box. The Garritan Personal Orchestral had the right idea, load up the orchestra and start writing. Unfortunately, I’m not a fan of the sound quality. I want great sounds and a basic template that I can fiddle with. What about it East West, VSL, Sonivox?

Well, I believe I have stumbled (drinking may have been involved) upon my (our) orchestral salvation. Piccolos at the ready!

Yesterday, I accidentally ended up at the VSL site and there, http://vsl.co.at/, like a pot of gold (blow) sitting in the middle of the street (console), were placed video tutorials on how to use their sounds. Maybe they’ve been there since Nixon, but I never got the email about it.  No shit. It was almost like going to the Apple site with their really great video tours. Really well done, well-explained, clear, concise videos. It’s a three part series dissecting a composer’s (Christian Kardeis) piece of music – IN LOGIC! (extra bonus for all Logic users) – showing how all of the instruments were laid out, how to manipulate the sounds, how to load an entire orchestra. Almost everything you need to get working with a great sounding orchestra – hell, they even threw in a few orchestration/composition tips. (love what you did with the cembalo Christian) And as if that wasn’t enough (and all sample libraries feel they have already done enough just by making the stuff) . . . They’ve included a downloadable template – the exact piece of music that Christian worked on (sure it’s in Logic 7 but opened perfectly in Logic 8) (Performer, Sonar and Cubase available as well) – complete with the impulse responses he used (because as the voice over correctly states, “the sound of the room is almost as important as the sound itself.” Yep, the whole setup. One easy download. I put the impulse responses in their proper folders – I launched Christian’s template – and, like it was a product from Apple (more blatant stock price manipulation) – it worked! And now, as a customer, I was actually able to dig deep into the sequencer template and have a look at exactly how this guy was using their sounds. He busses instruments “pre fader” to adjust reverb; he controls volume and expression in the VSL player; see how he layered a portamento string patch on top of another string patch and with a flip of the mod wheel the strings beautifully scoop up to the next note. I dug deep enough into his template to find I was developing a little crush on him. (blush) Naturally, since none of us can ever refrain from making the world a better place by fucking with everything!!!!, I “fixed” some of Christian’s patches (matrices in VSL speak) – he had loaded just what he needed for his piece and only used the VSL Special Edition – and I need a more versatile setup than that (i.e. worthy of my stature), but it was a great start to explaining the VSL player and one very good way to build an orchestral setup. BTW, the Special Edition version really kicks ass. Under $500 and you’ve got 90% of a balls deep orchestra. Sure, my Appassionata Strings sounded bigger (and bigger is always better, right honey?) than the Special Ed strings – but the “short bus” version did the job admirably. Better than admirably. So don’t look down on them for their size and limitations, praise their “specialness.”

In short order, I built a killer orchestra in Logic 8. Yeah, I’m on an 8 core MacPro (blatant cock waving) with plus size model ram (12 gig) but I’m thankfully out of the “Kontakt 2 ram is low” pain in the ass issues and I’m writing music! (Note to self: writing music pays bills, dicking with templates and writing blogs does not!)

OK – yes, I still had to load a couple of Kontakt instances (begrudgingly) because damn EW had to go and make their French Horns sound soooooooo killer - big and blatty – (horn players with balls as big as their bells) the Ethel Mermans of the horn sample world - that I refuse to write another cue without them (same goes for their timpani) - (which, if I’m not mistaken, they sampled while they beat it with a 30 lb. sledge hammer). And then, just to prove once again that you never get everything you need for $10,000, EW chose to include the absolute worst woodwinds to counter these fine patches.

My pimped out template loads in 3:30 - just enough time to cruise by youporn.com to check on their beta version and report any bugs – and I’m ready to put in another 12 hour day behind the screen.

Is this nirvana? Is this the reason I got into music? No – that’s still chicks and drugs. But it is why I got into film and tv scoring. I prefer writing music to staring confusingly at a computer screen trying to figure out why Controller 67 won’t route my pedal volume to the filter bank controlling my vibrato on my slide whistle. Yes, you will change things in the template. Yes, you will substitute, add on, tweak, layer and finger fuck Christian’s template to your own liking/working style. But I tell you, within couple of hours, you will have a working knowledge of the VSL player and a damn decent sounding orchestra. And you’ll be writing music.

And after 10 years of trying and crying, don’t you think we all deserve that?

Scooter