So I put two and two together and with a little help from Ableton Live (which still works nicely even in Rosetta), I was able to piece together this little ditty in about an hour - Junkie Boys “Ch-Ch-Check it Out”. Download MP3 6.1MB
I’m not quite sure where you can get a copy of Junkyard Jazz since they seemingly only sell CD-Rs on the street. If ever in Boston, keep your eye out for these guys.

Michael Writes:

Music industry revenues will be a set size, regardless of the quality or type of music they release. Incentives to innovate will evaporate. There will only be competition for market share, with no attempt to build the size of market or serve less-popular niches. Forget labels building new brands and encouraging early artists to succeed - they’ll bleed existing big names for all they are worth and work hard to keep anything new - labels, artists, and songwriters - out of the market. New entrants just means more competition for a static amount of money. Collusion by existing players will run rampant.

I will be tracking this one closely. There has GOT to be a better way to manage the selling of music in today’s markets. Bringing this issue to the form of a brute tax is not the way to foster innovation and come up with interesting, more effective business models for the music business.

I’m doing a little cross posting here. I decided to dive back into Final Cut yesterday and see if I couldn’t brush up on some masking skills. There are a few projects that I’d like to do. So as my fodder for this quick rehash, I chose the Mac vs PC guy commercials, but decided to cross cultures a little bit. Check it out if you like.

More site updates coming soon, an updated CV along with some information on new projects and a new Logic tutorial - all due out by the end of the month. Stay tuned.

A little shout out to my man Anthony Griffin for putting together some amazing film work. The tie-in here is with my old band Pthalo which is now since defunct. This man behind the lens manages to coax some of the most creative shots in indepedent film. If you haven’t seen some of the films that he’s worked on in the past, please give them a look. Direct link to his site and this film.

Logic Live Template - Video Tutorial Part 1 (Quicktime, H.264, AAC) 10.81MB

This article is a follow-up article to August’s release of the Logic Live Environment Template. In this article, I will walk you through the reasoning, setup, and extension of this environment template and hopefully shed some overall light on how I’ve put this thing together. I am finally getting around to going through the Logic template tutorial and creating some value for those who have downloaded the template and are still stuck trying to figure it out. I will be posting these in sections since they are easier to manage and upload to various video services or posting direct links here.

In this installment, I go through a high-level overview of the template and how it is set up. I discuss how the MIDI routing works, how instruments are turned on and off, and how Note On, Note Off, and Program Change messages are filtered through the system.

In the next installment, I will cover a two instrument split. Please send any feedback here. Enjoy!

This setup is configured to run about 4000 watts, between the subs, mains and monitors which reliablely puts out about 120-125 decibels in a medium sized room. Unfortuneately, I haven’t spent a lot of time using the system since the completion was during the time I was in Iraq and since my PA lives in Connecticut and I live in Germany, I have yet to spend many sweaty nights with this baby.

Read more below:

• Mackie SR24.4 Console
• PreSonus ACP88 Gate/Compressor
• dbx 1066 Gate/Compressor
• dbx 215 EQ
• dbx 1231 EQ
• Lexicon MPX1 Effects Processor
• 4 Yamaha SM15IV Mains/Monitors
• 2 Yamaha SM15V Mains/Monitors
• Yamaha SW118 Sub
• 2 Mackie SRS1500 Powered Sub
• Mackie 1400i Amp
• 2 Yamaha P5000S Amp
• Furman PL-PLUSII Power Conditioner
• Furman RP-8D Power Conditioner
• Assorted Calzone Shockmounted Racks

This setup is configured to run about 4000 watts, between the subs, mains and monitors which reliablely puts out about 120-125 decibels in a medium sized room. Unfortuneately, I haven’t spent a lot of time using the system since the completion was during the time I was in Iraq and since my PA lives in Connecticut and I live in Germany, I have yet to spend many sweaty nights with this baby.

I’ve worked with most of the components in the PA. The last pieces were the Mackie SR24.4 (VLZ!!!!), a pair of Yamaha Club V mains (improved versions of the Club IV), PreSonus ACP88 (I have yet to truely work with it), 2 Yamaha P5000S amps (solid workhorses), dbx 215 (it’s an EQ, not too exciting), Yamaha 18″ sub (good for a drum box) and the awesome Lexicon MPX1 (I think it’s smarter than me).

Even without this stuff, the PA sounded better than most of house PA’s we’ve used over the years. Running the Mackie amp to power monitors and mains and using a Mackie CFX12 (which I’ve sold) made for a nice and somewhat compact system.

Even with all that’s in the system, there some things I have yet to decide on. The PreSonus ACP88 is a fine compressor but I think I like the sound of the dbx 66 series. Comparing the 1066 to the ACP88, the dbx has a fatter sound BUT, the PreSonus had timed gates which are nicer to work with. I guess I’ll have to get a rack of timed gates and 4 dbx 166XL’s…

The other issue that I have is matching my speakers. I think I might go all unpowered Yamaha speakers, Club Concert Series with some P7000S amps. The Mackie subs are great but I like the sound of 18’s. It’s that “takes-your-breath-away” punch you get in your chest.

Anyhow, that’s a project for later down the road when I’m actually using the PA.

I’ve finished moving all of my personal posts over to a new site. For my personal random babbling please point your browsers, aggregators, and eyeballs over to http://www.findingjapan.com.

This site will be my personal dumping ground for all random thoughts while I traverse business school and language school in Japan.

I’ve also posted podcast links for Finding Japan which includes the previous Japan Trip podcast. To get audio and video files for that, please move on over to the new site. Thanks!

As I get ready to head off to grad school, I will be redefining heavyliftmusic.com to focus on content relating to audio and music production. I have been working on quite a few audio projects that I’d like to promote and Mike Tobin will soon be working in the audio field for the US Army - and I’m sure he’ll have much to share so I will be asking him to be a contributor.

I will be moving my personal thoughts, photography, updates and Japanese business school studies over to another site in the coming days and I will post that here when finished.

Stay tuned.

You can create multiple stations from artists and if you choose not to pay, it becomes ad supported, which is pretty damned reasonable.

From the Pixies, I’ve discovered artists like Portastatic and listened to some great older Bob Mould material. Fantastic, check it out. http://www.pandora.com/.

Logic_Live_Template_v1.3.zip 48k/download

It should work with Logic 7.0 Pro right out of the box. I’m not sure if it will work with Logic Express, please give it a try and email me at chris [at] heavyliftmusic [dot] com. Thanks, and keep it right here for the follow-up and explanation article coming soon. Thanks