COMPOSER

Sometimes a flash of brilliance pops into our collective heads and when that happens, the person that remembers it and uses it in a creation....wins. What happens alot is that we hear the idea, and we think "Oh, that's a good one. I am going to remember that!" But alas, moments later, not only is the idea gone, the recollection of even having the idea is gone! But worse (for me) is playing an idea it or humming it or whatever and then booting up the software, setting the input, pressing record and then uh...oh wait the input is not plugged in...OK, now press record and VOILA-- the idea is gone. So, I started looking for an instantly available recorder for my music computer that would with one stroke, be ready to record. Some of you are smarter than me and may have a dedicated mini recorder sitting next to your piano (or guitar or violin, synth etc..) I keep one of those in my car and I have another (a Zoom H2) that is sometimes sitting on the piano and ends up in differe...

I love technology. Old, new, vintage, it's all good. I was reading an interview with producer Erol Alkan recently in Future Music. (if you don't know the UK mag, ignore the high cost and subscribe immediately) He was echoing something that has been said many times by many great producers; technology, plugins, convolution 'verbs and on board DSP are all great....but....what really matters is the ideas that are recorded. A producers job should be to take a really talented artist/band and capture what they do while carefully accentuating and accenting what they do. This is typically the process that makes the Great records and songs. Ya know, the ones that still hold up 20 years later. For some reason, when the opposite is true, ie. a producer takes pretty face and molds the syllables and songs into a quantized pop sensation, it doesn't seem to last. Why is that? They are both ideas coming from a person or team. I can think of a few possible reasons but I would love to he...