COMPOSER

I was fortunate to get to sit in on a master class recently with Master audio engineer Roger Nichols. This cat is responsible for some of the finest recordings and mixes of our time. He is truly an "Engineer's- engineer". You may have heard his work with Stevie Wonder or maybe James Taylor. How about Frank Zappa? The Beach Boys? Plácido Domingo? The list goes on and on... He has won 6 Grammy Awards for his work with Steely Dan alone. These are some of my favorite works of his. Grab a pair of earphones or your favorite HiFi speakers and listen, really listen to the audio beauty that are the Steely Dan recordings. Try "Aja" or "Two Against Nature" for starters... The clarity, the punch, the definition and mood evoking vibe is truly a standard by which all other recordings in this genre can be held to. Studios all over the world pop in a Steely Dan CD to compare their own recordings to see if they are up to par. I do it all the time. Anyway, he said some ...

This is Rad. Yep, I said it...Rad.

I recently acquired an iPhone 3G. Before I had my hands on one, I had heard about and seen videos of things like apps that control Protools or others DAWs and thought; that's a gadget, why would anyone want to do use their phone as a control surface? So, when I received the iPhone , I did not have any expectations of using it as a music tool. I have been pleasantly surprised! One of the first tools I bought was Cleartune . This is an excellent tuner that has a transposition feature, temperament options and selectable pitch-pipe wave forms. It has been super handy to have a tuner in my pocket. Another app along the same lines is SPL Meter by Studio Six Digital. I like the analogue style VU on this one. It has response and weighting options as well calibration and can use an external mic as well. An app that has really surprised me is Ocarina. If you are a musician and have not seen this one, I am just gonna say "check it out". Either on youtube or download. Another bi...

Hi everyone, I just ran across a heated debate regarding a quote from Moby. Basically, he is saying the day of the "The Album" and making money from music is over. I posted a reply in the discussion and it is below along with Moby's quote. I would love to hear what you guys think about it. Moby: "There are a lot of musicians who are still desperately trying to pretend that it's 1998 and by having a huge marketing campaign, they somehow believe that they can sell 10 million records. That's delusional. No one sells 10 million records. The days of musicians getting rich off of selling records are done. People can make a living, but the profit motive has been so diminished that now it seems that the only way to approach making music is for the love of it. Anyone who wants to start a band in 2009 because they want to get rich is, quite simply, an idiot. The only people who are getting rich are like Elton John, who go on tour and sell tickets for $500 a pop. The ol...

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...

...well, actually it did need some repair and I thought about going that route but realized that I had a much more interesting path I could follow; a giant Zither. That's right, I said it...a Giant Zither. Some might argue the terminology but that's OK, I just like saying Giant Zither. In the tradition of John Cage, Arvo Part, ( Tabula Rasa ) Henry Cowell and more recently Brian Eno and the Aphex Twins I am going to mutilate, alter and otherwise "modify" (my favorite word) the standard method of playing the beloved Pianoforte . A brief background on Prepared Piano; usually, this term refers to taking a piano (typically a grand or baby grand for ease of access to the strings) and placing various types of"modifiers"directly on or in between the strings themselves. If you have access to horizontally strung piano give it a try, it can produce tones that sound like ethereal bells( Arvo Part's Tabula Rasa is a wonderful example of this ) to weird and w...

When the heck are we gonna get all of the important info that comes on a hard copy of a music purchase, with an mp3? I mean for cryin' out loud! Am I the only one that wants to know who produced an album? Who played drums? Where was it recorded? Who mastered it? What the heck did that singer say?? Hes gonna bury a chocolate bar? Gonna buy a 'lectric guitar? We'll never know... These are the burning questions that keep me up at night after I have visited amazon or itunes for a quick fix. Sure, some of this info can be found on the net. IF you can avoid the bot sites that come up in google that say RADIO HEAD LYRICS and then proceed to try and take over your computer after you click the link. Even still, it can be difficult to find credits. And dagnabbit, I shouldn't have to go looking. I should get it when I buy the music-Automatically. There are a couple of places like NoneSuch Records that sell you the CD, and an instant (high quality!) download for 1 price. This ro...