OS X Mountain Lion
Apple has unveiled some of the new features of OS X Mountain Lion. As many of us expected, it shows Apple further blurring the distinction between its desktop operating system, now called OS X instead of Mac OS X and the mobile iOS system. More iOS Features On Your Mac Mountain Lion further embeds the [...]
Neil Young On The Quality Of Digitial Music
The following clip, of Neil Young being interviewed at the D: Dive Into Media conference, is doing the rounds of the internet. It’s not long, about ten minutes, so if you love music, I’d encourage you to take a listen. At the end of the clip, Neil Young makes an extraordinary comment, “Steve Jobs was [...]
Mainstage – Almost A Gift!
Up until recently, Apple’s high end music production application, Logic Pro, was sold as a suite, or bundle of programmes that included Mainstage, Compressor, Soundtrack Pro and previously Waveburner. But, last week Apple moved Logic pro into it’s new online App Store and in the process unbundled Mainstage from its parent (and perhaps also deleted [...]
The Math Behind Storing Music For Production
Not that long ago storing your music was simply a physical challenge. We used shelves, drawers, boxes and occasionally weird shaped towers to store our tapes, reels, vinyl, CDs then MiniDiscs. But then came the big revolution and we started to store music on computers and portable devices. Bit Rate And Sample Rate When we [...]
Singapore And SoundCloud Searches
Earlier this year I played a small part in helping kick-off HKSocial, a monthly breakfast meeting, for creative types in Hong Kong who are interested in better understanding Social Media. Despite having moved to Singapore, it’s nice to see they haven’t forgotten me, yet, as I was reminded on Friday when my Twitter stream lit [...]
On Being Kicked In The Butt
Create Digital Music is one of my favourite blogs; consistently good writing and insight. A recent post, What You Don’t Need To Make Music, featured Zack Wright, who is currently recording under the name Dkon. Apparently Dkon works under a manifesto, which, I have to say, gave me a kick in the butt. Dkons Tips [...]
Mutli Output With Logic Pro And EZdrummer
Readers asked a number of questions in response to my recent post on using Logic Pro. In particular there was interest in using multi output. Soft synths and sample players usually default to a stereo or mono signal, but you can set some of them up to feed Logic with a multi output. The number [...]
Learning From Listening (and Whitesnake)
Clearing out my email inbox brought a reminder that Whitesnake, an 80s band synomous with power ballads, big hair and less-than-subtle music videos, will soon be touring Singapore. I won’t be attending the concert. But, I couldn’t resist a quick trip down YouTube memory lane. It was fascinating to compare two versions of one their [...]
The Software I Use
At least once a year I like to audit the my software. This week I’m been going through that exercise; deciding which programmes to upgrade, buy or ditch in the coming few months. Given that I’ve been asked in recent weeks about the applications that fill my hard drives, I thought it made sense to [...]
Logic Pro 104b
I’m regularly asked to offer tips on using Logic Pro. Typically I don’t think of myself as “good with software” so I resist (same is true when I’m asked for ideas on using Lightroom for photography). But, I keep being asked and to be honest, we all need a little encouragement and left field inspiration [...]
Hong Kong Recapitulated
I’ve come to the end of a quick visit to Hong Kong. This was mostly work with a little bit of relaxation thrown in. Saw very few people but had the chance to walk a little in the paths I trod during my five years here. As always happens with these kinds of return trips, [...]
Can You Hustle?
Last week I was having one of those really cool meetings that make this whole “creative” work thing worthwhile. Great location, with a cool person I respect, talking about a project I’d love to be part of. Then I was hit with the kind of question that can be (well, for me at least) really [...]
My Cube Hunch
Speculating about potential Apple products is always a hazardous affair. Apple are known for being innovative, secretive and unpredictable. But, I’ve got a hunch (and it’s no more than that) that we will see some significant changes to the top end of the desktop range and, possibly, the end of the Mac Pro. Ever since [...]
Changing Lanes When There Are No Lanes
We live in an extraordinary era, with the economics of communication totally changing. What do I mean by that? Well, when I was young, we would tune into television or radio and hope to hear people that were interesting (to us), talking about things that were relevant (to us). It was a pretty inefficient process, [...]
Change
If you had told me, ten years ago, that I would now be sitting in my home office printing documents wirelessly from my notebook computer, while using a mobile phone to control music playing in my living room that is stored on a computer in yet another room, all communicating on a wireless network – [...]
Opening The Ark
I’ve just finished a long week of unpacking in Singapore. This wasn’t just unpacking the stuff that filled our home in Hong Kong, it was also unpacking things that had been in long term storage since we left India in 2006! The guitar body above – a half finished restoration project – was just one [...]
Anchoring A Recording Studio Part 2
Today I packed up my music stand. This is a big step in closing down my studio. Thursday morning the removalists will come in to take most of my music gear away. I won’t be recording any more music in Hong Kong. A few months back I wrote a post about anchoring a recording studio. [...]
The Amp Building Thing
Although I didn’t spend any time tinkering or making on my recent trip to Adelaide, I did pull some old amplifier schematics books out and cook up some ideas with my father. His background is in tube (valve) audio which, in its day, was kind of the tech/geek frontier we now associate with the web, [...]
Further Thoughts On Audio Quality
Last week I wrote a speculative post asking if we might be on the verge of a new “golden age” in audio quality. I was thinking aloud if ever lower prices for computer data storage, coupled with a growing frustration with MP3 audio quality might lead to change in direction for consumers, with more people [...]
Is Better Quality Audio Around The Corner?
“Ear training is actually mind training, because the appreciation of sound is a learned experience and the more we experience, the more we learn. Although to our modern ears, Edison’s acoustic phonograph gave a crude representation of the original, it’s first listeners felt that is reproduction was indistinguishable from real life. It is only with [...]
Anchoring A Recording Studio
When we imagine a professional recording studio the vision that normally comes into our head is of a mixing desk, or recording console, with rows of faders, knobs and controls. In fact, the people who build and run studios will often talk about the console “anchoring” the studio, both in terms of sound and workflow. [...]
Reboot For April
As I mentioned last week, March was a bit of grind, health-wise. In fact, my theme for April is “re-boot,” since I’m restarting, or reconfiguring a lot of the projects I started in January and February. Last week was a bit of a mess, but the pieces are starting to fit together and the next [...]
iPad2 Quick Thoughts
Last night Apple announced their new iPad. It’s fair to say that most of the tech world was slightly underwhelmed.. Sure, the new iPad 2 has a camera (and iChat functionality) and it’s a little faster, a little lighter and a little more sleek. But, there are few compelling reasons to upgrade if you already [...]
Fernando Gros is a musician, photographer & writer based in Singapore. Born in Santiago de Chile, Fernando grew up in Sydney and has also lived in London, Delhi and Hong Kong.