Don’t bring demos – Bring product
This morning I was reading Eric Beall comment on Berklee’s recent Perfect Pitch music and songwriting event. What Berklee is trying to do (as always) is prepare musicians and songwriters for the realities of the music business they will encounter. In his post Eric made this startlingly honest comment, “In case you didn’t get the [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Yours For Free
A few weeks back I had some correspondence regarding a cool new project. The client wanted original music and was unhappy about the licensing fees on the piece they had planned to use (are the warning bells ringing for you yet?). Creating “sound-alike” music can be ethically dodgy, but I felt that in this instance [...]
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, [...]
Your Creative Mix
A few months back I mentioned Corwin Hiebert in a blogpost about Generous Marketing. I’m a fan of Corwin’s work and was excited to see him releasing a
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. [...]
MusicMatters 2011
The Conference Last week, for two days and three nights, the MusicMatters conference in Singapore brought together musicians, publishers, record labels, live promoters, music technologists and others with a stake in the Asian music. There were panels, interviews, live music showcases and loads of “networking.” My reasons for being there were simple – I’m moving [...]
MusicMatters Live
This year’s MusicMatters conference has been really rewarding thus far. A better experience than last year for a host of reasons that I’ll outline when I have time for a longer post. For now, here are some images from last night’s band showcases. Saida Baba Talibah from Canada Evaline from the USA Disconnected from Indonesia [...]
Off To MusicMatters
Tomorrow I’ll be flying down to Singapore to attend this year’s MusicMatters conference. It will be two days of seminars, meetings, networking and, yes, a little music as well. In fact, there is a great showcase with forty live acts taking the stage in Clarke Quay over three consecutive nights. Of course, I’ve been in [...]
Conferences Revisited
A few months back I wrote a (somewhat) scathing comment about “creative industry” conferences. I did go on and attend the Semi-Permanent conference here in Hong Kong, which proved to be an entertaining but not very useful couple of days. But, the conference that inspired my initial bluster was MusicMatters, which is being held this [...]
Standing In The Ruin’s Shadow
Esperanza Spalding is an extraordinarily talented young Jazz musician. Like a lot of jazz fans, I was thrilled when she recently won the Grammy for best new artist. I have no great love for the Grammies (as I’ve previously written), but it was great to see a young artist who has the potential to become [...]
Imogen Heap In Adelaide
Last night I had the chance to catch Imogen Heap in Concert here in Adelaide. It was a spur of the moment decision to check the local listings and book a ticket. It turned out to be a fantastic concert. She played to a rapturous audience in the comfortable environs of the Dunstan Playhouse. It [...]
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. [...]
Ute Lemper And The Piazzolla Sextet
When the 2011 Hong Kong Arts Festival programme was announced, the pairing of Ute Lemper and the Piazzolla Sextet immediately caught my eye. Astor Piazzolla was the progenitor of the Nuevo Tango, or new Tango; which took traditional elements of the Tango form and combined it with new instruments (like electric guitar) and new styles [...]
Scott Henderson
Scott Henderson was in Hong Kong last week for two shows at the Skylark Lounge. In fact, we were lucky to see Scott at all, as he was in Northern Japan during the recent earthquake. He was due to give a workshop the day before the gig, but had to cancel that after issues with [...]
