Tuesday, April 26, 2011

So little time...

As I write this, it's 2:13 AM and I'm in the middle of my relaxation phase from the usual late-night gym session.  My days have been filled with stresses of work, and lack thereof.  While I collect my schedule and get organized the next week or so is only going to get busier, more intense, and more frantic!  I wish I could get some time to start working more on some personal projects but until I have a steady job with set hours, these side jobs with the hope of pay are all I have to look forward to whilest applying for work.

This weekend was fairly busy recording at the studio with a friend's band, slowly building up their song when we could fit them in.  The rest of the time Troy's been busy at his day job while I have been getting calls and requests for some pretty odd jobs.  As of right now i'm working on building a rather large symphonic movement for 4 songs in a band's upcoming album which requires a LOT of attention. I've also been contacted about the possibility of doing production sound mixing and recording for a couple of local films coming up soon and possibly some scoring for 1, along with another indie film IF they decide to contact me again about it.  3 video projects up in the roster now.  Sometime this week Troy and I may start working on an advertising campaign for a client, and we're also awaiting another call from 2 bands about upcoming albums they want to do.  On top of that, I've also applied for the studio engineer position at Celldweller Studios and I can only hope I get the opportunity to do some engineering work for one of my favorite music artists!

The Orchestral work has the video blog for the studio in the backseat at the moment.  While it's close to done, there's the final timings and B-roll shots I need to hone in on, and the final pieces of VO material I need to finish recording when my gracious helper has the time to lend me his voice again, Thanks Myke!

My biggest endeavor has come back to the foreground in terms of learning scoring and orchestration at a more complex and realistic level.  While I've been doing research on the various libraries available, I've found that there are several ones that offer up a slurry of realistic mockups, some specialized, and some multi-purpose.

I've found the market is FILLED with virtual orchestra products (look for yourself, on the left-hand side under Brand click on view more and take a look at the list)!  Here's the main ones I have found are considerably authentic in terms of composing and realism for producing stuff on par with what I want to achieve (in no particular order):
  • Vienna Symphonic Library-Huge product list with an even bigger range in price ($155-$7,000)
    • Products range from individual libraries in several formats, to various software packages that can aid and even host the libraries making composition easier and more intuitive for mixing.
  • East West Symphonic Library- much smaller product list but still pretty varying ($175-$995)
    • They're products range from dated Kontakt 2 windows XP based to newer 64-bit specialized ROMpler engines, which also boast the older sample collections with additions of newer patches and better controls.
  • Project SAM Libraries-A more discreet but authentic products ($400-$1,250)
  • CinematicStrings-A specialist library offering a free edition and full edition ($700)
  • AudioBro-Another specialist library offering a ton of control at a decent price range ($300-$1,000)
  • Realtime Instruments-A more obscure one out there, it may seem new but it debuted at AES and NAMM as early as 2006 ($1,500-$3,700)
Now, before I go into further detail, I'm going to scratch Realtime Instruments off the list.  There's a couple of reasons I'm not going to consider this one:
  • I speak only for myself at this point, but just look at this requirements list, I'd probably just go with Option B but I still have to get Vienna Ensemble Pro
  • I assume they don't list sequencers like Sonar for a reason, which is what I use. If they don't list it, I won't bother.
  • The pricetags associated with the software aren't that unreasonable compared to some of the other packages.  They have also listed a turnkey solution.
  • The conjunction of these reasons is that while I may have a pretty fast computer, I do multiple things on it, and the likelihood of running this beast as well as I'd like, I'd rather opt for a networked solution which multiple computers running midi over lan and multi-IO audio... at that pace it's going to be extremely expensive and simply beyond the reach of your average home-enthusiast / indie level composer, ie: me.
  • The fact that it's so obscure while being used by some pretty prestigious if not large names (they dropped videos of Serj Tankian supporting the product, and even mention it being used on American Idol), the product just doesn't seem to be catching onto the mainstream of music composers out there, and there's all but any ranting/raving in online forums of any validity (Cakewalk, VIControl, MusicRadar, etc...)
So, As I write this I've listened to this video on youtube courtesy of CinematicStrings



Pretty cool, pretty authentic.  There's so many out there though.  Here's another video that compares what I'll refer to as "the big 3" thanks to FilmScoringPractice



I honestly liked all 3, each one had a certain vibe and colour to it that makes it sound authentic and a lot of the comments below the user's videos (aside from the flametards blazing idiocy trails).  I think FilmscoringPractice' post in the comment section was pretty accurate:
~ this demo dealt specifically with ensemble patches. Both VSL and LASS are much better suited for playing individual sections/parts and both are more than capable of giving you the nuance needed for the classical style. but there are differences- VSL has a darker, more european sound, whereas LASS has a more hollywood sound. VSL is more controlled (tighter sound/feel). LASS has a nice 'air' but can be a bit hard to tame, and divisi playing in LASS is great for realism. mix them! :) ~
I completely agree with this statement. It's not that any of these are "better" than the other, each one has a certain feel that lends an emotional quality to a particular era of music just as the statement suggested.  They left out East West's Symphonic Library for a reason and I believe it has to do with it's limit in program-ability (speaking only from my experience with the Platinum Plus Kontakt 2 editions).

However, each one poses their own set of obstacles, the biggest being their learning curve.  While Vienna Symphonic Library has the largest, most expensive collection, their software allows for the most intuitive programming that seems to make it easier to compose and mix.  The specialists LA Scoring Strings and Cinematic Strings both offer a more controlled approach with a standard ROMpler like Kontakt but ultimately still have to do a bit of diving into the UI and learning control scripts and the like.  At the worst end of the spectrum you have East West's older Symphonic Orchestra Platinum Plus Kontakt 2-based libraries which are fixed to rather large or undecidedly small groups of instruments and while they offer 3 mic positions (always cool) it seems to need the most setup work in a DAW and a serious plan of attack when programming how the composition should move through each of the various patches to get the various articulations of any instrument sounding authentic.

East West isn't all that bad though, it's sound is actually really "big," and "heavy," which lends to it's appeal to a lot of indie level composers like myself.  That same note, however, is also limiting in the sonic palette that sets it into a niche of scoring to picture, mostly because of the type of emotion and colour it presents.  because it is so dark and big, I've had a hard time getting authentic passages to sound more intimate and romantic without having arguably dark underpinnings. The other hard part is programming convincing patches for things that either need a lot more attack, or faster moving material without sounding too heavy and over-produced.

I ran into this guy's video blog, who seems an avid forum-contributer at VI-Control, and he produced exactly what i'm after in this blog:





Not only did he demonstrate what he did, he gave a good analysis as to why he chose the packages he did.  Not only do they sound convincing, but they nail that typical "hollywood blockbuster" sound.  These packages can all offer a lot on their own, but when they are combined the way he combined them, they are extremely versatile and it seems only best to have combinations like this at a composer's disposal to cover the gamut of potential filmwork available.





A producer for an action flick might want the score to have that Hans Zimmer coloured orchestra, it sounds epic, but the colour allows for a more modern and current theme to be established.  Libraries like VSL are astouding (in price and sonic capabilities) but their color seems to work better for more theatrical effect: take a listen to some of the scoring behind tv shows like Family Guy, or comedy movies, or Harry Potter - obviously more European *see above quote*).  The colour just sounds more suited to conveying those particular emotional qualities better for those scenarios.  If any of you have paid any attention to films you've watched and noticed a certain "color" to it's score, please feel free to comment about it below!  I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on the topic.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Training old dogs!

While I've been away. I've somewhat managed to start working on the video blog.  I've settled on a format that needs heavy narration.  I've also started learning After Effects to spruce up some of the video blog titling and give it some flare. 

After Effects is it's own little beast of a program but needlessly overcomplex.  A lot of the stuff I'm used to doing in "real" 3d engines like 3d Studio Max they try to emulate and mimic and I can understand the point of view of the program: it's a compositing package.  But all of the 2.5d tools (as I like to refer to it as) feel super clunky. 

I need some serious help / training.  What I'd like to do is that super-cool, super-advanced vector grunge motion graphics one might see on, well... any commercial stuff nowadays (it certainly is in demand).  Here's my vector graphics I've imported so far from Illustrator to work with


Those spiral flourishes are going to be a pain, as I'd like them to do the "grow" motion that's so typical.  Right now it's a single layer imported in because inside that illustrator document layer is a couple thousand layers that make up all the individual spirals, large and small.  Anyone have any suggestions, quick tricks, plugins referrals, etc... those would be much appreciated!

I'm taking a quick break to write this because I realized I wanted my own special background for my blog.  Okay, that's much better :)

And now... back to the video blog.  Cheers.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Figuratively speaking...

I've been perplexed by the plethora of music "wannabes" that are claiming fame to their names and have no following and no exposure (like myself, except I don't carry that delusional ego).  I've also noticed a growing number of self-titled critics of music and the industry and noticed they have no experience in music whatsoever other than they listen to it (not even avidly at that).  These days that old saying really seems to ring true that "everyone's a critic".  Simultaneously, "they" criticize with no respect.

The superfluous wave of criticism got me stirred up.  I've been avidly participating in this industry for the better half of a decade semi-professionally at the very least.  With 2 published albums  (1, 2) I know the game well enough to have some say.  I bet I've worked harder at honing my craft and building my business than most of those self-claimed critics do at their day jobs (no offense).  Not to say that anyone working right now isn't working their butts off, but let's face it, a multitude of the work out there is a whole lot easier (at least mentally) than trying to build a brand and identity in music.  It's time consuming, relentless, and extremely iffy at best.  Music has a notorious reputation for being the "bad choice" as a career.  That reason is the primary reason why most musicians never move past hobby-stage.

I'm sure at some point in life everyone's at least touched a musical instrument - or if not, at least seen a band or someone perform live.  Any serious musician can attest to the classic case of parental annoyance if they were lucky enough to start at a young age: "Stop playing that and do your homework," education is more important, is it not?  In today's economic climate this might sound something more like "put down that instrument and get a real job already".   The musically talented will surely tell you it's still taken them years to develop any sort of sound.

But we all know this already, don't we?  we know some distant relative or friend of a friend; or perhaps a coworker's dorm-room mate's boyfriend's uncle's cat who was owned by a complete stranger that by day works at a local retail chain or some conglomerate fast food resturaunt (because let's face it, fast food chains are the last American business model still standing proud) and then leads a 2nd life by night playing shows whenever they can scrounge any sort of time free to find a place willing to let them go up in front of any audience to play.

Truthfully, how often do we go to shows? I'm willing to bet a majority of us out there have only been to maybe 2 or 3 concerts in a lifetime, 2-6 small coffee-house shows with a small-time band playing small-time songs wanting to sound as big and amazing as possible, in front of maybe 10+ crowd who's really just there for the friends who invited friends to come check out "Hey, it's that one band" and then pointing "look, it's (insert random acquaintance)" as the crowd just kind of lackadaisically sits there half-interested in wanting to get up and dance and half-daydreaming of being somewhere else. My guess is that somewhere else is with their other "cool" friends who went off to the bay area to go club-hopping and chugging alcoholic beverages like it's a last-man-standing contest.

Anyone who's attempted to do so has faced the multitude of obstacles: mental, emotional, physical, and financial, that come with trying to create a successful music career.  Let's start with Billy (completely random name for my hypothetical situation) here.  Billy's 23, fresh out of college with a degree in guess what?... Business Communications!  Sounds great, but his passion is music.  He's been playing guitar self-taught since he was 12.  Awesome!  Motivated guy...  He learned a few chops from playing along to Van Halen and got sucked into the hardcore scene before Emo kids took it over and trashed the place before leaving like it was someone else's house party and the neighbors just called the cops.

Billy Found a few friends who decided to pick up drums, bass guitar, and started jamming together on regular occasion.  They spend a few months learning a couple cover songs and decide to be bold and write a few of their own.  Already 4 months in and they're all feeling confident, and Billy wants to take it to the next level.  Before they can go anywhere, the band needs a frontman (also commonly known as a singer).  Everyone else is too afraid to step up so Billy takes the limelight and grabs a mic.  The first sounds of this band with vocals are... less than pleasant.

Alright, Billy's hopes are a little rattled but he can shake it off; so singing isn't as easy as belting it out into the microphone.  He spends more time practicing vocals and guitar together and memorizing their new material whenever the band can't get together to practice. Which is usually 1-2 times a week for a few hours a day at most, since everyone has part time jobs and that awful jazz called bills.  After another month (that makes 5 in total) they are playing confidently in their garage for the neighbors to hear (with the occasional call to the cops about the noise of course).  Billy and the band's lucky day just happens to be now because there's a battle of the bands at the new local music shop that just opened up in town.  Things are looking great, opportunity's-a-knockin'!  Billy signs up the band and has one more month to get everything dialed in.

Their first time on stage at 6 months in, and everyone's got jitters and they rush through their material with anything but finesse.  It's alright though, people in the audience liked them enough to want to hear more.  Billy has the idea that the band should get serious, see's the audience reaction and wants to make the next step...  I bet you all right now Billy is only thinking one thing in his head... "How cool is this!?"

Folks, this might seem easy, but it's tough.  You know why? We haven't even started yet.  Billy doesn't have the first clue about building a business.  Business?!?!  What am I talking about?  This is music!  This is going on stage and performing killer tunes and getting noticed and signing to huge labels and making tons of money and making awesome records that sell like Ihop's pancakes on Sunday after church!  To everyone who just agreed with that sentence, close this page, go back to looking up porn (guys) or oogling at the latest pictures of Channing Tatum (girls) and get some rest, you've got a long day of work ahead of you at your day job tomorrow, which I highly suggest you keep.

So, having just offended everyone out there by now, you can guess that jaded view of the music industry is pretty old, but it's still true to a lot of people.  Because they don't know what exactly goes on behind those closed doors they assume it's magic.  So, just what goes into the business of music?  We all think we know the answer, and it should be simple enough right?  You're a band/artist and you perform in front of people, make money, produce cd's and gain lots of exposure... right?  That sentence is such a gross underestimation of just how complex the whole process can be.

First off, just how does a band go from local garage band to being a professional band?  That's easy to answer, not so easy to do.  Billy's band got lucky, and started gaining exposure the moment they played at a battle of the bands contest.  Most bands out there don't start that way.  In fact, most of them started in high school playing gigs at festivals, markets; wherever they could get a PA system and someone willing and desperate enough to put an act in front of any audience (usually for free for both).  After all, Billy and the band only make enough money at their jobs to save up for the occassional new set of strings, drum-heads, and a couple cables.  Billy took the extra effort to save up for a small practice PA system to get the vocals into the practice sessions.  Now that's taking initiative.  But let's add up just how much would be spent to create this band so far:
___
___
___ 
    • Frontman's heavy duty wireless mic setup, because we're hip nowadays: $640
    • Small practice PA system: $340
    • Long Speaker cables x2: $30 ($15 each)
    • Mic cable for the wireless setup to the PA system: $5
    • Mic stand, so the frontman can play his guitar and sing: $20
    • Frontman equipment total =  roughly $1,140 after tax
    So, while many of them have built up this collection of gear of a number of years playing and practicing.  Collectively,  they've invested around $5,600 into their gear.  Now, on top of that, there's things that need replacing and care regularly for these active "cool-cats" of rock.  The consumables the band needs to upkeep their gear are equally as important, so lets say they stay on top of everything really well, and actually have to go through these on a monthly basis:
    • Set of Bass strings: $8
    • Bassist might need new picks, he and the guitarist share:  $4
    • Good guitar strings for shredding: $12
    • New heads for snare and toms:  $45
    • New head for the kick: $36
    • New sticks as the old ones break and wear down: $8
    • Total cost per month = $125, collectively
    That's some serious cash right there already.  I bet none of you were expecting this huge of a list, were you.  Well, it's definitely a whole heck of a lot cheaper than what it used to be!  Compare this to the massive collection of guitars Eric Clapton just has to have, or the huge concerts being put on by the chart topping bands and you can imagine how that price quickly escalates;  drummers buy new gear to get different sounds, guitarists upgrade their "rig" and expand their sounds, Bassists get bigger and punchier stacks to get that "kick your chest in the balls" low-end.  It doesn't end there either!  What about capturing that sound?  After all we're talking about the music industry right? Then we must be talking about CD's and albums.
     
    Alright boys and girls, time to get out your wayback machine (yeah I said it, i'm lame).  Let's head back to Abbey Road Studios in London where that famous old band of the 60's recorded most of their albums: The Beatles.  Why the Beatles?  Because.  There, I figured that got your attention.  Let's take a look at how a typical breakdown of all the pieces in play here.

    First off, there's all the band members, 3 guitarists, a bassist, and a drummer.  Vocals would be carried out by various members, a couple more prominently than others.  There's the band's manager, and then there's the label, (referencing their most known album Abbey Road)Apple, and then the entity of the recording studio and it's engineers and producers etc...  Right away you can tell the number of people involved in this endeavor of recording their album is pretty numerous.  That's a lot of mouths to feed, all expecting to get paid for their work.  Next up, the facilities, location, and the equipment, the spaces aren't tiny or cheap on rent, and I'm sure you can't even imagine for that time the equipment is outrageously expensive to get and maintain / operate.  This takes a serious amount of money to make something as simple as an album that someone can pick up at a store and listen to.

    Just take a look at some of the preview page over at The Beatles' Book site.  The book is an invaluable resource for any producer, recording engineer, musician, agent, or any other job in the music business model as it has real-world documentary insight into every aspect of it.  Just look at the breakdown of the equipment categories they cover:
    • Mixers
    • Outboard gear
    • Microphones
    • Tape Machines
    • Speakers & Amplifiers\
    • Effects
    • Studio Instruments
    The multitude of technology (including the musical instruments) takes a lot of know-how to run, and a lot of money to acquire, and maintain.  Those recording engineers wore lab coats; geeky electronics geniuses with electrical engineering chops at the very most.  Couple that with the era and that technology in general was still very young and not commonplace.  Imagine how outrageously expensive that kind of equipment must have been.  This is the peak of the Major Label Studio era as I like to call it.

    This stuff is so enormous in cost and skill to use that it's reserved for only the highest caliber businesses and specialists (cough - recording studios - cough) because most laymen wouldn't have the first clue how to operate any of it.  This sort of specialization was key to the success of the music industry then, and possibly why music was so different compared to today's music.  Songwriters focused on writing songs, performers focused on practicing and performing them, and the recording studios with engineers and music producers focused on recording and producing records.

    Pretty simple right?  If only it had stopped there.  Technology kept advancing and getting more and more affordable.  Not just that, it kept getting better!  Fast forward to the mid 70's with the introduction of digital domain making it's debut in the audio industry via Tape storage.  Soon, in the mid 80's the revolution of the compact disc fueld by the new era of digital recording blows the doors to the music scene wide open.  Let's take U2 for example, Pretty big name and even bigger studios abroad with their Joshua Tree album.

    Digital technology is beginning to sweep across the industry making it more affordable, but the Analog domain technology is still the mainstay as it's been a proven and reliable way of recording; and bands like U2 are doing some pretty amazing things with the technology at more cost-effective prices than before.  Things continue to get cheaper, but again, still reserved for big budget studios.  For this album, they had the funding and actually set up a studio in a house outside Dublin, Ireland.  Had technology not improved it wouldn't have been possible for them to do this.  Simultaneously, a new home-based technology was sprouting alongside computers - Pro Tools.

    When Pro Tools hit the mass market and peaked as computers were gaining momentum in the consumer marketplace, It would slowly consume the music world from the bottom up.  This was the first DAW to come around and catered to home musicians wanting to record but couldn't afford access to big time studios.  As we progress through the 90's and now, technology picked up at such an amazing pace, that recording technology is more affordable, and ubiquitous than ever.  In fact, it's actually 10x cheaper to start a home "recording studio" than it is to buy a car!  This is the part where I get tricky with numbers.   Want to see just how it breaks down?

    Let's consider all the equipment that's really necessary for a single musician to start recording his or herself at home, absolute barebones basics:
    • First off, you'll need one of these: A typical desktop nowadays can easily handle audio recording tasks, so with a screen, keyboard, mouse and tower (full package) expect around $1,000 U.S.D.
    • 2nd off, you're going to need a DAW: The industry standard Pro Tools is usually a safe bet though there are plenty of others out there just as good to choose from, as well as the plethora of equipment it can take to get audio recorded.. but for now, this nice little package will be more than enough to get you started: Guitar Center's awesome package sets you back a cool $680 roughly, covers a recording interface, software, microphone, stand, cables, and studio reference speakers, pretty sweet eh?
    • So, this is where it starts to get unique according to the individual, so I'm going to say that in this hip, digital-heavy lifestyle we've all adopted in this day and age that computer saavy folk will probably have no issues with me referencing virtual instruments instead of physical ones.  My first guess is at this point you'll probably need some type of input device: a USB keyboard should do fine at roughly $170, we're already starting to push beyond barebones basics here.
    • Seeing as how the pop culture right now centers around hip-hop, pop-dance, electronic stuff I won't spend any money on actual music gear here because that's actually pretty expensive nowadays when you add up all the instruments one could collect.  For now, let's round up some virtual instruments instead that would more than cover what's needed to make "hit tunes". Reason does a fairly good job; there are literally a ton of specialist and high-quality professional Virtual Instruments from around the globe that can do better, but Reason has a very eclectic library of sounds to choose from that are all production quality-ready for any composer / artist to produce complete songs in.  That's going to be another $300.  Learning curves aside, the internet has infinite educational value nowadays: First google search result brought me Free Reason tutorial videos
    Assuming you've already got creative ideas and the experience in crafting music know-how to pull off what you want to achieve, all that's left is to start recording right?  So, at a minimal budget of somewhere around $2,500 U.S.D. we've got a home-based recording studio that actually is extremely powerful.  Did I come in under my mark? I believe I did.  In fact, It's actually cheaper than starting a real band.  Remember Billy's band?  That was a collective $5,600 just for the instruments and gear to perform the music.  To top that off, they'd have to spend weeks writing the songs and practicing them to near-perfection.

    So, here we are in this long-ass blog about the music industry and you're probably thinking "wow he's totally lost his argument".  It really couldn't be any easier now to make music than ever before, and this is totally 100% true.  Well, Let's bring Billy in.  Gone is his band, he just wants to write the music on his own without all the fuss of the politics that go on; the drummer can't keep it straight with the scheduling, and the bassist can't focus long enough in between the phone calls from all the hot chicks wanting to get with the sexy bass-player (because he plays bass, right?). Now, with all that noise out of the picture Billy can get in control of the creative license for a moment and actually make something.

    The virtual instruments give him a good sound for the bass and the drums, and with Pro Tools and his microphone he can record his live guitar sounds and his voice and viola, instant song!  Wow, that's easy!  Why aren't you all doing it too?!  Except recording is only 1 tiny phase, and usually it happens way later in the process.

    What Billy just did was a Demo.  Sorry Billy, but you're guitar skills are better than your audio engineering chops.  You've got a ton of "bleed" sound coming from your speakers into your microphone while you were recording guitar and vocals; Not just that, but the recording just doesn't sound right.  The virtual instruments sound fine aside from some things being somewhat louder than others should be.  What's the problem?  Why doesn't it sound like a cd?

    Here's the secret the recording studios don't want anyone to know.  This is super secret because once the word is out... it won't change a thing.  Those recording studios have tons of expensive gear, we know this; Billy knows this.  Well that recording software Pro Tools must not be good enough, right?  Except Pro Tools is actually in over 80% of all studios (big budget and project alike) as even studios are centered around the DAW and Computer now.  In fact, they tend to use the same effects you get with the software that Billy and we all get with our version we buy from the local music shop.

    It must be the mic, crappy low-end technology showing its true colors it seems!  Also not true,  read any of the plethora of recording trade magazines like EQ (go ahead, take a look at the $100 SM57 credited), Mix, Computer Music, and they'll quote famous engineers giving away their dirty studio secrets recording the latest chart topping-band and you'll find the microphone lockers have a surprising number of "cheap", or "lowend" mics.

    Then perhaps it's just your room, sorry Billy; that's it - it's the room man.  While the room really does make all the difference in a recording, Billy was recording pretty "dry" sounds where the sound of the room wasn't majorly affecting the sound.  So what is it then?  First off, I can tell you Billy doesn't know the first thing about what happens after recording.  It turns out there's actually some more steps involved.  While I show Billy here where the Compressors, limiters, EQ,'s and other effects plugins are in Pro Tools and Reason; he's only going to get more and more confused and the "allure" of making music easy is going up in smoke with his temper.  Calm down there bro, your recordings aren't half-bad.

    What sets apart those huge sounding professional cd's coming from big bands?  Go grab your favorite cd and take a look at the names on there.  I can guarantee you'll find way more than just the band members.  It takes engineers, assistant engineers, mixing engineers, assistant mixing engineers, mastering engineers, assistant mastering engineers, digital editors, producers, A&R personnel, A&R Coordinators, Marketing Directors, photographers, album design artists, guitar technicians, Drum Technicians, studio or session musicians for backing parts, lackies, and sometimes even outside influences (composers, lyricists, etc..) that have their spot in the project.  Those engineers spent their time learning about compressors and E.Q. and microphone polar patterns , the producers learned how to manage the project and coordinate and budget the stages of production for the artist and record label; everyone has their place and something they've specialized in.

    Did you know there's actually 3 stages of making an album?  Billy didn't.  Billy's still stuck in the recording phase, and already there's a lot to manage and consider at that point.  The final stage that comes next is actually even more tedious and time consuming, and that's the art and craft of mixing, and mastering.  In fact, these two processes are so in-depth that you can find studios that only specialize in one particular process.

    Even with the revolution of the digital era and virtual processing on the computer bringing down costs, Billy could easily take a few years just to learn how himself, or even just barely start using the equipment he already has for all these functions.  After all, the the stuff he bought is certainly capable of it.  The labor involved is so intensive, because there is so much to control and so much to be aware of that Billy here can just take his recording to one of those studios and spend a fraction of the tuition it would cost him to go to school and try to learn how to do it himself.  Or at the very least, save him countless hours toiling away trying to achieve that "cd" sound when a professional can do it promptly and with precision.

    I know Billy personally, he started music at the same time I did when I was a kid.  I went down the recording path and Billy took the performer path.  While we are at similar levels of skill we are worlds apart in our experiences in our craft.  Billy would have to spend years catching up to me as a recording artist and engineer.  Likewise, I would have to put in countless hours a day practicing an instrument or the like to catch up to Billy's finesse with his guitar solos.  That said, there is a hefty amount of respect to be had for any particular function in the industry as we witness the power of making music shift from the hands of the big budget studio to the hands of the individual.

    There's an endless sea of music being put out from just about everyone on the planet it seems nowadays.  Some of it is amazing, but it's rarer now to find great compositions or beautiful masterpieces as we've entered the era of digital consumerism.  The landscape of the music industry has changed from creative war reserved for those with the specialists of their craft, to that of the DIY music house.  We've witnessed the fall of rock and the live band being the main attraction to the perfect auto-tuned electronic pop and dance tunes played until they're played out at clubs; those same songs get recycled in an endless wave of remixes by the DJ-gone-producer.

    Thursday, April 7, 2011

    A comeback... coming back

        As far as vacations go, I believe I'd call this one a staycation.  I've definitely been busy at home and in the project studio trying to cook up business plans, attending some client events building up the brand and networking with potential clients and associates alike.  I feel like I'm getting nowhere fast.  Marketing and advertising would do us a lot of good but there's still so much that needs to be in place before we spend any money doing so.  As for the endeavors of upcoming jobs, I only hope that our competence alone is enough to land the job.

        On a side-note.  The album is finished, and up for free on the studio's Myspace with more business plans branching out later on to help advertise and market the studio as well as the free album.  I plan on making the entire album available for free digital download with the site's launch in multiple formats of course.  First things first and foremost is the business.  It's something that I feel I can accomplish if I just keep pushing harder and higher.  I also feel like the weight of the ambition is overwhelming at times and how the hell am I supposed to do all this?..

        Timing, and location.  The only two things I need right now...  and, sorry if this is all a bit esoteric.  I'll be getting back into some art stuff soon.  I promised myself I would!