Monteiro's fusion

SynFire Pro

2009-01-02T11:52:00.000-08:00

SynFire Pro is an intriguing new product from Cognitone Systems. It will probably revolutionize the way professional composers work on a day to day basis. It greatly facilitates melodic development end harmonization. Probably of greater significance is how it enables the exploration of ideas. There is really nothing out there that comes close. There are other products that scratch the surface. Some generate both melody and harmonies, notably Band in the Box an interesing and useful product in its own right. Others, like the Palette help in melodic development. Yet others like Onyx Arranger will morph your input based on the notion of templates from a variety of styles. Again all of these just scratch the surface and although useful and not to be dismissed they do not provide a comprehensive solution. Therefore, it is probably fair to say the SynFire Pro is a one of a kind product. Unfortunately for some or rather for most it comes at a one of a kind price tag. Indeed, only those that would use it on a daily basis can justify the hefty prize of approximately $1,500.00 dollars. However, that target market i.e. the professional composer market is according to my sources responding well to the recent intial offering. In conclusion, I would say that words cannot at all come close to giving justice to the promise of SynFire Pro so I'll challenge the user to be as equally intrigued by SynFire as I have by checking out their videos here:

http://www.cognitone.com/support/tutorials/index.stml?p=1

I plan to blog about some of the features illustrated in the videos found above as well as other features once the evaluation demo is available to the general public.

Making the Time

2008-12-24T19:05:00.001-08:00

First of all, are you sleeping 8 hours a day? Well, that has to stop. It needs to be cut down to 6 or 6.5 hours per day with a half hour nap upon returning from work. Basically 6 hours at night plus that half hour nap. Then again maybe you have spare time, I don't.

Let's smell the coffee together. releasing my first CD , your first CD will take time and it requires putting in the time. This doesn’t mean that we need an 8 hour day but we do need to find 1.5 to 2 hours a day and try to push for 3 to 4 hours on Sat. and Sundays. For most people that's do-able. It just requires some time management.

Now that we have decided to put in the time I'm afraid that putting in the time is not enough, it has to be quality time. You cannot be falling asleep at the wheel or with your guitar strapped on. So when would that be? What is the best time to focus on your obsession ? You may not be at your best after a hard days work. So for me and because of that the best time turns out to be 4.am in the morning after having had some rest and regained the alertness to let the creativity flow.

Those first 5 minutes are tough, still are today and even after a few months but I have my techniques and very strong dark tea.

My morning starts by actually standing up to turn off an alarm strategically too faraway to snooze off and the knowing that I have to be quick not to disturb the rest of my sleeping pack. That is followed by some shock therapy. I start with a burst of refrigerated pressurized saline spray right into my eyes , face and nose. Followed by more cold water on my face and back of my neck. I then go to the kitchen guzzle some oj for the sugar rush, and fuel up with nuts and dates. Then a couple sets of push ups and then and only then am I awake enough to think about music.

A mountain will never be climbed if you don’t put one foot in front of the other.

So what are you doing to climb your mountain ?

REAPER | Download

2008-12-23T02:06:00.001-08:00

Just in time for Christmas:

REAPER Latest Version

REAPER v2.54 - December 22, 2008
Changes:

* Dynamic split detection improvements
* Action: restore previous scroll position
* ReaVerb/ReaSamplomatic user/gdi object leak fixes
* Docked midi editor / fx window / mixer user object leak fixes
* Fixed looped-resampled-item glitches
* ReaSynDr, ReaSynth, ReaSamplomatic, ReaTune: smoother automation
* JS: fixed some issues with small increases in PDC
* Better wav/wv project filename setting when autosaving to .wav.rpp
* MIDI bank/program tracking fixes, duplicate note removal
* OS X performance updates
* Display rendering updates
* Faster meter rendering
* Left/right edge adjustment snapping now respects X track-distances like moving
* Massive memory use reduction when using large numbers of MIDI files
* Fixed bugs removing automated parameters from ReaPitch/ReaDelay/etc
* Fixed end/start of item sample rounding for items with no fades
* OGG decoder: fixed subsample seeking accuracy
* Clipping fix for fully buffered peaks drawing mode

2009 Release of RealBand and Band in a Box

2008-12-19T09:44:00.000-08:00

Both of these products can create great stub or placeholder tracks. Great tools for n brainstorming a new tune.

Here's a blurb from their site including links to video and audio. Check it out:

Watch the Videos!

There are Video Demos here:
- BB 2009 Features video: http://64.40.109.185/pgmusic/wmv/BB2009_new_features_1mbps.wmv (or download http://nn.pgmusic.com/pgfiles/video/RealTracksDec2009_1mbps.zip )

- RealTracks demo: http://64.40.109.185/pgmusic/wmv/RealTracksDec2009_1mbps.wmv (or download http://nn.pgmusic.com/pgfiles/jazzu/Tobin/temp/exp090401/BB2009_new_features_1mbps.zip )

Listen to the audio demos below!

Audio Demos for All 101 new RealTracks

(note: many of these demos are demoing the RealTracks instrument only, and have MIDI tracks as well to accompany them. We will be replacing those MIDI instruments with "Real-only" demos.)

inspiration

2008-12-16T19:48:00.001-08:00

Inspiration , where does it come from?

Internal
External

Internal inspiration is what comes to me when I walk my dog or at other unexpected times. Since it's unexpected it is best to be prepared. My pda cellphone has an audio recorder which I use to capture these gifts .

Then there is the forced type of inspiration which one forces to different degrees. For example:

Record yourself Jamming to somebody else's music.
Record yourself doodling on your instrument.
Jam to your fav. synth patch
Jam to some drum loops
Grab a midi file from the web, strip out the melody and drop some riffs.
Grab a lead sheet, copy chord changes into Band in a Box or Jammer then drop some riffs.
if you can, do all of the above on a guitar, bass, keyboard end vocals. you will get different results

Word of advice make recording easy. I have set up things so that pressing the low E in my Keyboard controller will trigger recording.

After this initial important step produces the seed for your new tune, its important to commit. commitment is essential. Without it one can get stuck, in "doodling" land for a very long time. Been there , done that. and it is hell.

Rev: 1.1

The Trinity is Complete

2008-12-13T20:22:00.001-08:00

I finally took the plunge and bought Trilogy the last in the trinity of Spectrasonic’s instruments:

Omnisphere
Stylus RMX
Trilogy

This now gives me a go to bass module and its really all there. It truly sounds great and now I’ll be eligible to the upgrade to Trilogy’s STEAM engine integration.

Methodology For creativity

2008-12-09T18:41:00.001-08:00

A methodology is:

A set or system of methods, principles, and rules for regulating a given discipline, as in the arts or sciences.

It's a way of thinking about a subject matter, in other words a way to skin a cat. This is my personal method. Developing from thoughts I gather as I try to compose music to my satisfaction. Ideas that can turn into a process which I hope will make me more fluid and ultimately more productive. A lot of these ideas come from my software development experience but most from my struggles with composition.

So lets start by brainstorming some concepts:

Inspiration
Commitment
Vision
Big Picture
Go with the Flow
Development
Stamina
Energy
Space
Gravity
Direction
Focus
Contrast
Speed
Incremental and cyclical
PlaceHolders

Enough for now. Next I will try to define these terms.

Coming Soon.

Naming your Chords

2008-11-25T20:49:00.001-08:00

I find it very useful to setup what I call a "Chords" track. For the
same reason that chord names are specified in most modern compositions i.e. Jazz and Pop music. I first tried doing this with markers in Reaper but that was less than ideal. Recently , it occurred to me that I could simply record basic block chords for the changes in question. Then its a matter of splitting the chords track into generally 2 , 1 or half a measure in duration accordingly. Not only can I see what exact change I'm on but I can also listen. Check out what I mean in the pic below.

BTW , do you find this useful ?

Making a Push with ScribeFire

2008-11-23T18:01:00.001-08:00

ScribeFire is a Firefox addon that besides being a pretty decent blog editor it has the added benefit that one can work offline. That along with my new UMPC and AT&T 3G LaptopConnect card will give me less available excuses to not blog more actively. Of course, that's a bunch of BS. Either I'm too unsure, have nothing to say, have no reason to say anything or think that nobody's listening , these are all better explanations than suggesting that I don't have enough time.

But time will see.

Anywho, this is my first ScribeFire blog.

Stickys for your DAW ?

2008-11-11T11:32:00.001-08:00

I would love to be able to freely drop notes over the wave form track area of my DAW. I'm using Reaper. Basically this amounts to Stickys , little memos one leaves behind to remind oneself of issues, action items etc. In the case of a DAW these notes would be associated with a specific position on a timeline and for a specific track. Global markers can already be left in Reaper but they just amount to a label on the timeline. There is not much room to leave much of a note at all. Pretty powerful way of getting the big picture , whether the project is still an evolving tune or whether everything has been tracked and is ready for mixing. Some other Reaperites feel the same way. See here. Hopefully it will catch on.

If the reader knows of any DAW that already does something like this please drop me a post. thanks.

Portable Vocal Booth

2008-11-09T19:38:00.001-08:00

About a year ago it occurred to me to research if somebody had built some sort of mechanism to handle recording vocals in very hostile spaces i.e. my home studio. I could viably DI everything else but vocals were a problem. At the time I found the SE Reflection Filter. Yesterday on the Reaper forum, I bumped into the Real Traps Portable Vocal Booth. Its for one much larger and just in that sense it seems more effective. Also because of its size it has more applications e.g. it is viable to use it to isolate a guitar amp. It goes for the same amount of cash which is just under $300.00. Check them out.

Reaper Skins

2008-11-06T20:17:00.001-08:00

Its amazing the number of skins available for Reaper. This is one of the new flavors of the week , most of them created by the community.

Pod Farm Is up!!!

2008-11-06T19:16:00.001-08:00

See the discussion at Reaper forum:

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?p=249175#poststop

Here is the line6 page for it:

http://line6.com/podfarm/index.html

Pod Farm is the next incarnation of the Line6 GearBox plugin. If you owned that just doing update via the Line6 Monkey is only you need to do. The UI looks much better and you do get dual amp configuration which is nice. Time and playing will show whether there is more tone. It does seem to come with more pre-sets which include the GearBox plugin presets.

Is this Delicious

2008-11-06T19:02:00.001-08:00

Lately , I was turned on to Delicious. They have been around for a while so I'm a bit late to the party. Very useful especially to bookmark the posts I make into the various forums and some of the resulting web surfing that arises from that. You can embed your delicious links into your blog as I have done on the right panel of this blog. I might move that to the main content area. I wish that there was a filter so that I could limit the links here to be just music related links. Currently , either one shares a Delicious link or not.

Just went alpha

2008-01-24T19:58:00.000-08:00

no not alpha male but I did just get my Frontier Designs AlphaTrack which has to be one of the coolest control surfaces out. It installed in a second and became immediately useful and immediately indispensable. Click on the image and check it out.

BFD 2.0 looks amazing but ...

2008-01-07T21:13:00.000-08:00

If you looked at the demos, it was simply a no brainer, if you had BFD 1.5 you simply had to purchase the upgrade and quickly, it was that impressive, and it is but I can't help thinking that Fxpansion may have been pressured by their retailers to have this available for the xmas / end of year retail season. I think that maybe its release was a tad early.

The features, the sound quality, the workflow, the interop to trigger units, the number of grooves provided all of these make BFD quite arguably the top virtual drum package. Unfortunately, I don't get to enjoy all of that. I'm still trying to make sure that my investment in some of the expansion paks is safeguarded. You see the upgrade process from 1.5 to 2.x is not free of its kinks and so I have started the year on a very frustrating note indeed. That's what I get for being an early adopter :)

Blogging from the Road

2007-12-27T11:10:00.000-08:00

Blogging from my pda . Maybe I will blog more consistently in 2008 ?

MOTU 2408 vs Edirol FA-101

2007-11-09T10:08:00.000-08:00

Well more of a comparison. I purchased the Edirol FA-101 firewire interface because I needed a unit that could hook up to my then notebook based DAW. However, as part of my efforts to resurrect my home studio I decided to put back to use my old MOTU 2408mkii. Said unit was actually dedicated to my PowerMac Dual Processor G4. I now wanted to leverage the 2408 from my new PC Core2 Duo. That entailed buying a hardware upgrade from MOTU, the 424 PCI express interface card. So what are the differences between the two units ? Here we go:

Portability

The 2408 is simply not. It requires a PCI card in the host machine. The Edirol on the other hand requires firewire on the host machine and as a matter of fact on the MAC it just uses the native firewire support. So the Edirol will be indespensable on the road on a notebook or on the occassion that I may want to record a gig.

Latency

The Edirol on my Core2 Duo system provides 3 ms latency at 152 samples which is the lowest the ASIO driver will allow, nonetheless this is quite good. However, the MOTU provides 1 ms latency at 64 samples and I can go down to 32 samples but did not want to push my luck. So I'm a happy camper indeed.

Sampling Rate

Here the Edirol outshines the MOTU providing up 96K sampling. The MOTU only goes up to 48K but in practical terms that's just fine. Most pop to even instrumental guitar music i.e. my music does not need to go over 44.1

Connections

The MOTU has by far more connection possiblities but again in practical terms and for me that would entail getting more hardware to leverage the ADAT and Tascam connectivity provided. So effectively , the MOTU has 10 channels available including 2 spdif i.e. digital connections. That is exactly what the Edirol provides except that the Edirol does toslink i.e. optical instead of spdif. The Edirol does provide 2 mic connectors with decent preamps. In reality I prefer to go thru something like the Studio Projects VTB1 which is a tube hybrid pre-amp which does a great job of warming this up.

Conclusion

The MOTU will become my interface on my main audio workstation. The Edirol will be now dedicated to my G4 which I have plans to make a midi workstation which I can use to pump soft synth's output back to my main DAW on the PC.

The MOTU 2408mkii is a great interface even six years later after my initial purchase. I will probably look for another on Ebay. The new 2408 mkiii has great specs but is overkill for my needs. If you are looking for a digital interface for your audio workstation I would highly recommend finding an used 2408mkii.

Professional audio presentations in NYC

2007-09-30T19:48:00.000-07:00

I just bumped into a group that I plan to be spending sometime with:

Part of the American Engineering Society, the NYC chapters have monthly presentations on professional audio engineering topics.

The next one's on the 16th of October.

See: http://www.aes.org/sections/ny/

The parent organization is having a conference Oct. 5 - 8 th at the Javitts Center in NYC.

John McLaughlin at the Town Hall

2007-09-28T11:26:00.000-07:00

I attended McLaughlin back to fusion concert at the Town Hall theatre in NYC last nite. First fusion concert in something like ten years. I think that McLaughlin may not be my cup of tea. He is one of the acclaimed Jazz fusion greats, has fantastic chops. Everybody in the band did. But it just did not grab me. The groove was too straight and too busy and too technical.This is coming from a guy that likes chops but where is the music. I think that it may just be an acquired taste. Certainly many will disagree with me. The show was sold out and the audience was as fired up as any I have seen.

It just does not seem to do it for me. Maybe I don't get it. I do get DiMeola and Metheny. I love their stuff. So maybe McLaughlin is just in another planet that I just don't understand.

I have heard that he has nice acoustic music, maybe I need to now check that out.

We do share one thing in common i.e. McLaughlin and I. We both thnk that Godin makes great guitars and especially great if one likes to blend synth tones into the mix.

Do you dig it ? Part 1

2007-09-19T21:00:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning to find a plumbing crew getting ready to replace my sewage pipe. We have had issues this morning but our landlord just popped this one on us.

Resurrection of my Wiki

2007-09-18T06:53:00.000-07:00

MediaWiki i.e. the php framework used by Wikipedia, and the framework I was using on my last wiki, is actually quite prone to spam and it takes a community to fend of the evil spammers. Obviously, I don't have a "community" per se so I found a great wiki framework with a lot of bells and whistles and which has quite decent security mechanisms in place. The framework is called PMWiki and one can read up more about it here.

I like PMWiki so much that I got rid of my regular web site and now my new PM wiki is my web site. I do need to spend a bit of time adding more content but I think it already has the "look" I always intended to implement.

So check it out:

http://www.monteirosfusion.com

Testing Video upload

2007-09-12T21:33:00.000-07:00

Musicians noodling while floor is being setup to record Jon Raney's original composition Sumbate.

Death of my wiki

2007-09-08T21:21:00.000-07:00

I am sorry to announce that due to my total neglect and abandonment my wiki has died. I actually put it out of its misery after I found it to have been pillaged by a gang of virtual hoodlums. Yes, I'm talking about spammers. I used WikiMedia which has lousy admin to guard against spam. The various Php Forum software on the other hand have decent protections. My only option it seems would have been to entirely disable registration. I may try this later but for now I have to concentrate on the music. The front may pick up soon. It has been a slow and frustrating year so far but my friend and collaborator Jon Raney may finally come back online towards the end of September.

Keeping it safe

2007-06-29T21:30:00.000-07:00

Recently, I started getting really paranoid about the safety of my content. I have been thinking about setting up a backup system for my music system since I got the new system in January but I guess now that my friend Jon and I are resuming our collaboration the issue has stepped up into the front burner.

So what's my strategy for my music content security?

First of all, start with a 500 gb Western Digital SATA drive that has enough space without accounting for compression to back up all of my drives. Then buy the right enclosure. I opted for the ICY Dock eSATA/USB single tray enclosure. Mostly because of tray driven design where once the hard drive was fastened to the tray, there was zero need to make any cable connections.

It worked perfectly and as I write this blog I'm formatting the Western Digital disk.

The hardware side of the solution i.e. disk and enclosure cost around $160.00. Not bad at all.

The software solution entails using PathSync , a utility for folder synchronization developed by the same developers that develop my preferred multi-track recording digital workstation i.e. Reaper.

Playing the Matrix

2007-05-15T11:22:00.000-07:00

I recently purchased an M-Audio TriggerFinger. At first most music tech savvy will recognise it as a midi drum pad and indeed that was the original reason I purchased. Not because I wanted to program drum parts but rather because I wanted to embellish sample based loops i.e. such as BFD with “live” albeit triggered patterns and single hits. In other words for the purposes of recording live playing of the TriggerFinger against a BFD track backdrop.

However, I soon realized that the TriggerFinger doesn’t care what it triggers. Now that makes total sense of course , its afterall a midi controller, but what I had not thought about was to use it to trigger something other than a drum sampler. Indeed, the TriggerFinger becomes an instrument. Using the accompanying Enigma software one can map any scale on to the sixteen pads. A transpose controller allows one to transpose the registered scale to any other base note. One of the reasons that this is appealing to me is because there are certain patches , percussive in nature but yet melodic that play better using a percussive approach i.e. instead of playing it as a keyboard. Another interesting aspect of playing on TriggerFinger and for that matter any similar grid based midi controller, is that there are no rules. Guitarist, piano players and others develop an almost subconscious memory of underlying finger patterns and its these patterns that tend to come out in one’s playing. A good thing for sure, but it can lead to a “confined” expression. The TriggerFinger has no rules and if you just “jam” with it you may be surprised what note sequences you get and what you learn.

Calibrating for Latency

2007-03-25T07:50:00.000-07:00

Calibrating your DAW for latency is an increidibly important first step not to be forgotten. Depending on your audio interface and computer setup the latency i.e. delay between what you play and what is recorded can be significant. Furthermore, if you are not aware of the issue it can really be disconcerting since it will seem like you have timing issues.

On Windows reduced latency is achieved by using ASIO drivers. Once you have an ASIO driver installed the next step is to determine what the lowest buffer setting is where your interface still operates normally. Abnormal operation is discernible due to audible pops, clicks and glitches. The lower your buffer setting the lower your latency but having low latency is still not enough with regards to recording. The goal is to actually "zero off" latency i.e. calibrate your DAW so that an a sample size offset is specified so that there is no latency at all.

So how do you do that? Well, you conduct an experiment which is known as a loop back test. I learned about how to set this up from a thread I started at the Reaper forum.

These are the steps:

Find a sample audio material such as a click track or very simple drum loop.
Set the master output of your daw to a specific out on your audio interface . say Out # 1.
Arm a track for recording and set its input to a specific input on your audio interface , say In#1
Physically connect with a patch cable the on your audio interface Out #1 to In #1.
Record a few seconds of the material.
Use an audio editor to find the crest of a discernible piece of audio on your original drum loop. Make sure that timeline on your DAW is set to show samples and note what sample the crest resides. See figure above.
Do the same for the recorded material.
Determine the difference in samples between the original material and the recorded material. This is your offset.
Add the offset to your DAW's preference settings for latency offset.
Repeat the experiment making sure that the offset has been applied and saved to your preferences.
Confirm that the second time around that the original material and the recorded material line up perfectly.

If using Reaper there's a project file availble in the thread I have a link for above. The thread has some interesting discussions on latency and is a good read. Check it out.

Layla DiMeola

2007-03-25T07:40:00.000-07:00

Just found out that my favorite guitarist's wife is becoming active about her own artistic passions. I'm referring to Layla DiMeola which is married to the great guitarist Al Di Meola.

The pic above was borrowed sample of her artwork from her website.

Keep in tune.

Putting down that Bass #1

2007-03-22T18:37:00.000-07:00

Here is one I hope of many experiments that I will share in making the right bass sound for whatever the occassion may be.

First of all, I started by using the Pandora PX4D and specifically the Slap Bass patch. I made sure to remove any effects processing since I was going to be doing that on my DAW i.e. Reaper in this case.

As far as to the effects the first VST effect I used was a guitar effect the RedNefTwin from SimulAnalog. Here is a screen shot of the settings used:

The second effect is the free Classic Compressor by Kjaerhus Audio. Here is the screen shot of that:

Finally the third effect is a reverb again by Kjaerhus Audio namely the Classic Reverb. BTW, the "Classic" series is a set of free , yes free and excellent VST plugins.

Check out the mp3. Its a very basic bass riff that is repeated over a BFD latin drum groove but it should get the point across as far as to the sound of the bass. It is also bass riff to one of my original tunes Maldezar.

I have started a discussion on creating bass tones on my forum.

Are you a Studio Pack Rat?

2007-03-21T10:59:00.000-07:00

I plead guilty. I'm also a gear junkie and the combination can be deadly. A pack rat is annoying but in the studio it can be counter productive. The more my setup goes virtual in the studio the more I see gear becoming irrelevant I also recently decided to condense my guitar/ synth setup around the newly released next evolution of Roland's VG line namely the VG-99.

Here is a list of gear that I am getting rid of:

Roland GR-20s
Line 6 PodXT
DBX 163X Compressor
Zoom RT-323 Drum machine
Alesis Microverb III
Rocktron Intelliflex LTD
Alesis Midiverb III
MOTU MicroExpress MIDI interface
MOTU 2408 mII Firewire Audio Interface
AKG 330 BT Cardiod Microphone

The GR-20s and the PodXT are being replaced by the VG-99. Mind you I do have a Sansamp PSA-1 and that I will always keep. I also have a couple very handy , portable Korg Pandora's for the acoustic guitars, electric and bass.

The DBX 163x is a great soft knee compressor but last year I purchased a Focusrite Trakmaster Pro which is just more versatile.

The Zoom drum machine again great drum machine but I decided to go virtual with the drums. I'm using the BFD virtual drum kit and to play live into I will be purchasing an M-Audio Trigger Finger.

The Rocktron Intelliflex is a great guitar effects processor i.e. its just effects but very high quality but again the VG-99 has all of that. The other effects units basically replaced by the fact that most of my needs are handled by virtual plugins. No , I am not gigging but I suspect that if I was that the VG-99 should do me well.

The MOTU are legacy units from the days I was running a MAC although they do have drivers for Windows. However, I had decided to go with Edirol, a subsidiary of Roland and which is a company that targets Windows. Specifically my DAC is a firewire Edirol FA-101, great unit, very portable at a half rack size. It provides for 10 in and 10 outs , certainly more than I project I will ever need.

The AKG Mic is really more of a live mic than a recording mic. For recording I'm using a Rode NT-1 omni condenser mic. So far very good results in recording my Ovation's "presence" in my studio.

Every piece of gear represents a knowledge skill set that must be obtained and maintained. Fine tuning your studio gear to do what you need to do helps focus and therefore productivity.

I started a thread on my forum on the importance of one's studio setup, so if you care please join our group and let us know what you think. Here is the link to the thread:

http://www.monteirosfusion.com/forum/index.php?topic=23.0

Reaper

2007-03-17T19:58:00.000-07:00

Reaper is an incredibly powerful Windows DAW, which is as increidibly affordable at a price of $39.00 and which has a very active if not passionate community behind it. I bumped into Reaper because my usual DAW Adobe Audition does not have VSTi support. VSTi support means being able to load virtual instruments not to be confused with virtual effects which it can indeed do. There are many more reasons than just VSTi support to contemplate using Reaper. It is really a powerful multitrack recorder with very flexible signal routing capabilities. It also comes with a ton of free effects which seem to be very well liked within the community. Reaper does not have in my estimation the editing tools that Audition has. My guess is that I will be using both tools with Reaper being used for the intial multitrack recording to initial mixes and Audition in the final mixing and mastering process.

Some of Reaper's features:

Portable - supports running from USB keys or other removable media

64 bit audio engine

Excellent low-latency performance

Multiprocessor capable

Direct multi-track recording to many formats including WAV/BWF/W64, AIFF, WavPack, FLAC, OGG, and MIDI.

Extremely flexible routing

Fast, tool-less editing

Supports a wide range of hardware (nearly any audio interface, outboard hardware, many control surfaces)

Support for VST, VSTi, DX, DXi effects

ReaPlugs: high quality 64 bit effect suite

Tightly coded - installer is just over 2MB

ool-less mouse interface -- spend less time clicking

Drag and drop files to instantly import them into a project

Support for mixing any combination of file type/samplerate/bit depth on each track

Easily split, move, and resize items

Each item has easily manipulated fades and volume

Tab to transient support

Configurable and editable automatic crossfading of overlapping items

Per-item pitch shift and time stretch

Arbitrary item grouping

Markers and envelopes can be moved in logical sync with editing operations

Ripple editing - moving/deletion of items can optionally affect later items

Multiple tempos and time signatures per project

Ability to define and edit project via regions

Automation envelopes

and more well worth checking it out. Don't let the prize fool you Reaper in many ways is just as powerful as any of the other well known DAWs such as Cubase and ProTools. It may well be exactly what you need.

Self Reliance

2007-03-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

Self reliance means taking the ultimate responsibility for the success of your project. Dependencies on other individuals create vulnerabilities which can derail your project. Its nobody’s fault but yours. One must therefore strive for control. The first objective of is to control the scope of your project i.e. define what success is. Can you do what you are setting out to do? In the context of music this can be an easy objective if your goal is one of self expression. Do you have enough technical and compositional skills to be able to express your musical thoughts to your satisfaction? If your goals in music are not about money, not about public accolades but about WHAT you want to say then defining the project is done. The rest is just hard work.

To be more concrete in the context of modern music “self publication” there are some specific things one can do. This is where I start talking about what I can do to be self reliant. I can think of 3 main areas:

Composition
Playing the Parts
Audio Engineering

Composition

To be self reliant here involves learning about the music craft and some of its rules. It also means not being tied by its rules or certain interpretations of said rules. Self reliance is built through experimentation and the courage to finish something regardless of the emotional suffering. Don’t wait for others to tell you what they think. What do you think?

Playing the Parts

Tunes consist of multiple parts , all doing their part. Its that cooperation that makes music breathe. We are living in a day and age that making those parts happen is very do-able. Technology here has been the great enabler. Very viable drum parts can be generated via software like BFD. Equipment like the M-audio Trigger finger make it possible even for non-drummers to add the percussive icing that can make such a great difference in a tune. Synthesisers make it possible for keyboardists and guitar players to play a multitude of sounds. If you are a guitar player you should play your own bass parts on a bass guitar. Keyboard players have their left hand. Sequencing can be a viable mechanism for adding further orchestration. Here is the main point don’t stop finishing your tune just because you don’t have a bass player or drummer around. Just do it. You can always later collaborate.

This brings me to an important point with regards to collaboration. Be sure you are ready to collaborate. Don’t rely on anybody understanding your vision for your project nevermind your vision for a particular tune. Make that vision as concrete as possible by having something finished to show. You have to have something to polish , you can’t polish smoke.

Audio Engineering

Product means a CD and to get there one needs to put things down on tape or rather on a hard drive. Again, don’t rely on anybody. There is so much out there nowadays to help with this. Sound recording has indeed become accessible to the masses. Inexpensive powerful software is there and with these new Core 2 Duo Cores there is not much that one cannot do. Secondly, there are some great communities of like minded individuals that are invaluable resources.

Publishing independent music by independent musicians is today attainable by those that really want it. Success is achieved by building self - reliance and accepting full responsibility for the success of the project. Dependency on other individuals is relinquishing responsibility which has the potential outcome of derailing you of the path to the release of your CD.

Spectrasonics and its Pro-Users

2007-02-05T10:41:00.000-08:00

I have talked quite a bit of what is out there for free. Free and of high quality. From effects to virtual instruments each with their pluses and minuses. On the other side of the fence there is quite a bit of expensive software. At first, said software rubbed me the wrong way because I figured it should be much cheaper than rack gear but often not or not that much cheaper. There are two main issues that I need to solve to sustain my composition efforts.

supporting arrangement / embellishment
drum track/ groove

I suspect that in my particular case , given my strengths and weaknesses as a musician etc, that embellishment of tunes i.e. secondary comps/lines other than the primary comp/lines I do with the guitar will be a result of the use of guitar synth generating midi to be later converted to audio and of the use of a step sequencer such as Fruity loops.

The other issue is the one of laying out the drum / percussion parts. That deserves its own post. Its a huge problem and I fear that there is not one single simple solution. More on that later.

Out of the various commercial companies out there that attempt to address the above there is one in particular that seems to stand out to me. Specifically, two products by Spectrasonics :

Stylus RMX — a Groove machine
Atmosphere — an intensely complete synth/sampler

Although not cheap they seem to give you quite a bit for the money. I’ll let the reader check that out at their site. At least for now . Another major reason though that I can’t seem to get past is who uses Spectrasonics. Artists such as:

Lyle Mays of Pat Metheny
Chic Correa
Al Jarreau
George Benson
Mary J Blidge
tons of hip hop
movies such as BloodDiamond
tv shows such as 24
and it goes on ….

the list is quite impressive. The capabilities and resources that come with Spectrasonics are as well quite impressive. Stylus is selling for $289.00 and Atmosphere for $399.00 , not cheap but less than the price of a lot of guitar and synth hardware i.e. not so expensive as to scare me off , yet expensive enough to really study the pros and cons.

I would love to hear feedback on Spectrasonics or on alternative strategies to handle the issues I mention above. thanks.

As always please leave feedback on my forum.

Jamming with SoundFonts

2007-01-31T10:44:00.000-08:00

I have really been bogged down with my day gig spilling into my evening guitar hours. However, although I did not have time to work on composing I did manage to experiment with the use of a soft sampler and sound fonts. The soft sampler I use I have mentioned before. Its SFZ which is free but excellent so far. What was a pleasant surprise was the performance I am getting out of SFZ and the use of SoundFonts. Now, for those that don’t know, SoundFonts come in all shape and sizes. Some are huge. Like RealFont which is a free, good but large GM sound font. Its large because its high quality but also because its a GM font which means it provides for the entire GM (General Midi) instrument set which is large. Everything from pianos to helicopter sounds. SoundFonts can be small , of high quality but specific to a certain sound or instrument. For example, one commercial sound font I’m checking out is based on the vintage Yamaha DX-7 saw wave. Since in this case the sound font is about a specific sound it can still be of very high quality yet significantly smaller than using a GM sound font. The size is important because the size impacts the memory of your system. In other words the smaller the sound font the less chance you get into a memory hungry situation which means that your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) has the space it needs to operate best. The key is to avoid latency. Latency a fancy word for a disconnect between when your fingers play a note to the point when your ears hear the note.

I was very happy with the performance. I could not hear any discernible latency at all. Soft samplers have an edge over soft synths. They just have to compute much less. After all the sound is already made, it just needs to be mapped to a note range. Synthesisers have to generate i.e. “synthesize” the sound and this takes horse power. The other benefit to the use of the soft sampler and sound fonts is the flexibility of choosing different sounds. There are tons of free sound fonts out there. Many are very good. There is also a good selection of commercial sound fonts and they are not really expensive. I have seen prices in the low teens for certain sounds. The way I see it twenty bucks is well spent if that buys me a killer lead saw sound.

The other note is how pleased I also am with my Godin LGX-SA. Specifically, the capability of driving multiple sounds from the guitar i.e. acoustic pickup, electric humbuckers and of course the synth access. Unless, I’m trying to do some special effects , the guitar synth to me means the combined guitar natural tones with the synth tones. As a matter of fact, in many ways I see the synth as an effect on the guitar. For example , one combination could the use of the natural more staccato acoustic lines of a guitar and that of a legato string synth line which is by the nature of the string patch a “delayed” sound. The synth is providing the delayed effect but instead of delaying the guitar signal you get a delayed synth which tracks the pitches of the guitar line.

The possibilities are endless and the tracking is there.

I did run into a snag getting the soft sampler’s output to Audition but I’ll talk about that on a later post.

Feedback for this post can be left on my forum.

DiMeola experiments with CDBaby

2007-01-15T20:12:00.000-08:00

Yes, DiMeola has released his new album Diabolic Intentions and it is being sold at CDBaby. This is very interesting to me. Here is a mainstream fusion artist, well as mainstream as fusion can get, experimenting with an unorthodox distribution channel and which is still probably associated with unknown artists. In my opinion it makes sense. It at the very least makes sense to experiment from Al’s perspective. Two good reasons:

He makes more money i.e. he gets a bigger cut, a much bigger cut.
He has more control if not total control over his intellectual property.
No contractual arrangements to support the CD.

Reason # 1

CDBaby charges , last I checked, four bucks per CD. If you sell a CD for $10.00 and more , well I’ll bypass the math. Most artist get less than a couple dollars per CD from the big labels.

Reason # 2

Control. This is a big issue. There are DiMeola albums which are basically out of print. That’s just a ridiculous state of affairs. It should never happen. If Dimeola had legal rights to that material and assuming he has possession of the masters he could just re-issue and sell them on CDBaby.

Reason # 3.

Big labels usually force the artist to support the album by touring. Al DiMeola tours a lot. It has to be grueling. To have actual control over whether he tours or not , where and the whens must be fantastic.

I suspect that there other reasons why this was a good album to give CDBaby a shot. For one, his bandmate Gumbi Ortiz has at least a couple of his albums on CDBaby. Secondly, its my guess that this last album was cheaper to produce. My understanding is that is a solo guitar album. The cost would have been significantly cheaper to record, mix/master and obviously the musician fees were kept low . Other albums i.e. with full bands can get expensive, they take longer to record and usually would bring in more talent to assist i.e. the right engineers, producers etc. In this case depending on the scope the artist may want for the record label to foot the bill.

I hope this works out for Al because it may make it easier to get another twenty years of music from him. The way technology is going he could pretty much record his stuff in the comfort of his home studio .

BTW, feedback for this article can be left on my forum.

Here She Is

2007-01-10T10:50:00.000-08:00

A late announcement but here she is in all her glory. The Godin LGX SA. Great acoustic tone, Seymour Duncan humbuckers on a 5 position switch, nice ebony action, controls the synth perfectly and you can run all three sound sources at the same time. If you need a synth capable guitar , I just don’t think that there any other good choices.

You can read my previous blog about the LGX-SA here.

Music Patterns

2007-01-09T11:28:00.000-08:00

Revised: Jan. 12th, 2007.

As some may know I’m a software engineer by day. I have come to believe that there are certain ideas in software engineering that are applicable to delivering product in the music world i.e. to compose and publish your music CD. One of those ideas is that of patterns ala Design Patterns. Simplistically, a pattern is a label on a repeatable strategy to do something. The label serves as a way of communicating an idea to somebody(s) , a collaborator or perhaps oneself . In the case of software its your team. In the case of music its your team as well. Your bandmates, your composition partner , even a teacher or student.

Often, you hear “well, there are a thousand ways to do that” and with art that goes up to a million ways. However, the case is that there is actually a limited number of commonly used and effective strategies. Often, the creativity comes in the extension or slight departure from a pattern. Of course, somebody can invent something entirely new. That’s okay, its great but often people don’t appreciate stuff that is too “new”.

From my perspective the main value of “music” patterns would be to foster communication between collaborators at all levels of expertise. To better allow one to get a grip on effective strategies and therefore enhance productivity.

All of the above to introduce:

The Layered Riff Intro

A riff is at first introduced over for example a 4 bar phrase. Every four bars another part is added e.g. percussion, bass, piano etc,. thereby “thickening” the sound until by the end of the fourth pass one enters the top of the A section. A twist to this pattern, which I like and I’m currently using on a tune, is to repeat the riff over your A section and to finally end the tune with the riff.

Note, the riff is not the melody but something that the melody plays against. The melody can contain parts of the riff, it can contain inversions of the riff, be rhythmically symmetrical to the riff, etc. I find it very cool to do that.

Let me emphasize in case there is any confusion, I have not “invented” anything. I’m just going through a process of labelling these patterns , strategies that I hear in the music I listen to for the purposes that it may help my personal composition process. If this perhaps helps others , great. I do doubt that a seasoned composer will find much value in these, such already know them may have even coined their own terms or not for these.

——

Now, some heavy composer types may call this “motif development” or something else, well fine. But this pattern is more specific. It is easy to grasp and more direct to implement. Try it out. The next time YOU, and I’m now talking to those that may not have heavy music education under their belts, set out to write a tune, just try it. Come up with a riff , layer in the rest of the parts, come up with a melody that is a play off the riff, come up with some chords that work and end the tune with the riff.

You may be surprised to find a decent initial cut of an “entire” tune. Often, at least with me, having a notion of what the “entire” structure of the tune is has been difficult and a roadblock to finishing a tune. I have a lot of unfinished tunes . This pattern or if it is preferred “recipe” has been helpful.

The Best 100% Free Windows Plugins

2006-12-22T08:02:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought I had exhausted the possible list of resources for Windows music plugins I bump into this site. A great site in its own right for the articles it puts up on “creating digital” music. They also maintain a column on the “best” free music plugins. Of course, “best” can be a matter of likes and dislikes but they seem to know what they are talking about. I found that one needs to take a chance into trusting some source on this issue. The fact of the matter is that if you Google for “free vst” etc that you will bump into an almost endless list. Availability is not the problem but rather the issue is one of screening. This list also includes a number of soft synths and many analog emulation i.e. like the synths of old such as the Moog.

An awesome and free Sampling Synth

2006-12-18T11:42:00.000-08:00

I was turned on to this free VSTi instrument i.e. virtual instrument which accommodates to the VST specs by my friends at Audio Masters Forum. This little jewel packs the same sampling engine that rgc: audio uses in their hardcore top of the line synths. sfz only functions as a sampler but with very impressive performance specs. Furthermore, it can load SoundFonts which are very high quality and very widely available sound libraries. Actually, there is quite a bit of free SoundFonts which may carry one quite a ways. I loaded a Grand Piano SoundFont and it sounded quite good. I would have t say as good to my ears as the Grand Piano sound in my Roland XV2020. sfz can be tuned depending on the performance constraints of the PC and what one is trying to do. In English this just means that one with a modern PC can use sfz on a live gig at an acceptable quality level. At the home studio the highest quality settings can be brought out to render to wav file i.e. where on to use sfz in the recording studio.

As mentioned sfz is a VSTi instrument. This means that one requires a host. In my studio I use a combination of an inexpensive audio recording package , namely Sony’s ACID Music Studio and Adobe Audition. Unfortunately, as great as Audition is it does not support VSTi. Audition is very much multi-track recording focused. Music Studio although not by a long shot as powerful as Audition in the multi-track recording area it does support VSTi and midi sequencing better, so its a good compliment. Music Studio is only $70.00 so its well worth it.

Having said that there may be times when I will want to use sfz outside of Music Studio i.e. I may indeed want to record into Audition directly. In that case we need a VST host and one can be found here:

http://www.toptensoftware.com/cantabile

once hosted sfz can be triggered via midi and its audio output properly re-routed so that it can be recorded into Audition or whatever. Yes, I could just host with Music Studio. Well, I’m guessing , honestly have not tried hosting with Music Studio and recording sfz into Audition but it does technically follow that one can do that. The reason though to use something like Cantabile is that it is a lightweight no frills, and of minor impact to the host system.

To conclude , again , a great time to be a recording music enthusiast. Another set of tools to add to one’s arsenal. sfz will certainly help make your music sound great.

Its Okay if your Dad is a Music Exec

2006-12-12T11:26:00.000-08:00

This is too funny. Warner Music CEO admits his kids are music pirates. Apparently, they somehow missed the arm of the RIAA. Wonder how?

Found this on my lawyer’s blog. Great blog well worth subscribing to it.

The Land of Free VSTs

2006-12-06T12:00:00.000-08:00

Things have changed quite a bit since the last time I really tried my hand at audio recording and production. Not only are the tools better, PCs cheaper and hardware more affordable on the software side I to my delight find that there is a tremendous amount of “goodies” , to be exact VST and DirectX plugins which can be loaded into my Adobe Audition recording system. Not only are these plugins free but many of them are actually quite good, if not excellent. I primarily have interest in plugins for signal processing i.e. your reverbs, eq , compression etc but one can also find VST instruments i.e. software sound modules. Its a great time to be alive and working in audio and trying to produce your own music. The tools are there to really produce wonderful and professional quality level music. I already use these on a regular basis. I put down my ideas on track and apply a quick mix. It sounds great. What I find most exciting is that it feeds the “inspiration” . To be able to hear stuff that sounds good , that sounds like it has promise inspires one to continue working and tweaking the tune.

I plan to blog about the particular plugins I use as I use them and have develop some solid understanding of their use. In the meanwhile check out this thread where I asked about VST resources.

http://www.audiomastersforum.net/amforum/index.php?topic=5833.0

Most of these developers have taken the “open source” philosophy. Many ask for donations and a few ask that if their plugins help one make money i.e. CDBaby sales that in turn the user should reciprocate by making a donation. Sounds very reasonable to me and I’ll gladly do that.

Podcasting with Audition

2006-11-29T10:46:00.000-08:00

Fig. Omni-directional powered stereo pair from Giant Squid Audio Lab.

I decided to try my hand at Podcasting the NYC Smalltalk user meetings which I basically organise and have done for a number of years now. Smalltalk is a programming language, very powerful, simple and cool and used in just about every sector of industry imaginable. Its a niche but like my music I like niches. So I have something to Podcast and I have the tools to Podcast i.e. Adobe Audition which earned some recent noteworthy mention at Podcasting conference out in the west coast. As a matter of fact I believe it won whatever the competition was. I can dig that up if somebody cares.

There were some technical logistics to conquer though. Well, I at least imagined them. A simple mono mic was not going to do. Our meetings are somewhat chaotic with folks talking out of turn, popping questions left and right. I really needed a mic situation that would really capture the room and not just the speaker. Secondly, our presentations go for a hour plus so I needed something with a fairly large storage capacity. Of course, there was the production of the podcast. Certainly, the recording was going to need some editing. Bring the content down to a PG-13 level. A fair amount of cursing goes on. I’m told that its mostly me but I just think they are too freaking sensitive. However, never mind editing , I was going to need to bring up levels , get rid of ambient noise and possibly interject where the presentation got confusing. So to summarise I needed:

A stereo omni-directional mic — decided on Giant Squid Audio Lab.
A recorder — decided on my iAudio X5, stuff like this was too over the top for my purposes.
Editing software — decided on Adobe Audition which I already use for my personal music projects.

But there was one other snag. The iAudio external mic connection is actually a line level connection and that meant I was going to need a mic preamp.

This unit is sold at Microphone Madness, it actually comes with a built in mic. Not sure yet what type of mic but it will itself take an external mic.. In anycase, I already have the omni mics. I don’t believe that anything else will quite do the trick, not for my application. BTW, a secondary use for all of this will be that I can also now record my collaboration sessions with my composition partner Jon Raney. Those sessions include music which this setup should be able to handle well.

The Three Voices of Godin

2006-11-16T09:43:00.000-08:00

After months of agonising I finally made the commitment and purchased one of these beauties. Yes, another Godin. I am definitely a fan. Very well made guitars, unfettered synth access with a reputation for top-notch tracking and to top it off great looks. For the type of music I want to write synth access is a must. My only other must which goes for all my guitars is that it must have an ebony neck and this one does. Check out the specs .

I tried the eBay thing. I was successful in obtaining my Godin Multiac Nylon SA from eBay. An essentially brand new guitar, which I was able to verify. Owned by a guitar player and not just an eBay peddler which is pretty important to me. I saved $400.00. In the case of the LGX-SA , I tried eBay for a while. The main problem was that I needed to get something from 2004 to present due to the fact that the synth access system had been changed. According to Godin it was a significant change. I came close but got outbidded. That was a fortunate thing. The winning bid was about $250.00 off ,without including shipping , from what one could purchase the guitar brand new. Not usually enough to warrant not getting a new one. Especially since I keep my guitars. I lucked out Rudy’s Guitar on 48th from which I have already bought two guitars, a classical and my Al DiMeola Ovation gave me a good deal. Not as much as buying it used but a significant savings from what one can find on-line. I had to pay NY tax but no shipping and what is great is that the guitar is being shipped directly from the Godin factory i.e. this guitar is brand new. I get to inspect it and I know where its been. Full warranty. My new baby is coming home.

Oh, why Three Voices of Godin? Well, because the guitar actually has three separate sound sources. The Seymour Duncan pickups for the electric sound, an acoustic pickup for a purely acoustic sound, and finally the synth access for the controlling of a guitar synth like the Roland GR-20. I got the one on the right.

Natural dynamic compression

2006-10-18T11:15:00.000-07:00

Well this is the week to plug Bruce William’s podcast on Adobe Audition which in particular has an emphasis on explaining how Audition can be used for producing podcasts. Here is the link again:

http://www.audio2u.com/buildingthepod.htm

Today I just want to comment on what was both a flashback and lightbulb moment to me. I was listening to one of the podcasts on my subway ride home and this great insight came through my ear buds. Namely, Bruce was explaining how in the old days a form of audio compression was simply achieved by the engineer riding the faders during the recording session. This is where I had that dual flashback/lightbulb moment. Of course, I remember doing that years back so many, many moons ago when I was taking two semesters of sound engineering at the local community college, that’s exactly what was done. In Audition that can be achieved via “automation lanes” and no it does not involve one actually riding faders. Its basically much more precise and tweak-able than that. Its actually quite cool. Bruce covers that in his tutorial CD. For more info see my last post on Bruce.

Jon Raney at iTunes

2006-10-14T14:52:00.000-07:00

My friend, composition teacher and collaborator now has his CD at iTunes.
Of course, this is strictly digital downloads. If you want a real physical CD which you can burn freely and play on your stereo then you should think of buying it directly from Jon which you can do by visiting his site. Jon makes more money when his CDs are fulfilled through his site, so if you are a fan of Jazz and also feel compelled to help out struggling independent musicians then please purchase directly from Jon. Nonetheless, being at iTunes is great. There are people that do indeed buy one tune at a time. Also, its exposure and just another very popular place to check out new music. Hopefully, we have the right keywords there so that he can be found easily. Certainly searching for Jon Raney will score a direct hit.
Anyhow, check out the link above. You will need iTunes installed on your computer but you can get that for free.

-Charles

Audition tutorials on Podcasts?

2006-10-10T14:34:00.000-07:00

Yes , an Aussie from the land of down under, of course, by the name Bruce Williams has been developing a podcast series on Adobe Audition, a very powerful and complete hard disk recording system for Windows.

Check it out:

http://www.audio2u.com/buildingthepod.htm

I went through a couple podcasts and this stuff is just full with information and insight on using Audition in the recording and post production process. I can’t wait to load this stuff into my iAudio player and listen to it on the subway ride back and forth from work.

I actually bumped into this in a sort of back doors sort of way. I am ramping up working with Audition which as a matter of fact, my new “ultimate” digital audio workstation will be arriving, hopefully by the end of the week, and I was looking for tutorial material on Audition.

I found this screencast based tutorial Audition 2.0 Essential Training , checked out a few of the sample free chapters and was impressed. This tutorial is all screencast based, no fancy production but just full of substance, unlike the Total Training Audition 1.5 DVD that I bought which although had good basic information , a lot of time was spent on making it a cool DVD as oppossed to making it a meaty tutorial. Some people may prefer that I guess. In my case I just want to see what the tool does and don’t need the rest of the fluff to keep my attention.

DiMeola in Gotham

2006-09-30T20:21:00.000-07:00

On Friday I did what has become a tradition. I went to visit a person that has become as a guitarist , my main inspiration. Al DiMeola had a concert in Manhattan last nite in support of his newly released album, Consequence of Chaos. This album marks a return to predominantly solid guitar body playing and is in many ways reminiscent of his earliest work. I actually have not heard the CD yet i.e. besides what I heard at the concert. I did pre-order the CD the moment it was available but I did not want to spoil the surprise. I’m glad I did not. Dimeola manages again to compose fresh music that is imaginative and achieves that balance between strong melodies, contagious grooves and “spirited playing” and I mean the guy still has all of his chops.

The Venue

The Ethical Culture Concert Hall is located at 2 West 64th Street right around the corner from the Lincoln Center and a little further down from the Shops at Columbus Circle. The place like most things New York is old and charming. It seems to have been a place of worship that was retrofitted for supporting concerts although I figure more in tune with classical type of music i.e. small ensembles etc. The ceilings are domed cathedral ceilings. I really don’t think that there was a single bad seat in the house both visually and acoustically. I was 5 rows down from the stage on the right hand side. Gumbi Ortiz was on a diagonal to me and I was able to see his articulate conga work perfectly. Al DiMeola was ten degrees down from Gumbi and I also had a perfect shot of him. The only time I was not able to see Al was when he sat down to play his Ovation during the first set. The chair was set back deeper into the stage than from where he stood when playing the electric, the result was that Gumbi was basically blocking my view. In anycase, they must have taken notice of that since in the second set the chair was brought up to the front of the stage and again everything was perfect.

The Sound

The Ethical Culture Concert Hall is a venue that has natural great acoustics . On the other hand I think that it is probably a hard venue to manage for music that is amplified. The reason is that it has very decent reverberation due to the high ceilings but it is also a shallow venue and so the sound engineer really needs to be on top of it. Unfortunately, the mixing console was actually offset basically to the immediate right of the stage and I just don’t think that the sound engineer was hearings things well. The venue did not seem to be setup to support housing the sound engineering console in the center of the venue. The top of the set the guitar was a bit too muddy although not enough to not be identifiable. There were clearly some problems with the monitor mix on stage. Al had to cry out some directions a few times. They were certainly aware that they were in for some choppy waters since they actually had setup isolation partitions around the drummer. Don’t get me wrong. None of this detracted from the fun and excitement of the performance. As a matter of fact to me this can make it more fun. To be fair I may be a bit more sensitive than the average audience member just because I have had a decent exposure to sound engineering. It also got better and better as the night went along. At the second set, classical guitar solo piece rang out as crisp as morning air. By the time we got to the encores the sound of the electric guitar sounded just like the CD. Which reminds me that I should have tried to peek at what amp Al was using. As far as guitars he was using the PRS for his main electric, his Ovation series and a classical with a cutaway for which I did not recognize the brand. I’m sure a custom job. It also had this funny gizmo on top of it. I need to find out what that is. Maybe one of the guys at the forum will know. He did not play on a Godin Multiac Nylon SA which he has used on some of his Piazolla influenced albums, instead he used his PRS for some of the tunes such as those of the Grande Passion CD. One interesting note is that Al had a Les Paul with double horns and sort of a root beer finish propped in the back of the stage but for some he did not play it.

The Performance

There was a good balance of new material with old which I appreciated. There was also a good balance between electric guitar playing and acoustic. That suits me fine as well. Some fans prefer one Dimeola “genre” over the other i.e. acoustic work over electric. I like them both. One thing though, is that when I go to a concert I prefer to listen to the familiar more. Then again , I heard a couple of new tunes which I liked quite a bit which I assume are from the new album. Not that I need any convincing, at this point I buy DiMeola albums without pre-screening them.

Gumbi was as always at the top of his game and having so much fun. As far Al , after something like twenty albums he is as good as he ever was . What I admire about Dimeola is not just his chops but how he uses his chops. DiMeola does not use technique just for the sake of technique. He makes it work with the tune. Granted his music is about “spirited playing” , about the energy but it is about music, and he grooves. That’s hard to find. He also is not afraid to experiment with his compositions. I think that one of the advantages of that is that an artist is bound to find a wider audience. For example, I think that the move to acoustic work i,.e. the World Sinfonia and Piazolla influenced albums brought in a set of different fans.

I guess when I think back on the show last nite that there are a couple of things that linger with me. One is that Al thanked his fans for following him for the last eighteen years. He did that twice. I remember thinking, wow, that really feels like he meant it from his heart. People often say many things but its not often that one totally believes. The other thing he said was that “fusion lives”. I believe that its true and a lot of that has to do because you Al keep cranking out albums. I also hope that fusion will live because you inspire others to compose and express themselves.

Conclusion, great show. I’m re-charged with inspiration. Right on time too, because I have to get off my ass and get back on track with my stuff. By Monday of the following week the “ultimate” digital audio workstation I ordered should be delivered. That’s just a necessary part of getting my project together. I’ll blog about my research in the quest of the ultimate DAW soon.

Shrink wrapping , a necessary pain ?

2006-09-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

Shrink wrapping was a mystery to me. I thought you had to have specialised machinery to wrap your CDs. So either I was going to outsource it and probably substantially increase my unit cost on the CD or I was just going to have to resign myself to shipping CDs naked. As it turns out it does not take much to do shrink wrapping of at least your CDs. First of all you need one of these:

An industrial heat gun which goes for $58.00. I bought this at Uline.com which I found has an intense supply of everything related with packaging, stationary, you name it. They also have the other necessary component, of course I’m referring to the PVC shrink bags. These babies go for $18.00 for a 500 unit carton i.e. an approx 4 cents added to the unit cost of the CD. Now, we all now from the tedious accounting classes some of us took at school that cost is not just materials. Its time & materials. So here’s the rub. It will take you a couple minutes or more to do this and guess what it won’t look quite perfect. The bags come with excess material , too much I think. Some excess is needed to accommodate for “shrinkage” but this extra stuff does not quite melt so nicely. Maybe there’s a trick that I have not caught on or maybe you do need some fancy machine to make it look as nice as the CDs you purchase in traditional retailers.

Lately I have been asking myself how necessary is this really. It does protect the CD. Its sort of expected, but this again is a brave new world we independent musicians live in and there are no hard fast rules. I can’t complain about the added material cost but it sure would be a pain to have to do 500 of these by hand. CDBaby interestingly enough does not require them. Secondly, CDs are sent to customers well protected in padded bags when we fulfill the orders. My guess is that these do become necessary when one is sending decent amount of CD stock to traditional retailers but let’s face it we are not there yet. If orders are fulfilled via CDBaby or our site then I think that shrink wrapping is a pain we can do without.

The End of Guitar Tabs

2006-08-31T08:50:00.000-07:00

Beware big music publishers are now mimicking the tactics of the RIAA. Ray Beckerman points this out in this article:

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2006/08/music-publishers-target-musicians.html

this very much includes tabs that other guitar players come up with i.e. this is not about piracy, this is just about money.

Remembering Jimmy Raney

2006-08-28T11:23:00.000-07:00

I first came to know about the great Jimmy Raney through his son Jon Raney, a great Jazz pianist and composer in his own right. We met Jon some 4 years ago at the dog park and have since become good friends. Jon is also my composition teacher. Jimmy Raney was considered among his peers a legend. A truly great and unique Jazz bebop guitarist. Other greats such as Jim Hall, Wes Montgomery and Pat Metheny to name few consider him a major influence.

Jon shares a memorial radio broadcast by NPR where Jim Hall talks about his late friend Jimmy Raney.

If you don’t know who Jimmy Raney is then this is the time to learn. For those that do the broadcast is a poignant snapshot of Jazz history and not to be missed.

Enjoy.

-Charles

Weird Al and the RIAA

2006-08-28T11:10:00.000-07:00

Ray Beckerman , NYC lawyer fighting the RIAA, shares this funny link to a video by Weird Al which parodies the RIAA tactics.

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2006/08/free-song-download-weird-al-yankovic.html

Enjoy.

-Charles

Raney's idea on practise

2006-08-11T08:25:00.000-07:00

Jon Raney put a post on his blog about practising. Good article, I added some comments of my own.

Jon's New Site

2006-08-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

Have not blogged in a while. I have been bogged down with work and with cranking out a new site for Jon.

Some of the highlights of the site include:

Music Excerpts.
A Store where the new CD Waltz For Talia can be purchased.
Reviews of Jon’s music by third parties.
A Gallery where pictures of Jon and friends can be found but also of his famous father Jimmy Raney.

Besides the site I also went ahead and setup:

A Forum for discussion of music composition, theory and all that Jazz.
Well, actually Jon setup a blog for himself where he already has a very interesting and funny article written by his Dad, Jimmy Raney.

BTW, for those that don’t know which could be quite a few Jimmy Raney is a unsung legendary guitarist of Jazz bebop. Jimmy Raney played with the likes of Stan Getz and other greats. Artist such as Wes Montgomery and even contemporary artist such as Pat Metheny cite him as a major influence. Jon plans to dedicate part of his site to his father’s memory and accomplishments. One of the projects consists of a book Jimmy Raney was working on melodic lines.

Finally, Jon’s CD is great. It has a little of everything from straightahead Jazz to fusions with Brazilian grooves to melancholic balads to blues. Its a great value at $10.00.

If consumers want great new and innovative music and great selection for that matter it is important to support independent music. If you love Jazz then supporting the “indie” Jazz/ fusion scene is a must otherwise you will get some big record label executive’s version of what Jazz is. So at the very least check out Jon’s CD.

Defective by Design

2006-07-19T10:04:00.000-07:00

The Free Software Foundation is starting a campaign against the imposition of DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology by colluding mega media. Their new campaign is called Defective by Design. Tomorrow they join Ray Beckerman, in a conference call , the objective is to communicate the importance of thwarting the RIAA’s strategy of bullying consumers with punitive and meritless lawsuits.

The Defective by Design campaign is also trying to enlist U2’s singer Bono in the fight against big business media companies.

Ray blogs about it here , find out more about this important issue and see how you can help.

Copyrightng your stuff

2006-07-10T12:10:00.000-07:00

Many, many moons I had checked into this and the conclusion at the time was that it was expensive and a hazzle to copyright one’s stuff. There was of course the alternative , the poor man’s copyrght. Basically just mail yourself the copyright-able material and keep the envelope un-opened. I actually read this in a book. However, this strategy may have some holes in it or so RegisterMyCopyRight.com thinks. They may have an obvious bias but it does make sense to protect our labors of love. Really, better safe than sorry and especially when well, it is so easy to do nowadays. It is also not expensive. Here is some of the how and who:

Most independent musicians will be interested in what is called an SR (sound recording) copyright. This is what protects your audio recordings from piracy. Well, better said it affords you rights in the case that your work is pirated and otherwise used for profit without your consent. The form can be obtained at the U.S. Copyright Office. It will cost you a $45.00 application fee and of course shipping costs. In this case, it also makes sense to send the package as “registered” mail.

The SR application is overall pretty straightforward but an application nonetheless and if you can’t be bothered then there are outfits that will help you out. As previously referenced RegisterMyCopyRight.com is one. Another outfit and one associated with GarageBand.com is ClickAndCopy.com.

One thing to note is that your work is under copyright enforcement from the moment the U.S. Copyright Office receives your application so as soon as possible is probably the best time to send things in. To save money , it is a good idea to copyright an entire album i.e. a “compilation” there is only one application fee per claim and in the case of a compilation i.e. your album all of the tunes within the compilation fall under the protection of the compilation’s claim.

The Forum and the Fan Club

2006-07-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

For an artist the on-line forum becomes that virtual club house where his or her fans can meet. The forum allows the artist to keep in closer touch. Tentative touring schedules can be posted. Samples of new material can be shared way before an album is actually ready for release. Depending on the artist , the genre of music and just plain availability, the forum can be a great place for the artist to interact or give back.

I just recently setup an on-line forum for Jon Raney. In Jon’s case, he loves to engage in discussions regarding the art of writing good music. The discussions tend to be about Jazz and the fusion of Jazz with Latin and other genres but even the pop composer will find some great advise here. Jon has been contributing to these types of discussions for years but now we have setup a venue where we can bring the discussions here. To the students of Jazz and those like myself that want to develop their skills in composing this forum is truly a great resource, not only because Jon is very knowledgeable but because he is willing to share and spend the time. These traits of knowledge and willingness do not happen very often.

As a composition student of Jon’s I have had the chance to exercise the forum. Already, I think that there are some interesting threads. Soon , and to coincide with the release of the second generation of Jon’s web site, we will be making announcements to colleagues and friends about its availability.

To conclude , the independent artist to be viable , must develop a loyal following of fans. Fans of the music but also perhaps students of the teachings an artist may wish to share about the craft of music writing. The on-line community as facilitated by tools such as forum hosting applications, is an indispensable tool in developing the artist’s fan base.

Managing your project

2006-06-30T11:36:00.000-07:00

Any worthwhile goal takes an action plan. To reach a desired objective requires attention to detail, overcoming of all the obstacles and interim objectives to that golden pot at the end of the rainbow. In my case that golden pot is producing a CD of original music and the successful marketing and promotion of said CD. My objectives also involve helping my composition teacher Jon Raney achieve his goals of promoting his new CD Waltz For Talia.

As a software developer and manager I have learned that multi-faceted problems require extreme organisation in order to achieve desired results within an acceptable timeline. Will you be satisfied if you crank out one CD every ten years? If that is okay with you then the easy going approach will do fine. Otherwise you will need to be very , very organised. Fortunately, now a days there are some great tools available that greatly facilitate staying on top of the game. I find that “Issue tracking” software applies very well to music projects. Issue tracking is not just about logging in what is wrong with something. Its about defining all the myriad of sub-objectives and the associated tasks. Its about assigning responsibilities to team member. It also a tool of collaboration on specific tasks. Its a great tool for documenting what went wrong , what went right and thus an asset to the project. Not repeating the same mistakes is key to becoming more efficient and therefore having a log of the process is invaluable.

There is of course some initial pain and getting use to using these tools. One must enter tasks, one must report on progress and document the hick ups, the successes etc. Often, when one is encountering a lot of issues with a certain task it may seem that one is spending more time with the tool rather than working the problem. All of this is good. The next time the problem or type of problem comes around , and it will , one will be prepared.

An issue tracker is key to success. It eventually becomes second nature. Intelligent and steadfast use of these tools will maintain a level of energy and momentum that would otherwise be much more difficult to achieve.

We are using MANTIS. Its an open source application, its extremely easy to install and although it has its quirks it overall is a solid and easy to navigate issue tracker.

Online Petition Against RIAA Lawsuits

2006-06-23T08:11:00.000-07:00

I found this great post on Ray Beckerman’s blog. A record label has put up an online petition to stop RIAA and its British counterpart BPI from suing music fans.

These lawsuits are just not the right way. Express your views and sign the petition if you agree.

LightScribed UPC codes scan great

2006-06-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

As I have written before we are using LightScribe to burn our art work directly on the CD as opposed to having a CD sleeve liner. That is coming along well. There is a new design which we will show later and which incorporates an abstract photo of Jon. I was also burning the UPC code on the CD. I want to make the CD sort of self – containing i.e. that it provides all the necessary info on it. I asked the LightScribe support team about this. They were so cool that they actually ran the experiment for me. The UPCs scan great and that includes the very tiny 2D UPCs.

They also let me know of a specific utility for LightScribing which will significantly enhance the contrast on the resulting burned images but at the cost of increased burn time. Here is the link for that:

http://lightscribe.com/support/index.aspx?id=306

LightScribe is also working on a new film technology which will significantly reduce the burn times. Currently , the CD takes about 20 minutes to burn but I suspect it will get into the 30 minutes with the above mentioned enhanced contrast utility.

CD 1.1 - Not a Jazz Waltz

2006-06-19T13:47:00.000-07:00

My first tune on my my first CD is in 3/4.

So its a | 1 2 3 | 1 2 3 | etc but the tempo is at 132 bpm with an upbeat bossa like groove so it is not a waltz. The tune starts with an 8 bar intro where there is a one chord per measure change and which clearly established a typical 3/4 feel but then it gets strange in that most of the A and B sections there are two chords per measure but the beats are not evenly divided between the two chords. Jazz players, as confirmed by Jon, when confronted with a lead sheet in 3/4 with 2 chords per measure will evenly divide and therefore every chord would get 1 and a half beats i.e. a dotted quarter rhythm. However, in the case of this tune the first chord receives two beats and the second chord one beat. So against the 3/4 meter one gets this type of feel going:

ta ta-ah

where a ta is one beat and the ta-ah is the two beats. I seem to be inverting these, right? Invariably, well at least to me my ear latches on to the “ta ta-ah” i.e. I catch the train on a one note pickup, the 3rd beat, to the changes for the sections in question. I don’t mean that literally the section does start on 1 with a 2 beat chord but I don’t start synching with it, if that makes sense, until the 3rd beat. Lots of fun. Its has been challenging for me to do the comp on these changes since one has to face a one beat shift at 132 bpm on quite decently colorful Jazz chords. No power chords on this baby. Of course, the fact that in the past I was so obscessed with lead playing has come back to haunt me but I’m getting there. Truth be told , I have also been working on a second tune with decent technical challenges. Jon thinks is an interlude to this current tune . More on that later. I worked a decent start to the melody. Most of the A section is pretty solid for a first pass and the melody is keeping a tango-ish ethnic feel. Another interesting aspect is that the phrases are breaking up into 5 bar phrases I believe driven by the lop sided placement of beats on the changes and just where my ear heard the cadence points i.e. the melodic places of rest.

This “composition focused” approach to the study of the guitar I’m sure will pay off. I know I’m getting better technically and I’m also becoming a better musician. Forcing myself to extract the music out of my head and committing to a structure is a struggle. The tendency to “doodle”during practise sessions is great. Having somebody of the musical caliber of Jon to bounce ideas off, to be taught about strategies, the gotchas and just the lingo of music is invaluable.

Jon's UPC

2006-06-14T20:13:00.000-07:00

In a previous article I mentioned that an artist through CDBaby could obtain for a mere twenty bucks a UPC. UPCs are necessary for digital downloads but also if you want to sell your CDs in traditional retailers. When CDBaby provides you with a UPC not only do you get the “code” but you also get a JPG for the respective bar scan. One can then print labels and then attach to whatever CD packaging. Here is Jon’s UPC:

I went ahead and added the artist and album name. I purchased a set of 600 labels for under $10.00 and printed what you see on my desk jet.

Next step is to get 5 CDs ready to ship to CDBaby. The copyright application will go out reserved mail tomorrow. The copyright is retroactive to the mailed date of the application. Before we ship we are going to tweak the art work LightScribed on the CD and look into the mysterious world of shrink wrapping.

LightScribe - 2nd Look

2006-06-14T10:19:00.000-07:00

After reviewing yesterday’s post I realized that I had published the BW image that one would use with a LightScribe capable software. That does not do justice to LightScribe so I thought I post 3 other pics illustrating what one actually sees. LightScribe.com provides an ample gallery of backgrounds.

FULL MODE

CONTENT MODE

TITLE MODE

I can see a new art medium developing.

Burning your ArtWork

2006-06-13T11:35:00.000-07:00

Packaging your cd used to be a significant effort. Labels had to be printed then pasted on the CD which often did not look quite perfect. Labels are not cheap either, never mind including the CDs inner sleeves , back cover etc. All of this tedious and not inexpensive. I believe that the advent of LightScribe has changed what packaging a CD entails and has dramatically reduced the amount of work and the costs. LightScribe is a technology that allows one to print images upon the face of a CD. The image are printed in grayscale upon a brazzy looking background. The result can be very appealing. For example:

As one can see a very beautiful CD can be made. The CD itself can be made appealing and one does not have to rely on expensive labels and CD cover artwork to create a professional looking product. Of course just pretty artwork is not all that should be placed on a CD. The appropriate information is the typical :

1. Album name
2. Artist name
3. Tracks

Less obvious:

4. UPC Code
5. Copyright tag
6. User registration id (special order)

The independent musician has several avenues to distribute music. For example CDBaby and digital download providers. One avenue is that artist can do the work. These would be “special orders” , the cost would be slightly higher to the music fan but the fan would receive a customised product, with special artwork and even engraved with the listeners name or perhaps an engraving appropriate to a gift for a special someone. The sky is the limit. I plan to later blog about ideas on how the artist can provide the fan with more value beyond the music and at the same time keep more of the profits.

I’m using LightScribe on Jon Raney’s CD which we will be sending to the U.S copyright office tomorrow. For now we kept it simple:

Click on the image for a larger view.

The Art of the Sound Clip

2006-06-12T10:53:00.000-07:00

Jon’s sound clips are now available.

Creating these music excerpts is really an art. How long should they be? How do you give enough to entice the listener but not give away the mystery? What if you choose the wrong 30 secs and turn off the listener. Maybe for that reason 30 secs is not enough. That’s what we went on. Amazon does 1 minute clips and so we decided to follow suit. Another question is who should create the clips? Should it be the artist? Will he or she be objective enough? In this case Jon created the excerpts. Yet another issue was what format to use. We decided to go with mp3 since that would have cross platform support. Finally we decided to go with FM quality sample rate. This cut down the excerpts from 2mb + to about 700K. FM quality sounds just fine for review purposes and of course downloads much quicker.

From an admin perspective I re-used some CGI functionality that our ISP provides and integrated that to the site. This means that Jon has an admin screen that allows him to enter his excerpts and the Music page is now equipped with a link that goes to a downloads record page. It looks pretty good and its was certainly cost effective. The final thought I had for this was whether it would be worth it to incorporate streaming of the clips. The main reason is that this should be helpful to those potential listeners that do not have broadband access.

The next step is to burn the art work onto 2 CDs and send those to the copyright office which should happen tomorrow or the next day.

Got your UPC ?

2006-06-09T11:43:00.000-07:00

We just received the UPC code for Jon’s album Waltz For Talia. Yes the same UPC code that you find on just about everything nowadays and of course CDs that one can buy at one’s favorite CD retailer. Now is this really necessary for an independent music album? It really is. For one, the UPC code is what SoundScan uses to keep track of your album. This apparently includes digital downloads. It turns out that if one hooks up with CDBaby one can make one’s CD available for download for providers such as iTunes and others. CDBaby also comes to the rescue as far as to obtaining the UPC code. UPC codes are very expensive. Prohibitively expensive for the average independent music artist. However, one can operate under a parent code which is what you get from CDBaby for twenty bucks.

Hear are a couple articles of interest regarding UPC codes and the relevance to “indie” music:

UPC Bar Codes – Everything you wanted to know by CDBaby,
How UPC Bar Codes Work — by HowStuffWorks.com

One of the reasons why we got the UPC code right away is because I felt it would be a good idea to burn the bar code on the CDs that are sent as “deposit” with the copyright application to Uncle Sam.

Another important code or id to get is the ISRC. Unlike the UPC which is meant to identify a product for sale i.e. the CD in this case, the ISRC uniquely identifies a sound recording. ISRC are used for purposes of identification and aiding with copyright management. Here is blurb from the ISRC site that may help clarify things a bit more:

Quote:

It is stressed that ISRC identifies sound recordings and music video recordings and not physical products (‘carriers’) and that there is no conflict with existing product catalogue numbering systems with which it co-exists. Neither does ISRC identify a digitally distributed package, although sound and music video recordings included in such a package should be identified with an ISRC.

Adobe Audition 2.0 i.e. the hard disk recording and mastering software I use allows me to tag the CD with the UPC and ISRC for the respective tracks therefore enabling suitably equipped readers to pick this information up.

The next step is to send the CDs and application to the U.S copyright office. I’ll blog about that phase of the adventure soon.

RIAA Tales

2006-06-06T10:45:00.000-07:00

James Robertson has some interesting blogs about RIAA activities:

He blogs about an article by TechDirt pointing out how artist are starting to embrace this new digital world.
He also blogs about how CD-Rs were used as probable cause by cops that received RIAA training.

Ray Beckerman seeks help for p2pnet.net which is being sued by Kazaa.

Genesis - 1st Projects

2006-06-05T16:36:00.000-07:00

It makes sense to state up front what is the “mission” of this blog. What is its motivation?

The initial driver for this blog can be divided into 2 projects:

blogging about my support of Jon Raney’s current release.
blogging about the creation and release of my first album.

Jon’s current release Waltz For Talia is an excellent Jazz trio album where one will find melodic ballads to straight ahead Jazz to blues and Brazilian feels. Blogging on this project will invariably consist of issues such as copyrights, royalties, distribution, packaging i.e. a journal of what we will try to do to make it a successful “indie” album in this new brave world of the independent music biz.

In my case, my project is basically in its infancy. Its a journey whose objective is to create a CD of original music and in the process to not only become a better composer but also a better musician and guitar player. As I have blogged before, to me composition has to be the focus of practise. Blogging about my project will tend to deal with issues such as music composition and arrangement, digital recording and mixing, music gear and software and some aspects of guitar technique i.e. as pertinent to the compositions in question.

Perhaps this will be of interest to others which would be great since input would just make this experience all that richer but as I have also blogged before this diary of this adventure will help to keep focus on all of those baby steps and little mountains that have to be conquered to attain the long term objective of becoming a composer and musician that I am happy with.

CD 1, Track 1

2006-06-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

My first track on my first CD is inspired by my desire to exploit the beautiful open sounds of the guitar. What I mean is that I select voicings that use as many open strings as possible with the effect that there is a ringing pedal that basically carries through an entire progression. In my case the top two strings. I really like this a lot and as a matter of fact so far most of the ideas that I have come up with include this notion to at least some degree.

The Intro

The intro is basically a minor I chord to the V dominant with coloration i.e. b9, the dominant chord is also based of a bass note that is 1/2 step away from the bass note of the minor I chord, in order to do a nice “side-stepping” latin bass line i.e. one where I am going back forth between the two notes. The intro is currently 8 bars long.

The Form

Basically:

Intro
A
B
C
A
B
Outro

Where the first AB is repeated probably about 3x then followed by new territory in turned followed with restating of the melody and finally with a vamp which fades off , the vamp right now essentially being the same vamp that started off the tune. Anyhow, that is the plan for now.

The A section is 16 bars as is the the B section but because of the transitions and cadence points it is really not quite as even as AB but I think even more interesting for that reason.

The tune is in 3/4 and its in a perky latin feel.

What’s Next

The melody is. I’m hearing a Tango like Piazolla thing. Some of the tunes of Al DiMeola Grande Passion album seem to resonate. I think I’ll listen to that album and Piazolla next week on my iAudio i.e. on the way to work, so at least a couple hours a day.

Away pops & clicks & creaks

2006-06-02T05:53:00.000-07:00

I’m helping a friend Jon Raney get his album ready to ship to CDBaby. Jon had the master tracks so in this case there was no help with recording. However, we both felt that the general over all volume of the album could be raised a bit. I used Adobe Audition formerly known as CoolEdit to group “normalize” the tracks. I’ll talk about normalization some time later. What I want to talk about today is about Audition’s restoration effect called the “Click/Pop Eliminator”. You see normalization did a great job i.e. which was to raise the overall loudness of the tracks. Unfortunately it also raised a couple “faux pas” in the recording which were not very audible in the original recording but quite apparent now due to normalization. Jon had slightly moved his piano chair which got picked up by the mics.

Fortunately, Audition’s Click/Pop Eliminator very easily and basically with default settings was able to eliminate the transient chair creak. Here is what the user interface to the effect looks like:

Here is a blurb from the help text for the effect:

The Restoration > Click/Pop Eliminator effect detects and removes clicks and pops. Like the Auto Click/Pop Eliminator, this effect is ideal if you want to clean up the sound of vinyl recordings before transferring them to CD or another digital medium. The Click/Pop Eliminator, however, provides a much wider range of controls, letting you customize settings to repair other transient artifacts such as vocal plosives or radio static.

This is an increidibly handy thing to have and it worked like a charm. I also used the Graphic EQ effect to roll off the bass and perk up the piano on another tune and it worked great. I’ll probably blog about some of these effects at some other time. If everything goes right we should be sending some CDs to the U.S. copyright office next week and possibly to CDBaby as well.

The Focus of Practise

2006-05-31T11:45:00.000-07:00

From my perspective the focus of practise or in other words the precious little time one has to spend on guitar playing should be centered on composition. To focus on just getting "better" doesn't do it for me. Sure for a while I was obscessed with becoming more technical but that becomes a soul-less dry exercise. One can spend one's time learning a tune of a favorite artist and surely that can be a tremendous accomplishment but somehow at this moment in my life it is unsatisfying.

I'm sure that the answer is to focus on creating something from within. Technique will get better, time and feel will get better, all aspects of musicianship will get better. The joy and agony of art for an artist is not just in the creation of the art but also about the reflection of the art created.

To not compose music will leave me an unfulfilled and bitter man. In a way I blog because I believe it will keep me on the path.

Change of Focus

2006-05-29T21:51:00.000-07:00

I previously used this log as a private journal for my guitar practise. I decided to change the focus so that it becomes instead an account of my adventure in trying to independently publish a CD of original music. My music is basically of the genre of jazz fusion. It is instrumental guitar music. My inspirations are varied but I guess the two guitar players that I most prominently listen to and try to emulate are Al Di Meola and Pat Metheny. One of my other efforts is in trying to promote the work of a friend and composition teacher Jon Raney , a great Jazz pianist and son of the legendary Jazz guitar great Jimmy Raney. During the day I’m a Smalltalk programmer. I’m the project lead for a small but established financial software firm in the NYC metro area. I also run the NYC Smalltalk User’s Group.

Study -- 9/10/2005

2005-09-11T09:01:00.000-07:00

11:30 PM

Lesson w/ Jon

1:00 PM

4:30 PM

Idea2

6:00 PM

Duration: 3 h 00 min

Study -- 9/1/2005

2005-09-02T20:09:00.000-07:00

5:00 PM

Worked on Bm7–C#m7b5–F#7 progression, melody ideas, making the changes

6:20 PM

Duration: 1 h 20 min

Study -- 8/31/2005

2005-09-02T20:07:00.000-07:00

11:00 PM

Ear training using BB

11:30 PM

Duration: 30 min

Study -- 8/30/2005

2005-08-30T20:19:00.000-07:00

5:30 PM

Jammed to Parranda
Worked out progression for original tune:

Bm7–C#m7b5–F#7–Bm7 (4 bars)
does not work with original melody
So now I have a spin-off i.e. to song ideas

6:30 PM

9:30

Inserted progression above into BB
worked on melody ideas for it
also partly entered modified original idea2 to Finale, need to finish tomorrow, Finale Notepad does not scale , purchased Finale Guitar

10:30

Duration : 2 hrs

Study -- 8/29/2005

2005-08-29T21:14:00.000-07:00

5:00 PM

compositon of Idea2
strumming work over Bm7–C#m7b5–F7#9

6:15 PM

Duration: 1 h 15 min

Study -- 8/25/2005

2005-08-25T20:10:00.000-07:00

5:00 PM

Recording doodling
Note: mic on guitar grill is too upfront, no ambience

6:00 PM

10:00 PM

Work on idea2 and idea2

10:30 PM

Duration: 1 h 30 min

Study -- 8/24/2005

2005-08-24T21:32:00.000-07:00

5:30 PM

Memorize F7 voicing over the fretboard.

6:30

10:30

Work on Idea2

11:15 PM

Duration: 1 h 45 min

Study -- 8/23/2005

2005-08-23T13:37:00.000-07:00

4:30 PM

Play E altered dominant (7th mode F Jazz melodic minor) over an E7#9 with arpegios

5:30 PM

9:45 PM

Work on Idea2

11:00 PM

Note:

Can’t elaborate beyond initial 3 bar riff
I-V7#9 – IV

Duration: 2 h 15

Study -- 8/22/2005

2005-08-22T20:45:00.000-07:00

10:45 PM

F Jazz melodic minor

11:30 PM

Duration: 45 min

Note:

Not a high quality practise, too tired, started to late. Make it a point to apply the F Jazz melodic minor to a E7#9

Review - Week ending: 8/21/2005

2005-08-21T20:45:00.000-07:00

Total time: 15 h 10 min

Avg/Day: 2 hours +

Notes:

Postives:

Spend time on ear training
Jotted into Finale a couple of ideas
Got a better grip on making the delta notes on O Grande Amor
Picking was more fluid
Began re-incorporating right hand picking and strumming
Began adding some left hand
Added Jamming to tracks, fun but useful to pull out the ideas live

Negatives;

Probably still doodle my warmups too much
Zero recording
Need more chord work
Need more structured target study areas e.g. finish ADM’s lesson system.

Friday, August 19th, 2005

2005-08-19T22:23:00.000-07:00

10:05 PM

O Grande Amor study Jon’s solo
Play with Band in the Box

1:30 AM

Duration 3 h 00 ,

took a break somewhere in there

Thursday, August 18th, 2005

2005-08-18T21:25:00.000-07:00

6:00 PM

O Grande Amor – improv to
Record and work with an idea

8:00 PM

Duration: 2 h 00 min

Wednesday, August 17th, 2005

2005-08-17T16:38:00.000-07:00

6:15 PM

Scales:

Study harmonic minor
Study Whole/half dim

Jam to Asia de Cuba

Apply above scales, arps and interval jumps

7:35 PM

Duration: 1 h 20 min

Tuesday, August 16th, 2005

2005-08-16T20:52:00.000-07:00

Start: 10:00 PM

Free Jams to Asio de Cuba and others

End: 11:30 PM

Duration: 1 h 30 min

Monday, August 15th, 2005

2005-08-15T19:39:00.000-07:00

Start: 6:00 PM

Harmonic Minor (maj7) arpegios – ADM
Asia de Cuba

End: 7: 20 PM

Duration: 1 h 20 min