iZotope RX

I've been working on a project lately where some stuff needs to be cleaned up. Bleed on microphones and stuff.

I'm using this: iZotope RX

Very impressive. It's like Photoshop for audio cleanup. Pretty darned idiot proof too. LOL. Check out the demo.

As you were.

YellowTools Independence

I've been checking out this sampler a bunch lately. Stoopid powerful. Awesome to program.

I've been using it for drum kits and crazy processed, arpeggiated synth and bass lines.

And the starter version is a free download: YellowTools Independence Free

Carry on.

Route 66 Studios

Have an older cool guy Ensoniq, Korg, Roland, etc. synth or sampler needing parts, manuals, drives, etc.?

Check out this: Route 66 Studios

Cool Dude. Cool service. Knows his shit !!!

That is all.

Audiofile Engineering: Yeah Boyyeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

I've started using some products from Audiofile Engineering for a project recently.

Holy Smokes is this stuff cool and powerful !

I'm using Wave Editor, Sample Manager, and Loop Editor for editing a loop library.

In conjunction with AudioFinder, this rig is unstoppable!

Cool Stuff.

That is all.

Mac OS9 on Intel

Well, for those still looking to use Mac OS 9 programs, Classic, which allowed one to use OS 9 on OS X, was discontinued awhile ago.

I like to use a couple of old OS 9 granular synthesis programs, ThOnk and Cloud Generator.

I tried out SheepShaver which is an emulation to allow one to use OS 9 on Intel Mac OS X. It works pretty awesome.

It also works with PC and Linux.

Check out more info here: E-Maculation

Kewl.

IcedAudio: AudioFinder

Wow!!! This is a stoopid kewl, super useful collection of nifty editing, collecting, finding, processing, converting, etc. of audio stuff.

Check it out. Very reasonably priced. I do not want to work without it !!!

IcedAudio: AudioFinder

That is all.

Can Jazz Be Saved?

Terry O'Gara at Critical Noise has an interesting post about music and context.

Check it here: Can Jazz Be Saved?

CommonHaus

ScrewMaker's band from back in the day:

http://www.myspace.com/commonhausmusic

Sol Skugga: Burn her

ScrewMaker has contributed guitar to Sol Skugga's new single "Burn her"

Check out Sol Skugga here. Very cool music !!! http://www.myspace.com/solskugga

Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music

One of the most important music production learn ons of all time:

Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music

Go and get learned!

Guitars Of Doom!

ScrewMaker has contributed a file to the Air Users Blog with a cool video demo by Russ Hughes!

Guitars Of Doom!

NO!SPEC

Interesting. Very interesting.

NO!SPEC

Great Member Track

Great Member Track

Shared via AddThis

View of a Kind

Interesting site with links to various music and art and stuff from independent artists.

Check it out here:

View of a Kind

Airlift

Airlift

This is a little chillin' track that was created using sounds from the Air Users Blog. (Except for the reverse cymbals that come from my own secret stash of really cool guy samples. LOL).

I wanted to see how much I could get away with using one instance each of Digidesign's Structure and Transfuser, in Pro Tools of course. PT8 actually.

Within Structure, I used these 8 patches from the Air Users Blog:

Virus Piano Pad-The main riffage.

Urban Dance Kit-The kick and snare that run through the song.

Orchestral Percussion-For a couple of transitionary cymbal rolls.

Akai MPC60 Hi Hats-The hi-hats that accompany the kick and snare from the Urban Dance Kit.

It's A Sin Strings-These play a kind of counter accent to the main riffage from the Virus Piano Pad.

Scritti FM Piano-Plays a descending melody line near the end of the track, mixed a bit back.

Triton Marcato + Chamber Strings-This is actually two Air User Blog Patches that I layered into one patch.

Cymbals-I used these instead of the one's from my secret stash as I wanted to stay as only Air Users Blog sounds as I could.

In Transfuser these sample sets and loops:

AIR_Loop_36-This is the main loop, although 4 variations were used based on the original loop. I changed up some of the slices of kicks and such to better follow the changes and movements within the main riffage from the Virus Piano Pad.

Hybrid Filter Arp 3-I used only the first bar of this loop, with a variation for the ending notes. I played the pitch of the loop, as in what starting note, by assigning it it's own MIDI channel as in the AIR_Loop_36. I used Filter and Delay as inserts in Transfuser to further process the sound.

Def Drums-Loaded some samples from Nexus Drum Singles to create a drum kit with a bit of percussion at the end of the track, an additional snare in the middle, a doom kick thru-out and a snare fill and door slam towards the end of the track.

Hybrid Bass Arp Seq-I loaded this as a Phrase Sequencer as opposed to a REX Loop/Slice Sequencer as I wanted to use the first note of the loop to MIDI sequence a steady bass line. I used Tape Delay, Filter and Lo-Fi as inserts in Transfuser to further process the sound.

Airlift was mixed and mastered using Digi EQIII, Maxim, DDL, TL Space, BombFactory BF-2A, EQP-1A, Fairchild 660, and T-Racks EQ.

Thanks.

8PM

Here is a song utilizing Pro Tools Structure and Native Instruments Kore Player. Structure is freaking amazing !!! The more I dig into it, the more it does. I've loaded my EXS Libraries into it, which had come from my previous Akai, EMU, EXS, etc. samplers. It's really cool to be able to do all the processing in the box as opposed to the old days of routing to physical outputs to be routed to the counsole, etc. I tracked the guitars thru my Boss and Dunlop pedal board. I then applied Digidesign's Eleven plugin to the raw tracks using Audio Suite:

ScrewMaker: 8PM

And reviewed here:

8PM-ScrewMaker's Mid-Evening Crisis

The Kore Player is pretty neat. It loads many of the NI patches from their various products via Kore Soundpacks, collections of patches from things such as Absynth, Massive, etc.

And the price is awesome, like $60.00 bucks for libraries and the Player is without charge:

NATIVE INSTRUMENTS : Products : Kore Line : KORE PLAYER

NATIVE INSTRUMENTS : Products : Kore Line : KORE SOUNDPACKS

There is also a Free Kore Soundpacks Compilation available for download:

NATIVE INSTRUMENTS : Products : Kore Line : KORE SOUNDPACKS : FREE COMPILATION VOL. 1

Thanks.

Air User Blog

Holy Bananas Batman !!!

Russ over at Air Users Blog has been at it again and has many, many, new additions to the free libraries and tutorials and is now offering complete libraries for stoopid good prices !!!

If you use any Digidesign Virtual Instruments such as Transfuser, Structure, Boom, Xpand!, etc. get over to the site and get busy with your learn on and cool stuff gathering. Hell, go over there anyway as he has tons of cool guy samples of all kinds, loops, REX loops, and samples scattered about.

Be sure to donate. It is the cool thing to do !!!

Check out the Korg Triton Library for Structure here. Freaking Awesome !!!

Be good, Be safe.

BabyStone

I was listening to an interview with Sly Stone on KCRW and he talked of his daughter, BabyStone's music.

Wowwy !!!

Go check it out. Thumping !!!

Reaper

Lots of talk of this DAW and it is now Mac compatable:

Reaper

That is all.

K is for Kompressor

Kompressor Rocks !!!

Video:

RE:Recording degree? Really?

I posted this here:

Recording degree? Really?

May be useful here also.
------
I'm gonna chime in here...

Don't know if it will be useful...

Might get flamed all to he*ll !!!

I taught at one of these schools...

I was appalled at how many students couldn't read and write. How many who could not/would not show up. Didn't have the text books. High or drunk. Refused to listen, but could talk sh**it all day long, "My beats are gonna blow up!!!", "My bands gonna get signed!!!". "I'm an artist!!!", and on and on...

The school would not qualify these students first. If they could breathe and they had some kind of funding, that was all the school needed.

The school insisted that they be passed. You couldn't dock them for much of anything. We had to coddle them. Edutainment. Couldn't hurt their feelings, and on and on. And funniest of all, for all you Road Dogs, you couldn't swear in front of them. LOL. (WTF planet are these people on?).

I'm an old timer and a newb.

What you "make of" going to school is important. You're gonna need that drive as you're gonna be surrounded by *** (every and any derogatory character describing word you can think of) while you're in these schools.

It's really sad. You're in a battle to keep focused, to keep centered, to keep your sh**it straight enough so that you can make something of the experience and not be distracted by those mentioned above.

Unfortunately, unless you go to one of the schools with a hell of a reputation, which there are only a handful of, your instructors will not be what they were billed as. That sucks for you. A lot of the teachers I taught with would have been sent home on a real gig. They don't have that hang factor/drive/mojo/knowledge, etc... Anybody can doctor a "resume."

In this industry, a degree, as useful as it can be, can only go so far. Experience, attitude, and your work ethic, in the end, are paramount and above all.

As I've told many a student, 98% of the people in this industry are in the way. They shouldn't be here. Why? Cause' they don't have the drive you do. They don't listen. They don't watch. They don't develop skills. They aren't humble. They will weed themselves out eventually, but in the mean time you have to deal with them and move around them. It is what it is.

On a very brite side. If you have your sh**it together, if you can learn to listen, to show up, to fly straight, stay straight, and be humble, we'll find you. Why? Cause' if you can do these things, you have shown that you are a good, reliable, dependable, people. You are useful. We'll teach you the rest.

I liken those of us who do this for real, i.e. make a living, paying taxes, raising a family, etc. are like a bunch of "Navy Seal" types. Highly knowledgeable, reliable, tenacious, resourceful, extremely well trained (whether on the job, school, whatever), hard working, get'er down, etc. kinda people. We don't fail. It is not an option. We don't get "tired", complain, "I don't wanna do that", "I can't"...

Having said all this, this in no way means you're going to be "producer of the year", "rockstar", "famous", whatever. It means you're in the club. You're a "Made Man/Woman" (etc. LOL). It means you're in. No more, no less. You've circumvented the 98% who should go home.

At that point, Good Luck and Welcome !!!

As a side note, most everyone I know in this industry who is "making a living" at this, aren't the da*mn "producer of the years", "rockstars", etc. that all these sorry wannabe's are always aspiring to be.

They are Crafts People who work in their Trade. A completely different thing from what the wannabe 98% are always talking about. And yes some of these Crafts People are big name producers, techs, composers and rockstars.

Hope this makes sense, hope it's useful.

If you are interested, I wrote something similar to this topic, here:

ScrewMaker: Re:Best University to do audio engineering

PS Corrected to please the Spelling Police. LOL.
__________________
It is what it is...

ScrewMakerMusic

Black Lion Audio

Do you have a 002 or 003 Rack? Or MOTU Rack?

I've been hearing quite a bit about these guys lately and a good friend is now using their gear.

It is said that their mods will significantly ehnace your systems audio performance.

Check 'em out here:

BlackLionAudio

Another Kewl Site

Damn !!! Don't you just love the internet?

I sure would have appreciated all this knowledge back in the day when I was just a little whipper-snapper starting out !!!

Da-ya-amn !!! LOL.

The Studio Files

20 Intermediate Pro Tools Tips

Go here for a nice Pro Tools learn on:

20 Intermediate Pro Tools Tips


Also the precurser:

Top 10 Pro Tools Tips for the Newbie

Blinko-Blanko.

musformation.com

Go here and get your learn on:

Musformation

That is all...

Fresh On The Net: THE MANUAL BY THE KLF

Another interesting site FreshOnTheNet with a manual on how to have a hit.

Although circa 1988, it's still cool !!! LOL.

THE MANUAL BY THE KLF

Gnarly.

Hippity-Hop Production

This is a cool write up on Hip-Hop production.

It has nice references to the history and the development of the genre in regards to the tools used.

Hip-Hop Production

Rock on, Rock free...

CriticalNoise

Wow. Wow. Wow.

Some very interesting stuff here:

Critical Noise

Go check it out. Lots of thought on Music Production and its role these days.

Reason and Mastering

A friend sent me this question:

"Thanks for listening and comments. I notice my Reason tracks are not as loud as yours on myspace how do get um louder? Is it a mastering thing?"

Mastering...

Ah, yes. LOL.

------

Caveat:
I do not feel that mastering is some black art reserved for some mysterious person with super high end gear with ears that no one else has and can hear things no one else can, blah-blah-blah, that you send your tracks to and pay a ton of money to so that he/she can save you and your tracks and make you and your tracks better and more wonderful. Unless of course that makes you feel better to do that !!! Mastering is not an end all, do all. It can't save you. It's part of the process.

It's an art, science and skill, like mixing records, playing an instrument, cooking, open heart surgery, etc. Put the time in, learn as much as you can, practice a ton, and you too can begin the path to being someone who does "mastering" also.

Mastering can help make good mixes sound better and bad mixes sound not so bad. It's not a cure all though.

A letter grade is a fair and doable expectation from the mastering process.

Mastering has and had existed as a final QC type of thing to better prepare tracks for the final medium to be delivered on, such as vinyl, tape, CD, etc. and to often help the album/collection of songs/material be more cohesive and consistent and for the different pieces of material to flow better together as a whole, to get more balance, and these days, often to make things louder.

This can be done in various ways such as dynamics, eq, noise reduction, sample rate and bit depth conversion, ordering of tracks, etc. It depends on what is needed to help the tracks tell the story and to prepare the material for the final deliverable medium.

A really cool and awesome resource to learn more, is the book "Mastering Audio, the art and the science" by Bob Katz. Good stuff !!!

------

I use the Mastering Suite in Reason on my Reason tracks. It's really cool and useful !!!

But I process individual things also. To get that volume, the balance, good, bad or indifferent, it seems better done in stages as opposed to hoping it can all be done by a magical mastering device.

Often on drum kits or individual drum sounds I will use various compressors and limiters. But EQ helps a lot to remove frequencies that might otherwise cause the compressors and limiters to misbehave as in squishy or pumping sounds. I tend to cut more than boost frequencies.

Such as, I use more than one kick drum often. Usually a main kick and a doom kick for accents and to bring in some DOOM !!! The doom kick I will allow to occupy the lowest of frequencies and allow the main kick to live in frequencies just above the doom kick. Then the frequencies above that will live the basses. Then everything else. These are not hard and fast rules, just guidelines and starting points that seem to workout more often then not.

I do this by "cutting holes" in the frequency bands of the different kicks and basses. They can't all be heard very well if they occupy the same frequency ranges. They need space to do their part in helping tell the story. I'll use the PEQ2 or M-Class eqs to do this.

I like the PEQ2 to put dips in. With a lower Q it can act like a filtering equalizer on the low or high end. The M-Class has a nice set of gentle eqs including shelves with Q that I like to use. That little bump in the Q can make a heck of a nice difference around the cutoff frequencies. Using the Lo Cut can help clean up a mix a lot.

A couple other handy things are the Scream 4, D11 Distortion and the ECF42 Filter. I often use those on things as eq and dynamics devices.

These ideas are used throughout my Reason tracks and instruments, not just drums and basses.

In the end, these help to get a more balanced, dynamic and under "control" mix which makes it easier in the final "master" to get a big fat punchy track.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.

Reason and Groove Quantizing

I just listened to some tracks over at the Propellerhead Music Forum.

Some tracks lacked a cohesive "vibe" to them. This can happen and often does when using REX loops.

This happens as loops are performances. Depending on how a player plays or what the sequencer was set to or sometimes just plain old bad editing, or anything in between, the vibe can be very different from what you might get when quantizing. I will not go into the quantizing debates !!! LOL.

If you have a loop with it's feel kicking away in your track and then you sequence along with it, you may notice that the feel/vibe isn't there. Quantizing may not fix it as the vibe in the loop may not be quantized. Playing it over and over until you get it right may not be helping. What to do? Groove Quantize !!!

Here's the steps:

1. Set the L and R in the Reason sequencer. 4 bars should be fine unless the loop is a different length. Set L and R accordingly.
2. Click on REX player.
3. Go to: Edit>Copy REX Loop to Track (or Right-Click).
4. Highlight the REX loop and go to: Edit>Get User Groove (or Right-Click).

Now when you quantize you can use the loops vibe by using "User" in the Quantize drop down menu. This will help things to gel better timing wise.

I also do this with Redrum and Matrix Patterns. And other REX loops copied to track !!!

Thanks.

Dirty Ork...

This track started in Reason...
Dirty Ork

I loaded some drum sounds from the "Finger Juice" library from Sweetwater Sound. I had converted it from EMU to NNXT format using cdXtract. Then loaded the individual samples into ReDrum. Also used were a TB303 sound loaded into NNXT and a doom kick in another ReDrum.

I then "Copied to Track" the Redrum sequences and added more hits and stuff and used groove files created from an old MPC60 in Digital Performer and then ported those to Reason via MIDI files to give the tracks some vibe. Lots of mixing and processing in Reason.

I then opened up Pro Tools 8 and ReWired the tracks in.

I added strings, brass, etc. with Structure and the UVI Worksation. In Structure I used a mix of the Goliath sound library and a bunch of stuff ported from EXS format including some strings from AKAI S1100. In UVI I used some UVI patches and some patches from MOTU Symphonic Instrument (MSI). Also two arps using MOTU MX4.

I used DIGI EQIII and BombFactory BF2-A for eq and dynamics on all tracks along with Pluggo Nebula on a creepy pad sound ReWired from Reason.

Most FX were in the patches or from Reason but for a delay and verb in PT. Mastered with BombFactory Pultec EQP-1A, Fairchild 660 and... believe it or not... Maxim !!!

Maxim is tricky to figure out, but does a good job after ya figure it out. LOL.

Thanks.

RTGS-X: Real-Time Granular Synthesizer X

Having stoopid fun mangling sounds with RTGS-X.

Very cool software. Very reasonably priced. Damn, it's gnarly !!!

That is all.

PT User Blog

Another kewl and gnarly blog:

PT User Blog

Go check it out !!!

Thanks.

ScrewMaker at Audio Geek Zine

ScrewMaker has contributed an article at another really kewl and gnarly online resource, Audio Geek Zine, here.

That is all.

Thanks.

Re:Best University to do audio engineering

I posted this on protoolsusers.org. I thought it maybe useful here also.

Thanks.

------
Re:Best University to do audio engineering

I'd taught at a school, which will remain nameless... LOL.

All these schools mentioned so far have stellar reputations and that is important. Schools with less than stellar reputations have earned their less than stellar reputations, just as those with stellar reputations have earned their stellar reputations. Again, that is important.

I'd suggest a few criteria:

Placements. If their idea of placements is the local bar, music store, or "studios", run, don't walk in the other direction.

How much money. Talk with students and alumni and find out if the money was worth it. Your going to be paying a lot of money.

Everyone is a freakin' school now. Bullshit they are. They are just trying to get your money and prey on your dreams. Good schools have good reputations. See above.

Find out how often the gear is actually properly functioning, and by that I don't mean that some of the lights come on. The gear works or it doesn't. End of story. Accept no bullshit stories about, "Well, you know blah-blah-blah". The second you hear that, run, don't walk in the other direction.

How often can you actually get on the gear. Ask students and alumni. Your paying good money and if you only get to touch the gear, especially on your own on your own time, is in your last or next to last semester, after you signed out time, if there was time available, if the gear was working, if the school was open, etc. run, don't walk in the opposite direction.

I tell you this as I feel terrible for many of my former students who were burned by such stories as above. These stories were and are repeatedly and frighteningly true.

The education at a good school is worth it as you will be with like minded folks who you will be dealing with for the rest of your career. A good school will weed out those students that should not be there. Good schools will have experienced staff, not yo-yo's who have only worked the local bar, music store, or "studio". They will have done stuff where their asses were truly on the line.

Caveat. We have all worked the local bars, music stores and "studios". But don't stop there. You need the experience and the trials of the bigger leagues. I keep putting "studios" in quotes cause again, everybody and his brother, aunt, uncle and mother is or has a studio. Again, bullshit. Because I have a car doesn't make me an Indy 500 race car driver who has every chance to win it in May. Delusional. Again, just because their local doesn't mean they are full of shit, it just means chances are that they are full of shit and lack real world experience. You'll figure it out soon enough. Just keep your eyes and ears open.

Get on the local crew of the local venues so that you can meet and see the national touring acts. Those guys work and get payed. They do real work, with real deadlines and real expectations. It's a hell of an experience. It's something you will most likely not see anytime soon in a studio career until you've moved up the food chain awhile and that will most likely take years. Not one or two years, more like many years. They may even hire and steal you right there if you do a really good job, keep your nose clean and listen. LOL. I've seen it happen. And road dogs get payed. Very good money. Way more than a studio will pay you any time soon, if ever.

So do your homework and accept no bullshit. This is your future. Hope this helps !!!

ScrewMaker
Ex: Road Dog, Music Technology Instructor and Trainer, Studio Engineer, etc. blah-blah-blah. LOL.

The Aliens Have Returned Pad

Hey All,

ScrewMaker has contributed to the latest collection of patches from the Air Users Blog, Structure Sounds Set 7, with the patch "The Aliens Have Returned Pad".

Thanks.

AIR Users Blog

For those of you using Digidesign's AIR instruments, check out this site dedicated to them:

AIR Users Blog

Very cool stuff !!!

Thanks.

Waves Must Love You...

A super gnarly gift to you, at least for a year, from Waves:

Waves Gtr Solo

I've been using it for a few things. It's wonderful.

It is also very reasonably priced should you purchase a copy. I was quite honestly surprised at the cost.

Thanks.

ScrewMaker KRK ReMixes...

ScrewMaker ReMixes of KRK Tracks.

KRK's Music is Neo-Soul, R&B-ish. Pretty damn gnarly songs !!!
(If I must say so myself. LOL).

Pro Tools 8

Well,
I downloaded the update this week. I like it. I like it a lot.

Those who have known me for a long time, know that I was not a PT fan, at least as far as the software is concerned. I have always had their hardware and plugins as a few of my Digital Performer rigs were with TDM hardware, AudioMedia cards, 001 etc.

PT was just lacking in the "music production" part of things. Things like groove quantizing audio.

With PT 6.4 things started getting useful. Stable Reason/Rewire support=Sweet !!! It was far more useful then what my other DAWs were doing.

Then 6.7 & 6.9. Yummy.

PT7. WTF? I was seeing many useful things from Logic being borrowed.

PT7.4.2. Blamo. I find I'm in PT a lot of the time. I really dig Structure. Really dig it.

Back in my racks of MIDI gear days, I would pre mix/program all my synths and samplers so as to virtual track. Back then it was easier than tracking out and separating several pieces of MIDI gear.

Then Reason came along. Wicked. It was not very stable with my other DAW. When I used it with PT, much better.

Anyways...

PT8 is, ahem, maybe like a real hard decision maker if one were to only have one DAW. Logic beats it mostly for the bang for the buck with all the other useful bundled apps. It would be hard deciding one or the other. But not as easy as it used to be. LOL.

For the record, I've used Digital Performer since '94ish. Logic since '00 and PT since '04. Reason since the day it shipped.

I still feel like all of them are important for what I do. PT is just making it really hard to use the others sometimes. It's ergonomics are very gnarly.

Anyways...

Thanks.

BoB's Really Kewl Anti-Sick Recipe:

OK,

One of the crazy things I did in class was give out recipes. LOL...

I do like to cook and stuff...

Here's one for when people were sniffling and hacking in class...

------

BoB's Really Kewl Anti-Sick Recipe:

Medium sauce pan. Less than medium heat.
Cover bottom with olive oil.
When heated add small-medium diced onion.
Heat onion to clear.
Add (a lot of) garlic, I use minced.
Heat another minute or so.
Add medium or two small diced tomatoes. I use about three medium tomatoes.
Let simmer a few more minutes. Your house will now start to smell really good. :)
Add some balsamic vinegar.
Simmer a few more minutes.
Add (a lot of) basil. Fresh is best.
I also add fresh ground black pepper and fresh ground sea salt, and some crushed red pepper.

Optional:
Add a half bag of frozen Mediterranean vegetables. Simmer to hot.

or

A block of frozen chopped spinach. Simmer to hot.

Eat as is, or over pasta, or with (my favorite) heated whole wheat bread with or without butter.

Yummy !!! (May or may not help cold, but it's really, really, good !!!).

------

Thanks.

"Help a Brother out by voting so he can kontinue his edumacation"

amayhem, from http://www.protoolsusers.org is looking for some votes to help out wit a skool skolarshipe:

please help me win this scholarship

Help a Brother out here:

http://www.brickfish.com/Pages/PhotosAlbums/PhotoView.aspx?picid=768294_75942432&=PPIMEMAIL&isep=1&pbapi=-1&pbvi=54349670

Thanks.