Tag Archives: music production

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Workin’ it Out In The Lab (AfterSix Productions)

freshsolo_so
Fresh and Solo reviewing the vocal track
Photo credit :DBassist

Hey people…

Hope all is good, and that is including your weekend. My partner and I had a recording session, more so a work session for one of the tracks from our upcoming last night. In studio was one of our vocalists, Solomon “Solo” Parker, workin’ out his part of a duet I wrote called Starting Over. I decided to bring you in on a small bit of what we were doing, and a lil bit of a blooper (we like recording those) as well.

Dan and Solo working out the lyrical flow
Dan and Solo working out the lyrical flow….

Pretty happy about how the end monologue is developing:

For some reason, my digital audio interface had the hiccups (crazy…broken… 😉 ):

The CD project is moving along, though it’s been a long timecoming. We plan on dropping it before the end of the year. Stay tuned for the official website launch

peace….

Doug

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Call me a neo-Luddite (old tech wins this round….)

In my recording studio, I have a very old sampler, a Yamaha TX16W. This sampler has a 3.5″ disk drive that reads Yamaha’s proprietary format sample lilbrary. I have at least three cases of sample disks that I’d like to convert before possibly selling them with the sampler. I really didn’t want to fire up the sampler, connect a MIDI keyboard, play the sample, record the audio into my computer, and save it…but…that would seem the only way to do it….UNTIL…I remembered that I could use an old app called Sound Converter to read the sample disk and do the conversion for me. The problem was these disks are ALL 3.5″ DSDD floppy disks. A-ha…no problem – I can buy USB drive 3.5″ floppy disk reader. Drive purchased, disk inserted…no cigar…the drive only reads HD 3.5″ floppies….bummer. Light bulb goes off…pull out ye olde Power Mac 7100, and hook it up….it has an internal CD-ROM drive *and* internal floppy drive that reads 3.5″ DSDD and HD floppy disks….voila! Fortunately, since I started music production on this computer like 10+ years ago, it’s still running Mac OS 9.1, and has Sound Converter installed as well. Cool!

I set it up, hooked up a spare flatscreen monitor, an iOmega Zip drive and again was in business, like the old days! Fortunately, I was able to find the app PC Exchange on an older Mac OS system update disks that had the DOS Compatibility app software on it which allows me to read DOS formatted floppy disks. I popped the first sample disk in, opened the file with Sound Converter, and did the conversion…good to go. Now to do the other gazillion disks!

Definitely paid to keep the old hardware around. Yeah, for those who know, the samples are 12-bit (as opposed to 24-bit today), but I love samples….the bigger my library, the better…they sound pretty decent for a sampler from the 80’s 😉 It’s 3:13am Saturday morning….thankful I can sleep in and late for once! Good night!

peace…

F!

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Quiktraks (60 sec audio) – Day 2

Hey crew….

Here’s a lil sumthin’ I was messin’ around with this evening. No loops this time. This track was originally composed in an old Mac sequencer called Master Tracks Pro. I programmed the drums using my Yamaha RY30 drum machine. I also used a Yamaha TX-81Z for the bass synth, and Yamaha TG-55 for the synth pad. I took the MIDI sequence and imported it in to Logic Express 7.2 and used all EXS24P sampler voices. The track name, No Need For Clocks, was for an artist I was working on a demo for (this is what I came up with, though she eventually did something different with the song).

I seem to be into producing chilled beats lately… I wonder why… 😉

The bounce audio came out real rough, and I dont know why. There are no plugins at all on the tracks, but I did say I will post whatever I come up with, good and not so good. Note to self: find out why the bounce is bad.

Background Notes:

-Recorded with: Logic Express 7.2.2
-Computer: Mac Powerbook G4 Aluminum
-Drums: EXS24P Sampler Hip Hop Kit
-Bass Synth: EXS24P Sampler Analog Bass
-Synth Pad: EXS24P Sampler Filtered Dark Analog Pad

My personal tracks are on my Myspace page
The Lab is here.

Thanks!
F!

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Quiktraks (60 sec audio) Day 1

Greetings crew…

Hope all is well. For those of you who know me, you know I am not only a podcaster, but a musician as well. I own a home studio, play in a band, and I’m currently in the works of finishing up a CD with my recording partner.

I’ve been playing and recording (even as in the beginning just to cassette tape) since I was 14. The technology has come a lonnng way and my choice of digital audio workstation is Logic Studio. I’m the kind of person that loves to make use of the many resources out on the internet, especially recording tutorials that reflect not only the kind of equipment I use, but the kind of music I like to record. On YouTube alone, I have collected over 4GB of tutorials on Logic Pro 7 and 8 alone, as well as great user tutorials on the MPC 1000. With that being said, I have found that I have been doing more watching than actual putting to use what I have watched and learned.

Enter Quiktraks (60 sec audio). This lil project simply is an attempt to record and upload daily, no more than 60 secs of anything I feel like recording or have recorded: ideas, throwaway tracks, experiments, etc. The tracks are more so to help me use what I have and learn more then simple watching excellent users teach it. In the end, I feel I’ll eventually learn the ins and outs of the tools I use to make music, especially an extremely power digital audio workstation like Logic Studio.

With that being said, here’s the Day 1 track – Midnite Vibe

Background Notes:

– Recorded with Logic 7.2 Express, no keyboard controller, just the keyboard keys
– Computer: Mac Powerbook G4 Aluminum
– Loops used: Piano, hip-hop drums
– Track processing plugins: Goldverb, Chorus, Parametric and Channel EQ
– My guitar: Takamine EG-544SC-4C Acoustic.

All and any constructive criticism from my recording studio heads are more than welcome! I’d to hear all the technical comments about the mix.

My personal tracks are on my Myspace page
The Lab is here.

Thanks!
F!