Magical Musicians

I could not describe to you how excited I was for the musical entertainment of last weekend to begin. After a quick run to Angelina's for some savory pizza, my cohorts and I decended upon Wilde Auditorium. Funny thing is you would never know a 200 seat auditorium existed, because it is built in the basement of a larger U-shaped building on the UHa campus. ARriving, we took side seats,as the house was mostly packed with Hartford socialites and other high-rollers. Reason being a non-profit University group Music For a Change is the coordinator for most of the concerts on campus, and they have raised over $100,000 for charities in the past few years. Luckily, student admission was a steal at $5. Taking into account that when Tim plays with Dave Matthews tickets are near $50, this was great. I had searched earlier for the opener Marcus Eaton, and had been mildly impressed with his samples on his website. Yet a live acoustic show can be way different from more tamer studio tracks. I mean, he was opening for Tim Reynolds, a master of non-conformity in guitar playing techniques.

As soon as he stepped on stage he was friendly and throwing the usual pre-set jokes. After that it was like an enthereal combination of acoustic talent and vocals. He began the first song with a slap on the bridge of the guitar and then picking palm muted stings, giving a basic kick sound and snare sound. Seconds later he was playing a melody on top of this- looping. Using the Roland RC-50, Marcus eventually added several backing loops such as chords, other percussive sounds, backing vocals and hand claps. He even had a mic setup on a lower stand to use for the hand claps and vocals, as he had to bend over to the pedal to set them up. (I wish I had my camera for this, and for the rest of the concert in general.) His sound is similar to Matt Wertz, with a hint of the spontinety also very present in Reynolds' playing. His songwriting was exceptional, in "Story of Now" and "Life and Reverse". I really was into his playing, and believe he'll be making a break in years to come now that he has his debut album out.


So, for those of you have only heard "Stream" or other Dave and Tim collaborations, you have to understand that Tim Reynolds solo is completely unleashed and totally abstact. No genre is free of his playing. I almost felt bad for the engineer who put his set on archive.org, becuase of how many times he changed songs. Don't get me wrong, this was not a medley. Such bits included Purple Haze, and Machine Gun by Hendrix. Tim's vocals are rougher than anything I've heard live, but it is also deep and quiet to match his personality. The entire time I was in amazement at being at such an intimate show with a living legend. Again, wish I had the camera, but on second thoguht I don't think the slow frame rate would have captured the ludicrous speeds he was playing at. I really would enjoy seeing both of these fantastic guitarists again in the future, their encore duet was equally pleasing.

The Third Coming

Digidesign recently unveiled new and impoved 003 and 003 rack firewire interfaces as a step up from the 002 and 002 rack. Yet, reviewers and industry professionals are having a hard trouble finding any major increases in their performance or uses. There is now BNc word clock connections (which is an ancient technology) for syncing with video or ADAT devices. The 003 also has a useful built in scroll wheel for moving through tracks and advanced aux ins and outs right on the control surface. Additionally there is now an extra headphone jack for two headphone sends, and a safety lock bulit in to lock the unit somewhere. Besides, that and the new silver colol scheme, it's really the same engine inside. I'd wait until something better comes a long, like a cheap HD 3 card on eBay...

EMI Rocks The Music Industry Boat

I've been keeping busy lately but there's no way I can put off this post any longer due to the changing news and criticism surrounding its initial release. EMI has planned to add non-DRM downloads all their songs sold on iTunes. Initially Steve jobs, who appeased the labels to follow through on this, was extremely happy. Now not only does Apple get a take from the 99 cent DRM songs but also the more expensive unrestricted files. What does this mean to consumers? Means that when you log into the iTunes Store, you will hanve a choice on some artists for now (Christina Aguliera among them) to purchase higher bit rate songs for $1.29, and even higher bit rate full albums (a whopping 256 kHz). Bets have been placed all around the industry as to who will be next to join in the DRM liberation. I personally do not know, but there seems to be an increasing amount of pressure to quickly follow suit. Nonetheless this will be a transfer of mediums like no other, in the fact that there is no real change in hardware necessary for buyers. Remember going from vinyl to 8 tracks to cassettes (or maybe you haven't yet...) I can safely bet the iTunes Store will be leading the unresitricted download market with 100% non-DRM songs by 2010. As for now, you can now buy all those Beatles albums free of DRM and playable anywhere any amount of times.

Band Scene XIII: Hawk's Nest April 5th

Last Thursday was another AES sponsored concert at the Nest, featuring Geffen recording artist Sound The Alarm. They are most often compared to New Found Glory, with a popular mix of punk and action-rock influences.

Opening for them was Sandlot Heroes (also from PA), which played very straight forward punk. According to their myspace they have opened for Anberlin, Yellowcard and hellogoodbye to name a few. Not bad for a bunch of teens risking their talent on tour, yet I guess they have proved themselves. Their set was loud and somewhat boring for someone who appreciates a decent solo and variation within sets. They might have won a most colorful gear award however, with a pink velvet Fender amp head and red white and blue striped drum shells.

After a short set STA got ready in no time and was ready to go. Being the closet likeness of the Hawk's Nest, judging a groups' sound is difficult, but the mix was clear, and the vocals only got drowned out during the excellent guitar solos. The album sampler they had out for free was a sneak peek at their debut album due out in June. The vocal-led "Closer" is a great potential first single for them. From their dynamic and rock satisfying set I came away with some new respect for yougn rock bands, because not all of them are of the same caliber. Look for the Sound The Alarm album, or buy the singles on iTunes:

The New Breed Of Producer

The story of Ryan Leslie's life is nothing short of a fairlytale; from a middle class kid with big dreams of music to producing chart topping hits for today's biggest acts in hip-hop and R&B. So on thursday when I heard a speaker was coming to lecture on the music industry, I was interested, but I had no idea what I was in for. Turns out that Ryan is touring around the east coast telling people essentially his life story- and inspiring students (like myself) to work in the music industry. After an hour and a half wait due to his car getting into an accident, he arrived to a medium sized crowd in the Wilde Auditorium at UHa. He immediately got into his story, telling it in a straightforward and comical manner. His biggest influence growing up was his father, who played trumpet in the Salvation Army. His musical influences at the time were mostly based off of his experience of this, and his trips to band camp (where he conducted) as a kid. On a year's stay in Belgium with his mother's career as an international lawyer, he was exposed to the pop music of America that many Europeans were listening to. Soon James Brown and Stevie Wonder became his idols and he wanted to make music. His father gave him his first keyboard and he was making beats and composing melodies by 8th grade. Around that same time he scored 1280 on the SATs, and applied and was accepted to many prestigous universities, such as Harvard, Stanford, and UCLA by age 15. He entered into Harvard in the fall, and suprisingly retained the amazing drive to make music that he had gained early in life. He was always in the studio and worked endlessly. He was the speaker at his graduation (pictured above), although he had just "spent a $120,00 education to be a R&B singer?" Well, he have some people to prove wrong. He had gotten his foot in the door by making a record early on, that never made it to press. Although he didn't back down. After college, he had no where to go and yet told his father he had a steady job back in Boston. He got off the plane with nothing, and practically lived in the studio there for as long as he could. He met up with a producer in the Bronx and gained attention throughout the industry with his beats. One such person was hip-hop mogul Sean "P.Diddy" Combs (he was "Puffy" at the time). Ryan had a CD of 8 tracks, and P.Diddy loved them, and he started working for his artists right away, leading to some of his majro collaborations. His most famous production was the recent Cassie hit "Me & U". So he stated, he got to where he is now with the four D's: Drive, Desire, Discipline & Dedication. Now I will go attempt to work on those four D's.

Studio Session April 4th

This was one of those sessions where I didn't have high hopes for getting much done, but I was totally wrong. For one, I really didn't have any talent lined up to come in, and I didn't want to track another beat up version of "My Hero". I knew I wanted to lay down the second guitar part, yet as we compared the best take we did to the real song, I had forgotten one small riff after the chorus, hence the elongated pause in the song where I had a feeling that I had missed a part. So I put that back in, and was left with the dilemma of the end, because on the "best take" I forgot to reapeat the chorus at the end. Still it remained the best take of three so I kept it and decided to work with it. So during the next session I'll be mixing and compressing the tracks for this and rendering the 2-mix to a CD. After the tracking, I had Eric come in to play some tenor sax. As for mics I used I had a SM-58 for the direct sound and the Groove Tubes 55 for the room sound about 4 feet away. After a few takes of this I decided to add my mediocre drumming skills. After regaining some basic coordination in my arms and legs, I was able to lay down a beat for some smooth saxophone. Best part was, I used a single AKG C-414 B to mic the entire kit, raised about 5 feet above the kick drum giving it a very good overall sound. I wish I had a picture of the setup. I'll also burn the 2-mix for this session next time as well.

Band Scene XII: Hawk's Nest March 31st

Saturday night I helped out the staff engineer for another show at the Nest. Pete, the engineer, told me the bands might be a pain because they were the "artsy" type. You really have to learn to expect just about anything from live shows. The bands could be just regurgitating what they did in the studio or they could be a whole different animal. To tell you the truth, I hadn't heard any music by The Moog or The Crash Moderns, so all of this was a surprise. On top of that the ear infection I had was particularly clogged, and I had only about 30% hearing in my right ear, just not-so-ideal for mixing, or hearing in general. Anyway the show was scheduled to start at 8 so the bands said they would load in at 7. Well The Moog and half of The Crash Moderns showed up around 7:20, and they immediately started setting up, which was nice because they were late. Before they arrived, I helped Pete set up the four monitors, the two sub-speaker stands on each side of the stage with the amp rack and the microphone cables. The monitors were an assortment of Fender and Yamaha, and the speakers were powered Mackies and one sub was a powered Mackie and the other was a passive Yamaha. I suppose the Hawk's Nest already owned one sub and wanted to get a powered one with powered mains as well. So since the Hawk's Nest is the most minimal definition of a music club- 10' by 15' 6" high stage with 3 par cans for lights and broken chairs and tables strewn around the area, as well as the other half of the eating area where anyone who is there to eat but not for the show, can eat and watch the enormous prehistoric projection TV at unreasonable volumes. I have still not been able to understand why big name bands like The Format or Senses Fail would want to play there. As for the setup of mics and DIs, The Crash Moderns had 3 vocals (SM 58), 2 Vox guitar amps (SM 57), 3 keyboards- more like the dream combination of keys: a Moog Voyager, a Fender Rhodes, and a Roland Juno synth. So the keyboard outs went into their own rackmount DI and then into the snake. The kick (Beta 52A) and toms (clip on SM 57) are the only drums that need amplification again because of the tiny sized venue. So after helping Danny of The Crash Moderns bring in some merchandise from their minivan, it was time to just wait for the rest of the opening act to arrive. Fast forward to 8:45, and the three other Crash Moderns show up and the set begins. The sound booth, with is a 6' x 6' plywood box about 30' away from the front of the stage houses the essential gear: Allen & Heath 16 channel mixer (with effects), three various graphic EQs, 2 dbx 166XL compressors, and a 25-CD magazine player for those moments when the band just isin't there. So with a talkback mic and a stereo out from the CD player, there's only 13 usable channels of the board, not quite a "safe" amount for any live show. As the Moderns were getting their monitor mixes straightened out with Pete, I was wondering what their sound was like, with tight black apparel and an assortment of tattoos. For the real answer just check out their myspace website. I think they're nothing what the looked like...if stereotypes are what they seem. Lead singer Danny brings clear vocals to the overall Green Day American rock and Panic! synth-pop sounds. I enjoyed hearing a band that plays what they want, and not just what the crowd wants. I wish them success in the future, they certainly have the talent to attain their highest goals. After a few tweaking of mics and monitor mixes The Moog was all ready to go. Now, I had no idea what I was in for with a Hungarian band. I'm not sure they were in for either, as this was their first college show in the United States. Like The Crash Moderns, The Moog had two guitars, the same drumkit but only 2 vocals and one small Moog. Not surprisingly their songs are mostly in English as far as I could tell from their thick accents and from their myspace page, but they had an unusual vibe about them that perhaps us Americans could not appreciate or understand. Maybe it was the poofy hairstyles or the broken English they used. Talented musicians, yes; very different than anything in this country, also yes. Imagine taking a fast paced 4/4 group like The Strokes and adding incredible dynamics and chords not often heard in rock and roll, and you then have The Moog. Most of the audience was intrigued just by their foreign accents and appearances, but some were turned off by their performance, others were very pleased. Let's say I wouldn't spend money to go see them again, but I'd be more than entertained if they came back to the Nest. Overall it was an excellent first show for me helping engineer, albeit the lack of stereo hearing was a big damper on my sonic abilities. This Thursday Sound The Alarm from Bethel, Pennsylvania will be at the Nest. Review soon to follow.