Category: Music

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Studio Fun

A few weeks ago, I went to a Dave Weckl drumming clinic. He had a lot of interesting stuff to say, but one thing I noticed was how he does almost all of his session work by playing along to pre-made tracks. Usually the recording workflow works the other way around, laying down drums first or second, but since this guy is one of the most in-demand studio drummers in the country, they record the rest of the track and e-mail the files to his home studio, where he records his part.

Personally, I learned to play drums by listening to and playing along with CDs. It’s definitely a good way to get up and going, since a pre-recorded band isn’t going to be mad that you’re a bad drummer, but as you get better, it does less for you; there is little room for creative expression, no interaction with other musicians, and no potential for disaster if you don’t keep good tempo.

So I decided to start messing around with some backing tracks of my own, sans-drums. That would open the possibility to work my creative muscles, which are honestly several steps behind my technical abilities.

fl-studio.jpg

So I bought FL Studio 7 Producer Edition, a professional digital audio workstation. It has everything I should need to record, notate, synthesize, or generate any kind of music. It’s very powerful and expandable, so if I later decide to build a more complete home studio with mics and stuff, I will have that ability.

I chose FL Studio (previously known as Fruity Loops) over some much more expensive competitors, like Cakewalk SONAR and Sony ACID Pro. The truth is, FL Studio is just as robust, but at a fraction of the price, and the developer actually seems human. For example, my purchase entitles me to free updates for life. It’s a per-user license as well, so if I want to install it on another computer of mine (gasp!) it’s fine. There’s an active forum community, flash video tutorials, and over 2GB of audio samples available for download.

There is a steep learning curve with any of this software – I have a lot of work cut out for me before I can even complete my first real song. It’s slow, but interesting, so I enjoy it. Once I figure it out, I might share some of it here.

Music

Ubuntu Studio

If you use a computer for audio, image, or video editing tasks, you might want to take a look at a new Operating System distribution called Ubuntu Studio.

Ubuntu Studio

Ubuntu Studio - Ardour
Ubuntu Studio is based on Ubuntu, a great new Linux operating system designed to be usable by people who don’t speak in computer code or live in their mothers’ basements. It includes powerful open source alternatives to many industry standard programs like Photoshop, Pro Tools, and Adobe Premiere.

Oh, and the best part is that it’s free. Free as in beer, and free as in freedom.

I’m downloading it now, and I’ll write up a review if I find it particularly interesting.

Music

Finally Acoustic

I got my acoustic Ludwigs set up today. I haven’t had an acoustic kit available at home in almost four years, so I’m pretty darned excited. I got a lot more drumming done in the last two years that I’ve had the electric V-Drums, which were just awesome to have in the dorms. But I’ve been learning jazz like crazy recently, and electric drums just don’t cut it for the articulation I need.

I’ve forgotten how loud the buggers are, but at the end of the summer I’ll have a room that I can insulate. It’s also good that I’m in a freestanding house, something my drums haven’t had since early 2002.

I need new cymbals and a good snare, but I have more pertinent expenses (like food and school) so they will have to wait.

Playing double bass drum is way easier on my acoustic drums. I started learning double bass on my electric kit, which had almost zero rebound. Now it’s bouncier, so I have a lot more consistency with my left foot. I have some practice to go, but I think that I’m about ten practice hours from some mean Rodney Holmes drum licks.

Turns out that Dave Weckl is doing a drum workshop in Fort Collins next week. A couple of months ago I went to one with John Riley, another jazz great. I don’t have the faintest idea why they come to Fort Collins – there is literally no major music scene up here – but I’ll take what I can get!

Featured

A Pleasant Surprise

So a little while back, EMI and Apple announced the rollout of DRM-free songs on the iTunes Store. This means complete customer freedom to actually use their music in the way that they want- choose their music playback software, MP3 player, back it up, play it on another device, without any restrictions treating the customer like a criminal.

EMI is one of the “big four” music labels – it owns a large percentage of the record labels out there. This means that a major percentage of songs on the iTunes Store (and, presumably, others) will be DRM Free. Some of the major artists signed to the EMI label include The Beatles, James Brown, Elvis Presley, Pink Floyd, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, and Garth Brooks.

But the really exciting thing I just remembered is the labels owned by EMI Christian Music Group:

  • Forefront Records (dc Talk, tobyMac, Audio Adrenalinie)
  • Gotee Records (4th Avenue Jones, John Reuben, Relient K)
  • Sparrow Records (David Crowder Band, Newsboys, Switchfoot pre-Columbia)
  • Tooth & Nail Records (Emery, MxPx, Showbread) includes sub-labels:
    • BEC Recordings (O.C. Supertones, KJ-52)
    • Solid State Records (Haste the Day, He Is Legend, Norma Jean)

So basically almost all of the good, progressive and actually creative Christian artists will now be sold DRM-free. EMI Christian CDs for a while came with a really paranoid message:

This recording and artwork are protected by copyright law. Using Internet services to distribute copyrighted music, giving away illegal copies of discs or lending discs to others for them to copy is illegal and does not support those involved in making this piece of music – especially the artist. By carrying out any of these actions it has the same effect as stealing music.

This message really turned me off. I had just gone to a store, plopped down upwards of $20 for an album that I wanted – instead of getting it on any number of illegal filesharing networks where it is easily available – taken off the shrink wrap, put the CD in, and felt good about supporting creative music. Then I get confronted with a message that guilts me for something I didn’t do.

So I decided not to support those labels as long as they treated their customers like criminals. But now that their parent company is going DRM-free, I can now support them again.

My wallet is in trouble.