Blessed Dub licensed to DJ Gianni N mix!

Got an awesome email today from Amit Shoham of Tarantic Records with the news that Ivan-I and I's original track "Blessed Dub" has been licensed for a double mix CD on Indigo. Sweet!

Not quite the honeymoon I envisioned

I arrived to my desk Friday morning following the studio recording of Buzz Out Loud to find a huge box blocking my seat. The Mac Pro I had ordered a mere two days prior was delivered, waiting to distract me from my day's duties. On top of that I had a dentist appointment late in the day across town, so I had plenty to keep me from going home right then and starting to tinker with it.

I was very anxious to get this bad boy home and start the long process of data swapping from my old G4, and re-installation of the software I use the most. Perhaps a little bit too anxious.

I popped open both machines to start doing the transfer of drives. The drives are so easy to install in to the Mac Pro. You simply screw the drives onto a platter (four screws) and then the platter slides into the side of the machine. No power or data cord to hook up manually. It's done automatically as you slide the platter in it's home. Awesome!

When I went to turn on the Mac Pro, I was greeted with dead silence, followed by the internal fan turning on so loudly, my wife could hear it form the other room in the house. I was perplexed. Then I smelled the burning. ACK! Power off. Did I just get a rotten Apple?

With the help of Allen099 on Plurk (oh and BTW, Plurk FTW cause this dialogue was a lifesaver for me!), I began to investigate the problem. I removed all drives and the Mac Pro powered up as expected. Well THAT'S good! I then dropped each drive in individually. The computer started the boot up process with all but one of the drives. I examined the drive only to see that one of the connection points was twisted, touching another point on the connection. I fixed that and threw the drive into the Mac Pro again. Boot up success!!!!

...except, now that I let the Mac Pro boot up to the desktop, I noticed that not one of those fancy drives actually mounted.

QUEUE "Jason is just smart enough to get himself into trouble" music.

When I took the drives out this time, I noticed that they all had twisted connection points in exactly the same areas (though none of them were touching other connections as they had in the drive above, so there was no shorting out occurring as a result.) This made me ask the question I SHOULD HAVE asked before I started installing the drives in the Mac Pro in the first place. Do these machines use the same type of hard drive?

See, the G4 takes an ATA drive... in my case, I have Ultra ATA drives. I've discovered in the past that ATA drives are backwards compatible with other types of ATA drives. The Mac Pro uses the new standard, Serial ATA (or SATA). Having never put my hands on a SATA drive, I never saw the difference in connectors. I just assumed that SATA was like all other ATA drives: Backwards compatible.

Also, because of the Mac Pro's "slide it in and forgetaboutit" drive installation, I never actually saw with my own eyes that the connectors inside the computer didn't fit the drives that I was installing. They slide into place, and all seemed ok (obviously). But all was not.

So now I just have to pick up some new SATA hard drives for my new machine. It's probably due time anyway.

Oh yeah. Remember that burning smell? Upon further inspection of one drive that I still haven't been able to mount, I found a burnt chip on the controller board! So my only recourse is to either use a data recovery service (that costs an arm and a leg...) or I find another drive of the same brand/model and swap controller boards in the hopes that it works long enough for me to get my data off of there.

The drive happens to be my music projects drive. Luckily, I backed up all my data from that drive one month ago so I only lost the last 30-40 days worth of work. Unfortunately, Ivan-I and I started a track last Thursday. That work is gone. Oh, and I was near completion of a track for a new label, Farmhaus Records. That's gone too. Otherwise, i have the rest backed up (thankfully because of these experiences!) This just gives me a reason to tear into a music project on it right away to meet the deadlines. What better way to get used to using a new computer then under the fire?

What have I learned? Read and understand all (and I do mean ALL) of the specs ahead of time! DER!

This won't be happening again. Why? I went out and bought an external enclosure for my 750 gig Seagate UATA drive so I can still use it with my Mac Pro as a (you guessed it!) Time Machine backup drive! Ahhhh, backup bliss.

Octocore beast! What the power?

A few days ago I officially ordered a new Mac Pro, with a total of eight cores. It's hard for me to even touch my G4 tower now. It's like the second I sent off the purchase email, my desire to even write music with my current computer dropped off the face of the earth.

But I must move on cause, let's face it, I have more projects in my queue now than I've ever had at one time. I have a handful of remixes in the works on Night Drive Music right now, a remix that is nearing completion for Farmhaus Records, and I'm starting a new remix with Ivan-I for Tarantic Records tonight.

The thing is, my current computer can do what you need it to do. I just have to be creative in how I do certain things. Processor intensive plug-ins and effects need to be written to disk as opposed to leaving them all playing in real-time. Otherwise, my computer chokes to a standstill and there's nothing that breaks your creative flow quite like that.

There is, however, something to be said for making a choice and sticking with it. In the days of computers that have eight freaking cores to manage the most processor intensive applications, it would be easy to keep everything streaming live within a project and never make a solid, concrete decision for the track because "why should you if you don't need to." Sometimes it's better to limit yourself. Make a decision, burn it to disk, and move on. Done. Boom. It makes the whole process (and the amount of time taken to produce) a heck of a lot easier in the long run.

Sure, you might have access to hundreds of plug-ins, and they may all do super-duper crazy things. But have you ever spent a lot of time with one plug-in? Used it regularly to the point where you learn it's strengths, it's weaknesses? Then it becomes a tool that you can use effectively when the time is right. All of that power and all of that freedom makes it easy to learn a bunch of things a little bit. Or leave a bunch of decisions in eternal limbo... and always with the same reason: "Cause you can."

I'll certainly have to fight that urge when I get the new computer in a few weeks time. Learn from the limitations that I already work with regularly, and apply that ethos to my new production experience. Cause let's face it. Just because you can doesn't always mean you should.

Funky Moves starting off strong

Ivan-I and I's latest original track on Tarantic Records, Funky Moves, has already made it into the Stompy Top 100 - Deep. Currently it's sitting at 34, and it's still only in pre-release! Awesome to scan the list and see that it's on par with offerings by Johnny Fiasco, Inland Knights, King Kooba and Jason Hodges. I'm looking forward to the official release this Thursday.

Some updates to the site... and more music!

What a digi-tastically productive Saturday. I spent a bunch of time on the site. You probably won't notice much, but I brought the Releases section back up to date. Added my Twitter feed to the front page (big deal, but it makes things look a little neater).

I also uploaded a 192kbps MP3 and FLAC version of Difference Engine for free download via my Music page. A new addition to the music downloads page is an old release of mine called An Intense Experience of Light and Sound V. I. This was one of my first compilations of electronic compositions and... well, you can tell. But I hold it dear to my heart. If you like the big beat sound that was so happ'nin at the end of the 1990's, you might find a track or two worth listening to.

As for current production news, Funky Moves is set to release on June 5th, 2008 on Tarantic Records. Stompy has a pre-release of the 4-track EP on sale already! Check it out. Ivan-I and I did the original. We also co-produced a remix with Adnan Sharif (aka DJ Adnan).

I have submitted my remixes for Mr. Jones' Cut One as well as Marc Cotterell's Tiz to Night Drive Music for release sometime this year. More on that when I find out a release date. I am cranking away on another remix for Night Drive. My remix of The Messenger's On the Edge of Love should get a release by the end of 2008, I'd guess. Night Drive has a release schedule set far into the future at this point, so I wouldn't be surprised if it actually hits sometime next year instead. (I'm just happy to be a regular contributor!)

And finally, I ran across an opportunity to remix a track for a new label called Farmhaus Records. The label takes a very techy, melodic approach. They also like the minimal, which has me stoked to no end. I'm not counting eggs before they hatch, so no more on this until I actually get a sample pack and start to churn out some tunes as a result.

Polyphonic audio editing by Melodyne

One of the best tools in my small arsenal of plug-ins is Celemony Melodyne.  I was writing tunes for Ed Goldfarb of Madcap Labs for a few radio spots at the time and he envisioned the need to do some pitch shifting with it at the time so he asked that I get a copy.  I got it as a student discount so it didn't put me out much.  Ultimately, I never got the chance to use it in the ways that Ed envisioned.


But i find myself turning to Melodyne for at least a part of nearly every track I write now.  Basically, Melodyne is an amazingly sick pitch/time shifting tool.  It can scan, for example, a monophonic sample (or a whole bass part for that matter) and convert it into a piano roll with each note existing on the piano roll seperate from each other.  What does this enable?  Real-time editing of a static wave file as if it were a series of midi-notes.  This is so completely useful, it's disgusting.

A few years back they updated Melodyne to work with polyphonic sound.  Essentially you could time stretch polyphonic material out as far as your little heart desired, and you would hear no side effects of the stretching.  Just pure, pristine stretched sound which, before I heard it for myself, I didn't believe.  This type of stretching is SO useful in creating your own sounds out of nearly nothing.

Try this:  Find a 20 second sample on a CD... atmospheres are AWESOME for this.  Bring this atmosphere into Melodyne, then stretch the audio file out so that it becomes a 10 minute sample.  With Melodyne's immaculate time stretching abilities, it creates an amazingly entrancing, evolving pad out of the sound.  A sound designer's dream, really.

So the big news comes by way of an email I received from Celemony this afternoon.  At the International Musikmesse in Frankfurt, Germany, Celemony displayed a new feature to come out in the Fall called Direct Note Access.  This feature allows you to scan a polyphonic audio file (for example, a 6 string guitar playing a soliloquy) and break EACH NOTE out on the piano roll.  You can then do things like make a minor guitar chord a major guitar chord?!  You could mute certain strings and allow others to come through.

Ladies and gents, this is something I have dreamed of but never figured I'd see.  How the hell do these people do this stuff?!  it blows me away.

Take a look at the video to see what I mean.  This is truly revolutionary in the world of professional audio, and I really hope Melodyne gets some much deserved time in the spotlight for figuring this out.  I wouldn't be surprised if these guys get bought out by some of the other big guns just for the insight into the technology.  Mindblowing.  Pieces everywhere.

Two Night Drive tracks near finished

I am cranking away on two separate remixes for Night Drive Music.

JP and Jones "Cut One" is the first one. Ended up taking a bit of a funk approach with the bass line. Lot's of subtitle high end layering, and a few lush pads to soften it up. Happy with this one AND it only took me three weeks start to finish.

Mark Cotterell's "Tiz Parts" is the second remix, and this one started off super minimal. I have read a little about modern minimal house production and decided to try out a few things with it. This track has only taken me 4 total production sessions to bring it to near completion! i tell you, sometimes the tracks write themselves. Of course, the flip side to that is sometimes it's like murder trying to finish one up.

I'm really proud of a snap/clap sound that really gives the remix some serious dimension and space. Verbed out the clap, edited together two quick snaps together, stereo separation to split them up and make it sound like a few people snapping, then bumped it forward in time about 45ms before each clap hit. The result really sounds like 3-4 people in a room keeping tempo with the track by themselves.

Not sure when these will see an official release, but it seems they will be on two separate EPs sometime over the next 6-8 months, I'd imagine. As always, keepin' ya posted.

The Force Vol 4 - 12" vinyl release

The folks at Night Drive Music have release a track from my recent "Raygun - The Remixes" EP on colored vinyl along with a few other choice tracks from NDM artists. This is very exciting! Jeff Bennett turned out one of the standout remixes on the EP, and gets the royal treatment on the 12" as the top billing.

Tracklist:
A1 – Raygun – 1st of the year (Jeff Bennett Remix)
A2 – Alectric – Selected Moments (Neurotron Remix)
B1 – Tom Pooks - Yessid
B2 – Vas Floyd – Deep House Soul (JP and Jones Remix)

You can check it out in limited release 12", and of course, there's always digital.

And while we're on the topic of selling music right in the digital age, Night Drive Music offers most of their music in the following formats:
Vinyl, CD, DVD, MP3, MP4, WMA, WAV, OGG, AIF, FLAC... Talk about choice!

Preview the release:

New collaboration project

Ivan I and myself are ready to tackle a new project after taking a few months off for the busy holidays. And it's about time. We've working with each other for a few years now, and really come along way in our abilities, and quality of our productions.

We will be working in the studio of fellow label mate DJ Adnan to remix the last original track we wrote at the end of 2007. This should all see an official release on Tarantic Records.

I have also been approached by Night Drive Music to complete two new remixes for the label. So I must get busy on those as well. I got the source sounds and I like what I received. It's a lot more enjoyable when you actually find a little inspiration in the remix sounds. I'm ready to crank a few out.

Pro Tools 7.4 released!

The newest upgrade to Pro Tools (version 7.4) is now officially released!  I purchased the update for $49 last Wednesday, and with the total rebuild of my newly received replacement hard drive after the total crash I wrote about earlier, it was the perfect opportunity to install and test drive some of the newest features in the update.

The one I anticipated the most was the main new feature of the update, something called Elastic Time.  Using a special file browser in Pro Tools, you can scan your available sounds, and preview everything from within that window.  This is proving much more intuitive than using the Import command.  You like a sound, you simply drag it over into your Edit space and a new track is created for it.

Within the new browser window, you can enable a fit-to-tempo option.  Each time you highlight a new sound, the Elastic Time algorithm scans the sound to determine beats and bar length.  With the fit-to-tempo mode activated, the loop will then preview in the tempo context of your track.  If you have your track playing during this process, the highlighted sound will preview along with the track.  So now you know what a loop sounds like within the track without having to import it (if you have a hunch it'll work) and fit it to the tempo manually using something like Beat Detective to make it work.  This literally cuts the time down tremendously and is going to save me so much time and head scratching in future tracks.

There are different algorithm selections that can determine how Elastic Time processes your sound.  Rhythmic, Polyphonic, Monophonic and Vari-Speed (like speeding up a tape deck, so does the pitch.)

On my increasingly outdated G4, this whole process of evaluating the loop, running it through the algorithm, then previewing the loop in context, takes a few seconds with each sound.  It's not as snappy as I wish it could be (or figure it probably WOULD be on a current Mac)... but it isn't a deal breaker.  It just requires a little bit of patience.  And for the added convenience once the track is imported INTO the track, it's well worth it.