Stefon Harris

The TED speech I watched was Stefon Harris: There are no mistakes on the bandstand. His speech was not just words, but music. The first six minutes are just the band playing music. This was a great way to start his speech because it caught the attention of the audience and provided an example of what he talks about.

He shows the passion of the bandstand through his speech and his playing. He talks about mistakes in jazz as opportunities instead. Without reacting to it, you continue to make something beautiful out of it instead. He also describes it as accepting others ideas.

Through his musical examples and words, Harris inspired the audience. He inspired them to look at music, and possibly life in a different way. Take things and make them into a melody instead of the end of the song. It all depends on how you react to them. He talks about micromanagement. That is not how bandstand music works. You have to just let it flow instead of forcing it.

This has given me a new perspective on things. Instead of having a poor reaction to a mistake, turn it into something better.

Resources:

http://www.ted.com/talks/stefon_harris_there_are_no_mistakes_on_the_bandstand.html

Read more »

THE RIAA and Piracy

The Recording  Industry Association of America (RIAA) offers a lot of information to members of the  recording industry. One thing they are very popular for right now is the fight against piracy.  Internet and physical piracy have been a problem for the recording industry for years. Internet piracy, however, has really taken a toll on the industry over the last few years.

On the RIAA website, they provide a lot of information on piracy. They list examples of Internet piracy, who it hurts, and even some things they are going to help stop piracy.  This section is not limited to online piracy; it also covers physical piracy. Though physical piracy has been overshadowed by internet piracy, it is still a problem in the music industry.

The RIAA has many studies on piracy and how to make it stop or at least make it have a lesser impact.  There are many articles about the effect that piracy has had and on what they are doing to make it stop.  They have many statistics on piracy over the years.  They also have many studies on the subject.

If the RIAA is successful in cutting back on piracy, it will have a very big impact on the recording industry.  First, the industry would start making more money again. It is no secret that the music industry has taken quite the blow to their annual income. With less pirating, the industry would not be declining.

As a result of more money for labels and studios, they would be more likely to take risks on artists again. This could open up the industry to new artists and genres, not just trending ones. It could also mean more money for the real artists. 360 deals would no longer be necessary, though I am sure they would still be around. Bands could start making more money from touring again instead of the labels taking most of it. 

References:

http://riaa.com/

Read more »

Troy Germano opens new studio

Troy Geramon, part of the Hit Facotry family. He runs a Studio Design Group that has built numerous famous studios. He is now building a new recording studio in Tampico, Mexico. The owner of the studio is Jose Reyes. He is also Germano’s strategic partner. This studio will be called RG Germano Studios Tampico (Brown, 2011).

The environment one records in is very important. Unfortunately this is often overlooked.  Nowadays, there are many home studios. When I say home studios, it’s not always a real industry professional with the proper equipment and knowledge to make a great sounding track from home.  Often times a “home studio” is a person with a Digital Audio Work Station (Ableton Live, Reaper, Logic, Pro Tools, or even Fruity Loops or any other DAW) and a cheap microphone or two. Though it is possible to make a great sounding recording with these things, without a good sounding room or the proper technique, you might end up with nothing good at all!

Recording vocals in a closed in area can make it sound dead. Many at home studios, when first starting out use closets to record vocals. The end result, if you don’t know how to use plug-ins to fix it, can sound terrible.  In the end, it is just not a quality recording.

Geramon’s studios provide a much better environment for recording. With proper sound and acoustic treatment, a studio can sound fantastic. Standing waves can be eliminated. The boxy sound of a closet used as a vocal booth is eliminated, as well. With Studio Design Group, they build the studio completely to guarantee a great sounding room. Having a great sounding room saves an engineer a lot of work. He or she does not have to spend time fixing errors from the room in the mix. They can just focus on mixing great sounding tracks!

References:

Brown, J. (2011, October 27). Germano teams up on large-scale recording destination in mexico [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.sonicscoop.com/2011/10/27/germano-teams-up-on-large-scale-recording-destination-in-mexico/

Read more »

Pro Tools 10

Recently, Avid has released Pro Tools 10, a digital audio workstation used for recording and post production. This has come as a shock to many people. Just last ear, Avid released Pro Tools 9. This new version seems to have come out of nowhere.

Though this new release comes with a lot of interesting and very useful things, I feel it is not the smartest business move for Avid. The new software costs $699. If you’re not lucky enough to be one of the people that has bought Pro Tools 9 recent enough to get a free update, it’ll run you close to $300, if not more. I don’t see many studios, large or small, wanting to fork out the money to update. With the economy the way it is at the moment, I think Avid should have waited to release this update. They could have done a lot more with it, especially with the introduction of the new Native and HDX systems.  Cross grading to the new system can run from $6,000 to almost $8,000.

The new systems and cards allow for much bigger sessions on fewer cards. This, in the end, will make it cheaper to have big sessions than previously before. However, if you already have a system, it is still going to run you a lot. Upgrading to the new system will take a huge hit on any company’s budget.

It is very important that Avid has opened up Pro Tools to other software. With the release of Pro Tools 9, the software became open to interfaces not made by Avid. This extra step may be a good selling point for Avid. Though the new additions to Pro Tools are certainly helpful. I think Avid still just has it’s timing a little off.  It’s too soon to be putting out a new program. 

Resources:

Avid releases pro tools 10 and aax plug-in format. (2011, October 21). Retrieved from http://www.kvraudio.com/news/aes-avid-releases-pro-tools-10-and-announces-aax-plug-in-format-17524

Introducing the biggest advancement in daw recording since pro tools|hd [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.sweetwater.com/feature/protools10/

Read more »

AEA Listening Room

Often times, a audio engineer will hold off on buying a microphone until they know how it sounds and have seen reviews on that. Well, AEA has an answer to this problem now. AEA, a ribbon microphone company has recently debuted their online listening room.

This online listening room allows for the buyer to hear the certain microphones before they buy it. At this time, there are not many mics to listen to, but it is still a very interesting concept. The online listening room offers some samples with just the microphones and some that also use AEA preamps. The samples with the preamps are especially interesting. For some samples they not only include the isolated instrument track, but they also include the full mix so you can hear how the recorded instrument sits in the mix.

As the author of the Mix Magazine article on this topic pointed out, the listening room uses SoundCloud to post the samples. Though SoundCloud yields lower quality than desirable, AEA has made high quality, uncompressed files to download.

I think it is helpful that they used SoundCloud for a few reasons. For one, many, many people are now using it. It can be helpful to hear how the sound of the microphone is going to compress down to that formatting. It is very important to still have good sound on something like SoundCloud or whatever other site an artist uses to broadcast their music. Another reason I think using SoundCloud for this project is good is because people listening to the samples can easily comment on the sample tracks. These comments may help other customers. If there are any questions, they can be asked right on the track at the specific time that their question pertains to. It would make easy for people to discuss things about the microphones. This could cut down on people having to do more outside research on the microphone (though it would be wise to still do more research).

Overall, I think this online listening room is a fantastic idea. It allows for a new level of communication between the manufacturer and the customer. 

Read more »

Read more »