First off, apologies for the delay. Been a bit of a hectic week - Fergie gets injured on Monday at the Grove (lucky no Samsquanches were involved), I was stopped at the border on Tuesday when I was driving through for work, and we ended up hitting Trussler (a spot we haven't hit for almost a year)! So I'm glad to be back here posting again - I'll fill you in on the biking details in my next post, but I want to try and stick with going back and forth between music and mountain biking. This post I'm gonna talk about production - a bit general, but mostly focused on myself.
Music production in general has come a long way in last 10-20 years, especially in the area of home music production. Back in the day, in order to get into music production and recording it would take a small fortune due to the amount of hardware you had to buy in order to make this happen (mixing board, effects racks, amp racks, compressors, patch bays, etc). With the advent of computer software that could model physical hardware, it became possible to have a studio in a box if you will (all you needed for music production was contained on a computer). Now full on production houses didn't make the move to all digital studios as a) they probably already invested in outboard gear and b) analogue stuff typical just sounds better - so they went to a hybrid approach since the computer offered a streamline way of getting things accomplished. Needless to say, the amount of home producers sky rocketed with the introduction of software that worked on home computers (especially combined with the power of midi). We sit today with a huge selection of affordable gear aimed specifically at the home market - the selection of equipment within a certain area can sometimes be mind boggling with the amount of choices available. Some argue this trend, along with the ability to promote and sell via the web, has flooded the market with a lot of unspectacular material. Others would argue it's up the ante for producers, because in order to be noticed now, your stuff has to be really good. Personally, my views fall somewhere in between - but with the amount of work going on out there in home studios, I think it's great there's an outlet for a lot of that material (less control by big labels is always a good thing in my opinion). Now I'm hoping I can find the right outlet for my stuff - lol!
As you've probably already guessed, I have a computer based home studio. My setup is great, and has allowed me to learn a lot as well as make some pretty good tracks (if I don't say so myself - ha!). For the geeks out there my studio is running a Roland VM-3100PRO 20 channel mixer (8 in/8 out from the computer), M-Audio Delta RBUS, KRK Rokit 8's, M-Audio Oxygen 8 midi controller, Behringer BCF2000/BCR2000, Roland JX-3P/JX-8P Synths, Lexicon MPX100 Effects unit, and I have 2 turntables (2 Technics 1200's) with an old Numark scratch mixer! I have it tucked away nicely in my basement - great little studio that I tend to spend hours in!
On the production side of things, I use a program called Ableton Live (although I originally started producing with Cubase). I started using it back when it was version 3, and they are currently up to version 7 - they revolutionized how artists play electronic music live and also the approach to production with something called 'session view'. This essentially allowed to you 'jam' very easily with your material to get creative ideas for where you wanted to go. This coupled with it's simplicity quickly made it a force in the electronic music community (don't get me wrong though, outboard, analogue gear is still very prevalent in the community).
I'm going to leave it at that today - it's 21 degree's out, and my BBQ is calling my name! I'll talk more about my actual approach to production in another post - now you know what I use in terms of equipment and production, I'll get more into how I produce and why (not a formally trained musician at all!). Sorry this was kind of a boring post - starts with the potential of some good, interesting stuff and devolved into a pretty boring talk about production!! Time to throw on the pork tenderloin....
The World according to me.....
- MM
- The first question on your mind is probably "What the hell is a 'Samsquanch'?" I'd be saying the same thing if wasn't for an encounter my friends and I had while building a mountain bike trail in the backwoods of Ontario. More on that later. Symbolic Studios is the outlet for my electronic music production (which consists mostly of music in the techno vein, heavily influenced by the time I spent in Detroit in my younger years). Techno holds a special meaning to me as I have had some life changing experiences related to the music. So between the famed 'Samsquanch' and electronic music, it should keep the blog going pretty well. I plan to talk about anything from new music to freeride mountain biking and everything in between (I also tend to go off on tangents sometimes, so be prepared to steer off course for a couple of posts).
1 comment:
Somehow I missed the fact that you were at Trussler this week... here it is in permanent (unless you delete me) print: I don't like it. Stick to the grove, no dirt jumps please.
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