Your Place or Mine Digital

August 15

YPOM Digital Music and Video on the Fly

I just posted a video of the Daniel Lee Parkin sessions in Woodthrush Woods on You Tube.  It is made up of what footage I was able to gather during and around the sessions that took place in Ken Harrison's beautiful log home in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I wish I had had enough time to get more camera angles and random footage but my primary concern during those sessions was to record and mix the best possible audio for Daniel's just about to be released first solo album.  That's one of the problems with being a one person operation - you just can't be in two positions at the same time and do them both justice.  Since the primary goal was to get the best audio tracks possible the majority of my concentration was on the audio.  I did manage to get some random photos and had some random photos already on file I was able to fly into the video to keep things sort of moving along.  But the tracks were the main thing and I'm pretty happy with how those turned out.  Had I been able to split myself into two people cameraman Ric would have shot a variety of angles and included every single musician that participated in the sessions.  But since it was just me the camera stayed set up in one position on a tripod most of the time, and during the effort to get each of the different musicians recorded the best we could I would forget to put the durn thing into record most of the time.  Oh well - knowing what needs to be done and getting it done are often two different things - and many times two mutually exclusive things when working solo as the audio and the video were in this case.

 

Video production has always been a second love of mine.  It started with an interest in 35mm still photography many moons ago where I gained a cursory understanding of framing, f-stops, exposure settings, lighting, focus and so forth.  And that was in the day when photography was still a film based medium.  After much study and and enormous amount of trial and error I finally got to the point where I could take a pretty decent photograph with film.  About that time digital photography started taking off and taking hold all over the place.  I found that my previous understanding and knowledge of film techniques was quite helpful in understanding the benefits of the new digital technology.  Digital technology did start making things easier to deal with in many ways but took away much of the warmth that might be associated with real film.  I guess you could take that analogy to the way the audio world has changed significantly during that same period.  The move from analog to digital recording has made gathering the material much easier but in many ways technique and feeling has suffered to some degree with the move from magnetic tape to hard drives and flash drives.  Digital manipulation of audio and video are at unprecedented levels now that we are in the heat of the digital age and technology continues to advance at ever increasing rates.  What once took several studios and many people to accomplish can almost be done single handed these days from a Smart Phone.  But the flying cars we were promised when I was a kid are still on the drawing board - go figure!

 

Back in July of 2008 I shot a simple digital video with a high end consumer Hi-Def Hard Drive video camera of my friend Jonathan Moore's niece Bailey singing a cover of Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' that was posted on You Tube on a channel that Jonathan and Tedi set up for her for just the purpose of posting that video.  Today as I was poking around on You Tube I went back and noticed that Bailey's video has received  121,837 views and still growing since it was posted.  It was the first video I'd ever shot for the purpose of being posted on You Tube and is the most viewed video among the 35 or so videos I've had posted or put on my own You Tube site since then.  It is a simple one camera, one angle affair using the built in microphones in the camera to capture the audio and the natural ambient lighting from the outside making only one pass and recording her live performance in real time.  Of course now that I understand my editing software and camera better I would take a slightly different approach.  Still working with only my single camera I would now shoot the basic track first with the musicians playing to a click track/metronome.  I would then shoot at least two or three more angles at different distances to the established tempo and work close ups, medium angle, wide angle, and zooms in and out into the mix.  And at least one video pass would be with camera in hand and moving through the scene, plus probably a little additional footage of Bailey just hanging out in the woods being her pleasant and pretty self.  Then we would decide if we wanted to utilize a hard core music multi-track recording technique to be mixed down and used as the base audio track or select the best sounding track from the fixed audio with video tracks and use it for the entire length of the video.  Once the audio was decided then I would take all the video elements and edit together a piece that flowed from angle to angle and scene to scene in a fashion that worked to maximize the effect of the lyrics and the music in the resulting video piece.  There would be close ups, medium and wide shots plus the woodsy filler and moving shots to use sparingly in some of the spaces.   I don't know if putting that much effort into it would have gotten Bailey any more views that she's gotten from our simple little one angle - one pass effort or not, but I believe it would make the finished product a wee bit more interesting to watch.  In any case it was a great learning experience for all of us and I'm thrilled to see Bailey has received so many views and comments.  Many of the comments were very nice and supportive but as with anything that receives as much attention as her 'Hallelujah' video has there are always a few critics here and there that feel their opinions must be heard.  And that's fine, as long as Bailey does not take any of it too seriously.  She was only fourteen when we shot the video and she did a fantastic job for her first time ever in a situation like that.  She has a great look and a very nice voice that as she matures and gets more experience should help to make her into an awesome talent.  I hope she goes far so I can say, 'Hey, I'm one of the little people who knew her way back when...!'

 

Had I been able to split myself into two people for Daniel's Woodthrush Woods sessions I could have made more interesting and numerous videos to go with his music.  Fortunately his music ('Palm of His Hand' - currently featured in a scene in Debra Granik's hit film 'Winter's Bone') more than carries the video I was able to construct and is really the reason I put the video together in the first place.  I hope you enjoy listening to Daniel's music as much as I enjoyed recording and mixing it.  His album should be finished at Mastering soon and I'll announce on my business home page how you can get his music as soon as it is released for public consumption.  He's a great writer and tenor vocalist and along with his songs, his gal Laura's harmonies and the great musicians that contributed to the album he's created a finished product to be proud of.  And I promise my videos will get better as I learn more about the process and how to use the tools I have available.  Ideally I'd like to have a mobile pro audio and pro video production company that could help independent artists in today's world at rates they could afford and profit from in the long run.  To make that happen will require expanding my operation into at least a two person operation.  I would love to hook up with someone that understands audio and video production as well or better than I do so we could both alternate between the audio and video production portions of the work - to be each others assistant engineers and production assistants as needed in a non-threatening and cooperative constantly learning creative environment.  Big egos need not apply... It's just a thought - a dream!  If you have a similar dream and the requisite abilities and some gear to contribute to the effort please feel free to contact me so we can start some dialog.

12:16 AM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

August 04

Analog to Digital to Whatever and Back Again

From tinfoil covered tubes to flash drives has been a wild ride.  The first time I ever heard the term 'paradigm' [pronounced 'pair ah dime'] was when I attended the Second International Exposition on CD-ROM hosted by Microsoft in Seattle in 1987.  I was attending the conference on behalf of my employer in Nashville at the time - Masterfonics.  My mission was to explore the possibilities of our mastering house getting into the CD-ROM Pre-Mastering business.  At the time it seemed a logical assumption for us to move in that direction since we were riding on the cutting edge of CD-Audio Pre-Mastering and Digital Audio Editing - both brand new fields at that time.  At many of the presentations I attended during the conference many of the speakers kept using the phrase 'paradigm shift.'  People in the IT business of the time were all abuzz about the quantity and speed at which 'paradigm shifts' were happening everywhere you looked.  At that time it required much more computing power and hardware resources to pre-master for CD-ROM than we have at our fingertips today.  IBM had just introduced the 'IBM PC' platform to the public the previous year and there was no such animal as writeable optical discs and a 10-MB Hard Drive was considered huge, never mind 64-Gig Flash Cards who knows what's next today.  The now defunct laser disc was trying to make its mark as the next mass delivery system for home video systems and Digital Video Interactive was announced and demonstrated at that very conference by Philips.  Technology was being invented and implemented at an ever increasing pace - and that pace continues to skyrocket as humankind is propelled into the future.

In some of the earliest days of the music business the biggest innovation to hit the streets was the printing press.  Up to that point minstrels and musicians had very limited access to written music and the only way music could be delivered to the public was by virtue of live performance.  You had to have scribes to make copies of written material until the middle of the 15th Century and most of the scribes were tied up copying documents that were mostly not music like bibles, treaties, histories and other assorted politically motivated propaganda.  And most of those documents were available only to folks at the top of the food chain - religious and secular leaders, wealthy merchants and such.  It was not until steam driven presses and specifically steam driven rotational style presses came into being in the 19th Century that printed publications started to become more easily available to the common man.  Hymnals were the earliest forms of mass produced musical material, and still, live performance was the only finished product delivery system of the time.

One of Thomas Alva Edison's early gigs as a young man was that of telegraph operator - a skill he learned from J. U. MacKenzie who taught him in appreciation of when Thomas saved his three-year-old son from being struck by a runaway train.  Not too many years later Thomas Edison started his career as an inventor in Newark, New Jersey where he invented the automatic repeater and some other improved telegraphic devices as improvements to telegraph technology.  His first invention to gain him fame was that of the phonograph in 1877.  The initial device was intended as something to play back recorded telegraph messages.  His first phonograph was recorded on tinfoil wrapped around a grooved cylinder but the poor quality recordings could only be played back a few times before they were no longer playable.  Improvements in media such as tinfoil to wax covered cylinders were the tip of an iceberg that was just the meager beginnings of the mass marketed music business that was being born in the early 20th Century.  The tube eventually gave way to the wax platter.  The wax platter gave way to the vinyl platter.  The vinyl platter gave way to magnetic tape.  Magnetic tape gave way to digital tape.  Digital tape gave way to the optical disc and magnetic hard drive recording.  The optical disc is giving way to MP3 and other digital storage formats.  Digital formats and cheap high density storage devices are starting to become the norm with music storage currently headed to the so called 'Sound Cloud' where music can be called upon over the Internet on demand by a growing multitude of devices - the fastest growing and most prevalent of those devices today being the telephone.   We don't even call them telephones anymore - now they are smart phones.  Who needs brains as long as we have batteries?  Well, I guess we still need enough brains to remember to recharge the batteries, but I digress.

And in the end how do we ultimately enjoy music?  By converting it from it's digitally stored format back into analog so the human ear can perceive it.  And who knows, that could change too.  Eventually we may be able to enjoy music virtually via neural transmission of program material directly into the brain.  One thing is for sure - it will continue to change.  And with each change paradigm shifts create new industry segments while other industry segments disappear or gain boutique status.  The new paradigm will replace the old paradigm and those standing in the right spot at the right time will benefit from the change while those clinging to the old model will wither on the vine.  Yes, it is the Information Age and its all available on cell phones and iThings like never before.  Where is it all going from here?  Where did I stick that GPS?

8:57 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

August 01

Bury Me Beneath The Willow

Today, 83-years ago, August 1, 1927, Ralph Peer with his tape recorder set up in Bristol, Tennessee hit the record button and made country music history.  The previous day the Carter Family of Maces Springs, Virginia had driven to Bristol in their Model-A Ford in response to a newspaper ad seeking talent to record for Victor Records.  They managed to get to the session despite three flat tires and several creeks they had to ford along the dangerous twenty-five mile journey from Maces Springs to Bristol.  The first song they recorded on this remote recording project was an old Carter Family favorite they had already played together for years titled 'Bury Me Beneath The Willow.'  Tape recording was a brand new technology riding in just on the heels of wax cylinder recording that was developed and perfected to its maximum potential just a few years earlier. 

The invention of tape recorders allow the proliferation of brick and mortar facilities filled with a vast array of ever changing technological wonders and acoustic environments used to capture and record musical and vocal performances.  Now music could be enjoyed could be produced, mass distributed and enjoyed by growing numbers of people.  The Audio Recording Studio grew around the technology available for the purpose of capturing and manipulating audio and was mostly confined to facilities developed and maintained for that specific purpose.  Building and maintaining recording studios developed into an art stretched across multiple technologies. 

The primary goal of studios in the beginning was to capture the original performances of artists and musicians for the creation of records - vinyl disks on which the material was recorded and played back from physical grooves on the finished disks.  The advent of analog tape recording allow for multiple tracks to be recorded and manipulated in ways previously unheard of allowing producers and musicians to take the creative process beyond the real time live performance required for previous methods.  Now parts could be recorded on different tracks at different times.  One musician could lay down multiple parts on the same song.  The old model of capturing a live performance was no longer required - the recording studio becomes the standard model for recording music.  Remote recording is possible but still technically a difficult and expensive matter to achieve.  Audio recording technology and methods improve and change over the years since the beginning to the 20th Century and change rather slowly until the mid 1980's and the beginnings of home computing and the dawn of the digital age. 

From the late 1800's till the 1980's all musical storage and delivery systems are analog.  The early part of the 20th Century start off with monophonic cylinder wax tube systems.  Tube recording and delivery systems give way to round flat disks.  The round flat disks still utilized an analog groove cut in the disk surface.  Rotational speeds move from 78 Revolutions Per Minute where only a few minutes can be recorded and played back to 33-1/3 RPM disks that can contain up to about eighteen minutes of recorded material on each side of the album - the LP is born. Stereo recording becomes popular and eventually becomes the norm.  Recording is done with ever changing analog tape recorders and mixed down to two track recorders, but the final product must still be mastered to a lacquer coated metal disk used to created mothers from which stampers are created for the purpose of mass duplication of vinyl albums and singles - the most economical and prevalent distribution methods for music till the sixties when the 8-Track cartridge tape makes its appearance.  Another tape format is developed mostly for use as a child's toy during this same period - the cassette tape.  The cassette becomes another competing delivery system but also allows the consumer to more easily record music independently at home and threatens the record companies income streams from traditional LP's and 45's.  Record sales slow down and cassette sales increase as the 8-Track begins to disappear. 

During the mid 1980's the Compact Disc shows up as a brand new musical storage and delivery system that for a number of years co-exist with vinyl disks and cassette tapes, but at the beginning the cost of CD machines is such that only more affluent folks can afford the devices.  In 1986 IBM releases the Personal Computer and things begin to evolve at a much more rapid pace.  In the beginning mastering Compact Discs require a mastering studio to format mostly analog tapes into digital formats that can be turned into glass masters used by Compact Disc manufacturing plants where CD's are mass duplicated.  Technology continues to roll forward at an increasingly rapid pace.  In 1987 the CD-ROM starts becoming a popular method of data storage and delivery for the home computing business - standard CD-ROM readers run about $1200 or so at that time.  Audio CD players become affordable to the general public and become the ubiquitous music playback system of the last part of the 20th Century. As home computers become more and more powerful the ability to not only play back Compact Discs but to record on them become possible.  Home duplication of Compact Discs continue to threaten the record business.

As we enter the 21st Century Apple introduces the iPod and MP3 becomes a popular delivery format for music.  MP3's allow massive amounts of music to be stored and played back on very small and very portable devices.  As home computing becomes more prevalent and the Internet grows in popularity delivery and sharing of digital files make MP3's and other digital formats much easier to deliver and share and other formats become less and less popular.  While still a prevalent format at the moment the Compact Disc is rapidly losing ground to MP3 and other digital delivery formats.  The CD itself could totally disappear within the next few years as the Sound Cloud becomes more and more popular and easier to access.  Physical units are no longer required for the delivery of music or video.  The basis on which record companies were originally built are slipping into history and the paradigm shifts of storage and delivery systems continue at an unprecedented pace.

Where in 1927 analog tape recording was the newest thing and required rather large physical devices and multiple devices to record, master and deliver music to the public, today the quickest growing delivery system for entertainment - not only music but video as well - is the telephone, or more specifically, the Smart Phone.  Smart Phones can download audio and video to consumers over wireless digital cell phone and Wi-Fi networks that are continually getting faster and faster. These days you can even record audio and video with Smart Phones - the need for traditional recording and mastering studios is rapidly diminishing.  While to get real High Fidelity one still needs to use proper technique, devices are now easily available to do studio quality recording and production with digital devices that can easily be used on location and at investments substantially less than that required to build and maintain a traditional brick and mortar studio.  Yes, the recording business we knew just a few years ago might as well be buried beneath that willow the Carter Family sang about so many years ago - under the weeping willow tree. 

4:35 AM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

July 20

A Day Worth Blogging About

It turned out to be a day worth blogging about.

Started off by driving from Mount Pleasant to Belle Meade where I met Amy Harvey,  the lovely and gracious owner of Stock Market Consignment Furnishings in the Belle Meade Galleria on Harding Pike in Nashville/Belle Meade.  I took her a matched pair of original signed oil on canvas paintings by The Moncayo Art Dynasty patriarch Hector Moncayo of Venezuela, South America.  Hector was the patriarch of a family of artists and sculptors who still live and work in South America who passed away in 1986.  The pair of paintings I left with Amy are typical for Hector from the period around the late 1920's.  The subject matter is a mischievous looking old man in one painting that is lighting a cigar on one 17 x 24 oil on canvas with another of the same size containing a somewhat mischievous looking old lady holding a candle stick - a typical motif for Hector's style at that time.  Up close they are a little scary but when you stand at a distance the look softens up with just the right amount of mischievous grins to make them interesting.  The subjects are typical peasant folks from Ecuador, one of Hector's signature artistic subjects.  Amy's shop is a great place to find some real hidden treasures.  If you are one of the treasure hunters out there Stock Market is a shop worth adding to your hunt!

Next it was a stop over for a visit and catch up with my old friends still very busy running Spotland Productions.  Ben and Pam Holland have been running Spotland Productions in Nashville for a number of years now.  I originally met Ben when he was a voice over engineer and a voice over talent working for the original founder of Spotland, Gene Clark at the old location when it was over on 12th Avenue. Their new shop is at the corner of Hillsboro Road and Portland Avenue right at the entrance to Hillsboro Village. I was a recording studio tech back in those days and kept many Ampex 440's and 360's alive for them back in the day.  It was the heyday of analog recording, and nothing is more analog than an Ampex 440 or 360.  It was good to catch up with Pam.  I got to speak to Ben for about thirty seconds or so - he was editing some books on tape project that had been recorded in England by an engineer over there and having a big time - busy, busy, busy.  Some things don't seem to ever change.  But my ulterior motive was to let them know that the film that my company has a song synched into a new film, Winter's Bone, which is playing just a block away at the Belcourt Theater thought at least next Thursday if not longer!  I may get to go see it for the fifth time with my son who is visiting Nashville for a few days from his current home in Virginia Beach, Virginia this coming Sunday.  I like it more every time it see it!

Then last, but far from least, I drove out to my friend and musical collaborator, Slim Stephenson's home in booming Mount Juliet, Tennessee.  Slim and I did about two hours and two sets worth of Upright Bass and Mandolin two piece music, and realized we have enough material we can sing and play to pull off a couple of live sets here and there for some alms.  We suddenly realized that together we can pull off an eclectic mix of Old Time, Blues, Blue Grass, Rock and Roll, Beach, Gospel, Americana, Pop and Classical to be mildly entertaining for a couple of sets and realized that if we could find us a good guitar player and / or fiddle or banjo player that could sing a little lead and harmonize that we could probably pull off an occasional tip jar gig or two.  So, if any of our friends in the Middle Tennessee area would dig adding their set or two's worth of material to ours as we continue to have fun jamming in Slim's Basement for fun and put out the old tip jar in a few of the entertainment starved venues hiding in the various hills and dales of Middle and East Tennessee.  We play on Upright Bass and Mandolin anything from Blackberry Blossom to Wayfaring Stranger to Never on Sunday to California Girls to A Little Help From My Friends to Copperhead Road to Pictures of Matchstick Men - you get the point - an eclectic and fun mix of tunes UNPLUGGED! 

If you have never listened to acoustic string music versions of classic rock songs take a listen to Moody Bluegrass I.  It is a fabulous mixture of classic and timeless Moody Blues hits done with acoustic instrumentation.  It was produced by David Harvey who got the creme of the crop in Nashville to contribute parts to the project, and it is fantastic!  Total proof that classic Rock sounds great when great acoustic musicians and singers collaborate.  Moody Bluegrass II is under production due out soon and is going to have performances by the real Moody Blues included this time - those guys dug the first one so much they wanted to be a part of the new one!  That, my friends, is the ultimate stamp of approval.  I've been listening to this one for well over a year now and still love it as much as I did the first time I ever heard it.

But yeah, it was definitely a day worth blogging about!

11:32 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

July 13

Just Slightly Off

What would it be like to live a life that's just slightly off?  You try hard to live up to what you perceive as high ideals but for some reason everything you attempt to do to live up to those ideals seems to be plagued with timing and/or circumstances that are just slightly off.  Not much, just a little too soon or just a little too late, a little too wide or a little too close, but nonetheless just slightly off.  You seem to slip off the cutting edge onto the bleeding edge more often than not.  You seem to be a little slower getting there in some aspects of your life while at the same time you are looking ahead at ideas that seem the logical progression in some area or areas, but your friends and the general public are not aware or ready for those ideas to come to fruition just quite yet.  You move on to some other idea that you believe might be the next logical step in the progression and leave the ideas that were just slightly ahead behind only to see those ideas become another trending topic after you moved your attention to the next idea that you think is a good one - just slightly off.  Imagine an idea where you have seen the possibilities and assume that others are ready to hear or use your ideas but when you attempt to move forward you seem to be stifled at every turn by impatience and people's inability to look farther than what they can already see.

In 1987 when I was the Tech at Masterfonics in Nashville the company sent me to the Second Annual Exposition on CD-ROM hosted by Microsoft in Seattle.  When I got back to Nashville I approached every computer store I could find in Nashville only to find out that not one of them had any idea what a CD-ROM was.  I had seen the future in Seattle that week and knew what what coming, but when I got back home very few people were interested or even believed me.  I remember talking to some of my ex-professors at the then Nashville State Technical Institute about this new technology where you could store up to 650-Megabytes of data on an optical disc and use that data to create interactive applications with audio, video and database all on one disc.  The expressed total amazement at such possibilities since a 10-Megabyte Hard Drive was about the top of the storage food chain for PC's back in those days.  Heck, the IBM PC had only been a viable platform for about two years at that time - I believe the IBM PC was commercially released to the public around 1986 as I recall.  Yet in Seattle I had already seen an interactive application called Palenque on an IBM PC with that at the time required a device call an 'Above Board' to provide the additional processing power to demonstrate the application on the current state of desktop computers of that era.  It was an interactive application based on what they called DVI (Digital Video Interactive) at that time.  The application required mastering on a Cray Supercomputer back in that day, something easily accomplished on a desktop or even a laptop computer these days.  It allowed you to use a joystick to travel through the Mayan ruins in Palenque and take a virtual tour of the site via a desktop computer.  You were allowed to follow prearranged paths where at certain points an Icon of some Eyes would pop up at the bottom of the screen where you could select a function that allowed you to stop and look around yourself in a 360-degree circle and to look up and down at the images from that vantage point.  It was pretty heady stuff for 1987.  When I returned to Nashville I found it very difficult to adequately describe what I had witnessed in Seattle, but I knew that I had only seen the tip of the iceberg of coming changes in computing, data storage and interactive applications.  It was another six years before computers started coming with CD-ROM options - and a few years longer before you could actually start writing to CD's from desktops.  Have things changed since then!

And who back then would have thought that one of the most popular and growing data and entertainment delivery systems of the 21st Century was going to be the telephone.  Go figure!  But anyway, there I was in 1987 looking for things that would not even start to be available till 1993 thinking about products that would not even be feasible until well after the turn of the century.  Just slightly off - so far ahead thinking about possibilities of the future back then that by the time we got here I had taken dozens of slightly off detours looking for a way to contribute meaningfully to the human condition as technology grew and grew that I lost focus.  Now here I am providing services that only five or so years ago were next to impossible, but I dreamed of doing in the late 80's and early 90's.  But I still can't seem to find enough clients who understand the value or can use the value of what I have to offer.  My self marketing skills seem to be somewhat lacking - just slightly off...

I left the music business in Nashville in 1996 and went to work in corporate America for a company that was called MagneTek when I was originally hired.  I took that job to get away from the frustration I was experiencing as my friends and associates in the business was thinking and talking behind my back about what they perceived as fiction and my lack of sanity.  I admit, the story started sounding farfetched to me the longer I lived with it.  But in 1997, just a few months after I had retreated into corporate America to get away from the business end of music (I never stopped playing and singing music) the object of my 'supposed insanity' was arrested and put away for the rest of his life for the crime all my friends in the music business thought I was making up.  So I remained in the position I had found outside the business for a total of just over eleven years when the company, by then named Universal Lighting Technologies, moved my position to Mexico and let me go.  That was fine with me because the position I held with that company was a fairly thankless one to begin with - answering a technical hotline where I mostly had to deal with irate customers who were dissatisfied with the performance or lack thereof of the company's products.  It was a stressful gig, and really did not have anything to do with my Music Business degree from Belmont or my years on the road as a professional musican.  My electronic degree from Nashville Tech was useful in that gig and was probably the only reason they hired me to begin with.  But by the time they gave me the axe my son had finished his undergraduate degree and and was well on his way to his Phd on a full scholarship at a respected university.  Since I was suddenly free to pick a new path I decided to get back on the old path I had always dreamed of pursuing - music production. 

Well, it appears that once again I'm just slightly off - ahead or behind the curve I'm not quite sure.  The technology finally exists in 2007 to create what I think might be the ticket for me living out the rest of my time doing something I've always dreamed of but never quite been able to pull off.  After leaving Universal I have the funds to pay off most of my existing debt and to pull the components together to create a mobile studio operation.  I start purchasing and testing components and software just as an experiment to see if I could come up with a system that would work.  After much trial and error and gnashing of teeth I finally pull together components and software that allows me to pack up all the gear I need in the back of my SUV to do compete audio studio production with a little bit of video production as well.  It takes me more than a year to get all the components to work together in a reasonably efficient manner and to learn the nuances of my system  I now have all the components to create products that just a few years ago required from two to four brick and mortar studios to complete.  I have a computer that took months to learn how to work around all its quirks with the operating system and the production software I finally selected after several trial and error attempts.  I selected a top of the line (in 2007) Sony Vaio media center laptop with a dual core processor that only came with Vista - which I've learned to work with and despise at the same time, but at least I finally learned how to make it work with all my software.  I use Cubase as my basic studio software, and I'm very pleased with how it works now that I've found out what has to be done to make it work like I imagined it would from reading the original specs.  I use WaveLab, from the same folks (Steinberg) who produce Cubase, for mastering, editing, sequencing and all the things done within the context of professional level music mastering. So that's two studios - recording and mastering - all in the same box I can haul around in my car along with my mics, stands, acoustical foam, self-tuning speakers and assorted furniture used to set up my control room just about anywhere.  Plus I use a high end consumer level Sony HD video camera that records on a hard drive along with Sony Vegas video editing software, so that's a video studio of sorts that I also have in my bag of tricks that I can haul around. So that amounts to at least three studios worth of capability that I know how to use and can now carry around and set up just about anywhere.

At this point I'm not sure which way I'm slightly off, but I know I must be.  I know the system works.  I've produced many demos from kids singing the songs they wrote in a song writing class in the mountains to songs demos produced in the home I am losing in Nashville and my friend's basement in Mt. Juliet to masters for two complete albums recorded in different locations on the road.  I did my first complete CD project in September and October 2009 on location in North Georgia - one song from that project is now playing all over the USA and overseas in Debra Granik's 2010 Sundance Grand Prize Winning film 'Winter's Bone' and will be a part of the film's soundtrack being released in just a few weeks.  In April of this year I recorded and mixed a second album project for the singer on the song that is in the film - 'Palm of His Hand' which was written and sung by Daniel Lee Parkin and published by my small independent publishing company, Your Place or Mine Digital Music, BMI.  The band on the first project (Dirt Road Delight) broke up as I was in the mixing and mastering stage of that project, but the original singer Daniel Parkin had enough faith in my abilities and equipment to allow me to do his first solo project which is being mastered by another vendor right now.  And that's cool, I totally believe in using someone else to finish off the project just to get another set of ears on it - that's really the most professional approach in the long run.  Of course when I do the mixing and mastering I can go back in and remix parts that I'm not satisfied with so that eliminates having to go back and forth to make course corrections that add some more time into completing a project, but it is a more professional approach if you can afford it.  So I have a little success at what I'm trying to accomplish, but it's taken three and a half years to make it to that point.  Of course this success is just slightly off, a little later than I had hoped.  Somewhere along the way I ran out of funds to operate and live on.  I do have some publishing that may pay off eventually but at the time being all I have is hope for some success with that - things are, well as usual, just slightly off. 

Timing has not been great since I undertook this adventure or any of my life's adventures so far.  I'm quite happy that I've had some adventures - I just wish one would work out in a timely fashion for a change.  I've spent so much time trying to get all the mechanical and software parts of my mobile studio business dream to work that the marketing part of that dream has suffered, and I evidently just don't know how to effectively market my wares.  My extreme shyness doesn't help that effort very much.  I may eventually figure some of that out, but it'll probably be, yeah you guessed it - just slightly off...

7:12 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

July 01

Pretender

Getting ready to head to Mount Juliet, Tennessee tomorrow to set up a stage at my friend Slim Stephenson's friend's house across the street for us to perform on the following day for his neighbor's annual Independence Day party.  We performed at the same event for the first time last year and they enjoyed us enough to invite us back for an encore.  Last year we had a little problem with a torrential rain storm that decided to join the party after we were a couple of hours into the festivities.  Hopefully that won't be the case this year.  When the rain started approaching last year we went into the emergency tarp mode as we sensed the storm moving in.  I had a set of drums last year along with my mandolin.  This year we'll be using Wade and Nick's drums and I won't have to move or set up a kit.  And frankly I enjoy the mandolin and electric bass more these days anyway.  A mandolin is much easier to carry around and set up.  And fortunately there will be plenty of bass guitars around I can use when needed.  I hauled around a seven piece kit for years that required a lot of effort to move and set up.  I don't miss that part of the process in any form or fashion.  Plus I've literally played the drums since childhood - technically from about age five when I learned the military stick grip from the band director at the high school across the street from the house I grew up in.  For the last decade I've been drifting more to the string instrument side of things - I started playing guitar at about the age of ten but never did it enough to consider myself a serious player.  I still hack on one every now and then but I discovered the mandolin which has become my current favorite instrument of choice.  Of course I learned the military drum stick grip backwards and discovered I played left handed, even though I am right handed, when I joined the high school band in the seventh grade.  That was back in the days when junior high and high school were all still in one facility, and elementary school was 1 through 6th grades.  Ancient history to most folks these days with middle schools and junior high schools added to the mix.  Being left handed posed an interesting problem when it came to marching band.  You see, back in the day we balanced the snare drum on a brace that bounced off our left leg, hence the original reason for the military grip to begin with.  Since I played left handed I had to put the brace on my right leg which did not work for marching band since my drum would be exactly out of synch with rest of the drum section.  The only solution I had was to use the same stick grip with both hands - a technique I carried over to the trap set as well since I played the traps set up in a right hand configuration.  That grip was advantageous in multiple ways I had not anticipated back then.  Better reach and more dynamic control were the main advantages I perceived after going that route.  These days I notice that most drummers seem use that identical grip than the old traditional military style grip.  Every now and then I still see the traditional grip but much less often than back in the day.  I don't know how it affects solo and ensemble contests these days, but back in my high school days it cost me and my partner who did a snare drum duet at a contest a letter grade because I played a left handed grip.  And that was my first real lesson in discrimination.

Being a drummer you learn to be the brunt of a lot of jokes.  But that's OK.  Drummers learn to look over that sort of thing if they keep at drumming long enough.  Now I get the 'he decided to become a real musician' jokes from time to time.  That's OK too.  At least I give folks something to laugh about in a world that's all too sad most of the time.  Please don't tell anybody about my piano lessons or the college term I took class brass and made a good grade playing a baritone.  Or about the few songs I used to do on a B3, for those of you who know what a B3 is.  Or about when I went through my Ian Anderson phase a played the flute for a while.  Or my tenor sax stage. Or about the music theory and history classes I had at Belmont.  Or that I can read music a little - just a little, 'not enough to hurt my picking' as Chet Adkins used to say.  I like to say I can sight read, as long as I have a few days to figure out what I'm seeing.  I'm not really a sight reader - I'm a sight hacker.  If I hack at a written part long enough I can figure it out, but doing in real time takes talent and skills I do not possess.

I lived with mandolin envy for a lot of years before I ever got my hands on one.  I thought I would enjoy playing the mandolin.  I had no idea how difficult it would be to learn that instrument.  My son gave me one for my birthday back in 2001 that he picked up in Nashville at the Gibson Showcase just after they opened over at Opry Mills.  Some years later I took that instrument to that same shop to get the top fixed.  The top of that branded Gibson Flatiron mandolin had sunk in to the point where you could no longer play the instrument due to the strings rubbing against the frets and no way to adjust the neck to match the sagging top.  They kept it at that shop until I called them three weeks later asking if they had gotten around to seeing what it would take to fix it.  At that time they told me that mandolin, which was a built while you wait unit, had been from kits they had picked up just for the opening of the store.  They were building them where you could watch them as they were built there at the shop and after the opening specials were over they no longer carried the instrument or the parts.  For the grand opening they were selling those units, branded with a Gibson nut cover on the peg head, for $175.  Yet when I took the instrument to them to get it back to playable condition they said it would require putting a $1500.00 top on it.  That was the day Gibson, or at least the Gibson Showcase store let me down.  I often wonder how many other folks were disappointed from the way they handled what was obviously a defective instrument branded with the Gibson name tag.  Oh well, live and learn I guess.  So I order a $50 Rogue A style mandolin from Musician's Friend and a pick up a couple of instructional DVD's and start hacking at the mandolin in earnest.  After spending several years with the Rogue trying to learn as much as I could on my own I finally decide to upgrade to the next level.  I looked for the best instrument I could find in the $500ish range and land on the Epiphone MM50 which could be had at GC for about $550.  The Gibson Showcase three miles down the road was selling the same exact instrument for about $895 - go figure.  I walked in the Nashville GC ready to buy that instrument when I saw a Michael Kelly mandolin on sale  'as is' for just $25 more.  That instrument had evidently been dropped and repaired in the store.  I took the MM50 and the Michael Kelly into a listening room and plunked what little I knew how to plunk back then on both units.  The Michael Kelly's tone was so superior to the MM50 as well as the feel of the instrument that I new instantly, even with my then ultra-limited mandolin skills, that the MK was a far better bargain.  I snatched it up and it along with my dedication to learning how to play it lifted my mandolin skills beyond what I ever expected in a short period of time.  I am still no Chris Thiele (who is other than Chris - what an awesome picker), but I can pretty much hold my own in most situations these days.  And I enjoy playing anything from Old Time and Blue Grass to Rock and Roll and Jazz on it.  I have found that many people have trouble seeing past Bluegrass when you have a mandolin in your hands, but believe me, any style of music is appropriate for a mandolin.

Tomorrow I plan on doing a little Old Time and Blue Grass in the basement with my friend Slim on his Upright Bass before we go to rock the house on Saturday at the party.  It should be a great time, and lord knows I can use one for a couple of days.  I'll get to pretend like I'm a drummer, bass player, mandolin player and singer for a few hours - it'll be fun to pretend again for a little while.

8:05 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

June 29

A Wayfaring Stranger lives through another June

June. The month I was born in so many years ago. June has always been a challenging month for me. This June has been no exception. I'm glad to see this month vanish into history forever.  I guess all this June has done for me is to make me even more cynical than I already was the year before, if that's possible.  I want to get up and carry on but each June just seems to make that dream fade a little further.  Good riddance June!

It seems every time I start feeling like I'm making a real difference, contributing to the success of others, living the dream, that I wake up and discover it was mostly self delusion.  I've read that somewhere upwards of 80% of families are considered dysfunctional by today's definitions so I'm sure there's nothing special about mine.  Granted my half-brother is spending life without parole for murdering our dad for a million dollar insurance policy - so that must not be that unusual.  I don't know why I still dwell on it.  Never mind he probably murdered our grandmother as well where he collected $750,000 in life insurance proceeds no questions asked just under two years before he murdered dad.  And then there was the mysterious supposed suicide death of our grandfather just two years before grandmother's death that started making less and less sense after the deaths of dad and our grandmother started coming to light.  I know that it all sounds like the script of some crazy fictional movie, but unfortunately it is real. I spent four years after dad's death with my friends and co-workers going around behind my back saying I was crazy and delusional - over reacting to something they did not believe ever happened.  Then in October of 1996 the authorities arrested my half-brother who was convicted of the crime and sent to prison for the rest of his life the following year.  He's still there now 14 years later, and as far as I know the appeals process is practically over and he will be locked up in that prison till he expires.  I've had many people tell me the story would make a good movie.  I even have an author who has every piece of documentation I collected over the years regarding the case who says she will eventually write the book, but nothing there yet.  It's just like the letter I wrote to the then Attorney General of the state imprisoning my half-brother who reopened the case based on the last line of that letter, "All I want to know is who murdered my father and why?"  I sent that letter ready to never give my father's death another thought if I never got a response.  And that's the same way I feel about the book. I gave up all my documentation thinking if it never gets done so be it. I'll just have to let the water keep flowing under the bridge and let it all go.  A lofty goal - I hope I can do it!

Meanwhile I've tried to use every self help program I could come up with to cope with all this on my own and create some semblance of a normal existence. And some of those programs seemed to help and work for awhile, but I guess I just don't have the fortitude necessary to see any of that all the way through.  Every time I think things are starting to work in a positive direction something else happens to bring it all down. I just don't seem to have what it takes to totally self heal although I try and try.  June has not helped much.  I just don't seem to have what it takes to do it alone and being an 'only child' from my dad's first marriage I really don't know much about how to find honest give and take assistance.  There's no one that is left from my real family I can turn to for any kind of financial help and I don't want to do that anyway.  I always feel intense guilt when I ask anybody else to help me carry any part of my load so I just don't ask anymore.  It turns out that I am a chronic giver - I've given and given to folks I believe in hoping that someday some of it will come back, but I no longer hope for or count on that.  I've taken the posture that I am not going to believe in anything else ever again until I can hold it in my hands - I guess that is some of the chronic cynicism I've been cultivating.  Letting go - I'm trying to learn how to do that.  I am apparently a very slow learner but at least I am trying to learn.

One good thing did happen in June. I finally have a piece of music I recorded, produced and published while trying to get my real dream life off the ground playing inside the body of an independent film that is enjoying worldwide success.  That film, 'Winter's Bone,' was released into the real world on June 11th after winning multiple awards at film festivals around the world including Best Picture at Sundance 2010 among many others. One-minute and nine-seconds of Daniel Parkin's 'Palm of His Hand' received a featured vocal performance by Daniel and Dirt Road Delight during a poignant scene in the film, and my publishing company received recognition for the song in the credit roll at the end of the film - you know, at the very end of the credit roll where they always seem to stick the music.  Plus they are including my remix of the original tracks that I did working with their music producer, Steve Peters,  from across the county via email in the soundtrack album they plan on releasing this summer. That's all well and good and may produce a little income eventually but nobody knows for sure. And even if it does that's still months or years away.  That song and the two albums I recorded and mixed at remote locations since last September prove that my ultra-mobile recording business concept works and that my work is acceptable enough to be included in a hit film and it's soundtrack album.

I wish I knew how to promote and explain my ultra-mobile recording studio business better. But there again I just don't know where to turn to find legitimate help I can depend on.  And now that I'm flat broke for the first time in over a decade and am suddenly sliding back into the financial abyss I can't afford to pay cash to the people I need for real professional help, and I don't know anybody besides myself that does spec work anymore.  I just don't know how to find customers that can benefit from my services that can afford to pay a fair price for those services and don't mind paying for those services.  I've spent my whole life playing and studying music and the music business and still don't know how to make it work.  My son believes that one big mistake I've made is trying to do business with friends. I guess he's right, I don't really know.  I've always tried to be a good friend to everybody whether I'm doing business with them or not.  I've always felt that if you invested your whole being into helping your friends be successful with their dreams and business that they would in turn return the favor.  My policy has always been to give more than what was paid for.  So as a result I've invested time, experience, knowledge, equipment, money and talent into things that so far have not created any real sustainable financial success.  I've hung on by a thread since I started this adventure at the end of 2007.  That is when I came back out of corporate America where I hid for eleven years trying to cope with dad's demise and see my son through college when the corporation supposedly moved my position to Mexico.  I considered the loss of this corporate job an opportunity to make a last ditch effort to live out my real dreams one last time before I die. 

I started my business at the end of 2007 and have been molding the pieces together one step at a time since then with the only real paying customers starting to show up last September.  So back in February of this year as part of my effort to apply Rhonda Byrne's 'The Secret' I attempted to articulate what my ideal dream life would be. Here is what I wrote:

'I dream of walking in crisp clean mountain air up and down scenic dirt roads between work, play and spiritual growth.  I want to share my knowledge, skills and abilities with people who want to share the same with me.  I dream of being an honest part of a larger meaningful whole dedicated to the improvement of life on earth for all living things.  I dream of working with friends to reach our individual and common dreams and goals in an environment of love, respect, honesty, decency and happiness.  I want to live in a loving and supportive community.  I want to be a respected contributor to the greater whole. I want to help others to help themselves.  I want friends I can depend on and look up to who know they can depend on me and look to me as an equal.  I want to be an author of ideas, stories, poetry, books and songs.  I want to be able to clearly communicate my thoughts, opinions and observations.  I want to be calm, cool and collected in all situations.  I want to learn how to take care of myself so I can be better prepared to teach and help others care for themselves and the world we all live in.  I want to be able to clearly visualize money coming to me frequently and easily.  I want to be a successful mentor, producer, engineer, musician and publisher.  I want to be a happy caring human being with honest and true intentions and want to work with friends of a similar nature.  I want to walk this earth with the beautiful woman of my dreams to whom I am completely devoted and she to me.  I dream of traveling internationally producing and promoting peace, music, art and the recording arts.  I see myself working within a group of multi talented people creating meaningful content in forms of scripts, songs, music and visual products for performance and broadcast.  I want to play a role in the development, creation and delivery of worthwhile broadcast media.  I want to be happy and productive and to be around happy productive people. I visualize all my friends and associates living in happiness and bliss.'

That paragraph came from some very deep personal soul searching and I've kept it to myself with the exception of revealing it to only two people up until now.   Of course that paragraph is just me dreaming of what my ideal life would be - my dream life.  I believed it could be real as best I knew how for as long as I could.  I tried believing I could use 'the law of attraction' as taught in 'The Secret' to draw the elements required to materialize that dream into reality until the dream starting crumbling at the seams again.  It even seemed to be working beyond my expectations for a brief period of time.  A few weeks after I wrote out my dreams I received a call from Daniel Parkin who had received an offer from a mutual friend of ours to finance a CD project for him.  So for three and a half weeks in April I took the studio to Chattanooga and we recorded and mixed twelve of Daniel's original songs for that project.  The Secret seemed to be attracting my dreams into reality.  So far so good! 

Then I receive an offer to be part of another worthwhile project and begin go devote time, thought, equipment, skills and money to to making that project successful.  We do a test run and the first effort turns out fabulous.  I then make a trip to Missouri so I could be at the premiers of 'Winter's Bone' up in the area were the novel was written and the film shot.  There I had the pleasure of getting to meet and spend some quality time with the film's director, Debra Granik, and her executive producer husband, Jonathan Scheuer - both are incredibly nice and deeply insightful people.  The quality of the film and its script and production blew me away.  Debra and Jonathan provided lots of great feedback and suggestions on how to best proceed with the pending project and the dream seemed to be getting more real by the second.  Seed funds show up to start the project in earnest as we are driving to Florida to gather more video material for the project.  Plenty of seed money to operate at full tilt boogie for at least the next two months - plenty of time and money to create a nice teaser to use to solicit the ultimate project funding during that two months and to relieve existing monthly financial burdens during that time period so creativity and productivity could freely flow.  Then as quickly as the dream had become so real it puffed back into vapor and dissipated into the wind just before we start back Northward.  Suddenly the project could not afford to pay for my skills, knowledge and equipment so we part ways in Atlanta and I return to Mount Pleasant to resume looking for work and selling off what possessions I have left.

Then reality set back in.  I am running out of money and things to sell.  I'm down to practically no possessions of any worth - my home is about to go into foreclosure, I can no longer keep up with my fixed expenses and the credit I spent a decade rebuilding after my dad's death is quickly melting down again like it did just after he died.  And now it is fourteen years later, I'm fourteen years older with fewer prospects of finding meaningful or no-so-meaningful work in an economy that is in the toilet.

At least I still have my mandolin and have learned to sing and play 'Wayfaring Stranger.'  I once quipped that my retirement plan was to learn to play 'Wayfaring Stranger' and set up on some street corner with a cup.  I thought I was joking at the time.  Should you run across a lonely soul on a street corner singing and playing that sad tune please drop a few pennies in the cup... but if you'd prefer making a record and video in your living room or kitchen please give me a call and help keep me off that corner!

11:29 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

June 13

Winter's Bone Officially Released on June 11

Winter's Bone was released into the world by Roadside Attractions on Friday June 11th and is receiving great reviews and lots of positive press all around the planet - from New York to LA to Japan and Europe and beyond. Your Place or Mine Digital Music, BMI is honored to have a song written by our friend and song writer Daniel Lee Parkin included in the soundtrack of this amazing film. We produced and recorded 'Palm of His Hand' on location in Bobby Don Bloodworth's 205+ year old Cherokee built cabin on the Toccoa River in the beautiful Appalachian Mountains of North Georgia for the Dirt Road Delight Debut Album with Tedi May on bass and background vocal, Billy Ward on fiddle and the song's composer, Daniel Lee Parkin, singing the lead and playing acoustic guitar. Film Producer Debra Granik heard the tune on the Dirt Road Delight web site and selected it for a featured vocal performance within the body of her hit film. Check the Winter's Bone Official Web Site for scheduled theater openings near you. We are extremely proud of Debra Granik, Dirt Road Delight and the entire Winter's Bone cast and crew and look forward to sharing in a little of the continuing global success of this masterful film. Thank you for giving Your Place or Mine Digital Music's mobile studio's work a prominent place in this wonderful film and in the upcoming release of the film's official soundtrack album.

12:06 AM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

May 26

America's Waltz

Your Place or Mine Digital is on the road with 'America's Waltz' with Tedi May and Billy Ward. Our next stop on the tour is the Florida Folk Festival way down along the Suwannee River at Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park, home of the Florida Folk Festival for 58 years in White Springs, Florida May 28-30.

6:57 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

May 19

Your Place or Mine Digital's first screening of 'Winter's Bone' in Missouri with Dirt Road Delight

Your Place or Mine Digital is heading back to Mid TN for a few days then starting 'America's Waltz' with Tedi and Billy in about a week.

This journey has been nothing short of incredible. Below is a slide presentation created by students at Missouri State University in Springfield right after the event which has our soundtrack mix of 'Palm of His Hand' as its soundtrack.  'Palm of His Hand' was written by Daniel Lee Parkin and recorded by Dirt Road Delight in Bobby Don Bloodworth's 205+ year old Cherokee built Indian cabin by Your Place or Mine Digital. If you look real, real close you might see my Paddle Faster hat a couple of times - but don't blink or you might miss me. The film exceeded my expectations! The soundtrack including 'Palm of His Hand' will be available from the Winter's Bone Official Web Site in the not so distant future. Check there for updates on availability.

Shown at Plaster Theater, sponsored by the Missouri State University Film Series with support from the Office of the Provost, the College of Arts and Letters, and the Department of Media, Journalism and Film along with the Ozarks Community Hospital.

2:14 AM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

May 16

Sharing the Dream

Wow - I've been walking around pinching myself for the past couple of days! We just got back to Tedi's Grandma's house from the Branson Premier of 'Winter's Bone!' It gets even better each time I get to see it. I got to see if for the first time at the Southern Missouri State University Friday night where I was blown away by this skillfully written and directed film! Last night was good, but tonight during the screening in Branson I was sitting between two of the actor/musicians in the film - Meredith Sisco and Billy Ward. And the experience that really made this screening special to me was to get to hear Meredith singing a perfect harmony part to her already superb lead vocal part on her song 'Little Sparrow.' It was a spiritual experience for me that I'll never forget! I am so thankful to Tedi for her encouragement and insistence that I stay connected to Dirt Road Delight and the music they had me produce for them on location at my dear friend Bobby Don Bloodworth's historic old Cherokee Indian cabin on his farm near Blue Ridge, Georgia.  Daniel Parkin's song 'Palm of His Hand' was recorded by Dirt Road Delight in that cabin and then mixed and mastered at Ken Banwart's Yoga Studio in Blue Ridge near Cherry Log, Georgia. And to hear some of that music coming back to me from the silver screen embedded in a phenomenal film destined to be a global hit is more than I ever hoped for. And meeting the film makers - director/screenwriter Debra Granik and her executive producer husband, Jonathan Scheuer, has been an incredible experience. Debra is an incredibly articulate observer and interviewer - she has the natural ability to get at the meat of the matter and to bring out interviewee's stories and personalities with very concise questions and observations. I can easily see why all the actors really loved working with her on this film. And it's obvious her collaboration begins at home with her talented husband and executive film producer Jonathan whose graciousness is only exceeded by his kindness. What a great couple! Well - I better get to bed so I can get up early in the morning and continue working on this dream... just don't pinch me if you see me cause I really don't want to wake up from this one!

1:24 AM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

May 08

Going to Missouri to see Dirt Road Delight warm up Winter's Bone

Your Place or Mine Digital is preparing to head to Missouri with mobile studio loaded up in the Highlander to catch several of Winter's Bone's screenings in support of Dirt Road Delight and the film. There will be four screenings on May 13, 14, 15 and 16 at various locations around the state and at the Kansas Film Festival - one of the screenings will be right in the neighborhood where the film was shot and many of the local actors and actresses that had parts in the film as well as many of the local residents will be present. Tedi May and Billy Ward will be performing 'Palm of His Hand' before each of the screenings with Dirt Road Delight and I will be there to support them and the film. Exciting stuff! This film is proving to be a major breakout for Director/Screenwriter Debra Granik, Producer/Screenwriter Anne Rosellini and actress Jennifer Lawrence. Oscar buzz is in the air! Roadside Attractions picked up the film for USA Distribution just a few days before it won the Grand Jury for Drama Prize at Sundance 2010. Debra and Anne also took the Waldo Salt Award for Screenwriters at Sundance and have subsequently been signed as screenwriters with the Gersh Agency. Just a short time ago the film took the top honors at both the Palm Beach and the Sarasota Film Festivals in Florida. The accolades and praises for this film just keep rolling in. Sold out shows are the rule of the day everywhere it's been screened. The Winter's Bone team has a major hit on their hands. Roadside Attractions has scheduled commercial theatrical release in the USA for June 11th with ancillaries being picked up by Lionsgate later on in the year. Watch for this film on screens near you in the not so distant future.

Another fantastic project that is taking off Your Place or Mine Digital is excited to be a part of is 'America's Waltz.' America's Waltz with be a long term project capturing interviews and music with fiddlers, musicians and music historians across America. America's Waltz's mission is capturing first hand much of the oral history of fiddle music as it relates to the history of this great nation. The brain child of Billy Ward and Tedi May this project will be going to fiddle contests and festivals nationwide where the Billy and Tedi will interview many of the great musicians who have helped to create America's traditional string music history and been witness to the growth and influence of fiddle and traditional string music in America. Your Place or Mine Digital is proud to be included as part of the production team for this magnificent undertaking to capture as much of the oral history as possible before it's lost forever.  The results of this project is aimed at enlightening anyone interested in roots music and it's influence and place in American History - and to record and offer that history in the form of a documentary and/or television series aimed at public broadcast. We've already done a test run of the concept in Huntsville, Alabama at the Alabama State Fiddler's Contest where Billy entered the Masters Competition and placed as one of the top three fiddlers in the state of Alabama. At the contest Tedi and Billy interviewed local string musician music historian Jim Holland. After the contest we shot video interviews with Bob White via a referral by Jim Holland about Monte Sano Crowder at Bob's home in Huntsville. The following day Billy and Tedi interviewed Jim Wood in Flat Rock, Tennessee. Jim's students also placed in the top three at the Alabama State contest. Jim has lead a storied dream life as a fiddle player growing up with fiddle great Buddy Spicher as his next door neighbor as a child and being exposed to other Nashville fiddle greats such as Benny Martin as he grew up in Middle Tennessee. This five-time Tennessee State fiddle champion and professional session musician since age twelve has many interesting inside stories about some of the greatest fiddle players whoever lived from his own first hand experience growing up in the shadows of many of the most prolific fiddle artists in American History. And that was just the test run! Stay tuned for more on 'America's Waltz' as the project goes into high gear and production begins in earnest. Next stop for America's Waltz is the Florida Folk Festival at the Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park in White Springs, Florida.

2:53 AM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

April 27

America's Waltz content gathering begins in Huntsville at the Alabama State Fiddle Championship

Your Place or Mine Digital is back in Mount Pleasant, Tennessee after heading to Huntsville, Alabama to record some Video and Audio for Tedi May and Billy Ward at the Official Alabama State Fiddling Championship last Saturday. Billy placed in the top three Alabama State fiddlers at the contest. We shot some video and a few short interviews at the contest then moved on to interview some of the local music historians that we met at the contest. America's Waltz is shaping up to be a very exciting project that will document as much of the oral history as possible of the fiddle and its influence on the history of this great nation and it's peoples. Did you know that Davy Crockett played the fiddle and used that talent and gift to draw crowds of listeners many of whom became his followers and supporters for his social and political agendas?  Your Place or Mine Digital is proud to be a part of this great American Adventure. We'll be heading to Missouri the second week of May to catch as many screenings of 'Winter's Bone' as possible prior to heading to Florida the end of May to capture more audio and video for 'America's Waltz.' More on all that later!

4:29 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

April 22

YPOM Digital Back from the Location Recording Project of Daniel Lee Parkin's first solo album

Your Place or Mine Digital Recording and Mastering Services is back in Mount Pleasant, Tennessee getting ready for to head to Huntsville, Alabama to record some Video and Audio for Tedi May and Billy Ward at the Official Alabama State Fiddling Championship Saturday. Billy plans on competing at the contest. We are doing an audio/video test run for what looks to be a great project documenting the history of fiddle music in America.

We finished up the mixes for Daniel Parkin's first solo album project about 2:30 AM on Tuesday, April 20th. I broke the studio down and returned to home base in Mount Pleasant where I've been working with Steve Peters in Seattle on a remix of Dirt Road Delight's recording of Daniel's tune 'Palm of His Hand' as they get ready to make the tune available on the Winter's Bone Official web site in the not too distant future. Thanks to the computer age we can work across the continent to get things done. The new mix is sounds really good and will be included with the Winter's Bone sound track available in the not too distant future. Thank you Winter's Bone Productions for including Dirt Road Delight's performance of 'Palm of His Hand' in your film.

And on behalf of Daniel Parkin and Laura Walker Your Place or Mine Digital wishes to thank Ken Banwart of Cherry Log, Georgia, Ken and Marilyn Harrison of Silverdale, Tennessee and Cindy Pinion of Flintstone, Tennessee for the vital rolls they played in making Daniel's recording project a success. From raw tracks to finished mixes in just under three weeks. Daniel and Laura plan to explore At Home Concert venues as they launch his new CD and kick off Daniel's new career as a singer-songwriter and performer. Your Place or Mine Digital endorses and recommends both Daniel and Laura and wishes much success to both of them. Support live music! 

6:48 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

March 28

Recording High Quality Audio at Home or On Location

Recording professional quality audio at home or on location requires attention to details. If your home is located next to a railroad yard, an airport, or some other inherent unpredictable noise source recording clean tracks can present a significant challenge.

Daniel Parkin overdubs guitar at The Old Indian Cabin

on Bobby Don Bloodworth's farm in Blue Ridge, GA

for the Dirt Road Delight Debut Album project

On a recent location CD project recording Dirt Road Delight's Debut Album Your Place or Mine Digital had the studio set up in a 205-year old log cabin on Bobby Don Bloodworth's beautiful farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia. This cabin was originally built by a Cherokee Indian in the 1790's.  The original dirt floor and fire pit had long been covered over with a wooden floor since the cabin also served as the home for the settlers who occupied that part of the Toccoa River Valley in subsequent years. The mortar between the Chestnut Logs had long been gone so there was not too much acoustical insulation between the outside world and the cabin interior.

The cabin sits in the shadow of the ridge and up above the river valley so some protection from noise was afforded there. One would think that being in the high mountain country would offer a quiet environment for recording purposes and at times it did. We used YPOM Digital's traveling Acoustic Foam to prevent standing waves at the mix position and around the microphone area and to dampen a little noise around the door and windows. The natural wood surfaces in the room provided a pleasant acoustical quality that enhanced the sound of the string instruments played for the project. And cousin Tom installed some insulation panels on the ceiling above and around the control room set-up area that helped a bit. The kerosene heater provided a slight bit of natural reverb we found kind of pleasant so we let it remain in the room as part of the room's natural sound.

We did not fully anticipate the quantity or quality of outside noise sources we would have to deal with. The most minor of the unpredictable noise sources was dog barks and coyote yelps. We had a half dozen doggies in the pen that occupied the space between the cabin and Bobby Don's house who were well behaved most of the time, but when they were occasionally distracted by the deer or vehicles in the area or whatever they might start barking for a moment or two. We tried to keep our ears tuned to any episodes of barking that might occur but occasionally one or two yelps might make it to a track undetected until we put them under the mixing microscope. Fortunately we use Steinberg's WaveLab as our pinpoint editing and mastering tool and could go back in later and surgically remove the unwanted barks or other unwanted noises from the audible spectrum while maintaining the integrity of the tracks.

And yes, we are in the country so there are tractors and farm machinery in the neighborhood during the daylight hours that made it onto a few tracks here and there. Again WaveLab to the rescue - a bit of extra work but well worth it in the final result. Most of the tractor noise was low frequency rumble that was mostly transmitted through the ground, but with WaveLab filtering we were able to isolate and remove the unwanted rumble without damaging track integrity and maintaining the sonic clarity of the affected instrument tracks.

Party in the valley! Over one holiday weekend there was a group of campers just down in the valley next to the Toccoa River with loud radios and some of their own electric musical instruments going from time to time. When they were really cranked up we would take a break and work on some other parts of the production process where the outside noise did not matter such as lunch or track edits. They seemed to party out fairly early so we were able to get the most live mic work done once they gave up for the night. We wanted to be good neighbors and not rain on their parade so we just went with the flow and worked around the times they had their party cranked up. They were only there for a couple of days and fortunately we had plenty to do besides the live recording so there was no significant time loss in the production process. Being flexible and adaptable is very helpful when it comes to location recording.

And then there was Rollins U.S. Air Force Base just a ways over the mountain so we had to be on the lookout for jets, C5 transport planes and helicopters from time to time. We could usually catch them in the act and would take a brief break as they echoed their way down the valleys - sometimes for several minutes. There was one instance where we were doing fiddle overdubs and did not catch the jet noise in the quiet transitions till after the fact - once again WaveLab's spectral editing capability allowed us to surgically remove the jet noise and replace it with natural ambient noise between the harmonics of the strings and make it sound like we'd cut the fiddle in a studio isolation booth.

The sessions took place at the beginning of Fall last year so as the sun starting going down the crickets would start cranking up. They would usually keep it up till fairly late so there were some instances where they could not be avoided as a light disturbance in the background of some of the vocal and instrumental tracks. WaveLab's filtering capability comes to the rescue once again allowing us to remove the mostly steady state background chirping of the insects by applying filtering at the noise bands without hurting the sonic integrity of the tracks.

It is best to record in the quietest environment possible. As detailed above this might not always be the case but when you can get a quiet environment to work in be very thankful for it. Recording instruments ‘direct’ eliminates outside noise sources from interfering with recorded audio, but about the only instruments that are good for direct recording are electric bass guitar, synthesizers, electronic keyboards and MIDI instruments. YPOM Digital mostly records live acoustic instruments and vocals. Recording direct is not an option when open microphones are required to obtain the audio such as for vocal tracks or most acoustic instrumental tracks. And lots of times you might want to mic an amplifier to get the live acoustic quality of the amp. In the case of open mic recording you must pay close attention to background noise during the recording process. The less noise you have to deal with when mixing and editing the quicker the process goes.

April 1 Your Place or Mine Digital goes on location to record Daniel Lee Parkin's first solo album project. We'll be set up in a house somewhere between Chattanooga, Tennessee and Cleveland, Tennessee.  Daniel is the writer and vocalist on many of the tunes recorded by Dirt Road Delight on the project mentioned above. He wrote the song and sang the lead vocal part on Dirt Road Delight's performance of 'Palm of His Hand' which was selected by Debra Granik for a featured vocal performance within the body of her award winning film 'Winter's Bone.' This will be Daniel's first solo project and we are excited to have the opportunity to go on location once again to record his music. I hear the location is in a quiet area, but you just never really know till you get there. Fortunately we have the tools to compensate for those little unexpected noise source - dogs, airplanes, tractors, etc. - that can appear seemingly out of nowhere when on location in the countryside. The spectral editing features of WaveLab keep Your Place or Mine Digital ready for any unexpected and uninvited additions to our location recorded audio tracks. But if we can get quietness on location, we'll take it!

2:53 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

March 22

My impressions of lessons from Successful SxSW: the Tao of the Conference posted by Derek Sivers

Here are my one sentence impressions of lessons to be learned from Derek Sivers' collection of video interviews he presented at South by South West 2010 in Austin. It is a nice collection from a wide variety of sources. Derek obviously put in a lot of time and thought into creating this fantastic resource for anyone wanting, willing and able to take advantage of it.

Thank you Derek for putting all this together - I personally really appreciate all the opportunities you give us to continually learn about music, the music business and ourselves. I dig what you do! Keep up the good work!

For links to the actual videos associated with each of the names listed below go to Derek’s blog on the SxSX conference at http://sivers.org/sxsw

Big Kenny – Love what you are doing and be nice to all the people you are doing it around because you never know when or where a career opportunity is going to occur.

Ari Koinuma – Visually communicating who you are by clever use of conference name tags and other visible cues help to draw similar minded individuals to you and your cause.

Sun Spot – When attending festivals as a group you can cover more ground and get more done by splitting up and approaching different areas as individuals.

Maury Rosenberg – Be friendly with and pass out cards to your audience members after your performances.

LaFamos PR – Business associates working together on conference panels should be visible as a group before the panel and work the room individually immediately after the panel gathering new contacts for post-event follow-up.

Tim Ferris – When making new connections at conferences try to connect and befriend people on a self-deprecating personal level and seek out their advice on other attendees that would be good for you to meet.

Jeff Kaye – If you selflessly think of helping others when you see them in need the resulting serendipity can lead to unexpected benefits down the road.

Sven Hansen – Create your own personal meeting space at conferences and treat the people you get to meet with in that space as your honored guests.

Duane Levi – It will help you save time and be more effective at networking by developing the ability to separate the big talkers from people that are true and genuine.

Larry Weintraub – A good approach at conferences like SxSW is to forget the old music business models and go there to watch, study, ask, listen and learn how to make yourself a better musician by observing and interacting with and learning from the best of the best.

Jody Whitesides – When attending events like SxSW be open minded and receptive to constructive critique and suggestions without being defensive.

Cat – Take advantage of the opportunities to attend, learn and network at the many different types of events uniquely available at conferences like SxSW.

Randall Williams – When you find your niche do everything you can do to help leverage other people with it and it will ultimately help you and your own career as well.

Richard Danjolell – Smile for the cameras!

Tom Salta – When making contacts at conferences the most important thing you can do after the conference is follow up!

Wendy Parr – When at conferences like SxSW meet people, have a great time, learn and above all "follow up."

Greg Rollett – To make the maximum impression on panelists do your research on them ahead of time and connect with them on an informed and personal level.

Craig Crawford – Craig reiterates the sentiment that the most important thing you can do after a conference is to follow up with the contacts you acquire while in attendance.

Jim Bianco – Say ‘yes’ to any and all opportunities that may occur while you are attending music conferences.

Jim Powers – When performing at conferences play for yourselves and stick with the music no matter what circumstances occur beyond your control.

Panos Panay – When you attend a conference have the courage to meet as many people as you can and follow up with those people after the event.

Lou Paniccia – Document everything your band does at the conference with video for use after the event.

Alyse Black – When going to a music conference think what you want to accomplish there as an investment for the ‘long term.’

Joe Laviolette – At music conferences be choosy and give your merchandise and CD’s to people who actually ask for it.

Meg Okura – Over-prepare for your showcases, be adaptable, be flexible and be ready to go with the flow.

TShaka – When in cities at music conferences make and maintain contacts outside the music business as well as within.

Marina V – Wearing interesting and different cloths when attending music conferences attracts others interest which is especially helpful if you are prone to shyness.

Trevor Roark – If unexpected problems occur during a showcase performance play though it as if nothing happened.

Tina Shafer – Connect, listen and follow up when attending a music conference.

Thaddeus Rex – Ask a lot of questions especially if you are at a panel discussion or in a room with a lot of people.

Suz Doyle – Come up with creative ways to gain attention from people taking part in the conference – chocolate is good.

Ron Irizarry – Strive to connect with people after your performance at showcases on an intimate and personable level.

Greg Spero – When attending a music conference freely and willingly give above and beyond your musical skills.

Robin Bennett – When attending a music conference play as many places as you possibly can, especially if there’s free pizza involved.

Robert Van Horne – Always be prepared when attending a conference with something that represents you to give out to anyone that requests it and always show appreciation to the panelists for their contributions to the craft.

Jessica Paige – If you really admire someone at a music conference let them know and maybe your dreams will come true.

J Sider – Ask questions and have discussions at every opportunity so you can receive advice from as many people as you possibly can while at conferences.

Jennifer Vazquez – When given the opportunity to speak with experts at conferences even at additional cost to you it is beneficial to be prepared going into the meeting but remember the most important aspect of the experience is doing the post-conference follow up.

Paul Cullen – Spend whatever money you might have to invest in your career on defining your own unique niche within the music business.

Nikc Miller – Document the people you meet at music conferences with video, get their names and email addresses, post the edited video to facebook and tag any of the new friends you gain from the effort as a way to expand your network.

Mikhail Tank – Communicate freely and be open to new connections that will come to you when attending conferences.

Jenn Ashton – Offer up to help out wherever you can even outside the music business because even if it does not end up getting you a gig it sure feels good.

Ranj Singh – Do not hesitate to talk to people in positions of authority at music companies when given the opportunity.

Mike Lawson – You never know who you might meet or what opportunities you might discover at music conferences that have the potential to change your life.

Mick Flores – It’s a good idea to have a CD or even better a press kit with you at all times just in case an unexpected opportunity arises.

Tori Sparks – It can be helpful to use unorthodox techniques such as unscheduled mini-concerts at unique locations to gain attention at music conferences outside the formal structure of the organized event.

Michael Puskas – When attending a music conference keep your mind open to the possibility that no matter what someone looks like or how they dress at the event they could still be a perspective lead or a future client.

Mario Sevayega – Some of the best connections and lasting friendships at music conferences are formed outside, between and after the formal scheduled events.

Lenedra Carroll – It can pay to approach music industry professionals after they serve on panels if you have something of real value to offer them.

El – Strive to find creative and unusual ways to network and promote your career and talent at music conferences.

Beth Isbell – Beth advises to find out where the lawyers are at SxSW and get to know them because they can often help you propel your career to the next level.

Julie Shephard – Don’t be afraid to stand up in front of a crowd at a music conference and ask questions.

Jon Goldmann – Always be really nice and really helpful because you never know who you might be sitting next to that might be willing and able to help you along your career path.

Cort Delano – You never know who might hear you or where they might hear you that can help to propel your career farther along the way.

Charles Alexander – It’s possible with current technology to personalize a music pitch to individual panel members during their presentations in real time utilizing USB drives and music downloads while listening to their live presentations and determining which of your tunes would best the best fit for their most current needs.

Bill Pere – Conference attendees who go to learn and network gain more success and opportunities at the events than people who attend with their live performances as their only priority.

John Batdorf – You can improve your music career by going to music conferences to observe and learn from people who are successful and willing to show you the way if you only pay attention and apply the principles you learn after the conference is over.

Jody Friedman – Find a way to be different and stand out from the crowd at music conferences.

Jim Vilandre – Be real, be concerned with what you can do to help others, always work on sharpening your people skills and strive to be a real contributor to the greater whole.

Giuliano Baglioni – It can help to take a laid back approach with conference presenters such as starting off with non-work related conversation and showing a genuine interest in them as person allowing them time to bring up the subject of music related subject matter on their own.

Ellie Lawson – Always find out the email addresses of the folks who get copies of your material and always follow up with them.

John Mazzei – It is good for conference attendees to utilize targeted networking, to have a killer demo of their work and to have their business chops ready for success.

David Sherbow – Treat everyone with respect because you never know how things will turn out.

Elana James – You never know who might be at a showcase at a music conference.

Andrea Nardello – When at a conference go out there and have fun, be social and good things can happen.

Adriel Luis – One of the best ways to help insure people listen to your music is to give it to them in a format that is compact, innovative and might be thought of as indispensible such as a band branded flash drive.

For more information on Derek and for access to his blog go to http://sivers.org/

6:34 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

March 19

Winter's Bone Rolls On at SXSW

March 19, 2010 'Winter's Bone' continues to gather steam at SXSW. Due to popular demand another screening of the film has been added for the final day of SXSW for Saturday March 20th at the Alamo Lamar 2 theater at 7:30 PM. Check my twitter feed for updates and links to news and reviews as I continue to update the latest info there. Congratulations again to Debra, Anne and the entire Winter's Bone team. It looks like you have a real hit on your hands! Thank you again for including Dirt Road Delight's recording of 'Palm of His Hand' in your critically acclaimed film.

8:26 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

March 15

CLEAN AC POWER helps insure clean audio recording

The first component required to insure clean recorded audio is clean AC line power. Each piece of audio gear - preamps, recording interface, computer, etc. - generally will plug into some common AC power source. National Electric Code requires all new construction to have properly grounded AC power in residential and commercial buildings. Some very old homes might not be up to codes and require a different approach to insure proper grounding and clean power but for our purposes here we'll assume you are in a structure that meets current Electrical Codes requirements.

Any electrical device connected to a power line adds harmonic distortion back onto the power line and its neutral. Each electrical component contributes different amounts of noise (harmonic distortion) to the common power lines feeding them. A typical switching power supply in a desktop computer can introduce 150% or more THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) back onto the common power lines. Any other devices plugged into a non-isolated unfiltered AC line will have that common AC line distortion feeding it's power supply as well. Fluorescent lamp ballasts, office machines, electrical motors and any other electro-mechanical devices on the power lines add harmonic noise, power surges and power dips to those lines that can show up in your audio in the forms of unwanted pops, clicks and distortion. Audio quality of devices sharing a power line loaded with excessive electrical noise will be negatively affected. Dirty power equals dirty audio. To insure clean audio you must ISOLATE technical power for the audio devices from the building's lighting and machine devices and optimally from each other. I don't know how many times I've seen folks who get pops and clicks on their audio from their refrigerators, copiers and HVAC units kicking on and off. Dedicated and filtered power for the audio gear will help cure those types of problems.

Step 1—good earth ground and correct electrical phase. A single good earth ground reference is required for all the common audio equipment to prevent ground loops and Radio Frequency Interference. When recording on location or at home the easiest way to check for grounding of the 120-Volt outlets is with a simple three-prong plug-in AC circuit tester. These devices are relatively inexpensive and available at any home improvement or electrical parts distribution center. This device gives you simple go/no-go testing for electrical phase and ground connection. For line filters and surge protection to work properly phase and ground must be correctly wired at the source. If you discover a missing ground or a phase reversal make sure you get someone who is qualified to do electrical work to correct the problem before proceeding. If you are not trained in electrical repairs do not attempt to make those corrections yourself. An error when working on electrical systems can be fatal so please make sure you know your limitations when it comes to electricity. Safety first!

Step 2– isolated filtered power. To insure clean power use a reputable high quality surge protector and line filter preferably rated for audio, video and computer usage. Make sure it can handle at least twice the sum of the highest current load specification for all the devices you will be using added together. You can determine the gears worst case maximum current usage from the individual device specifications. For instance say you have a pair of powered monitor speakers and see that the maximum power consumption is 60-Watts per unit. To determine the maximum current draw by that monitor pair use Watts Law to calculate current consumption of each unit. 

Watts Law: I = P/E

Use the formula I = P/E where I = current in Amperes, P = Power in Watts and E = the line voltage feeding the device in question. In the USA the most common AC line voltage is 120-Volts. For this illustration the monitors are set up to run on 120-Volts AC. To determine the maximum current draw for one Powered Monitor with a maximum power consumption specification of 60-Watts the calculation will be I (current in Amperes) = P (specified power consumption in Watts) divided by E (required line voltage) - plug in those values to Watts Law and you get I = 60W / 120V = 0.5-amperes. So since you are using two powered monitors in your application you take that value and multiply by 2 for a maximum current demand for your pair of monitors of 1.0-ampere.

Worst case amperage draw for every device you will be plugging into your line filter can be determined using the technique given above. It's good to keep your equipment manuals so you can find those pesky little specifications when you need them. Add all the currents of the devices you plan to put on the power filter together to determine how much capacity your voltage line filter will need have to keep from being overloaded. The more headroom the better is what I say.

Many options for AC power filtering exist in today's marketplace. If you have a fixed installation you might consider adding a real isolation power transformer to feed dedicated tech power outlets installed in your studio. For audio purposes it pays to go with filters designed for analog and digital applications running side-by-side. Some filters offer better isolation options than others. I use a Monster Pro 1000 for my mobile studio setup. Portability and ease of use are my main concerns when it comes to going on the road. The Monster comes with two high current filtered analog outlets, two analog filtered current outlets and four digital filtered outlets and a 15-Ampere capacity. It also has ground and AC phase checking built in as well as a voltage meter and a current meter that I find quite useful when setting up and operating my mobile control room. This device prevents damage from over-voltage and distortion on the lines very well. It does not protect from when the source voltage dips or drops out - to acquire a device with this capability requires utilization of an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) and those units can be quite expensive and quite loud when they are operating - not a good thing to put in a control room where you are attempting to minimize unwanted acoustic noise.

The bottom line when it comes to audio recording practices is the cleaner your power the cleaner your audio.

6:44 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

March 13

SESSION PLANNING

Do you plan ahead?

Pre-planning is one of the most critical and most overlooked parts of the home recording process. Having a good plan ready prior to setting up the gear and hitting the record button makes things much smoother and more productive. There are several steps you can take to make the experience more fun and productive.

First off you need to determine what your session goals will include. Do you plan to record a complete finished CD of original material to sell off stage? Or are you planning to record song demos you plan to pitch to artists or publishers? Are you planning on using material written by people other than yourself? If recording cover songs have you taken the proper steps to acquire licenses with writers or publishers? Are you looking to pitch yourself as an artist to record companies with your finished product? Do you need mp3’s for download sales? Or do you want to record a live performance to use in some other creative fashion—such as a gig disc to send out for potential bookings or to sell off stage. Do you need additional musicians or background vocalists to perform on the tracks? How well have you rehearsed the material—can you nail the tracks in a couple of takes? Do you plan on using a click track - and if so do you already know the tempo you want to use for each selection? Are you planning on doing layered tracks or linear style punch-in recording? Is your MIDI gear ready to go and preprogrammed for the session? Are all the instruments you plan to use up to the task and ready to go? Do you plan to master the final mixes?

You might consider making a list of the things you need to accomplish before hitting the record button. Here's a list of some of the things I try to have in place before setting up my mobile studio:

Ultimate Goal of finished product: Master, Artist Demo, Song Demo, Gig Disc, etc.

Style of session - record, mix or master

Acoustic considerations for the work space

If recording - multiplayer or overdub

Musicians

Instrumentation

Microphones and Stands

Recording and Monitoring Gear

Cues and Cue Mixes - how many

Use of click tracks / tempo selections

Song Titles

Copies of Lyric Sheets

Charts

Blank media

Coffee, Beverages, Snacks

BE FLEXIBLE AND ATTENTIVE!  Don't forget that recording and creating music is a collaborative process among creative people who all have something to share. Always be prepared to learn and to share.

Remember depending on the session type you might be one link in a longer creative chain. Always work giving consideration to those folks who will follow you in that chain. If you are tracking strive to cut clean tracks with good levels for the mixing engineer. The mixer should strive to mix for the mastering engineer - balance levels and pans, do not over-compress or mix too hot - try to leave about 3dB of headroom for the mastering engineer.

Forming a clear plan ahead of time will enhance the overall recording experience and make the you that much more productive. But Most Important - Don't forget to have FUN!

11:40 AM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

March 08

Your Place or Mine Digital Schedule is firmed up for April and May

Your Place or Mine Digital Recording  and Mastering Services is presently in Middle Tennessee through the end of March. YPOM Digital Recording Services will be in the Chattanooga Tennessee area for most of the month of April producing a twelve song album project for Daniel Parkin's first solo CD release. We currently have May blocked out for the production of songwriter, fiddler, mandolinist, guitarist virtuoso Billy Ward for production of his upcoming Solo Album Project. Billy acted in some scenes including the Bluegrass Jam Scene linked below in Debra Granik's Sundance 2010 Grand Jury Prize for Drama Winning film, 'Winter's Bone.' Production of Billy's album project is scheduled for production at My Place: currently in my dearly departed and very much missed grandmother 'Louise's' house in scenic Mount Pleasant, Tennessee. This is the same house I was raised in as a child in Mount Pleasant, Tennessee. I am thrilled to be doing what I love most, acoustic string music production, in this fine old house. It's good to get to work where my music roots were originally gifted to me all those years ago. Thanks mom, grandmother, great-grandmother and all my friends, mentors, teachers and associates throughout the years. I would not be here without each and every one of you! Thank you all! May history and music's oral tradition live on through us all!

 

Look close and you'll get a glimpse of Billy Ward on his beloved fiddle in this scene from Winter's Bone. If you don't see the link here go to YPOM Digital's Home Page at http://yourplaceorminedigital.com

11:16 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)