Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Things I've noticed about Logic 9 while getting my oil changed and tire repaired.

Logic 9 uses an image of the arrange window as the sessions icon image and for the quick look preview. Very handy for figuring out which version of an arrangement you are looking for without having to load the session. You can see the Logic 8 below session to compare. The screen shot even removes the toolbar so it doesn't have wasted space.

Also tried out the Flex time on this song slowing the tracks from 77bpm to 65bpm and the results did impress me. (Though I will be re-tracking the parts for performance reasons.)
 
The new groups floating window is very useful.
 
I like the new zoom commands even though I will have to retrain my hands. They are more useful and I don't have to twist my hands into bizzare shapes just to zoom in or out. If you've used a previous version you have to choose the defaults since it doesn't automatically replace them when you upgrade.

Posted via email from John Tooker

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

My new trick for programming Hi-Hat parts

Instead of using a single MIDI instrument to play a Hi-Hat pattern, which tends to sound very mechanical, I'll layer a second Hi-Hat instrument with varying velocities so that the sound changes more then it can with a single instrument. By varying the hits velocities I'm able to achieve a very unique sound as well.

 So far I have the best luck mixing Logics sounds along with rewired sounds from Reason's Reason Drum Kit sounds which have a high number of samples per instrument. I also tend to put both sets of Hi-Hats in mono to avoid phasey weirdness.

Posted via email from John Tooker

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Moved a few songs up the ladder.

Finished tweaking the drums for a few songs so they get to move up to the next folder. I'll do a few more of the drum parts and then move onto the Bass guitar bits.

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Monday, August 17, 2009

Tweaking drums and sorting files...

Moved one song up a level in my 8 folder system and moved a few others towards that moment by fixing drum tuning and cleaning parts up. Here's the bottom row as of today. (Other songs live in the higher numbered folders as well. My thinking at the moment is to move them up in waves.)

Posted via email from John Tooker

Friday, August 14, 2009

These things make me so damn happy. Baptazia-Super Sunday

Baptazia - Super Sunday - Master x / Rhymes & Noisia

Posted via email from John Tooker

These things make me so damn happy. Baptazia-Super Sunday

Baptazia - Super Sunday - Master x / Rhymes & Noisia

Posted via email from John Tooker

For my dead homies...

A fitting Les Paul tribute indeed.

Spin seems to be actually using the web correctly...
First time I've seen a magazine really do that..

Very busy doing nothing.

Wouldn't it be great if the above video was followed by this one?

Posted via email from John Tooker

Thursday, August 13, 2009

New Radiohead soon? Leaked track...

More info:
http://www.ateaseweb.com/2009/08/13/new-radiohead-track-leaked/

 

Posted via email from John Tooker

Wow...

This has a few moments of WTF? to it.

 related
Thom Yorke Analyse (From The Basement)

Posted via email from John Tooker

Make noise keep clean keep busy

New Dave Smith Synth

 

  
Keep clean!
http://mashable.com/2009/08/13/iphone-soap/

  
I might try this one out...
https://www.rescuetime.com/

Posted via email from John Tooker

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Monday, August 10, 2009

The new-new-new plan of attack for the Marqui Adora recordings.

Joe and I both share files using a service called DropBox (Click this link to try it and both you and I will get extra space for FREE!) Since the two of us use Logic Pro 8 (Soon to be Logic Pro 9) we can both open up the project on our home machine and get right to work without having to exchange DVDs or hard drives. (On a side note we did find one glitch. We have to save as... a copy to get DropBox to work well each time we change the session. So we add a new three digit number each time Song Blah 005 as an example.) Sadly Danny still doesn't own a Mac so he can't join in our reindeer games.

The one thing I've changed today is I've created several numbered folders that show the songs current progress by showing what is needed to be finished.

01-Track Drums
Means a recording that needs the drums to be finished.

02-Track Bass
Drums are finished now the bass needs to be.

03-Track Guitars
Drums and Bass finished but not the guitars.

04-Track Vocals
Drums/Bass/Guitars are finished needs Vocals.

05-Track BG Vocals
I think you can guess this one.

06-Mix
Means all the recording should be done, including any Keyboards, and it should be ready for editing and mixing.

07-Master
Mix is approved by everyone else now it will wait until it is joined by others so it can be mastered and released with them.

08-Finished
Song is released or about to be released.

I decided against a dedicated keyboard section since we add those at will though the whole process.

Saturday, August 08, 2009

Logic 9 looks good and songs to be shaped.

So a new version of Logic Studio was release this month. I plan to upgrade when the cash appears since several of the new features fall in the category of things that made me go "wow I wish I had that when I needed to fix problem X in recording Y." The thing I can't wait to play with the most though is the send region to sampler instrument since that is what I have done manually or with ReCycle since first owning a sampler.

In other news reading older entries combined with Danny heading to Spain for a few months (or much longer) starting around next year has inspired me to work on music with a get it finished motivation. I noticed a few songs listed in a blog from almost 5 years back are still unfinished recordings and that seems like a shame. So I'll just focus on getting them to the level that Danny's vocals will be all we need to finish them so that hopefully he can just whip them out and I could mix them even when he's not here.

I will review them each in turn for worthiness but here are some older tunes on the older blogs I think I'll look into completing. I reserve the right to skip any that would take to much work to finish!

In no particular order some of these might get finished:

In Motion
Love Hangover
What are you waiting for?
The Pretty Ones
The Fall
Window to the Shore
Gloom
Body and Mind
Walk Away
Simple Lies
An Entire Nation

Other songs not listed here will also move forward.

Updates to come as things happen.