Category Archives: Dave’s Blog

Reorganizing The Production Music Studio

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Every now and then I get a little antsy. Lately, I’ve been thinking of updading my home studio with some new music production gear, software… or even just rearranging the room a bit. I’ve always wanted the studio to be an inspiring space, something that lends itself to hours of work comfortably, while also giving me that spark of creativity. For me, the studio needs to be fun and inviting — I have to want to go in there! Otherwise, I won’t be creating much new production music, or doing my work for that matter.

I stumbled on this swank set-up: http://www.desktopped.com/featured/2010/11/home-av-recording-studio-and-tv-room/

A bit lacking in music gear, but pretty sweet nonetheless. It kind of reminds me of my office, but there’s something about it that screams I can be creative there. Or I can get some work done there.

Maybe it’s just the clean desk.

What’s your setup like? How do you keep your music production space fresh and inviting and inspiring? Do you have a dedicated room for your home studio, or did you throw all your music gear in a corner or closet. Or do you work in a dungeon?

Stock Photos and Pixlr: Editing Your Images for Free

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Pixlr

Pixlr is an excellent online image editor for editing your stock photos.

If you’re like me, you’re on the go. A lot. I’m finding it increasingly more and more difficult to find time to edit media, let alone do my daily work! This is why I’ve been turning to more mobile services and making almost every aspect of business portable so that I can work wherever I am.

Enter Pixlr. Pixlr (http://www.pixlr.com) has been around for quite some time now, but has recently become one of my go-tos for image editing. Whether I’m cleaning up some stock photos, or working on graphics for the new Productiontrax design (unveiling very very soon!), Pixlr has become an invaluable tool, and I’m a huge fan.

Pixlr works exactly like Photoshop, minus a few higher end features and image exporting options (for example, it can’t add IPTC data or XMP tags, and you can only export to a handful of popular photo formats). Limitations aside, however, Pixlr is stable, solid, and well coded. It works brilliantly, and I can do just about anything I need to in order to create stunning images and stock photos, from gradients and fills, to transparency and high quality filter effects. And best of all, it’s free.

Don’t get me wrong, software developers deserve every penny they make from creating indespensable software, but after my 4th system update in as many months, and having to work in multiple platforms, I couldn’t justify another few hundred bucks to update Photoshop… again… or the extra licenses. Pixlr, on the other hand, is always there, right in my browser. And whether I’m at home on my computer, in the studio, or on the road with my laptop, Mac or PC, I always have an image editor.

No, Autodesk didn’t pay me for this review, it’s just that awesome.

Production Music Using Video Game Controllers

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Admittedly, one of my favorite music production plug-ins is RealGuitar by MusicLab. I use it daily for creating production music tracks in my project studio. It’s relatively inexpensive (like $200), and sounds great, is easy to use, and I’ve been able to fool a lot of people into believing they’re hearing an actual guitar. MusicLab announced the release of RealGuitar 3, and it looks great. Now, you can take that Guitar Hero axe from your xbox or Playstation video game, and play it into your sequencer like a guitar. The results of such an interface capability rival the expression and realism (well in performance, anyway) found in the old MIDI wind controllers, only this time with better sample quality. I was blown away by what I saw on the video and can’t wait to try this with my own production music in the project studio. Check it out:

Free Sound Effects Exchange Sites – Are They Good For The Sound Designer?

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It’s not new — there are tons of free sound effects sites out there that give away sound files. The idea is simple, sound designers can upload their collections to these massive libraries, and then the masses flock to the site to download them. Perfectly legal, and perfectly free.

It seems like a win for the consumers, and the average joe looking for a quick booooiinng, but where is the sound designer in all of this? It’s quite surprising to see several big name sound designers giving away their product for free because it’s “good advertising.” Sites that database and archive sounds and allow free downloads by the masses seem to think that they are doing the world a huge favor, when in fact, they are merely hurting the artists and creative production professionals that they’re building their audio file archives upon (leaving sound effects pirates out of the mix here, no pun intended).

Sound designers invest a lot of money into buying expensive audio recording equipment. They spend years training, and more years perfecting recording and editing techniques. If a user is not willing to shell out a few cents for a sound effect, or even a couple of dollars to use royalty free sound effects in their projects, they should have to record the sounds themselves. They’ll quickly realize the hard work it takes to create a sound.