john

Hi Till Sure, some older tracks, though Natural Healing is a recent mix: http://www.ic-musicmedia.com/bibim or http://www.songstuff.com/artists.php?selected=2 The links on the songstuff page haven't all been added yet....oops. Cheers John

Hey Till Firstly, welcome to the Songstuff boards! The point of the topic was not to discuss my mixes (which I think are pretty good ), but to promote discussion on mixing, as several of the Music reviews had criticised the mix used. You do make some good points though. Setting up a mix does vary greatly. A lot of folks can (arguably) not afford the money or time to attend courses on how to mix. A little advice can go a long way though Cheers John

Hi For me I guess it's that they spend their time copying, trying to achieve a technical perfection. Which normally means being able to play lots of notes quickly. What they all see to forget is the one essential component of good music....feeling. And it is feeling that paves the way to creativity. So what we end up with is a bunch of technical whizz kids, tightly focused on the styles of a particular genre, who couldn't convey emotion if their life depemde on it. On the other hand, there are still self taught guitarists, out of which there is at least a possibility of finding something innovative. Well maybe. I say all this as a guitarist....sad really. Cheers John

Thanks for the update Didier. Did you try swapping out the amp? Cheers John

Hey Didier I've been looking specifically for a low price, good acoustic guitar microphone. It certainly looks worth checking out. Are you happy with it yourself for an acoustic? Cheers John

Hi All fair points, most of which I agree with. Olggu, I wasn't geting at you, just trying to follow through your argument. If I mis-understood, sorry. I do agree that CDs are over priced, and that the established Music industry works as a closed shop. And that the biz doesn't give a toss about music. It's the same in the software biz. All they care about is the bottom line. Does it sell... I guess the largest part of my issue with piracy is that it does not distinguish between small, new business products and the larger established businesses. Aprt from that, I have trouble believing that lowering the prices would make any difference. The fact is pirates are free or very, very cheap. These guys don't absorb any of the development costs, or the promotional costs, so they will always be able to supply their version at a cheaper price. As Steve says, this basically means that Joe Public will shop with the pirates as long as a pirate version is on offer. Sad, but true. Cheers John

Hey H How are you getting on with th U-110? Cheers John

Hey Jerry What's the problem? Cheers John

Hi Following Olggu's argument, you would buy a car to get from A to B, but if you decided to become a professional rally driver it would ok to steal a top of the range race tuned Subaru. Think of it from the other side. Consider this: Part-time Musician: You spend hours, days and years learning skills. You put a lot of yourself in to your work. You write songs. You record songs, burn them on cds, put them on the net, some you sell (if you are lucky) most you give away for free. You don't depend on this income, so that's ok. Part-time Programmer: You spend hours, days and years learning skills. You put a lot of yourself in to your work. You write software. You make programmes, burn them on cds, put them on the net, some you sell (if you are lucky) most you give away for free. You don't depend on this income, so that's ok. Full-time Musician: You spend hours, days and years learning skills. You put a lot of yourself in to your work. You write songs. You record songs using expensive gear, you pay to have them put on cds, put them on the net for sale, some you sell (if you are lucky) you can't afford to give many away for free as a promo. You depend on this income. It's your living. It's how you feed your kids. People pirate your tracks, and your sales go through the floor. This is not ok. Full-time Programmer: You spend hours, days and years learning skills. You put a lot of yourself in to your work. You write software. You make programmes using expensive gear, you pay to have them put on cds, put them on the net for sale, some you sell (if you are lucky) you can't afford to give many away for free as a promo. You depend on this income. It's your living. It's how you feed your kids. People pirate your software and your sales go through the floor. This is not ok. You might be with a record label or software house. The fact is, if your product doesn't make enough cash, you lose your job. That's the bottom line. I understand the frustration, because pirate software is easier to get than a race tuned Subaru. But there is no justification. Piracy is killing the Music industry. You might think it is opening the way for the indie artist, but the fact is less and less people are paying for Music coz it's so easily available. If you decided to go pro, your chances of making a living may be higher because of the internet, but as less people are willing to pay eventual some bastard will pirate your tracks and effectively put you out of business. All that is then available to the listening public is free tracks, produced by people who rarely can afford good gear coz they can't make any money from their Music, or large label stale commercial tracks that stick to the safe ground and charge large prices in order to stand the best chance of making any money. Years ago when I started recording, I used a standard tape deck, and occasionally borrowed a 4 track when they came along. I made do with the instruments I could save and buy. I still made Music. I still got my tracks out there. Sure, I even paid to go into recording studios when I started making money from gigging. I saved and bought better gear. I knew that better gear was available (hell I even worked in a studio), but never once did I think it was ok to steal studio gear. I might have been tempted once or twice ... I had to wait years. In the meantime I made do. I even used pirate software. But i didn't once think I was justified. I did it from more or less a position of blissful ignorance, after all everyone seemed to have pirate software. For years I saved, I took out loans, I worked overtime, I studied and worked at my Music. Eventually I had enough savings and was able to take on enough debt to invest in some decent gear. If people keep pirating Music, the industry will more or less disappear as an industry. Apart from of course the most manstream acts on the top labels. Even then they are at risk. The same is true of software. In the end they will make it so difficult to pirate that you can't, and the penalties so large if you do, that it's not worth the risk. This will happen because they are large industries, and peoples livings depend on them stopping piracy. In the meantime, piracy will thin out the field and bankrupt all the small and indie operations. Like it or not, piracy is killing the industries. Each time you download a pirate mp3, you make it less likely that you will make money from Music. It's the same in Software. What price on giving up dreams? Free apparently... :'( Cheers John

Hi Tom Sorry. I mis-read. I was trying to explain the basics behind the effect, rather than name a specific modern effect that performed the process for you! Oh well... Cheers John

Hi Dave I'm with you on this one, with an almost identical story Though I didn't get £170 soft synth for Christmas Cheers John

Hey H I hate to say it, but I disagree. If anything it adds to your creative capabilities. Simply because it gives you more options. Just because someone has a sampler doesn't mean they always have to use it all the time. Samplers can be used like a synth to give very realistic instrument sounds, which allows a songwriter to use instruments they don't normally have access to. Add to that they open up a whole new realm for musicians to be creative with: Loops. Sure Moby etc. make entire songs based around loops, but that is as valid a method as any to write a song. I guess it depends where you place the emphasis on songwriting. As an instrumentalist who trains for years to play an instrument it's easy to get caught out thinking that all creativity in song writing somehow belongs to those who have devoted such time to playing. The thing is, synth players and sampler users spend just sa much time studying their instruments and how to use them. Musical creativity can be expressed in many ways: performance, composition, arrangement, production to name a few. The only true limitation to creativity is to close your mind to new ideas and experience. You might not like the music you think is produced with samplers, but believe me there are a whole lot of songs out there using samplers as an integral part of the song, yet unless you were told you wouldn't know. Just a few thoughts Cheers John

HI Dave interesting. Where did you get the info? A full article would be interesting, for a sad geek like me, to read. Cheers John

Hi I just wondered if anyone wanted to share their experiences and advice with other board members about selling or renting their songs to others. You know, things to look out for, types of deals, good publishers, receptive pluggers or agents etc... Cheers John

Hey Dave Look two posts below... Oops! Cheers John

Hi Tom You basically hit the nail on the head. Especially in the beatles day the effects were simple. They simply double tracked using a delay. This mean that the original recording is bounced through a delay unit onto another track. On playback each track is panned in different directions. Simple huh? Cheers John

Hi I used to use cubase on the Atari (long time ago) since then I've been using Cakewalk, and now Sonar. I just wondered what others on the boards are using? Cheers John

Hi All Problem solved, 1 instrument board... Cheers John

Hi I'm not sure of the amp, but it sounds like tele to me. Would the amp be a Roland Jazz chorus? Probably not... Cheers John

Hey BS I'm home, online and by the phone... Cheers John

Where did you get that NeXT cube, where did you get that NeXT cube... Do you use it? Does it crash a lot?

Hi BS Nope, sorry. I read SOS, and yes it's still pretty stuffy. It does cover a pretty broad cross section though. Computer Music is ok, but a bit too focused for me. Cheers John

Hey Stefano Welcome to Songstuff! Sadly your predicament sounds very familiar : Cheers John

Hi Didier Not very clear is it? There may be a further drop off at 55Hz. You know, 20db/decade at 200Hz, 60db/decade at 55Hz. Are you sure the figures quoted aren't specific to range speakers within the monitor housing? You know the woofer, mid and tweeter? If it is 200Hz, that isn't very good. If your desk has groups, why not assign all tracks to a group ( you could do it with Aux too), EQ the signal in the group/aux pair, and monitor that (just as a reference to check your mix). You could then Play either the group/aux or other signals by using solo buttons. If you buy an outboard EQ, get a graphic (there is a really good 32 channel stereo one that isn't to expensive, (Alesis I think, I'll check)) and if you haven't got a patchbay, consider one. Something like the Behringer Ultrapatch (about £50). That way you have a good degree of flexibility. As far as speakers and amps go, borrow an amp that allows you to do as suggested before you go and spend a lot of money. If you can, an amp that will allow you to switch speakers (you know the kind). Large speakers are useful, if you have a well treated control room. If not, the extra bass is tiring on the ears (believe me, I've used Tannoy little reds). Either way, checking a mix on multiple speaker setups using the same amp can be very useful. For these reasons, if you can afford it, don't replace your current monitors. Create options for your mix environment, including something that can easily represent a normal hifi environment. Cheers John

Hey Marc What format are the output files in? cheers John