Tag Archives: music production

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Quick Portrait (2022 Update) – Studio A

Studio A

Greetings all and Happy 2022. I hope this new year is starting out well for you and will continue in that fashion.

Back in November 2021, I posted an quick portrait about the main studio space I work out of, Studio A. Since then, I was saving up for a computer upgrade and found a nice sale price on an M1 Mac mini to replace the current (and still capable) mid-2011 Mac mini. Since that computer is already 11 years old, I decided to replace it with a newer Mac for (at least) future proofing in the years to come (the older one is now in Studio C, the subject of a future Quick Portrait post).

With the new Mac comes not only the expected advanced OS, but a new (as of 2020) Apple M1 Silicon chip architecture. The result of that is determining what software, most (if not all) of which is now 64-bit vs 32-bit architecture, along with current hardware that has to now run on the M1 architecture as well. The research (which is ongoing) involves continually watching a particular music production software developer website, Native Instruments, for updates on how they are coming along announcing how many of their products are compatible with the current Mac OS (Monterey), and the M1 architecture. The official compatibility comes via the completion of successful regression testing and the announcement of them now being able to support trouble tickets for user submitted issues. Of course, there are many Native Instruments products that do work with Monterey BUT are not officially supported.

Thus far, I seem to be fine on the software side for my needs, however, my current digital audio interface is an entirely different story. While my Mac came shipped with the prior OS, Big Sur, my MOTU 828Mk3 Firewire audio interface is no longer officially supported. Be that as it may, fervent web searches resulted in finding out that there are users that have gotten it to work not only with Big Sur, but Monterey. I’m halfway there in that I’ve successfully installed the unit’s audio driver, however the interface driver is showing as outdated, and cannot be installed (despite it working for others as of Sept 2021, though my initial thinking is there as been a dot upgrade to Big Sur since Sept 2021, which is what I have, and suspect this is the issue). I’ve replied to those who do have it working in hopes of realizing a similar solution on my end – now to play the waiting game. I’m saying all this to say it is my way of trying to avoid spending at least $400 on their lowest of the line audio interface that will be compatible with my OS. I broke down and purchased a newer, yet older, MOTU 828x digital audio interface that should be here by the weekend.

In the meantime, I’ve upgraded to a 34″ ultra wide monitor and incorporated a USB-C hub with M.2 NVME SSD and 2.5 SATA SSD support for additional memory and ports, (see the connection diagram below)

I also got a good deal on a new 8TB desktop SATA drive that will be used for Time Machine backups. So far, I’m happy with the upgrades, but just need to get started on and continue with projects on deck. I should be receiving the final upgrade piece, the 1TB NVME SSD drive mentioned above, in a few days from now, that’ll be installed in the hub for storing all audio libraries. Stay tuned for more.

Have a great week,

Fresh

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Organize, organize: A music production project micro post.

It’s been a few months since I posted a weblog, since late May to be exact. Yesterday I counted the number of music projects I have started and in the works. These involve personal projects (actual and concept only), plus collaborations with other artist or backing tracks for livestream feeds. The total number came to sixteen. Twelve of them I hope will be completed by 15 Dec 2020, the other four have TBDs before they are only in concept, with track names in the least.

My day job, actually my entire professional career work has been driven by schedule – milestones, due dates, Gantt and Microsoft Project charts, so it’s natural that I tend to go about treating all music production projects (at least my own personal ones) the same way. That said, the process is no different than that of the day job. The same issues come along with it – missed deadlines, unknown forces that disrupt the schedule, etc. The key, even with such disruptions, is to get in the habit of doing something daily to reach the goal. This applies, obviously, to any goal desired (coding is a good related personal example). I think, again, the biggest thing is get into good regular habits, for habits (good or bad) always move you closer to a specific point.

Musicians/artists/producers, who strive to put out regular content, how do you organize yourself to reach your goals?

Thanks for the read,

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Doug

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Gone… A Loss of Fond Technology

EDIT (27 Jan 1) SHE’S ALIVE AGAIN

It started a few nights ago. Someone in a music production forum on Facebook posted a synthesizer advertisement from back in the day…a vintage synth. Before long, members of the forum were chiming in about what they remember about those days – things like they used that synth at one point, how it compared to others of its timeframe, etc. Even I pulled out a set of old music production user group magazines and posted a pic of them.

This got me reminiscent of the first computer I was every able to purchase. The backstory (some of you may know) is when I started my professional career out of college, I was a young systems engineer working in a Naval satellite system program office. This office, surprisingly, had a mix of Macs and PCs. It was then, in 1988, when the Mac was only four years old, that my love affair with the platform began. Our business affairs guy was the keeper of the Macs in the office and it was through his enthusiasm and love for the platform that got me interested, not to mention (as I found out shortly thereafter), the magic of Apple. For the next two years, I dreamed of owning a Mac.

In 1990, I was settled into my own apartment (no more roommates) and was making enough to finally afford a brand spanking new Macintosh Classic. I purchased that computer for a whopping $1200 from a small computer shop in Silver Spring, MD. Until then, I was recording the music I was composing to a Tascam 424 multitrack tape recorder. Getting the Mac was way more exciting then most of you could ever imagine – it opened up the world of music sequencing and facilitated greatly how I composed music. It was also the first time I was able to connect to BBSs online via a blazing fast 2400 bps modem (LOL).

Since that Mac, I’ve had many more, some of which I still have in storage, some not, but it was that all in one Mac, the 9-inch B&W, the tiny sequencer, MasterTracks Pro, and a lot of other things during my early journey into using a computer for music production, that leave me with fond memories.

Two nights ago, I pulled it out of storage, set it up, turned it on, and set it in my studio. A little, but well know screensaver called Darkside, was installed. I set it to fade to the “Kitten” screensaver, a little spunky kittne that ran around the screen chasing a ball of yarn. A lot of memories came flooding back, especially those of what I could do with so little hard drive space and processing speed compared to what I have today. Having to load programs via 3.5-in floppy disks, and all the other charming things that only Apple could make you experience.

Last night, when it was appearing everything was fine with it, I decided to move it. I went to shut it down via the shutdown menu, but the mouse froze on the screen, along with the kitten. All I could do them is manually shut the power switch off. When I turned it back on, the video screen essentially malfunctioned. An awful looking pattern was now frozen in place. I repeatedly turned it off and on, trying to see if that issue would fix itself. I followed my a short shake, then firm pounding on both sides, as if I was trying to resuscitate it. All of that…amounted to nothing. It was no more.

Interesting how attached we can become to inanimate objects. While it wasnt necessary the object itself, it was more the memories attached to using it, the things I was able to accomplish during the beginnings of a journey that I’m still on. I admit that I miss it, despite the fact it was sitting in storage for years, despite the fact that the Macs I use for music production now are vastly superior to it. I just miss it…call it tech nostagia.

Today, after some research, I’ve decided to purchase another for posterity. For an original price of $1200 I paid 27 years ago, I’ve seen that computer in flea markets and classified ads selling for as little as $20. On eBay, one in good condition is well over $250. I won’t spend that much, but I’ll continue to research, continue to look around and just maybe, a sort of resurrection of sorts will occur one day in the hopefully near future.

oceans of rhythm…

Fresh!

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New EP in progress ::: Day 1 ::: 16 Jun 17

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Greetings all….
As I customarily do, when I start a new project, I usually blog about for two reasons. First, to sort of document the journey so I can look back on it in the future (it helps when/if it gets down to interview time and I want to cite certain things about the creative/production process and related thoughts). Secondly, I do so for those who have a general interest on the “behind the scenes” stuff that goes along with an entire creative process such as this.

While I won’t drop the name of the project until it’s time to start pre-release marketing near the drop date, I will give you a little background along the way. That said, this project is a collection of tunes (a smaller collection than originally created) that was inspired by a business trip I took long ago, halfway across the world, ten years agi. The tunes (with the exception of one) was inspired by various aspect of daily life that I experienced on this first trip (I actually made two trips, two consecutive summers, to the same place, but the tracks were inspired by the first trip).

All the tracks, with the exception of the title track, are written, recorded and arranged by me. The stage I’m in now is track editing and mix preparation. Over the last three days, I’ve been in the studio doing just that. For example, tonight I demixed the drum track and began preparing to bus them to their respective auxiliary channels. This basic process allows for grouping those bus tracks to allow greater control over track automation and effects processing over essentially what is an entire drum kit. The next step will be adding a guitar track and essentially following that same process with respect to a single guitar track.

As for the overall concept, all the tracks tell a story, cohesively, but individually tell singular stories in and of themselves. For those of you who are on Instagram, you can get a sneak peek, if you will, to the creative journey by following the simple hashtag #bsun2017. Hope you come along for the ride.

It’s Friday….enjoy the weekend. Happy Father’s Day to all you fathers (biologically or not).

Oceans of rhythm….
Fresh!

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Chronicles of A Remix – For A Time (Fresh’s Continuum Edit) – Part 1

Greetings readers…

Hope all are well. I’m taking a break from watching the SB, it’s half time (Go Seahawks!). I’m starting another edition to a the series, Chronicles of A Remix, that I began back in 2011 when constructing a remix along with Bill Cammack from NYC. This time, I was invited to try remixing a track given to me by a DJ and music producer in Baltimore, MD. After view some of my Instagram videos, he noticed I use Logic and happen to have a track he was working on in Logic. He decided to “gift” me the track to play with. After getting the stems and the Logic project from him. I set out to regroove this. The downside was that the Logic project he sent to me is in Logic X. I still use Logic 9 so I couldn’t open it to hear what the original track sounds like. Actually that’s not a bad thing because the key to moving forward is one piece of information – BPM (beats per minute) or teemp of the track. Once I got that from him I was golden. Below is a short video basically summarizing what I said above. Stay tuned for subsequent installments.

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh!

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The Making of Soulosophy – Day 3

Soulosophy Concept Art v1 Brown

Greetings all…hope u are enjoying your Saturday. In the last post, I was going on about a roster of 24 musicians (25 including myself) that I thought could participate on this project. After giving it much thought, especially in relationship to the approach and final release of the Halcyon Sky EP, I decided to take the “walk before you can run” approach. Gone is the idea of that many musicians participating for a sophomore project. I’m definitely not ready to book and pay for studio time when the project can very well be done between my studio and my partner’s studio.

That being said, I have one solid tune already given to me to review by a long time friend and smooth jazz keyboardists with four (at least) CDs under his belt. With the roster being significantly smaller and the musician commitments I have thus far, yeah, we can rock this. Next step, song completion assessments. More about that in the next post.

Before I forget, for those of you that have been following my tweets on my personal Twitter account, @mrfresh, regarding my musical endeavors, I’ve decided to consolidate all those under one new Twitter ID, SFTF Productions, you can follow me there. I’d highly appreciate it. Thanks!

Have a great weekend.

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh!

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The Making of Soulosophy – Day 2

Soulosophy Concept Art v1 Brown

Greetings…

Over the last few days, I began to take stock of how I *think* I want this project to unfold. In the last post, I mentioned it was to be a 10 track project but it has since grown two more tracks. I plan on stunting any further growth…, LOL.

Right now, I plan on inviting 24 other artists to participate on this project, whether they all do remains too early to be seen, but the invite email is going out this weekend. Of the 24, I have four already committed, so that’s good, so now starts the real groundwork: logistics, determining how much remote collaboration will be needed, musician assignments to each song, etc. This should prove interesting (one drummer I really would like to have on the project will only play an acoustic set – which I don’t have in my studio), but better to nail down this now verses later. Stay tuned.

::: oceans of rhythm:::

Fresh,

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Halcyon Sky (Debut EP) –The Fans Speak (Day 19)

Halcyon Sky_final_

Greetings All,

Once again, I’m really happy at the results of the Halcyon Sky EP. It was truly created to be a musical gift to all of you, but the responses, the comments I’ve received are nothing short of great and with that said, I’m grateful. I thought I’d share with you some of the commentary:

“You have no idea how much I needed to hear this music today The music is amazing. It’s exactly what I need in my life right now….: – J.M. – Lincoln Park, MI

“Thank you for sharing it is fabulous!” – C.H. – Worcester, MA

“Your EP is fantastic Bruh. Awesome job.” – D.W. – Orlando, FL

“Love it. As cool as the other side of the pillow.” – D.M. – Argyle, Maine

“I love it! Congratulations!” – K.S. – Bradenton, FL

“…and to let you know the title track Halcyon Sky was my first choice…..simplistic beauty…” – J.J – Tulsa, OK

“Very chill. Love it. Thanks for sharing it with us.” – JC- Austin, TX

“Congrats on the release. This has a Beautiful, chill vibe” – Q.S. – Washington, DC

“Nice!” – A.R. – Upper Marlboro, MD

“I have been waiting for this and so far what I hear is worth the wait Great stuff bro Loving it. – D.P. – Clinton, MD

“Halcyon Sky is lovely nice.” – C.B. – NYC

Doug, here’s to you and your efforts with this fabulous production! Sounds great and I’m wishing you all the best of success with Halcyon Sky!” P.C. – NYC

“Anxiety attacks are not my friend. Halcyon Sky helps. Well done, Doug! Well done” – A.T. – Atlanta, GA

“Looking forward to listening to your new EP, Doug! Congrats! (P.S. Aren’t we overdue to work on some music?! LOL)” – J.H. – Greensboro, NC

I’ve had the pleasure of being interviewed twice, so far, about the EP. You can read (audio coming soon) Felicia’s interview and listen to Calandra’s interview at their respective locations:

New Music – Halcyon Sky – Felicia Hodges/Tigerlily Communications

Artist Conversation with Mr. Fresh – Halcyon Sky EP

Below is a very short promo video for the project, featuring a little studio footage.

You can stream/download the EP, here.

Once again, thanks!

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh!

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Halcyon Sky (Debut EP) – Day 11

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Greetings all. It’s been a very quiet Friday evening so I took advantage of that fact to get some progress time in on the EP. Tonight I continued on one of the more chilled tracks and have finished the entire arrangement. I got a little work in on it last night and afterwards popped in a sample library disk from the lastest issue of Future Music Magazine. On this disk there are some vocal samples from a collection called Terry Grant – Voices From The Edge. While I won’t give the title of the track I’m working on, these vocal samples AUTOMATICALLY and coincidentally fit the theme of the track perfectly. All that was required was for me to chop them up and place them where they fit best in the track. With some added stereo delay, the fit very nicely. All that’s left now is to record the bass synth. Logic has a nice stock bass synth from its ES2 synthesizer that I’ll use for the last track, then it’ll be time to mix. Once you finally hear it, come back and read this post if you remember. It’ll all come together.

9:24 pm…I gotta make a run. Have a good and safe weekend….

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh!

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Halcyon Sky (Debut EP) – Day 10

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Day 10. Ok, so each track on the EP is at some level of development. Some are ready to mix and master, some are just snippets that need to be arranged and so on, others are sort of at the midway point. As said in the last post, collaboration track with C3 is arranged and ready for mixdown – after I upgrade to Logic X. As seen from the photo above, this afternoon I’m finally taking time to prioritize the schedule so I can get this out at the desired time.

Now that the Studio A is finally back up and running, the last thing I need to do is install the Maschine 1,8.2 software OS to be able to integrate Maschine Mikro into my Logic workflow. I was thinking of leaking the artwork to your good people, buuuuuut I think I’ll wait. 🙂

Speaking of schedules, I really should develop a master schedule to include this other music projects I’ve got going. Can’t reach the destination in the best way without a path forward.

Enjoy the evening…

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh!