Something/Everything

Here’s another big benefit with Logic when doing collaborations with other song writers using the same package.

As Logic is so deep concerning the provided loops, plugins, sw synths, effects and so forth,  we are able to bounce the project back and forth while keeping everything intact.

This is a big plus. We could work on separate projects and then now and then sync the tracks together for a new collated version.

You could go very far with the built-in tools in Logic. Now there’s the option of freezing tracks in case you use synths and plug-ins the other part does not have, so that’s also doable.

Still, I’m always surprised how much you could get done with a default Logic Studio installation. It might even be good that the options are somewhat restricted so we could spend more time working on the song structure and melodies instead of tinkering with effects.

Read this thread over at LogicPro Help in case you want to move your Logic setup between disks and you don’t want to reinstall and lose your settings.

I usually bookmark such threads using Delicious. If the title has something meaningful, it’s easy for me to find the bookmark later. Using Delicious is easier than having bookmarks on local browsers. You could sync bookmarks via MobileMe and Safari, but this is another approach.

By the way, here are my Logic marked bookmarks over at Delicious, in case anyone wants to check them out — another nice thing with Delicious is the option to export the bookmarks.

Also, if you are a serious Logic user, I can’t stop recommending reading LogicProHelp the forum from time to time.

I just saw a new video interview with Glenn Ballard over at Berklee Music. He’s famous for producing artists such as Alanis Morissette, Dave Matthews Band and so forth.

His views about what is important when producing, what will happen next and so forth are worthwhile to check out. For example, he said that if the original material is mediocre, it takes a lot of effort to product this to something decent.

The important skill to develop and find in a fragmented future market is the taste. All music has an audience, if it’s done well, you could get it sold, even if there’s less of a market compared with the golden days of music when the jobs paid really well. But then you could be involved with music you really want to do. There’s always an audience for any kind of music, as long as you really are involved in the style — it has to be something you really like working with.

There have been many cases where the band or artists have done a live album in the studio, so there’s nothing new behind that one. I suspect half of the punk scene was recorded this way.

There are some other interesting cases, such as Todd Rundgren’s album Nearly Human that was recorded as a single take in the studio, and his follow-up album 2nd Wind that was recorded in one take in front of a live audience — that was instructed to be dead-silent during the recording. This was indeed a tough challenge, one take and nail it down, as the music on those albums are very complex.

Another interesting angle was what Frank Zappa did with his live material, he mixed it together with studio recording material, so sometimes it was hard to know if what was what; a guitar solo was taken from a live situation where the rest was done in the studio, and so forth.

I’m actually looking at a future project where I want it all to sound very much live, but it’s all done in the studio. So I’m just now in research mode finding out how to produce and mix such an album. The obvious choice is of course to add in ambient audience sounds, but there’s more to it, such as emulating the guitar stacks mic:ed with reflections. So I suspect there will be a lot of Logic’s Space Designer as well as amp simulation that is needed to get this kind of sound. It will be interesting.

I just saw a video clip about Monster Studios, the place where Kate Perry and others have recenty recorded tracks (like that it seems to become summer hit I Kissed a Girl.)

The one big sales pitch behind this studio is that they have a house band that plays for tracks. I think this will become a good sales pitch for studios and producers. In today’s world anyone could configure a very good studio in the bedroom using semi-pro equipment and computers.

However, the sound will just sound the same concerning productions, micro-edits with loops and so forth. If you multiply this a thousand times or more you start to see the problem with the produced sound — it takes a lot of effort to sound unique and have a specific sound for productions. Same with creativity, one person could only get to a certain point concerning creative ideas with music.

Compare this with a studio setup where you have a pool of musicians that know each other inside out. Based on sessions you could configure this group and put together new tracks. I think this sounds very much like the old Motown system of sessions. Still, I think this is a good way to define a separate sound from anyone else out there, in this age of swing percent values and auto-alignment of pitch and midi quantizations…