Recording - JCHMusic

Production Notes: Positive (2010)

08.7.2010

Remastering any album is a challenge quite different from actually making the original duh), but working on something you haven’t touched in many years is also quite the slice. A slice of about, oh…, three months of my life. I approached this work with much the same tack I take on colonoscopies: I know it needs to be done. I’m thankful for the good result. I ‘m glad it only needs to be done once in a great while. Come to think of it, I was unconscious for my last colonoscopy; so perhaps I enjoyed that procedure even more. (Sorry, [...]

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What About The Gear/Equipment You Play?

01.2.2010

FAQs, Musical Instruments, Recording

A catalog of rants on the gear I use and make, including the studio are here. Specific Instruments Used On Albums Studio Details Jeez man, not another rant? But can we talk? Can we talk? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it really doesn’t make that much difference for what I do. Yeah, maybe it makes a difference for the true virtuosos, but frankly, I’ve always had to be a ‘ham and egger’ switching between so many instruments on so many gigs that I guess I just learned to make do with whatever was about. The funny [...]

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Production Notes: Nice Cuts

08.25.2009

Albums, Recording

Nice Cuts is, unlike my other albums to date, a compilation. It was not without it’s ‘production’ aspects, however. The fourteen previously released songs were selected based on a fan voting process. The versions you hear on Nice Cuts are slightly different than those on their original releases. This is of necessity for a couple of reasons:

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Production Notes

05.26.2009

Recording, Songs

This is meant as a central filing cabinets for more thoughts I have on the whole production business, including DIY vs. ‘pro studio’, ‘live vs. loops’ and various ‘how do you do that’ techniques that people ask about from time to time. I want to come back here and flesh these out as time permits. If you’re looking for a link to the post on playing techniques. It’s here But First A Sub-Rant On ‘Loops Vs. Real’ I almost never use ‘loops’ or MIDI ‘patterns’. I’m either thrilled or annoyed when people tell me my stuff sounds ‘mechanical’, but a [...]

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The House That Became A Studio

05.10.2009

Musical Instruments, Recording

STUDIO I: The Wiring When I bought my house, I realized that there was no way I could afford to put in a proper studio ‘room within a room’ of proper size for really good acoustics right away. On a different track, my house has a crawlspace. When I went under the house to run a network cable between two rooms I decided, since I had to be down there anyway, to create structured cabling throughout the entire house so that every house could have Ethernet (I’d had very bad performance issues with WiFi.) Now after living there for a [...]

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The Gear

05.10.2009

Musical Instruments, Recording

I get a number of questions re. what I play and how I do things. This article is basically a list of the instruments I play, the songs you’d hear them on and some links to more information on them. KEYBOARDS Kimball Upright Player Piano. I got this from a girlfriend who owed me money. When she walked out she left me a note saying I should take it in lieu of payment. Seriously. But a piano is a good thing to have. It’s a crappy piano. I had it tuned by a friend who remarked, “Well I’d say 62 [...]

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DIY (Part 2) My Bedroom Vs. Your Bedroom

03.8.2009

Recording

Way back in the day, I had the great fortune to watch Prince one night doing his thing as a young man all alone in a Minneapolis studio. The talent the guy had was palpable. And the fact that he not only sang like Prince,Â played like Prince, but could also run a complex studio? That was really something. No amateur could do that back then. You had to pay your dues simply to learn to get a proper sound on tape. It’s technically a lot easier to do it yourself nowadays.Â The past decade has delivered the same revolution [...]

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DIY (Part I)? Don’t You Have Any Friends?

03.7.2009

Recording

The issue of why I ‘do it all myself’Â has been a real concern to me for many years and for many reasons. I thought I’d comment on it partly because lots of people either ask me about it or, don’t ask me about it but wonder about it, and also because this is something that affects more and more musicians as technology moves ahead and the record business continues to break down. When I studied music I loved learning new instruments. My primary mentor in college, Dr. Alvin King was a disciple of Paul Hindemith, the great German composer. [...]

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