Key Of Grey

March 12th, 2010 - These days, producers write songs and songwriters produce their own songs. DAWs are so powerful, and with the great plug-ins out there to compliment them, a song written and produced in the basement can rival a commercial release with thousands of dollars into it. With people creating fantastic music on their own, many without any formal training, there are many different ways to go about building a track from scratch. Sometimes a synth line will set off my ideas, ... Read More

Photo courtesy of 3 Sons Productions March 4th, 2010 - So lately, I've been thinking a lot about sampling. Legally it's pretty straightforward, if you take a piece of someone else's recording then you have to secure rights to do that. Whether or not you agree with the way the legal system is set up, is not what I want to discuss here. I've discussed my take on sampling before and while my feelings on the subject have evolved slightly, I still largely feel ... Read More

March 1st, 2010 - It's March 1st, and I don't have an album done for the RPM Challenge. As for the main task of writing an album's worth of material in 28 days, I failed completely. My main problem was that almost every song I wrote was for a different genre, probably a remnant from my days working in a song factory. Not only did this mean that there were never enough songs to complete a cohesive album, but most of the ... Read More

February 21st, 2010 - I've been tooling around with Logic for almost 10 years now, and one of the additions in version 8 that I never really used was MainStage. MainStage is an application meant for performing live. You can use instruments and effects from Logic combined with live looping and MIDI triggering, to pull off Ableton-esque performances. With version 9 of Logic, MainStage was beefed up with better amp modeling, and better looping features making it more enticing for musicians. Since I ... Read More

Photo courtesy of One Small Clue February 2nd, 2010 - I was looking for MPC-style plugins, when I stumbled across Poise. Poise is a Windows-only MPC-style VST that is super-intuitive. You drag sounds you want onto the drum pads, and you're good to go. You can layer multiple samples onto each pad, and adjust parameters of each layer. No muss, no fuss. There's also a very simple MIDI learn feature for mapping to your MIDI controllers. What I like about it is that it ... Read More

January 19th, 2009 - Last week, I lamented my inability to finish an album for myself. I've written songs for other people, and even songs for myself, but never any collection of songs that could cohesively be an album. It's always been on my to-do list, but I've never had the satisfaction of drawing a line through that entry. Dan Foley from PodComplex suggested that I take a look at the RPM Challenge. It is not a competition, and there aren't any prizes. ... Read More

January 16th, 2009 - A topic I keep getting asked, whether it's through Youtube, email, or comments to this site, is about using the Vestax Spin/djay combo for making beats. Specifically, people want to know how to use the Spin in conjunction with a MPC or MPC-style controller. These questions stem from a misunderstanding of the Spin itself, that I thought I'd address. First off, it is technically possible to make beats with the Spin. Because the Spin has a built-in soundcard, you ... Read More

January 15th, 2009 - I've written before about how removing vocals from a stereo track works, but what if you want to break down a track into its instrument constituents? How do producers get the instrument files to make their remixes? Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to get the original instrument stem files unless the record label wants you to make an official remix. With the multitudes of unofficial remixes on HypeMachine and other music sites, you might wonder how these producers are able ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Ivo Riemann January 13th, 2010 - So you've been working on that killer song for a while now. It seems every time you listen to it you get a great idea of how to make it better, or hear something that needs work. With something as personal as music, we want our songs to be perfect. But how will know perfect when we see it? How do we know we're done? That's a very interesting question. I never was a very ... Read More

January 12th, 2010 - So what's a songwriter to do when a great idea appears and there are no instruments or recording gear around save for your own voice and an iPhone? Well, you pony up $3 bucks for Wave Machine Lab's Voice Band iPhone app. By using your own voice, Voice Band is able to detect pitch, and volume. Using that information, you can manipulate up to 10 instruments to create a song. For example, you can sing notes into Voice ... Read More