Robot Cousin Soundworks

I love KVR.

Since I first started using Logic in 2006, I’ve used KVR to get a hold of both free and demo-versions of commercial audio plug-ins and software. For the past year or so, I haven’t really been around there much, but a few weeks ago, I signed up again, as I couldn’t remember my old username (on there now as robot_cousin). Now I’m watching my favourite plugins/developers and am notified if there are any updates or news.

There’s an entire community on the site’s forums that discuss all things from music theory to technical support, music listening to product reviews. For anyone dealing with audio in any capacity this day and age, you’d be doing yourself a service by checking the site out. I would say that it’s the ‘New York’ of audio plugin sites, but I’d be hard-pressed to find another site out there quite like it. However, if anyone reading this knows of a similar site, I’d love to hear about it.

The reason this post is coming to you now is because, as I stated, I recently got back into checking it out regularly, reading the forums, stuff like that. When I had first visited the site, it was at the dawn of Apple’s Intel processor, and plug-ins with a universal-binary (the ability to run on Intel and PPC processors) download option were few and far between.

Fast-forward to 2010, and we’ve got an OS that is ‘Intel-only’ on the mac side of things. Doing a quick search for ‘Universal-binary’ only AU plugins, even just the freeware ones, I’ve stumbled across 192 results, most of which are looking pretty snazzy. Not the least is this one.

The TT Dynamic Range Meter from Pleasurize Music Foundation. Before describing the plug-in, a little write-up of the company, directly from their site…

Our aim is to improve the sound quality of music in its various recorded formats – including data compression methods such as MP3 – as well as music destined for radio broadcast.
Only music that provides a positive musical listening experience has real market value. The Foundation’s aim is to increase the value of music within the creative production process for the entire music industry.
The objective is to revive the willingness to pay for music and therefore to create a healthier basis for all creative participants within the music industry.

While I might argue that dynamic range doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with sound quality (a crappy recording could be extremely dynamic, for instance), nevertheless, their aim is a good one. So, they’ve offered the free plug-in listed above, which I will definitely be using on every recording I make, going forward.

PMF on the TT Dynamic Range Meter:

TT Dynamic Range Meter makes it possible to provide releases with a whole-number dynamic value to be printed on the recording medium as a logo, giving consumers an immediate means of knowing the dynamic quality of a recording.

An online database is planned for furnishing information on music already released with the standard. In this way, conditions have been met for the creation of a single standard for audio recorded media – a step which was taken by the film industry over thirty years ago. Music with small dynamic range has a low value, for example DR4 (Dynamic Range = 4dB). Music with a large dynamic range has a higher DR value, for example DR14 or more. In this case, music can breathe and loud events are actually louder.

Note that this plug-in isn’t meant to give you more dynamic range. It is simply a metering plug-in that will be able to notify you of just how much dynamic range it’s sensing. In order to make dynamic material, well, you just have to have your ears on straight.

Before I go, I would be remiss not to mention another good website about the fight against the Loudness War, TurnMeUp.org. Some educational stuff on there for those who don’t know why music sucks so much now. Check it out.

Now to start using K-Metering…

Project R/’Recession: The Rock Opera’ is still being hammered out, note by note, instrument by instrument. I’m having a bit of difficulty with one of the pieces, as there’ll be a lot of orchestration from things like horns and strings, and those are some of the hardest to fake through virtual instruments. Also, my computer is choking. Yay for the ‘Track Freeze’ option (think “Flatten Layers”, if coming from the Photoshop side of things), but even then, you can only freeze so much and get away with it.

On the RPM side of things, I’m actually coming up with a lot of good stuff… which is a problem (for RPM at least). I actually want to turn these into real tracks. And I know that just because they’re for RPM doesn’t mean they didn’t happen, but I don’t think I could bring myself to put a song into two groups. If I actually had a record deal, and was making songs, b-sides would be b-sides, and the track list of an album would be that and only that, not songs from another place or anything like that. Billy Corgan has the same sort of hangup, so I guess I have him to thank for that way of thinking. I can’t help it! It’s a rule, but one I haven’t had to enforce just yet.

So I’m left with about 3 tracks worth of stuff I really, really like, and refuse to put towards RPM, even though I’ve come up with them, and recorded them within February. Will I finish my RPM album? Looks like no. Does this bother me? Not in the least.

RPM is doing what it was meant to do, and for that, I am thankful.

Just finished my first track (which will actually be track 3) of my RPM Challenge 2010 album. I have a name for the album, but I’m not putting that out until the artwork is all done. Yeah, I’m going all the way.

Anyway, I’ve already gotten farther than I did last year, and I don’t plan on stopping. I have a few other half-finished tracks on the go, hopefully will be uploading them within the week. Also, this track, along with any other RPM tracks, will not appear in the flash player below until they’re all done, or when February ends. So for now, here you go;

Element Zero

RPM Challenge 2010 is a go! Sign up here. Don’t know what I’m on about?

From the site…

This is The Challenge - Record an album in 28 days, just because you can.That’s 10 songs or 35 minutes of original material recorded during the month of February. Go ahead… put it to tape.

It’s a little like National Novel Writing Month, (NaNoWriMo.org) where writers challenge each other to write 1,700 words a day for 30 days, or the great folks over at February Album Writing Month (fawm.org), who encourage artists to write 14 new songs in February. Maybe they don’t have “Grapes of Wrath” or “Abbey Road” at the end of the month, or maybe they do—but that’s not the point. The point is they get busy and stop waiting around for the muse to appear. Get the gears moving. Do something. You can’t write 1,700 words a day and not get better.

Don’t wait for inspiration – taking action puts you in a position to get inspired. You’ll stumble across ideas you would have never come up with otherwise, and maybe only because you were trying to meet a day’s quota of (song)writing. Show up and get something done, and invest in yourself and each other.

Anyone can come up with an excuse to say “no,” so don’t. Many of you are thinking “But, I can’t do that! I don’t have any songs/recording gear/money/blah blah blah…” But this doesn’t have to be the album, it’s just an album. Remember, this is an artistic exercise. Just do your best using what you have in order to get it done. If you have a four-track, become a four-track badass! A mini disc, a pro-tools rig, a Walkman, an 80’s tape recorder – use it. Do your best. Use the limitations of time and gear as an opportunity to explore things you might not try otherwise. If you can afford studio time in a “real” studio, fine, but let’s be completely free of any lingering idea that “good” records can only be made in a studio. If that were so, then all the old scratchy blues records or Alan Lomax field recordings that have changed our culture – the world’s culture – wouldn’t still resonate with us today as they do. Springsteen’s haunting classic “Nebraska” was a demo he did at home on a crappy machine. That album is fricking awesome. What label would put those recordings out now? (See: who cares) There are a million examples of this kind of stuff, but the fact will always be: Well written, honest music is compelling and undeniable no matter what it was recorded on. So put it to tape.

February will come and go whether you’ve joined in or not, but do you really want to be left out?

So there you have it. I feel like crap because of last year’s “one song” entry, so I’ll be sure and AT LEAST get farther this time around. All tracks will be posted here as well, denoted as being part of the RPM Challenge.

For all music makers out there, sign up! What have you got to lose?

I, like many other people, don’t really like New Years resolutions. Some empty promise you make to yourself that, within about 2 weeks, you usually forget or lose interest in. Lose weight, read more, etc, etc, etc.

And yet, here I am, thinking about making one. But not only to I want to be resolute for just the new year, but from this point forward.

I find myself not reaching my full potential, and I definitely see room for improvement with my music, but more so, I see room for improvement with my attitude towards my work. I am far too critical on myself, and therefore I end up with many, many half-finished ideas that are still sitting on my hard drive, collecting digital dust.

What to do, what to do. Get motivated, that’s what! First off, I’ve noticed that if my work area is a mess, my brain is a mess. Guess what kind of state my work area has been in for the last little while?

Yeah.

Secondly, I feel like I have to rekindle that love I know I still have for discovering new musical ideas, and working on new projects. There are a few projects that are currently on the go, and I’m happy to have them, but I don’t feel that they’re 100% mine to play with. Don’t get me wrong, I have much respect and trust in the ideas and plans of the people that I’ll be doing them with, and wouldn’t want it any other way, but there still needs to be a little section of my work where I have total control, no matter what. A little artistic endeavor that I’ve had in my head for quite a while that includes better versions of a few tracks I’ve already posted here. There are a bunch that I’m not showing off until the album is actually done. I WANT to show them off, but it acts as a bit of a motivator, having to guard them close until they’re all ready.

That brings me to February. RPM 2010 is coming up, and I am very excited! A few people over at www.logicprohelp.com will hopefully be joining in. I have promised myself to get more done than I did last year (one track, “Acquaintances”), and that one I didn’t actually finish (drums are off, and it’s missing a few change-ups.)

Back to the motivation I was referring to, the Beatles are, of course, becoming a large part of that. My music will never sound like theirs, and I’m not about to put myself anywhere near the pedestal that they so rightfully deserve to be on, but who can’t be inspired by them? I don’t own any of their albums, and growing up, my dad only had “the hits”, but recently (as in the past 3 years), Krista has been introducing me to a lot of their full album work, and they’ve been playing almost constantly now that we have The Beatles: Rock Band. Yes, it took buying a video game that uses plastic instruments for me to finally hear all of Abbey Road. Sad, I know.

I’m not going to go on and on about what I find inspiring, because everyone has either already been inspired in one way or another,  or they’ve heard about people being inspired. The bottom line is, I feel like once I get some cleaning done, the sounds will follow.

They’re all there, they just can’t seem to find a way out amidst all the clutter.

So, in a perfect world, I would’ve been linking to an as-yet-unheard track (well, heard by you, Mr. Harris, but I think you’re the only one so far). However, my uploader here only allows files smaller than 7mb. Now, I’d gladly redo the track and lower the bitrate (set it at 320k/s), but Logic doesn’t want to play nice with me. This is a regular occurrence, which is why, in a matter of a few business days, I will be one with Snow Leopard.

10.6, here I come. The random “I’m not opening until you restart your system” Logic behaviour should be left in the dust. Well, here’s hoping.

I refuse to upgrade to Logic Pro 9. Why? Because I paid full (Academic, $299) price way back when for Logic Express 7… and then, since it was the academic version, I couldn’t just upgrade to Pro, I had to buy Pro straight out. That (again, all I could afford was the Academic version) was $699 (instead of $1299). And when Logic 8 came out, and I was no longer in school, after a few months, I went and got the full, non-academic version of that. $499. Awesome price, taken out of this specific situation… but it’s still $499 on top of what’s already been spent.

Now, I haven’t been keeping score (and please, don’t post and tell me the damage), but I’ve paid a lot for Logic so far. Since getting LP 8 only 4 months after it was released, I have only seen two (2) updates that came out for it. TWO! And then what do they do? As Carlin would put it, they “Sneezed, and all of the numbers in their head went up by 1″.

I’m done buying Logic for a while. I’ll wait for 10. Or perhaps 9.5, if they even get that far.

With all of that ranting aside, I give you the very calming Copacetic at 5 a.m. (click for description, or listen at the bottom of the page).

I hope you’ve all been enjoying the show so far.