wire to the ear

If you remember not too long ago I mentioned I was recently endorsed by Propellerhead Software. An old friend of mine James Bernard who is a Product Specialist at the company helped set me up. Last week he started his own blog on the Propellerhead website. I think this is a great idea as the blog format is my favorite way to get info these days and James has a huge amount of pro-audio knowledge to share.

“Welcome to my first entry to my new blog page on the Propellerhead Website! I plan on using this page to share any tips or tricks I have picked up, insight on some of my travels around the world doing Producers Conference events and also share some useful files or links I might come across. Please let me know what you think of it and feel free to request any specific tips/tricks you would like to see.” - James Bernard, www.propellerheads.se

His first posts are great. He kicks it off by showing us his own project studio which includes a FM3 Buddha Machine, modified Roland TR-606, Auralex Treatment and of course Reason. Next, he creates a few songs using one sound. Yes. One single sound. In fact he uses just one single TR-909 kick drum. We all joke and think about doing things like this but James tackles the task and lives to tell about it.

There is more than just show and tell on his new blog which I believe is titled “.plan”.  You get free goodies such as Refills and Regroove Templates.

Check out James’s new blog: click here

The all things strange and weird Boing Boing blog had an interesting article yesterday talking about Audiophile recordings. SACD, DVD-A, and 5:1 surround re-releases could all be going the way of the Dodo bird. Heck even CDs are on their way out. Are we going to be left with only one option? The craptastic MP3?

I’ve personally never heard an SACD (Super Audio Compact Disc) or DVD-A but I do know my old vinyl collection sounds superior to my MP3s. Surely we can’t let all our high quality options disappear. I always assumed that when broadband adoption and hard drive space became readily available we would see online music retailers offer lossless formats. So far that hasn’t happened.

“Super Audio CD (SACD) is a read-only optical audio disc format that can provide higher fidelity digital audio reproduction than the Red Book audio CD. Introduced in 1999, it was developed by Sony and Philips Electronics, the same companies that created the Compact Disc. SACD is in a format war with DVD-Audio, but neither format has managed to replace regular audio CDs.” - Wikipedia.org

Richard Metzger over at Boing Boing thinks we should run out and start collecting SACD and DVD-A’s. Personally I don’t think we should encourage more plastic production. We should demand higher quality digital downloads. There are only a few options available today. MusicGiants.com offers “High Definition Music Collections”.

“MusicGiants, the leader in high definition entertainment, aims to deliver the highest quality entertainment experience possible. Still the only digital music service licensed in HD from all of the major music labels…” - MusicGiants.com

We really need iTunes and Amazon to get on board otherwise large portions of the human’s music canon will end up only available in MP3 format. What other online shops sell high quality music downloads?

Check out the Boing Boing article: Audiophile Releases… Get ‘Em While You Can

“Snore” patch from Peter Speer on Vimeo.

I am definitely still feeling last weekend and it’s Tuesday night! This synth patch in the uber cute Doepfer Mini Case explains what I should be doing right now: zzzz.

“I was trying to make a breathe-in/breathe-out snoring sound with the Mini Case… Moog Rogue (audio only), Doepfer A-119, A-140 and A-132-3, Plan B ELF LFO, Frostave Resonator and Blue Ringer, DIY multiple.” - Peter Speer

If you have not been to the Doepfer site your crazy: click here

I performed live Saturday night in Malta (photo above). It’s a great island below Italy and above Lybia. It’s in the EU, has ancient Roman ruins and amazing blue water. I’ve been performing there about once a year for the past five years and it’s a real treat. These are the kind of gigs everyone dreams about. Our hotel had a large terrace overlooking the Mediterranean. The hotel also had four swimming pools! Ok back to the music…

The most interesting aspect of the trip music tech wise was at sound check. Scottish techno producer Neil Landstrumm (photo below) was also performing and he brought some nice toys. Besides his Mac laptop with Ableton he had an Elektron Machinedrum and Korg ESX1 Electribe SX. My interest really peaked when he pulled out a FMR Audio Really Nice Compressor and Boss RE 20 Space Echo. Needless to say Neil’s sound was very punchy and he had the crowd going. We are old pals (he used to live in NYC) and he went on about how much he liked both the RNC and RE 20.

I ran into some problems at sound check. After making the club check all their equipment for about an hour Neil pointed out the issue was my fault. It turns out my mic was on and even though none of the Ableton channels had the input on the mic was so loud distorting it was bleeding through causing some nasty zapping sounds. I graciously apologized to everyone and luckily redeemed myself later in the night by managing to crowd surf without looking like an idiot.

What? Crowd surf? Unfortunately yes. I like to be really connected to the audience so usually I jump down off the stage however remaining on my feet and walk through people singing. This time it was so packed when I hit the floor without me being able to stop them the kids picked me up! By some magic grace of god I didn’t look too stupid and they floated me back to the stage in one piece. In fact no one even messed up my hair… whew!

I played two songs which are totally new; stuff for my next album. Both worked however I need to make “Lightning Strikes” less synth full for a club setting. “I Stand with You” made me very happy. Only by playing your songs in a live situation can you be ever sure if they are great or not. That’s the tip of the day.

The next show is Stuttgart. To see the flyer: click here

I came across a problem recently when I recorded an interview using Skype. For some reason my own vocal only ended up recorded on the left side of a stereo file. You can see the issue in the above screenshot (inside the light yellow square). After a little head scratching I remembered Ableton’s Utility plug-in can fix this. I added Utility as an insert and switch the Mode to Left and now my vocal is properly centered.

“The Channel Mode chooser allows selective processing of the left and right channels of a sample. If, for example, Left is selected, the right channel is ignored and the left channel appears on both outputs. This is especially useful if you have a stereo le that contains different information on both channels and you want to use only one.” - Ableton Live User Manual

Related post: Adjust volume automation using Utility.

Nylvi is a new site about to launch from a group of Norwegian’s who recently moved to Berlin. They have been getting to know the city and its scene visiting labels and other music tech companies. I would say Nylvi has some similarity to the Discogs Marketplace but with much added style and extended functionality. From talking with Nylvi I see they understand social media and data portability which appeals to me as an online music seller. I think they are one to watch.

They visited my studio last month and today I recorded a short interview with Thomas who you can see in the photo above (left):

Visit them at Nylvi.com

Ableton just posted this interview with Paul Kalkbrenner the DJ and main actor in the soon to be released movie Berlin Calling.

“How many music software products can claim to be filmstars? As far as we know, only one: Ableton Live. A new film, “Berlin Calling”, not only features some outrageously prominent onscreen footage but also stars renowned DJ and long-time Live user Paul Kalkbrenner in the leading role. A big thank you to Paul and the film’s director, Hannes Stöhr, for giving us such wonderful publicity.

The plot goes something like this: Berlin electronic music composer Martin (Paul Kalkbrenner), known as DJ Ickarus, is touring with his manager and girlfriend Mathilde (Rita Lengyel) from club to club around the globe and is about to release his biggest album to date. All of his plans are thrown out of kilter, however, after Ickarus is submitted to a psychiatric clinic high on drugs after a gig.

Go and see the film to discover what happens next (hint: witness the therapeutic powers of Ableton Live!) “Berlin Calling” opens in Germany on October 2 and is expected to be released internationally soon afterwards.”

This is pretty stange and makes me a nervous for some reason. Maybe it just hits too close to home! I am happy to see Ableton get as much press as possible because every musician should be using their software. Let’s hope this movie doesn’t get the same reviews as every other electronic music film has.

For more info: www.berlin-calling.de

We all know that having a few music videos per album is great promotion. With inexpensive tools like iMovie and a Flip video camera there is no excuse for not producing them. Once your video is all finished you uploaded it to YouTube and MySpace and your done. But wait what about that gorgeous video site Vimeo? Or that site let lets viewers comment along the playback timeline… Viddler? You know having your video in Blip.tv is also cool because they offer an embeddable show player. Hmm it’s going to be a long day uploading the same video to all these sites. But alas there is a better way: Tubemogul.

Tubemogul is an incredible free service to which you upload your video to one time and they distribute it to over 20 sites. That distribution service alone is truly a gift from the time saving gods however they give you more goodies. Once your video or videos are uploaded and delivered around the web universe and a few days go by log back into your Tubemogul account and viola you can see Analytics. Analytics is the fancy word for “Who is watching, how many are watching and where are they watching.”. The data is presented to you with nice interactive charts and graphs.

You may end up surprised that YouTube is not getting you the most views. Remember your video on YouTube is lost in a huge ocean of content. Earlier this year I discovered videos from a music blogger named Vergel Evans in his studio via Viddler. I got to his video because I searched “drum machine” and because Viddler is low on content like music tech his LX7.ca videos show popped up.

Don’t worry if you already have your videos on a few sites already because you can still upload them to Tubemogul and deselect “distribute” to those you already have covered.

Be sure to check out Tubemogul’s video channel on YouTube which is full of usefull tutorial videos: click here

One year ago today I installed Wordpress and starting typing this blog. My main motivation was to give my friends a break from the relentless emails and instant messages I was invading them with. I couldn’t stop showing them new audio gear and software I thought was cool. I figured if I started my own blog they could come and visit if they so cared and I would also find new people to have conversations with. I am happy to report I have gained quite a lot of new friends and my old buds are reading the blog too.

Another motivation was to have a place for common questions I was being asked repeatedly. Today if someone asks me a question I have a post I can point them to. Getting an unwanted distored sound from your DAW? Go here: keep-your-channel-faders-low… You don’t know how to bring in external hardware into Ableton Live? Go here: use-the-ableton-live-external… By the way if you have a question you want me to try an answer send me an email: oliverchesler@wiretotheear.com

Of course as a professional musician having a blog is a must. I’ve been using Wire to the Ear to share my remixes and new releases. Getting unbiased feedback from strangers should be a priority for any artist. Your friends and family are always going to tell you your music is good.

My goal is to continue to post a balance of original content mixed with the best stuff I find along my online travels. I’ve had a blast visiting Jomox and doing interviews with people like Dan McPharlin so expect more material like that. I really want to give my fingers a break and get in front of the video camera and do some video posts or even a fancy show. So far the test video posts I did were too geeky to show the world. Eventually I will figure out a way to produce something that I am happy with.

If you want to help support Wire to the Ear all you have to do is go tell your friends to read it! Remember you can also subscribe to the RSS feed by: clicking here

Thanks for reading!

photo credit: jpc101

Here’s a great video visit to Daptone Records studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Co-founders Neal Sugarman and Gabriel Roth show you around their music making fun house. If you ever wished you could find new soul records produced the way they used to be this is the place to check.

Everything at Daptone is analog except their one single digital piece: a CD player! Incredibly they even edit without computers using good old fashion razor blades and tape. I really like how they floated a floor for a sound proof room using tires and used clothes.

Visit Daptone Records: click here