Album Sessions

Heya

In NY this week working on producing Jim Caputo's vocals for his new release due sometime the end of next year.

Yesterday was a lot of editing and clean up, and today will be as well. We'll do some vocals later today, and sending a lot of stems over to Scottie Kohlmorgen for drums. If he can turn them around fast enough, all the basic tracks should be done, with the exception of the odd instrument that Jim wants and I just can't play.

Here's to a long productive day in the studio :)

j

Spirit of South Africa

John Edward Spirit of South Africa

Been doing some research and writing for a new show broadcast on SABC in South Africa called John Edward Spirit of South Africa.

The majority of music is still drawn from seasons two and three of Cross Country which premiered here in the states in 2006. I did a new theme based loosely on the first one, with some various hits at new places with the main titles.

Scott Blass, one of the editors at the production company I work for did the editing, and it really is a nice show. It has a particular gold tone, opposed to the the more muted blues and purples of Cross Country.

Sooo, if you’re in Johannesburg at 10:30 at night, most nights, tune in :)

j

Bob Moog

I can remember being in Mrs. Voscanion's music class in 5th or 6th grade..can't remember which. She was way ahead of me in terms of coolness. Well, I was a kid and she was an adult. But she introduced me to Styx, and to the Moog synthesizer. I can remember a desk full of black boxes and patch cables and a speaker system and was like "WTH is this supposed to be?" . When she started to play, well, that's the first exposure to synths I ever had. I'm glad it was that. I mean, Moog synths are where it all began.

I received an email from Spectrasonics a while back, touting a new tribute library to one of the great electronic music pioneers, Bob Moog:

http://www.spectrasonics.net/products/tribute/

After reading the list of contributors to the 700 program library, and learning more about a contest Eric Persing's company started (he's a crazy synth programmer among other things) I decided to give it a whirl.

There are a lot of libraries out there that try to come close to this library, but you just can't beat sampled Moogs which are then further processed by Omnisphere's Steam engine. There is a lot.. I mean A LOT of inspiring patches in the library. I've been at a standstill with finishing TM2, but with some adaptations, Bob's tribute library may have saved my collective ass.

So they are going to open a museum in Asheville, NC and no doubt stock it with examples, vintage gear, and exhibits related to the instrument that all of us keyboard players, whether we know it or not, owe our careers to.

My submission is in. Now lets see if I did any credit to the Moog legacy.

Best,

j

Sade

After 10 years, Sade returned to touring. Apparently she’s just been in the studio recording in between her two tours. I hadn’t seen her before she took a break, but last night’s concert was from a first time attendee, something else.

It was about the music. Well, I know it’s always about the music. The band however pulled off all their parts with really minimal instrumentation. The rhythm section had the usual suspects; acoustic drums, misc. percussion, bass, guitar. The interesting addition was a keyboard player that played pretty much only Rhodes piano.

Thus my one… Lets call it complaint. It is really hard to mix Rhodes piano into studio recordings. Live its even worse. In an arena concert it’s a certifiable nightmare.

It was her second show of a thousand-date comeback tour. I’m sure in a few dates the FOH engineer will get it together. All I know is I’m glad I’m not him.

Oh, and the other standout were the two backup singers. They were really nice when they took the spotlight and got the crowd going.

Till next time,

j

Bad Cat Music Collective – All Pumped Up

Finding Seoul is finished. Definitely feeling the sad its done, but can’t wait to see the final cut – thing. Ya know?

Next up is to get the musical geniuses I work with approved to be pumpaudio.com artists. We’re going to go under our current moniker, Bad Cat Music Collective. It started out as a drop-box working music collaboration between some pretty scary individuals. It became clear after the fifth genre of music we tackled that this group needed to be official, at least in music placement people’s eyes.

So wish me luck while I try to get the Bad Cats pump audio green lit.

Twilight Meditations 2 is back in the news as well. One more track and it’s done. Mix should go pretty quickly (I usually mix on the fly anyway). I’ll let you know as soon as I get a release date. Until then, I will start posting snippets on the Facebook page. Comments, good and bad are always appreciated.

j

Drawing Close to the End

8 More cues and 2 possible songs for the film Finding Seoul, and then alas this project will be over.

I get a bit sad when things get to this point, because I know a lot of the hard work is soon going to go into rewrites and ultimately, come to an end. When you work on a TV series, its different because the end is some thing in the far future that may or may not happen every season. I guess because as the episodes come in you realize that those milestones are just as important as the type I am closing in on..

I've almost found my Seoul.

My best,

j

Seoul Continues to Shine

I’m into day three of production. Well I should say night three.

I tried. I really did. I tried to compose during the day and failed miserably :)

Well, that’s not true. I did finish a number of cues for Finding Seoul on friday afternoon. The main theme though has been rocking in my head pretty much the whole week I’ve been working on this, and its hard to get it out. I’m working a lot on the beginning of the film since the music is pretty close. The historical footage is my favorite. I chose alto flute for the main character for when he was a boy, since it really hit the child-essence thing to a T.

As far as later on in the film, there is going to be a lot more of the recapitulation of the the main title theme, which is a song. Vocals and everything.

So here’s to another overnight of composing!

j