9/11

Gone (9/11/01) by Andy Timmons



Lost Without You by John Petrucci

Real Life Sux?

There are juz so many things goin on IRL...things I juz can't do...things dat I can't make them right...Sometimes I wish I'm still juz a kid, all innocent and shit, dat way I dun have to deal with reality and it is always time like this I would read up on a couple of people, Jason Becker Tori Amos People who have went against all odds

What is it that I do exactly?

I met up with some old friends and new ones too recently and usually the first question we ask is so what are you doing currently. Usually I would tell my friends I'm a sound/audio engineer.

Usually the reply I get would be along the line of, "Oh so ya like a DJ at a club?" or "Oh you specialize in DSP(Digital Signal Processor)?"

Well nope, I'm none of the above. So today I'll show you what I do exactly. A picture (or sound rather) is worth a thousand words rite?

Original and Unedited portion of a band I recorded

Mp3 of the original file

Same part edited

Mp3 of the edited file

I basically did a couple of things. First there are 2 vocal parts and they are not in sync nor are they in pitch. So I edited it until they are pretty much in time although I did not sync them perfectly cuz in real life it would be almost impossible to do it, gotta have some realism too :p

Next up I used a great software call Melodyne to tune the pitch. Notice how I used Melodyne to elongate the vocal at the very end of the clip!

Every time I do something like this, I will end up talking to some of my friends. I've a number of friends who are professional sessionist or gigging around the world, and a lot of them put in countless of hours and years of hard work to perfect their craft.

I'm a musician myself and I've never believed in using a software to make up for something you can't do, like in the above example, I feel that musicians now a days are not spending enough time to perfect their trade. I get people who would ask me questions like, "but you can fix it during mixdown stage rite? Lets move on to the next part..."

If you are a professional, shouldn't you be spending time perfecting your skillz and not relying on the engineer to perfect it for you?

Rick Rubin

"That's the magic of the business. It's all doom and gloom, but then you go to a Gossip show or hear Neil in the studio and you remember that too many people make and love music for it to ever die. It will never be over. The music will outlast us all."

-Rick Rubin

I've always been a big fan of Rick Rubin and the artist he has worked with. A real music Guru.

Do check out this article on him.