audiot

sheesh! I wonder if i can ever get back to a regular blogging routine. but right now there’s at least a bit of good news…..or actually, that depends, i guess. anyway, here’s the new album called “studded for pleasure”. once again it was part of the rpm-challenge and once again, time ran out on me so i had to whip it together really fast in the end. it’s probably not as weird as the last one but still raw, edgy and dirty. enjoy

studded for pleasure by audiot.eu

well, actually i wanted to name this “never underestimate the importance of the workflow” because it’s more like a tip and not a complete guide of how to organize a complete music production from a to z. maybe this would be a great idea as well, but i’d definitely be the wrong guy to write that one, for i have not the slightest idea about it. my approach to recording is more of an Eastwood-nature: i’m riding into a town and the rest just happens.

but that doesn’t mean i don’t follow a few basic principles. and one of them is to be aware of the workflow. i started to think about this a little when i watched a few tutorials on Propellerheads new software Record which will be released in september i believe. anyway, they have a bunch of short tutorials about it on their site and it looks ridiculously simple. so my first thought was “hey, that’s exactly what i need!” – but then again, i do not really need it, because i’m already able to do what it does best. and that’s recording on the spot without having to set up or do anything except hitting the red button. i might buy it anyway because i’m doing almost everything with Reason anyway and Record will be the perfect mate for it with seamless integration of everything – which would mean to get rid of the middleman. so it might still be a good idea to get it but it’s not absolutely necessary.

now, my recommendation to you – and i’m sure you already are aware of it, but maybe forget about this on a regular basis, as i do as well – make recording as simply as possible. have an empty an ready-to-go project set up at all times, so all you need to do once inspiration strikes is turn on the computer, open the project and hit red. as for me there’s one more step in between, depending on what instrument i want to track. i have a guitar-modeling-device wired into both an audio and a midi interface with the guitar cable already plugged in. i have one bank of the modeler filled with the different sounds i use in most cases. and for all other instruments, i have a midi-controller keyboard standing by. so the extra step mentioned above is simply plugging the audio interface and/or the midi-controller into the laptop. if i would use a desktop computer, this would already be wired up at all times. now, if i want to record guitar, i simply plug in the audio interface, turn on the modeling-device and the laptop, open the empty cubase-project, plug in the guitar and hit record. ok, that’s six steps, but except for the first one, all of them have to be made in any situation. if it’s not guitar i want to track, then it’s plugging in the controller, switching on the laptop open an empty Reason-rack, selecting an instrument and hit record. it doesn’t get any more streamlined than this. the midi-interface is simply there to program/change sounds on the computer screen instead of going through endless menus on the modelers two-digit-display. but since i have my five favourite guitar sounds already at my fingertips, i just need to tweak them a little bit by assigning another cabinet or changing the gain slightly. oh, and when i talk about ‘empty’ projects, i do mean my default starting point. so it’s not really empty, it’s what i defined would be the most efficient and comfortable place to start. and you should do this as well. take those few minutes once to set up what you would like to see as soon as you click on “new” and never again bother with making those same changes over and over and over again as i did for years because i was to lazy to define my preferences (…).

the important thing is to always be ready. if you need to go through a 2-hour-setup-session to catch even the tiniest idea, you won’t get very far. that’s exactly what happened when i first started recording my own stuff. i had every piece of gear i needed, the software etc. but everytime i wanted to record something it took hours to get ready for it. and as a result, i didn’t record very much at all. so once inspiration struck i thought, “cool, let’s track this down”, then i started setting up and halfway through thought “hmm, it’s not that great after all – not worth the effort…” and the idea got thrown into the bin.

today, for me everything is worth the effort, simply because there’s no more effort involved. and with the ability to change sound, tempo etc. after the actual recording process, i can just let inspiration get the better of me and work on it later.

by the way, i found it very important to pick one piece of software and learn to really use it, including keyboard shortcuts and different advanced techniques. i used lots of different programs before and knew all of them just a little, but this winds you up in endless im- and export-battles and so forth. so now i only use two, and one of them only for the raw tracking process. anything else is done inside of just one program which i know pretty well by now – makes things very easy, especially for someone as lazy as me…