Recording

Whether you’re a seasoned gearhead or a singer-songwriter trying to figure out GarageBand, there’s a lot to learn and master when it comes to recording. Frustration can set in, blocking your creative flow as you futz with a shitload of buttons, dials and restarts. The posts below offer help and insight from the studio front lines.

Modernize Your Sound & Mindset with Music Producer Nick Phelps

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“A lot of people don’t understand that you can’t just pull out an old Casio keyboard and start making a beat and think that’s gonna compete,” says sync music producer Nick Phelps. “I wanna give people a fighting chance in the sync world. I wanna give people permission to stand out in their own way.”

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A Body of Many Bodies Flowing with sonic collaboration along the Rio Grande

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In There Must Be Other Names For The River, we ask ourselves about our personal and structural relationships with the drying river that today we call the Rio Grande. In this sound performance, listeners hear the voices of six singers channeling the river. Each singer represents a point where streamflow data have been collected from the 1970s to now and into possible futures.

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Dear Rich: Using MIDI Music from a Video Game Cartridge

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Dear Rich: I want to know if it is considered sampling when you record sound coming from a synthesizer that is playing electronic note data stored on a memory chip. Technically when you play an NES game (’80s video game system), the music that is playing is not pre-recorded. It is actually played “live” from musical note data on the game cartridge (gameplay triggers a MIDI pattern) in the console into the internal synthesizer.

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What’s Your Deal, Prism Bitch?

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Our advice for aspiring musicians and artists: 1) Trust your instincts and find a project where you can put some of that trust in the people you play with. It’s like magic. 2) Hold yourself and your collaborators to the “Don’t be a Dick” Golden Rule. 3) Surround yourself with kind people who inspire you.

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The Career of Being Myself

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Guest Blogger Meredith Graves shares: “I swim, because I would rather persist than drown, and because I know that since I am my own life raft, once in awhile, when the rapids abate, I can kick up my heels and float.”

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Dear Rich: Can I Stream My Cover Song?

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We’re not sure imitation is always flattery, but we are pretty sure it’s not infringement. Copyright doesn’t recognize style, vibe, feel, or genre, only original content (though that rule has been tested recently).

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