[This just in from Steve Cook, A bass player’s bass player, and co-founder of Player’s Din, a cool collaboration project that’s tracked in Studio One!]
A few months ago a dear friend of mine sent me a text that read ‘I have a crazy idea I want to discuss with you’. I’ve known Jeff Brown for over 15 years, and we’ve shared many stages together, traveled halfway around the world to play music, and he was the best man at my wedding. So when a text like that comes in from Jeff, I’m anxious to hear what he has to say. With me, the crazier the better.
Jeff explained his idea to me. He wanted to have musicians come over and jam. Just jam, with no prewritten tunes, no egos, and no boundaries. He wanted the players to inspire each other and stretch out past their usual gigs and comfort zones. Nashville is a hotbed of activity right now with musicians migrating to town from LA and New York, and from all genres of music. Jeff thought it would be cool to have all these different cats come in and play, record the whole thing, and edit the video into webisodes.
The logistics of everything together was a slight challenge. The biggest obstacle was scheduling of the players, since all have busy touring and recording schedules. The easy part was the selection of the recording platform: Studio One Professional. I use Studio One in my setup exclusively, as does Jeff. For Players Din, we connected using two FireStudio Project units. The pres sound fantastic, and Studio One makes life simple with easy setup and editing. And for those wondering, no, there is no musical editing. When you watch and listen to the show, you get wrong notes and all. In the future there may be discussions of getting jams on Nimbit that didn’t make the web shows, to give you more material from some eclectic players.
In the pilot episode, there is some huge talent joining Jeff. Tyson Rogers, Travis Vance (Thomas Rhett), and Reeves Gabrels (David Bowie, The Cure) jump in for some pretty interesting stuff. Future episodes are already being conceived, and if you want to learn more, have suggestions of musicians you’d like to see, or even jump in the mix, reach out to Jeff via his website.
We’re pretty excited about this new project, and happy that the PreSonus team is with us from the beginning. Thanks to all of you for checking out Players Din, and we hope that it not only inspires you to jam and record with friends, but to remember that crazy ideas can become reality.
Musically,
Steve Cook
Nashville, TN