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Tag Archives: Studio One


Ricki and the Flash Rocks with PreSonus, Part 5

 

Ricki and the Flash poster (1)Rehearsals started on Monday, September 15. Everyone came in with instruments: Joe had already set up his drums, and the film had rented a B3 and Leslie for Bernie. Rick the Bass Player had one of his Laklands, Rick Springfield had his Gibson SG, and Meryl had a Fender Telecaster. We had backup instruments, as well, and Danelectro sent us a couple of guitars (more on those later).

Neil, Mark, and I made several trips to the 14th St. Guitar Center to get pedals for Rick Springfield’s setup, and Line 6 sent us a guitar wireless system for Meryl. The premise is that Ricki (Meryl) is trying for stardom and is currently slugging it out in clubs in the San Fernando Valley, playing every Tuesday night at the Salt Well.

Gary Goetzman is the producer of the film, and he led the rehearsals, with assistance from Neil and Mark.

We started with a basic line check; the kick drum was miked with an ATM 250. All the other drums were triggered. Joe has triggers built into his custom Drum Workshop kit, and we just plugged out of the trigger module into my Radial DI boxes. We needed to make sure we had signal; one great thing about recording with PreSonus® Capture™ is that the send is pre-fader, so the fader position on the StudioLive AI console is irrelevant; the recording software uses the input gain level you set on the head amp actuators (trim knobs). It’s a really nifty design because it allows the house mixer to change the fader levels for the live house mix without affecting the recording.

Along the same lines, once we had the guitar amp levels where we wanted them with the Radial JDX boxes, we also took a “clean” feed, plugging the guitars directly into my Radial ProDI boxes before the amplifier, in case Neil and Mark wanted to “re-amp” the guitars during mixdown.

A quick aside: I’ll bring it up again later but I want to stress that Gary and director Jonathan Demme wanted authenticity, and they got it. Every note you hear is what was played by the musicians; there are no overdubs of instruments in this movie. There were a few extra band takes for vocals because of bleed but all of what you experience in the movie is Ricki and the Flash performing as you watch.

It was a treat to watch these professionals at work. Gary took five people who had never played together in this configuration and turned them into a band. Each song got a workout. Gary kept the band focused; they worked on one song at a time until they felt they had it down. From where I sat, it really paid off; by the end of rehearsals, I felt like I was mixing a band, not a loose knit group of musicians jamming, but a real, tight band.

Steve Cook Chooses PreSonus for Seymour Duncan Project

[This just in from Steve Cook, session bassist extraordinaire!]

This music business is a funny one. We have our steady gigs, we have producers that like to call on us for different sessions, then there’s the ‘X’ factor: the random gig calls. Sometimes they are for a used car lot sale or a hot dog stand dedication, however sometimes they are from the largest pickup manufacturer in the world. I like hot dogs, and I like Seymour Duncan pickups a whole lot as well.

The voice on the other end of the phone was Kathy Duncan, the head of Seymour Duncan, and her request was a simple one: “Can you record samples of every one of our bass pickups? You have creative liberty to do whatever you like, we just need the samples to be consistent, and representative of the pickups their truest form.”

Well, that narrows it down a bit, doesn’t it?

There were a couple of hurdles to leap in order to make this happen. First, we needed to find all the instruments required in which to install the pickups. Second, I found a tech that would come to the recording sessions and basically work on an assembly line of removing and installing pickups. For example, as I tracked the first P-bass pickup, he would be installing the first Jazz bass pickups, then we’d swap instruments, and move on to the second in each type, and so on.

Where the logistics were a bit daunting, the one constant on which I could rely was my recording set up. For this project (and all my home recording projects), I run PreSonus Studio One through a couple of FireStudio Projects, controlled with a FaderPort. The Class-A preamps in the FireStudios sound amazing, and Studio One is an incredibly fluid and easy platform in which to work. The FaderPort made the whole process easy. I had controls under my left hand with a bass in my right. The finished files sound great, and I (and thankfully Seymour Duncan) were happy with the results.

The project was really a lot of fun for me for several reasons. Rarely do we get to sample dozens of pickups at the same time. As I go back and listen to the individual tracks, I have been able to pinpoint exact tones I like paired with certain instruments, and I know exactly which pickups to install in my personal basses—mission accomplished! I also liked getting to know my Studio One software and other PreSonus products more in-depth, and that I have great sounding tools at my fingertips.

Thanks PreSonus, for continuing to impress, and for keeping us Nashville musicians rockin’! You can hear the demos over at the new Seymour Duncan site.

Musically,
Steve Cook

 

Latest @BrianBotkiller Album, “In Case of Revolution,” Produced in Studio One and Available Now!

In Case of Revolution[This just in from PreSonus artist and good friend Brian Botkiller. His latest record was produced on a StudioLive and in Studio One!]

For my new record, In Case of Revolution, I tracked all my vocals and did all of my mixing in Studio One, as well as instrumental tracking.  I began the record in the Studio One 2 era, but I finished the record in Studio One 3.  I also mastered 52 songs in Studio One last year bfor a project I was part of called “Weekly Beats,” which challenged participants to write and release one song per week in 2014. I managed to finish the project, and Studio One was integral to that. It was so easy to take stems into Studio One, mix them, then go into the Project section to begin the mastering process. I built a template which I was able to start from, which made the whole process much easier.

I also used my PreSonus hardware in these projects, namely my StudioLive 24.4.2 for an audio interface during tracking, and my Faderport for fader control while mixing. Both are very important in my Studio, which is based around a PCAudioLabs pro audio computer running Windows 8. I composed many of the songs in Ableton Live using Ableton Push. Using Ableton in conjunction with Push hardware and Studio One really made making this record much, much easier.
In Case of Revolution is a protest and battle record.  It is a mix of Electro, Progressive, and Techno. The title track features Jon Fugler of the awesome progressive techno group Fluke, as well as Corrupt Frame and LithoChasm. “Battle Cry,” another of my favorite songs on the album, features vocals by my wife, Joy Coy. I also play the drums on the record on some songs, namely my Ddrum Dominion kit on “Warpath,” which I recorded in Studio One using my StudioLive 24.4.2 and Blue and Samson mics. There’s also a great mashup/remix of my song “Welcome to Postwar USA” by my friends at Rubion 7. Everything was tracked and mixed in Studio One.
The record is self-released (for now) on a USB stick attached to a hand-painted brick, limited to 100 copies. It’s a piece of art, as I believe that music is indeed very much art. I also love tangible representations of music, but I do not plan to make CDs for this release, the record is not being sold via iTunes, Amazon, or the like, and it is not on Spotify at this time. It is only for sale via BandCamp and when fans get directly in touch with me at http://www.brianbotkiller.com
I believe that we, as artists and musicians, need to insist on some value of our art.  t doesn’t make us sell-outs; it simply means that we do want to be able to keep making our work.
PreSonus is very important to my workflow; I work very fast using PreSonus gear, and that’s what I love about it—getting the job done!
The new record can be purchased at http://brianbotkiller.bandcamp.com

In Case of Revolution

Free Studio One 3 Demo Song Featuring Matt Chamberlain Drums Now Available from @TheLoopLoft

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[This just in from Ryan Gruss over at The LoopLoft. He’s put together a demo song for Studio One 3 featuring loops from Matt Chamberlain Drums Vol. 1 and is making it available to anyone who is interested for free!]

To take Studio One 3 for my first test drive, I wanted to see how quickly and easily I could create a drum mix and song arrangement with the multitrack loops from The Loop Loft’s Matt Chamberlain Drums Vol 1 collection. These drums were recorded at Matt’s personal studio located inside of the famed Sound City complex in Los Angeles and feature 15 channels of 96 kHz / 24 bit audio, so they were the perfect specimen for putting this new DAW through its paces.

Within ten minutes, I had a full “pop/rock” arrangement (intro, verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus/outro) inside of Studio One. I was able to quickly drag and drop the multitrack loops directly into the session, label the song sections with markers, bus the drum tracks (and create their own folder) and most importantly: create a great sounding drum mix.

My favorite new feature in Studio One 3 are the FX Chain presets for drums, which are great for speeding up my mixing workflow. Just by dragging and dropping them into a drum track, I instantly had a great starting point, complete with gating, EQ, and compression. I utilized all these drum presets across all of the close miked drums; kick, snare, toms etc., and tweaked as necessary.

So, now that I’ve created a quick drum mix and arrangement. I wanted to share it with all of the Studio One users out there to let them experiment with mixing and arranging tracks from one of the world’s best session drummers. Try rearranging the session. Dial in your own mixes, speed things up or slow them down—the loops will stay locked to the session tempo! Experience Matt Chamberlain’s power, feel and musicality for yourself!

Click here to download the Studio One 3 demo Song file described above. Submitting your e-mail gets you download access, as well as 40% off the Matt Chamberlain library!

 

Matt Chamberlain Studio One Drum Session

Ricki and the Flash Rocks with PreSonus, Part 4

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[Continued from part 3…]

When we started rehearsals for Ricki and the Flash, we discovered that some things had to be changed. Part of what we faced was the reality of working with musicians who were used to the big stage in a club environment.

A brief review of our cast:

Drums and backing vocals: Joe Vitale. Joe has drummed for, among others, Joe Walsh (he co-wrote “Rocky Mountain Way” with Joe); Stills-Young Band; The Eagles; Crosby, Stills and Nash; and the re-formed Buffalo Springfield. Joe has written a book about his life as a musician called Backstage Pass.

Bass: Rick Rosas, aka Rick The Bass Player. Rick played most recently with Neil Young in Crazy Horse. He was also part of the Buffalo Springfield reunion. Rick passed away a few weeks after finishing the band scenes, and we miss him very much.

Keys: Bernie Worrell. Bernie was a member of Parliament/Funkadelic and joined Talking Heads for a number of albums. He’s in Jonathan Demme’s concert classic film Stop Making Sense and has played on countless sessions with artists as diverse as Keith Richards, Jack Bruce, Dee Lite, and Bootsy’s Rubber Band.

Lead guitar and backing vocals: Rick Springfield. Rick has been on the big stage since the late 1960s, first with Zoot, and then as a solo artist. For a time, Rick starred in the soap opera General Hospital, and he has many hit records, including “Speak to the Sky,” “Jessie’s Girl,” and “I’ve Done Everything for You.”

Rhythm guitar and lead vocals: Meryl Streep. One of the most well regarded actresses in the world, Meryl learned to play guitar for this movie. Meryl had never played in a band before but she has sung in many films, including Mama Mia and the recent Into the Woods, so she adapted quickly to the role of Ricki.

I have been “pushing faders” as a front-of-house (and sometimes monitor) engineer since 1979. I’ve mixed in wretched bars with “thrift-store” PA systems, and I’ve mixed bands at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. My background is live sound; working on a movie required some adjustment in my approach to mixing.

Music coordinator Mark Wolfson and Neil Citron, the music wrangler, have worked together for many years. Among other projects, they worked on the film That Thing You Do (also with Ricki director Jonathan Demme and producer Gary Goetzman). On this film, I worked with Mark and Neil to create an authentic club band feel.

One thing that we encountered from the get-go was a reluctance to show microphones on camera. This created some interesting challenges, as we had to find a way to capture the sound without showing any microphones beyond the vocal mics. Some solutions were simple: We could take a DI off of the bass, and we used triggers on the drums and then used drum samples that we sampled from Joe’s Drum Workshop kit. We hid the hi-hat and overhead mics as best we could.

Thanks to Audio-Technica, we had excellent condensers: an ATM 450 on the hi-hat and an ATM 4050 on the overheads. We were able to hide the ATM 650 dynamic on the Leslie high side and the ATM 250 dynamic on the Leslie low side.

The guitar amps presented a problem, though. We needed to capture an authentic sound without showing mics. Trying to mic the back of the amps proved unwieldy at best. It also didn’t sound so great.

Neil and I put our heads together and decided to call our friend Peter Janis at Radial Engineering. Peter sent us two JDX active speaker-simulator direct boxes. We were able to plug out of Meryl’s Fender 65 Deluxe reissue and Rick’s Fender Bassman 410. The Bassman reissue proved tricky because the speaker output has an RCA connector; we had to make two ¼”-to-RCA custom connectors. At the time, the JDX required an external supply, as well; now it’s available with the option to run on 48V phantom power.

We also used two of the new Audio-Technica AT 4080 active ribbon mics for room/ambience miking. These mics sound glorious, and they really helped Neil and Mark re-create the room sound when they did the mixing later.

With the system tuned, we were ready to watch five musician/actors become a band.

 

Ricki and the Flash Rocks with PreSonus, Part 3

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Photo Credit: Mark Wolfson

Continued from Part 2…

All of the inputs were routed into a StudioLive™ 32.4.2AI console. Besides doing the live mix, the other half of my job was to ensure that every note was “Captured” during both rehearsals and filming.

Here’s how we did it:

Neil Citron, Mark Wolfson, and I wired the stage and then set up two recording systems. The first was set up on my MacBook Pro, running Mac OS X 10.8.5 and connected to the console using FireWire. I was running Universal Control-AI (with Virtual StudioLive-AI control software) and recording with Capture 2.0.

We connected the DB25 outputs of the 32.4.2AI to a Tascam X48 recorder because we needed to track SMPTE time code. This way, we also had two copies of each recording; as anyone who has ever lost a file knows, you need to back up, back up, back up.

The great thing about recording with Capture™ is it is literally effortless. Once my FireWire connection was secure and I knew the computer and console were talking to each other, all I had to do was open Capture and make one mouse click, and we were rolling! Of course, it helps to have the drive path set and the files named. I find that, given the option, it helps to set this up in advance, although the only really crucial setting is the file path.

We noticed that, according to the X48’s meters, the DB25 analog output was 6 dB lower than the digital signal coming into Capture. I’m not sure why the levels were different but comparing the WAV files in Studio One confirmed the difference.

Jeff Pullman, C.A.S, was the Production Sound mixer for the film and was a pleasure to work with. He also was very helpful in getting some sound isolation products so we could have a cleaner recording.

We did some test tracks with Neil playing so we could make sure the rig was running; then we started rehearsals.

Ricki and the Flash Rocks with PreSonus, Part 2

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The five musicians that make up the band Ricki and the Flash are all top shelf players. Their credits are the stuff of legends; you hear them on the radio every day. Of the five, only bass player Rick Rosas and drummer Joe Vitale had played together before, as the rhythm section of the reunion tour for the legendary Buffalo Springfield (no relation to Rick Springfield).

Bernie Worrell is a visionary funk keyboardist and a member of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. His credits include Parliament/Funkadelic and Talking Heads. Rick Springfield is a fantastic guitarist who also played Dr. Noah Drake on General Hospital.

Meryl Streep, of course, is one of the most renowned actresses in the world.

To get them to be Ricki and the Flash, we set up in the World Famous Rodeo Bar in the Murray Hill district of Manhattan. The Rodeo Bar is a long, narrow room with a brick wall behind the band. We were in a small space, and they were very LOUD.

We set up the band in an authentic club configuration and laid out the monitors for them. We used three StudioLive™ 312AI cabinets for the vocalists and keyboard position and a StudioLive 315AI for the drum wedge.

When we first set up the wedges, we decided to just use them in the standard DSP configuration. The speakers use Dave Gunness’ TQ™ (Temporal Equalization) settings to correct for the acoustical issues that arise in a coaxial design. In addition, each box has DSP settings designed to assist the user in different acoustic situations. There are four settings on the back of the speaker, accessed by a small button. The settings are: Normal (full range for front-of-house), LBR Source (for low-bit-rate digital audio, such as MP3 playback), Floor Monitor (for stage wedge), and a custom User preset.

Neil Citron is a long-time studio engineer, guitarist, and all around great guy. He ran the Mothership for Steve Vai for 15 years and is a member of the Sapphire Group, a bunch of audiophiles in Los Angeles. Neil has incredible ears and was brought in to teach Meryl guitar, be the music director, and record the performances.

Neil and I set up the wedges, supervised by Mark Wolfson, and we ran some program material through them. We really liked the sound of the default Normal setting, so we left it. As soon as the band showed up, we quickly realized that the stage mix just wasn’t “there.” A quick button-push, and the boxes were in Stage Monitor mode; they sat perfectly in the mix, with no additional EQ required.

We used one StudioLive 312AI plus one StudioLive 18sAI subwoofer per side of the “house” PA. We put the top boxes on using the SP1BK subwoofer pole; this also allowed us to steer the top box to reduce reflections off of the brick walls.

Thanks to Brad Graham, Rapco generously provided us with microphone cable and snakes to wire the stage. We wired the guitars using Radial JDX DIs to get the sound of the amplifier, not the guitar. We used Radial JDIs on the bass and keys. Thanks to Roxanne Ricks of Audio-Technica, we had A-T mics on the Leslie and hi-hat. We also used the fantastic A-T ribbons for ambient room miking. We had triggers on the drum kit; more about that later.

Here were the basic challenges:

  • Make sure the musicians can hear each other and the singers can hear their voices.
  • Make sure the levels into the recordings were right.
  • Get a good balanced mix for the audience.
  • Make it feel like a real show, which it was.

I’ll get into the recording aspect in the next part.

I need to give major props to Gary Goetzman, the producer, who took five musicians who had not played together before (with the exception of the rhythm section) and turned them into a real band in two weeks. Everyone was at the top of their game, and the professionalism of the band and producer really shone through.

Ricki and the Flash Rocks with PreSonus, Part 1

 

Ricki and the Flash poster (1)Hello everyone, I’m Phil Garfinkel, the Special Projects Liaison for PreSonus® Audio Electronics. I’m writing about the shooting of a new movie, Ricki and the Flash, discussing the PreSonus products that we used and how we used them.

First, a little about the film: Ricki and the Flash stars Meryl Streep as Ricki, an aspiring rock star who leaves the Midwest to “make it” in California. Her band, The Flash, features the talents of Rick Springfield on guitar, Bernie Worrell on keyboards, Joe Vitale on drums, and Rick Rosas on bass.

We set up the band in an authentic club configuration, with plenty of PreSonus equipment to reinforce their sound. We recorded with Capture™ and used Studio One® to create reference recordings. I was on site as the PreSonus tech, mixing the live show.

Here is a quick overview of what we used from PreSonus:

 

The movie is directed by Jonathan Demme and produced by Gary Goetzman and Marc Platt, all Oscar winning veterans. Jonathan and Gary wanted the band to play, not just pretend to play along to tracks; I was brought in to mix front-of-house and monitors and to take a 32-track feed to capture the music as it happened.

We faced some unusual challenges. Thanks to teamwork and a mutual obsession for excellence (and some pretty great gear), Mark, Neil, and I worked through it to help Jonathan and Gary make an excellent soundtrack for the film.

Special thanks to Roxanne Ricks at Audio-Technica for helping us get high quality microphones and wireless systems, Peter Janis at Radial Engineering for getting us some fantastic Direct Boxes, and Brad Graham at Rapco-Horizon for helping with cable needs.

Thanks also to my cohorts in audio-land, Mark Wolfson and Neil Citron, who led the charge for this journey. Also Jeff Pullman, C.A.S, the film’s Production Sound Mixer, who worked with us.

Ricky and the Flash opens in theaters everywhere on August 7.

 

Click here for part 2!

PreSonus Studio Grand Add-on Now Available

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We just released the PreSonus Studio Grand, which you can get from shop.presonus.com by clicking here. This aggressively over-sampled piano features ten distinct velocity layers and eight round-robin samples for each of the piano’s 88 keys. The result is one of the most natural and human-sounding virtual pianos available to date, containing well over 7,000 samples. We’ve also included samples of the little details that make a true piano sound different than the “piano” setting on a store-bought consumer keyboard, including note-off key release samples, pedal action, and sustain pedal resonance. These are activated during performance via the complex scripting made possible by Presence XT. The samples were recorded to some of the finest analog equipment available, and converted to digital in sterling 24-bit quality.
We’ve also included two different miking configurations. Arnd Kaiser, General Manager of PreSonus Software, states: “The main difference between PreSonus Studio Grand and other pianos is the fact that we include two independent sample sets representing two different microphone configurations. These include a matched pair of German condenser mics in the player’s perspective and a pair of fine ribbon mics placed in the listener’s perspective. This way, the user can choose or combine mic sets just like recording a real piano in a studio.” We’ve also included 21 Instrument and FX presets to get you started.
The PreSonus Studio Grand is compatible with all versions of Studio One 3 (Prime, Artist and Professional). To be clear, this is the full-featured bigger brother to the piano instrument included in the Presence XT Core library for Studio One 3 Professional and the Presence XT – Keyboards Add-on—but at ten times the depth and size! Due to incredible attention to detail, it clocks in at 5.5GB—but in the digital age, disk space is the price we pay for quality. Incidentally, competing software pianos can run you nearly triple the cost of PreSonus Studio Grand.
The Presonus Studio Grand acoustic piano is a sampler instrument for Presence XT, and compatible with all versions of Studio One 3 (Prime, Artist and Professional).

Johnny Geib (@JohnnyTheMuzic) presents Studio One 3 at IMSTA FESTA in Chicago, July 25!

IMSTA FESTA

Johnny Geib of Home Studio Trainer will be presenting Studio One 3 at IMSTA FESTA in Chicago on July 25! Admission is FREE, but all attendees must register at www.imsta.org. If you’re going to IMSTA FESTA, this is a presentation you won’t want to miss.

Click here to register! 

Johnny Geib is a longtime PreSonus forum honcho and all-around brand ambassador. He’s an authority on home recording, particularly with Studio One and the StudioLive mixers. While he’s known for his YouTube video series and Skype lessons, his IMSTA FESTA talk will be is a great opportunity to learn from Johnny firsthand. Here’s a quick course overview of what you can expect to learn:

Hour #1 – New Features in V3
  • Color options for both the Background and tracks
  • Console and Folder syncing improvements
  • The Browser – Thumbnails, Search Options
  • Presence XT Soundsets (demoing sounds)
  • Multi Instruments Demo
  • Control Link
Hour #2 – Recording a song
  • Creating a drum track (using the loop library)
  • Recording Acoustic guitar
  • Creating a Bass track (using the Mai Tai)
  • Laying a vocal
  • Melodyne – Correcting the pitch issues
  • Melodyne – Creating a harmony
Hour #3 – Mastering
  • From Song page to Project page
  • Mastering our song
  • Mastering multiple songs
  • Publishing
  • Questions and answers

Visit his site at www.homestudiotrainer.com or hit him up on Twitter @JohnnyTheMuzic.

The International Music Software Trade Association (IMSTA), an international non-profit organization hosts IMSTA FESTA in Chicago on Saturday, July 25, 2015 at SAE Institute, 820 N. Orleans Street, Chicago. IMSTA’s principal mission is to conduct public education about piracy in the music software space.

The FREE event is open to music makers of all genres and levels including songwriters and music technology professionals, semi- professionals, amateurs, hobbyists, students and educators. Take master workshops, experience new products, network with industry pros.

Aspiring songwriters in any genre are invited to enter a songwriting contest by July 4, 2015. Chicago regional winners announced at IMSTA FESTA. Click here to learn more about contest rules or how to enter radio ready songs. Winner of the International song competition will have the chance to win a FREE trip to BlackRock Studios in Santorini, Greece.