Month: <span>April 2005</span>

The link to Dallas Live Recording has been sitting on the sidebar of this site for some time, but I haven’t really said anything about it yet.

DLR is a mobile recording studio — a little moonlighting project I’ve been working on for some time. While I don’t expect it to pay the bills, it’s been a fun learning experience so far, and has at least paid for itself and the few hours I’ve been able to put into it outside of my day job. The podcast attached to this post is the last mix done by DLR (me) for Dead Man’s Hand, a local Dallas band.

Aside from the music itself, one of the more interesting aspects of this project has been getting a web presence together. Having a site was a first step. Taking out ads on Google AdWords and Overture was another, and one which I may write more about later. I’ve also done ads on some Dallas-local websites, which have been at least as fruitful.

But there’s a cutting-edge feature on the DLR website: It’s got an RSS feed for news, which among other things, is a podcast of recent sample music. As far as I know, it’s the first website of a recording studio that’s doing this. (Please post links to others if I’m wrong about this.)

I have yet to have anyone say that they’ve used DLR’s recording services because they’d found its podcast feed. But I can say that all of the work DLR has had to date has come from its online presence. (That’s basically its only presence aside from business cards I’ve handed out at jams.)

But I think it’s only a matter of time…

Now this is cool as shit!:

Harmony Central: Nine Inch Nails Single Released in GarageBand Format:

“This is the actual multi-track audio session in GarageBand format sourced from the Pro Tools session file it was originally recorded into. The intention is to enable anyone to experiment freely with the track in an accessible format. A Read Me file from Trent Reznor is included which further explains this idea and provides technical notes.”

I hope this is only the beginning of a trend of releasing music in multi-track format that people can use to get a better understanding of how the music we hear all the time is put together.

There are lots and lots of subtle things that go into making a radio-worthy song into what it is, and the more that the process gets demystified, the more great music will be produced by independent artists and studios.

The more independents get control over their sound and make quality products, the less dependent we’ll all be as consumers, on major record labels and their money-grubbery for our entertainment. And the more artists will be able to make their living (however meager) on doing their art.

What NiN did here is only a first step though. What’s in the GarageBand project file is tracks that have already had a lot done to them. You don’t get to hear much of what goes into designing the sounds and creating a real mix from scratch. At least you can hear what the puzzle pieces are at the point between the design process and the final mix though, and that’s a great first step… If you’re a Mac user.

More power to you, Trent!!!

PS: If you’re not a Mac user and you want to mess with the audio from this file, send me an email. If I get enough requests (and if their EULA allows it), I’ll try to put up a Tracktion project and a folder of raw audio that you can play with.