Forgotten Genre Productions

Crossway Collective Release Nothing Worth Knowing

admin — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 04:52:40 +0000

The time is finally here. This is a project that I have labored over for 2 years. Of course that was not 2 years straight but the time has come and I must say I am extremely happy with the results. This was a fun project and along with recording producing and mixing this album I also got a chance to play a little guitar and bass and even background vocals. It is probably my most involved project yet and I am proud of it. Please check out this 3 song sampler for free and get ready for a June 5 release.

Getting Yelled At Is The Best Way To Learn….. Right?

admin — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 18:11:31 +0000

This week I started back to work on my part time gig as Technical Director for a theater. It’s a great way to get a different view than the studio and push faders in real time when the pressure is hot. As we were rehearsing and introducing some new orchestrated tracks for the show we needed an update on an arrangement. They transferred files from the studio in Nashville and I needed to re-sequence the tracks for playback. In the process one of the new tracks ended up being the first 2/3′s of the track we needed so I had to do some editing and re-sequencing at the studio. No problem, I finished practice and drove 20 minutes to the studio to work on these tracks so I could rush back another 20 minutes with the updated disc for them to rehearse that evening. Editing was smooth and I burned 2 discs so I had a safety then I made sure to check each of the 27 cues to make sure they were in the right place and returned to the theater to deliver the disc. The next day we ran through our last rehearsal before the opening show and everything was smooth sailing. As we got to the final scene that I edited, track 26 was playing, I was marveling at how seamless my edit point was and what a good engineer I was until right at the epic wedding scene as the pastor is pronouncing them man and wife and …….. the track abruptly ends. At this point the director screams my name and makes his way back to the board. WHAT IS HAPPENING? HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN 4 HOURS BEFORE WE HAVE A ROOM FULL OF INDUSTRY PEOPLE TO SEE THE SHOW? To further set the stage I was joined back at the board by my lighting assistant and Intern Dan who were poised wide eyed and speechless as there fearless leader was receiving a shellacking. I realized that as I had checked the disc to make sure it was sequenced right and the start point was good, I didn’t let it play through to make sure the outs were good. I was in a hurry to get the disc back and didn’t want to sit through an hours worth of audio cues. Talk about humiliating.

In these situations there are a couple of roads you can take. The most common one is blame shifting. It wasn’t my fault, let me explain, If you knew what I had to go through….. These route is rarely helpful. The other thing you can do is convince yourself that that guy is a jerk and it was uncalled for to yell at me in that way. I have found that the best way to react is to apologize and absorb the wrath and try to figure out how you can keep this from ever happening again. It’s old fashioned and not in style, but me must learn from our mistakes. When I look back on everything I have learned in over 20 years in this business I have found that some of the most significant things I have learned have come as a result of getting hammered by a client or a boss. Those humiliating moments when your failure is on display to everyone or at least someone significant. It should not come as a surprise that you are not perfect. Learn from your mistakes and own them. On to bigger and better things.

Embracing the Grey Free Download

admin — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:11:53 +0000

My old friend Mark Hollingsworth has written a book that is receiving rave reviews right now. He is currently offering it for a free PDF download on his website. I can’t remember exactly when I met Mark but he is the kind of guy that if you are a music lover or in the music business you will eventually cross paths with him. If you are familiar with the six degrees of separation game with Kevin Bacon, Then think of Mark Hollingsworth changing the game to 3 degrees. Before I worked for Sixpence None The Richer they were managed by Mark. But it wasn’t till about 1998 that I started working with the Smalltown Poets who were also managed by Mark. Mark was an experienced manager and was one of the more organized managers that I had worked with. A trip to Mark’s house/office was often an experience of who’s who. You were never sure who you would meet there or who Mark would be talking to on the phone. If you had the privilidge of spending time with Mark off hours you could always count on learning something about the history of music and the industry and to this day I regret not asking Mark more questions and learning more. Mark invited me to go see Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace and we went in Nashville when it was first released in 1999.
I have been looking forward to reading this book since it was released and this is a great opportunity to get a PDF copy for free. Please consider giving a donation when you download. I am still saving my money for a signed copy of the book. The book is running around #27 on the Amazon Kindle list. Mark takes a look at the sacred and the profane all through his eyes and experience with everyone from Petra to Bono to Cheap Trick to Compassion orphans all over the world. The think I’v always loved about Mark is he is a lover of music and art and artist. Most of the people that I’ve worked with in the music business are frustrated musicians that never were successful on their own, but chose to live vicariously through the artists that they poorly served. Mark still goes to shows he is the ultimate fan. Whether all his methods were successful or even ethical or not Mark was a fan of everyone he worked with. Go learn something today and buy Marks book or pick your price and download a PDF.

Waves Puigchild is a Head Scratcher

admin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:00:16 +0000

I just noticed that Waves plug ins just released a new “Hardware” piece that is a version of their Puigchild plug in which was a digital recreation of Jack Joseph Puigs favorite Fairchild piece. I know I know, your scratching your head with me saying what are you talking about. Welcome to 2012. First a little background. The fairchild compressor was an old compressor that contained 20 tubes and 14 transformers. If you can find a working fairchild on the used market today you could spend $30,000 to make it your own. Waves did there version with Jack Joseph Puig’s help. I have been using it consistently for the last 2 years and love it. I can honestly say I have used it on every mix I have done for those 2 years. What waves did recently was take the plug in and put it in a box and give it knobs. They used the form factor for their maxx BCL boxes. They piece is a sexy piece and I can tell you I want one pretty bad. Here is the weird thing. The piece is $3600. Now to me that is a little excessive. Remember this is not tubes or transformers in the box. It is DSP with connectors and knobs in a steel hammond box. Now you might be saying that it is stupid to recreate a recreation or make a hardware version of a software version of a piece of hardware. I would disagree with you and here’s why. My number one rule in audio is this. If it sounds good, it is good. If the piece adds a pleasing sonic texture to your material that’s a win. The other thing that I can appreciate is the whole aesthetic of grabbing knobs as apposed to mousing around. Sometimes it feels better to grab a knob. I have noticed this over and over since I have been adding outboard gear.

Well all that being said, I don’t think you will see this piece in my racks unless Waves pulls their head out of the sand. But it is fun to dream.

Joseph Strider Project String Theory Complete

admin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:33:48 +0000

I recently completed a project with my new friend Joseph Strider. The Album is entitled String Theory. Look for information about it here. Joseph is a talented musician and guitarist and we had a great time recording. I recorded 7 songs on the album and then took a few other tunes that Joseph recorded elsewhere and mastered the album. It’s always a joy to record and artist like Joseph who has mastered his instrument and honed his craft. He makes me look good. We stereo miced the acoustic with my modified mxl 603′s in an x-y pattern and then used the Rode K2 tube mic. All of these together to cut down on phase issues. Then there was a ribbon mic in the room that I used for a little ambience. Here is a song for you to enjoy.

Somebody’s Got It All Wrong

admin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:12:11 +0000

I was killing time today on facebook waiting for a mix to render when I saw a link for a local artist that was starting to receive some national exposure. I had heard this name come up once or twice and I thought why not delve a little deeper and see what the fuss was all about. I clicked the link which took me to his facebook page which had a link to one of his tunes. Cool, right? Well, when I clicked on the link it brought up a pop up that said You must like this and then you can stream the song. Whaaaaaaat?????? I have to “like it” before I’ve even heard it. This is one of the reasons things are so crazy now a days. This guy hasn’t earned the right for me to like him. Not because I’m so great but because he isn’t great….. yet. Show me something to like. Let me have a sample of what you do. This isn’t 1950 where it is hard to come by entertainment. I have a CD collection of over 1000 discs, I mean physical discs. A shelf of LP’s, A Spotify account, a Zune account. An Itunes library and a Windows media library. I have a Netflix account, a Vudu account, I know where to find hulu.com and youtube.com and vimeo.com. I am not desperate for things to do or listen to. And a no name local artist from nearby want’s me to like him before I’ve even heard him sing a note? And don’t tell me it’s about stealing his music or illegally downloading his tunes. He hasn’t even earned the right for me to steal from him. All I wanted to hear was one song.

Well as you can imagine I didn’t like him and I didn’t listen to his song and as a result I couldn’t tell you if he’s worth your time to look him up. This is an amazing time for musicians and artists to have access to way more than labels could offer them in the Glory days of record contracts. The possibilities are endless. But at least respect your potential fans. Just something to think about.

The Forgotten Bee

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:10:56 +0000

Recently my family and I watched a Documentary called Vanishing of the Bees. The main story of this Doc. is how the bees are mysteriously vanishing across America. The reason this is a problem is that Bees pollinate plants and fruits. If there are no more bees to pollinate, then fruit crops will not survive unless they are artificially pollinated or imported in from other countries. I personally have a problem with artificially doing things that God has designed nature to accomplish and feel that on a large part that is what has gotten us into this mess. The fascinating part of the vanishing is that the bees just disappeared by the thousands. They would have bee hives that would be fully populated one day and the next day thousands of bees would be gone. There were no dead bodies left behind just empty bee hives. One of the theories to why the bees are disappearing is due to all the pesticides that they are spraying on everything that grows. These pesticides were developed by the some of the same companies that developed chemical warfare back during the world wars. They took the same chemicals they were using to kill people and tweaked them to kill insects and weeds and such. In the shortsightedness of our Government these products were never fully tested. If you follow the EPA and how they work you will know that they do not test products themselves they regulate products. The companies that develop these products are responsible to provide testing for them so you have a situation where the very companies who stand to benefit the most from the success of the product are responsible to validate there safety. That is like a teacher telling her class that they are responsible for grading there final exams. No one would ever fail. So now we are in a situation that years later we are seeing negative repercussions to products that we have been assured were safe. Of course no one on the political end of things want to dig too deeply into these issues because the huge corporations that developed these toxic products are pouring millions of dollars in lobbying to our stumbling government. Oh yea and the people running these Government protection agencies were all formal employees of the offending companies. It sounds like the plot to a conspiracy movie only it is all true. The bees are not the only ones that fall prey to it. It is the same for the organic food movement. Look up Monsanto and what they are doing to our farmers in the name of justice. It is actually sad and scary at the same time.

So the bees are basically drunk on all the chemicals that we spray everywhere and eventually they just run away or fly away if you will. Of course when you approach the companies that make millions of dollars off of selling these chemicals they tell you you are being ridiculous and fanatical. And of course their lawyers have a lot more at stake then yours.

So what’s a recording engineer and musician have to do with this? Well here it is. I got to thinking about how we look at music and production these days it seems that our tendency is to want everything faster cheaper and more disposable then it was yesterday. I’m not going that way anymore. It takes some time to make art that will be timeless and relevant and I am going to do my best to invest time in honing my craft so I can best serve my clients and musical allies. You can not make the same kind of records in your basement that you could make in my studio. I realize this is a bold statement but it is true. I have over 20 years of experience in getting good sounds and solving problems that come up. I also have the space to create where you are not waiting for the neighbors or your mom to tell you to turn it down. Now understand I am not saying that if you spent more time and money on your project that it will always be better. There is much art and science and even more mystery in creating music that will endure. Don’t sell yourself short on what could be just because you want to save money.

So you might just see more of the bee here at Forgotten Genre Productions it’s a symbol that helps me remember.

Proof Positive of Lancaster Recording Studio FGP

admin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 03:17:45 +0000

Doug Plank took some brief time out the other night to record a short clip while we were mixing for the Crossway Collective. Here is our proof that things are getting done in the Forgotten Genre studios.

Mixing for the Crossway Collective coming along.

admin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:03:11 +0000

FGP Studios

We have been motoring along on the Crossway Collective project. Last night we finished a mix of Broken and Poured out. This is a beautiful song that Doug Plank wrote about the sacrament of Communion. We have spent quite a bit of time on it because I was hearing a reflective extended outro on this song and we spent a couple of weeks running down bunny trails playing with it. We eventually decided to finish the core of the song and go back to the outro later. Some times the time constraints limit you. I was really happy with the way the song turned out and I got to use some favorite tools like my Strymon El Capistan and my new JDK Compressor. The Strymon is one of my favorite delays right now. It really takes the sonics to a different level. One of the techniques I have been developing is to raise the repeats or feedback fairly high and with the send, “throw” a certain sound to the delay to let it cascade. I will give you sample so you can get a feel for it.

StrymonThrow by forgotteng

This throw was done with the 12 string as the throw source. You will notice the bloom come in and out and fill the stereo field. Also note the slide bass that Cliff b Lewis played. cool tones.

StrymonThrow2 by forgotteng

Here is the end of the song with the piano as the source. Notice the graininess when the tones feedback on each other. Lush

xmas movie soundtrack Brings Nostalgia

admin — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 04:35:35 +0000

My friend Cliff b Lewis has just released his Christmas EP and it is well worth checking out. I always enjoy Cliffs take on music and commentary on life, mundane and spiritual. Cliff has been planning this project for a while and the thing I am most proud about is that he completed it himself despite not having anyone to push him or set deadlines etc. I was going to help him track some things but the best I could do was let him use the studio to get a few things down. The majority of it was completed at home where Cliff wrote and re-wrote and edited and re- edited and recorded and re-recorded. The final project is fun. I got to Master the final tracks and it was fun to aim for a modern take on a sound that was very nostalgic and dated and yet modern and relevant.

Of course I am an engineer and not a writer like Cliff so I won’t ramble on. I will let you check out xmas movie soundtrack for yourself

Also this Saturday and Sunday Cliff will be giving away 200 digital downloads. Please be one of the few to benefit from this and support thoughtful music. For more inf go here.