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Dixie McCorkell here, owner of Triplestrand Productions.
Triplestrand Productions is a record label and promotions
company that I run. I'm also an independent artist myself,
as well as a dj for two syndicated shows called "Country
Legends In The Making" and "The Americana Collection".
I've decided to start a blog that gives hints and tips for
the independent artists out there starting out in the
music industry. It can be a pretty ugly mess to try to
navigate through, so this column which I've decided to
title "Dear Dixie" will be a place for artists to come and
get the latest in advice on musical equipment, musical
software your computer, home studios and the like. To
make things a little different, I'm going to actually let
independent artists email me questions about such things
and I'll try to answer them here in my blog. Thus the
title, "Dear Dixie". Just don't ask me questions about
relationships (go to Dear Abby for that) or ettiquette (go
to Miss Manners for those). If I don't know the answer,
I'll research it for you and get your answer up for you if
I can. Just keep it narrowed down to product and equipment
questions, the 'guts' of music making if you will. I'll
give you some examples below, but for questions for future
columns, direct your emails to triplestrandprod@yahoo.com
with the phrase "Dear Dixie blog" in the subject line.
So let's have some fun with this blog and perhaps we'll all
learn some things in the journey--yes, even me! Now for
that example.
I spend a great deal of time each day answering questions
from the artists I promote to radio. So I'm going to start
out by answering a couple of the common questions I get from
them to get the ball rolling.
Question: What keyboard do you use in your own studios?
Answer: A couple of different types have been in use here,
but I'm a fan of the Yamaha keyboards personally, for quality
of sound and the realistic 'voices' that are included in
them. One of the latest Yamaha keyboards is the Yamaha
PSR-S900 Arranger Workstation Keyboard. Good as a stage
keyboard but fabulous when it comes to recording--even with
your own home recorder. Even better, it has the capability
to record straight into your computer in the event that you
use computer ba
sed recording software such as Pro Tools.Now let me explain a little of what makes this kitty purr !!!
23 Super Articulation Voices
15 MegaVoices
USB audio recording
392 Voices + 19 Drum + 480 XG + 265 GM2 + 235 GS
22 Sweet!, 26 Cool!, and 20 Live! Special Voices
LAN Port for Internet Direct Connect
3 part Vocal Harmony & video out for live performance or Karaoke
Color LCD Screen displays lyrics, notation, chords and Text View
Pitch Bend and Modulation Wheels for more expressive playing
Optional hard drive recording at CD quality
Organ Flutes Voice: 9 Virtual Drawbars use Modeling
Technology
Now this keyboard won't be for everyone, because it's modeled
more in keeping the composer in mind than the first time
player. But it's flexibility and power as a workstation
more than makes up for the initial learning curve to record
on it.
You can get good deals on almost ANY Yamaha keyboard or workstation
(and alot of other great equipment) at my favorite online
store for deals, which is u-ni-que-music.com I'll give
them a plug here because they do such a good job at hunting
down the best deals there are out there. We all need a
little extra cash right now--so why NOT grab the best deals?
To follow that up, I frequently get asked for suggestions for
recording software so that an artist can record to their
computer. Hands down winner on that would have to be Pro Tools
by Digidesign. The latest version of that would be their
M-Powered 7.4 Same popular software that has been the industry
standard for years but with more bells and whistles.
Digidesign has improved it's popular Pro Tools software including
more support for M-Audio peripherals, enhanced HD integration,
increased its flexibility with the new Elastic Time feature,
a powerful real-time tempo manipulator, and more.
Change the tempo or timing of audio tracks on the fly by
simply expanding or contracting regions.
Easily create loops from any audio file analyzed for tempo and transient
information - even files from older library CDs that have
multiple loops per cut.
Audition loops and audio files in sync with your session's
current tempo with Context Preview.
Fine-tune regions with precision control over each
individual beat using the warp track view and warp markers.
Quantize individual tracks or multitrack audio to the
session grid or to extracted grooves while preserving the
original timing offsets of each track.
Choose the best-sounding time-stretching algorithm from
several choices on a per-track basis.
Adjust the Window and Decay parameter on each track to
achieve the best results.
Make quick rhythmic fixes or creatively explore grooves
and styles using Grid and Groove Quantize, which now
works on MIDI and audio events in tandem.
Ease your CPU processing load by rendering tracks using
Render mode.
Use the Render and Commit option to work on Pro Tools 7.4
sessions with earlier versions of Pro Tools (replaces all
Elastic Time-enabled regions with rendered audio files).
Comes with Digidesign's Structure Free sample player
which allows you to easily add a wide range of sounds
to your sessions (it also comes with more than 885MB
of high-quality samples).
Accepts MIDI controller data directly from ReWire
applications for recording to a Pro Tools MIDI or
Instrument track.
Supports Unicode characters throughout the application
so you can label and edit text anywhere in Pro Tools
in any language supported by Unicode, such as Japanese,
French, Greek, Russian, and Hebrew.
Whew, guess you can see WHY they're the choice of the
serious composer and producer. Again, it's not for the
beginner who is just jumping into recording their own
music. Again available at u-ni-que-music.com for a very
reasonable price for the top rated recording software in
the industry.Digi Design at present have a home studio bundle
that in my opinion is a real good buy it's their
Digidesign Personal Pro Tools Standard version.
That gives you some idea of the type of questions
"Dear Dixie" gets on a regular basis. So ask your
questions and I'll do my best to answer them based on
my unique experience as artist, producer, label owner and
disc jockey. Send those questions to the previously
noted email address, and let's make "Dear Dixie" fun and
a great learning experience for all.
Dixie McCorkell CMA/CCMA/ECMA
Triplestrand Productions
http://www.triplestrandproductions.com
