Inside ProTools 9

With Pro Tools 9, Avid has finally taken steps to reach out directly to media composers. Let’s take a look under the hood.

James Semple: 2010 Tech Roundup

Although some have the luxury of working with live musicians, samples are a reality for a great many composers. Let’s look at some trends that took root in 2010.

DSP cards and the Universal Audio UAD 2

In keeping with this month’s theme of “Gear and Software”, I wanted to talk a little more about my number 1 “My Perfect 3″ find: The Universal Audio UAD2 DSP Card. DSP cards for use in DAW’s have been around for a while now, predominantly starting with Digidesign and ProTools, then later came the UAD-1 card from Universal Audio and TC Electronics released the Powercore card around the same time. The Digidesign DSP cards used a proprietary TDM architecture that ran only in ProTools hardware and software. For the rest of us who did not have a spare 10-15K lying around to get into ProTools, we were left out. When Universal Audio and TC Electronics…

Jim Well: How Big, How Fast, and Just Plain How

Back to the School of Chops. You may recall from my July 15 article on WIVIs (Wallander Interactive Virtual Instruments) that I’ve been exploring orchestration and simultaneously honing my MIDI skills by sequencing Stravinsky’s classic work, The Rite Of Spring. Today, I’d like to share some of the key things I’ve learned so far in this ongoing, long-term project. Questions and Goals How does my project relate to SCOREcast’s theme of the month: planning and scheduling? Well, I’d argue that before you can schedule and plan major scoring projects for real clients, you need how you’re going to do the job. Before you commit yourself to a deadline with financial consequences, you’d better have in…

Jim Well: Something From Nothing: Anatomy of a Project

This article has nothing whatsoever to do with television, this month’s theme. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t watch it – with the result that I just don’t have much to say. Instead, I’m going to write about something I do know about – a composing and production project I completed a few months ago. The project was simple enough that I can give you the details here, but sophisticated enough to make for some interesting discussion. Actually, this was a songwriting (and recording) project. I’m not going to pretend to be more of an expert song composer or producer than I really am. I’m simply going to tell you what I did, and in…

Advanced Mockup Techniques

I’m going to dive in straightaway in this month’s column with a handful of advice for those of us that have to mockup our music (i.e., all of us). LEARN YOUR SAMPLE LIBRARIES The simplest way to do this is just working on a project. If you don’t have a big one on the table, make some exercises or write some library music- get to know the strengths and weaknesses of your samples, and their unique characteristics. Is there reverb on the sample? If it is nice reverb, perhaps you can leave it in or match your other samples using similar reverb settings. If not, can you alter the release or decay section of the…