Jody Whitesides

Category: In The Studio

  • HIVE Is Alive

    HIVE Is Alive

    HIVE Is Alive:

    The custom foot controller, HIVE, that I’ve been chatting about in the past couple of months, has finally been completed!

    IMG_1145Months of thinking about design and functionality are finally over. The longest bit was the construction of the casing. Despite a quote of a 1 week turnaround, it ended up being 7 weeks.

    Once the case was in my hands there were three days of soldering the internal wiring and a late night session of a little rewiring of the LED lights.

    Add an additional three days of reading manuals and figuring out how to code the brain of the unit to be able to work the software I’ll be using in conjunction with it. And voilà – HIVE is alive!

    What Is HIVE:

    The plain and simple is that its a midi foot controller. With 11 buttons and two real time controllers. The real genius is the computer monitor that gives real time visual feedback of what the computer is doing. It was inspired by the Chewie Monsta. However this is much more versatile in application.

    Pure speculation on my part that is. Ed Sheeran’s pedal only deals with looping as far as I know.

    I will be using HIVE for my live performances for solo acoustic and full band events.

    In the not so distant future I’ll be posting videos of how it works and how I’ll be using it. Until then… stay musical!

     

  • Putting My Producer Hat On

    Putting My Producer Hat On

    Pick up a gig as a producer is how I’m getting the new year kicked off with a bang. Though I actually got a really great bang of a kick-off this year as I rang it in in Sydney Australia.

    https://vine.co/v/OwjzaAwQMVj/embed

    As I freeze frame the video above from Sydney, I can see a pretty brunette looking at me shooting the crowd. Funny what you catch after the fact. The other fun thing is that its the first video I’ve put online that actually had a slightly viral take. Over 234,000 views in less than 12 hours. I now understand the desire to have big numbers.

    Beyond the video, I’m sitting down to be the producer for a Utah metal band known as The Book. Chances are you’re asking yourself, why the hell would a pop/rock artist be producing a Utah metal band. One that’s slightly thrashy at that. The answer is: The lead guitarist was my first rock guitar teacher. I wanted to give back to the man that got me started down the road to musical amazingness.

    There was one stipulation to them that I mentioned prior to starting the process. They had to be open and willing to allow me to have them change anything without a fight. No, I’m not going to make them do a pop song. Instead I had them play me what they thought were their 4 best songs and I chose the one that I felt had the most potential.

    Act one: After getting the demo I chopped up the arrangement so that it would make more sense.

    Scene One: Recording the drums. That was an adventure to say the least.

    Scene Two: Editing drums.

    Scene Three: Recording Guitars part one.

    So far no issues with the process. Phrase that made me laugh the most so far, “I worked my ass off.” I merely responded with a chuckle and a quick quip stating the work hasn’t even begun yet.

    At the studio for recording the drums the engineer mentioned that he’d never witnessed a producer that actually had the balls to tell a band or band member what to do in the recording process. I let him know that the band agreed to allow me to push them in the appropriate direction as needed to get the best possible result. Besides, the ideal job of a music producer is to let band know when something isn’t working and they can’t hear it.

    So far no arguments and only a lot of hey that’s turning out really cool comments.

    Dragging an 80s style metal band into 2015 is certainly going to be an adventure for me as a producer. Thrash Metal will never be the same after this gets dressed up and unleashed on the world.

    The saga will continue.

  • I Answer Your Twitter Questions

    I Answer Your Twitter Questions

    Twitter Questions AnsweredYesterday I tweeted that I’d take questions from Twitter followers. It’s the first time I went out and asked what burning questions my Twitter followers, I figured I ought to actually make a video for it and answer on camera. That’s exactly what I did.

    Took a little time out of my mixing schedule to answer your questions. It was fun! I got some interesting questions that ranged from why our current president is following me to ones that I’ve actually been asked numerous times.

    Your Twitter Questions

    YouTube player

    Transcript Questions:

    1. How are you? and what is your opinion of Nickelback? (@IndieAppleTree)

    2. How does it feel to be followed by @BarackObama ()

    3. Do You know Jacob Whitesides? ( & @Ribka_sitorus)

    4. Are you related to Jacob Whitesides? ()

    5. WHERE YOU AT HOUSTON YESTERDAY? (@qtxgrier)

    6. Are you related? ()

    7. I need you to tweet the boys from 1D to follow me bc you are verified, will you do that? (@zainbigdick)

    Transcript of the video:

    Hey! You caught me here in the studio. I’ve been working on a song with a good buddy of mine by the name of Claude J Woods Jr. Amazing singer. This is a song we have co-written together called “Supernova”. And right now I’m gonna take some time out and read questions to you that I have gotten via Twitter.

    Question #1 comes from Indie. How are you? And what is your opinion of Nickelback?

    Well, I’m doing very well at this point. I had a surgery not to long ago, if you went back through some tweets. And I’m on the tail end of the recovery on it. The doc has given me the thumbs up and says that I’m doing okay. And I believe I have about another week to a week and a half before I can start doing workouts again. Because I like to workout just about every day of the week.

    As far as the second half of your question, what my opinion is of Nickelback. Personally, I happen to like several of their songs. I think they’re a very successful band and anybody that thinks otherwise is obviously fooling themselves. They guys do stadium tours and play to huge throngs of crowds. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. Personally, I’d like to be playing those kind of stadiums at this point and that should hopefully be happening towards the end of 2015. We’ll see.

    The next question is from Cherry, Cherry Doley I believe the name is and asks: how does it feel to be followed by Barack Obama?

    You know, its an interesting thing. I’ve no idea how to react to that. Mostly because he followed me out of the blue. I don’t think it was Barack Obama himself that followed me. As far as I know, that Twitter account is the political campaign for Barack Obama. And occasionally he does tweet out of it and when apparently he does tweet out of it is it signed with a little bo. How does it feel? I think its pretty darn cool to be followed by the first President of the U.S. that is of non white descent in America.

    This next question comes from Kristin Holly and another by the name of Ribka Sitorus. I hope I’m saying those names right. The question is, do I know Jacob Whitesides?

    The answer to the question is: I know of him. I have never actually met Jacob. I’m sure he’s a fantastic guy. I know he does music much like I do. I’ve never actually met the guy, so I can’t say that I know him personally. There’s your answer.

    The next question is very similar to the last question, this one comes from Abbie. Hello, was just wondering if you are related to Jacob Whitesides?

    This is something that I’ve gotten asked quite a bit on twitter. And the answer is, I don’t know. I know that originally when Jacob and I started following each other on Twitter we had no idea either. So the reality is we don’t know if we’re related. Nobody’s done any research into it, so there’s no way to know it from that aspect of it. That’s really all there is to say about it. We don’t actually know if we’re related. We both have a very unique last name that is not widely popular. It is highly possible, but we just don’t know.

    The next question comes from Ruby. The question is: Where you at Houston Yesterday?

    And I believe that means, was I in Houston yesterday? And the answer to that question is: No. I was actually here in the studio. I was working on this mix for this song called “Supernova”. Have I been to Houston? Yes, I have. Was I there yesterday? No, I was not.

    The next question comes from Kat. Kat asks are you related? Unfortunately Kat I have no idea who you are asking me if I’m related to. If you are asking me if I’m related to my sister, or my mom, or my dad – I’d say yes I am.

    If you’re asking me if I’m related to a musician by the name of Danny Whitesides. Who is the drummer for The Used. The answer to that question is: Yes, we are related. We are 2nd cousins.

    If you’re asking me if I’m related to someone like say Barack Obama. The answer to that is, I have no idea. Chances are no. If I’m related to somebody, need to get a little more specific please.

    The next question comes from someone who goes by the letter H. And that question is: I need you to tweet the boys from 1D to follow me because you are verified. And actually the precursor to that question for her saying that was, would you do something for me via direct message on Twitter.

    H. the answer is, I cannot. And the reason for that is, is I have done that a few times in the past and it has never worked out for anybody unfortunately. Just because I’m verified and they’re verified does not mean that we actually know each other. I believe one of the guys from One Direction does follow me, I do follow him back. But we have never exchanged tweets. We’ve never exchanged any kind of information of any sort on Twitter. So unfortunately any I’ve asked somebody to follow another person, it has never worked. And I don’t think having the verified symbol on the account makes me any different. I wish it did. But I don’t think it does.

    Thank you everyone who posted questions to me on Twitter. That’s all I’ve got for right now. Pay attention, because I will ask again. For those who wanna ask me questions, you’ll get your answers via video.

    Thank you and have a great day.

    Enjoy, get your questions ready for the next round!

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