What’s on my mind today? I’ll tell ya, it’s creating a Spotify Playlist.Spotify Playlist
Spotify Playlist
See, I’m working on fully embracing the streaming concept. To that end, I’d like to add what I can to your Spotify playlist profile. What do you mean Jody? I mean this simple 1, 2, 3 for musical bliss for us both:
- You can create public playlists that get shared with other Spotify users and via social media. Thus, if you put one of my songs (Touch, hint hint, either version of it will be ideal) on a public Spotify playlist.
- Tell me about it. Email here at the website, tweet me, Facebook me, Snapchat me…
- Once you tell me that you’ve added me to one or more of your public Spotify playlists, I’ll follow your playlist from my Spotify profile – then I’ll give you and your playlist a shout out on Twitter.
I figure that having a large number of eyes (from my Twitter account and just so you know I’ve got over 70,000 followers there) see your playlist and Spotify profile will help you get followers on your Spotify playlist
While I’m most interested in currently have you add Touch to a playlist, I’ll be happy with any of your favorite choices from my releases. So get adding and lets have fun sharing your playlists!
Limit?
There is no limit to the number of playlists you can put my songs on. The more playlists you create and put them on, the more shout outs you’ll get – provided I can keep up with them all. Have fun and above all, enjoy the music!
p.s. – bonus shout outs to my other social media accounts will happen if you put me in great company of other huge artists or give your playlists really awesome titles.
Here’s the 3rd installment of videos around getting great guitar tones from a computer using MainStage. This video showcases how to split up guitar sounds into multiple patches to switch between within songs.
MainStage Song Parts For Multiple Guitar Sounds
The reason behind setting them up this way is simple – it’s the best way to control the system for the Tuning function, as well as for making patch changes function via a single button press. Because we all love simplicity when playing live.
Part two in my getting great guitar tones in MainStage talks about creating multi amp setups. Imagine if you could take the amplifier rigs of people like The Edge, Joe Bonamassa, Aerosmith, Joe Satriani, and reduce them down to a single laptop with a midi foot controller. You can. Watch and find out how.
Multi Amp Setup
This is scratching the surface of what this software is capable of doing. See me live and join the revolution in guitar tone by utilizing multi amp setups to achieve big sounds.
That day or rather that night has finally come! Nightwatch on A&E has its season 2 premier tonight and yours truly composed the music that opens the show.
Nightwatch Theme
You read that correctly. I wrote the opening theme music for the show Nightwatch on A&E – airing at 10/9c. Set your DVR now, save the show! Watch each week. Tell your friends to watch. Hopefully you don’t end up on the show in the future – and I really do mean that.
HIVE is alive! You’ve seen pictures. I’ve blogged about it. Now you can see the actual device in this teaser trailer.
HIVE
Get ready to hear the future of guitar tones, cause I’m taking this on tour in the near future.
I’ve been doing a lot of recording in the past several years where the guitar tones are important. Who am I kidding? Guitar tone is always important. I’ve recently made the switch to using software and computers for all my guitar sounds and amplification.
Great Guitar Tones
One thing I’ve found in my exploration of sound is that there is more than one way to get great guitar tones. This is a different mentality from a majority of guitar players that believe there is only one way which involves a classic guitar and a hardware amplifier. No matter where I go and mention that I’m using a computer for my guitar tones, I get people that say its not possible. Not possible that is, until they hear it. Then they change their minds.
Looking around on YouTube and other parts of the internet, I’ve been unable to find anyone who is really showing how to use a computer to get great tones. Thus I recorded a short series of simple tutorials on the subject. Here is the first one that gives a beginning look at how I’m doing it and part of what I’m using software wise.
The revolution is here. Enjoy and stay tuned for the next two videos.
Ah the behind the scenes part of playing music live that most people never think about – rehearsing
Rehearsing
I’ve been putting together a new group of people to start playing out live more. Having done a ton of music for film, TV, and now even a theme song for a TV show (more on this to come in the next few weeks). Plus, I’ve created a special MIDI controller (HIVE) for playing live. Whether it be for a solo acoustic show or a full band type of show.
See, I’m now running a computer for all my guitar sounds. No more heavy amps. No more multiple speakers. No more worrying about the mic placement and hoping the sound guy is able to get a good sound. Maybe that last part is still prone to issues if the sound guy isn’t any good. Consistency is now the name of the game. Once I get the setup for a song, it remains the same time after time. Mind you I can still tweak and do things. But if I’m out on tour and wondering if its going to sound correct to the audience, I know I’m providing a consistent feed to the PA.
The first show for this new rig is happening October 16th at Brewskis in Ogden UT. Lucky devils get to experience the future of guitar players.
One thing I’ve come to enjoy is the process of getting a group of people together to play music. Its a time to hash out how to perform the music in a way that makes sense at the time its being played. Plus it gives me time to work the kinks out of the entirely new guitar rig I’ve gotEach song now has it’s own sound. Sometimes its directly related to the sound on the recording. Some of them however go into different territory sonically. Setting up each sound varies in time. Meaning some sounds took no more than an hour. However, the more complex ones can take several hours of tweaking.
In the first rehearsal, all the sounds were there, but I hadn’t really gone thru them to find out how loud they were in relation to each other from song to song. Thus I had to make notes and spend another couple of hours after rehearsing to fix songs that had sounds that were either too loud, or too soft.
The second rehearsal went much better, the rest of the band knew their parts better. My guitar sounds were way more consistent from a volume standpoint. Though there were still a couple of tweaks that needed to be made from an EQ standpoint. Due to the way I’m now creating sounds, I use no outboard/plugin EQ. Its not needed. But one song, which sounded great in my studio didn’t sound so awesome with the rest of the band in a PA. It needed thinning out. Pull up the amps and tweak their EQs. Problem solved.
The owner of the rehearsal studio sat in with us, listening, taking pictures and occasionally adjusting sound. Actually he didn’t really do much of that after we got the levels set at the start. BTW – the photos in the post are all from him, Dave at Razman-Studio. After rehearsing we chatted a bit. He had some initial reservations about a computer being able to put out great guitar sounds. From the pictures you can understand why: he’s got tons of amps sitting around waiting to be used. Then he said something interesting. He stated, I am now a believer.
You will be one too! See you on the road soon.
I’ve been on vacation and little bit under the weather for the past several weeks, aside from my appearance at the UMAs.
Dancin To DNCE
I’ve been helping my mom and sister with the building of a cool little vacation shack in the city of Torrey. It prides itself on being “The Middle of Nowhere”. Actually its right next door to a stunning national park called Capital Reef.
I shirked my musician responsibilities for a couple of weeks and donned my builder’s theory. I’m not a construction worker, but I played one for a couple of weeks. During the process I got to roll around in the dirt while playing with insulation and plywood. No. Really. I did roll in dirt in confined areas attempting to do stuff. Did it work? I think so.
Unfortunately, though I was wearing a breathing filter mask, I still took in a lot of dirt and probably some insulation as well. Shortly thereafter I came down with bronchitis. If there’s anything that sucks more for someone who sings for part of their living – its not being able to breath. Add to it the fact that you get to cough violently in the vain attempt of expelling whatever is filling your lungs with goo.
[sarcasm]Happy Happy Joy Joy[/sarcasm]
The end result actually is that we now have a really cool place to get away from civilization. Really get away from it. Real silence.
At night the stars are incredible. To the point where its extremely easy to see the arm of the Milky Way and a veritable plethora of stars, constellations, and pin dots in the black sky of night.
I’ve rambled… Back to DNCE.
A few days back, I was finally starting to feel better. Cough was abating. Nose not so stuffy. I hopped in the shower after putting on Apple Music (yes, I’m a music streamer). In the middle of the shower a song came on. It had me feeling so good that I literally started dancing in the shower. Before the song ended I stepped out of the shower as I wanted to know what I was listening to.
I dried my fingers and hit the home button on my iPad and it revealed that I was listening to Cake By The Ocean by DNCE.
I finished my shower, toweled off. Then tweeted about how I felt so good I was dancing to Cake By The Ocean by DNCE. Who’d a thunk. I looked up the twitter account for them. So new that it had very few followers. But people started RTing and Faving my tweet about the song and about DNCE.
As it turns out DNCE is a little project of one of the Jonas Brothers and another guitar player that I’m following on Instagram is playing for them. Go figure.
Its a weird title for a song. I wanna say its fitting they’re calling themselves DNCE, but it’s a bit to “hip” to be removing the ‘A’ from the title. Whatever. If a song can get me to dance in the shower – it doesn’t really happen – then they’re doing something right. Right?
Its always nice to get some recognition for the music I create. Recently I was nominated for Best Pop Song for the Utah Music Awards of 2015.
Best Pop Song
About a week prior to the event, I was contacted by the group putting on the awards and asked if I would be willing to introduce and announce the category for Best Soundtrack. I responded with a “Sure thing, I’d be happy to.”
Of course I told a few close friends and one of them asked – do you think they’re asking you because you’re not going to win your category? I wasn’t even thinking about it. But then I decided I’d go listen to the other songs that were nominated. One was a somber ballad. Another was an alternative rock song and the 3rd nominee was a folk tune. None of which really fit the category of Pop. I figured I was a shoe in and responded with nah.
Held at the Covey Center in Provo, it was like attending any other award show. People and musicians milling about, taking pictures, chatting and having a good time. I was given my card of nominees and the winner for Best Soundtrack just prior to the start of the event. I was given a seat front row center. I was feeling pretty darn good.
One thing I noticed about the awards was how fast they were burning thru the categories. Faster than any awards I’d ever been too.
It came time for me to head backstage to get ready to present for Best Soundtrack. When I was announced as the presenter, the announcer screwed up my name. WTF? ran thru my head as I walked out with mic in hand. Touch was playing in the loud system. and I walked out with a smile and proceeded to make a comment about doing music for soundtracks. Of course I’ve got experience with that.
I got a quick laugh with the off-the-cuff joke I made and on to the nominees I went. Reading out the names. I opened the envelope and announced the winner.
I was looking out into the audience and even asked if the artist was there.
The response was silence and then I was surprised by a video being played behind me of the winner making an acceptance speech video a pre-recorded video.
My thought as this happened? Thanks for informing me the winner wasn’t there and making me look like a moron on stage. Appreciate that one.
I got back to my seat and a couple of categories later, they announced the Best Pop Song. Read off the nominees and before the presenter could even open the envelope the screen behind him was showing the name of the winner and it wasn’t me. The presenter, clueless to the fact that he didn’t really need to read it, got his envelope opened and read the name. Odd that this was the only category of the night where that happened.
Was I disappointed? You bet. It sucks to lose. For a brief moment I wanted to go Kanye on the stage.
After the event, I did have several people question how the song that won was even classified as a pop song. What can I do? I didn’t have a hand in the voting or categorizing. I lost. But I will express it like this. I think I know how Metallica felt when they lost to Jethro Tull at the Grammys for Best Metal Album.
Waking up via an email in your inbox saying Touch nominated for best pop song is a pretty cool thing!
Touch Nominated For UMA
This morning my inbox contained an email from the Utah Music Awards, kinda like the Grammys for Utah, stating that Touch (feat. Jacarri) would be up for an award come this September for Best Pop Song. That’s enough to help get this week started off on a good foot.
Makes a musician/producer feel like all the hard work putting a lush pop song is worth the effort. Next up is submission for the actual Grammys. Yup, Touch will be in the initial voting round for the 2016 Grammys. Fingers crossed it can garner enough votes to break into the nomination round. Anyone willing to hold their breath for me?
Its gonna be an interesting week as other big changes are about to occur.
Stay tuned.