indieTunes 3000 Baby!!!

So have you all seen indieTunes.com yet? NO!!!!! GO THERE NOW!!!!!

Are you back? Good. Pretty darn cool site huh? I think so. I also own it. Believe me when i tell you i have worked incredibly hard to create a home for independent artists on the net to sell their music and keep most of their money. In fact, I'm very deeply in debt building indieTunes.com however, i see it as a site of the future and hopefully at some point it'll start earning me some of my money back, in the mean time, I'm spending my money to help indie artists on indietunes. So hey, any of you indie artists who think i dont give a Shhhh about you. Think again!!!

Anyway, I'd say the site has reached a minor milestone today. We now have over 3000 songs posted for sale and streaming on the site, by independent artists from all over the globe. Are you one of them? Why not!!!! Its really great site, if i do say so myself.

So, I plan to begin doing some serious national promotion for indieTunes very soon, and with some luck, those 3,000 songs will turn into 30,000 songs sooner rather than later. Also, I have to give a shout out to the winners of the indieTunes Song Contest. We had a TON of great entries, and Michelle Albano took the grand prize with her beautiful song "Enough". (www.MichelleAlbano.com). I'll probably blog a bit more soon about some of the other winners. Wait til you hear them.
-Ken

Dilated Pupils

Happy Monday to you, and Happy Halloween. Yeah, i know, for most people Monday probably really sucks. Start of a long work week, end of a relaxing weekend. Well, Monday for me typically means just another day of work. I cant remember the last time i had a whole weekend off, and its rare that i even get one weekend day off. Most often its seven days a week, around 49 to 50 weeks a year. Hey, these records dont make themselves ya know. I can't complain too much though, I guess i'd much rather be way too busy than way too slow. Although this has been busy to the extreme for an extremely long time. Good thing i love making records.

So, I've been burning the candle at both ends lately working on this project with Capitol recording artists "Dilated Peoples". If you love hip hop, you definitely know them. Super talented, super cool to work with, super long hours. Fortunately, the songs are great so the time just melts away. I'm creating a whole bunch of music for them for a couple songs on their new record due out early next year, in fact tonight, i'm recording an opera singer on one of their songs. Same girl i used for E-dro's album, but a much different part. I think i'm also going to write an article in Scratch Magazine about my work on the album. Stay tuned. We're hoping to time out the Scratch article with the album release. That would be really cool. Often when i write, i make references to fairly current events, but then the article doesnt come out for 3 months and the references dont seem so relevant anymore. If this times out well, it'll be perfect.

Anyway, E-dro's album is going incredibly well. They all flew out to London on Friday after 2 good weeks of work at my studio, but we've got a ways to go on the album still. It's coming together better than anyone could have ever expected, but I know we'll still make it even better. Some songs are finished and ready to mix, most are very close, some are still works in progress with a big question mark over them. We now have far more songs that we all love than we have places on the album for them, so we're looking at maybe posting some of them as internet only songs, or possibly doing a separate mixtape EP to package along with the first 20,000 sold or something like that. We'll see. I've gotta post one of E-dro's songs on my site soon, I gotta get something out for anyone who cares to listen. I'm really proud of this album.

Well, I gotta get back to Dilating my pupils, lots of work to do today.
-Ken

Scratch Mag Article

Hey there. Sorry for the absence. I've been inundated with work lately and a bit distracted from blogging, but i'm back in action now. So, if you wanna read more of my witty humor you can check out this month's Scratchy Magazine, with Swizz Beatz on the cover. I wrote an article in The LAB section, reviewing the new SSL AWS900 console, and tied the story into my work mixing "Throwback" for Usher. I'm really happy with the way the article came out, GO READ IT NOW!!!!
- Ken

Berklee Distinguished Alumni Award

I was bestowed one of the greatest honors of my career tonight. My alma mater, Berklee College of Music, holds a banquet each year during the AES Convention. Each year they recognize one person with a "Distinguished Alumni Award" at the banquet, and this year, I received the Award. So, there were easily over 100 people at the banquet, many of them very distinguished alumni in their own right, many of them were young alumni or still students with wonderful careers ahead of them yet to unfold. I had to give an acceptance speech to this crowd. People tell me my speech was very good. It was certainly from the heart. I've become pretty good at public speaking over the years, so it really doesnt bother me to get up in front of a crowd and speak, though that crowd of all Berklee Alumni and faculty, with Berklee's storied history and reputation, it was a bit intimidating at first. The nerves lasted about ten seconds then the thoughts just flowed.
One of my former professors, and someone i consider a mentor, Carl Beatty, introduced me tonight. What an honor to have someone who i admire so greatly both personally and professionally, and who has helped me so much in my own career, give my introduction. All of the Berklee faculty in attendance tonight was really great. I even saw the guy who gave me my first job in a studio interning at Downtown Recorders Studios in Boston. Mitch Benoff, thanks so much Mitch, that job set off a series of events leading me here. To you youngsters out there. Get internships, they are more valuable than gold in both experience and resume building. Without Downtown Recorders, I probably wouldnt have gotten hired at the next studio or the next or the next. Of course the same can be said of Berklee. That education facilitated all of it.
Anyway, its late, but I still have work to do. I'm so humbled to be recognized in this way by Berklee. Out of everyone they could have chosen, I'm honored that it was me.
- Ken

AES Day 2 - Rain on the big Apple Party

AES, Day 2, Saturday. Wow! I saw some cool stuff today. Not gonna bore you with technical gear run downs. I didnt see much on the AES floor today due to a late start and some work i needed to finish at the studio before going. The new Garritan orchestra and big band virtual synths are pretty amazing. I found replacement knobs for my Nuemann Mastering EQ's. I heard the new ADAM mini nearfield speakers, which sounded unbelievable. But then at $4000 with the subwoofer, which you need, they'd better sound unbelievable.

At 5pm, i started trying to make my way over to the Apple/Logic party in Midtown. It started raining, and in New York, when it rains, it is impossible to get a cab. About 15 minutes of standing in the rain and we finally grabbed a cab to the party. I was soaked when we got there, but in good spirits. speaking of spirits, they had an open bar, so i grabbed a beer, samples the muchies, and talked with some of the Apple Logic people. A fun time was had by all.

Apple actually has this new SAN network that ties all of your computers together to a central database, so all 4 of my computers and all 3 of my music systems can all be tied together, working on the same files at the same time if needed, all sharing my sample library, etc... Its kinda pricey, but i think within the next year i'll move to that kind of system. It'll definitely help productivity around here. Anyway, back to mixing tonight.
- Ken

Carl Beatty - Mentor

Thought I'd write one more quick post tonight. I saw Carl Beatty today for the first time in many years. I talk to him on the phone from time to time, but hadn't seen him in forever (he looked very well). Carl was definitely one of my mentors and biggest influences on me as an engineer early on. The guy is a genius level engineer and a great person and I learned alot from him. When i hear the term "Golden Ears" referring to anyone, Carl is the image that pops into my brain. Thanks Carl for teaching and inspiring me.
- Ken

AES Day 1 and other interesting news

A few very interesting things are happening here lately, most are over the top good, some are pretty fucked up. Actually just one. This industry never ceases to amaze me how some people attempt to conduct business. Of course the vast majority of those types of people have fairly short careers, and well, I've been making major label albums for almost 15 years which might tell you something about me as a person. I'll keep you posted on all of the above in the days to come, and I'll just leave you with this. Your word and your honor are everything. If you don't stand by them, then who are you?

The Edro album continues to go amazingly well. I have very high expectations for this album. We wrote and recorded a couple new songs earlier this past week, and got alot of excellent keeper vocals recorded. I'm starting a rock album mix next week with a long time client. I'm really looking forward to mixing it.

The AES Convention started today, thats the Audio Engineering Society Convention in New york City (basically a convention for studio geeks), so of course i was there. Early on, I hooked up with my friend and Tech Editor of Scratch Magazine, Noah Rubin, and my super talented engineer friend Ryan West, and we hit the WAVES booth for a personal demo of WAVES new "De-Breather". Yup, somebody actually made a plugin specifically to remove only breaths and nothing else. It works amazingly well. WAVES also has a new vocal tuning plugin, which is very similar to Melodyne, only it seems much quicker and easier to use than Melodyne. Its not a real time plugin like Autotune is, but it seems pretty fast and is far more powerful. Finally, WAVES has a guitar amp simulator thats very impressive, with a very impressive $1200 price tag to match. Just a thought, $1200 seems really steep for any amp modeling plugin, even a good one.

The other item currently catching my eye is the brainchild of Chris Muth, a gear guru who has designed and built many of the mastering desks for the top mastering engineers in New York and elseware. When i heard he built an Analog Summing Box for digital mixing, i was all over it. Chris is a really nice guy, and his gear is wonderful (DangerousMusic.com). I also had a long talk with Bob Clearmountain today. Always such a wonderful guy to talk to. He has made so many landmark albums and he's still so down to Earth. I also talked at length with Anthony DeMaria (ADL Compressors) who was hanging at the PreSonus Booth. I ran into an old friend from Nashville who used to manage Emerald Sound and now manages George Massenburg's new studio in Nashville, which is ultra cool. I've always loved recording in Emerald's gem of a studio "The Tracking Room". It sounds amazing. I'm betting Massenburg's new place will sound great too.

Tomorrow (Saturday), i hope to steal a few more hours away from working to hit AES again and see everything i missed today, as well as hit the Apple/Logic reception. I got to meet the Logic guru who's been my lifeline for the last several months. Whenever i have a technical issue that I cant figure out with Logic, she's always found the answers for me somehow. There are a few other things tomorrow on my "gotta check out" list. Sunday will be a VERY big day for me. More on that later.
- Ken

I Pray for Another #1

Good news this week. I just earned my 18th #1 album. CeCe Winans new album "Purified" came out recently and shot straight to #1 on the Gospel albums charts. I mixed the first single, titled "Pray". Congrats to CeCe on another major career success.

I also recently mixed a 5 song live DVD release for CeCe. I don't know when that will hit stores or TV, but I'll let you know. Its really fun to mix music for picture, especially nowadays. Computer technology has gotten so good that you can have the video running live on the computer screen while your mixing on the same computer. I have dual 19 inch flat screens on my mixing rig, so there's plenty of real estate to view everything simultaneously. Back in the day, you had to lock a 3/4 inch video machine to a 2 inch analog 24 track machine via a timecode track. It was slow and took forever to lock, then if you wanted to rewind ten second back and play again, it was a 30 second venture to rewind, let them machines park, then play and wait for the machines to lock. What a pain in the ass. Nowadays, its virtually instantaneous, which is great for creativity, and keeps the flow of mixing.

Spent most of today working on the Edro album. Edro is in town right now and absolutely murdering vocal performances. His writing is really reaching new heights as well. This is gonna be a great album. I'll keep you posted.

The New York AES Convention starts tomorrow morning. I plan to be there bright and early with my Scratch Magazine Press Pass. If your there, say hello.
- Ken

Upgrade - Pro Tools HD Accel 4

Yes, yet another major upgrade to the mixing system. I decided to go up to an HD Accel 4 system. In laymans terms that simply means i have an obnoxious amount of processing power. On top of that, I think i officially have more plugins than should be allowed by law. In addition to other recent purchases such as TL Space and the Eventide Anthology bundle, I just bought the MassivePack 4 package, which gave me a few more things i didnt have yet. The Cransong Pheonix plugin is pretty sweet, thats a voodoo box if i ever heard one. The McDSP G Channel has become a staple in my mixing arsenal. Those are really the 2 new ones I'll get the most use out of. The URS Graphic EQ's might see some action, and the Pultec EQH2 and MEQ 5 will get limited use (I already have the EQP1A qhich i use quite alot). I already own alot of the rest of the MassivePack, including the TC Master X, Revibe Reverb, Fairchild 660, H3000 Factory, Oxford EQ, etc.... I use all of them alot. The SoundToys Speed Plugin could be a helpful tool. Havent tried it yet.

In addition to digital world upgrades, I'm saving up for some analog world upgrades as well. I've heard alot of positive things about these analog summing boxes (don't worry if you dont know what they are, I didn't know what they were til a month ago), but basically, instead of combining everything digitally there's a way to combine all the individual digital signals in the analog domain. I really need to hear this before i believe there's a difference, but I'm keeping an open mind that it could make a difference. I already use alot of analog gear while I mix anyway, sometimes my EQ's or Tube compressors, sometimes my Roland Dim D or my (real) EMT 140 Plate reverb. I use that Plate like crazy. Any piece of outboard gear thats 8 feet long and 4 feet high deserves alot of use.

The AES Convention comes to New York City this weekend. I'll be there. My connects at Scratch Magazine are hooking me up with a press pass, which probably just means that alot more of the manufacturers will pay alot more attention to me for fear that I'll write bad things about them if they don't. I dont plan to write anything about AES anywhere but my blog, but then ya never know. Speaking of Scratch, i wrote an article for the latest issue thats just now hitting the news stands. check it out.
- Ken

Life in the Fast Lane

Yep, thats pretty much what i've been living lately. Life in the fast lane, non-stop, high speed, lots of work, enough play, tremendous diversity of projects. Its been great. I got to play a bit this weekend. A pair of good friends got married this weekend and I went to their wedding. Amazing location, in New Jersey, at the end of a nice pier, at the edge of the Hudson River with Manhattan directly across the river. Perfect weather, perfect ceremony. I do really miss the Twin Towers though. I don't think i'll ever look at the New York skyline and not miss them. And of course, the wedding reception followed which meant free food and drink!!! I'm all about it, we had a blast. Backing up to Friday night, i joined the groom-to-be on his Batchelor party. Lets just say a good time was had by all. And, as every classic batchelor party should end, the groom puked on his own shoes in Times Square. the perfect ending to a perfect night. The next day wasn't so fun.

Actually, I'm lying, Saturday was a great day. After the hangover and lack of sleep wore off anyway. I becamre a foster parent of sorts on Saturday. a Dog foster parent anyway. I have 2 dogs, Greyhounds. They are amazing. Most of them get killed once their racing careers are over, unless they get adopted. I have adopted 2. I took a 3rd Greyhound this weekend for 2 to 4 weeks as a "foster parent" until it finds an adoptive home. Greyhounds are wonderful pets, everyone reading this should adopt one. :-) After the new Greyhound settled in, I had a vocal recording session with a very soulful female singer for one of E-dro's songs. The title of the song is also the title of this post. This song is one of my favorite things I've ever produced, though admittedly i have many favorites. This is a great song, probably not a single, but a song that everybody is going to love and listen to over and over. I've heard it about 300 times already and i still love it.

So, E-dro will be at the studio here working all week. and frequently throughout October. This album is going to be amazing. mark my words.
- Ken