Friday, January 25, 2013

Epic Session and It's NAMM time!

Louise Goffin, Lorelei McBroom, me, Durga McBroom-Hudson

Guy Pratt of Pink Floyd and Toy Matinee fame

The other day on the 23rd of January 2013 we had quite the epic session over at my friend Simeon's studio called "Blue Forest" in Sherman Oaks. It started off with sampling a Warwick bass and a '62 Fender P-Bass with Guy Pratt of Pink Floyd for his upcoming Sonic Reality bass library. We're also recording bass parts for a song Guy wrote with Durga that we're cutting as well. Fernando Perdomo from the previous day's session worked up a guitar and drum track for that. All part of the LA music machine thing I've got going on which is working out fantastically I have to say! What incredible resources for any producer to have and I've realized that just being around long enough in music you accumulate through experience these compatible elements to whatever it is you're wanting to do... people that specialize in one area or another and you know what to expect if you hand them a task for a project. 

So, after we finished up with Guy we went on to do some vocal sampling with the McBroom sisters. Lots of oohs and aahs with soul! After that we did vocals for a cool Pink Floyd song. I won't say what it is yet (gotta leave some surprises) but joining them on vocals for it was their long time friend Louise Goffin. She sounded great and was a lot of fun! It was wild to find out that we had probably met before or at least were standing right next to each other backstage at a concert because she used to play guitar with Tears for Fears when Nick D'Virgilio played drums for them. Kevin Gilbert and I went to go see Nick play with TFF in LA at the Wiltern and she was there! Louise has been doing all sorts of interesting things in the music world for years. Currently she's nominated for a Grammy for producing her mother Carole King!!!! So congrats to her for that. I hope she wins but it's an honor just to be recognized (and an honor to have done it in the first place). Cool to meet and work with the sons and daughters of rock legends! Haha. I joke with Simon (Phil Collins' son) about my family all having absolutely nothing to do with music whatsoever. Even my brother who manages IK Multimedia's US office doesn't actually play a note. He's pure business. I can only imagine the dynamics of what it must be like having a musical family let alone a parent who is a music icon. But, like anything, I'm sure it has its double edged sword (people compare you etc.). It is nice to see something like Louise producing her mother's album. That's really cool. It was also great to not only see but co-write and play on the one song Simon recorded with his father called "The Big Bang". 

Squids at NAMM

So now today, the 25th of January is the second day of the annual Winter NAMM show. I've been going to this NAMM show every year since 1989. I go because I'm a gear head, I see tons of people I know, I do business there for my company Sonic Reality (and before that I did sound design for the major keyboard manufactures like Alesis, Yamaha, Roland etc.) and I just go! From 1997 to I think 2009 we had a Sonic Reality booth there. But, from 2010 to now I've been booth free (apart from my second home at IK's booth) and it's a lot more enjoyable that way for me. I've dialed back the sort of corporate approach to my company and treat it more like a production company. Our job is to do the sound development for our own products and license them for other company products whether it's IK Multimedia, Cakewalk, Propellerheads, Camel Audio, NI, Yamaha, Steinberg... and we can do that with any appropriate combination of people in any studio around the world. I can assemble a team of people whether they are ex-employees of SR or just engineers, editors or musicians I know that have the skills and resources to do what needs to get done. I have my core team back home handling the nuts and bolts of day to day business but a world-wide scalable team of talent to do all sorts of fantastic products AND music! Oh yeah... music!!!!! ALMOST forgot about that a decade ago. Now I'm happy to say there's a good balance of both sounds AND music going on (as you can see in this blog!). 

Now, if you've been following my posts on Facebook or reading this blog you know that I'm all about discovering cool instruments so you can expect a "NAMM report" blog post from me at some point. I will probably do it at the end or maybe in a few parts along the way. Fellow gear heads and the sonically curious can look forward to some cool pics and videos. I'm having a great time doing things I love to do and there isn't a moment I'm not grateful for it. Onward we go!





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