Studio Miracles

Hard Drives for Music Makers

2011-01-01T13:56:00.001-08:00

I was recently talking with a film-music producer about external hard drives, and she asked me my opinion on good hard drives, specifically one that can stream audio sample libraries, hold a terabyte of data (1000 gigs) and be portable.

If you've been producing/composing music for a number of years, then you've probably gone through a few hard drives like I have. They stack up in the corner, different colored and shaped ones from Best Buy or Staples, clunky gray "professional looking" boxes that turn out to not be sturdy enough to travel with. It's inevitable that we outgrow drives, that our sample libraries get bigger, and our computers find new ways to be conveniently incompatible.

I wanted to share this with you all, because for the past year I have been using an external hard drive that works great.

Just to be clear, this is my professional opinion. I don't know everything about every technical spec and benchmark, and I haven't compared brands in a controlled manner. I've just used a lot of drives, and I've also seen the way that other producers & composers use drives.

The first thing I'll say in general is that Glyph drives are your best bet for music making.
•They're as fast as internal drives 7200 RPM, (although not all Glyphs are that fast).
•They're designed to work with Pro Tools, Logic, Digital Performer, Nuendo, Cubase, Sonar, Sony Vegas, etc. Of course Reason, Ableton Live, Sibelius and Finale are less intensive so Glyph should work with them as well.

This is the drive I use: Glyph PortaGig 800

http://www.glyphtech.com/products/portagig/features.php#/images/products/portagig-gallery-picks.jpg

• I keep all my sample libraries in here,
• my entire iTunes library
• as well as my project folders,
• all my Sibelius notation files and GuitarPro notation files.

When I'm creating music I tend to keep Logic projects and Reason projects in a secondary hard drive in my desktop computer (not the system drive), but then if I'm going on a trip, I will drag the projects that I know I'm going to need, from my computer to the Glyph.

I use my Glyph everywhere, at the coffee shop, on a plane. I have worked on Sibelius and Reason projects while riding on a plane with my laptop connected to the Glyph.

Of course the catch to you getting a drive like mine is that, it's last year's model, so A) it's not as readily available in stores, and B) it may not be enough storage for you. The PortaGig 800 has up to 500GB

so

Here are the next generation. Comparable in portability and speed, but with more storage.

Glyph PortaGig 50
http://www.glyphtech.com/products/portagig50/specifications.php

Up to 1 terabyte

Glyph PortaGig 62
http://www.glyphtech.com/products/portagig62/specifications.php

Latest release: up to 2 terabytes

These all use Firewire 800 and USB, so they're compatible with Mac and PC.

;;;

Fun Stuff

2010-11-11T12:24:00.000-08:00

October 16, 2010 hanging out at Dear John's in Culver City. Left to Right: Pat Weaver of LakeHouse Sound, Film Composer Cliff Martinez, Joe Matzzie of Studio Miracles (that's me), and John Rodd, Film Score Mixer.

Dear John's is a really fun place to hang out. Live music 7 nights a week. That night the performers were "Dean and Richard", a multi-instrumentalists duo covering standards from Jazz swing to Country.

It was also a thrill to meet Cliff. I consider him to be one of my favorite composers. Cliff had just come from seeing the film Social Network, and had good things to say about the film, and about Trent Reznor's score. Also we discovered that John has a wealth of good stories of recording studio practical jokes from his years working at various recording studios.

Alan Menken Walk of Fame Star Ceremony

2010-11-11T11:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I stopped by the El Capitan Theater, where Alan Menken was receiving a star on the Walk of Fame. Alan composed songs and scores for The Little Mermaid, Pocahontas, Beauty and The Beast, all the great songs that are associated with the resurgence of fabulous Disney songs in the past 20 years "A Whole New World", "Under The Sea", "Be our Guest", "The Colors of The Wind".

Presenting the award was Richard Sherman, who wrote all the songs in Mary Poppins.

At the ceremony (the people I recognized) were Richard Kraft of the Film Composer Agency, Kraft-Engel, Dan Foliart & Laura Dunn of the Society of Composers and Lyricists, Ray Costa of the Public Relations firm Costa Communications. Also Actress Mandy Moore, the voice of Rapunzel was there.

11/10/2010 Beverly Hills Courier - Composer Alan Menken Receives Walk of Fame Star

11/11/2010 L.A. Times - Songwriter Alan Menken gets his star on the Walk of Fame

11/10/2010 In Contention.com - Alan Menken gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

11/07/2010 Playbill - Alan Menken Honored with Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Nov. 10

Garry Schyman's New Website

2010-01-08T00:19:00.001-08:00

Composer Garry Schyman has a brand new website, and it was designed entirely by Joe Matzzie. It is mostly done in html & css, but features a flash player which plays both audio and video. Check out GarrySchyman.com

Studio Miracles Partners with GuitarTricks.com

2010-01-07T23:46:00.000-08:00

Joe Matzzie is now working as a Music Transcriber for
GuitarTricks.com, the website that invented online multimedia guitar lessons.

December, 2009, I did a hardware job for Chris Smyk, assembling and wiring his ProTools studio. Chris is a Songwriter/Producer who recently moved from New York City to Santa Monica, and has some exciting things happening with his music on both coasts.

I've also been working part time for Concert Composer
Russell Steinberg, helping him with promotion of his catalog, and his AudioMaps books and lectures. Russell is one of the great authorities on concert music, and it's been inspiring to watch him successfully keep the LA Youth Orchestra funded and active through the economically turbulent times.

I also did a job for songwriter Lisa Donna, troubleshooting her home studio to record midi and audio, and giving her an intro lesson on the software.

And lastly, I transcribed 4 songs for the Bonnie Hunt Show, which Nicholas Pike and his awesome house band performed on air in mid December.

Discovery, Sony, IMAX To Create 3D TV Network

2010-01-05T13:40:00.000-08:00

Sony, IMAX, Discovery to Form 3D TV Network

Nov 16, 2009 Composers and Teamsters Meeting

2009-11-17T01:17:00.000-08:00

Tonight went to an informational meeting regarding possible unionization of composers, with the Teamsters. About 400 people attended. The main speakers at the event were Composer Alf Clausen, Composer Bruce Broughton, Steve Dayan of the Teamsters Local 399, Gary Zuckerbrod of the Casting Directors Union, Composer James Di Pasquale, and Composer Alan Elliott. A lot of successful composers in the house as well as entry level and working composers, orchestrators, music editors, songwriters, and musicians.

The meeting was hosted by the Association of Music Composers and Lyricists

The general vibe seemed to be that everybody wants to see composers organize and collectively bargain, but that it will take a lot of work to get the whole national/global cross-section of composers and lyricists involved. All parameters will have to be talked out and worked out in a democratic way, over time.

11/14&15/2009 West L.A. Music Expo

2009-11-17T01:10:00.000-08:00

Saturday and Sunday went to jam-packed recording expo at West L.A. Music in Santa Monica. Lots of amazing new gear, learned about latest versions of Sonar and Digital Performer, Talked with Ableton Live rep about grid-style controller. Met Eve Anna, Owner of Manley Labs, makers of high end tube mics. Met Paul Hudson rep from IK Multimedia, and Justin Vencel who's starting a website called recordingquestions.com. Saw demonstration of the Digidesign Eleven, which is a ProTools interface with fx inside, so it can be used as guitar stage fx into your amp without a computer. Another interesting item was a Presonus DAW, very new but very simple workflow. fx, instruments, etc can be dragged and dropped anywhere. Went to a clinic on Digital Performer 7, and messed around with pitch correction feature.

2009-11-10T00:06:00.001-08:00

Went to Experiemental Film Screening Series at Un-Urban Cafe: Pictured here are filmmakers Ben Balcom & Josh Weissbach being interviewed by Gerry Fialka

Un-Urban Cafe - Friday Open Mic

2009-11-06T23:27:00.000-08:00

11/06/2009 Went to Un-Urban Cafe tonight for the open mic. This is a great place to hear original songwriters, a very anything-goes type atmosphere. Steve Narahara is the M.C..

I played "7 Years" on guitar, and then "I'm Trying to get Close to You" on piano, which I've never done live, but they have a great, slightly out of tune piano. As you can see it's almost wider than the stage.

If you look closely in these photos you see bluesman, Mark Philips, waiting for a bus across the street from the Cafe. The performer on stage is Kai Anderson of the band "The Parlor Room"

Capitalism, a Love Story at DGA

2009-11-06T23:06:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, Went to see Capitalism, a Love Story at the Director's Guild Building. Great film. Michael Moore must have a great system of gathering and organizing content. Really cool version of Louie Louie during opening credits. The lyrics are paraphrased to make a reference to filmmaking. Who recorded that?

Original Score by Jeff Gibbs, who's composer music and co-producer on other political documentaries.

2009-11-03T01:17:00.000-08:00

Nov 2, 2009, I had the privilege of being present at a scoring session for Dante's Inferno Game, at Martinsound Recording Studio. Pictured here are Composer/Conductor Garry Schyman, Contractor Ross DeRoche on Tuba, Concert Master Belinda Broughton, and about 15 other players. The main scoring sessions for the game happened at Abbey Road a couple months ago. Here they added some tracks, and in the afternoon they recorded a choir, which I regrettably couldn't stick around for.

Also of interest, Martinsound is the company that invented the technology; Flying Faders, which they exclusively sell and rent to other studios.

Dante's Inferno is due out February 9, 2010

Steal This Dulcimer!

2009-10-25T18:44:00.001-07:00

Just in time for Halloween, I recorded and uploaded 49 minutes of improvised bizarre sounds and techniques on the hammered dulcimer, using hammers, percussion mallets, and fingernails.

Download it (here), Cut it up, create loops, create sample maps, make some great music with it. Warning, do not listen to this without watching the audio wave going by in your computer. Some of the attack really jump suddenly in volume, and some of it is so quiet and whispery you're going to want to turn up the speakers. It's not meant to be a finished product, just the raw ingredients.

The compressed file is 351.2MB. The AIFF is 494.6MB, appropriately. It was recorded at 44k16bit, with a Samson condenser mic, and no compression or effects.

Enjoy

2009-10-23T13:42:00.000-07:00

STAR TREK The Sound Show

2009-10-21T02:15:00.000-07:00

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20th, 2009
Panel discusion on the sound from the movie Star Trek
Samuel Goldwyn Theater at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
8949 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA

On the panel were Director J.J Abrams, Supervising Sound Editors Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin, Picture Editors Mary Jo Markey and Maryann Brandon, and Re-Recording Mixers Andy Nelson and Anna Behlmer.

As you can see they had the stems projected on the big screen, in ProTools HD 7.4.2, on what appeared to be a laptop, although it could have been accessing resources on another computer. They played sfx, and score separately, and with picture.