Loop #139
When your studio is temporarily set up in a spare bedroom (I'm doing some more work on the carriage house) and your wife is taking a nap (apparently, pregnant women love to nap), knowing how to play quietly becomes an essential part of the production process... and a happy marriage. And playing quietly doesn't just mean grabbing some brushes and making everything 30 db lower.. it also means keeping the intensity up. Put some fire in the mezzo-piano.
By harnessing the energy o...
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Our good friends over at The Loop Loft (the place my loops go when they're ready for the big leagues) are having a massive sale on their entire loop collection this weekend. Don't sleep on this one...
“Summer is almost over, but your chance to pick up the best loops online isn’t!
Just enter the following code at checkout to receive 25% off from our entire collection:
labordaysale
But don’t delay, the sale ends Monday, September 6th!”
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Loop #138
For this loop I decided to take the opposite approach to producing. The "Costanza Method" of recording, if you will. As I'm sure most of you already know, effects and audio processing are typically applied during the mixing process, after all of the tracks are recorded. However, for this session, I applied a variety of sonic sculpting tools to the master bus BEFORE recording a single note. Sure, I checked the levels to make sure everything was copacetic, but I wanted this random...
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I'm not sure how I got into this whole "facial hair" theme with my last few video posts, but if the music is good, then I will not be deterred by a little scruff. In this live performance from 1979, Toto steams things up in Cleveland with an extended version of their hit single, "Hold The Line". And check out that keyboard player on stage left. I could be mistaken, but is that a young Howard Stern?
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When I put out a call for loop requests the other week, I received an outpouring of emails asking for every type of genre and beat you could imagine. Everything from tangos, odd meter math rock, slow bossa novas, death metal (I don't own a double bass pedal and my trenchcoat is at the dry cleaner) and merrengue. Quite a spectrum. And while I've kept all of these responses on file for future sessions, it was one particular request that immediately caught my ear and sent me running to the studi...
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In a fine display of some of the most swinging, dynamic and melodic drumming I've seen recently, Jeff Hamilton shows you how to put it all together in this live performance.
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This past weekend, while clearing out one of the bedrooms in my house to make way for a nursery (yes folks, there's a little Gruss set to drop in December), I stumbled upon an old shoebox containing dozens of old cassette tapes from my years at Berklee. A literal time capsule back to 1996-2000, these tapes captured everything from late night jam sessions in 150 Mass Ave, board tapes from various gigs with Jonah Smith, instrumental funk tracks featuring a classmate named John, and most important...
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Is there a certain kind of loop you've been waiting for me to record? Dubstep with a dash of merengue at 137bpm? Or perhaps some heavy Klezmer grooves with a nice plate reverb and a bar of 7/8 in the fourth measure? Well, now is your chance to submit your request.
Nothing is too weird, offensive or difficult for me to record (you should know this by now) so bring it on. I'll keep the request form in the right sidebar of the site and I'll try to keep up with your submissions as they come i...
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Loop #136
While I might not use single-headed toms with Pinstripes (I stick to the coated Ambassadors), one two three things that Phil Collins and I have in common is our love for Gretsch drums.... and gated reverb. Lots of gated reverb. Also, coincidentally enough, we both have major butt-chins.
With the toms on my bebop-sized kit (18" kick, 12" tom & 14" floor tom) cranked up high, this four bar loop is a somewhat hypnotic, tribal pattern ending with four 16th note flams on the snare (...
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Loop #135
I'm not even sure if Trent Reznor drinks coffee (he strikes me as the type that might consume it by the gallon), but assuming that he did, and that he happened to spill that coffee all over his console while mixing some drum tracks, I think the end result might sound something like this. Angry, yet precise, odd meter drumming crushed all of the way down to 5 bits. Black. No Sugar.
And while I'm on the topic of NIN, here's a great interview regarding the making of the epic 2005...
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