Vicki Richards Blog

Computer for music recording & more…time for a change…MacBook Pro?

VickiRichards — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 03:46:46 +0000

Hi All,
Well, with your FB assistance and a computer tech coming in to look at my ole Bessies…iMac G 5 and the 5 +yr old Mac Book…the diagnosis is: I need multiple core processors, more memory, larger Cache and these 2 Macs won’t function well for what I seem to do: Like having Garage Band, Safari, Work, Text, iPhoto all open and jumping into one, then waiting eons to load the next…
Going to Albany, an hour away, to the Apple store again on Monday.
I know I’ve asked before but if you can weigh in…which program should I use to record at home, in hopes that the “solo of the century” is captured and can be easily sent to a professional engineer using ProTools. Mike, Peter, Amit, Jeff & Mitch probably know about my old Edirol limits : -o
If nothing else, going to 3 studios for this latest recording project, has taught me that Nothing is seemless when transferring studio session files. Quite the contrary! “I’ll get the checkbook, with a xanax chaser please.”
(You are not allowed to tear anymore hair out at this point…it’s in good hands now)
Q What recording program is “more seamless” to import and useful to you in ProTools? Please don’t say Pro Tools.. Mike, you know my learning curve on this is negligible to impossible. I just play violin.

Q To the Pro musicians: I hope you will weigh in on what’s more user friendly to us, the non engineers…Amit had something to suggest. Where are those notes?
Thanks very much!

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new artists for Starbucks ?…oh well

VickiRichards — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 01:48:22 +0000

Hello Vicki,

Thanks for taking the time to contact Starbucks Coffee Company.

Due to the overwhelming response we have received in recent months to our various entertainment initiatives, we regret we are no longer able to accept unsolicited material. Any unsolicited material received will not be opened, and will be discarded.

Thank you for your interest in Hear Music!

Sincerely,

Customer Relations

Starbucks Coffee Company

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Music, Buy it don’t steal it

VickiRichards — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:31:28 +0000

Sam Rosenthal Although I agree with most of what Michael says — and I’m always telling my fans to BUY MUSIC, rather than STEAL IT — I will disagree by saying there still is money to be earned in the music industry. Legal digital income increases every year for my label; it actually evens out with the loss of money from physical sales. “Staying the same is the new getting ahead” — that’s my slogan.

Mike Blaty replies“LOL… I like your motto Sam and it is too true. It happens that I also agree with the fact that there is still money to be earned in music. It’s just much harder to achieve under the current set of non-rules. Perhaps my point was made too ardently and too pessimistically. I still have hope that the music industry will somehow right itself.

Though I think it’s in our nature to choose the free option rather than the one that costs money when given the choice, I have hope there will be a way to keep artists doing what fires their souls. I speak more from the frustration of my own ignorance as to how it is currently done, than from a blanket rebuke of that which I clearly do not understand.

As a recording engineer, I started about the same time as you, Sam. Some of the most rewarding moments of my life were spent in that chair helping to create music. It’s a calling that defies all efforts of self preservation by denial. Now that I’ve taken jobs in other areas of the industry, I scratch at my missing studio like the phantom itch of a missing limb. I used to glibbly say that even if people didn’t pay me to record, I would do it anyway… but it turns out we all have to make a living sometime. It makes me happy to know that some still cut a path down this overgrown, but worthy trail.”

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Music industry, history and today

VickiRichards — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:14:53 +0000

Mike B: Peter is right that there were some fantastic major labels during the album oriented rock and adult contemporary period (ie Geffen, A&M and GRP). Unfortunately those labels were either bought out or crushed by numbers-driven, multinational corporations during the 1980′s. I would still argue that the landscapewas better when the filter and promotion of major labels was relevant. That’s the current issue. Some of these major and independant labels still exist, but they are largely irrelevant. In todays market, record labels are much less of a success vehicle, yet they still take their traditional pound of flesh from the recording artist. I make no contention about their desirablility one way of the other, but they can do much less, and they provide much less than they did in the past and still require the same percentages. It has also been many years since those labels did tour support. On those lines, Don Henley wrote an article in 2004 called “Killing the Music” and it is a good read for those who have wittnessed the changes.

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dialogue re decline to Lo Fi listening

VickiRichards — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:07:56 +0000

Mike B cont..However, it makes me sad as a songwriter, musician and recording engineer, that the average listener is far less interested in posessing a high quality recording of their favorite songwriter/artist than they are in downloading a billion songs to their crappy MP3 player or iPhone in low resolution. The idea of a cohesive album is lost, as is listening to everything besides that one tune you’ve been hearing on the radio. That may be the current reality, but it is a sad one.

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Dialogue re music biz

VickiRichards — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:06:07 +0000

jeff Deen Congrats on starting this dialouge, Vicki. I was speaking with Mike Blaty the other day about it, and I observed that we went from having everything being dictated by the big record companies and radio stations to now, having so much access to music that we cannot filter out all the crap. Not to say that the big companies were successful in filtering out all the crap- they just knew what crap would sell to the masses. Seems like there could be a role for musician co-ops to market themselves, or at least have many related artists under one site, perhaps maintained by a common manager or booking agent. Not sure how it would work. But at least we’re talking.

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How do you buy your music?

VickiRichards — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:04:48 +0000

I posted this….How do you buy music? Let me know if you are in the 25-35, 35-45, 45-55, 60 + up age group if you don’t mind. Or not…..
just how online, iTUnes or CD Baby, Rhapsody, Amazon, other…physical CD, download whole albums, 99cent songs…Thanks much
I trade CDs with other artists it seems..all original creative types..from jazz to bluegrass and kirtans too. I bought 99 cent downloads of a singer I was to work with. There wasn’t enough time for him to send me the repertoire. Worked out very well for the gig!

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Music offline to online: recent history, the industry, changes, musicians paralyzed by theft online

VickiRichards — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 20:45:57 +0000

This was a Facebook entry by a recording engineer/friend. Here’s a view from the helm…A recent history of what has happened. I think it’s worth reading and pondering. As to fixing…that’s left to us.

I honestly sit paralyzed with no idea of how to proceed through the current music industry. I have no clue of how people find new music they enjoy.

In 1996 I received a lecture as to what a revolution the internet would be for the music business. Instead it systematically destroyed the part that was working along with the corporate parts that weren’t.

Most often I’m frustrated and confounded that not only do people have free access to downloading art that took a great deal of time, effort and money to create, but that there is no longer guilt associated with taking it.

Combine that with the fact that we now have no filter between milliions of postings from Bobby’s first “Twinkle Twinkle” to the latest release from your favorite band, and nobody knows where to find new good music.

In five years we went from the austere interpretations of corporate record labels and focus group driven radio to media overload and internet chaos.

Check your favorite category on CD baby, then realize that you would have to listen to 5 seconds of each song everyday for the rest of your life without a break and you would still not sift through enough material to find that which touches your heart.

This is, in my opinion, NO improvement.

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Letter to a friend going into surgery…beginning the journey.

VickiRichards — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:48:47 +0000

I’m glad next week is a quick in and out. How long does the procedure take? Is it general anesthesia or something else? I had a friend that insisted on getting the anesthesia that doesn’t wipe out the memory of the procedure. Maybe you know what that is. I didn’t care…just knock me out!

I always looked forward to pre op. Honestly! By that time I knew that when I went to sleep I’d wake up knowing more, having the cancer removed, the next breast work stage completed, or hysterectomy, or…So each time I felt I was moving towards better health. I love to go in & do something like wear deer antlers around Christmas, with the jingle bells on them…..had a friend that got to wear her pair into the surgical suite. She got more jolly : )

Things will improve in someway after a day in surgery….my longest was 6 hours or so. Hey, to me it was a much needed rest from anxiety & unending sleeplessness over my health crisis and intense marital separation. So I felt in good hands, confident and had faith that all was going to be well…eventually…just another step in the right direction. one step at a time….small victories along the way.

I’m hoping Mass General lives up to it’s reputation in all ways. I’m super vigilant in hospitals because of my experiences in Miami, FL…home of the “Hospital Circus”.

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Job Opportunity at Electric Violin Shop in NC

VickiRichards — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 16:04:41 +0000

Job opening at Electric Violin Shop…immediate need for a new employee.

Go to this link for details

http://www.electricviolinshop.com/Help_Wanted.cfmd.cfm

Wonderful owner/boss

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