Indablog

The State of Jazz

Indaba Music — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 12:00:00 -0400

For those of you who have read my posts before, you'll know that I am unapologetically a jazz musician. It's what I've played and studied since I was a youngling. Though lately, and I don't think I'm alone, defining exactly what "jazz" is has become difficult. Is it a style with rules, or is it a music in which "there are no wrong notes" (as the common standby goes)? Is it fair to call jazz "America's classical music", or is it more of a music born out of the African diaspora, as prominent jazz critics like Stanley Crouch like to tout? It's almost impossible for it to be both, though undoubtedly the African diaspora had a large role to play in American music coming into its own. Still, this has been something of a struggle lately as I gear up to put some music I've written onto tape, which is probably more inspired by bands like Blonde Redhead and modern gospel artists like J Moss than it is by the traditional music of Armstrong and Ellington. So, I'll try to parse some of my views on the state of modern jazz below:

I. Rebellion

Let's start with irony, ironically it's often a great place to start. In certain NYC jazz circles, the word "jazz" has a negative connotation. I've given it a bit of thought, and I think I've come up with a reason why (for me, at least) it would have one. Most of the younger musicians my age trying to break into the scene nowadays came up through the traditional channels. We studied our instruments with teachers, played in school and church, learned according to the rules we were given. In music school we were fed the generally accepted jazz curriculum where be-bop is king, and Miles and Coltrane are gods. This is where we were told, "this is jazz, this is what you're here to play". Surely, there were teachers who were much more enlightened than this, but as a general rule, the hard asses among them felt a personal obligation to force the idea that jazz was the holy grail of music into our souls and make us penitent musicians.

Then, school is out. And in descending upon the world, the classes of academia begin their identity crisis. Armed with the technical know-how born of hours of practice, new generations take the world by storm, even by flipping the bird at the purists and embracing the new and explosive. One only needs to listen to a Human Feel album to understand the points of rebellion, and how far outside the tradition new classes of musicians bring the music from the hallowed halls of academic life.

Still, jazz today begs the question "what is jazz?" Best I can surmise: jazz today is a double-edged sword: a rebellion against and an embrace of the lexicon.

II. Romantics

I like to equate the current trends in jazz with the Romantic movement in classical music in the 1800s. For, it was at this time that composers really started looking outside the confines of the church and previous incarnations of their genre. Also, the romantics (probably starting with Berlioz) began to spite the former "traditional" ways of treating harmony, and so, began to spread their harmonic and contrapuntal wings. So too do modern jazz musicians look outside of the holy legacy of Art Blakey and Miles Davis and seek to cut the "jazz" ties of the ii-V-I. Also, Romantic composers began to shed the stigma of the age or reason and began to explore more emotive expression. In modern jazz music, Balkan rhythms, hip-hop, and even indie rock have been increasingly showing their influence in an attempt to diversify the genre and find true expression through true influence.

There's the renewed need to emote. I think I would cite the Rosenwinkel album Heartcore as one of the premier examples of expressive modern jazz. From start to finish Rosenwinkel presents sprawling compositions and solos. The intricate interplay between him and Mark Tuner on Heartcore provide some of the most emotionally invigorating music you're bound to hear. The layers of textures are perfectly balanced, and create an incredibly affecting soundscape, especially on tunes like "Heartcore" and "All the Way to Rajasthan". Throughout, there exists live performances enhanced by the addition of overdubs and lush synths which add enormously to the vibe.

On the lighter side of things, pianist Robert Glasper's album Double Booked showcases A perfect dichotomy: Glasper's acoustic trio graces the front half of the album while the back-end of the album is his more hip-hop/gospel/electronic influenced "Experiment". The inspiration Glasper draws from hip-hop and gospel music is tremendous. His piano lines are saturated with church experience and decades of listening to music other than jazz. Glasper has the ability to translate that experience through the jazz idiom, and is effective in his pursuit.

We modern jazz musicians have, like our Romantic counterparts, looked to broaden the content of the music and reach past the party lines of drawn by the lexicon. For example, trumpet player Roy Hargrove worked closely within the Soulquarian collective while they were busy redefining the sound of R&B. The Benevento/Russo Duo has even assimilated the jam-band mentality into their music and has put an intellectual spin on it. The Bad Plus have even covered the 90s anthem "Smells Like Teen Spirit", putting their own energetic twist on the song. Perhaps most famously, world renowned pianist Brad Mehldau has been recording Radiohead tunes for ages, and professes to be inspired both by not only Radiohead but Brahms, Richard Wagner, and even folk legend Nick Drake. In fact, Mehldau has released two albums produced by rock super producer Jon Brion.

Through all these different genres and the search for true expression, we jazz musicians have been seeking release from the ii-V-I and the proper voice-leading rules drilled into our fingers from day one. However, like the romantics of old studied in the great European conservatories, we've studied how to run the changes of a standard. We've studied how do to it properly so that we don't have to if we don't want to, and that's an important distinction. Have the knowledge first, then put it on the top shelf of the bookcase and forget about it until you need to call upon it.

III. Reaction

By, let's say, 1993 the novelty of the computer had worn off. By then, most American homes had their own personal home computers, and the internet revolution was right around the corner. As the digital age came into its own so too did the world of modern jazz music. Synths had taken the world of jazz by storm, and every artist (except maybe Keith Jarrett who spent a large portion of the 80's playing solo concerts, performing with his standards trio, and recording classical music) had succumbed in some way to the glamor of the new. Even Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers band tried to incorporate electric piano to disastrous results (check out the album Child's Play if you dare). There were some glimmers of jazz from artists who had gone electric in the 80's, like Chick Corea's Akoustic Band, but even Chick strapped on his keytar and blazed through "Got A Match". Eventually, the novelty of the synth wore off, and that's when the jazz world's reaction kicked in.

The first to react to this movement were the so called "young lions". This group of musicians were members of an elite club whose ranks included musicians like Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Jeff 'Tain' Watts, and Marcus Roberts. Armed with the weight of Stanley Crouch behind their movement, they were probably the first to look completely back to where Miles had left off in the 1960's. Though many in the jazz community love to hate Wynton (and also Stanley Crouch, but that's a whole other can of worms) due to his often controversial comments, I think his most successful projects were those within his "Standard Time" series of albums. It was his way of saying, "It's still hip to play standards, and moreover, we can do it in some different ways." Similarly, groups like Joshua Redman's landmark early 90's Quartet with Brian Blade, Christian McBride, and Brad Mehldau started playing standards in different time signatures; but unlike clumsy attempts to play in seven and five in the past, they made the time feel natural, internalized, and intentional. By the time Mehldau's Art of the Trio 4 appeared in 2000, with the trio's now famous rendition of "All the Things You Are", playing in seven had become firmly embedded in the lexicon.

IV. Revolution

As the jazz community forges into the future, there are several trends to observe. First, different influences are permeating the music from all angles. If I may speak frankly, splang-a-lang is a dying art. I love to swing with a really killing drummer as much as the next person, but as jazz moves forward splang-a-lang on the ride cymbal and 2+4 on the hi-hat become more and more irrelevant. Furthermore, labels in the 1960's and 70's tried to make jazz music commercially viable artificially; in today's jazz climate "commercial viability" has grown naturally. For example, pianist Aaron Parks, who some consider to be the next important link in the jazz piano chain, has absolutely no straight ahead swing in his last album Invisible Cinema, but looked toward the current Brooklyn rock scene for inspiration. Same with trumpeter Christian Scott. Unlike Wynton Marsalis, Scott, also a New Orleans native, doesn't avoid music with a backbeat, he embraces it and assimilates many styles into his original music. Vijay Iyer on his amazing album Historicity does an absolutely convincing cover of MIA's "Galang". Robert Glasper and Chris Dave have been busy this past year traveling around with R&B darlings Maxwell and Jill Scott.

To conclude, I think my friend Adam Schatz, the man behind Search and Restore Jazz, put it well when being interviewed about his "Undead Jazz Festival" on about.com, saying, "we’d prefer to accept that jazz died, and now is back from the dead with a stronger drive than ever before." Though, I think if Louis Armstrong were to rise from the dead he would pitch a fit about the state of jazz. Miles and Coltrane would probably be cool with it.

Indaba Rocks the New York Tech Meet-up

Indaba Music — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:40:00 -0400

Indaba had the honor of presenting the upcoming Indaba platform in front of over 800 people at this month's NY Tech Meetup. Chris and Matt gave an exciting presentation that highlighted the power of the Mantis DAW and previewed some exciting new features that will be available soon as part of the new Indaba.

Take a look at the video to get a first peak at the new Indaba in action!

Site Downtime

Indaba Music — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 07:30:00 -0400

Hey Indaba Members,

You may notice that the site is down for a while in the near future. Don't stress - everything is A-OK! We need to take the site down briefly to prepare for the transition to the next phase of Indaba Music. Our new launch is just that big...

We will be down for approximately 48 hours, so be sure to check back as soon as you can to get started using the new Indaba Music. We hope you're excited. Goodness knows we are.

Sincerely,
Indaba Music Team

Contest Winners on Major Releases

Indaba Music — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:11:00 -0400

Getting your song onto a major label record release is no easy task. While we have worked hard to present you with opportunities to connect with and impress the movers and shakers of the music industry, the task has still been yours to create high quality tunes worthy of release. You have not disappointed. World class artists like Linkin Park, Peter Gabriel, and Weezer will be including music from our community on their own releases. Check out which songs from Indaba have made it onto major albums of some of the world's best selling musicians.

Not impressed? Check this out - Indaba members are being released on all 4 major labels!

Contest	Indaba Winner	iTunes
Yo-Yo Ma	Toshi O. and Kevin McChesney	Buy Here
K-OS	11 Different Musicians Released!	Buy Here
Laurie Anderson	Jeremy Henry	Buy Here
N.A.S.A.	Ben Crea	Buy Here
Classified	The Emsee	Buy Here
Marcy Playground	12 Different Musicians Released!	Coming Soon!
Some Velvet Morning	5 Different Musicians Released!	Coming Soon!
Weezer	Odd Year	Coming Soon!
William Fitzsimmons	Robert Dukes	Coming Soon!
Ozomatli	Stephen F.	Coming Soon!
Linkin Park	NoBrain	Coming Soon!
Peter Gabriel	Coming Soon!	Coming Soon!
Nappy Roots	Coming Soon!	Coming Soon!
Amp Live	Coming Soon!	Coming Soon!

Sneak Preview Of The New Indaba Music

Indaba Music — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:18:00 -0400

For more than 6 months the Indaba Music team has been hard at work
building a brand new platform. The new Indaba will be launching very
shortly, but, in the meantime, we thought we'd give you a little preview of what we've been working on
all year! Check back in each day this week for fresh screen shots of
some of the things to expect when the new Indaba launches.

Day 1: Profile, Chat, My Media Library, Stats
Day 2: Groups, Contests
Day 3: Sessions, Search
Day 4: Store, Sales
Day 5: Lessons, Mentors
Day 6: API Documentation
Day 7: Homepage

Day 1: Profile, Chat, My Media Library, Stats

Indaba is a thriving, ever growing social network and collaboration platform for musicians, which means that your ability to present yourself to the community and manage your audio is central to your Indaba experience.

Profile. Your new Indaba profile is going to be more interactive than ever. You'll have the ability to personalize it in new ways, and with its better organization and sleek new look, you'll find it easier to showcase yourself to the Indaba community and find other musicians who share your interests. Our new sharing tools will help you promote your music across other social networks, by allowing you and your friends to embed your music almost anywhere.

Chat. Communicating with other musicians is also getting easier. Our new, integrated chat system will keep your chats and contact list open even as you navigate across different pages. Check out the picture to the left to see how you and your collaborators can be in constant contact.

My Media Library. With the new My Media Library page you will be able to manage all of your project files from one page. From your centralized library, you will be able to easily work with files across multiple sessions, widgets, and other Indaba features.

Stats. We know how important stats are to gauging public interest in one's work. The new platform will enable you track important details about your music, such as number of plays, comments, and average rating.

Day 2: Groups, Contests

Social interactions are a major aspect of the Indaba experience.
We've already shown you the new profile and chat features, and so here
are two more important aspects of the new site, groups and contests,
where people will come together in both unity and friendly competition.

Groups. The new groups section is going to make it easier
than ever to find musicians with similar interests. We've worked hard
on a brand new interface that is sleek and easy to navigate with new
ways to search as well as simply browse all the groups we've got.
You'll even have the ability to browse groups based near you.

Contests. We've been able to bring you tons of great contests
and opportunities over the years, and based on your usage and feedback
we've made significant changes to the entire contest experience. Soon, contests will be more
intuitive, with new features that will make participating, as well as
sharing and listening to submissions better than ever.

Day 3: Sessions, Search

Providing you with the best platform for making music online is at the core of our mission, and we will be introducing a number of exciting upgrades and new features to make your creative and collaborative experiences on Indaba better than ever.

Sessions. With the addition of media library and chat features, as well as a brand new design to the session interface, sharing audio, communicating, and keeping organized within a session will be an easier, more intuitive experience.

Search. Finding the right sessions to join is crucial to your collaborative experience on Indaba. We’ve made some significant upgrades to our search and recommendation technology, which will allow you to find the best fitting artists to collaborate with and sessions to join.

Day 4: Store, Sales

One of the biggest additions to the new Indaba Music is the ability to turn your music love into a music business. You already use Indaba to create music, so why not give you some ways to sell it?

Music Sales. With just a few clicks of your mouse, you'll be able to make your music available for sale through a number of different channels on and off Indabamusic.com. And don't worry, you'll get to keep 100% of the royalties! That is, of course, unless your bandmate is entitled to 50%. Don't worry, our accounting system can split the royalties and pay everyone their share! We won't spoil the fun and tell you too much about the different sales tools you'll be able to use, but, since you're looking at it, we might as well say that you'll be able to have your own embeddable online store...

Sales Tracking. As your sales grow, understanding who is buying your music is of vital importance. We're giving you a sleek, easily navigable page, because keeping track of your transactions is hard enough. The new tools will give you all of the metrics that you will need to manage your music sales.

Day 5: Lessons, Mentors

Indaba Music isn't just a place to produce music, it's also a place to learn and become a better musician. While our thriving community and active forums and groups have helped you grow as a musician to this point, we want to do more. The new Indaba will be filled with educational resources enabling you to develop your skills and expand your musical knowledge.

Lessons and Tutorials. Whether you're an educator, a student, or someone looking to develop your skills, our new educational section is here for you. We'll have a huge online store full of content from major artists and educational publishing companies, including professionally produced video lessons and tutorials.

Artists In Residence. We already have tons of master educators and industry experts coming to Indaba as Artists in Residence, but we'll be turning it up a notch. They're here to share their experiences and advice, as well as answer any questions you might have.

Day 6: API Documentation

We've welcomed musicians into our community and
now we're also opening the doors to outside developers (and developer/musicians
like most of our dev team). Over the years we have received so many incredible suggestions for new features from the community that we figured it would be a great idea to arm you with the necessary tools to build your own applications on top of the Indaba Music platform!

API Documentation. You may be asking yourself, "what the heck am I looking at? Is that code I see?!?!" Yup, that's exactly what you're looking at! We've opened up our platform to outside developers, and what you're looking at is the API (Application Programming Interface) documentation that shows you how to plug into the site and create your own apps for Indaba.

Day 7: Homepage

From social networking, education and creation to sales and career opportunities, the new Indaba Music will be constantly expanding after we launch the new website. We're here to address the needs of musicians. If you don't see what you're looking for, just ask.

Homepage. Welcome Home. Need we say more?

Snoop Dogg wants to feature 5 remixes - And He Wants Indaba To Decide!

Indaba Music — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:24:00 -0400

Hello Indaba!

The Snoop Dogg remix contest was fun, wasn't it?
Over 8,000 Indaba members entered the contest, and nearly 1,600
of you submitted remixes. Even more amazing, your remixes were streamed
300,000 times, and you left each other over 35,000 comments during the contest! What a talented and supportive community!

Snoop has been an incredible
supporter of Indabamusic.com and the Indaba Music community. For the
past month he has been listening to all of your remixes and working towards selecting a Grand Prize winner and 2 runners up. Last week he reached out to us and said that he had narrowed down his list of favorite remixes to 14, and that he'd be ready to announce his picks on August 11. Meanwhile, he said that he was blown
away by how much incredible and diverse talent there was on Indaba, and that he wanted to give some additional love and support
(i.e. exposure!) to some of his other favorite remixes that don't make it into his top 3.

So, in addition to all of the other amazing prizes in the contest, Snoop and Skullcandy offered to feature an additional 5 remixes on their websited, and he
suggested we let the Indaba Music community decide. So, we set up a new contest featuring Snoop's top 14 remixes, and through August 4th, YOU can vote for your favorites and determine which 5 remixes will get featured!

And just so everyone understands - this new prizing is in
addition to the incredible prize package from the "That Tree" remix
contest. Snoop will still be selecting the Grand Prize and 2 Runners Up from his final 14,
and if you promoted the heck out of your remix during the voting period
of the remix contest and you made it into the top 25 of the voting,
don't worry, the judges will still be selecting 10 of you as Honorable
Mentions.

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this contest. You made quite the impression on Snoop. Now head on over to the contest page and vote for your favorites!

- Mantis

Interview With Some Velvet Morning

Indaba Music — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:54:00 -0400

In the wake of the successful conclusion to the Some Velvet Morning contest, Indaba’s Mantis Evar had a few questions for the band. Singer and guitarist Desmond Lambert was happy to oblige. Read the full interview below:

What’s your creative process and workflow for writing music? Is it consistent or does it change from song to song?

We don’t generate songs out of jams. Songs (occasionally riffs) are brought into the rehearsal room & then merging the songwriting with the band’s identity is something that we spend most of our time on. Most of our songs go through many incarnations before we settle upon the arrangement that gives the best sonic impact for 3 instruments. One consistent pattern that seems to work is at the songwriting level to leave some space somewhere in the song’s structure that allows the band room to take the song in a direction which I might not think of just writing on an acoustic guitar or piano. For example ‘Godless’ on our first album starts as a typical singer songwriter 6/8 ballad until the middle 8 at which point SVM hijacks it into a double time frenzy. Similarly ‘How To Start A Revolution’ has a middle 8, which shifts to a 6/4 unison riff.

In the studio, how do you approach tracking?

For us it is essential to track together. As an engineer for other artists I have seen songs destroyed by ‘obeying the great god that is the click’. Our rhythm section have played together for years and to strip away that subconscious knowledge of one another’s subtleties for technical reasons (like separation) is insane. I also think perfection’ is an overrated ‘goal’. I think hearing a band find the pocket 1 or 2 bars into a section is one of the best things about listening to a live-based record.

Sonically, electronic music is way ahead of ‘rock n roll’ so a live band needs to think about what they can offer an audience. I think capturing the interaction between humans is that thing, and unfortunately something that seems to have been overlooked and underrated for a while now.

Do you work closely with a producer?

For our first album we were lucky enough to work with Rik Simpson who has since gone on to win a Grammy with Coldplay. As an engineer I have also worked with engineer/producers such as John Leckie (Pink Floyd, Radiohead) and Mark Opitz (ACDC, INXS). Recently we’ve been producing ourselves, which has so far been working for us, but obviously it could be dangerous and self-indulgent. We’ll see if the songs start reaching 20 minutes.

Describe your in-studio process. What gear is essential?

I engineer at (in my opinion) the best studio in London. I’ve learnt the most important thing for a session is what you do before you even arrive. I’m not in a rock band to chop up drums/ fix mistakes. So before we book the studio we’re rehearsed and 100% confident in the parts and arrangements. Then it’s a case of setting up, getting a sound and playing a couple of takes. Maybe we’re just lazy but I’ve noticed that although takes can technically get better as the session goes on, sometimes the vibe disappears, so being ready to capture the first couple of takes is vital.

For our next single ‘New York’ we recorded 2 takes, went upstairs for a listen and just realised we could do another 5 takes but what were we going to get that wasn’t on take 1? So we used it as the master. Then the process continues when I add sonics and atmospheres with my guitar and or synths & overdub my vocal.

Gear wise. The studio we record at has a custom made API Legacy desk which sounds unbelievable. The pre - amps are so open and everything that runs through a channel just sounds more ‘expensive’. Apart from the Studer tape machines my other favourite bits of gear are a pair of vintage LA2 compressors that just make whatever you put through them fatter and it distorts amazingly. Guitar wise I have a couple of mid 80’s delay units that modulate the delay brilliantly.

What are your thoughts on digital vs. analog production?

Don’t get me started on this one. My thoughts on this are more philosophical than audio, although I have opinions there too.

Philosophically I think Digital music production with regards to capturing a ‘Live Band’ gives the ‘producer/ computer operator’ too much power. We see the waveform and maybe fix a flam, we love the groove of the second verse more than verse 1 so we copy it over... before we know it, it’s perfect but it’s boring! It’s like genetically modifying life. Should we do things just because we can?

Eradicating all the accidents & extremes in nature. Homogenization! Obviously the digital tools available open up a world of possibilities (though there’s another issue there of too much choice paralyzing decision making) and make music making more egalitarian, which on the surface is good but I wonder if the levelling of the playing field rather than lifting everyone up could potentially have the danger of lowering the peaks?

What role do companies like Indaba that facilitate collaboration have in music creation?

I’m in a band so I recognise the importance of collaboration. Listening & considering someone else’s opinion although sometimes difficult is ultimately beneficial (even if it strengthens your original position). When I was younger I wrote music with someone based In Toronto. I lived in London. We used to send 4 track cassettes in the post. The immediate digital exchange of files and platforms like Indaba are an amazing development for potential collaborations on a global scale.

As your remix contest has just come to a close, what benefits do you see in hearing your music re-imagined in so many different styles?

It’s amazing to hear the variety of interpretations people have come up with. I grew up listening to a lot of electronic music and although professionally I play in a ‘rock band’ it’s great being reminded of all the different flavours music has to offer.
If only there were more hours in the day I would love to be working with some of the people here, hopefully in the future I will.

Are there goals you have yet to achieve that Indaba can help you with?

Our aims, like most musicians I’d imagine, are to improve and gain exposure to people who may potentially be interested in what we’re doing. Somewhere like Indaba gives us the opportunity to communicate what we’re doing with musicians all over the world not just the towns & cities we play.

Mantis and Indaba would like to give thanks to Some Velvet Morning for this great interview and for hosting such an interesting contest. Also, we would all like to extend our congratulations to the winners!

A Message From Our Founders: A New Indaba Is On The Way!

Indaba Music — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 06:30:00 -0400

But first... Let's watch a video.

Hello!

We launched Indaba Music back in 2007 to help make musicians' lives easier. Over the past few years the Indaba Music community has grown to over 500,000 musicians from 185 countries who network and make music together in online recording sessions. From re-imagining the works of major artists like Snoop Dogg and Yo-Yo Ma to teaching the next generation of aspiring musicians and creating international collaborations for world peace, you've used the site in ways we never could have imagined.

Along the way, you have been vocal about what you love about Indaba, what you would like to see changed, and what new features we can add to make your lives easier as musicians.

And we've been listening.

In a few weeks we'll release the first version of the new Indaba Music platform. This release is just the beginning, and we'll be adding even more great features throughout the remainder of the year. We've listened to your needs and we hope you're as happy with the results as we are.

Thank you for helping us make Indaba Music the amazing community it is today. We're excited for this next chapter in our journey together.

Indaba Music Founders

Dan, Matt, Mantis, Jesse, Chris

P.S. Think you know what the new Indaba is all about? Take a guess! Join the conversation here.

Peace Partners Album Release!

Indaba Music — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:50:00 -0400

Hey Indaba Community, as you might already be aware of Peace Partners has been using Indaba Music for sometime now to bring amazing creations of peace and collaboration to Indaba. After all months of work Peace Partners has put together their first album, "Many Countries One Sky." Check out the Indablog posted about the album and spread the peace!

Peace Partners Release First Album "Many Countries One Sky"

Indaba Music — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 17:00:00 -0400

margin: 10px;" src="http://images.cdbaby.name/p/e/peacepartners.jpg" alt="Peace Partners "Many Countries, One Sky" " width="200" height="200" />After months of toil, the Peace Partners collective has finally released their first album. Over the past several months, dedicated artists from all over the globe have been collaborating, crafting, and pouring their souls into a compendium of songs on Indaba Music with one purpose: to spread the word of peace. Yet, it's not enough to simply talk of peace. Often it takes selfless action to retain the public's attention. Therefore, the Peace Partners have decided to donate the proceeds from sales of the album Many Countries, One Sky to two charities, Amnesty International and War Child Canada. Amnesty International is a privately funded organization committed to researching and ending human rights violations. War Child Canada is a charity that provides assistance and life shaping programs to children in war torn countries.

The mastermind behind this collective is Patrick Lajeunesse, seen in the video below. Patrick had his first Indaba experience in the session "Ocean". By posting a piano track, he initiated a session with a few other Indaba users, and soon had a fully realized song. Grasping the potential of the platform, Patrick soon embarked on his mission of peace by establishing the Peace Partners group, which currently has a membership of over 200 people, and by calling on the Indaba community to contribute songs to the collective. After several months, and a bit of elbow grease, the songs were in- over 100 musicians had participated completing 40 tracks. From these 40 Patrick, along with his fellow producers Jack Nimersheim and Selena, picked 13 for the final album.

Each of the 13 tracks on Many Countries, One Sky are beautifully selected. Mastered and organized by Mr. Nimersheim, the polish present on this album is uncanny for a compilation of such diverse crowdsourced material. One of the most impressive traits of the album is its remarkable consistency. No track seems out of place- each fits into its own corner of the album, helping to perpetuate the message of peace. It's this feeling of totality, along with some very solid songwriting, that transforms this album from a composite work into a fully realized idea.

Help the Peace Partners and donate your money to two great causes by purchasing Many Countries, One Sky. The album is for sale at CD Baby for $9.99. Single tracks are available for $0.99.

SonicScoop Reviews: Audio Technica's AT4080 & AT4081 Ribbon Mics

Indaba Music — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:54:00 -0400

Sonic Scoop was hanging out in Westchester, NY with Indaba Artist in Residence Frank Portalatin testing out mics in the studio, here are the results:

By Rick Slater

OSSINING, NY: It was a beautiful day for a drive up to Bi-Coastal Music in Ossining to check out the new Audio-Technica (AT) AT4080 and AT4081 ribbon mics. We wanted to do a ribbon mic shoot-out and Bi-Coastal had a very nice array of ribbon mics for us to compare.

Both Tarik Solangi of Prime Time Sound (Mt. Vernon, NY) and musician/producer Ray DeTone were looking to add a ribbon mic to their locker, so they came by for a listen. Frank Portalatin and Doug Brown were there from Audio-Technica.

Audio-Technica has taken out 19 patents on this new ribbon technology. These mics are phantom powered, bi-directional and can withstand up to 150spl. When you look inside, the ribbon element is in a very sturdy housing and AT says you can store the mics horizontally (something that would ruin other ribbon elements). The outer housing of the 4080 is comparable in size to any medium size condenser mic while the 4081 is in a pencil style housing, excellent for tight miking applications.

Truth, be told I had already had a private screening at Quad NYC with Frank Portalatin and J-Styles of Blackstreet. (Frank wears a lot of hats: producer, writer, guitarist, etc.) I used the AT4080 on Styles’ vocal with an Avalon 737 channel strip. The sound was very surprising; it was clear and yet extremely present without having to use much compression at all. It did need a little nudge at 10K as the mic drops off around 8K.

I used the 4081 on Frank’s guitar in the control room. The first thing I noticed was that the 4081 is very sensitive and being figure-eight in its pattern, picked up a good deal of the room. As he was facing a small alcove, away from the control room speakers there was a good deal of low-end build up. I had him face back towards the speakers to avoid the low frequency build up in that alcove of the room.

The 4081 sounded brighter than the 4080 because it doesn’t roll off until about 10K. It lacks the low bump and has a flatter response than the 4080 too. If I wanted a leaner, more modern sound on the source I would tend to choose this mic. If I wanted to warm something up and perhaps soften its brightness, then I would use the 4080.

At Bi-Coastal Music, we set up a Fender Deluxe with the two AT mics as well as a beyerdynamic M160, beyerdynamic M260, a Royer R-121, and a Coles 4038. Frank riffed on a Fender Stratocaster. The mics all went to Millennia mic pres.

The 4080 sounded fuller but less bright than the beyer M 160. It was closer to the 260 but showed more presence and felt more “up front." The 121 was a little flatter in the lows around 200 than the 4080 with a similar top end.

The 4038 sounded somewhat more organic but less modern than the 4080. Though if you wanted a vintage sound, then the 4038 was your mic.

Again the 4081 had a flatter response in the lows and sounded a little smoother up to 10K. Very similar, I felt, to the 260.

With these new Audio-Technica ribbon mics, I would certainly use them to close mic amps or horns (if I wanted closed miked horns) and even try them on drums. Perhaps out in front of the kick even, where I usually would use a condenser.

At the end of the day, these mics stood solidly against the mics we compared them to and everyone felt they would make a fine addition to anyone's mic locker. They are available through Dale Pro Audio.

I would like to thank Jason at Quad NYC and Hal at Bi-Coastal for their gracious hospitality. — Rick Slater

Rick Slater is a NYC-based producer/engineer who’s recorded and/or mixed with Chuck D, Robben Ford and James Chance, and worked in NYC studios such as Mediasound, Quad and Sony. Check him out at www.slatermix.com.

SonicScoop is a pioneering online destination that provides New York City's thriving music and sound production community with a vital central hub. The ideal merger of regional focus and global appeal, SonicScoop is designed to be a premier music and sound production resource. Visit SonicScoop at www.sonicscoop.com.

Top 5 Songs From Wired.com’s Crowdsourced Music Experiment

Indaba Music — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:56:00 -0400

Back in the beginning of May, Eliot Van Buskirk, a writer for Wired.com started a social experiment of sorts using an Indaba Music collaborative session to see if music could be effectively crowdsourced in a Web 2.0 environment. Now, Eliot has come back with another post and the results of that experiment. "It's official: The crowd rocks"...

We asked Wired.com readers to make songs out of these three simple elements on Indaba Music

It’s official: The crowd rocks.

We mean this not as a vapid recapitulation of basic crowdsourcing theory, but in terms of the real results from an experiment in crowdsourced music that created several songs that sound, to these ears anyway, pretty good.

Last month, we unleashed a bass track, a guitar track and a drum track on Indaba Music’s collaboration and production platform and invited Wired.com readers and the Indaba Music community to create the best tracks they could using that foundation. Entrants created and combined each others’ tracks using any software to build songs on raw materials we laid out: a drum track from Indaba’s Josh Robertson, a bassline from yours truly, and a guitar track from Indaba CEO Dan Zaccagnino, recorded in that order during an afternoon last month.

Our collaborative recording session on Indaba ballooned to 122 members, 85 files, and 923 member events (comments, uploads, downloads, mixes, deletions, and membership changes) during the month of May. This week, we booted everybody from the virtual studio, and are pleased to post what we judged to be the five best songs created by the crowd.

As often happens with crowdsourced contests, entrants self-organized into super groups and incorporating others’ work into their own.

Now, you be the judge. Crowdsourcing has taken us this far, so it only makes sense to extend the concept further and ask the crowd which song created by the contest they like the most. Then, of course, we’ll take the experiment to its logical conclusion with by crowdsourcing a remix of the winning song.

Crowdsourced Songs

Please listen to the following five crowdsourced songs here (listed in alphabetical order by uploader — credits below). Then vote each track up or down in the poll:

An Auditory Artist and Ran Doshus – “Tripwired Auditory Missprint Doors B3″

Bungalow Bill – “I Can Hear Music”

gracetone – “Wired Session Remix”

David Minnick – “Technology Is My Religion”

Nathan V. – “Technology is My Religion (Future Tech Mix)”

Credits

David Minnick – “Technology Is My Religion”
Dale Crowley and David Minnick: lyrics
Dale Crowley: rhodes electric piano
Mike Stone: drums (real)
Eliot Van Buskirk: electric bass
Misprint Thursday: mood vocals
Surgeon Kerosene: melodica
David Minnick: drum loop programming, guitars, synth bass, organ, marimba, vocals

Bungalow Bill – “I Can Hear Music”
Bungalow Bill: production, instruments
Original contributors

an auditory artist and Ran Doshus – “Tripwired Auditory Missprint Doors B3″
an auditory artist: production, various elements
Ran Doshus: vocals
Original contributors

Nathan V. – “Technology is My Religion (Future Tech Mix)”
Nathan VanMiddlesworth: production, mixing, instruments
All from “Technology Is My Religion”

gracetone – “Wired Session Remix”
gracetone: drums, keyboard, software, instruments
Original contributors

Here’s the original without the crowd’s input, for comparison’s sake. What a difference a little crowdsourcing makes:

Go the original post on Wired.com to vote for your favorite mixes.

Sonic Scoop Presents: SSL Duende Mini- An In-Depth Review

Indaba Music — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:00:00 -0400

SSL Duende Mini: An In-Depth Review

By Tommy Mokas

The Duende Mini, in short, is SSL's magical sound housed in a 1/3 rack sized metal box that houses 4 proprietary DSP chips; the size of an average external hard drive. While Duende has been around for a while now, it is a product that is growing and changing.

right;" title="Review_duende_FINAL" src="http://www.sonicscoop.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Review_duende_FINAL.jpg" alt="Review_duende_FINAL" width="259" height="147" />Its original inception as a 1RU FireWire DSP box with a couple of SSL plug-ins has expanded beyond basic emulations and provides more powerful DSP to boot. SSL listened to their user base who wanted the power of the Duende in a more portable package, and they delivered.

From the pro who wants some extra horsepower with that distinctive British tone to the hobbyist/prosumer looking to add something classic to their mixes without breaking the bank, the Duende Mini gives a working engineer flexible tools to make great sounding mixes in their favorite DAW while being small enough to be truly portable.

Out of the box, Duende Mini gives you 16 mono (or 8 stereo) instances of the SSL Channel Strip. There are a few paid upgrades, which give you more instances, which I'll lay out in detail shortly. It should be noted first and foremost that the channel strip and G Buss Compressor are based on the digital C Series console's channel strip NOT a direct emulation of the 4000G+ channel strip (look to the Waves SSL Bundle for the official emulation of this, or UAD for the unofficial one). Mind you, their intention for the C series was to emulate the 4000 E and G Series EQ's and channel strips, so it's not as if this is false advertising.

As someone who has used SSL's a lot (mostly the 4000 series), I can say with confidence Duende's sound is DECIDEDLY SSL. The channel strip has done great justice to its legacy, and to my ears, has brought one of my favorite channel strips into the digital realm with benefits. It has retained its well-known functionality and characteristics sonically, and via their X-Series plug-ins, they are not resting on their laurels.

These plug-ins bring new sonic capabilities by creating digital hybrids of both their advanced hardware and software capabilities and then adding routing and unique metering to the mix.

My friend and fellow engineer Will Hensley and I tested the Duende Mini on a few Mac system configurations, from Tiger up to Snow Leopard to test its might. Our test results would most certainly be cross platform, however.

At this point in its product life, Duende has two software versions: V2, for G4/G5 processors using OS X 10.4, and V3 for Intelbased Macs. V2 requires a paid upgrade of $370 to bump it up to 32 channels. V3 starts at 32 instances and allows for even more instances with paid upgrades allowing 64 and 128 channels cost $119 and $229, respectively. The most significant addition to V3 is what SSL calls "hybrid core processing engine."

What this means to you: V3, once it goes beyond 32 channels, allows the processing to be shared between the host's processor and Duende's DSP chips, giving you many more instances of the plugins than just the DSP alone.

You might ask, doesn't sharing processing defeat the purpose of having an external DSP box? Well, it’s easy to say that looking at a list of specs, but in practice (and certainly in my experiences with digital audio), this is not the case. The light load that the CPU takes doesn't really compare to the extra processing you're getting out of the DSP of the Duende. Furthermore, having a set number of plug-in instances on the Duende is a limitation you can count on, unlike native plug-ins which you can add until you just run out of CPU.

This might sound unorthodox at first, but I personally prefer some sort of set limits in all realms of creativity, forcing you to make more definitive choices.
In my experience with these Duende plug-ins, I end up using fewer plug-ins because I'm getting the sound I want quickly, a characteristic that I would generally attribute to using hardware. The channel strip alone makes the Duende a worthwhile purchase in this respect. Hell, even the EQ alone makes it worth it!

Which brings me to the meat and potatoes of our sonic snack, the plugins.

Maybe you're not nearly as obsessed as I am with plug-ins, but I have seen, used, abused, loved and hated a LOT of plug-ins over the past 10 years. Some of them try to emulate your favorite gear, some of them claim to be the answer to all your problems, and most of them downright suck. To be fair, it's not that these plug-ins suck, per se, it's that they don't get you as far as you want towards sculpting your sound, which then forces you to use more of something else. Sort of like using a spice that doesn't taste like much of anything unless you put a ton of it on your meal.

EQs are particularly guilty of this inefficacy in the digital realm. I have found very few EQs that do anything for me in terms of character in-the-box and usually end up chaining an EQ either before or after some sort of saturation/distortion for flavor.

The strongest parts of the entire Duende plug-in suite, to me, are the EQ and the rest of the Channel Strip. Aside from their distinctive character, what really makes these EQs shine is the ability to REALLY boost and REALLY cut without ruining your source audio, an attribute that is most evident in the ability to boost the high-mid and high frequencies.

My favorite instance of extreme EQ is when working with electric guitars. I have spent countless hours doing my best to balance out the mids and highs of electric guitars — which sometimes requires multiple bussings — to get exactly what I want out of them. Even just using the channel strip for its dynamics and EQ section, I was always able to dial up something that I found pleasant without having to pull for another insert.

One example, which truly shows the strength of these EQ's is when dealing with a dry, unprocessed snare sample. With the ability to extremely boost or cut the mids and highs without sounding even remotely harsh, you could get the definition, clarity, and snap of a really up-front and crisp snare top and bottom without using anything other than EQ.

An unsung hero of the channel strip is the gate, a well loved part of the SSL classic consoles. On a noisy bass or toms, these are just the ticket for making things sound cleaner, punchier, and allowing for more extreme EQing while keeping the noisy stuff out your way [hear in demo below]. I find that these gates respond very similarly to the way they do on a G+.

One thing I can also never get enough of in the box is a good way to bring pleasant harmonic distortion into my mix. I was pleased to find that I could drive the input of the channel strip in order to add a little more mojo to, well, just about anything! It did a number on guitars, bass, snare, toms, vocals…you name it. It definitely has the stuff to give a helping of attitude to something that doesn't feel like it has enough, especially in conjunction with the channel compressors.

I loved the channel compressors on drums, overheads, acoustic and electric guitars, and vocals. It is truly an indispensable tool for crafting audio.

As I mentioned earlier, it allows me to get a lot done with only one plug-in, preventing the need to chain 5 or more plug-ins to get that “je ne sais quoi.”

Having fully put the channel strip through its paces, I felt confident digging into the other plug-ins in this suite…

Generally, the first thing that comes to mind when anyone thinks SSL is the G Buss compressor, and for good reason: it has mythical properties, which make things gel in a way that only it can do. I have the Alan Smart C1 (the G buss compressor designer's namesake), which is strapped across my master buss on every mix I do — in or out of the box. It has served me well for years, but I have MANY times wanted more than one of them, and with Duende, I don't have to hold back!

Having used the real thing for years, and my Smart C1 for many more, I can say wholeheartedly that they have this piece of hardware nailed. When you want attitude, the plug provides the smack of the hardware G and also does wonderful pumping and breathing on drums and bass, either separately or as a parallel compressor. It’s not the first compressor that comes to mind for this, but it can also work quite well on heavy guitar busses. It can take the low-end heavy guitars of modern rock and tighten them right up, giving them presence and snappy attack on the bottom.

X-SERIES PLUG-INS

Since its release, the newest parts of the Duende, aside from its extra horsepower, are the X Series plug-ins and two plugs for the two trickiest situations: Vocalstrip and Drumstrip. Drumstrip, my favorite of the new offerings, is just a bunch of SSL mojo jammed into one plug-in window.

You've got a gate, a transient shaper, HF and LF enhancer, and the famous Listen Mic Compressor. They're all fabulous tools on their own, but chain them all together...oh yeah!

As a test for the plug-in and myself, I decided to take a raw kick drum from a session I recently tracked for the upcoming Lily and the Parlour Tricks album, and see if I couldn't just get it to hit like a modern kick drum without samples or any other signals. First I gated the kick, and then I used the transient shaper to give it more attack.

Then, I took both the HF and LF enhancers and cranked ‘em, and also cranked the drive on both of them. This was starting to get really good when finally, I used the Listen Mic Compressor and slammed that really hard. The EQ In button on this makes all the difference in the world; definitely try both to see what suits you best. I blended the wet/dry of the LMC and for an extra lift, drove the input of the entire plug-in. Then I took back the master wet/dry of the plug-in, and set to taste along with the rest of the kit.

Before I knew it, I had a kick drum that really hit hard, without hitting one more plug.

As exciting as this is, however, I didn't find myself using it over entire drum kits. In that respect, Drumstrip works wonders on breathing life into drum loops by really allowing you to do a lot of damage (or repair) in one window. The ability to rearrange the signal flow any of these tools within Drumstrip is the BEST part.

The vocal strip, paradoxically, is both exactly what you think it would be and then not at all. It has most of the things you'd expect a vocal chain to have (de-esser, EQ) as well as a couple of interesting SSL versions of things (compander, deploser). We didn't find it to be entirely intuitive on our initial uses, but I could see it having its purpose in plenty of situations. As a full on vocal chain, however, I'd have to respectfully decline. There are plenty of other solutions both native and otherwise that can do these jobs with a lot less confusion. [Vocal demo below.]

The De-Esser works in a way that frustrated both Will and I, and the EQ isn't anything to write home about. The way that it works seems to make sense, but we felt every time we tried to use the EQ, it would work against us. The de-ploser could have its uses, but isn't worth the price of the whole plug-in.

10px;" title="X-Verb_web" src="http://www.sonicscoop.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/X-Verb_web.jpg" alt="X-Verb" width="300" height="198" />The flow of this plug-in, unlike all the others in this bundle, escapes me. We tried a number of times to love it, but in the end it was the most disappointing part of the entire SSL offering.

The X-Verb is the last of these offerings, and although it is much more intuitive than some reverbs in its layout, I believe its greatest asset to be that it is a good sounding reverb that doesn't put a hit on your CPU. This can be a lifesaver in a heavy tracking session when it's time to do vocals and you want a nice plate for the vocalist to really catch a vibe.

I won't go so far to say these reverbs are going to replace any high-end reverbs, but they do the job and certainly don't sound cheap. Its decay didn't sound digital, and without much effort, you could have a nice plate or hall that sits in a mix quite nicely.

TECH: STABILITY & USEFULNESS

The last thing I'll cover might be the most important part of using the Duende (or any external processing box/cards). The stability and usefulness of any plug-in and/or software based audio gear are going to be dependent on your current system and anything installed on it. For instance, its integration with Pro Tools requires that the plug-ins are wrapped, meaning they're not natively RTAS. This requirement could create problems with other plug-ins.

Another major thing to consider is that Duende functions on FireWire, and it REALLY prefers to be on its own FireWire bus. I highly suggest giving it carte blanche of FireWire and running your session off of E-SATA if possible.

Duende also prefers certain buffer settings depending on how large and intense your session is. These things are all documented well in SSL's FAQ's and most problems can be solved very easily.

I'd say the biggest issue we ran into was using the Duende in conjunction with TDM plug-ins and lots of submixing in the box, which, depending on the buffer settings, can create some unusable delay compensation situations. To be fair, this issue can come up with any RTAS or non-TDM plug-in. However, the Duende can be very specific at times with buffer settings, which can create popping and clicking sounds.

Overall, once you've got a feel for how the Duende works on your system, it runs quite well and can give your computer a nice performance boost. I think this is best suited for native DAWs, however.

SUMMARY

In closing, I think that for many systems, the Duende will give you both a power boost and a boatload of analog character for not a lot of money. Even if you purchase it solely for the channel strips, I think it is well worth its ability to bring new colors and flexibility into your mixing and tracking worlds.

The added bonus of being small and very portable (not to mention sharp-looking) put this device on a short list of purchases, which — aside from going to a TDM setup —can bring some welcome horsepower to your rig.
SSL has done a great job of continuing their legacy into the world of digital and making it very accessible to both budding professionals and hobbyists alike.

Tommy Mokas is a musician, writer, engineer/producer and co-owner of Casa Nova Studios in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He plays in the bands The Dirty Pearls, The Bleeding Bombshells and fronts the band Nova Clutch. He has engineered and/or produced for artists including Earl Greyhound, The London Souls, Lily and the Parlour Tricks, The Exit, and many more. He also frequently composes music for both artists and corporate clients with his partner in crime, Nick Rosenthal. Will Hensley is an engineer who's worked with artists such as John Mayer, Doves, Coldplay and Ben Folds. SonicScoop is a pioneering online destination that provides New York City's thriving music and sound production community with a vital central hub. The ideal merger of regional focus and global appeal, SonicScoop is designed to be a premier music and sound production resource. Visit SonicScoop at www.sonicscoop.com.

Emily Greene Releases New Album

Indaba Music — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:00:00 -0400

Emily Greene Is This What You Had In Mind

By Rick

New York City is home to one of the densest and greatest populations of singer/songwriters in the world. Peppered throughout this massive musical subculture, you can find everything from the absurdly obscure to the excessively commercial. Yet, there exists a select group of standout singer/songwriters who have the artistic vision and passion to slip through the cracks of New York's concrete jungle and emerge on a firm foundation on which to start their musical careers. One of these artists is Emily Greene, whose new album In This What You Had In Mind dropped June 1st. One of the most refreshing qualities of Emily's sound is her vocal delivery. Emily mixes the depth and warmth of an old soul singer with the phrasing of a folk artist, a blend that translates brilliantly throughout the album, and, coupled with her frequent motifs of nature and heartbreak, affords the album a great personal quality. In addition, Emily provides all of the keyboard parts for the album, favoring the darker textures of a Wurlitzer and a Rhodes- two instruments which help to enhance the the timbre of her voice and really help drive the overall sound of the album.

Is This What You Had In Mind grabs you from the onset with the track "Lily Twill", as the ambiguous rhythms of Wurlitzer pads keenly melt into a chilled out 6/8. The opening track showcases Emily's penchant for the arrangement; her ability to paint a poetic picture while allowing the music to stand on equal footing with the lyrics is a rare and welcome gift (and even allows you to forgive the egregious bass fill at the 1:36 mark). Besides the opening, there are several standout tracks on the album. One standout track, and the obvious "hit" (it is the most poppy in any case), is the second track, entitled "Starting Fresh". The track is a cool amalgamation of drum heavy groove, sing-songy melody, and surprising rhythm. The chorus of "Starting Fresh" is particularly strong; Emily relays the songs message of heartbreak through a confident and ultra-catchy hook. Immediately following this Rock and Roll track, Emily shows she can also be a little bit country and embarks on another journey called "Mercedes Benz", an apparent allusion to the Janis Joplin song of the same name. What makes this track great are the melodious vocal arrangements, which are always placed exactly where they should be and are never excessive nor overly sparse. Another standout track is the album's title track. The most lovely thing about this track is its pace. It starts meditatively, the noise from the piano's pedal producing an ethereal and natural pulse, then it flows into a waltz accentuated by a piano lead line and Emily's eerily romantic lyrics. It's a track that must have taken patience to write, and demands a certain patience in return from the listener. Moving toward the end of the album, the track "Oceans and Waves" showcases Emily at her lyrical best. The whole album contains recurring thematic material about nature and love, yet "Ocean and Waves" is completely driven by the prettiest concrete images on it (though the lyric "Traded hopscotch for Jim Beam" in the song "Easy Days" is also favorite).

To close, Is This What You Had In Mind is an album that is well crafted, beautifully executed, and solid in its aesthetic from album cover to song concept. Should you wish to pick up a copy of this fine piece of audio, you can download the album in iTunes here. Also, Emily will be playing a few shows to celebrate her album's release. On June 3rd, she will be performing in Philadelphia at Tin Angel; on June 8th, Emily will be appearing at Maxwell's in Hoboken, NJ with Indaba Music's Artist in Residence Sydney Wayser; and finally, on June 9th, Emily will be having her official CD release party at the world famous Joe's Pub.

Standing Shadows “One Way Ride” Featured Collaborative Session Recap

Indaba Music — Wed, 19 May 2010 17:30:00 -0400

The band Standing Shadows recently finished their "One Way Ride" featured session. They were so happy with the outcome that they chose to write the community this note in their blog:

The Standing Shadows “One Way Ride” Featured Collaborative Session has been an amazing experience for the band and the remixers that have joined the session. We went into this with an open mind and came out with incredible remixes. It was interesting to watch the community work together, share ideas, and help each other to improve their musical concepts. It’s awesome to see what musicians around the world can do with our music and tweak it until they have their own creative vision.

We loved that some took the simple approach of re-arranging the music while cutting up elements and adding some new elements....and others completely recreated their own masterpiece. The winner Jordan Deis, from New Orleans, only used a few elements from the original stems and truly created his own song. He created a cohesive piece that kept the integrity of the music while pulling from some of our favorite influences.

It was very tough to pick the top four remixes as we fell in love with several of them. We are proud of the results and have posted a music player on our homepage showcasing the final four. We plan to release a “One Way Ride Remix EP” sometime in the next few months and we will consider including these remixes.

Last but not least....we loved working with the Indaba team and their amazing site. The web site is easy to navigate and streams music unbelievably. We hope Indaba invites us back for more remix sessions in the future.

Thanks again for everyone’s hard work and dedication. We hope you all stay in touch with Standing Shadows! You guys ROCK!!

Standing Shadows

Help Wired.com Crowdsource This Song!

Indaba Music — Wed, 05 May 2010 17:23:00 -0400

From Wired.com, by Eliot Van Buskirk

Join the Session Here!

The internet made it easy for us to hear everything from the worst song in the world to whatever we like the most, in seconds.

Now, we’re going to try to find out if it can improve music collaboration by removing the barriers of space and time.

The idea? Have Wired.com readers help create a song using Indaba Music, whose recently-revamped collaborative digital audio workstation platform, Mantis, allows musicians and amateurs all over the world to collaborate on the same piece of music for free. (There’s a premium version with more effects as well.)

Wired.com's Eliot Van Buskirk lays down the bassline for this crowdsourced song (photo: Indaba Music head of marketing and business development Nate Lew).

So, intentionally ignoring the lesson we should learn from the cacophony of comments sections, we hereby invite you to record your voice, electric guitar, iPad bagpipes or whatever else you can think of onto the song I created with Indaba staff.

It’s an experiment in crowdsourcing, which we’re hoping will result in something of musical value.

Who knows — maybe we’ll end up with a hit on our hands.

To create the backing track, Indaba Music’s Josh Robertson harvested the beat from his library, I laid down some basslines over that on Friday afternoon, and Indaba Music co-founder Dan Zaccagnino added guitar. Robertson isolated the best parts of my improvised melodies into loops on Sunday, and taking into account a few of my production suggestions, arranged them with Zaccagnino’s guitar to create the basic framework of this song. One more pass with Zaccagnino’s guitar, and we were good to go.

Here’s how the backing track sounds before anyone else has gotten their hands on it:

Now, it’s your turn.

Indaba co-founder Dan Zaccagnino adds guitar (photo: Eliot Van Buskirk).

We designed this session to include a full rhythm section, so even if the only musical instrument you have access to is your voice, you should be able to add your part to the song with nothing more than the mic in your laptop. And if you’re a more accomplished musician, please, give this a shot.

If this works, our biggest problem will be how to fit everyone in the van when we go on tour.

Participants: There are two ways to do this.

Option 1 (Recommended): Go to the session’s page on Indaba, create an account if you don’t already have one, and plug in your instrument or mic. Click Join to become a member of the session, and Record, Edit Mix to launch the Mantis console. There, choose “Let’s Write a Song with Wired” and “Mix #1.” Listen to what we’ve done and add your own part to the mix. (Or, if you’d prefer to use another DAW, simply download the stems from the session page and import them into that.)

Option 2 (No sign-up required): You can dabble around with the song or find out if it’s worth your time without making a permanent contribution using the demo version — no Indaba account required.

Indaba Music senior director of operations Josh Robertson handled the engineering and production -- the rest is up to you (photo: Eliot Van Buskirk).

We can’t wait to see what the Wired.com community does with this. After, say, three weeks, we’ll post the results, at which point we’ll most likely launch a remix contest. If all goes as planned, we will have made beautiful music together. The results will be license using a Creative Commons Attribution license, so even if you don’t like the final version you can re-mix it.

So get to playing, people, and don’t be shy. We’re looking for rappers, singers, guitarists, keyboardists, gong players, or whatever else you have going on, and we know there’s some talent out there.

Win Skullcandy Headphones When You Tweet Your Favorite Snoop Remix

Indaba Music — Wed, 05 May 2010 12:18:00 -0400

Snoop Dogg's "That Tree" remix contest has, due to your participation, become the largest remix competition in Indaba history, and one of the largest in the history of the internet. Now that voting has begun and the submissions are in, there are over 1500 remixes to listen to. To give anyone a chance to win, and to encourage your fans to expose your mix, we've put together an exciting contest that will help bring much deserved attention to your top picks...and cover your ears with Skullcandy headphones.

Tweet using the tag #remixsnoop AND include a link to a Snoop remix you voted for to be eligible to win a pair of Skullcandy headphones. 10 winners will be selected at random.

Guidelines:
1. Your Tweet must contain “#remixsnooop”
2. Your Tweet must also contain a link to a Snoop Dogg remix you voted for

Prizing & Winner Selection:
When the voting period for the Snoop "That Tree" contest ends on May 21st at 5pm EST, so will this Twitter promotion. We
will select 10 very lucky winners at random from everyone who followed the guidelines. Winners each will receive a pair of Skullcandy headphones.

Here are some specific tips:

If you haven't, head on over to Twitter and create an account. Once you've signed up, you can start Tweeting!

Follow @indabamusic for updates, news, and more contests:

Follow @IndabaMusic

Shorten Your Link and Say More:

Since you're limited to 140 characters per Tweet, you'll want to use a url shortener to make the most of your 140 characters. We recommend using bit.ly. Simply go to http://bit.ly, paste in the URL you want to link to, then copy and paste the shortened bit.ly URL into your Twitter post. This will give you more room to write about your remix!

If you have any questions, just email us (info@indabamusic.com) and we'll be glad to help you out!

Happy remixing!

- The Indaba Music Team

Exclusive Phish 3D Song Download and Music Lesson

Indaba Music — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:00:00 -0400

By Rick

Buy you tickets for Phish 3D here!

Phish is a singular band. They embody the jam band, their fans are the most loyal and devoted of any modern band, they headline festivals, have managed to turn the letter "f" into the letter "ph", have jammed with MCs like Jay-Z, and have even leant their name to a psychedelic Vermont ice cream. After a five year hiatus while band members were pursuing solo interests, Phish returned to the touring circuit last year. To their fans, it was if they had never left; the live recordings kept flowing and the crowds kept coming. Now, Phish is poised to do something few bands have done before them: an in theaters 3D concert opening as a limited engagement on April 30th.

Shot last October at the large Festival 8, Phish drew a crowd of 40,000 and stuck true to their past traditions. The 3D experience will draw from 6 full sets of music, including their first full length acoustic set and their full length performance of the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. Here at Indaba, we've managed to get our hands on an official track from the new movie, "Back on the Train". In honor of Phish's normal dive into different and unexpected harmony, we've decided to guide you through a lesson on this tune by parsing the harmony and form so you can take it home and practice jamming over it.

Phish- Back on the Train (3D Movie Official Mix)

Download the track here.

So, onto the musical discussion. "Back on the Train" is a blues tinged, piano driven, rock tune. Form-wise, you can call the basic structure a modified 16 bar blues in F:

What prevents this from being a true blues is the exclusion of the V chord, which in F would be C7. Instead, Phish creates a turnaround (or the sequence of chords that leads back to the root) that substitutes chaining dominants for chaining plagal cadences moving b3-b7-4-1 (Ab-Eb-Bb-F). A plagal cadence is a cadence that moves IV-I instead of the ubiquitous V-I. Plagal cadences are extremely common in traditional gospel, country, rock, and pop music. To me, they tend to make songs sound more "pastoral", or "peaceful"; though, you can certainly think about them differently if you hear them differently.

The 16 bar blues is something you've probably heard many times (for examples, in songs like Cream's "Sleepy Time Time", and Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man"). What makes Phish's version a bit jarring and different is the inclusion of "non-blues" chords, like the Ab major that the Bb major cycles through to get back to F. What this does is give the impression of the flatted third of a "blue" note, while explicitly making it major. Most ears are brought up to recognize major so distinctly that this chord, even though it passes quickly, creates a very effective harmonic feeling.

In terms of jamming, this song is pretty simple to attack, however, there is no "omnibus" scale that you can play over the whole thing. Here, it's good to begin thinking about "chord/scale relationship", which is choosing scales that fit over each chords. In this respect, it is a good tune to start bridging the gap between one scale improvisation into a higher level of thinking about improvisation. So, let's approach this chord by chord.

F7 makes up the majority of the tune, and is the chord which presents the most possibility. F7 is shorthand for F dominant 7th, which is a 7th chord with a flatted 7th (for a more detailed discussion of 7th chords go here. The scale most associated with the dominant 7th is the mixolydian mode, in this case F mixolydian:

This is, essentially, an F Major scale with a flatted 7th degree. Two other scales that work well over this chord are major and minor pentatonic scales.

F Major pentatonic (also known in the vernacular as the "major blues scale" when there is an added b3), is a simple and great sounding scale. Adding the b3 gives this scale a color too few musicians utilize.

F minor pentatonic is a decidedly darker timbre, yet it is another scale that works tremendously well. Experiment switching between each of the pentatonics and see what you come up with.

For the remaining chords, luckily, they are all major, which means the options are simple. The best way to approach these chords in a Phish context is to use the major scales and the major pentatonics:

Two more pieces of advice: don't be afraid of simplicity, and don't be afraid to copy. There's something to be said for originality, but when you're first approaching a tune, especially if you're a beginner, it's sometimes best to copy what you can. So, listen to Trey and the rest of the band play over the chords and see what you can do with them!

The Coltrane Project!

Indaba Music — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:00:00 -0400

The Coltrane Project
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John Coltrane is, without question, one of the most innovative and iconic American musicians to ever grace the ears of listeners. Though he only lived to the age of 40, his body of work has become some of the most influential music ever produced, serving as inspiration for every jazz musician to follow. Coltrane had a sound which none could emulate, a sound completely distinctive and unique. In addition, 'Trane (along with Miles Davis and Bill Evans) progressed the intellectualizing of harmony to another level with his extensive use of exotic modes and augmented based changes. In so doing, he help mold the sound of 1960's music in a unique and lasting way.

If there wasn't any evidence that Coltrane's music had staying power in the Hip-Hop world, Philadelphia hip-hop producer St. Paul has just unveiled his titanic effort The Coltrane Project, a full length release paying tribute to John Coltrane and other artists from the 1960's with samples from songs by Gil Scott-Heron, Herbie Hancock, and Alice Coltrane. St. Paul began this project back in 2000, and he spent a lot of time conceptualizing how to adequately fuse the lyric driven Hip-Hop with instrumental Jazz. St. Paul says, "since it was an instrumental album, it had to be like a jazz album." And therefore, he, "was mimicking Elvin Jones' African influenced rhythms, so (he) could get a feel for how (Elvin) was rocking it." And thus, St. Paul began shaping his arrangements into The Coltrane Project. In a style akin to J Dilla, St. Paul has sampled, chopped, and composed a beautifully composed album of beats. However, don't make the mistake of calling this a simple beat CD, it is a story, a symphony, with purpose in every track. One of the most subtle tributes to Coltrane's memory are the sources St. Paul chooses not to sample from. A Love Supreme, widely considered Coltrane's magnum opus, and Giant Steps, one of Coltrane's most striking and revolutionary albums, are noticeably absent from the 13 tracks. However, St. Paul does choose tracks in which the classic quartet of McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones feature prominently.

From the outset, the album has a specific feel, one which continues to the end. The "Intro" is a sample chopped over a beat of an announcer presenting Coltrane, which then seamlessly transitions into the following song with a McCoy Tyner piano intro. St. Paul uses this McCoy sample to build the next track "Wonderful", which features Johnny Hartman's vocals from the Irving Berlin tune "They Say It's Wonderful" sampled from the classic album John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman. Then St. Paul makes the transition into some heavier fare. Directly from the standard based track "Wonderful", he transitions into a darker sound, featuring Coltrane's signature meditative solo sound from the song "Alabama", which Coltrane wrote about a Ku Klux Klan attack on a church in Birmingham, Alabama that claimed the life of 4 school girls. This is followed by a call for "Peace", which, in addition to featuring more meditative Coltrane on the soprano saxophone and Jimmy Garrison on the Bass, features the very fitting vocals of Gil Scott-Heron. At over 8 minutes, "Peace" shows off St. Paul's great ability to slightly change up the flow of the beat by adding a groove altering coda. One interesting track is entitled "...And It Goes Like", which features the vocals of Nina Simone. What gives this track such an interesting feeling is that its driven the whole way through by a very rhythmic, tribal drum sample, and lain on top, providing juxtaposition, are airy pad swells and string samples. Another standout track on this album is entitled "Central Park West pt. 1". St. Paul uses, to great effect, the melodic material from Coltrane's beautiful composition "Central Park West". However, the following track "Central Park West pt. 2", doesn't follow part one particularly well, and the beat on part two falls a bit flat when compared to the rest of the album. After two more tracks, including "Tide Rising", which features Coltrane's band, Saint Paul closes the album out fittingly with Elvin Jones bashing away and McCoy playing dreamy whole-tone scales, placing a cap on the long musical journey.

This is one album very worthy of a download. You can listen to some samples of the material below, visit St. Paul's blog to stream the whole thing, or download it for free here.

Electronic Music vs. Acoustic Music

Indaba Music — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 17:16:00 -0400

Acoustic vs. Electric

By Rick

In my opinion, ever since the first electronic musical device was plugged in, there's been a love/hate relationship between the acoustic and electronic crowds. This debate has permeated into every facet of the music world, and whole billion-dollar industries have been built on these electronic inventions. From electric guitars to auto-tune, the argument of pro vs. con has been a fierce back and forth. On one hand, electricity has shaped the face of music more than anything else in the past, let's say, 100 years. It's given us recording, amplification, the theremin, DAWs, synthesizers, and VSTs. On the other, as purists would argue, it has tainted the purity of true acoustic sound.

I'm always trying to look back and read about classic performances and pieces written, and I can't fathom how difficult it must have been before electricity to seek out and listen to new music. You really had to actively, everyday if you were serious, go out to concert halls and small venues to see live music. Budding composers and musicians couldn't pick up an album from a store of iTunes and sample a large selection of music, they were stuck with what was local, or where they could travel. The closest they had to buying records was purchasing the newest sheet music which they would have to play on the piano, or get together into small chamber groups and local orchestras to try it out. Or else, they would have to venture outside to take part in parties and social events to learn the newest songs en vogue; music was not a bedroom affair. When is the last time you went out to hear a 100% un-amplified, pure set of acoustic music? No sound guy, no mixing board, no speakers, no microphones, but totally acoustic. Music where singers have to figure out how to cut through the instrumentation, and where musicians have to rise to the pinnacle of their musicianship to balance out the sound. In such performances, of course, the sonic quality is pristine; the sound waves travel direct from instrument to ear. To put it one way, the first time Freddie Green tried to plug in an amp, the rest of Count Basie's band became extremely agitated.

Yet, in today's world, this is never the norm. Amplification becomes essential especially when you want to play small ensembles in a large hall. However, the "hating" on acoustic music comes more from the purists who were turned off when synthesis and the theremin showed up. Maybe they felt like someone was treading on their holy territory. I think it comes down to purity. Personally, I wouldn't trade a real piano for anything. The feel, the way the keys move, the sounds it creates based on the natural vibrating of a string. However, I love synthesis and developing different sounds. Having said this, I can relate to purists when I'm forced to play a piano patch on a keyboard, or a piano sample in the studio- it's trying. There is no vibration, no overtones created by the lower strings, no action to have a push and pull against. In these cases, I always try to pull out my Rhodes patch and sit on that, which is usually bearable.

Things have become increasingly electronic. This is a good thing. Production in Hip-Hop (and especially R&B) seems, at least to me, to be moving from MPC, ASR-10 sample chopping to AU, VST synthesis and sample manipulation. This pushes the envelope. Even producers who would otherwise have just used an MPC, like Jim Jonsin, now use their MPC as a controller for Logic, and sometimes, like T-Pain, just nix the MPC all together in favor of a MIDI Keyboard/Laptop setup. Even live keyboardists, guitarists, drummers, and sometimes, horn players, are plugging in their instruments to their laptop to have greater flexibility over their sound. If any lasting good has come out of the fusion jazz era (which my friends and I refer to, jokingly, as the jazz dark ages. Though, not to say fusion itself was bad, acoustic jazz just went dark), it was the experimentation with new types of equipment in revolutionary ways, MIDI having been a very new invention in 1983.

Hopefully, experimentation will continue; however, I also hope the beauty of "acousticism" won't be lost on the upcoming generation (or this one!).