Our cutting edge Logic Training in London not only shows you how to use Logic, but you also how to make a record in your style from a selection of instructors who have been there and done exactly that at the highest level, including Larry Holcome who not only is the production brains behind Rebel Sonix, but is an Apple Logic certified trainer. 

In our Logic training courses we take you from the basics; what a DAW is and how it works, MIDI, workflow, plugins, using Channel Strips efficiently and Apple Loops; how to use them, when and when not to use them! By week two, you’ll be making your own unique sounds using subtractive synthesis in Logic’s ES1 and ES2. Sampling is week 3 which covers everything from mapping, tuning and the new funky way you can chop up loops in Logic 9. See our logic course page for more info.

Week 4 is all about audio and sound engineering techniques. Tom Belton usually takes over at this point of the course because of his engineering background and musical genre diversity. You will learn how to use Logic to record vocals, guitars and most regular instruments, how to compile takes effectively and learn all about microphones, the different types, polar patterns and recording techniques.

The Environment is covered in week 4 along with using the hyper editor, environment objects like chord memoriser, the arpeggiator and delay line. Lots of people are put off by the environment, but it’s not as hard as it looks!

In week 6 you’ll get an introduction to mixing covering automation in Logic, compression, EQ, convolution plugins, inserts, buses and grouping.

All in all, much more than a comprehensive course in Logic and introduction to music production, but don’t just talk our word for it, see what recent learners had to say about us HERE!

You can see our Logic training course here and all our other diploma music production courses here.

Stefan Olsdal from Placebo did our Logic & EMP course at the end of 2011. He’s not only given us permission to tell you, but has kindly agreed to let us interview him about his time here at GSS too…

1) DG: So we know you as a rock star but EMP stands for Electronic Music Production. It’s easy to understand why you did a Logic course, but not so much the EMP course given the genre you’re known for.

SO: Placebo has fused rock with electronica over the years by using some of the producers we have in the past such as Jim Abbiss and Timo Maas. I’ve also dabbled in electronic music with a side project and have also done a bit of DJing. The reason I took the course is because I wanted to get more in-depth with different types of synthesis, electronic sound design and even beat programming.

2) DG: Do you think that anything you’ve learnt on the course will have an influence on any future Placebo material?

SO: Everything you know about producing music, whether it’s playing the guitar, singing or tweaking a synth, it’s all about forming your own voice, and the tips and tricks i’ve learnt on the course will certainly contribute to that. I’ve been working on music the whole time on the courses here and at home, putting the tricks and methods i’ve learnt into practice. I’ve found that the way I approach things now is different to how I did before. I find now I work in a kind of optimised way, not only saving so much time when I work on music by getting what I want quickly, I now just know what to do to improve a song with production. There’s so much more scope now, so many more options than I had before I did the EMP course in particular.

3) DG: When I first put the courses together, I did wonder if doing two at the same time would be too much for people, but since then, i’ve been assessing people (including yourself) on the phone and together we’ve decided. How did you find doing your Logic and EMP course at the same time?

SO: We’re due in the studio in the New Year, and I had this time in London so I thought i’d cram it in and get as much as I could done while I had this window. I thought the pacing was fine for me and didn’t struggle. In fact, I thought the courses complemented each other really well and at times slightly overlapped which was good for me personally as some things we skimmed through in the EMP course, we went in-depth in the Logic course and vice-versa, so I have no regrets doing both at the same time at all.

4) DG: Do you have any plans for any more courses with us or anyone else?

SO: I’m thinking of doing the mixing course with you guys. I’m building a home studio, and as time goes on, I like the idea of not being on the road quite as much and being a little more home based. Doing your courses is really part of the long term plan and the mixing course for me is the logical progression. It all depends really on when I can physically be around long enough to attend!

5) DG: What do you think about our new premises at the Arthaus?

SO: It’s great; not just the clean modern set-up with the facilities you have here, but you’re in Hackney so you’re in a great part of London!

6) DG: Finally, if you could change anything about your experience with us, what would it be?

SO: At one point on the Logic course I was wondering if we were going to cover grouping. On the last day I had totally forgotten about it, but right at the end Irfan covered it. So no, I wouldn’t change anything. The EMP was a completely new world to me and I loved it. So again, no, I wouldn’t change anything on that course either.

Our songwriting classes take place at Alex Von Soos’ studio in Fulham, West London as it’s more geared towards songwriting lessons than our usual setup of individual workstations.

Writing a song is one of the most rewarding things a musician can do; it makes you feel happy, confident, attractive and can earn you a pile of cash too! Writing a song can be for simple personal pleasure, for a gig you are playing later that night, for an advert you’ve been asked to contribute to, a theme tune for a film, even a ringtone for a mobile phone. The opportunities are endless.

In most acts, you tend to find that there is one or maybe two songwriters, sometimes more. These people often write their song alone, and bring it along to the band in a rehearsal room or a studio for the rest of the guys to play. The songwriter does not necessarily tell the bass player what to play, or the drummer what to drum, but if the melody, chords and lyric were written by her, then generally we consider it to be her song.

Alternatively, some acts write together. This tends to occur in rehearsals, where the band jam together, eventually leading to a completed song. In these cases, each player has usually not only composed what she plays on her own instrument, but has made a contribution to the writing of the song as a whole.

And then, there are hit writers who are not members of any band. These people write songs for other artists to perform. Burt Bacharach (Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick etc), Cathy Dennis (Kylie Minogue, Rachel Stevens etc) are good examples of these kinds of writers.

Whatever king of hit writer you intend to be, there are some important principles that apply to you and your forthcoming career. These form the basis of the way the music industry works with compositions.

You have a great song, it’s a potential number one, and by some unlikely twist of fate it’s about to be recorded and released by the biggest star of the year. Everyone is patting you on the back and reminding you how much they’ve helped you through the years. Then it dawns on you: this is too good to be true, surely I have to give away loads of my future earnings to someone, this is the music industry after all?

Well, on most occasions you won’t have share the money you earn with the artist at all, certainly, there is no legal imperative for you to do that. This is one of the beauties of writing for a third party. They need your hit song far more than you need that particular artist to record your song. You can always take it along to someone else; you’re in the driving seat so to speak. Congratulations!

There is one major thing to be aware of though: Quite often, the artist you are writing for will object to a line you have written and change it for the recording specifically so they can take a chunk of your earnings (and credit). There are countless examples of this through the decades, there is very little we can do about it. We used to call this ‘add a word, get a third’. Much more on the business side of things in your songwriting lessons with Alex. Check out our songwriting classes in full, and let us know if you’d like to book. Don’t forget, they’re based in Alex’s West London studio!

Here’s a little taster video:

Our Pro Tools training is second to none in London. We deliver our classes in our fantastic new building, the Arthaus in Hackney, London. On our course, not only will you learn how to use Pro Tools, but you’ll learn from an industry name recognised globally, giving you a unique insight in to how Pro Tools is used in the real world on recording and mix sessions in the top studios. From the basics including setup, computers, programming, MIDI, the interface including mix and arrange windows, workflow and file management and more fun stuff like the Structure sampler and Boom drum machine. Also covered is audio and how to create a beat. All this and it’s not even day two yet!

Week two pro tools training focuses more on making your own unique sounds starting with the basics; oscillators, filters and envelopes for tone generation and shaping using the vacuum monophonic tube synthesiser. It’s here we look at using controller keyboards and you learn to assign contrillers to your virtual instruments. Automation is covered quite early in this course compared to other DAW courses.

Week three is all about Pro Tools’ forte – sound engineering and recording techniques. You won’t just learn how to use Pro Tools for recording, you’ll learn microphone techniques for recording vocals, guitar and other common instruments. You’ll how to use auxs, busses, FX like reverb and delay, EQ, and basic dynamic controllers, audio editing, playlists, track grouping and track display modes.

Week four you’ll get deep into advanced editing and production tricks; how to ‘comp’ vocals and using elastic audio and beat detective to make the rhythmic members of your band sound even tighter.

Week five is all about samples and loops; mapping and tuning drums, chopping up loops, overlaying samples, filtering and time stretching.

Week six is mix time. This is where Pro Tools really sticks out of the crowd. Pro Tools is the engineers DAW of choice mainly because it’s so powerful with audio.

So why pay more for less? For the best Pro Tools training in London, GSS is the place!

Anyone who does an audio mixing course should experience life ‘out of the box’. Not only is it fun to have a play on a load of real analogue kit, we believe that your mixes in the box will benefit from this experience.

Victor balancing up a backing track on the Neve. It is a different art and most of my engineer friends hate using mice, but I have to say, i’m so used to them now and I really don’t mind.

Nick plays a mix Gabriel brought in through the NS10s, the Genelec 1030s, and finally the Quested big boys which need scaffolding to hold in place. But if you don’t have lots of monitoring options in your studio, fear not, checking your mixes in different environments has the same effect, although it may not be as convenient. My favourite is the car test.

If you understand signal flow in the analogue domain, your mixes will benefit; not only will you appreciate all the plug-ins you have access to, the infinite (processor allowing) instances you have of each plug-in, you will think differently when using plug-ins and your mixes will improve as a result of this. It’s more than just understanding how busses and auxs work.

Here’s a close up of the patch bay and those lovely Avid Pro Tools interfaces!

Nick is about to scratch his shoulder. Gabriel likes this.

Mixing the old with the new; multitrack in Pro Tools up the Neve. We don’t use tape in these sessions but there’s an old 2″ and 1/2″ we have a look at.

 Live room

Finally Gabriel marks the the individual channels on the Neve with the parts before mixing. Are there any other uses for masking tape?!

A New Era for Sound Design and Music: Video Games. Article by Tim Vasilakis.

There’s a new market for music production emerging stronger than ever before with increasing sales volume by the year. That is the video games market. Having it’s origins in the early 1970’s, video games have changed and continue to change rapidly. The games industry is a place where creativity and technology merge with a constant drive to raise the bar higher. The expectations for audio have never been higher. The Game Audio Industry has emerged from the video game industry and is connected with the music industry in general.

The video games industry has always been successful, but especially the last decades it has become one of the most common choices of entertainment for kids and adults. Some people say that the games industry is the new Hollywood or even the New Jazz. An impressive 75% of household in the United Kingdom alone play computer games. As technology progresses video games become more and more like films, only better. And the reason for that is because they are interactive.

One of the most important elements in video games is audio. Game Audio refers to the sound effects, music and dialog that are placed in video games. Audio is a huge part of the story telling and fun factor for games. From the beginning it was an important, interactive element in the gameplay. At first it only gave the player the notion of success or loss.

Video games were always treated as an art form. As a matter of fact, many early companies would treat their team as artists highlighting their work by giving them proper credit on the end product. It was a rapidly growing industry.

Computer graphics and audio have developed hand in hand as multimedia and computers evolved. The more sophisticated games became, next generation audio was needed to enhance the development of the gaming experience. Music and sound design have come a long way, and have always been directly influenced by technology. The evolution of games and game audio has been so immense and within just 20 years it has hugely transformed from simple midi-sounding music themes, to complicated orchestral music scoring and futuristic sound design.

The art of video games has been evolving non-stop in the last three decades. It has absorbed into modern culture and it is the number one entertainment choice for the 21st century. There are numerous game development studios around the world. Countries like the US, UK, Germany and Japan account for the largest part of games production.

Early video games music was exclusively developed by the engineers themselves, and it was rather simple. As technology evolved, it had its impact on technology and animation,therefore high quality audio became a necessity. Back in the day, the only way to embed sound into a game was by directly programming it into the computer chips. Therefore early video games musicians were required to program those sound chips and transcribe their music into the hardware. Musicians always needed to stay on top of technological advances.

The rapid evolution of games and improved game consoles made it possible for music and sound in general to be created outside the game development and then later to be embedded into the game. Very much like the film and television industries. Furthermore and considering the interactive nature of a game it required musicians and sound designers to create content that would be completely influenced by the user’s actions. Therefore the sound continuously evolves or adapts as the game progresses, which directly enhances the interactivity of the game. This is what’s called interactive or adaptive sound.

The need for video game sound and music is on the rise. Game music is sold as soundtracks, and symphonic orchestras or live bands are part of the recording and performance. It is an exciting time to that people are open to all kinds of music.

In todays video game market there is a constant demand for high quality music, sound design and voice. From orchestral scores, to intense electronica, and absolutely everything in between. Musicians and sound designers work in house for developers and publishers. Most game companies have their own audio department, where the audio is actually produced. In other cases music production and most of the time dialog is outsourced to independent composers, sound designers or studios who provide their services on a project by project basis. No matter what platform or how advanced the game is there is always a need for composers, musicians, sound designers and audio engineers to create audio that drives the game and enhances the player experience.

Jeff Schmidt Sound Design/Music Demo [PROTOTYPE] from Jeff Schmidt on Vimeo.

The demand for high end music, sound design and voice for games is bound to increase. As mobile technology evolves rapidly and mobile gaming becomes more and more sophisticated, there is a whole new market opening up with tablets and smart phones, while console games are becoming more interactive than ever before, and in some cases the user is the controller. The new era of sound design, interactive audio and music is here to stay.

Check out the Sound Design and Music for Video Games course

Music production schools student from Copenhagen, Denmark:

A student who finished last week travelled all the way from Copenhagen in Denmark to do the mixing and mastering course. It’s always very pleasing when a student travels from far away to do a music production course. I was very happy to receive this card and some Danish marzipan in the post after the course.

EDM – Electronic Dance Music Production Envelopes and ADSR:

This is the third one hour EMP – Electronic (Dance) Music Production Sound Design lesson in a scheme of work I wrote a long time ago on a teaching course with GSS in mind. This is about envelopes and the ADSR parameters

The learners will:

Define how envelopes work and the individual elements of the ADSR parameter. They will be able to practise different ways to apply envelopes and what they can apply envelopes to.

Explanation on envelopes and the individual elements to the ADSR (attack, decay, sustain and release) parameter. Uses for envelopes on both synthesised oscillators and audio samples.

Activities:

Group listen to some famous records with heavy use of envelopes used point out when they’re used then learners activity would be to  identify them themselves.

Demonstration by me on ADSR in Absynth where learners can hear and see in real time the effects of this parameter.

Learners activity now is to experiment with envelopes using ADSR on their mix of oscillators and individual waveforms using Absynth on their personal DAW

EDM: Electronic Dance Music Production – Oscillator Waveforms:

Here’s part two of my 6 one hour scheme of work I wrote for a teaching course I was on a while back. This is on the Oscillator and waveforms and I built on this when I wrote the Electronic music production course at GSS.

Objectives and outcomes: Understand the oscillator in detail, have a basic understanding of the principles. The learners will know about the four most common waveforms used in electronic and dance music production, how they differ in sound and what waveforms are most commonly used for certain elements of music. They will know how to layer more than one oscillator. Learners will have an understanding of how Absynth works and will at least be able to operate it as much as they’ll need to in this course.

Activities: Recap on previous session. Talk about the oscillator; what it does, where it fits in – ie its the foundation to the sound – you start with the oscillator and build from there. The principles of oscillation: the periodic fluctuation of two things based on changes of energy vibe. Listen to some well known records with oscillators easily audible. 4 most common waveforms; sine, sawtooth, triangle, square. I show learners how to operate Absynth in their preferred DAW and learners get experimenting auditioning different waveforms and hearing how they differ in sound. I show them how to draw their own waveform in Absynth combining a sine wave with a square wave. Learners experiment drawing waveforms and hearing how they sound. Learners layer up 2 or more oscillators using different waveforms as they are now beginning to build their unique own sound.

Electronic Music Production Sound Design Class in London #1:

I just thought i’d share with you a Sound Design Courses Scheme of Work I wrote a long time ago for a music production college in London. Each lesson is supposed to be one hour long. At Garnish School of Sound, we’d take a lot more time than just an hour – in some cases maybe a whole day for each of the one hour lessons I wrote! I think I was ambitious trying to cram this much in initially!

Lesson one:

Warm up/Ice breaker – Introduction to myself, students introduce themselves and the music they have been working on. Introduction to the course and what we will be learning, why it will benefit them by learning it. Run through some ground rules. I wet the learners’ appetite by introducing and demonstrating oscillators, envelopes, filters, LFO, FX and modulation used in some famous records; what they are for and why we use them. We dissect a multi-track and analyse all the elements focusing on the synthesis and not so much the samples or audio. We look at the history of Sound Design and old analogue synthesizers. We cover the differences between analogue VCA’s and digital ones and zeros. I then tell the learners that they will be making their own sounds using the main elements and I will be assessing them at the end of the course.

Look out for Lesson two coming soon and see if you can spot any similarities to our EDM at Garnish School of Sound

Download Reaktor 5 synth ensembles from the EDM course free!

In my latest video on Reaktor 5 available in Native Instruments’ Komplete 6 bundle, my voice goes high pitched when I say ‘hi’ and then it settles down to what it’s normally like. I also say “crack it open” rather a lot for some reason.

Anyone can build an Ensemble (synth, FX unit, sequencer etc) in Reaktor just like anyone can build an application for an iPhone. The difference is that Native Instruments don’t police or make money out of the distribution like Apple do for their apps. You can imagine there are a hell of a lot out there. I have uploaded all my synths beginning with the letter S for you to download. I can’t give you my whole library because it’s over 9 gb. I’m giving you a selection of synths because they’re probably more useful to you than sequencers or samplers and I picked the letter S randomly.

When I mention Reaktor, my students on the Logic course at Garnish School of Sound tend to glaze over before I’ve said anything more – they associate it with geeks who want to spend all of their life building synths. It is for geeks who like building synths (I don’t think many make records) but who is going to be playing with these lovely creations after they have been built? The answer is you and me. So in this video, I scratch the surface of Reaktor 5, talk through some of the bizarre terminology, show you how to navigate to your sounds and FX (ensembles) and how to flick through the presets (or snapshots in Reaktor land)

Once I settle on a bass, I show you how easy it is to assign controllers in Reaktor, I send the signal to an aux and pop in a reverb on the insert demonstrating reaktor as an FX unit too. I do dip my toe into the building blocks but just show you how to access them. In my Dance Music Sound Design course, we cover Reaktor in depth and even get synth building!

Watch the video HERE

Download over 100 Reaktor synths HERE

Ableton Live 8 music production and DJ courses coming soon!:

I’ve been making some records with Toby Tobias recently which seem be be getting picked up by labels before we’ve even had a chance to mix! I know I can’t complain but he does have this habit of playing very rough demos to labels, then we’re up against it to finish the master because everyone is excited and people want to put the record out. It does say a lot for the A&R guys these days when they can hear the potential from such a rough demo. We are going to be called Badonday, our first tune is called Albondigas and will be out on Flashback after we have mixed the dub and it has been cut!

Toby is THE Ableton man and although I have used Ableton to warp mark mutitrack drums in my time (and very nice it is too), I’ve not made any records using it alone. I have purchased a copy now with a view to rewire it into Logic and use it as a slave. Now it looks like Toby and I are going to be working together a lot, it makes sense to make a system which works for both of us. Next project is immensely exciting btw – same vibe, he’s played it to some labels before we even arranged it – I don’t even think Ableton Live was out of session mode! I previously dismissed Ableton as a bit of a toy, it didn’t sound great and was only good for warp marking drums and fiddling about with loops quickly. But seeing Toby Tobias on the mouse…. no, it’s great, version 8 sounds much better so now i’m going to include it here at Garnish School of Sound!

I’ve persuaded the Tobias to write up some courses with me and I’m aiming to have 6 workshops ready for mid July, and best of all, he has agreed to take at least the first set of workshops!! Amazing Ableton Live news from Garnish School of Sound!

Major, minor and extended chords on the keyboard and piano:

Music Theory Practice part 2 – Extended chords:

Just some more music theory rules. You will need to have some music theory knowledge or you could always book workshop 4 of my Logic 9 Music Production course. These notes are for recap purposes.

7 chords have the 7^th note in the scale FLATTENED

9 chords have the 7^th note in the scale FLATTENED and the 9th ADDED

11 chords have the 7^th note in the scale FLATTENED, the 9th ADDED and the 11 ADDED

13 chords have the 7^th note in the scale FLATTENED, the 9, 11 and 13 ADDED

Major 7 chords have the 7^th note in the scale ADDED

Major 9 chords have the 7^th note in the scale and 9^t note in the scale ^h ADDED

Major 11 chords have the 7^th, note in the scale 9^th note in the scale and 11^th note in the scale ADDED

Major 13 chords have the 7^th, note in the scale 9^th note in the scale,11^th, note in the scale and 13^th note in the scale ADDED

Suspended 2 = add the 2^nd note in the scale and suspend (lose) the 3^rd (mediant)

Suspended 4 = add the 4^th note in the scale and suspend (lose) the 3^rd (mediant)

Always count the root.

You can add notes to chords:

C add 11 you would add the 11^th NOTE only

C add 13 you would add the 13^th NOTE only.

Augmented is when you sharpen the 5^th (dominant)

Diminished is when you flatten the 3^rd (mediant) and the 5^th (dominant)

Root is always the tonic. If it’s the first note it is called the major root. We will mainly be working like this in this course. Don’t worry about “tonic”, “mediant” and “dominant” now. The chances are that you will never need to know and most hit song writers haven’t heard of them either! I just mentioned them in case some of you were interested and wanted to look them up one day.

http://www.looknohands.com/chordhouse/piano/

A ‘+’ sign means sharpen and ‘-‘ means flatten the note.

Using the piano chord URL to see your major scales, work out the following chords:

Am, Gb7, E11, F sharp M-9, BbM9-5, CM maj7

To work out your major scales you can use the following rule starting on the root and working your way up in these steps:

Tone, Tone, Semitone, Tone, Tone, Tone, and semitone.

Now, work out the following chords WITHOUT using the piano chord URL.

Cm b9, Eb7, Fsharp M11, Db major7 add13, EbM7-13

Some of you may want to talk about voicing and inversions and we can later in the course. For now, here’s a brief summery below:

The terms “voicing” and “inversions” are often used interchangeably. However, the term inversions refers to the lowest note sounding in the chord (whether it’s the root or not). A chord with the root as the lowest note is said to be in root position; with the 3^rd as the lowest note it’s called first inversion; with the 5^th as the lowest note it’s called the second inversion; and with the 7^th as the lowest note it’s called the third inversion.

To play in a different key the easy way on the keyboard, you have a transpose button. So, to play your chord you’ve written in C and you want it to be played in D, you press your transpose button UP twice to go UP two semitones. To play your chord sequence you’ve written in C and you want it to be played in A flat, you press you transpose DOWN button four times so you go DOWN four semitones and so on.

Chords in  the key of:

http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/chords/chordchart.htm

Relative minor is the minor chord which uses most of the same notes as the major scale. It has a lot in common with it’s relative. The same rule applies in reverse so C major is the relative major of the Am and Am is the relative minor of the C major. The reason it sounds ‘minor’ is because of the starting position (or root note) is different and is in a different place so in perspective it sounds ‘minor’

Look at the chords chorus of hotel California while I play it:

Chorus :

G                        D

Welcome to the Hotel California.

Em                   Bm7

Such a lovely place, such a lovely face

G                               D

Plenty of room at the Hotel California

Em                                      F#

Any time of year (any time of year) you can find it here

Listen to how the G and Em ‘relate’ to each other and the D and Bm7 ‘relate’ to each other too.

To work out a chord sequence by ear, I firstly figure out what the root note is for each chord and write it down. You can usually tell which note is the root note because the root note sounds the most like the whole chord! Then you have to figure out if it is a major or minor chord by listening and experimenting. Most of you should be able to do this with some practice and a bit of patience!

Music theory practice, chord progressions, keys and scales:

A music production college I worked at in London a while back asked me to teach a Music Theory and Music Composition course with chord progressions, keys & scales. I know my way around a fretboard of a guitar and used to play in jazz bands before I discovered turntables, so I thought I give it a whirl!

I looked on the internet for ages for good simple rules for chords, scales and extended chords but couldn’t find anything that I thought would be easy for the students to understand, so I wrote my own. These are recap notes written so students can refer to them after my lecture so you probably need to have some knowledge to begin with or you could always book workshop 4 of my Logic 9 Music Production course.

Working out basic chords quickly using semitones:

Major:             Root + 4 (3^rd) + 3 ( 5^th)

Minor:             Root + 3 (3^rd) + 4 (5^th)

Dim:                Root + 3 (3^rd) + 3 (5^th)

Augmented            Root + 4 (3^rd) + 4 (5^th)

To flatten a note you go down one semitone and to sharpen you go up a semitone.

Important:-

-                  Semitones are always the next key up or down on the keyboard; black notes AND white notes included. COUNT THEM ALL! We use semitones in the example above.

-                  Tones are two semitones (really?!) or two steps on the keys so a tone up from the note of C is D. A tone up from an E is an F sharp.

-                  When I say notes, I am referring to notes in a scale so you only count those. You will need to skip notes that are not in the scale. You will probably need to refer to a major scale chart or the first url in this work sheet to figure out which notes to count while working out more complex (extended) chords explained in the example below.

-                  Start off working out extended chords which are C. ie C11 or Cmaj7 etc.

A brief rule which you can use without the need for a chart is:

Root, +tone, +tone, +semitone, +tone, +tone, +tone (and +semitone to resolve back to the root up one octave)

For ‘Sound of Music’ fans, the notes should sound like:

Doh, ray, me, far, so, la, ti, doh!

Note that the “Doh” and the “doh” are the same note but one octave apart.

Okay, that’s enough of Music Theory for now. I will do extended chords next time…

Ableton live 8 Rewired to Logic Pro 9:

I have just returned from an Ableton Live 8 demo for music production courses by a nice chap from Focusrite hooked up by Gavin at Kazbar systems.

I was very impressed by the way you now warp mark the audio transients as opposed to the grid now in Ableton Live 8. Also seeing it work with the Novation lauchpad was awesome. You can buy the Novation lauchpad for £150 and get a cut down version of Ableton thrown in. I will definitely be purchasing and call it a little Xmas present to myself!

I was thinking of rewiring it and using Logic as the master (because Logic will only be the master) doing all the clever audio stuff in Ableton then running it in the background or perhaps print it in Logic when I’m happy. I have an 8 core 2.8 mac pro so I shouldn’t think I’ll have too much trouble with grunt running both DAWs running. I also found out that you can use Live 8 as a master OR slave which would be handy if you wanted to run it as a master and use Reason 5 as a slave. The guy was saying that there is a track limitation in the cut down version and it doesn’t come with all the FX and synths the full version does. That suits me because I can’t see myself using it as my main DAW, and if one day I decided to switch from Logic (yeah right!), I can upgrade it. I’m working with a DJ pal called Toby Tobias and we’re working some some disco house productions. Latest one has just been signed to Flashback. He’s and Ableton Live head and after working with me, he is now learning Logic! I’m not sure if I’m blowing Logic’s trumpet here or mine. Maybe a bit of both but my statement is true! I was thinking of getting the Novation lauchpad because off the back of these productions, I am getting more DJing work again and I’d love to try that system out live. So I guess MY conclusion of Ableton Live 8 is that it’s very creative in session mode, very fast to manipulate audio and get things done quickly but still, a bit of a toy and will no way replace Logic Pro 9. Also, I’m still not convinced the sound is up to scratch. What the hell, toys are fun right? And with Logic Pro 9 still being the meat and potatoes of my system, I get the best of both worlds! I did ask him if I could run Logic Pro 9, Ableton Live 8 AND Reason 5 together but he didn’t know. May download the demo of Live and see. There are some nifty things I like in Reason 5 and it’d be interesting to see.

Last week I went to Putney to see a chap who is fairly new to music production. He needed someone to go to him and set his workstation up, as he had just bought a system but didn’t know how to put it together. Of course it would have been boring for him to come to me for a crash course only to get home and not be able to practice what he had learnt! There’s always a music production tutor floating around in the area so don’t hesitate to get in touch if you would like some one-2-one help.

It was a bit of a shame because he had bought a load of stuff from a branch of a large chain of pro audio suppliers. I would have advised him to buy different equipment and certainly not from this chain. I didn’t rub it in though as I didn’t want to upset him, and what he had was workable, but he could have bought better stuff for his money. I’ve been using Gavin at Kazbar for more years now than I care to remember. I’ll give you an idea of how long. People were not really using email much back then and I was working at Universal publishing as their engineer before they signed me. Universal needed their studio kitted out, well, I insisted they needed a lot more gear than they had at the time! I sent one of these instant email thingys round to around a dozen companies and Gav was one of the only people who came back to me on email! Since then, I have used him and his excellent tech support. You can call him and he knows what he is talking about and doesn’t favor any companies or products because he has a warehouse full of something he needs to get shot of. Another thing is that he’s his own boss and the only sales person so you know that a year down the line, you email or call the same person, you get the same person.

You can get him on gavin@kazbarsystemsinc.com and here’s his webiste.

Enough of my Gav ad; I will let him know he owes me a beer!