ManhatPro Expands with West Coast Chapter

The Manhattan Producers Alliance (ManhatPro), the NYC-based media education, professional mentoring and networking community for music professionals, announced that it has launched a West Coast chapter.

Dubbed ManhatPro West, it will be based in San Francisco, with operations overseen by GRAMMY-winner Steve Horowitz (Super Size Me, Nickelodeon Digital).

The opening of ManhatPro West evolves the reach of ManhatPro to a national/international organization, with a focus on frequent collaboration in person and online.

This development helps Northern California-based composers, sound designers, and other music professionals to enjoy a direct link with ManhatPro’s dynamic NYC chapter, joining members in locations ranging from Brazil to Michigan, who are staying connected with Webinars, videoconferencing and other online tools.

ManhatPro West stands as the first regional chapter outside of NYC. Its members will be able to participate in national ManhatPro happenings, as well as the many local events created by Horowitz, a prolific TV/film/online composer whose credits include Super Size Me, “Casino Cinema”, “I Bet You Will”, and Nickelodeon Digital.

ManhatPro was founded in 2005 by NYC-based composer Joe Carroll (Jim Henson Company, Nickelodeon, Disney, WGBH). Inspired early on by his creatively enriching experiences in the buzzing NYC studio culture, Carroll started ManhatPro to renew the collaborative benefits of that workflow in today’s personal studio-centric – and often isolating — production environment.

Comprised of both senior level professionals and emerging talent, ManhatPro members meet and communicate regularly to share connections, knowledge, and studio time/space. Preferred access to publishing, licensing, music library, marketing/PR, legal and financial resources represent additional privileges of ManhatPro’s cost-effective membership.

Steve Horowitz explained, “The Bay Area music community is very active and very diverse. My hope with MPA West is to harness some of that energy, and create a link between the East Coast and West Coast media markets. Games, film, TV, the Cloud, and other emerging sectors are blurring together to create a new media distribution landscape — we feel strongly that a vibrant coast-to-coast connection helps all audio and media professionals to stay ahead of the curve.”

The first ManhatPro West event will take place during the Game Developers Conference, March 7th, 5 PM at the Thirsty Bear in San Francisco (RSVP here).The next General Membership meeting for ManhatPro NYC members will take place February 29th at Soundtrack Studios, New York (RSVP here).

ManhatPro membership is cost-effective, with eligibility for both full- and part-time composers, producers, sound designers, audio engineers, programmers and other music industry professionals. Membership can be applied for at www.manhatpro.com, or by emailing membership@manhatpro.com.

The Art of VO Production: Pomann Sound Breaks it Down, Step by Step

MIDTOWN, MANHATTAN: Voice is sooooo choice.

Audio post houses throughout New York City amp up demand for their studios via world-class mixing and sound design, but most of them will admit that if they can’t record a top-quality voiceover (VO) – or 1,000,000 of them – they may as well close up shop tomorrow.

No question, post houses from the Bronx to Bensonhurst can cleanly capture a VO track for radio, TV, ADR, online media, or corporate video applications. The challenge  is finding facilities that think the act is interesting – many audio engineers have little to say about fulfilling this deceptively uncomplicated function.

Not so at Pomann Sound, the midtown audio post complex founded by Bob Pomann almost 30 years ago. In addition to thousands of radio, TV, and Web assignments, their VO/sound design/mixing portfolio includes countless commercials, documentaries, films, audio books, and video games – including over 800 animated episodes which include the Emmy Award-Winning Disney series Doug.

A brief glimpse of their client list includes Ogilvy & Mather, McCann Erickson, TBWA Chiat Day, McGarry Bowen, Kaplan Thaler, Y&R, Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers Animation, Adult Swim, MTV, TV Land, Fisher Price, Random House, Hachette Book Group, Lucas Arts, and Lucas Film.

Now at the helm of a majority of Pomann’s projects are Sound Designer/Mixers Max Conklin and Justin Kaupp, a fast-moving tandem who get psyched when the topic is recording, editing and mixing VO. Not surprisingly, tackling the most complex of instruments — the human voice — requires attention to detail, from the moment Pomann wins the job until it’s approved by the client and ships out the door.

“Being able to make a good VO great is a rewarding feeling,” Conklin says. “On a technical level as well as from a performance aspect, there’s a lot that comes into play. A well-produced VO can get you to buy the latest phone service bundle in a radio or TV spot, or scare you half to death in a horror movie. These different situations can call for different editing and mixing techniques as well.

“There are certain objective questions you always have to ask yourself: ‘Do I de-breath this line or does it add to the performance?’ ‘Are the words and intention clear to a first time listener?’ and ‘Do the music and SFX support the VO rhythmically or is something clashing in the mix?’”

Conklin and Kaupp broke down their approach to a full-blown VO assignment, step by step. Read on to see a 360 degree view of how VO really goes down.

Stage 1: Getting Started

“At Pomann Sound we have a system of creating what we call ‘prebuilds.’ Which typically are scratch tracks of an entire spot—music, sound effects, and VO—that we can use when building the final spot, saving the client a lot of time in the end.

“We can cater our build to radio or TV and start plugging in select takes on the fly. With radio especially, this is essential to give the client an idea of how we would tell their story in 30 or 60 seconds.

“The ground-up approach for building spots tends to give us a more authentic and unique sound. It’s easy to pull an ambiance effect for any given situation, but why not cater it to the specific needs of the story and record exactly what the script calls for?”

Stage 2: Casting

“Castings tend to take about a day and we can cover up to three or four scripts at a time. When an actor steps into the booth to read for the first time we get a feel for what they might do with the script that we may not have thought of yet. After a few takes our casting director can direct them into a place that will meet the clients’ criteria.

“Having a skeleton of the spot – the prebuild– ready during a casting session helps us direct the talent to do what the spot requires in a given amount of time. It allows us to go into a casting with timings; not just from start to finish, but where certain punch lines need to hit. When we know our limitations, we know how much the talent can play with the copy. On the other hand sometimes the actors go in a different direction and influence the way we make our prebuild.

“Besides the obvious qualities like having the right voice and being a good actor, it seems the actors who book the jobs are always the ones who most ‘get’ the script. They know how to direct themselves and how to deliver the message.”

Stage 3: Recording the VO

“During the mix process we want total control, which means we’re doing very little if anything to the signal during the actual record. This is especially the case when we work on a project that goes on for a long period of time.

“For example, we’ve recorded and edited over 50,000 lines of dialogue for the new Star Wars: The Old Republicvideo game. The dialogue has to sound consistent from start to finish; meaning what we recorded last month has to match the recordings from when we first started the casting process in 2006. The only way to ensure this happens is to make sure we all follow the same specs and don’t try to EQ anything too much before it’s put ‘to tape.’

“Most of the time, the only parts of the signal we filter out are the unnecessary frequencies below 60 Hz and above 20 kHz. We always keep a compressor in the signal chain too, but that’s just for safety—we don’t want to see the needle jump too much.

“It also depends on the actor and the project. Recording a deep growling voice for a movie trailer will require a different microphone, placement, and processing than, say, a quiet, heartfelt whisper about a new romance novel.

“Our go-to microphone is a Neumann TLM170, but we also like to use a Sennheiser shotgun or our Neumann U87 depending on what we want in the end. Sometimes it’s overkill but we’ll use multiple mics and pick and choose. It’s always different.”

Who’s On Board for the Record:

“Most of the time the people in the studio for the actual recording are the engineer, assistant engineer, talent — sometimes two or three at a time — writers, creative directors, producers, and the client or representatives of that particular brand. Other times it’s just us and the actor. In those situations, we can patch in the clients via phone and they can listen and comment.

“Our role as an engineer is very different from session to session. Sometimes the director looks to us to translate the clients’ needs to the talent, whereas other times we’re solely responsible for the quality of the recording and organization of materials. We tend to enjoy the situations where we get to be more hands-on because with the relationships we’ve developed, we have the experience to know what will or won’t work in the final product.”

Stage 4: Editing and Mixing

“Our job is to make sure that performance doesn’t suffer from the time constraints of the spot. Speech is musical by nature and when we’re required to fit a certain amount of copy in so many seconds we ensure cadence and inflections remain intact. This is something we have to be conscious of during the record as well as editing into the build.

“Mixing is always about balancing frequencies and the same is true for a VO. It needs to be clear and cut through a mix while at the same time allowing the listener to take in other elements such as music and sound effects. This can mean using an EQ to carve out a hole in the music for the VO to sit, or using chain compression on music and SFX.”

Stage 5: Revisions and Approval

“It’s a huge advantage time-wise to have the client in the room with us. If the client doesn’t want something to sound a certain way it can be dealt with on the fly. A lot of times that isn’t the case and we’ll post a file mid-day for review. The client then has to come back to us with their thoughts, which can range from immediate approval to last-minute copy changes.

“Also, when they’re in the studio with us, we can present the mix to them on multiple listening speaker sets; loud, quiet, stereo, mono, 5.1, etc… They can hear it every way possible as opposed to just their office computer.

“As far as revisions go, it’s easy for us to plug in different lines or tags even if time is tight. We have a good sense of what sounds too tight or has too many holes before the client hears it and we can deal with it in the editing process. There have been plenty of times we’ve had to use time compression on individual syllables or take out millisecond gaps between words to make it fit without sounding rushed. That’s when we turn to Avid X-Form and elastic audio. We like to think of the voice track as a malleable thing we can push and pull until it all makes sense to the ear.

“The hardest situation we encounter is when the client decides to add something that wasn’t included in the script and the talent has already been released. That’s the most in-depth editing we’re ever asked to do—splicing syllables together to form new words or phrases. Other times, for example, the client will want the music louder, which creates the challenge of getting the VO to cut. We can use harmonic exciters in this situation to give the VO added presence without actually raising the level.”

Stage Six: Final Delivery

“File organization is one of the most important parts of what we do. We need to make sure spots are slated and titled with the proper codes. Often we’re building multiple versions of a spot in the same session and they can be identical except for different price points or URLs.

“A lot of time goes into creating the different versions and we always need to be labeling, taking careful notes, and triple checking files before we send them out. The different versions might also have some serious differences in timing and instead of just speeding up the VO, we’ll go in and make minor timing tweaks to everything so that each spot sounds relatively cohesive.

“Specs are important to consider as well. With the new CALM act, we have to be very careful of how we mix and monitor. It isn’t about making everything loud anymore; it’s about carefully making every sound mesh well and output at the right level. And in the end, regardless of what file format the client requires, we want to save high quality mixes and splits for ourselves.”

VO Science: What’s Next

“It’s becoming more about the speed in which you can turn an idea into something tangible. More and more we see directors and producers listening in over a connection like ISDN and Skype, as technology becomes cheaper and more accessible.

“Often during ADR records we’ll have multiple talents recording from various cities simultaneously. This forces us to consider many factors such as delay compensation, signal routing and, in the end, making all of the actors sound like they’re in the same place talking to each other.”

And if You Can Perfect That VO Here…

Global connections may make VO an international collaboration, but NYC remains an extra-intensive arena to perfect the craft. “In New York you get to work with people who are at the top of their profession,” Justin Kaupp notes. “From the actors to the agencies, people want to make something they’re proud of, not just race to the end of a project.

“It keeps you on your toes as an engineer though. If you can’t keep up or find quick and creative solutions to issues that may arise, another engineer no more than a few blocks away will.”

– David Weiss

VideoHelper (NYC) Releases Modules 5 Sound Design Collection

VideoHelper, the NYC-based creator and provider of original licensed production music, announced it has released the latest collection in its popular “Modules” series, Modules 5.

“Modules 5 Narrative Sound Design” features 181 new tracks of editable modular hits, rises, transitions and beds that can be used interchangeably to create entirely unique, multi-layered soundscapes.

Each Modules cut immediately invokes a mood, builds to emotional/sonic extremes and suggests visuals, providing a creative catalyst for producers and editors.

Modules has been featured in movie trailers like Hugo, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and John Carter, video game trailers like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and television programming like the “American Horror Story” launch campaign.

 

 

See convincing evidence that Modules works! Courtesy of VideoHelper:

MuseIQ (NYC) Launches “Recordshop” Music Licensing Catalog, Featuring Indie Artists

Brooklyn-based music licensing specialists MuseIQ  have expanded their MuseIQ Library of production music by adding a new companion module, the “Recordshop”, to the MuseIQ website.

Recordshop is stocked with pre-cleared original songs for synch licensing by indie bands and artists, and is similar to the MuseIQ Library with its streamlined graphic interface and sophisticated search functionality.

The collection was created to give music supervisors for advertising, TV, film and other content fast access to independent artists and bands.

MuseIQ founders Augustus Skinner and Ronan Coleman recruited former Morrissey co-writer and drummer, Spencer Cobrin, to the position of Head of A&R to expedite the growth of the MuseIQ Recordshop. Artists currently available in the Recordshop collection include Neal Casal, Vyvienne Long and Lux Lisbon.

The MuseIQ Recordshop uses the same Borean Search Engine as the MuseIQ Library, which has a client list including Amazon.com, Disney, IBM, Charriol, and Estée Lauder. Mr. Skinner explains the Borean Matrix as a unified language of terms relating to music, with over 3000 terms comprising the sensory, physical and emotional characteristics of music. Basic terms like “dark, city, and happy,” to detailed nuances such as “forbidding, cosmopolitan, and euphoric” are included. Each library track is encoded with 100-150 descriptors by a team of musical experts, then double-checked for accuracy.

 

Ueberschall Releases Looptool 2, Multigenre Collection with 2100+ Loops

German sample and loop library developers Ueberschall have released the second volume of their “Looptool” series, Looptool 2, which provides loops and samples from 50 different Ueberschall soundbanks.

Priced at 49 Euro, or $63.98 at today’s exchange rate, the comprehensive 4GB compilation is Mac/PC compatible, working in AU/VST/RTAS/StandAlone formats. It contains 50 construction kits and 2188 loops from 30 different genres, creating an extremely useful sound collection for producers, musicians, and sound designers, working in music, TV, and film.

Looptool 2 includes sounds from House, Techno, Dubstep, Electro, Rock, Metal, Indie, Jazz, world music and many more genres. The result is an easy and fast crossover between genres, handy for creating finished compositions quickly or simply finding fresh inspiration.

Looptool 2 also comes with the Elastik 2 sample, equipped with a browser that allows users to find samples within seconds. It’s “loopeye” engine allows users to easily synch up material with their projects.

The Looptool 2 library is an enhancement to Looptool 1, with no repeat samples between locations.

Looptool 2 contains Constructions Kits from the following Ueberschall soundbanks:

60s Psychedelic Rock, 80s Punk & New Wave, Ambient Lines, Ambient Works, Analog FX, Antigravity Maneuvers, Balkan Lines, Bollywood Pop, Caribbean Flavors, Club Electro, Club Toolz, C.R.U.N.K., Crunkzilla, Dancehall Madness Vol 1, Dancehall Madness Vol 2, Deep House, Dubstep, Electro ID, Electro Pop, Finest RnB, Glam Rock, Groove Shadow Elastik, Hardtechno vs. Schranz, Hip Hop Underground, Indie Rock, Jazz Colors, Urbanic Producer Pack, Loungeorama, Metal, Minimal Electro Vibes, Minimal House, Minimal Techno, Nightshift, Oriental RnB, Planet Trance, Pop Ballads, Pop Charts, Pop Music, Reggae Fundamentals, Roots Reggae, Soulful Pop, Sounds Of Berlin, Soundscapes, Supreme Styles, Trance ID, Trance ID 2, Urban Ballads, Urbanic, Urbanic 2.

Juxtaposed Music (NYC) Launches JuxMusic.com — Online Music Licensing Platform

NYC-based Juxtaposed Music has announced the launch of their online music licensing platform at www.juxmusic.com.

The JuxMusic Licensing Agency was founded by NYC record producer/engineer and music supervisor Brandon Mason, and provides music supervisors and directors with the music of highly-acclaimed established and leading-edge independent artists, bands, composers and songwriters.

All tracks are pre-cleared and hand-picked Mason, whose album credits include David Bowie, Secret Machines, Shooter Jennings, and film soundtracks to Across The Universe (Grammy-nominated), The Runaways, and The Tempest.

The company had its soft launch in October 2011. In the process, it has acquired tracks by a number of artists including:

– Hazy Malaze, rock band alter-ego of Neal Casal (whose credits include Ryan Adams, Chris Robinson Brotherhood) and Jeff Hill (Rufus Wainwright, Shooter Jennings, Teddy Thompson),
– composer Jeff Mercel (Mercury Rev),
– composer/songwriter/guitarist Jason Crigler (Goats In Trees, Teddy Thompson),
– James Brown’s original Funky Drummer Clyde Stubblefield,
– jazz great Ben Sidran,
– songwriter/guitarist Ann Klein (Natalie Imbruglia, Joan Osborne),
– drummer/percussionist Danny Frankel (k.d. lang, Lou Reed, John Cale),
–   guitarist/producer/songwriter Scrote (Daniel Johnston, The Stripminers),
–  Grammy-nominated children’s music band Milkshake,
–  composer/keyboardist Erik Deutsch (Charlie Hunter Trio, Shooter Jennings),
–  “antique garde” band Kill Henry Sugar,
–  pop singer/songwriter Emily Zuzik (Moby),
–  electronic dance music phenoms Trash Yourself,
–  Gosteffects,
–  Kids At The Bar,
– Glasnost
–  hometown heroes Loomis and The Lust,
–  Hilary Hawke,
– Joy Dragland,
–  101 Crustaceans, and
–  Dr. Snitch

“I decided to start this company when I realized that my independent-artist friends and clients were sitting on catalogs of great music. They owned the masters and publishing, yet had few means to put their copyrights to work,” Mason explains.  “Most artists find it difficult to make solid connections for synch placements, while music supervisors often struggle to discover independent music that is truly exceptional.  Our mission is to help production clients infuse their film, television and branding projects with the authentic emotional impact of great independent music while also propelling the careers of artists whose work deserves greater notoriety.”

All artists who visit the Website are invited to upload their tracks for consideration via the ‘Submit Music’ page at juxmusic.com, although Mason stresses that the company will continue to be very selective about who they take on.

JuxMusic also offers music production services: custom/original music composition (by many of the artists from the JuxMusic Collection), music supervision, editing, sound-alike production, and remixes.

The juxmusic online workflow is designed to offer a start-to-finish music licensing experience, 24/7, via the following features:

•    Production clients can mine through the juxmusic catalog in seconds by conducting an accurate Google-like track search, selecting criteria fields for genre, subgenre, tempo, mood, instrumentation, vocal type, and key, as well as artist, song title and open-ended keyword entry. Each artist has an informative public profile page where every song can be streamed in real time.
•    Clients can use JuxMusic’s online video compositor application, SynchStage, to produce video synchs of their own uploaded video content with any track from the JuxMusic Collection without ever leaving JuxMusic.com.
•    Clients can license their selected tracks with JuxMusic’s automated “click to pay” licensing modules and PayPal gateway. Clients receive 16bit .wav audiofiles and .pdf files of Master Use/Synch License Agreement documents via automatic download upon completion of their transactions.

Alternatively, clients are invited to phone/email Mason and his team with project briefs.

Indaba Music, Getty Images Music Partner to Crowdsource Music for Ads

NYC-based online music creation site Indaba Music has announced a music supervision-related partnership with Getty Images, a creator and distributor of digital media, to help independent musicians and producers get their songs featured in advertisements.

Getty Images Music specializes in commercial music licensing. The company will be regularly connecting with Indaba’s 600,000-member community, with the objective of curating a professional-quality catalog of tracks that fit the up-to-the-minute needs of Getty Images’ client base. Their clientele includes three major broadcast television networks, leading cable television networks, and the music supervisors at top brands in need of the right songs for synch licensing.

The first batch of content sourced through this partnership is entitled “The Hot Sound.” It asked Indaba’s musician community to create original pop songs based on several tracks that showcase current trending production styles – including LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” (which is featured in a Kia commercial), as well as Jennifer Lopez featuring Pitbull’s “On the Floor” and David Guetta featuring Flo Rida & Nicki Minaj’s “Where Them Girls At.”

Getty Images Music will add the resulting tracks to its database and shop them to clients seeking music for advertisements, TV shows, films, web content, and other synch placements. More opportunities will be launching soon.

TuneCore Launches New Division: TuneCore Songwriter Service

The increasingly buzzing online music administration space just got a high-powered new entry.

NYC-based TuneCore today announced the launch of TuneCore Songwriter Service, a multifaceted songwriter publishing administration service. It is designed to allow songwriters to efficiently:

– globally register their copyrights
– collect owed royalties
– protect and police their copyrights and songs
– issue licenses on their behalf

According to TuneCore, their Songwriter Service brings heightened transparency to the collection of digital/mechanical royalties associated with song downloads and streams, along with a full suite of synch licensing services for film and TV music supervision-related activities.

The company explains the new division’s processes and scope in greater depth here.

Early adopters of the service include Trent Reznor for releases by Nine Inch Nails and his new project, How To Destroy Angels. Several hundred other songwriters have also signed up during the beta testing, adding up to over 10,000 songs already being represented.

TuneCore’s service joins a growing artist-oriented online rights management sector that includes companies such as SongTrust, which offers a wide array of music publishing royalty tracking/collection services. TuneSat’s new online portal gives independent artists access to the company’s fingerprinting technology for performance rights collection. Meanwhile, RightsFlow’s Limelight enables online cover song licensing, as does HFA’s SongFile service.

The seven-person TuneCore Songwriter Service division is headed up by president Jamie Purpora, who was Director of Royalties and Senior Vice President of Administration as part of his 17-year tenure with NYC-based publisher Bug Music. Bug was acquired by BMG Rights Management in September of this year.

TuneCore’s new service promises to:

1. Register songwriter’s songs with organizations that use and track their copyrights so they know they exist, what songs are theirs and what money belongs to them.

2. Issue any licenses needed and handle any requests for the use of a songwriter’s songs in TV shows, movies, commercials and other media, and negotiate any licenses with TuneCore’s in-house Film & Visual Media department to get them the best possible terms.

3. Represent the songwriter and aggressively pursue all of their songwriting earnings.

4. Get songwriter’s existing “found” money back before it is given to someone else.

5. Police the world on the songwriter’s behalf to find illegal usage or copyright violation and make it stop and/or get the songwriter paid.

TuneCore Songwriter Service costs a one-time payment of $49.99 for global registration, plus 10% of the money TuneCore collects, while the remaining 90% is distributed to the songwriter. Currently artists must be using TuneCore for distribution in order to sign up, but plans are in the works for any rights holder to be able to sign up in the near future.

Since being founded in 2005 by Jeff Price, the Brooklyn-based TuneCore’s customers have sold over 400 million units of music, with total earnings of over $250,000,000.

Heavyocity (NYC) Announces Damage — Percussion Virtual Instrument

NYC-based developer Heavyocity has announced the upcoming release of Damage, a new percussion virtual instrument. The company is now accepting pre-orders for the instrument, which sells for $339 USD and will be officially available on November 1st.

Heavyocity has previously released the highly successful virtual instruments Evolve, Evolve Mutations, and Evolve Mutations 2, which have proven to be essential tools for film, TV and multimedia composers and sound designers, as well as electronic music producers.

The company has this to say about their latest release:

“Dark, aggressive, thrilling and threatening — DAMAGE is breathtaking cinematic percussion with a tense, epic edge. It is a unique instrument combining orchestral percussion, incredible sampled sounds and edgy electronics. Designed to inspire, DAMAGE delivers jaw-dropping quality in a powerfully intuitive and easy to use interface. Create dramatic, wide-screen tension with the devastating impact of DAMAGE.

DAMAGE gives you 30 GB of drama, fusing industrial sounds and orchestral drums into a devastating electro-acoustic barrage. Percussive Kits provide more than 200 deeply sampled percussion sources, and over 500 single-shot elements, recorded in up to seven velocity layers and with up to nine round-robins per drum.

DAMAGE integrates seamlessly with your DAW, with a compelling workflow to hotwire your creativity. The spectacular user interface was specifically designed with the composer and sound designer in mind. Tempo sync is automatic, and exporting a loop’s MIDI data to your sequencer is simply drag-and-drop. Get results fast with integrated keyswitches for playing effects and remixing loops on the fly, and create instant trailers with the unique ‘Damage Hits’. Then, dial up the ‘Punish’ knob to pile on the pressure.

For DAMAGE, we recorded traditional percussion, premium snares and toms, and an assortment of wooden and metal objects. Then, we set out to capture more obscure sound sources, including exploding cars, cranes, a junkyard, a dumpster, and large objects dropped from great heights.

The sound of DAMAGE comes from loops, kits, and effects. All loops and kits are designed for seamless layering and maximum flexibility, and loosely classified in four styles: Epic Organic, Epic Tech, Industrial Electronic, and Mangled Pop.

LOOPS

DAMAGE provides Loop Menus and Single Loops. The Loop Menus are matched loops, mapped intelligently across the keyboard, for quickly creating tempo-synced grooves. Mix and match loops across different styles to create unique, layered rhythms.

Single Loop presets combine detailed control and intuitive playability – tweak level, pan, and tuning for each slice, and use key-triggers to randomize, freeze, drop or reverse slice playback in real-time.

KITS

DAMAGE offers 58 multi-sampled drum kits, constructed from more than 200 deeply sampled percussion sources and over 500 individual single shot elements. These hybrid kits combine percussion instruments and sampled objects to devastating effect, injecting power and personality into any production.The unique ‘Damage Hits’ consist of layered impacts and tails that can be controlled independently via the modwheel, perfect for stings and transitions.

EFFECTS

Three levels of effects are intrinsically bound to the loops and kits – apply effects globally, trigger performance effects, or tweak individual sounds.

– Master Effects control distortion, reverb, delay, drive, and more
– Trigger FX (pictured here) are switchable real-time effects with incredible scope for intuitive, creative sound-mangling.
– The EQ and Filters provide simple but effective fine-tuning per drum, and presiding over everything is the Punish Knob, for signature drive and character – just dial-in the heat as required.”

Be sure to visit the Damage page for more inside information on the creation of this new instrument.

Behind the Record: Mocean Worker’s “Candygram for Mowo!”

UPPER EAST SIDE/PHILADELPHIA/LOS ANGELES: Are you in the continuum? Moving musically through time? Next time you find yourself on a trip where vintage sounds and styles meld seamlessly with forward-thinking beats and production, you might just be with the MOWO.

Also known as Mocean Worker, also known as Adam Dorn, this is an artist too hyper to be defined, too diversified to sit still. MOWO first made a splash in 1998 as a Philly-to-Paris-to-NYC transplant with his imaginative drum & bass debut, Home Movies from the Brain Forest, which transfixed our ears with energetically beautiful revelations like “What’s Wrong”.

The evolution from there to Dorn’s latest release, Candygram for Mowo! (his sixth studio album), has been dramatic. Today, his sound identifies heavily with soul, circa 1930’s big band, jazz, ‘50’s hard bop, and yet even more styles, crystallizing in a charismatic collection that remains motivating after repeated listenings.

One source of MOWO’s rich internal collage is his bloodline, borne of the highly respected producer/A&R man Joel Dorn (Roberta Flack, Bette Midler, Leon Redbone, Don Mclean, The Neville Brothers). But another may be the multimedia explorer energy that drives him – his tracks are heavily licensed, and he successfully maintains a parallel path as TV/film composer. Connecting it all is a massive aptitude for audio software and a desire to merge it with the most organic of sounds in the studio.

Recently relocated to LA, Dorn let us in on the deep journey that was Candygram: From the devastating loss of his father, to a cross-country trek, and embracing the limitations of a Philadelphia studio’s ancient Pro Tools setup, this album’s story has it all.

You had some serious inspiration for Candygram for MoWo!, connected as it is to your father Joel Dorn. What is your personal journey and artistic statement with this record?

This album was started on a very sour note. Sadly — and very, very shortly after starting the writing for it — my father passed away. Many of you may know him as five-time GRAMMY-winning record producer Joel Dorn. I knew him simply as “dad.” I really checked out for a minute as his passing was incredibly disturbing and sudden. I knew I had to make another record and it had to be special.

The title for the album is a nod to Mel Brooks — I know that sounds insane. I just mentioned my father passing away, and yet the album is a cheeky wise-ass nod to Mel Brook’s movie Blazing Saddles — what gives? Well, my father and I shared a strong love and passion for all things comedy. While he was an editor of sorts throughout my entire writing career up to the point of his passing, he also was just my best friend. We would work on music together from time to time, but really he was just such a strong supporter of what I did and a cheerleader.

He never said “do this” or “do that,” he just gave me an incredible set of ears to play music for. This album represents the first time I didn’t get to use his filter as it were. It took me about 18 months to get back on track and get out of the pretty deep depression I had fallen into.

That’s a heavy backstory. How did all this emotion start to come out in the sound of the album?

I don’t normally write dark music — at least not since my debut albums which were actually darker, jazz-influenced Drum & Bass. I knew that this album was going to have to be a continuation of the last two MOWO! albums (2004′s Enter the Mowo! and 2007′s Cinco de Mowo!) and that means a few things.

1) fun, funky music with a nod to past eras 2) uplifting non-pretentious tunes that folks can listen to in many contexts — this is not electronic music strictly for a club setting, in fact, it really strives at being home listening and headphone-oriented music — 3) obey rules 1 and 2 HA!

Simply put I could not make a dark sad album. I just didn’t want to. I wanted to do something that celebrated my old man, was fun, and was an extension of my previous work. So, I took a little while, reflected and got myself to a good place. It’s really an album based on love for looking at the bright side of things. It’s a positive album top to bottom.

You moved out of Manhattan halfway into the production process. Was it difficult shifting gears, location-wise, in the middle of making a record?

I really didn’t have a hard time shifting gears at all. I had started to get on a roll and I just kept it going. I have to say the hardest part of keeping on a roll was that I had set up a new writing environment and I just could not get a handle on what the room sounded like.

The problem with most writing rooms, or at least all the rooms I’ve ever had, is that they pretty much sound terrible. I battle this by writing at low volumes and just trying to keep things simple. I try not to clutter the stereo field at all. This is really hard as I’m often mixing old samples with new beats and live instruments and, well, it’s nearly impossible not to run into some conflicts doing that.

Once I had a vague sense of what my room sounded like I just forged ahead. By the time I started mixing I knew what I was dealing with, and it was what it was. In a dream scenario I will eventually write and always record in a room where I know what I’m getting. I haven’t gotten there yet. Maybe someday I will?

You said you made some interesting observations about long-distance collaboration in the process. What were some of the advantages and disadvantages of that workflow that you discovered as the project went on?

Yeah, it was interesting going through an entire record where only one or two times did I find myself in the room with a musician playing on my stuff. It was surreal, as I’m really accustomed to being in the same room with someone overdubbing on my material, but I just didn’t have that luxury this time out.

The two musicians I happened to get to record with were Charlie Hunter (“Sho Nuff Now”) and Steven Bernstein ( “Shooby Shooby Do Yah! and “It Still Don’t Mean a Thing.”) I gotta be honest: I didn’t have much to say to them when I was in the room with them anyway. I knew why I had hired them, and I got EXACTLY what I wanted to get out of them and I got it. Those two sessions just ended up being incredible hangs where there was no need for notes. I have learned — and this album cemented this concept for me — that you know who you are hiring and what to expect, and 99% of the time you get what you need without much communication. It’s that situation where if you don’t know what you want, and you hire somebody you may run into a problem.

Nobody on this album was hired because I was just poking in the dark with a stick. Everyone on the album was a friend or someone I had worked with numerous times before, or lastly someone I had always wanted on a tune and knew their thing. An example of this is John Ellis’s solo on “Say Yeah Yeah”: I love his playing, have been wanting him for years to play on something but I just didn’t have the right song. This came up and he just nailed it. Bill Frisell is also an old friend and someone I’ve worked with on film scores, his records and my own recordings (ENTER THE MOWO!) so that was also a no-brainer. Seriously, once I had the tracks laid out it was so easy to just pick and choose who I wanted where. The table was set nicely. I can’t say enough about how everyone gave their time and creative energy to this record — just a really huge record for me.

I do have one posthumous collaboration, and that’s with (jazz multi-instrumentalist) Rahsaan Roland Kirk. This is a collab that’s happened on my last three records, and I have some Rah sitting around that my dad had recorded and I love working him into my tunes. He was my father’s favorite artist, and I really love having him in this context — I know my father loved hearing Rah this way, so I had to bring him back on a tune as a nod to my old man.

When I last interviewed you, you were really getting inspired by Reason. Is this still your main creative tool? How has your use of the program evolved along with updates?

OK, this is a very complicated question for me to answer. Sort of.

I have always and will always use Propellerheads software products to write. It’s ingrained in my soul. A little while into writing the album the props released Record and I fell in love instantly with its mindlessly simple interface. I love the software, but I can’t say that I really changed a ton in terms of how I use the products.

The MAIN way I changed everything is the use of the mixing console built into Record. It’s an incredible writing tool. I love the fact that I instantly had the ability to really EQ and write at the same time. The mixing desk, modeled after an SSL mixing console, really made me feel musical. Other sequencers offer you the ability to build a desk suited to your needs by adding plugins and building the signal path. Meanwhile, Record has a desk, its sounds amazing and it has that incredible master bus compressor just sitting there begging you to engage it. It’s just such a simple yet musical piece of software.

As of this moment Reason 6.0 is coming out and now Record is bundled into Reason. So I will see with the new devices how things change. I’m already LOVING the Alligator device like you cannot believe. I am a HUGE fan of the Rex file. It enables me to play samples and make music from records mine. I always find inspiration from it.

What are some cool Reason tips and tricks you can share – what’s a song or songs on “Candygram” where we can hear this in action?

I would say check out the tune “Out there In The Random” from the new album. There are some insanely tweaked-out samples in there – really, really odd things all put together and they make this weird electro lullaby odd little track. Its all Reason top-to-bottom, was mixed in Record, actually, and then touched in Pro Tools a bit.

It’s a vibe not often associated with my sound. I’m proud of it because it sounds simple, but its construction is not simple at all: It’s a bevy of sounds delayed to death and tuned to be in sympathetic keys. It’s a very sing-songy sounding thing with an ‘80′s bent but its based all on totally unrelated samples and the synths built into Reason. It’s a rare example of my actually using the synths in Reason which I do not do very often.

As it was coming together I kind of hated it and loved it at the same time. It’s a strange puzzle but it’s MY strange puzzle. Lots and lots of filtering, reverb and delay went into it. No real trick, just a lot of experimenting.

Why did you find yourself tracking/mixing on a really old version of Pro Tools in Philly? How did the limitations of that platform eventually benefit the final result?

Well, I was introduced to this amazing and insane character named Paul Atkinson, a Brit living in Philadelphia near my house at the time. A close friend named Clay Sears, who plays guitar with Janet Jackson, suggested I check him out. I went into his studio — a complex in the basement of an industrial building in a working class neighborhood. I was not sold at first, and he pushed me for the gig saying, “Just give me a tune and we can take it from there.”

I have a weakness for Brits. I think they are much better at sound than we are. My favorite records are mostly made in Britain, and I find far more influential movements in electronic music coming from there. So, he had at a tune and he kind of nailed it. Over the course of the next five weeks we tweaked and messed with every song multiple times and got things just sitting in such a nice tight funky way.

This was not material he was accustomed to dealing with and I wasn’t used to working in Pro Tools 5.1…..oh did I mention that? We were mixing in the box on an old Mac running OS 9. What was I thinking? It really freaked me out at first, since I hadn’t messed with OS 9 since the year 2002, I think. It felt so ancient but he just got great sound and I slowly over the course of a couple of weeks just trusted him to nail it down. He did! I think he did an amazing job.

That little piece of software time travel is fitting for Candygram, we think! Now, along with the album, you’re scoring for “Weight of the Nation” on HBO. Why is scoring a natural extension of what you do?

I mostly write instrumental music. I’ve always been told my music lends itself to picture. Over the years I have really been blessed to have many of my tunes licensed for films, TV show and commercials — NEVER with the intention of them showing up there. I guess I just write a certain style and it works.

I really have never had a design on it but Id be lying if I said at this point I didn’t expect some licensing here and there. The track record has been incredible with spots for Ford, Kia, Hyundai, Kraft, Marriott, Crayola, Honda, Miller Genuine Draft and Chicos to name a few. I just love that something about my music continues to resonate with music lovers, film makers, advertisers and hipsters and absolute non-hipsters. Just in general, I make my living having music end up in things, having it licensed. I don’t tour, I don’t show up on talk shows. My living and my artistry is funded by all of these things so I sincerely hope it continues.

The “Weight of the Nation Project” is a documentary series about the problems with eating disorders, and food in general in the United States. It’s a four-part series being produced in conjunction with the US Government, so it’s a huge honor to write music and lend music to that cause.

My goal in the next portion of my career is to do more scoring. I have been insanely lucky enough to score films along side Brian Eno, John Cale, Hal Willner and peripherally Danny Elfman — a Disney film called Meet the Robinsons where I scored a nice scene and Master Elfman, one of my heroes, did the rest of the amazing score. I just think that’s the direction things are headed in. Folks know me as MOWO! for sure, but I’ve also scored about five films and documentaries and have had my Mocean Worker music in about 25-30 feature films. I’d love to get the chance to continue doing this alongside my MOWO! career.

That’s a music-for-picture track record that just about any artist would want to achieve, no question. Back on the tech tip for a second: You’ve said you recently started incorporating Logic into your workflow. How has changing DAWs been helpful to you, and in what ways is it a difficult transition?

Man, Logic is a mixed bag. I love it for its stability while running many AU plug ins. I’m using Logic an enormous amount for the HBO ““Weight of the Nation” project. Inside of Logic I’m using Native Instruments’ Komplete Ultimate 8, and the full compliment of Spectrasonics plugs with an emphasis on Omnishpere and Trillian.

I’m also, as always, using Reason 6 for some tunes where a little something different is needed. I’m sure I could just easily run Reason inside of Logic but it’s just a pain in the ass. Id rather just get what I need out of Reason and print stems for importing. I’m lazy. If someone has a nice tutorial for me to watch , please….send it along!

Pro Tools is factoring in less and less. I just ran out of patience. The lack of stability with soft synths just wore thin on me. I have Pro Tools 9 and according to many producer and composer friends it’s far more stable now. I just kind of use it for mixing now when I need to and some other kinds of editing. I don’t feel quite comfortable enough yet in Logic yet to do MOWO! material, but I’m sure as time goes on I will find it to be second nature to do some stuff.

So there you have it. I use three DAWS. I know that sounds insane. It’s just each program offers a specific thing I love.

You’ve just moved to L.A. What are you seeing are the advantages/disadvantages of being based out of there as a musician/engineer/producer, as compared to NYC?

The weather. That’s the only advantage thus far. All of my work is still based in NYC and back on the East Coast. I’ve only been here about 10 weeks at this point, so I would check back in in a couple of years and I think that that will be a different story.

I’m finding things to be different out here so far. Everything is great, but I’m seeing some advantages to the brutal honesty of NYC. They both have upsides and downsides. I love both places but my heart is in NYC, not gonna lie about that. I did 25 years there and will come back as often as I can. That energy only exists in a few places on earth — London, Berlin, Tokyo as well — and I need to feed off it from time to time.

You’ve said that Candygram will “complete a thought” for you musically. Can you explain what you mean by that?

I’ve made three albums under the “MOWO!” moniker, or rather with the word MOWO! in the title. Its sort of a character MOCEAN WORKER turned into. These last three albums I can say without a doubt or reservation I have really feel like I’ve invented something that I can call my own.

Candygram for Mowo! is the last in this installment, I think. I think I said what I wanted to say with the old jazzy thing. I want to start exploring other things a little. Having said that I might find that, “HEY……this is what I do” and can continue to explore this sound. But I remember starting off making drum and bass music, and then taking a really insane hard turn into house/breaks which turned into what I’m doing now.

Enter the Mowo! was delivered to my former record label and handed back to me as a failure. It was discarded as a mistake and the end of my career. I knew that wasn’t the case, self-released it, and haven’t looked back now over the last three albums. It’s been insanely difficult and a make-it-up-as-I-go process. I was DIY when it was SO not cool to go your own way — now everyone is joining me because the business is falling apart.

However, I don’t think it’s falling apart. I think it’s settling in and back to a thing that sort of existed in the ‘50′s: I know that might sound weird, but its kind of a Wild Wild West again, and I think I’m gonna be OK. I think planning success is important, but some things have to also happen on their own and find their cracks and crevices.

So, I say it completes a thought on these types of titles because I might not have a ton more to say. Meanwhile, shit, I just took four years to make an album after losing my father and going through such tremendous change. Moving out of NYC, meeting a wife and becoming a step dad. I think the MOWO! train is still chugging along – it’s going to change, morph and become new and exciting things.

– David Weiss

Candygram for Mowo! is available digitally and physically now.

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