Letter of the Month
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM
DREAMWEAVER
Listen for a moment
Crafting, creating, here we go
Sound byte, this is my life, signal flow
All night we stay up, only to get dressed and travel
To a destination of a place we don't want to be
Only to dream of the time when we will get home
To master our masterpiece
Do you sit in your chair, on your floor, in your bed
Headphones blaring, head rocking, heartbeat knockin'?
Someone once told you that you were lazy
Until you fired up a demo
And they called it “crazy”
All around, coming together through surround sound
Where time has no definition
Unless you are talking about bpm
Turn up the drums in my mix, and let's begin
Listen, do you hear that?
Construction of the destruction
The corruption of this distorted in-tune production
Uncontrollably my faders move
To the pulse of a bangin' groove
Phantom-powered up, welcome to my vocal movement
All of the while, dreaming of the hands up
As I drop the bass line to prove it
Hear our waveforms out, they tell all
A struggle, a question, life-altering events
This is our crystal ball
And all I need is for you to grab this CD
Or download this MP3
Take a moment and listen to me
It's more than likely I'm doin' this shit for free
But one day it will pay my rent, maybe support a family
Fall into the lyrics, the boom and the clack
Bump with the bass, give yourself a heart attack
Flow with a pad, hear the melody scream
Because right now, all I have is my dream
Brandon Loyche
(aka microchipOrgasm/Outlogic)
Denver, Co.
For sending in this month's winning letter, Brandon Loyche wins his own Mackie Onyx Satellite FireWire recording system (MSRP: $499.99). If you send in the most inspired correspondence next month — or simply the letter we like best — you'll win the Mackie Onyx Satellite. All you have to do is send a letter to remixeditorial@remixmag.com. Please include your full mailing address.
THE REPLAY ARTIST
Jason Scott Alexander's article titled “Beat Redux” (October 2007) offers a cool glimpse into the lives of a very specialized producer, the “replay artist,” who meticulously re-creates an instrumental part in order to avoid legal action. However, I felt that the article illuminated the importance of writing music and how it can often become a lost art in this new age of sampling and replays. If you are unable to compose music, you are better off using the services of these vintage instrumentalists to help you come up with original riffs right from the get-go. You can collaborate with actual musicians rather than trying to salvage and repurpose compositions from the past.
Surely it would be a costly endeavor to hire, say, Ryan West or Ken Lewis, but I'm willing to bet that plenty of composers out there have these skills for creating gritty- and raw-sounding instrumentals in their grab bag. And thanks to this article, writers like myself might have picked up a few new tricks for making my licks sound like they're lifted off a record. Next time you head for the crates, consider heading to MySpace or Craigslist and linking up with some fresh players.
Elliott Fienberg
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
CLASS IS IN SESSION
The following is a technique I employ to record out of my MPC2000XL into my PC using a 2-input soundcard, without losing the groove. I know there are lots of hip-hoppers especially who would love to know this. It took me ages to figure out, yet it's very simple.
If you build a song on a synth or a sampler (in my case a Yamaha Motif ES and Akai MPC2000XL) and then want to transfer the tracks onto your computer with a 2-input interface, it is possible to do so very cleanly. Just put a zip drive (for the MPC) into your PC or connect one via USB to the PC or Mac.
You need to get the sequence from your MPC into your recording program. In my case, I use Pro Tools. So I save the sequence from my MPC onto a disc, which I then put into the zip drive I have on my PC. (The MPC500, MPC1000 and MPC2500 use a way better technology for disc saving — a Compact Flash card.)
In Pro Tools, I choose Import MIDI from the file menu. Once you have imported the MIDI sequence into the PC, the computer then kind of becomes the MPC. The sequence appears on the screen. Now you run MIDI from the PC to your MPC (if the MPC holds the sounds the song uses). This shows the sequence on your screen where the sounds are. Create an audio track for each MIDI track that you imported. Now that the MPC is MIDI'd up to the PC, you need to tell each MIDI track's output which track on the MPC it connects to. For example, if the piano track is on Track 1 of the MPC, change the output of the piano in Pro Tools to be MPC Track 1.
Now, you can record as many at a time as you want. If I record one track at a time, I just mute the MIDI tracks in Pro Tools except for the one I want to record, and I also record-enable the audio track I'm recording onto. And now with the output of the MPC going into your interface, once you hit Record on your computer, the track will automatically record itself in. Boom! Do that with every track, and the song will be recorded. All the tracks of your song will keep their original groove because the file is in your DAW.
I hope these tips help someone.
Ant Aggs
Brisbane, Australia
WHERE ARE THE LATINOS?
Latinos are partially responsible for most of the music discussed in Remix magazine. We have contributed to the success of hip-hop, freestyle, house, trance, reggaeton, b-boying and even turntablism, yet the only piece of Latin information that I see in your magazine from month to month is the Big Fish Audio advertisement pages with Reggaeton Loops for sale; that's it!
It's really sad that after all of these years you don't have the professional courtesy to have Latinos shine more in your magazine. Is it too much to ask for some special features, articles, stories or tips for the Latino artist or the Latino DJ?
As a subscriber, I pay respect to all of those people that you feature every month, but it seems that the same people are featured over and over. Why can't us Latinos get featured in your magazine? In the Latin urban industry, we mix, spit, scratch, edit, cut, slice and remix as good if not better than all of the people you feature in your magazine. Not only can we do all of those things, but we also use all of the tools that you advertise, from speakers and mixers to headsets and needles.
DJ WheelMaster Rob
Washington, D.C.
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