Report: Remix Hotel Los Angeles Day 2

Dec 19, 2008 6:14 PM, Lori J. Kennedy

Day 2 at Remix Hotel Los Angeles 2008 was yet another audio-information fest. One of the things I love to see when I’m sitting in on the panels, master classes and demos is attendees completely engrossed in the presentation, taking copious notes. There is so much to learn from all of the audio industry professionals we have here at RHLA, and everyone is simply stoked to absorb it all.

Speaking of informative panels, to start the day, I headed up to the A&R: New Era, New Challenges panel presented by iStandard, featuring Raj Jadeja (A&R manager, Atlantic Records), Zach Katz (CEO, Beluga Heights), Brandon Kitchen (A&R, Artist Publishing Group), Rick Ross (co-owner, Delicious Vinyl), Alonzo Robinson (senior director of creative affairs, ASCAP) and Jay Sloan (senior director of creative affairs, ASCAP). The discussion started off with how the digital world is affecting A&R. Katz commented on how his artist Sean Kingston was discovered on MySpace. But the flipside to the “easy access” of the Internet, as Sloan pointed out, is: “There are 1.5 million rappers on MySpace. How do you stand out? Sometimes I’ll be at conferences, and people will come up to me and give me CDs. By the end, I’ll have about 50 CDs. But one guy came up and gave me a flash drive with his music, which is much easier to handle—I’ll just plug it in to my computer; I won’t keep loading 50 CDs. Another guy was giving out iPod Shuffles with his tracks. Those guys stood out. It’s not who you know, but who knows you.”

The panel members went on to discuss what they look for in an artist and how to present or submit music to them. A key point that Katz and Ross stressed was that when you submit tracks, include only your favorite cut rather than a full album of material. “One is all you need,” Katz said. “And, at max, you shouldn’t submit more than five tracks. And to you producers out there—you need to collaborate with songwriters. Find them. If you submit tracks with hooks and melodies, you’ve made my job easier.”

Next up was the Cakewalk Sonar 8 Producer master class, which focused on the DAW’s AudioSnap drum-replacement feature. The audience learned step-by-step how to fatten up a live recording of acoustic drums. The class also revealed a new feature included with Sonar 8: the Roland V-Vocal 1.5 with pitch to MIDI conversion. V-Vocal is similar to Antares Auto-Tune in that it can fix notes, correct phrases and clean up breaths between phrases.

Finally, I made my way over to the Avid room, where Brendon Small—creator of Metalocalypse and Home Movies—talked about how he uses Pro Tools to create the score for Metalocalypse. Small discussed his use of clips in Pro Tools and gave a rundown of his studio setup (which is fairly minimal). But for the most part, his presentation was a mini comedy show; Small had the crowd cracking up the whole time. He’s funny and a master guitar shredder. (We were treated to a spontaneous shredding of “Thunderhorse,” a Dethklok song that is also featured in Guitar Hero II). Stay tuned to Remixhotel.com to see video from this presentation, as well as videos from our partners, panels and master classes.

And now we’re getting ready for day 3, and you should be, too. We’ve got another full day of invaluable gear and industry info lined up for you.

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