Thursday, May 11, 2006

Yesterday we went to a presentation by New York-based mastering studios, Sterling-Sound at Trackdown in Sydney. In a bid to expand their international market, Sterling-Sound have created a nifty piece of software that allows audio files to be verified as they are transferred via FTP, preventing undetected errors during the transfer process. Theoretically that means a fast turnaround for international projects. The prices seemed quite competitive compared to Australia, almost justifying the impulse to send our hard-earned money out of the country and not spend it on our local music industry.

The other tempting factor was their impressive list of credits - from the Beastie Boys to Missy Elliot. I spoke to senior mastering engineer, Chris Gehringer, whose passion for good quality audio was obvious, making me think I'd better start saving up for the mastering of this album...

Speaking of albums, I'd better get back to work. As much as I'd rather cruise around Myspace aimlessly, downloading cool music and videos, I have some surgical precision drum editing to do. Time to match the feel in my head to the actual sound. Robbie's laid down some great grooves to pull loops from. His capacity for improvisation and finding complementary rhythms to match a vocal phrase gives me lots of room to experiment.

I think true improvisers can think ahead and guess what's going to happen musically, then align their playing to it. This is probably why I enjoy playing with Robbie - he can feel out the changes - even with all the curve balls I throw at him. He's constantly poised for something unpredictable to happen, and senses when a particular track needs a build or breakdown. Not to mention, his drum fills are pretty stylish!

posted by deprogram @ 9:18 PM