What I learned about Professional Music-Makers...

I'm back from the Bay and very inspired.  There were two breeds presenting to us.  There were the Now-Successful-After-10-years-of-grinding-it-out electronic producers.  The seminar by James Bernard was very illuminating.  After talking about many technical ins and outs of Reason, and recording art in general, he showcased his track that he made 100% with one single 10KB kick drum sample.  He even managed to program a huge wobble bass with it.  Very impressive, James cut his teeth in the days of analog recording and using samplers that max out at 1MB of sample space.  Anybody remember recording vinyl samples at 45 and then pitching down to conserve memory space?  

Then there was the film-scoring industry guy.  His name is Tommy Coster - he wrote "The Real Slim-Shady" and he charges $500 per second of finished track.  These days he's into film scoring.  He said the only way to make money in music these days is film, TV or Children's albums.  This was later contradicted by James, who sells his tracks direct and through itunes.  James does well, drives a nice car, supports a family and his music is not compromised for commercial viability.  I felt like Tommy was talking about an almost dead business model, and I found it totally uninspiring.  Tommy makes thousands of dollars writing for commercials using Reason pre-sets and sequencing on an antiquated platform (Digital Performer).  This is all possible for him because of who he knows.  His Dad played for Santana for years so he grew up in that world.  

Then there was Peff.  You may recognize his name as the author of countless Reason Refill collections.  

www.peff.com 

Peff got his moniker from Mac programming language and is more Sound Scientist than Composer.  Peff has insane synthesis ability, and understands Reason on the programming level.  He showed everybody what he can do with Thor.  He asked for a show of hands of the producers who like to program their own sounds from scratch.  There were 4 of us in the room.  I was saddened by a room full of electronic musicians that didn't know, or didn't care, about sound design.  The irony is that they are all using sample libraries and patches that Peff has designed.  

Anyway, I have photos but not with me at the moment.  Peff and James Bernard, by walking us through their own process, opened my mind to many possibilities and demystified the capabilities of the sequencer on Reason 4 for me.  Propellerhead has provided an unmatched tool for producers everywhere.  They've also created an army of posers.   

"Init Patch" y'all.