The real deal

Earlier this week, we were lucky enough to host Ryan Star (www.rstar.net). What an amazing talent this guy is. Among other things, if you know the show "Lie to Me," he wrote and performs the theme song. I cannot say enough good things about him. He was incredibly gracious to both me and my students and it was just a wonderful afternoon.

As an educator I was really glad to have someone of his caliber talk with my students about his experiences in the music industry. It was also very cool to see many of my students step up and ask some really great questions - not only of Ryan, but also of Ken Lane (Senior VP with Atlantic) who was also there.

Ryan was very good about pulling no punches with the students. After performing for a bit, he took lots of questions and was very open about how hard he has had to work and about how much focus his journey has required. It was very inspiring, but also very good for the students to hear about the realities of the industry. Neither Ryan or Ken were overtly negative, they were just very honest and it made for a great educational afternoon. Plus the music was awesome.

On a personal level, I learned a ton. It was very cool to hang for a bit and make a new musical friend - someone in my own age demographic. In fact, Ryan, was really kind in his comments about the program and me. He kept telling me how much he wished he'd had program like this when he was in school. Funny thing is, as I told him, that was the very point of creating it - I had had the same thought years ago.

Ryan is clearly very grounded and, like I said, I cannot say enough good things about his music. More than that though, he struck me a very decent person. The kind of guy you'd wanna be friends with regardless of his occupation or success.  I'm really glad to be able to call him a friend.

The freedom that comes from cutting ties

About a week or so ago, I stopped using a Blackberry and went back to a more, shall we say "modest" phone. The various specific reasons for the change aside, I can honestly say, I wish I had made the transition back sooner.

Certainly there are some obvious economic advantages, but those seem rather trivial on the whole, certainly when compared to the real advantage of not having the "smart" phone (I am beginning to seriously question the use of that term in this context). For all the months I had the Blackberry I grew increasingly tied to it. Somewhat unwittingly - Michele does correctly point out that she repeatedly tried to call my attention to this - I became rather obsessive with it. Any message from anyone had to be read and returned immediately. There is a compelling argument that my personality simply doesn't allow for moderation of usage of such things; but true or not, I am certainly glad to be rid of the thing. I'm glad I had the opportunity to make use of the Blackberry for a while, but I am so much satisfied without it.

Case in point: Friday evening Michele and I attended a concert of a band a friend of ours plays in. Great group called The Union Band (formed in '67 and still going strong) you should check them out. Anyway, it was very funny to watch some of the people there and their way of taking in the show. Glued to iPhones and Blackberries, messaging away, seemingly unable to actually enjoy the music and the people around them - unable to just be there. It was actually really sad in a way - to be all alone yet in a crowd of supposed friends - how unfulfilling that would be. Like I said, sad. Watching this, I realized just how much happier I was to be able to simply dance and hold my wife's hand, kiss her and just enjoy the night - I felt very lucky to be there with her and our friends - together, in the moment for real. I think there is a lyric for a new song emerging out of this (mybe even will make it in the new CD, who knows) Something like:

"Your PDA is your best friend,
Mine - the world sees me kiss my wife
These are very different messages we send
Mine is by far the better life"

Needs some work, but I like the concept. I guess this all kinda relates to my post about "The perfect piece of gear," and I am curious to see how this will inform my writing and producing. Life is always a journey - what a fun ride.

The perfect piece of gear

So as things have started to calm down just a bit from the arrival of Tanner into our family, I find myself drifting back into my musical mindset. I suppose I am the type who never really leaves it, for better of worse, but in any case, Tanner's birth (he and the whole family are doing quite well, by the way) has gotten me thinking about the idea of "new beginnings."

This has carried over even into my teaching as I have been reworking the student recording labs these past days to make them more functional and efficient for their use. Kind of a lab reset or new beginning of its own.

In any case, as we've been setting up gear and such, students have been asking me questions about the individual pieces and such and how I designed the labs and all manner of related questions. One of the topics has been "what do we still need?" It's an interesting area to me, and one that I have decided to broach more directly with them over the coming weeks.

The truth is, the technology of audio is always evolving and changing. No sooner does a piece of gear get released does it seem like another one comes along that is an "improvement." The fact is that there is always more gear to buy. Always a new tool that can improve the end result.

I am not saying that is a bad thing. But over time I have started to wonder where the line really is between the gear we need and the gear we want. Case-in point: preamps.

For the last many years I have been, like so many others, on a quest for the perfect preamp for my studio. The ultimate absurdity of the notion is not lost on me, but I still find myself wondering what might work best for my varied needs. I have been lucky enough to have a lot of friends who have great expertise in such things-certainly more than me-and have been even luckier to be able to borrow any number of pieces to work with and get a sense of their sound in application.

I have no doubt that my assessment may change or evolve over time, but as I write this I have, as of late, had a recurring thought that has grown ever more persistent over time: there is no perfect preamp. This idea of the best combination of mic/preamp/converter is actually becoming funny to me. I think it must have something to do with the fact that, atthe end of the day, I seem always drawn to the song over the production.

I know, I know, seems a bit off given all the time I spend either in production for myself or others, or the fact that I teach so many students about the skills required for excellent production; but none-the-less, there it is. Even if I stipulate that I am not very good at it, I always view myself first as a writer. I tend to want the music to inform the production, not the other way around. I suspect that is one of the principle reasons that my music tends to be so acoustic based. For all the technology I like to use, I tend to want it transparent to a large extent.

To be fair, I am still trying to get my head fully around the implications of this as it relates to the current CD I am attempting to complete, but my gut tells my that the heart of this is accurate, so I feel compelled to go with it.

The gear does matter. There is some truth in notion of "garbage in garbage out" but in the end I feel that rather than search for the perfect piece of gear, it's far better to be searching for the perfect song.