MUSIKLAB Blog

NEW TRACK: Uncertainty

2012-01-12T09:35:00.000Z

A little piece of stirring emotion and anxiety starting on solo piano which leads into an orchestral string explosion. The ending? Uncertain.

I've had some lovely comments about this track online, my favourite has to be from the lovely Andrew William Spence on Facebook "Just played this John, the wife was in the kitchen and shouted through "don't start the film without me" as we're getting ready to watch a movie, I think that just about covers it! ;)" Cheers Andrew!

If you'd like to listen to this track on SoundCloud click here.

The River Is Flowing 23.5k+ Times

2011-12-21T12:35:00.000Z

Was looking through some of my older tracks that I've put up on SoundCloud and was amazed to see that my little piano rendition of River Flows In You now has over 23.5k listens. Quite bonkers!

Jo gave me this piece to play and we thought, like a lot of people, that it was Bella's Lullaby from Twilight. It is, however, "River Flows In You" by Yiruma and this is my interpretation of it.

You can listen to this track on SoundCloud by clicking here.

Studio Six Digital SPL Meter App vs RadioShack

2011-12-10T18:57:00.001Z

I wanted an SPL Meter on my iPhone as a back up and to check levels at gigs etc. so bought the really expensive £0.69 Studio Six Digital SPL Meter app.

This quick test isn't the most scientific of experiments but I'm really happy how close the app performs next door to the RadioShack model using the same settings.

The meters are just over one metre away from the studio monitors.

Here's the link on iTunes if you fancy checking it out:
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/spl-meter/id309206756?mt=8

Life Just Is Finalising Sound & Music

2011-11-29T18:09:00.001Z

One of my tracks, Starlight Serenade, is included at the beginning of the new independent feature film Life Just Is.

Here's a quick update Vlog from Alex Barrett (Writer/Director), Jason Creasey (Sound), and Jim McWilliam (Music Supervisor) discussing the Sound and Music and how it's all coming together.

Find out more about Life Just Is by clicking on this link: www.lifejustisfilm.com

Click here to listen to Starlight Serenade on SoundCloud.

NEW TRACK: Kill The Chase

2011-11-01T18:12:00.000Z

For this action library track, Kill The Chase, I had in my mind James Bond meets Jason Bourne type chase with a few fast cars, guns, fantastic locations, the odd crash here and there, little bit of a fight as they do, jumping over rooftops...

Listen to Kill The Chase on SoundCloud:
http://soundcloud.com/musiklab/kill-the-chase

Listen to Kill The Chase on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pngzUok7dYI

© John Elleson-Hartley (MUSIKLAB)
http://www.musiklab.co.uk

Becky's Misbehaving Tomorrow

2011-10-21T18:11:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow evening in Portsmouth is the official launch for Becky Jerams' latest album, Misbehave. This very talented songstress has put together an excellent 13 track album for your listening pleasure and will be performing the songs live at the launch.

Available to purchase along with the album, Becky has created a fantastic album lyrics book which has individual artwork for every song created by local artists. A lovely idea.

Have a listen to the montage above of all the tracks and see what you think of her latest musical creations.

Good luck with the performance tomorrow night Bex!

'Misbehave' - Written / Composed / Produced by Rebecca Jerams & Stephen O'Neill

Becky's website: http://www.beckyjerams.com/

Listen to the montage on SoundCloud by clicking here.

Mastered by John Elleson-Hartley @ MUSIKLAB

NEW TRACK: Watching From Above

2011-10-14T15:38:00.004+01:00

I imagine Watching From Above to be the beauty and grace of a drone flying through the air combined with the surveillance and destructive power that accompanies it.

Listen to Watching From Above on SoundCloud:
http://soundcloud.com/musiklab/watching-from-above

© John Elleson-Hartley (MUSIKLAB)
http://www.musiklab.co.uk

NEW TRACK: The Time Has Come

2011-09-26T12:26:00.001+01:00

The Time Has Come to fight - mankind faces annihilation, again, and when all hope appears lost the human spirit fights back under adversity, usually aided by the military might of the US (special) forces to combat the... You know the rest :)

Listen to The Time Has Come on SoundCloud:
http://soundcloud.com/musiklab/the-time-has-come

© John Elleson-Hartley (MUSIKLAB)
http://www.musiklab.co.uk

Make Your M.E. Happy!

2011-08-30T10:59:00.002+01:00

Give your mastering engineer headroom and dynamics to help them give you the best sounding masters they can.

The image for this post is from a track of a Latin album I was to start mastering last week but, having checked through the tracks which were limited by around 6dB at a guess (but not as hot as some mixes come in!), I contacted my client and discussed it.

Thankfully, after a quick phonecall, they were happy to redo the mixes to 24bit and with at least a few dB of headroom and no compression and limiting on the stereo buss (which had only been applied to make the track louder).

Hopefully it's obvious which is which in the picture but the red one is the limited mix and the blue one is the new version of the same track. It now has room to breath and has retained all the dynamics and punch.

Next time you want your mastering engineer to cook up some amazing tasty masters, think about the ingredients you are providing to him/her. If you've already added too much salt, sugar, and chilli to the mix that cannot be undone then the meal isn't going to be the feast it could have been!

As any good mastering engineer will say, if you have any questions, just ask. We want to work with you to put the final polish to your project.

As for this project? I'm now a happy M.E. and will master it later this week :)

Here's a brick, make it sound great!

2011-08-25T15:35:00.002+01:00

What does a brick have to do with mastering?

Yesterday I had a quick chat on Twitter with Andy Wilson, mixing & mastering engineer at Masterdisk in NYC, about how I'd asked for new mixes for a Latin album I was to be mastering today as the original mixes were too hot.

With the much discussed loudness wars that we're aware of now it is very tempting to grab a limiter and liberally use it over the stereo buss of the mix just to make it louder, which is what had happened with these tracks.

Once those transients, dynamics, and punch have been guillotined by a limiter, and your waveforms look like a freshly cut flat top haircut, it cannot be recovered. Having discussed this with my client, they were more than happy to redo the mixes with good headroom and 24bit files. With our modern computer setups this will only take about an hour or two for music that may last for years.

So, when you're preparing your tracks for mastering, remember that mastering engineers can do wonderful work for you but we can't do much with a hot limited mix. One of the worst things a mastering engineer wants to be presented with is a brick and asked to make it sound great!

Most importantly, if you have any questions about mastering for your project then contact the M.E. of your choice and ask. Any good M.E. will be happy to talk with you as they want you to provide them with the best mixes so they can deliver the best masters to you.

Thanks to Andy for the title of this post:
https://twitter.com/#!/AndyW_Audio/statuses/106502890348228608

Eron Falbo Beats The Drum

2011-08-05T19:43:00.008+01:00

Eron Falbo's song Beat The Drums now has a cool video!

Having mastered this track, which was mixed and produced by Laurie Grandi, it's great to see it now with the video I'd heard was in production.

Eron's website is here: www.eronfalbo.com/

SINGER - Eron Falbo

BACKING VOCALS - The Venusians: Joanna Shiel, Supapij Xoomsai Na Ayudhya (Bee), Samantha Carrie Smith

The Y are:
GUITAR - Martin Tomkins & James Whitehead
BASS - Rudyard Burley
DRUMS - Levi Szendro

Produced & Mixed by Laurie Grandi
Mastered by John Elleson-Hartley at Musiklab

www.facebook.com/eronfalbopage

Where can you buy the single?
iTunes
http://itunes.apple.com/album/beat-the-drums-single/id453309038
Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beat-The-Drums/dp/B005F1KIXI/

Video
Directed by Edward Dark
Made by www.buttonupproductions.com, www.facebook.com/buttonupproductions

Orchestral Wizardry By David William Hearn

2011-07-26T12:52:00.004+01:00

The journey of discovering David William Hearn's wonderful music began this morning with a Tweet by the superb composer Sam Watts:

"I know it's not Friday, but @davidwhearn has just joined twitter. He is my new Guru. Follow him. He's lovely!"

The above set of four tracks is David's Orchestral Showreel and it certainly is a fantastic showcase for his orchestral writing. My favourite track is The Magician's Workshop which I feel creates amazing imagery.

You can take Sam's advice by clicking here to follow David on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/davidwhearn

and Sam can be found here:
https://twitter.com/i_is_sam

The Depths Of Deception

2011-07-22T17:53:00.001+01:00

Before my work experience bod Ant left last week we managed to slap some eletric guitar into the Mac so I could create an energetic orchestral track with it.

The Depths Of Deception is the end result - hope you like it!

Well done to Ant for his guitar playing. You can find him on SoundCloud by clicking here:
http://soundcloud.com/anthonytustin

Listen to The Depths Of Deception on SoundClound here:
The Depths Of Deception

© John Elleson-Hartley (MUSIKLAB)

Nullify - 24bit WAV vs 128kbps MP3

2011-07-21T19:20:00.009+01:00

A null test is a simple check to see if one track is a perfect digital copy of the original. This requires lining up, sample accurate, the original and copy on two separate tracks and reversing the polarity of one track. On playback, with both tracks mixed together and at unity gain, you shouldn't hear any sound.

This is never going to happen when comparing an original 24bit WAV file with an MP3 version of itself. However, it is very useful at hearing the destruction that is done, and artefacts that are created, when we convert the beautiful original to an MP3.

I performed this test as there were quite a few comments on Twitter about the quality of SoundCloud's MP3 conversion to their 128kbps streaming audio. The track used was Julian Cole's Miasma 2 which you can hear by clicking this link:

http://soundcloud.com/juliancole/miasma-2-freedom-uprising

I was fortunate to hear the 24bit version of this track which, as you can imagine, sounds stunning in the studio.

Null Test - 24bit WAV vs 128kbps MP3 by musiklab

If you download this track it will be the original 24bit WAV version so you should have a more accurate listen :)

Anam by Maurizio Parascandolo

2011-07-19T11:11:00.007+01:00

Thoroughly enjoyed listening to the talents of Maurizio Parascandolo and his band on SoundCloud last night and this morning. The feel and performances just hit the spot for me. Have a listen and see what you think!

Playing with Maurizio are Andrea Cerè (Double Bass & Electric Bass), Stefano Bergamini (Saxophone, Clarinet, & Bass Clarinet), Lorenzo Rotteglia (Drums & Percussion),
Maurizio Parascandolo (Classical Guitar & Vocals).

A couple of links:

Maurizio Parascandolo on SoundCloud
soundcloud.com/maurizioparascandolo

Maurizio Parascandolo's Blog
maurizioparascandolo.wordpress.com/

Musical Experience

2011-07-15T14:38:00.011+01:00

I've had an excellent week with having Ant in the studio for his work experience. We've been able to do a variety of jobs to give him an idea of what music studio work can involve.

Ant has had a full introduction to the studio environment, the room treatment, and the gear. We've mastered an album, which meant he had to listen to the sound rather than the music, which he found tricky at first but soon got the hang of. He also got to grips with editing audio and learning about the different effects and processors.

As Ant is a keen guitarist I wanted to give him the chance to record himself performing a track to give the experience of studio recording and having to work under the pressure of delivering a great performance on demand.

I think he did an fantastic job as you'll hear by listening to the track above. Sunlight is the track we've been working on over the last couple of days and involves Ant performing on both of his acoustic guitars and electric bass.

We wanted to do as much recording as possible so, instead of using percussion samples, we recorded tambourine, egg shaker, layered us clapping four times to give the impression of eight people, and I used his acoustic guitar body as a hand drum.

It's been a pleasure having Ant in the studio for the week because he's been keen to learn, has shown good musicianship on his guitars and bass, and really put a lot of effort in as you'll hear in the track.

Click here to listen to Sunlight on SoundCloud:
http://soundcloud.com/musiklab/sunlight

Find Ant on SoundCloud here:
http://soundcloud.com/anthonytustin

Ant And His Guitar

2011-07-12T19:42:00.003+01:00

Ant is with me in the studio on work experience - work? :) - this week and today we started recording a track that he's putting together based around his main instrument, the guitar.

This little video is of him practising the main chord progression on his acoustic earlier today.

The link for this video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj82jbJtfmo

Ant has a SoundCloud account here:
http://soundcloud.com/anthonytustin

Sax Quartet Powered By Wind

2011-06-15T14:58:00.005+01:00

Powered By Wind are a recently formed saxophone quartet who wanted to have a recording of their talents to use for promotional material.

I recorded a selection of their tracks at St.George's Church in Barbourne, Worcester, last night and this medley is a mix of five of those tracks: Black & White Rag, Solitude, Pink Panther, Miniature Jazz Suite No.1, and Pastrami On Rye.

Visit their Facebook page for more info: http://on.fb.me/jwxNE5

Photo of Powered By Wind Sax Quartet

Alto Sax photo by rhadc

Drive With The Eagle

2011-06-10T16:17:00.016+01:00

I needed to produce a demo of writing to picture so used some footage from Eagle Eye to compose Drive With The Eagle.

You can see how Drive With The Eagle turned out by watching the video on my music page:
www.musiklab.co.uk/music/music.shtml

Drive With The Eagle © John Elleson-Hartley (MUSIKLAB)
http://www.musiklab.co.uk

ZOOM H4n Quick Test

2011-05-27T19:25:00.003+01:00

This is a quick test of my ZOOM H4n that arrived today from Digital Village. I bought it, after reading glowing reviews, for recording live work and to record high quality audio to accompany the video from my Canon 60D.

Straight out of the box it feels and looks really good and the layout and functions are very intuitive.

This quick test was done with the H4n standing upright on the desk in the studio, monitors playing Elgar about 3 feet behind and me about 1 foot in front, and using the inbuilt mics recording to WAV 44.1kHz 24bit. This file is as the H4n recorded it, apart from being normalised after as I had about 8dB headroom.

I can see myself making very good use of this new studio toy and can't wait to try it out with two extra mics.

The track is Elgar's Nimrod and the Churchill speech is his War Speech of 3rd September, 1939.

The good people at Digital Village can relieve you of your money to purchase studio toys :)

Do you use an H4n? Or use another recorder?

Real Brass Or Samples?

2011-05-05T13:31:00.002+01:00

The samples we use to produce music are of an exceptional quality and, for the majority of times, they fulfil the requirements very well, especially when there are tight deadlines to work to and your favourite performer isn't available at 2:19am.

However, there are extremely talented performers out there, often with many years experience of live and studio work and in a variety of styles, who can transform a good track into something quite special.

I was asked to write a sound-alike of a well known German TV theme tune, Derrick, but not too close of course! After several revisions the track was finished with the sampled trumpet in this mock-up:

All sounds pretty good, but I wanted more of a relaxed feel to the trumpet part in the 6/8 sections, some dug notes, a few slides, variety in the vibrato, etc. and that individual style that only a human can deliver. In steps Hugh Davies - an amazing trumpeter who I met on Twitter and also met personally when he was performing in an orchestra in my home town of Worcester recently.

Hugh lives over 100 miles from Worcester but he is part of a group of musicians who are offering online virtual session musician services using top notch performers and high quality recording equipment. In Hugh's case, he has established his service, called Real Brass, delivering recordings of his main instruments of trumpets and flugelhorn, along with other brass instruments sourced from the finest Trumpet, Trombone, Tuba, and French Horn performers that London has to offer.

After a couple of emails, and a phone call, I sent over the audio files and a PDF of the trumpet part to Hugh. By the end of the day Hugh's trumpet performance had arrived! Popped it into the mix and a beaming smile graced my face - of course, a few subtle performance interpretations stood out to me as that's not what I'd been hearing with the sampled trumpet. However, on the second play through, you really appreciate the level of expertise that a performer like Hugh has to offer.

With a few little tweaks, and mixing the part into the track, this is the end result:

I was happy with the original sampled trumpet part, but now I'm ecstatic about the new 'real brass' one!

How much does such a service cost? I hear you ask. As Hugh says, how long's a piece of string? Every project is different. Best thing is to contact him and have a chat. He doesn't bite (to my knowledge!).

Pop over to Hugh's Real Brass website for more info by clicking this link:
www.realbrass.co.uk

Harness The Light

2011-04-06T11:29:00.004+01:00

Harness The Light is a new orchestral track from me with the rough guide for the piece being Celtic and magical.

I was wanting to play a tin whistle on the opening section but unfortunately, having discovered it at the bottom of a box, it was a little worse for wear. Thankfully I had my sopranino recorder, which I hadn't played for years, that filled the role perfectly for me.

Listen to Harness The Light on SoundCloud:
www.soundcloud.com/musiklab/harness-the-light

Harness The Light © John Elleson-Hartley (MUSIKLAB)

Inspirational Virtual Choir from TEDTalks

2011-04-06T10:56:00.002+01:00

The free TEDTalks always provide stimulating and wonderful videos from the TED conferences and this one, Eric Whitacre: A virtual choir 2,000 voices strong, is a great example.

It's an amazing accomplishment that so many people who have never met can submit their performances to be compiled into a wonderful aural and visual performance.

Props has to go to Scott Haines for the amazing work of compiling all of the video and audio to create such stunning end results.

Eric Whitacre has a 'How We Did It' page on his website:
www.ericwhitacre.com/blog/the-virtual-choir-how-we-did-it

Discover more TEDTalks:
http://www.ted.com/talks

Stock Music Showcase

2011-03-25T11:17:00.002Z

Stock Music, an excellent music production library company based in Belgium, launched a new website this month for easy access to their catalogue of production albums.

The above video showcases their current album SMI 364 Easy Living which is, as they say, a "beautiful selection of versatile easy listening tracks that will suit thought provoking visuals. Ideal as background music for lifestyle, nature and travel programmes".

I mastered this album for Stock Music and also prepared the edited montage of the album tracks for this video. Stock's next album is also in my DAW awaiting mastering.

The Easy Living showcase is also available to hear on SoundCloud:

Track order:
01. Red Earth (Graham Wright/Tony Bachus)
02. Beyond Dreams (Graham Wright/Tony Bachus)
03. Feels So Right (Rebecca Jerams/Stephen O'Neill/John Denon)
04. Autumn Leaves (Mike Kneller/Stephan North)
05. Remember The Rain (Louis Verlaine)
06. Whistler's Delight (Ross Griggs/John Denon)
07. The World Below (Ben Laver/Jean Louis Bassett)
08. Cosmos (Ben Laver/Jean Louis Bassett)
09. Silver Skies (Mike Kneller/Stephan North)
10. Cryptique (Mike Kneller/Stephan North)
11. Serenity (Jenny Rees/Katie Hope)
12. Sax Souchong (Graham Wright/Tony Bachus)
13. Night Train (Graham Wright/Tony Bachus)
14. Ocean Life (Neil Myers/John Denon)
15. Honey Pot (Martin Bird/Katie Hope)

Other links for Stock Music:
WEBSITE: www.youtube.com/stockmusicint
YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/stockmusicint
SOUNDCLOUD: http://soundcloud.com/stockmusic
TWITTER: www.twitter.com/StockMusicInt

10 Minutes To Fix My Aeron

2011-03-19T17:19:00.010Z

The Herman Miller Aeron chair can be found in many studios across the world and I have been using one in my studio for about the last eight years.

Unfortunately, the right arm of my beloved Aeron snapped off (I hasten to add that it probably didn't like my weight resting on it!) and so I've just replaced the offending piece - the aptly named Arm Adjustable Hardware (A.A.H) - all in a quick 10 minute operation.

These chairs are extremely well designed and built, with construction fixing points kept to a minimum. The back came off easily with four large bolts, I fitted the A.A.H. into the chair and arm rest and tightened everything up, screwed the back into place and job done!

Herman Miller chairs come with a fantastically long warranty of 12 years. Unfortunately, mine was second hand, so it wasn't covered. However, I was quickly given details by Herman Miller for the UK distributor, Wellworking, where Kirsty was able to source the required part for me. It was so refreshing to use a customer support network that had the solutions available to quickly solve my problem.

Whilst the chair was in pieces it was a great opportunity to give it a good clean and now I have my wonderfully comfortable chair back with two arms to give me many more years of use.

The Room Is Key

2011-03-17T16:33:00.012Z

The rooms we perform, record, mix, and master in, should be the best they can be for the required role to help us achieve a great sound and performance.

I was accompanying Trinity Guildhall exams today at St.George's Church in Worcester and it reminded me of how important our surroundings are. I have accompanied a lot of performers over the years in a variety of settings and it is obvious that, in the case of live performances such as these exams, the room has a huge impact on the soloists and how they perform.

In small rooms you can hear a good player perform the piece brilliantly but it doesn't always sparkle. Pop that same musician into a setting like the church today and I hear the performances come alive, plus the performers also enjoy the experience more. From my perspective it also helps that the church has a lovely grand piano that adds to the overall performance!

Linking this to our studio work, have you listened to the sound of the room where you record or mix and how it affects what we do? I am as guilty as the next musician and admit that I too suffer from G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome), a terrible affliction that must be endured daily. However, it's no good suffering like this and using high spec studio equipment and instruments if the room we use to record and mix in isn't treated to give the best results.

There are now plenty of resources available to us to either take a DIY route, or to buy ready made solutions to fit our budgets. A few places to start looking:

Sound On Sound Studio Design | Acoustics Forum
www.soundonsound.com/forum/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=DESIGN
A wealth of information to get you started.

Auralex Acoustics
www.auralex.com/
A huge selection of treatments but probably best none for their foam acoustic products.

RealTraps
http://www.realtraps.com/
Offering a range of acoustic treatments. I have a couple of MiniTraps in the studio.

Hannibal Acoustics
http://www.hannibalacoustics.com/
A new company that followed me on Twitter, Hannibal look like they are producing high quality room treatments for a reasonable price. Could be worth investigating.

YouTube is also a great place to look with the following as a good place to start:

How to make a Bass Trap Acoustic Panel by killermagnet
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyYUpkpL0gw

The Studio SOS team build a vocal booth
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdEYNdzi4kw

The list of places to read up on acoustics, how to treat a room, and what to buy, can be endless but hopefully these links, and this post, will kick-start your journey into thinking about the rooms we work and perform in.

Do you have a favourite acoustic treatment brand? Have you made your own treatment?

As for all the talented performers who I accompanied in their exams today at St.Georges - good luck!

Transfer DAT to Disk

2011-02-15T18:53:00.002Z

So far this year I have done eight DAT tape transfers and am being sent a couple more this week - in total that's as many as I did for all of 2010!

These jobs are mainly from musicians realising that they have their precious music on DAT and they have no way of playing them, either because their machines no longer work or they sold them when the fantastic hard disk took over, and because they don't know how long a DAT tape will last error free.

This weeks job is a couple of albums recorded about nine years ago and, once they've been digitally transferred using one of my two DAT machines, I'm going to be mastering them for re-release.

If you still have your music on DAT, CD-R/DVD-R/Hard Disks, don't forget to check them periodically and keep them in a good environment to help them last as long as possible. And the essential thing to do? Make at least one backup copy - we've all experienced that horrible feeling of never being able to retrieve some music or data.

Steve Conway Sings Swing

2011-02-11T12:40:00.007Z

It's always wonderful to hear a genuine musical talent and someone who caught my ear today has been Steve Conway, a swing singer who performs at wedding receptions, private parties and corporate events in Hampshire, Berkshire, London, and across the UK.

It's a shame the above video is cut off at the end as I was enjoying it so much. After having a look on his website I found this MP3 of him performing Don't Get Around Much Anymore, with Eugene Portman on the piano, which is one of my favourite songs. Eugene's style and playing is a joy to listen to also.

Listen to Don't Get Around Much Anymore:
www.the-rat-pack.co.uk/MP3s/dont-get-around-much-anymore.mp3

Click this link for more about Steve:
http://www.the-rat-pack.co.uk/

Arabella Try Something New

2011-02-06T15:17:00.003Z

Arabella are four talented musicians based in Coventry who work and play hard at doing what they love - writing and performing their music.

I've mastered a few of their recent songs and really like their style. The acoustic track in this video, Try Something New Today, is definitely a favourite of mine. What do you think?

Arabella are James Sear (lead vocals, guitar), Matt Morton (guitar, backing vocals), Adam Nicholas (bass, backing vocals), and Thomas Jewett (drums, backing vocals).

The band also sent the individual mix tracks of Try Something New Today through to me so I could do an alternative acoustic mix of this song. Here's the new mix:

Click the links below to find out more about Arabella:

WEBSITE: www.arabellamusic.co.uk/
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/arabellamusicuk
SOUNDCLOUD: www.soundcloud.com/arabella
TWITTER: www.twitter.com/arabellamusicuk

Arabella are published by NorthStar Music.

John Barry - The Musical Master

2011-01-31T10:44:00.004Z

Today we have lost the amazing composing talent of John Barry who has died of a heart attack at the age of 77.

I, along with countless others, have been inspired, encouraged, and entertained by his wonderful music.

Over his amazing composing career John Barry wrote a wonderful variety of memorable themes and film scores including Midnight Cowboy, Born Free, Chaplin, The Black Hole, Indecent Proposal, The Ipcress File...(the list goes on!), and 11 James Bond films.

One of my all time favourite John Barry themes is from the 1979 film The Black Hole.

May you rest in peace John Barry O.B.E.

Tribute To David Suchet with Suspicions Of Guilt

2011-01-28T10:26:00.009Z

I'm a huge fan of the Hercule Poirot programmes with the incomparable David Suchet in the lead role. The production quality, fantastic cast, and of course Mr.Suchet's wonderful interpretation of the famous Belgian detective, has entertained me for years.

I wrote this track, Suspicions Of Guilt, with the Hercule Poirot imagery in mind and thought I'd pay homage to the fabulous talent of David Suchet by putting some footage to my music. I had a play with some material and found this section of Poirot delivering the labour of his little grey cells and think it fits the track pretty well.

The new complete set of Poirot DVDs will be available from Amazon in March 2011:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Agatha-Christies...

You can listen to Suspicions Of Guilt on SoundCloud:
http://soundcloud.com/musiklab/suspicions-of-guilt-by-john-hartley-musiklab

Disco Strings - What They Do & How To Do It

2011-01-17T12:53:00.010Z

Came across string arranger and orchestrator Pete Whitfield's Disco Strings video today - think it's a great introduction to using strings in disco music and for a good intro to strings in general. Very well put together and informative.

Pete Whitfield on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/pwhitfield

and on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/pwhitfield

Storyteller Now On iTunes & Amazon

2010-12-17T15:42:00.005Z

A quick update to Becky Jerams' album that I mastered last month.

Just checked and the downloads are now available to buy on iTunes and Amazon.

Buy Storyteller on iTunes
itunes.apple.com/gb/album/storyteller/id409615917

Buy Storyteller on Amazon
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004GD34VY

The track listing is:

01. Heaven On Fire
02. Sugar And Spice
03. Breathe You In
04. Rabbit
05. Stay Tonight
06. Why Don't He
07. Space
08. I Know What I Want
09. Heaven
10. Sexy Boy
11. Likes Of You
12. Misty Air
13. Landed
14. Enchanted
15. I Can't Stay

Becky Jerams on MySpace
www.myspace.com/beckyjerams

[tracks used with permission from Becky Jerams]

Becky Jerams Montage by John Hartley @ MUSIKLAB

Making Musical Memories

2010-11-29T20:04:00.005Z

Yesterday I had a fantastic recording session with a young boy and his family. With experience singing in a cathedral choir he had an amazing voice and sang the beautiful Welsh song Suo Gân (lullaby).

The majority of music that I produce and master has a commercial value attached to it but, in this case, it was lovely to record this talented singer for no other reason than for creating a record of his achievements and for posterity. He was able to experience recording in a studio for the first time and his proud parents were thrilled with the end result.

As a keen photographer I'd liken this session to snapping moments in our lives, especially throughout childhood, so we're able to look back later in life. We're taking more photos and recording more music than ever before but so little of it is being properly documented, stored, and backed up for the future.

That reminds me of some GCSE music performances I have on cassette that will have to be transferred in the near future...

Becky Jerams Knows What She Wants

2010-11-09T10:15:00.002Z

When's the last time you heard a musician that you truly want to hear more of? Mine was when mastering the collection of tracks by singer/songwriter Becky Jerams.

Becky puts her writing talent to just about any style and her ambition is to have a career writing songs for other artists to perform. However, when you hear her sing, I think you'll agree that she can also make her voice fit any style required as well.

Whether it's rock, ballads, pop, jazz, or anything else you might need, I'm sure she could write the song. Need a song written for you? A vocal part singing? Becky could be who you need!

The songs in this collection have separately had mixing/producing input by Steve O'Neill and Alan Broadbent, helping Becky bring her fabulous songs to our ears.

The songs should be available on iTunes in a few weeks time. My current favourites are Breathe You In, Rabbit, Heaven On Fire, and Why Don't He. The track listing is:

01. Heaven On Fire
02. Sugar And Spice
03. Breathe You In
04. Rabbit
05. Stay Tonight
06. Why Don't He
07. Space
08. I Know What I Want
09. Heaven
10. Sexy Boy
11. Likes Of You
12. Misty Air
13. Landed
14. Enchanted
15. I Can't Stay

Good luck Becky!

Becky Jerams on MySpace
www.myspace.com/beckyjerams

[tracks used with permission from Becky Jerams]

Becky Jerams Montage by John Hartley @ MUSIKLAB

A Story Of Alice's Life

2010-10-29T11:09:00.009+01:00

Alice is 106 years of age and will be 107 in November 2010.

She's still playing the piano daily and has a remarkable outlook on life. I'll let the video speak for itself!

Let The Good Times Roll With The Big Blues Tribe

2010-10-11T11:28:00.001+01:00

On Friday night I was at the Marr's Bar in Worcester enjoying the amazing talents of The Big Blues Tribe. I'm breaking up the day by listening to their CD album, Warning! May Contain Blues, which is bringing it all back.

This is a very tight band of experienced performers with a fantastic rhythm section of Steve 'Stretch' Hastilow (Drums), Tony Cole (Bass), and Tony 'Binks' Bayliss (Keys). Baritone and tenor sax duties were beautifully delivered by Steve Raybould, and Jon Pegg on electric guitar provided solid rhythm and expressive solos.

Frontman Oliver Carpenter knows how to blow a trumpet and his voice is just perfect for the job - soulful but with a good bite of grittiness. The two ladies of the group are Abby Brant (Vocals & Alto Sax) and Beth Naylor (Vocals & Trumpet); both have superb and complimentary voices and really shone on stage, especially during their solos.

Last, but not least, was the performer that ultimately made my night. Carolyn Evans was amazing on the alto sax but it was when she made the soprano sax sing, at times almost trumpet like in style, that really put the icing on the cake.

Tracks on the album are Playing With My Friends, St.James's Infirmary, Guilty, Let The Good Times Roll, Congo Square, Blues Thing, Muddy Water Blues, and Smack Dab In the Middle. You can get your copy of Warning! May Contain Blues from the band's website or at their gigs or at their gigs!

This is a great band to see live! Find out more about The Big Blues Tribe, and where they're performing, at their website and on MySpace.

www.bigbluestribe.com
www.myspace.com/thebigbluestribe

Songwriters Davidson/MacFarlane Rock

2010-09-14T17:08:00.010+01:00

Glasgow born songwriters Douglas Davidson and Scott MacFarlane have so far written and recorded around two hundred songs.

Having met in college Douglas and Scott have flourished together from their early John Lennon and Beatles influences, both idols of the pair, to the variety of styles they now compose.

The fourteen tracks I've mastered are for their debut album, Winners, which will showcase their writing talents and be available on iTunes et al in the near future. I enjoyed this job as it was rather a challenge; there was a variety of different sounding mixes, having been recorded and mixed at various times and studio setups, to which I needed to give an homogeneous sound. I also loved the tracks!

They are: Crashing Down, Every Time's Like The First, Hold Me Close, Hollow, I Hate You, Just One More, Mona Lisa, Not Meant To Be, Ride, Running Like Children, Son Of God, Stronger, When The Weekend Comes, and Winners.

Douglas and Scott have both performed and sung on the tracks, the harmonies being a strong element, and two of the songs have performances from vocalists Laura Sinnett and Mandy Ford.

They are both really happy with the end result so I'm happy.

"It was great to catch up yesterday on the phone and again I wanted to outline how good the songs for the album are. Great work!" Scott MacFarlane

The montage above is a selection of my favourite tracks edited together.

Douglas and Scott are currently sorting out their online presence and I'll pop some links up as soon as I know.

[tracks used with permission from Davidson/MacFarlane]

Songwriters Davidson/MacFarlane Rock Montage by musiklab

Burn Some Rubber In A Fiat 500!

2010-08-30T15:55:00.013+01:00

500 by Laurie & Gabi by musiklab

I mastered 500 for the superb musician Laurie Grandi last week and just loved it. Laurie recorded and programmed it all, put his fingers to work on guitar, and called upon the amazing voice of his talented sister Gabi.

A few words from Laurie:

"Gabi and I get together as much as we can to write so we took the opportunity to meet up when my girlfriend went to pick up her new 500. We spent the day messing around with an acoustic guitar and some drumbeats to write a song that sounds good banging out the car stereo. We're both big fans of the old and new cinqecento so the chorus came pretty quickly"

Laurie has just signed up to SoundCloud and I'm sure he'll be adding some gems for you to hear in the near future:
soundcloud.com/laurie-grandi

You can find out more about Laurie on his MySpace page and, as well as writing and playing his own music, he is also the singer and guitarist for The Housewives.

[500 is used with permission from Laurie Grandi]

the14thdisciple In His Helicopter

2010-07-21T16:10:00.008+01:00

I mastered Fourteen by the14thdisciple & Freands back in March of this year and Dean has brightened up my day by sending to me the link of his video of the first song on the album - In My Helicopter.

Dean hasn't been doing the video stuff for long but I think he's done an excellent job in such a short space of time. Anyone who does video knows how much work has gone into producing this.

Excellent job Dean!

Pop over to the14thdisciple & Freands album page - www.littleboxes.nl/the14thdisciple - for more info and get your fill of 14 from iTunes - itunes.apple.com/us/album/14-fourteen/id364205592.

The 14th Disciple is also on Twitter: @the14thdisciple

Remma Are Mastered & Off To The States

2010-06-22T14:13:00.010+01:00

Remma are a fantastic band of four guys - Shane O' Herlihy (Vocals, Guitar), Colm O' Herlihy (Guitar), Darren O' Driscoll (Drums) and Daniel Amedee (Bass Keys) – from Cork, Ireland, and they are about to embark on their month US tour starting on 9th July 2010 in New Orleans.

After mastering their Continue The Search EP last week I've listened to the tracks many times and love them, especially Sincerity and Hurried Myself Along.

Have a listen to this little montage [right] of the five tracks to see what you think.

The five songs on the EP are Sincerity, Forcibly Impressed, Categories And Strategies, You Should Know Yourself By Now, and Hurried Myself Along.

Find out more about Remma on their MySpace page, Facebook, Twitter…

Best of luck with the tour guys!

The Digital Economy Bill Wash Up

2010-04-08T18:17:00.005+01:00

Talk Talk are taking a great stance on the Digital Economy Bill and its many draconian proposals to reduce copyright infringement. Talk Talk pledges are:

"Unless we are served with a court order we will never surrender a customer’s details to rightsholders. We are the only major ISP to have taken this stance and we will maintain it.

"If we are instructed to disconnect an account due to alleged copyright infringement we will refuse to do so and tell the rightsholders we’ll see them in court."

In the post Andrew Heaney writes:

"It looks like much of the Digital Economy Bill will make it through to get Royal Assent by the end of the week.

The Bill is now in much better shape than when first tabled by the Government last year – the ability of the Government to impose disconnection at will has been checked and the Henry VIII clause that literally allowed the Government to do anything else to reduce copyright infringement has been removed."

Read the complete post: Digital Economy Bill – it’s a wash up.

As a composer I like my work to be copyrighted and protected so I can earn a living. However, this Bill is not the right way to solve the problem and I applaud Talk Talk for their stance. I'm glad they bought my ISP now!

LINKS

The TalkTalk Blog - Digital Economy Bill – it’s a wash up
www.talktalkblog.co.uk/2010/04/08/digital-economy-bill-its-a-wash-up/

Digital Economy Bill
interactive.bis.gov.uk/digitalbritain/digital-economy-bill/

Fancy A Nice Cuppa?

2010-04-07T15:50:00.007+01:00

Martin James, from The Green Lights, pointed me in the direction of a video of a new song - A Nice Cup Of Tea - that he has put together with Malcolm Cooper.

I think they've done a lovely little performance, just would have loved to hear Martin's vocals more.

It has definitely made a nice tea break for me accompanied by a couple of Rich Tea.

But now, the Mac is calling and she must be obeyed!

A few links:

The Green Lights
http://www.thegreenlights.co.uk/

Martin James on Twitter
http://twitter.com/Martin_James

The 14th Disciple & Freands Release 14

2010-03-29T09:20:00.002+01:00

Fourteen, by The 14th Disciple & Freands, is here and waiting to massage your ears with fun and frivolity.

This is truly one of those albums that breaks the 'normal' mould and I thoroughly enjoyed mastering it. Songs that I still find myself humming many weeks after working on the album are In My Helicopter, My Name Is Jack, and The Neighbourhood Gangbang Party.

Pop over to the14thdisciple & Freands album page - www.littleboxes.nl/the14thdisciple - for more info and get your fill of 14 from iTunes - itunes.apple.com/us/album/14-fourteen/id364205592.

The 14th Disciple is also on Twitter: @the14thdisciple

Dynamic Range Day Is Coming Soon!

2010-03-19T16:50:00.007Z

There is a dream that many people share for an end to the mental loudness war that still continues after many years.

One man who champions the idea of putting dynamic range back into music is mastering engineer Ian Shepherd (@ianshepherd) and he has come up with an excellent idea of Dynamic Range Day (#DYNAMICRANGEDAY).

When is this Dynamic Range Day?

Tomorrow! Saturday 20th March 2010.

What can you do to join in? Here's what Ian says on his website:

"Just SHOUT ALL DAY !

"(For non-nerds, typing in ALL CAPITALs is know on the internet as "shouting")

"Why SHOUT all day ? Because over-compressed, distorted, unnecessarily high-level Loudness-War-Casualty music sounds as if it’s shouting at you, all the time. IT’S LOUD AND IT STAYS LOUD AND IT’s ONLY LOUD AND VERY SOON IT WEARS YOU OUT. AND GETS BORING !

"So if we SHOUT all day on March 20th – on Twitter, on Facebook, in our emails – everywhere – if we shout and explain why we’re doing it when people ask, by linking to this post, or TurnMeUp.org, or the Dynamic Range Foundation, then hopefully we’ll spread the message far and wide."

Read more about Dynamic Range Day on Ian's website.

Who Has Music On DAT?

2010-03-04T15:22:00.008Z

There are some people probably wondering what a DAT is. The joy of being young!

When I was starting out not too many years ago way way back in the 1990s the Digital Audio Tape was, before the invasion of affordable hard drives and CD-Rs, a widely used stereo format in recording studios.

I liked using DAT; always found it worked extremely well and my trusty TASCAM DA-20 MKII, and SONY Portable TCD-D7, recorded many hours of music for me.

I was doing some digital transfers yesterday from a client's batch of old DAT tapes (it's sad how 'old', in this case, is only 8 years!) and it drew my attention to the large amount of my tracks that are on DAT.

There are some absolute masterpieces on those tapes from my early years (I know this to be fact because my dear Auntie told me) and I would like to keep them to enjoy a warm nostalgic moment later in life.

I'm now going to start the lengthy process of transferring them to hard drive, hopefully before that format is superseded!

How many of you still have your precious work on DATs? Do you still use them?

A Journey Through The Stars

2010-02-01T11:32:00.002Z

Starlight Serenade will take you on an emotional journey of enchantment, discovery, and love.

I was inspired to compose this track by the magnificent night sky and the staggering beauty, and overwhelming size, of the galaxies beyond.

Let me know what you think and what imagery it brings to your mind.

Starlight Serenade by John Hartley (MUSIKLAB) by musiklab

[Picture by Dimitri Castrique]

Mix The Kutiman Way

2010-01-20T10:04:00.006Z

Just been introduced to the talent of Kutiman via Paul Rostill with his post on the SOS Music Recording Technology Forum.

Here's his perfect description of what Kutiman does:

“What he has done is use Youtube as a stonking great big sample library, of sorts. And he's not using just the audio, but the video as well. So, a video DJ perhaps, only much more so.

“It's not an entirely new idea. I've seen vaguely similar things done before, but nothing on this level.

“The sources are almost entirely taken from amateur musicians who were none the wiser that the humble sonic doodles they put on Youtube would amount to anything. Much less be hijacked in this creative & impressive way.

“From this semi random chaos, one man has made brilliance that is much more than the sum of its parts. I've not been this impressed in... a long time!?”

Kutiman must have put a huge amount of time into creating these videos from the raw 'samples' of these gifted YouTubers.

Videos featured above are Kutiman-Thru-you - 06 - Wait For Me & Kutiman-Thru-you - 07 - Just a Lady.

Kutiman on YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/kutiman

His Thru You website: www.thru-you.com

Time To Execute The Plan

2010-01-05T13:58:00.002Z

Kicking off the New Year with a plan, one of my resolutions for the start of the year is to finish off and kit out my new studio. What's your top New Year resolution?

For some inspiration, Plan And Execute is an orchestral film track that begins with apprehension before the green light is given to enact the well conceived plan.

There will be difficulties on the way but, with perseverance, the track builds to a triumphant and powerful conclusion.

Plan And Execute by John Hartley (MUSIKLAB)

[Picture by Dunechaser]

Bring In 2010 With Sam Hyman

2009-12-30T14:30:00.003Z

To help bring 2009 to an end, and catapult us into 2010, here are a couple of tracks featuring the fantastic vocal talent of Sam Hyman.

I always love hearing Sam's voice and thought it would be perfect for a version of Auld Lang Syne so we've put together a quick mix for you to enjoy.

We have also put together a demo of a little song, with words by Sam's lovely wife Molli, entitled New Years Eve.

Lyrics for New Years Eve

Better to ask this earlier than late,
Just so you know I really couldn't wait,
Wouldn't you please spend New Years Eve with me.

I know the snow won't be here for a while,
but if you will please answer with that smile,
wouldn't you please spend New Years Eve with me.

I guess I'm asking quite a lot,
Considering all of the choices you've got,
But I'm hoping and I'm praying that you'll see,
I'm all alone on New Years Eve.

Nobodies kiss could ever warm you like mine,
Tell me before the clock begins its final chime,
Wouldn't you please spend New Years Eve with me.

I guess I'm asking quite a lot,
Considering all of the choices you've got,
But I'm hoping and I'm praying that you'll see,
I'm all alone on New Years Eve.

Nobodies kiss could ever warm you like mine,
tell me before the clock begins its final chime,
Wouldn't you please spend New Years Eve with me.

Sam lives in Erie, Pennsylvania, and performs regularly with his aptly named Sam Hyman Band.

Happy New Year!

Not Forgotten With Vera Lynn & The Swingtime Sweethearts

2009-12-07T17:29:00.005Z

Last month I was able to give my time to a project for two very worthwhile charities by doing a spot of editing and mastering.

Not Forgotten, featuring Dame Vera Lynn & The Swingtime Sweethearts, is hoping to raise much needed funds for the Not Forgotten Association for Ex-Service and Currently-Serving War Disabled, and The Dame Vera Lynn Trust for Children With Cerebral Palsy.

The song, written by Grahame Maclean and Tony Halligan, features a heartfelt plea from the Forces Sweetheart, urging us all to remember the sacrifices made by our brave servicemen and women, from past and present conflicts.

Not Forgotten was launched at the Annual NFA Christmas Party at St.James' Palace London on 3rd December 2009 with all proceeds being split between the two charities.

To support these charities you can download the song now from iTunes, Amazon, Play.com, and emusic.

Those involved include:
NorthStar Music
The Central Band Of The Royal British Legion
Angel Studios
The Challock Primary School Choir
West End Kids

Extra musicians who contributed their time:
Pete Willmott
Ben Laver
Henry Gorman
Richard Young
John Hartley
Digital promotion distribution is by Adstream DMDS.

LINKS

The Not Forgotten Association
www.nfassociation.org

Dame Vera Lynn Trust for Children with Cerebral Palsy
www.dvltrust.org.uk

Donate Online
www.justgiving.com/notforgotten
www.justgiving.com/dvltrust

Music Is Sweeter With Taylor

2009-11-10T14:56:00.004Z

SoundCloud have just pushed their latest upgrade called Taylor, named after Taylor Swift and the fun she had with Kanye.

I've been using several SoundCloud accounts for almost six months and there are a lot of improvements to be made but, for a service that has only recently celebrated their first birthday, they are doing well.

Anyone using SoundCloud knows that the team behind it are very engaged in perfecting the service for the end user and the Taylor update goes some way in the development. An excellent step!

SoundCloud now comes with three player widgets; The Minimalist (the name says it all), The Expressionist (a square player for displaying album artwork and is pictured right), and The Modernist (which is the original player). These will easily enable embedding of the player into different areas of websites and offer a wider choice of functionality.

An account I handle has around 950 tracks and the stats were completely inadequate at coping with this volume of content. The new stats should go some way in delivering more meaningful information.

There is now a wider range of Premium accounts, what used to be called Pro accounts, that should appeal to the majority of people by offering good choice and value for money.

Along with the new accounts comes a return to the number of minutes of music you are limited to in your account, instead of a monthly upload limit. SoundCloud have termed this Minutes with a quaint but, I think, useless analogy to tape - “The Massive Tape Reel in the Cloud”.

One of the small, and much needed, additions that people have asked for in their accounts was an indicator to display the remaining upload space/tracks. This is finally in place on the upload page. Thank you SoundCloud team!

For a full explanation of what's new in the Taylor release, check out the blog entry:

http://blog.soundcloud.com/2009/11/10/taylor/

I'm off to play with what's new...

Write orchestral music? Then let's hear it!

2009-10-27T17:34:00.008Z

Stu Kennedy has formed an Orchestral Group on SoundCloud where you can share your works of art for all to enjoy.

Stu has already placed a great collection of music into the group and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to his tracks. The one that stood out for me with a killer theme is below; Killers Waltz.

Killers Waltz by stukennedy

What Stu is looking for in this group is:

"Okay this is for compositions that are mainly symphony orchestral, with other elements. So no Hiphop, ambient, dance, house, dub etc. please!

It's fine if there are electronica, rock or world music elements to support the composition, but not a synth track with some orchestra samples."

That's it. Look forward to hearing yours!

http://soundcloud.com/groups/orchestral

On A Cheerful Note, You Will Not Return

2009-10-23T10:29:00.003+01:00

I wrote this track on a lovely sunny day when all was good in the world and positivity was all around. Or was that the day before?

Have a listen and see what you think.

You Will Not Return by musiklab

How Is Spotify Doing It?

2009-10-12T15:40:00.010+01:00

Have you read Ian Shepherd's blog posting entitled How Spotify might defuse the Loudness Wars. A post where he beautifully presented his case but got his facts wrong. What did he do about it? Anyone who follows Ian will know the quality of his content and respect him so it wasn't a surprise when he apologised to Spotify, edited the post whilst leaving the original text for clarity, and notified everyone of the change.

Ian has also followed up this article with Why I was wrong about Spotify. Both our definitely worth a visit.

Like Ian, I love Spotify. The rapidly expanding music catalogue delivers a huge diversity of choice; I thoroughly enjoyed discovering Quincy Jones' Early Jazz Years album last week. Recently it has been extremely useful for quickly looking up tracks when clients request sound-a-likes and tracks in-the-style-of.

I have noticed in use that Spotify takes a happy medium for it's loudness normalization by increasing the volume of quieter tracks and reducing the louder ones. To reiterate Ian's thoughts on this feature, done properly in players, it might indeed defuse the Loudness Wars. I would like to see a slider option, with say five increments of how the normalisation would operate to give choice to the end listener but, for now, Spotify has taken a step in the right direction.

You can join Ian on Twitter (@ianshepherd) and check out his fantastic Production Advice website.

My Musical Nightmare

2009-07-16T09:34:00.006+01:00

What are your nightmares like?

I'm fortunate that I can't remember the last time I had one so, in this new track, my imagination was engaged to conjure up a little night time adventure.

Welcome To My Nightmare is a dark and twisted cheerful journey in a not so peaceful good night's sleep. Thankfully, it is only a dream and my eyes do open at the end and all is well with the world!

Have a listen and see where it takes you.

Welcome To My Nightmare by John Hartley

What Will You Listen To Today?

2009-07-03T14:19:00.008+01:00

Downloaded Spotify last night and within minutes I was listening to an eclectic selection of music including Little Richard, Coldplay, Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Holiday, The Killers, The Quincy Jones Big Band, and the stunning music of The Dark Knight by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard. The latter led me to my favourite film score; Batman by Danny Elfman.

At 160kbps the audio quality is pretty good too and, if you sign up for the £9.99/month premium service with no adverts, it's 320kbps.

The interruption of an ad every 20 minutes is nothing, especially as we've been exposed to commercial tv and radio for so many years. It's easy to setup and simple and very quick to use. There are a few features I would like, such as viewing a playlist's contents by album covers (unless I just haven't discovered that yet) but Spotify have concentrated the majority of their time making sure the system works well and fast. My initial impression is that they have done an excellent job so far.

How will Spotify change my music listening and buying habits? I will definitely be listening to an even wider spectrum of artists and styles and probably be buying more CDs - I prefer to buy a physical item rather than bits on a hard drive.

This does appear to be an excellent business model for listening to music legally with a large and expanding library. The potential for this service is huge, especially when the mobile network could cope with the bandwidth usage and be cost effective for all to use. Don't think we'll have to wait too long.

Now we just need to discover how much revenue streams through to the artists. In the mean time I'm onto Creedance Clearwater Revival.

The Perfect Music For Your Lifestyle

2009-06-26T14:17:00.007+01:00

NorthStar Music Publishing Ltd have a record label producing high quality Lifestyle Music and I've just mastered their new Chillounge album.

NorthStar understand the benefit of providing music to their consumers that has good dynamic range, especially within this genre of music. After discussing with them the efforts of the Pleasurize Music Foundation to promote dynamic range in music, and move away from the ridiculous Loudness Wars in which we find ourselves today, NorthStar were eager for me to master the album with very little, or no, compression and achieve the best listening experience for their customers.

After mastering the album, the dynamic range value for the individual tracks range from DR12 to DR17, with an overall album value of DR15. After a quick email response from Friedeman Tischmeyer, the founder of Pleasurize Music Foundation, he informed me that this album would be rated as DR14 - the best category rating. His explanation for stopping at DR14 is: "We stopped the DR scale @ DR14 because we don't consider the macro dynamic. This causes an increasing inexactness with higher values. Strong lead vocals could lead to lower DR values even if it's very dynamic. Please use DR14 as it's the highest possible DR value."

Chillounge contains a mixture of cool tracks from composers including Richard Erskine, Robert DeFresnes, Louis Thorne, Jono Buchanon, Cirasuolo Salvatore, and Mike Kneller, and will be available as a digital download via Amazon and iTunes.

Discover more about the Pleasurize Music Foundation at their website: www.pleasurizemusic.com

The Shameful Truth

2009-05-26T07:52:00.007+01:00

The Shameful Truth is an emotionally charged piece of music for piano and orchestra.

A gentle, pensive, opening of solo piano broadens and crescendos until the listener discovers the true meaning of the title at the climax.

I know the film imagery that influenced me, and sculpted this track, but what thoughts and picture does it conjure up for you?

The Shameful Truth © John Hartley.

Backup To A Robot

2009-05-12T07:51:00.001+01:00

When was the last time you backed up the data on your computer? You haven't? Even if you have, here's something that might interest you.

I have a family of external LaCie drives in the studio that has expanded to the point that, when I was considering more backup and archiving space in March, I thought there must be another option. I'd be buying two new drives, one to back up the other, taking my total of external drives to eight and increasing the amazing spaghetti junction of power units and firewire cables in the process.

Into the breach steps the Drobo from Data Robotics. One box, one power unit, one cable, and up to 16TB of hard drive capacity! The unit connects via Firewire 800 and USB 2.0, and has four SATA hard drive bays which are extremely easy to populate - push the drive in and click. That's it. The unit takes care of everything else.

Simply put, the Drobo backs itself up. It is based on a RAID system but with some smart improvements like it's possible to use a combination of different size hard drives and a drive can be removed/inserted while it's running. A quick look at the Drobo demo video should give you a good understanding of this piece of kit and, if you want more, their website is very informative. There is also a handy configuration tool to indicate how your choice of hard drives will be used for available space and backup purposes.

The initial outlay of the Drobo is a little pricey (currently available at Amazon for just under £400 plus drives) but, for the simplicity and low cost of expansion, space saving, and peace of mind, I feel it's worth it. I'm not getting rid of my LaCie's though; the more disc space the merrier! Plus it's always handy to have a bootable system disc copy for the Mac just in case.

Data Robotics have recently added the DroboPro to their line up; has slots for eight hard drives!

Save The Day - New Track

2009-05-07T11:54:00.007+01:00

Here's a sample of a track that I've just finished with a bit of pace and drama in mind. Listen to the full length version on my Music page. It has two full length versions and shorts (60s, 30s, 20s, 15s, 10s, & 5s).

Save The Day © John Hartley.

Fluttering Around Twitter

2009-05-01T12:07:00.008+01:00

Starting to have a play with Twitter.

Follow me @musiklab

Now, who shall I follow? Let the addiction begin…

Putting The Pleasure Back

2009-04-22T09:08:00.010+01:00

The much discussed Loudness War rages on with artists, producers, record companies, et al, fearing that their musical creations will not succeed unless they are louder, or as loud, as the competition.

Several attempts, and tools, have been made to educate us about the current situation - Bob Katz and his K System, the Turn Me Up organization, etc. - and how, without good dynamic range in music, we miss out on so much punch and emotional impact when music is over compressed and limited. Imagine an action film with an explosion the same loudness as the background level - as impressive as being slapped around the face with a feather. Thankfully the film industry understands dynamic range and utilises it to make films a pleasure to watch and hear.

In January 2009 a new initiative was launched by the Pleasurize Music Foundation. Their aim is to standardise a reference for music production with a simple label system, stating the dynamic range of a recording/album, that can then be displayed with the relevant music to inform the listener. They have created an easy to use plugin for Macs & Windows machines that calculates the D.R. (Dynamic Range) value in realtime. The offline meter, which will give a reading for a whole track, is currently only available for Windows machines; a Mac version is due in June 2009.

The following is from their website:

“Our aim is to improve the sound quality of music in its various recorded formats – including data compression methods such as MP3 – as well as music destined for radio broadcast. Only music that provides a positive musical listening experience has real market value. The Foundation's aim is to increase the value of music within the creative production process for the entire music industry.”

Will Pleasurize Music accomplish its goals? I certainly hope so. Time will tell…

Enjoy your Music!

Chinese Democracy - Guns N' Roses

2009-04-16T15:26:00.010+01:00

Guns N' Roses' latest album comes to us via mastering engineer supremo Bob Ludwig with a request from Axl & Co. that they didn't want it smashed. Really?

After Turn Me Up's certification debacle of Elbow's “The Seldom Seen Kid” - fantastic album but doesn't really hold up to being much more dynamic than other current albums [image below] - I was rather sceptical of Ludwig's assertion that the tracks on Chinese Democracy had “no compression that was used just for loudness, only compression that was needed for great sounding rock and roll”.

Finally bought myself a copy and played the CD in the studio. This is a beautiful sounding album, with well crafted multi-layered and dense mixes, that really pop out of the speaker. So much more enjoyable to listen to than at the Loudness War volume to which we have become accustomed. Definitely a step in the right direction.

This style of music is inherently going to be fairly loud to begin with but it's encouraging to see that it wasn't taken further just because it is possible [image right]. Currently enjoying it in the car with my favourite track of the moment being “If The World” (tr.5).

As an aside, here's a great little video from Greg Calbi (Senior Mastering Engineer at Sterling Sound) about compression and the Loudness War in mastering.

Google/YouTube Playing Fair?

2009-04-02T14:00:00.005+01:00

YouTube is under a lot of pressure from Google, its parent company, to get out of the red; projected $471 million loss in 2009 [source: TechBlog article].

Under these circumstances it is understandable that YouTube is wanting to make cuts to help it achieve profitability. How about paying less to the writers of the music that is used in the content on their site?

Thankfully PRS for Music don't think this is a fantastic idea for its members and is standing its ground against the big boys. Unfortunately, as of 9 March 2009, this means that some YouTube content is now blocked to the U.K. audience - also in Germany as Google/YouTube negotiates with the German royalty collection service GEMA - but I'm sure we'll survive without seeing them.

Composers need to make a fair income from the new and evolving models that are coming to our lives. Keep abreast of developments at PRS for Music's website set up to cover this issue, Fair Play for Creators, where you can also pledge your support.

No XCUSES from D-n-K

2009-03-31T15:57:00.009+01:00

Finished mastering D-n-K's debut album “No XCUSES”.

D-n-K are singer/sonwriters Dan Insley and Keith Waterfield and they've been putting together this fantastic selection of songs for the last twelve months.

Session players include Jef Van Veen (Drums), Julian Bury (Double Bass), Alicia Banton (Vocals - Summertime & Moviestar), Geoff Whitehorn (Lead Guitar - Voice in a Crowd), and Phil Beer (Fiddle - Between the Ties).

Visit www.d-n-k.co.uk for more info.

Summertime With Alicia

2009-03-25T15:48:00.006Z

D-n-K asked me to mix their track Summertime, featuring Alicia Banton on vocals. They supplied me with all the parts for the track and, with a few extras from me, this track was born. Listen to a sample of Summertime below or a full length version is on my Projects page.

Summertime © D-n-K.

It's Christmas Time Again

2009-02-03T11:43:00.006Z

I've now received a clip of the Gulliver's Christmas advert that used my music, as mentioned in my December 1 posting.

You can watch it on my Projects page, and listen to it on my Music page.

Make the Most of Every Day

2009-01-16T16:39:00.006Z

My friend Clive John, and his Johnny Cash tribute band The Johnny Cash Roadshow, performed a fantastic show to a sell-out audience at the Malvern Forum Theatre last night. This was a charity benefit concert to raise money for Acorns Children's Hospice; Clive's, and the band's, official charity.

It was also the first public live performance of the song Clive has written especially for Acorns, Make the Most of Every Day. Joining the band on stage for this song were the fantastic choir from Sytchampton First Endowed School. Watch the video of this performance of Make the Most of Every Day on YouTube.

A recording of Make the Most of Every Day will be available to buy from MixdupStore, Clive and the bands at gigs, and I believe they'll be in Acorns charity shops soon.

Elvis was also performing - brought to us by the wonderful Ben Portsmouth - and you can see Elvis and Johnny Cash perform Brown Eyed Handsome Man on YouTube.

Well done to everyone involved in the evening and for doing it for such a great cause.

Christmas Ad for Anglia TV

2008-12-01T10:51:00.004Z

I wrote a 20 second Christmas track for Anglia TV and it is currently showing on GMTV, Central West, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network & Boomerang, CITV and Fiver.

This Disney-esque orchestral track is being used for Gulliver's Theme Park.