Many musicians may be fearful of the implications Covid-19 could have on their own health and their performance and teaching commitments, which in turn might have an impact on a range of issues, including finances and mental health.
To help you gather useful information and find sources of support, you will find information here.
Sometimes is also good to see the audio signal and the best tools for this job are the Oscilloscopes and the Spectrum Analyser. I ofter use this in conjunction with my modular synth. This helps me understand what is happening to the sound while processing the sound.
The most important tool is the Oscilloscope. I use the plugin produced by Socalabs. it’s free for both Mac and Windows computers and works perfectly. Download it for free here. Socalabs has also a free Spectrum analyser. If your DAW doesn’t have one get this one too.
On March 23 we performed a major upgrade to our systems which pushed the Self Upload capability to production. It is currently in a closed beta test group but will go public within two weeks.
2) Increased Rates
To help artists experiencing loss of income from show cancellations, we are increasing the per-second rate by 50% when self-uploads go public, meaning an average 5-minute long song will earn around 9c per full stream.
3) Free Trial Extension
The free trial period for new artists testing out Emanate will be extended by 60 days, so no artist will be required to pay a subscription fee in this time.
4) Cash Out
Cash-out will open at the end of April. Both EMT swaps and the first Debit Card top-ups.
5) LockDown Live
Emanate, OpenLive and Iris have started work on a new live music initiative to help bring hours of new music into living rooms around the world, whilst also providing income to artists who have had gigs cancelled. More to come on this.
For the safety of others and for the respect of who is helping those in need we are asked to stay at home. We as creative people we should take this as an opportunity to increase our production, to experiment with things we didn’t have time to do before and of course to improve our skill and knowledge.
We can take advantage of online courses that some are free for a period of time. For example, check this list of courses on music production on Udemy (30 days money-back guarantee) or get one month for free on Lynda. YouTube is full of tutorials.
Stay productive, stay positive, be creative and stay connected.
If you want to learn mixing technique, get in touch Manolo Remiddi is offering one to one online lessons on the art of mixing. Contact Manolo via email – manolo@cnxl.studio
UPDATE: I’ve been elected the Emanate’s Representative for the UK.
Hello everyone, my name is Manolo. I’m interested in becoming an Emanate Representative for the London/UK area.
I want to introduce myself by telling a little bit about my background.
I’m 46 years old, originally from Rome (Italy), for the past 19 years, I made London my home.
I’ve been working in the music industry for more than 25 years.
I’m a mixing and mastering engineer (www.cnxl.studio) as well as a musician and music producer. I have a big passion for photography and filmmaking and arts in general (www.manolo.uk).
Back in the summer of 2013, I’ve found out about Bitcoin, and I’ve got fascinated by the potential of decentralised application. Since then, I’ve been studying this new tech and industry and spreading the word about blockchain and how decentralisation is going to change the world as we know it.
I’ve been following EOS/BlockOne closely from before their ICO started. Therefore, I’ve discovered and been following Emanate right from the beginning.
I’ve collaborated with a few Blockchain-based startups, for which I’ve designed their Blockchain-based business models and the token economy.
Why I believe I’m the right candidate:
I live in London – one of the capitals of music
I’m fluent in Italian and English
I have a deep understanding of blockchain, decentralisation and token economy
I’ve been working in the music industry for over 25 years of which almost 20 in London
I have good connections within the music industry and the education sector
I can help bring thousands of songs from major and minor artists via a music aggregator client of mine.
I know how EOS Blockchain works, and I’m staying updated daily on the development of the technology.
I frequently get involved with the EOS and blockchain community by going to events and meetups here in London.
For Emanate, I will organise events, meetups and masterclasses to promote and educate people from the music industry as well as crypto enthusiasts.
I’m ambitious, and probably soon would make sense to open an office here in London to accurately represent Emanate and support the community in London/UK. The music industry here in the UK is huge and would make sense to have a coordinated group of Emanate representatives once the platform is ready for commercial use.
I have experience in teaching, and I’m good with people
I’m willing to travel, and if needed, I could represent Emanate in other European countries until we find more representatives.
I’ve been already talking about Emanate even without being a representative (see blog post)
I think in the blockchain community as well as in the music industry we need more women and more diversity, I think I can help to change this and London which is a multicultural city can itself help to bring more diversity in the Emanate community. I’m good at finding the obstacles and removing friction.
And of course, I’m a massive fan of the Emanate project/team, and I’ve been following every step from the beginning.
With Splitter you can now isolate instruments from music is now possible using AI. Currently, 5 different stems are isolated: Vocals, drums, piano, bass and other (guitar, synths, etc…). http://splitter.ai/
Channel strips are the most efficient tools in the mixing world, providing all your basic processing, EQ, compression, gating, and often saturation control, in one easy-to-manage unit. This is one of the big advantages of using channel strip compared with having five plug-in windows open simultaneously to manage and make adjustments on all these separate plug-ins per each track.
Choosing the right channel strip for a mix can be a bit of a challenge sometimes, with so many quality and interesting sounds easily available in the analogue emulated world.
I personally take the approach we use to have when we only had the analogue ones, which is pick the one you like the most and stick with it. When you buy a $50k console you use that one on all your recording and mixing job. The advantage is that you get really good at using that particular one console and also you develop your signature sound. And these are the two things that count the most.
My Channel Stip of choice is the SSL E-Channel from the famous SSL 4000 console E.
“The classic sound of the SSL 4000 is expansive, punchy, deep and assertive character that has made it an industry standard of modern recording. The SSL 4000 is famous for being the console employed on more Platinum-selling records than any other.”
“The classic sound of the SSL 4000 is expansive, punchy, deep and assertive character that has made it an industry standard of modern recording. The SSL 4000 is famous for being the console employed on more Platinum-selling records than any other.”
In this second era of analogue emulation, we have plugins that are a visual reconstruction of the analogue counterpart which sound as good as the hardware version. Plus with the full recallable functionality offered by the DAW. Mixing in the box is almost a must if you want to meet the new standard of the industry by delivery fast great sounding mix, offer to clients the chance to keep making changes to the mix while keeping costs low.
There’s something that I particularly love with this version is in the Drive and Character section of that channel strip that makes me get the sound I want extremely fast, with the huge plus of keep using my hands to work on sounds like if I were using a real SSL console.
My second favourite is the BrainWorx one followed by the Waves and UAD version which are also extremely good.
Another thing I often do I add, to all my mix bus groups and mix stereo out, the Waves NLS Non-Linear Summer. This works as a summing mix that emulates three different vintage consoles, the Neve, the SSL and the EMI. By using this summing mix I can get the flavour of other consoles, by adding their unique harmonic distortion, frequency response and noise.
If I what something different from the E-Channel, I usually go for the Scheps Omni Channel by Waves. Designed with Grammy-winning mixer Andrew Scheps (Adele, Jay Z, Metallica).
This is a really flexible channel strip worth checking it out.
There are some other really good emulations of hardware channel strips, for example, the API, Neve, EIM that incredible. Find the ones that work better for your stile can be a long but really rewarding journey.
A channel strip is a good starting point but more than often I add another compressor or eq if I’m looking for a particular sound or if I need more than one compressor or eq to do the job.
But this is a discussion for another day.
Let me know what’s your favourite channel strip and let’s compare notes.
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