Figuring Out the Future

Sunset over the Grand Canyon, just feels right...

Hey guys!

So I haven't blogged in a while and a lot has changed. Add a pinch of self-doubt and a looming 30th birthday to the digitalized toxic jungle that is the music industry and you have yourself a recipe for a personal meltdown. Rather than keel over, however, I am trying to fight to stay in the game. So, In the hope that this doesn't sound too conceited, this is me trying to navigate my career in music... Here's what's happening.

• I started a podcast! It's called Jukebox Java and along with my co-host Yakir Hyman, we try to tackle the personal and professional challenges that musicians face in 2016 (sound familiar?). We want to solve problems on the ground and connect with a large audience of musicians who are hustling day-in and day-out to make a living. It's fun, it's challenging and we're hoping to make an impact!
• I'm no longer going to be a manager in my wedding band. Some of the thoughts behind this were to work a bit less at night and increase my mental energy (and space and time) to do more creative projects and veer my career in a direction that will keep me inspired longer. I'm still playing bass, but since I'm trying to build my future elsewhere, I felt it was best that I no longer "steer the ship." To be honest, it's quite a relief to have the weight of responsibility off of my shoulders.
•  I want to do more productions. Yes, I'm planning on working on some new personal material (maybe an album is in the works!) but also, more importantly, I plan on pushing full on music productions for other artists. I love live (and occasionally mobile) sessions, really I do! However, I'm afraid I've pigeonholed myself in that direction. Just one glance at my portfolio proves that. Now I want to focus more on pumping out content that is more sonically pristine and can have a further reach. I just bought a new computer and I finally made it a desktop. It's time to get real here and try to accomplish what I've always really wanted to do: produce great records. Israel is a great country with so much talent, but it's also small and the production market is flooded. So, in order to grow, I'm also looking abroad via the internet. There's no reason why I shouldn't be able to mix American albums remotely from Israel or hop on a plane to work on a an EP with a European artist. The game has changed, and although it's more difficult in many many ways, the opportunities and possibilities are really endless.
• JAPAN! My wife and I are finally going to take a honeymoon! We booked tickets to Japan for a month and are so excited to meet an entirely new culture and landscape. Again, Israel is a tiny country and there's so much of the world to see. I'm psyched!
• Blogging! I want to blog more regularly. Vlogging over the summer taught me a ton, but I think I prefer the written medium. Anyways keep an eye out here for some hopefully good and interesting rambles.

That's really it. It's important from time to time to refocus. Zooming out so that you have a bigger picture before honing back in can help you accomplish your long-term goals (and not just the short-term ones). That's what I'm trying to do. 

7 Things I Learned from Vlogging Every Day for a Month

I was really hesitant to start vlogging because I'm a little camera shy and was doubtful that I had any useful stuff to show people. I'm still a bit doubtful but it's definitely been interesting and also informative but I've learned quite a bit about myself, my business and what I care about in music along the way. So here's the top things I've discovered in the past month of daily vlogging...

1. You tell the story you want to tell of your life. There are so many way to interpret the things that happen in your life and the way you interpret them is what comes across on camera when you have a platform to inform your audience of your experience. That's where your outlook on life comes through.
2. Even people with the most interesting jobs tend to repeat a lot of the same things and fall into some sort of routine. That said I do enjoy my routine for the most part and think it's rather interesting compared to sitting in a cubicle all day. #perspective
3. The life of modern musicians is completely not scalable and exhaustion ensues. Sure I kind of knew this already but watching myself crash and burn on camera after working my butt off hustling from gig to gig really nailed it in. It just goes to prove that the modern music industry isn't really sustainable and the next business model is way past due. Not that anybody seems to have a clue what that will be/actually cares about the musician's cut....
4. Technology doesn't need to be an obstacle to getting out content. I literally used my phone's camera and iMovie to get this done and I think I was able to get to the bottom of everything I showed my audience (as small as that audience may have been). Sure my vlog was super low-tech but it didn't hinder me from sharing what I wanted to share. So no excuses, share your content now!
5. By living your life and then repeating it by watching it you learn a lot about the kind of impressions you give off to others. How nice are you? How interested are you in what you're doing? When you go about your day you probably don't think about how you come off to your peers but when you watch yourself interacting with the camera and other people you realize what kind of person you are and what your peers probably think of you.
6. Coming up with creative content is hard! Especially when you're really busy working on other projects. I've learned that unless I set more time aside for vlogging and coming up with ideas to talk about the vlog gets dull and repetitive. I'm not sure I'm cut out for investing this kind of time commitment in the vlog but I'm figuring it out as I go along.
7. I'm working towards a goal and I'm not sure what path will get me where I want to go but it's worth giving things a shot. Even if vlogging was a failure (which I don't think it was) it has helped me learn a lot and learning can only help you succeed in the future. I'm really happy that I put myself out there on the line and I think the content I shared was very real. I hope other people can see what it's like being a musician these days and what that means (non-stop hustle, non scalable existence). At the very least I think this vlog really highlights that: a no frills reality-check/window into the life of working musicians in 2016.

So you want to be a Music Producer or Audio Engineer? Read This! AKA Some suggestions and links to good resources to help you get started

So you want to be a music producer or an audio engineer, huh? Here's a bit about what I did to get started and hopefully you can apply some of what I did to you're own journey and with a bit of luck and lots of hard work, maybe you'll go somewhere in this crazy industry. 

My main point is you can do it! You just need to be willing to work really hard, be obsessed with audio and always learn. There's enough information on the internet these days and gear is cheap enough for you to go about starting off on your own. That's how I did it. I'm not saying going to sound school won't be helpful, it sure might be, I just don't have any experience with it and I've learned everything on my own at a fraction of the cost (although I've invested years of time, but it takes everyone a while). I've read every book I could find on the subject and have spent hours and hours tweaking mixes, learning my mics and where to place them on different instruments and mostly how to trust my own ears. Everybody has an opinion on how something should sound, but at the end of the day you have to trust yourself and create what you want to hear. 

Before I opened my studio, I had an internship at a studio in Jerusalem. It was definitely helpful and a positive experience, but it wasn't as busy as a studio should be (I guess like most big studios these days) and I found I learned a lot more from my own recordings of my songs at the time. My studio has gone through several changes over the past 5 years starting off in my bedroom, moving into a dedicated room with more microphones (but probably not so acoustically treated) for a couple of years and finally in its current form (mobile ready, dedicated mixing room which is acoustically treated). Throughout the whole time I've been playing bass and am a partner in a wedding band which keeps me in touch with other musicians on a regular basis and keeps my musicality as a musician on a high level.

After I realized how limited I was with Garageband the first thing I bought was a zoom H4n handy mic, Logic Pro academic 8 and a midi keyboard and got to work. The Zoom functioned as both an interface, a microphone and a preamp for all of my recordings - and it wasn't half bad. I learned my DAW ("Digital Audio Workstation" basically any program you use to record and edit audio - e.g. Logic, Pro Tools, Cubase etc.) as I went along getting better at every stage. Which DAW you use doesn't matter as long as you're comfortable with your tools. I've learned new things when the necessity arose - usually based on my clients demands/workflow or what I needed to edit etc. I started with Logic 8, upgraded to 9 when I was forced to. I'm still on 9 although I'd like to upgrade to x, but the truth is it doesn't really affect what I do so much and I don't think that upgrading would change the way my mixes sound especially since I use tools as I need them to build the sounds I'm after more than using tools to sound like the tools they are.

I personally used very few tutorials. I prefer to just mess around with the program till I figure out how to do what I want. That said, if I'm stuck I will watch a video tutorial on youtube that will more clearly demonstrate what I need to do, but usually it's just trial and error until I find what I want. I think trial and error helps you understand audio on a deeper level than if you were to just learn how do something as it's shown to you. That understanding makes you better in the long run.

I'm sure different people reading this have differing degrees of experience and gear. Let me say that probably whatever it is that you have is awesome! My advice would be for starters learn your interface if you have one, I'm sure it's more than good enough for what you need right now (your mic, too). If you don't have one get a starter interface and a basic microphone, nothing out of your price range, and learn that. Also play around with your DAW record stuff so you can tweak it (and remember that getting a good sound at the source - good instrument, right mic placement - is better than having to edit it in the mix). Better gear will come in due time when you have more experience so that you actually understand how it's helping you. I'm pretty utilitarian when it comes to gear and I think it will save you money and headache if you take a similar approach. For now, use what you've got!

I personally found the books by Mixerman to be the most helpful (Despite their silly names). I started with "Zen and the art of mixing," which completely blew and opened my mind to how audio works. However at the time that was his only tutorial book, now he has zen and the art of recording which is probably also a good place to start. Buy both! Buy all of his books! http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=mixerman If you're obsessed with audio they are a pleasure to read. There are other books by other people, but I think Mixerman's books are the easiest to read and pack the most punch. He's very opinionated (especially about things that don't matter yet for where you are in your career e.g. analog summing, outboard gear) but you can ignore his intense opinions (for now!) and listen to the core of what he's saying which are his recording and mixing concepts. I can't describe to you how much that first book opened my eyes. I re-read it a year later and understood way more and even more the 3rd time. Read Read Read!

In addition check out Pensado's Place! Dave Pensado is a pro mixer who's mixed some of the biggest hits of our day and he basically interviews top pros in the field and also does some mixing tutorials, which are pretty cool. Some of the episodes are slow paced but it's quite informative (my friend Hermie watches them at 1.5x speed). You can also check out "the pro audio files," "the recording revolution," "Home studio corner" as well as other online resources. I've even learned a lot from some of Wave's tutorial videos. If you use all these in tandem with your own experimentation you'll be fine and well on your way. 

Good luck!

Watch out! CD Baby has partnered up with Landr bringing instant mastering to the masses and this is bad news

For those of you who don't follow my blog, I already wrote an article about Landr and why it's a potentially dangerous addition to the audio industry. Well things got worse. Late last night I got an email from CD Baby telling me how they've partnered up with Landr to make mastering easier and more accessible/affordable than ever.

This means that anybody who's ever used CD Baby or signed up for their mailing list now know about this service. I've personally lost a lot of respect now for CD Baby. As if 16 bit audio upload requirements wasn't enough (read here), it seems as though the company is almost asking for albums to become a thing of the past by embracing unnecessarily bad sound to be the standard. However, maybe this whole post is moot. Albums are already a thing of the past - therefore making CD Baby mostly irrelevant at this point. Maybe all of this angst is over nothing. Who knows?

Use Your Limitations to be Creative!

I was giving some young students a lesson on music production (more specifically using Logic Pro), and given the studio space's limitations, I had to show them how they can record things with only one microphone. At first upset about the lack of equipment, I thought about how I first started out. All I had was a Zoom H4n portable mic and a student version of Logic and I was able to be creative and craft my own songs, which is what it's all about.

Of course over time I've slowly accumulated gear and it gives me more options - which is good - but it doesn't take away from what I did with less gear. Now that I own a dozen microphones I could be upset that I don't have a 64 channel mixing console or any vintage Neumanns, but I don't worry about it, I use what I have to create the best product I can. Heck, Sufjan Stevens supposedly recorded his (arguably) best albums Michigan and Illinois with a Shure SM 57 and a couple of AKG C1000s (dirt cheap workhorses). They don't sound like the Steely Dan records, but they also doesn't have to because it's Sufjan and it's a different sort of magic. Not better or worse, just different. That's Art!

They say that it's not about what you have, it's how you use it - and this is especially true in the arts. With today's technology, you can do so much with so little. So use what you have to make great stuff. No complaining, just create!