Yesterday on Live Musician Central I wrote about how much I love Reason 4.0 Music Production Software. It’s by far the easiest program I’ve found that will allow you to tap into your creative muse with keyboard based music. Today I’m going to post a couple videos from YouTube which will give you an introduction into the functionality of Reason 4.0 music production software. The demonstration is done on an apple Macintosh but Reason functions exactly the same way on a P.C. which is what I use. Reason really is worth every penny to add it to your software collection. (more…)
Author: Live Musician Central
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Propellerhead Reason 4 Music Production Software Review
Reason 4.0 Rack Front When I started playing in live bands the hottest synthesizer on the market was the Yamaha DX7. Back then it was great to have a keyboard that could play lots of notes simultaneously and do a decent job of sounding like the instrument it was emulating. Most keyboard players brought multiple keyboards to the gigs and there was a lot of setup time involved. I remember spending hours working on the perfect soundpatches for my Roland keyboards. The thing about playing keyboards is you can never have too many sound options. It was an expensive proposition to be a keyboard player as it would cost the player thousands of dollars to get the necessary equipment to play in a live band. The dream was to have racks of synthesizer modules at your disposal to create the incredible soundscapes that you could hear in your head. But only the top paid musicians could afford to live that dream. The rest of us had to make do with whatever synthesizer equipment we could afford. It’s amazing how times have changed with the development of incredibly powerful, software based synthesizers like those found in Reason 4.0.
If you’ve never heard of Reason which is developed by Propellerhead it’s basically a virtual studio rack into which you can load mixers, effects and synthesizer modules. If the equipment that you have access to in Reason 4.0 was sitting in a rack in your studio it would cost you thousands and thousands of dollars. You can place multiple copies of the same equipment into the rack to work with for sound creation. So if you want 15 analog synthesizers to work with, you got it. The virtual rack is infinitely expandable as long as your computer is powerful enough to run all the devices you can load into it. What types of devices can you load? Reason 4.0 comes with synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, REX file loop player, mixers, vocoder, studio effects, mastering tools, pattern sequencers and more! It’s amazing how many devices come in this software package. If you have the urge to load 11 compressors and 10 samplers with 5 synthesizers, you can do it. You can chain as many mixers together as you wish to mix all of your devices. You can keep adding gear until your computer chokes but it will take a lot to do that as Reason 4.0 is quite conservative on your system.
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Weekend Gig Report – In Stereo at Canyon Inn February 13-14, 2009
In Stereo Bass Drum Logo My live band, In Stereo, played at the Canyon Inn in Salt Lake City this weekend. It was a decent gig and a lot of interesting things happened. It was also interesting because it was on a Friday the 13th followed by Valentines Day. You would think that would give us a lot to work with from the stage but we didn’t really come up with a lot of good jokes. I think the Friday the 13th effect was in full force though because I totally lost my voice after about 5 songs. Let me start at the beginning.
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Live Musician Central – Weekend Album Picks 2-14-09
Every week at Live Musician Central I pick some of the top new releases available for you to download from both iTunes and Amazon.com music service. These new release choices reflect the heaviest music industry marketing. There are a couple of reasons I post up the most heavily music industry marketed albums. First, by checking out these releases you’ll be able to keep a finger on the pulse of the mainstream music industry. It’s music industry is a very powerful business that heavily influences peoples buying choices. The second reason is that a large number of people are going to know these albums. So if your band is looking for new music to put in your bands setlist these would be good choices simply because your chance of people knowing the songs at your shows will be very high. You’ll also look very on top of things and current with your knowledge of music. So these albums are a great resource for your song selection. I will also post up links to top selling albums of all time for the reason of song selection as well.
I use links to both iTunes and Amazon.com. iTunes is now the top music retailer in the U.S. so it goes without saying that people are going to be downloading their recommended new releases. I put links up from Amazon.com because their music service is an incredible bargain and their MP3’s are DRM free. You can save a bundle downloading entire albums from Amazon.com instead of iTunes. Amazon.com MP3’s are also ripped at an excellent sounding 256kbps and since they’re DRM free you can play them on multiple MP3 players including iPods and iPhones. This week I’m putting up some albums by the 2009 Grammy Award winners!
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The Difference Between Playing A Song And Playing A Song Well
Matt Copying The Original Artist I remember back when I was in my first live band how awesome it was just to make it through an entire song from beginning to end. We would get a chord chart and the lyrics and just play through the songs. It was fun and it sounded pretty good. As time went on and our ability to listen to the individual parts that make up a song increased, we realized that we were missing a lot of subtle nuances that made the songs we were playing go from good to great. It’s true when people say “The difference is in the details.” That’s what I’d like to talk about today.
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How Graph Tech String Saver Guitar Saddles Saved My Les Paul Custom
Gibson Les Paul Custom – Wine Red I have a decent collection of guitars that I use with my live band. I use some of them regularly whenever my band plays and some I just keep to use in the studio. Today I’m going to talk a little bit about my Gibson Les Paul Custom. My Les Paul Custom has a beautiful Wine Red finish with gold hardware and it plays like butter. It’s a really great guitar and I have to say it’s almost as good as my Fender Stratocasters. I use the Les Paul Custom a lot when I play live and it has quite a bit of playing hours on it. I had been using it for about a year when it developed a severe problem with string breakage.
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Fender Cyber-Twin Full-Length Demonstration DVD
In my live band I use the Fender Cyber-Twin SE amplifier. It’s a really great amp and I’ve enjoyed playing it immensely the last couple years. I’ve programmed some great sound patch presets that you can check out on my Cyber-Twin SE Preset Download page. Today I’m going to post up a full length DVD video that was shipped with the original Fender Cyber-Twin amplifier. It’s a pretty good video to watch if you have questions about the Cyber-Twin amplifiers. (more…)
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Levy’s Boot Leather Guitar Strap Review
Levy's Boot Leather Guitar Strap I have quite a few guitar straps kicking around my practice room. My friends and family know I’m a guitar playing live musician so I get a lot of guitar accessories as gifts including guitar straps. I also get a free guitar strap every time I buy a guitar. It’s nice to have extra guitar straps because I keep several guitars out within easy reach so I can practice. That being said, I only use one guitar strap live and it’s the most comfortable strap I’ve ever used. That guitar strap is the Levy’s Boot Leather Guitar Strap.
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2009 Grammy Award Show Review
Katy Perry – Where's she hiding that banana? In recent years I had given up on watching the Grammy awards so I was determined to watch this years show. The one thing that I’ve always enjoyed about the Grammy awards is the live performances by the nominees. As a live musician myself I enjoy seeing who can pull it off and who can’t. I always find it interesting that the weakest performances of the night come from the current years pop sensation. This year the weak performance award has to go to Katy Perry. She’s sort of cute but she has to hate the fact that her big hit is about a faux lesbian encounter. She looked quite uninspired although I did laugh out loud when she came riding down to the stage in a gigantic banana! Ha ha! Phallic symbol alert for Katy. I’m sure it was intentional.
Another performance that had me scratching my head and saying “What the hell?” was the pairing of the Jonas Brothers with music legend Stevie Wonder. I’m sure glad Stevie is blind because watching the Jonas Brothers pretend to be rock gods was stomach turning. I felt so sorry for the poor Les Paul Custom guitar that Jonas boy was beating on and pretending to be playing. It was sad really. Miley Cyrus was also quite irritating although Taylor Swift sounded quite good. There’s something about Miley’s voice that’s grating to me.
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Sunday Funnies – Guitar: Impossible
For the Live Musician Central Sunday Funnies today I’m posting a video by a YouTube user named MysteryGuitarMan. It’s not gut-busting funny but it’s fascinating to watch and the way he’s pieced the video together is funny. He’s playing Mozart’s “Marriage Of Figaro”. It’s had over 1 million views in two days which is pretty amazing in itself. Enjoy!
