One of my favorite live musicians is Rick Wakeman who is best known for his keyboard work with progressive rock group ‘Yes’. Rick also has a huge body of recorded work and has played studio sessions with many famous artists. It’s his skill as a live keyboard player that we’re going to enjoy today though. This is a video of Rick playing a keyboard solo during the Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe tour of 1989 (that must explain the mullet!). I think this video showcases Rick’s skill as a live player quite well and it’s fun to see a player of his skill get a few minutes to just break loose and play. (more…)
News, Reviews, and More!
-
Reason 4 Power The Comprehensive Guide
Reason 4 Power Last week on Live Musician Central I did a series of features on the incredibly powerful Propellerhead Reason 4.0 music production software. Reason 4.0 is an amazingly powerful music program that will let you fully explore your creative impulses. As I’m sure you’re aware, the documentation that comes with most of these great pieces of software is basic at best. There are so many devices available for you to use in Reason 4.0 that it can easily overwhelm you without some direction. That’s why today I’m going to point you to an excellent guide that will help you get up and running quickly with Reason 4.0. That guide is called Reason 4 Power and is written by Michael Prager, a 15 year veteran in the music technology industry. His credentials are too numerous to list but if you want to read them check out the Reason 4 Power product page. Needless to say, he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to using music production software.
-
Oscar Awards Show 2009 Review
Kate Winslet, Sean Penn, Penelope Cruz So why am I reviewing the Oscar Awards Show on Live Musician Central? For the live musical performances of course! That and the fact that many musicians have great careers in the movie-making industry. This years awards had quite a few musical numbers in it. In fact the show started off with Hugh Jackman singing a full musical number doing a spoof of all the years movies that was really funny. Hugh has a surprisingly good voice and it looked like he was carrying it live. As you know, I just can’t stand to watch lip syncing. Anne Hathaway got up there with him and did quite a good job singing as well. Hugh was the real surprise though and I liked his finishing line of the opening number, “I’m Wolverine!” that was classic.
-
Sunday Funnies – Popstar
It’s sad but it’s funny to make fun of Popstars like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. I just couldn’t resist posting this video on Live Musician Central. Set to the tune of Nickleback’s song Rockstar, I thought it was pretty classic. Enjoy! (more…)
-
Live Musician Central – Weekend Album Picks 2-21-2009
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 weekend it’s the Oscars so today I’m posting up some soundtracks to some of the top movies of 2008.
(more…)
-
Download Free Fender Cyber-Twin SE Preset Patch – LMC Pure Clean
My Stage Amp – The Fender Cyber-Twin SE Today for all you Fender Cyber-Twin SE playing live guitarists, I’m posting a brand new preset sound patch called LMC Pure Clean. Over on the Fender Community Forum we were discussing the Cyber-Twin SE’s capacity for creating a true Fender clean amp sound. The Cyber-Twin SE is powered by a true tube pre-amp and it’s natural tendency is for warm, overdriven tube sounds. Even though that’s the case I decided to try dialing up a nice, bright Fender clean sound without using any of the onboard effects. (more…)
-
M-Audio Keystation 88es MIDI Keyboard Controller Review
M-Audio Keystation 88es This week on Live Musician Central I’ve been talking about creating a keyboard setup built around the incredible Reason Music Production Software by Propellerhead. Obviously the most essential component to have in addition to the software is a MIDI Keyboard Controller. Today I’m going to tell you about an extremely affordable MIDI Keyboard Controller that is built specifically for interfacing with a computer and Reason music software. The keyboard I’m going to discuss today is the M-Audio Keystation 88es. (more…)
-
Propellerhead Reason 4 Introduction Video
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…)
-
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.
-
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.