Playing out live

[hydemusic]

From the Drum Buy thread so not bother some.....

Squids said
"To hear the crowd ROAR with excitement is like a drug (and to many performers it really acts like one - they get addicted to it! I can see why. It feels GREAT!).."

Yeah I know what you mean..no drug on this planet can give you the high you get when you hear that applause!


"... for these gigs I use a Nord Stage and a Nord Wave filled with my samples. I sometimes control a laptop and have SampleTank with Sonik Synth 2 and SampleTron loaded. But, depending on the set I don't necessarily need to as I can get away with it just with those two keyboards. I'd normally bring a Wurlitzer EP though but actually the Nord Stage has a good one and I run it through its internal effects which I like a lot. So it is convenient.

My rig with Simon Collins is different although it includes those two Nords as they've become staple pieces. The rig with Simon also includes a Prophet 5, CP70, Korg Oasys and Yamaha Motif... and also an acoustic piano with a Helpinstill pick up. Not that I'd take all that out on the road. I'd trigger samples to simulate some of it. Well it depends on the budget. I would like to play all of that live!"


It's good to know what Squids the musician plays out on gigs. I think many here might think of more the CEO , the barker or the programmer but not necessarily the player which was probably what got you started in all the other roles.... Not many musicians are capable of or can even think about that much less do it! I really couldn't picture Keith Richards doing what you do!


"Floyd meets The Doors meets Nirvana meets Lamb-era Genesis! Not something you'd expect and both that and the end of Shine On where I do a "Lady Lies" piano riff are really the only moments where we drift off from authentic Floyd-like sounds. Gotta add some creativity to it or you might as well just listen to the record! It is not my ambition to be in cover bands or anything but this opportunity came up locally and they're all really good musicians so I've enjoyed doing it here and there... keep the chops up. I think it is important to keep playing - particularly music you really like."


It becomes fun when it's not a steady gig and you can add some of the "Squids" style to it otherwise crank up the karaoke machine. Practice only works so much in the studio...It's live with the interaction of humans that makes the difference. I play my music out solo and when I can get a band to back me up I'm in 7th heaven. But also I'm not in the same category as you where you got the cream of the crop to play with but it's rock'n roll to me.

I enjoy these group buys but more to the point your products have value whether they are GBs or just regular purchase. I also appreciate the help you and esoundz gives with these purchases. No way! would any of the big box stores and I know would offer the kind of service you do. Let me give you an example.. I have Reason and when they announced Record, I beta tested it and liked it. I'm a singer/songwriter/guitarist first that dabbles with keyboards and learning to live with computers. So I ordered a pre-release at the local GC here where I have friend who's a manager there. It comes in and I go to pick it up, Steve the manager is off but put it aside for me. The sales guy gets it for me and I (excited) "say have you tried it"..."Nah, I don't use that shit, I use PT in my million dollar studio" Really! I said to Mr Big time loser studio owner/ sales clerk. "perhaps your have a million dollar studio but I see that you working here it tells me you're totally clueless in how to use it because if you were any good you wouldn't be working here"! I walked out and called Steve telling him of my wonderful experience there. Steve left a few months ago. The same with the other big box stores. I have a story about an Sam Ash nightmare, but the point is I always get treated with nothing but respect from you and esoundz even discounts unlike the big box stores. So Squids I really appreciate all that you do for us and hope you continue even if you become famous. I really think you got the "great gig in the sky".... Sorry for the long post, they say I can talk

[Squids]

Thanks Bob. Hard to judge a whole chain or even a whole store by one salesman. Who KNOWS what he might say... certainly not the owners let alone the manager. In our case, everyone who works for me gets on the same page when it comes to customer service. Allen really is the best we've had but people also loved Jorge and Elijah before him too. Mike and Ryan (senior programmers at SR) are also there to help Allen with technical stuff and they're all nice guys who care. As for me, I am thrilled that you can make an album on FREE Garageband if you know what you're doing let alone with Reason and Record or pretty much anything people use around here. But, to do it up deluxe it is great to have inspiring sounds and that's where we come in. We have sounds that are good for your million dollar ProTools studio or your few hundred dollar ProTools LE Mini studio. These days you can make amazing sounding music on almost any budget. Keep in mind that WE go into million dollar studios around the world to capture quality sounds so you can sprinkle some of that character or fidelity onto your "any range of budget" productions. This is one of the main points we hope people realize about Sonic Reality (and other companies that do this). It is a SUPER cool thing if you think about it. Risky but thankfully we have some great loyal support from our customers that allows us to continue doing it.

But, I have never lost touch with being a musician. I think that is crucial to be able to understand what musician customers might want. I have a good idea of what I want. At the same time, I don't exclusively use just my own samples or even exclusively use samples! I LOVE playing vintage keyboards. A lot of times samples are more for portability, convenience, sequencing and manipulating/sound design. But I like to do real time sound design by running a Wurly or a Rhodes through a bunch of pedals too! Right now running the CP70 through the Boss CE-1 or the acoustic piano with the Helpinstill is inspiring some great songwriting with my band with Simon. What a warm rich sound. Sigur Ros meets Tony Banks. When I play live I am sure I'll use samples of it but still run it through the CE-1.

For me personally it is about balance. I do like being a CEO but it can be taxing because it all falls on you... and we're talking about everything from vacation requests to sick days to purchasing to people checking their myspace or facebook on business hours... generally we're a cool company when it comes to taking what we do seriously and having a good laugh as well. But every company has its share of babysitting and "corporate" elements... at one point we felt like the characters in Entourage meets the characters of The Office... in fact, one time we had someone in accounting who reminded us of Kelly from the Office. She had this uncontrollable nervous laughter. One day I had seen the name of the band "My Chemical Romance" come up one too many times (saw it on the cover of one of the mags - they send us all of the mags so there are piles of them) and I muttered to myself "My Chemical Vagina" and JUST as I said that out loud she walked by!!!!!!! How do you explain that? You don't. But she walked away quick! There are some funny moments like that which make it enjoyable (although I don't usually say things like that on a regular basis).

So, while the office compared to most offices is quite cool, I am working on balancing the business with being creative and exercising skills in performing, songwriting, producing and engineering. It feels good and IMO sometimes what feels good ALONE is a good enough reason to do something.

Anyway, perhaps the real world music experiences add value to my company as well. You know the old cliche' by musicians for musicians... we never say it that way but that's very much the case here. The amount of times I've been in the studio and people saying "let's get a Bonham sound" with someone like Chad Smith or any number of other sounds we've gone to the trouble of capturing to have on hand ourselves and for our customers... I collect the sounds I want or I've seen people get or try to get in the studio. I don't pretend I am the only one who makes sounds with experience in and out of studios. But I know my experiences have given me a unique perspective and that does translate into the final result of what you get from SR vs. anywhere else. Does that make sense?

[hydemusic]

Chain stores today are faced with tough decisions and are really stuck between a rock and a hard place so I do sympathize with their dilemma. Training is expensive and is truly lacking. Neither manufacturers nor retailer companies can afford proper sales training and that is the BIG problem. They hire young adults with little or no experience other than a love for the field or musicians that want to equip their band or home studio and thrust them on the floor with a low salary and a promise of high commissions and these people fall flat on their face and leave. There are those who make it but they are far and few who are moved up the management ladder. I belong to a home recording group on Yahoo Groups where I and other old farts mentor these young guns coming up in the ranks. I hear these stories from all over the country. I try to support mom and pop stores but they don't have the inventory that the chain stores have. I see the internet stores as the model for the future and so the big chain stores. Look at GC, they have their retail stores plus the internet ones GC. Musicians Friend, Mars, and a few others. The writing is on the wall. Sweetwater will give you tech service for life so it's a competitive world out there. I'm not just ragging on the music stores it's also happening especially with electronic stores. The deals Sony, Panasonic and other are totally stupid but they want to move product. And that's the bottom line. Just look at Wal-Mart, they used to carry low end electronics. Now look at them, a 46" Sony 1080p,120Hz LCD TV bundled with a PlayStation 3 120GB advertised for $958.00 this weekend. That's outrageous! The PS3 costs $299, so that's $658. for that TV! So I hear you.

Without doubt you have the best CS staff and Allen is at the top. I remember both Jorge and Elijah. It was Elijah who I first talked with. He really turned me on to your products. I had bought Reason 3 at GC because the sales guy said it was easy to use???? and it was just out, so I said OK, lol! and bought some more loops. They were your loops and GC had no more so I called Esoundz. That was my first dealing with Esoundz. I bought some more and Elijah told me about a Group Buy going on "Premium Refills Vol 1: Grand Piano C7". Elijah again told me about Sample Tank and Sonic Synth and explained to me the features and how I would benefit from it. I knew then you a great company that would direct someone like me in the right direction to make the proper purchase because I needed it not because you sell it. To me that's something important! So now if guys recommend it, I know it's a good deal because you always did right by me so I don't feel I have to give the 3rd degree on everything. I will do some research on it's functionality but then again that's me and not someone else. But also you have others that aren't like me and you must handle them in the same manner.

The technology jump today is great like you said…IK apps on an I-Phone to compose a song…How crazy is that??. When I started recording it was 8-track. 16 trk was just happening and shortly after 24 trk became the norm. Now it's unlimited tracks. The transition to home recording is a good news/bad news. It began the demise of the big studio. I remember all the staffers were cut I worked at Bell Studios and we were all let go. Everyone went independent and the unions were trashed. So now when let's say The Stones pulled into town they brought their own engineers in and the work was less and less, but hey that's business. The real killer was bands buying a Roland, Tascam etc multitrack for them and to offset the high cost of the units, they sold time to solicit business for $10-15/hr for 16 track when the norm was $40. That really killed many small studios at least in Jersey here. They independent studios were for the most part just the owner. The money for an engineer was just terrible. It didn't pay in NYC between the commute, parking and the taxes it came to minimum wage and with a family forget it. The Jersey studios were so paranoid that another engineer coming in would steal their clients so the joke became," if you want to engineer in Jersey, open up your own studio" and the most part that's what many did to the point it wasn't worth it. I landed in a 24trk studio here where I worked briefly with Andy Wallace, Bob Rock, the Alge-Lord brothers and others who went on to stardom. But those guys lived and slept in the studio 24/7 and went wherever they needed to go. They had no attachments and that's the price one pays in this business to be successful. It's not a 9-5 business, nor any other for that matter. Now there are few studios left. Technology has brought us down the road to lows prices and the convenience of having an Abbey Road in your basement. That's great news, but the bad news is people don't make decisions any more and have become track junkies…if they use 36 tracks, all are filled not because they need them but they are there! Even in the 24trk analog days, I saw this trend happening. It was if I was charging for 24 trk time, clients felt obligated to fill every track up! In the end I benefited because it meant more mixing time = more money for me! Same with DAWs the editing gets crazy but then again I still charge my rate. I try to give as much slack as possible. I used to teach at the local college an audio recording course and of course the first questions were digital vs analog, protocols, pc vs mac lol! My point to them was if you're good the format doesn't matter. Nobody's going to say I wouldn't buy that song because it was recorded analog or digital. They won't buy the song because it sucks period! That's why I would have an Otari 8 track analog recorder in the studio. So they could focus on the song. Any moron can put a bazillion tracks, but making it happen on 8 tracks. That was the challenge. When I left the commercial studio, I got an ADAT 8-track and tried to develop a song using only 8 tracks which is what the golden songs of 50's & 60's had. I think it helped me a lot. I still use my VS2480 it's much like an analog machine fast and simple to use.

Technology as you know opened a door for you for something that is much needed, samples of the greatest drums, guitars, strings and others. For me the drums, Mirsolav, Sample Tank, Sonic Synth are great and now need a computer to access them. So I'm slowly learning the computer digital world after 40 years in the analog world. For better or worse analog is dead, long live analog! One must go forward or get left behind. Luckily all you young guns grasp this technology like a baby learns to speak another language. Me I just wonder through the digital super highway hoping for someone like Esoundz to point me in the right direction….Time to shovel snow…thanks Dave.

[Reverend Rhythm]

It's good to see another of us esoundz fanboys!

[hydemusic]

It's good to see another of us esoundz fanboys!

There's none better, going on 5 years they did me good!