Plagarism

New clients often ask "what can i do to protect my music" ( ie ensure that it is not copied, stolen, or sold without its creator re-numberated - is that a word?) & the next question is usually " should i join the PRS organisation ?".

To define the legal terms in nice & clear language is difficult. Usually the first thing i say is " aren't you putting the cart before the horse " Get your music finished, completed, mixed & mastered…. and do not worry about leaving it too late to make-a-wall-for your copy-protection-rights.

Joining a union ie the musicians union, gives you guaranteed legal support up and too a finite amount.

Put a timer on your desk whilst your worrying about copyright. Right down the amount of time. Add it up. Go over it again. See what happens. One can waste hours of time worrying if your music is going to be nicked! (not a new term to those of us in the 1990's witnessing the vinyl robbers , & sample CD warriors in action)

The very same people who ask this question, sometimes, not always, have ideas of creating dance music with disco,EDM, tech house influences drawing strongly from a limited pool of 4 on the floor kick drums, pea soup hi hats, synth breaks & who knows what road works drill etc.

I'm not qualified to defend a copyright but my advice is to STEAM ahead and get the music performed, recorded and assessed ……

Filming Video's

The Truebelle's Girl Band (3 piece) recorded their single,'Mister Nobody' here between June & July. The accompanying video was shot at Malcom Ryan Studios last Tuesday (19th). The largest shoot by far for a Girl Group we have recorded

A crew of Lighting,Cameraman,Choreographer,Director,Stylist/Make up,Sound,Rigger. There is a lot of space in MR studio 1 for 3 girls (like a separate compound) and the room is all painted white. Walking about you get dizzy in the corners,there is no sense of perspective, white everywhere.
Arri lighting ( larger than supertroopers ?!??#?! , not sure how to describe other than a bomber plane could be spotted by one ) & runner were on hand to provide water as the temperature under those were incredible, the coffee spoons were melting without dunking them in the cups! (actual fact)

The girls shot together for a few hours then the camera man removed the tripod & began hand held shots, individually & as a group again. Break for nosh between 1 - 2 pm rapped by 6pm.

The footage now has to be lined up / synced with music and 'cut' to the directors vision, hopefully i'll be sharing that with you asap.


Finishing Mix's

Earlier this weekend I was learning songs for an upcoming gig & watched some youtube videos, as Muse were playing at wembley performing "Knight of Cydonia" I glanced at the next tune on the band set list & it was Oh Carol ! the Neil Sedaka penned tune. It stuck me the huge contrast between the 1958 production & the 2010 production.

Oh Carol! a gorgeous hum along melody with poignant break up lyrics aimed straight at teenagers hearts, but that aside - the recording is < possibly a 3 hour session from start to finish. I've not used the journalists best friend Google for details, but my knowledge of the process in this period leads me to contour images of a pre-laid out studio ( Drums, Bass, Guitars,& Piano ) Sub-mixed into a 4 track or 2 or 8 etc….

The Muse recordings on the other hand are sonic sculptures, old and established techniques have been adhered to , the Marshall Amps cranked to 11 , fine pedal effects by the bucket & 100's of Pro Tools stems ( ok maybe 80 ) , clipped over time in to a mastered 2 track. I could not estimate the studio time for a behemoth undertaking but to keep the Analogy , ignoring the time taken to actually write the songs ( we did not take this into account with Neil Sedaka ) recording 1 muse single must be at the higher end of 100 hours.

To look at making records in terms of a time constraint , perhaps (some of the) studio (s) booked for recording would be charged by the hour or day rate, but the band would not be doing that, they would be creating their art and trying not to impose time constraints upon their music.

Whilst writing this i've drifted from the conceptual thought i was hoping to conceive ; that today i wrote out arrangements for an upcoming gig & cleared a couple of edits off my desk & moved them towards the finish pile. I will try to finish though… some of my favourite records are created in lengthy studio sessions, and the Muse tape of their Wembley concert is just another example, but the innocence and very quick delivery / capture of a Neil Sedaka song in 3 hours is more than testimony to that which can and should be achieved, in a studio recording.