Introduction of myself!

[jby529]

Hello everyone!

My name is Josh and I'm a life-long musician...played drums my entire life, was on the road at age 10 playing, then learned mallet percussion, piano and guitar and here we are today. Professionally speaking, I work as a composer, mostly television. I've had several contracts with Sony Pictures and have written stuff for several of their game shows and have stuff playing in shows on both coasts.

I'm here because I'm starting to build a small home studio, and I want to learn from you guys and hopefully contribute some to you as well. I've always said I can write 'em, but I just can't mix 'em! I'm alright...I have a good ear, but there are things I'm new to such as high passes and proper frequency manipulations.

I've been in the big studios my entire life, but it's time to be more of a one-man operation. I'm looking forward to learning and hope you guys don't mind what will probably be stupid questions to a lot of you. But, I hope to off-set that with my own contributions, and for those of you who like blending art and commerce, I can definitely help there.

Most stuff is usually a split between MIDI and live, although obviously there are cases when it's all MIDI depending on the application.

Since there's not an "introduce yourself" forum on here, I figured this would be the best place to introduce myself since I'm definitely going to be spending the most time on this particular forum.

I'd be glad to post some of my stuff later and let you guys pick it apart and give input. Most of you guys seem pretty friendly and helpful!

Josh

 

[TerraMortim]

Oh no! This site has nothing to do with music at all! This is the home recording forum. This is all about taking notes of various happenings throughout the day within the confines of home. We record everything that happens to us into our journals and then keep them in a water tight, fire retardant vault installed in our basements, so when the aliens take over, we'll be remembered by future alien generations as the finest examples of human living pre-invasion.









Welcome to the board. Ask away and everyone will answer the question and then argue about it for 5 years after the fact.

 

[mixsit]

Wellcome. You should have fun here. We have a nice mix of our basic and advanced 'HomeReckers here ..and then there's those 'Pros that just basically put up with us.

 

[masteringhouse]

Welcome Josh.

Sounds like interesting work, tell us more. Are you writing for games?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I've been in the big studios my entire life, but it's time to be more of a one-man operation.

Welcome Josh.

I was hoping you might elaborate just a little bit more on the above quote. I understand many of the current driving forces in this racket and the reasons for doing what you're doing, but in your specific case, why the desire to take it home?

G.

 

[jby529]

Hi Masteringhouse,

I've not done any work for video games...all my "commercial" work has been for television. I've done several national shows, plenty of local/regional shows, commercials, etc. Lots of it has been game show stuff.

SouthSIDE Glen,

There are lots of reasons for wanting to take it home. Mainly, because most of what I want to learn, particularly sweetening techniques with EQing, compression, etc, are things I should have learned years ago. While I was always smart enough to go to someone who knew what they were doing, there were those time crunches where I had to just do it myself and the result wasn't too good. Also, being able to produce a broadcast-ready product out of home will save tons of time and, of course, money by eliminating an extra set of hands in the mix.

Here's a track I wrote for Wheel of Fortune's 25th anniversary. It was written to a video montage of NYC. I mixed it myself and while, it's definitely not horrible, it could be better for sure. It's got live sax, guitar and synth stuff in it. Drums are loops even though I'm a drummer. Here's the link:

Josh

 

[SonicAlbert]

Hi Josh,

What I prefer to do is hire an engineer to come into my home studio and mix my music on my equipment. That means somewhat of an investment in gear, the amount depending on how far you want to take it.

Anything that will be broadcast or played back later in some form to the public is what I bring in my engineer to mix.

I say this only to illustrate that it needn't be an "either or" type situation. You can have your home studio *and* have your stuff mixed by a great engineer. A lot of composers work this way, as I'm sure you are aware.