Yeah Man, I can hear you

What time is it?

2010-07-01T02:45:00.004-04:00

Yep it's early in the AM. I've been doing some recording and mixing on a couple of commercial spots for Brian, as well as some other editing projects. Got to play guitar as well as drums on them.

Having updated to Logic 9, I finally got the opportunity to see what it could do. It's really a great piece of software. I really prefer it over Pro Tools. Though I've not yet tried Pro Tools 8, it appears to be mostly a Logic rip off.

Other engineers I have spoken with have noticed that Logic is being used more and more in major studios. Maybe soon Pro Tools (along with Microsoft Word) will cease to be industry standards. One can only hope.

The projects this week turned out well. Looking forward to some more work in the coming months, fingers crossed.

I think I just heard a rooster's crow, better get bed.

Keep on keeping on

2010-06-01T20:51:00.002-04:00

It has been quite a busy month. Lots of drumming mostly. A few audio gigs here and there.

The past two weeks I have had a gig in NYC almost every evening. Not sure which is most difficult, all of that playing or all of that driving. No complaints though as I will be eager for next weeks paycheck; which I will need as I finally have a new computer to pay for. It is something I should have purchased long ago, but it finally took the fire wire ports crapping out in my other computer to make me break down and get a new one.

I will say it makes working much easier. Logic and Pro Tools simply purr along rather than come to grinding halts as they had in the past.

Two more episodes of Cell should be on the way soon. I am eager to mix one from scratch with the new computer.

Here again is the link to the latest Cell episodes if you have not seen them:

http://lovablevarmint.com/cell/episodes/episode-nine/

Busy as the Bees

2010-04-27T15:50:00.004-04:00

Been crazy the past couple of weeks with gigs and with audio work.

I am working each week on mixing for the Cell series. A new episode is due each Monday so that keeps me on my toes. Also I have been mixing some trailers for Brian. Looks like he has a good film coming that I will talk more about later. And I also did a quick Foley job for a nice short film called "Return Address". The work on the film that I did turned out nice and the director seemed pleased. I hope to have more information and links to the film soon.

I will also be starting on another Foley job next week as well as working on a book and another episode of Cell.

Now I am going to embarrass myself with a joke. This was sent to me by a friend of mine and I thought it so funny that I had to share. It is of course a drummer joke. The real funny part though is the picture following the joke. It is clearly time that I stay away from Ebay.

In the summer of 1969, a mail sorter at a New York post office received a letter addressed "To The Greatest Drummer in the World." There was no address or return address and the sorter wasn't sure what to do.

Fortunately, there was a former drummer who worked the front counter of the Post Office who promptly found Max Roach's address and forwarded the letter. Max Roach received the letter and said, "Oh no, I'm not the greatest drummer in the world." Max then promptly forwarded the letter to Gene Krupa, who said "Somebody must've made a mistake." Gene then forwarded the letter on to Buddy Rich (known for his incredible ego and abuse of his band members for every little mistake they made).

Of course, Buddy had been waiting his entire life for that moment. He read the words "To The Greatest Drummer in the World" and smiled from ear-to-ear as he ripped open the envelope.

He began to read the letter, "Dear Ringo...."

"And you are..?"

2010-03-27T00:05:00.003-04:00

Last night I had the privilege of attending a VIP screening of the film “Man on a Mission”. It is the latest film in which I mixed another of Brian’s great scores. I can officially say “great” now that I have seen the film. After spending all those hours critically listening and EQing and mixing, the music tends to fall into a category of, “Okay, lets just get this done so I can listen to something else for awhile”. But after finally getting to see the images that all of that music was meant to accompany, relay emotion, and bring further significance to, I can now place the score into the category of greatness.

What a treat it really was. The film's star and creator Richard Garriott, is truly a remarkable person as an entrepreneur, explorer and astronaut. The images that he captured were not only amazing but some were first glimpses of space travel that many have never seen. And to now see what I had spent those few weeks listening to, I feel that I am basking in the glow of a thousand light bulbs that seem to flicker: “Ooooohhh, now I get it.”

When working on a large project such as this, with all of the cues to mix and perform on, I often second-guess my work. Those final moments of hitting send on the last file to be turned in is always followed by a gulp and heavy sigh of both relief and worry. “I sure hope I didn’t miss anything”, I always find myself saying.

Thankfully, last night all of my fears were laid to rest. I was truly pleased at the quality of the final mixes, and as well, my drumming on some of the cues. Everything seemed to fall right into place and the audience was very pleased with what they had seen and heard.

Everyone in attendance was invited for a purpose, as either possible distributors or investors for the film or as close friends and VIP’s of Richard Garriott. I had the good fortune of having my name put on the guest list by one of the films directors who knew I was in NY and that I would enjoy seeing the film. It was an interesting feeling to be that guy in the room that no one knew why he was there or more even, what he was up to. Kind of a, “And how do you know the bride?” feeling, though no one asked me that question or really spoke to me at all. But as the lights came up and everyone was applauding, I couldn’t help but to sit there grinning like a cat full of canary, enjoying being the only one in the room who knew of the tiny basement studio from which those drums and those mixes came.

And then I turned in to a bat and screeched away into the night.

Through rain, snow or dead of night...

2010-02-28T19:41:00.001-05:00

Whew! That’s about all I can say. Finished up a few projects these last couple of weeks. Had a book to edit, a couple of gigs, and three scores were mixed. I am glad to have the work, but a couple days off would be nice too.

Brian and I logged a lot of hours on iChat. We finished the score to Man on a Mission, which is a space documentary that I am looking forward to seeing. It was mostly an electronic score but there were a few live instruments thrown in. I played drums on a few cues, and there were also live strings, and a good friend of mine Justin Mathews played guitar on some tracks.

I think it turned out nice and I am looking forward to posting some of the cues soon. For now here is the film trailer:

We also finished mixing the score to another film, The Club, as well as an internet TV series titled Cell. You can watch episodes at http://www.koldcast.tv/

Also getting closer to wrapping up the Lady Luck demo, as well as drumming on a couple of new projects.

2010 is starting off as a busy year. Here’s hoping that it stays that way!

Roll the Dice

2010-01-25T12:38:00.001-05:00

This past week I picked up a quick recording and mix job. It was for a friend and great musician Arnie Gruber. He has entered a contest for performing the Foxwoods Resort and Casino theme song. Artists record their versions and then posted them to be voted on. The winner will get a $25,000 grand prize, plus a change to be the “Next Voice of Foxwoods”

Being it was a rush job we recorded it in a day and I mixed it the next, but was a lot of fun working with great musicians and friends. It was a seven-piece band plus vocal recorded half and half live. I will post the recording in my Recent Mixes player.

Voting ends soon so please take the time to check out the site and give a listen to and vote for Arnie:

http://bethewonder.com/artist_profile.aspx?id=37fb9d33-3335-42e9-8e71-005871862abd

I wish him the best of luck!

A great new year!

2010-01-13T18:39:00.002-05:00

Well happy 2010! Finally getting around to blogging. It has been a quite busy end to 2009. Lots of gigs and film work.

I finished dialog cleanup and Foley work for the film Mission on Seven. A very interesting documentary about a collection of film artifacts. It was a bit of a challenge to clean up some of the dialog where they were having microphone trouble, but I believe that it turned out quite well. I had a lot of fun creating a new room tone and adding some extra effects.

Also have begun work on a film with Brian entitled Man on a Mission. It is a space exploration film. So far I have worked on one cue, mixing as well as drumming on it. I can’t wait to hear all of the cues and see it with picture.

I mixed a score for the short film The Day Flew By. A really nice piece of work that I think Brian really captured the mood with his score. Hopefully soon I will have a copy or a permanent link to the film that I can post.

Had a great New Years Eve gig with Lady Luck. A really swinging affair. About 850 people were there all decked out and swing dancing. It was a great way to ring in the New Year.

Looking forward to a busy and prosperous 2010!

City Show on iTunes

2009-10-12T18:05:00.005-04:00

About four years ago I was hired by my friend Brian Teasley to record the audio content for his GPS navigated tour of NYC. He began marketing and renting the City Show devices about 2 years ago, but since the iPhone and iPods have become equip with GPS, making the tour an app at the iTunes store seems to be a more convenient way of making it more available to those visiting or planning a trip to NYC.

The tour is a wonderful way to get around and learn about New York. Since it knows where you are, the patented Nearby feature automatically alerts the user to information regarding their location.

I enjoyed recording the tour. It is over 200 mp3s of audio information along with music and photos. Hopefully in the near future there will be a demand for other city tours and languages.

If you own an iPhone or and iPod Touch and are planning a trip to NYC or even live here and want to learn more about this great city, you can download the app by searching for:

City Show GPS Tour Guide of New York City

at the App Store on iTunes.

The Wake

2009-08-30T22:40:00.003-04:00

This past week I did a short mix for a musical demo entitled "The Wake"
Music by Russ Kaplan
Lyrics by Sara Wordsworth
Book/Story by Russ & Sara

It was really a fun gig. Sounds like it is going to be a really funny show about the sudden death of a dentist who in life turned out to be a cheating spouse and no good father, and after his death his widow and son are determined to seek revenge on his mistress. Along the way they discover that his philandering goes much further than they expected. At least that is what I gathered from the tunes that I mixed. I will be eager to see the show in its entirety.

The tracks were pretty straight forward. Rhythm section of piano, bass, drums, and guitar. Four solo vocalists plus a chorus. Everything was tracked really well which made the mixing go quite smoothly.

Russ seemed very happy with the mixes and is looking forward to hearing good things from his submitting of the demo.

I wish him and Sara the best of luck!

The four songs I mixed will be placed in a Recent Mixes player on my blog shortly.

Snakes and snails and puppydog tails?

2009-08-19T13:27:00.008-04:00

So what happens when you mix a purring cat, an outboard motor, a blow torch, a snoring old man, a match strike, bird wings, and a pot of boiling water? Well this week anyway, it all made for a pretty scary sounding monster.

I just did some work on a 30 sec bumper for the 2009 Film Making Frenzy Fantastic Fest bumper competition. http://www.filmmakingfrenzy.com/
The short film titled Boogie Knight features a young boy who slays yet another "Boogie Man" lurking in his closet. It turned out very well, with another great score from Brian Satterwhite which we mixed yesterday as well.

The project was about 12 hours of sound design and some Foley work. Gordon, the director, said "the monsters voice should sound like a flame moving through a tube".

"Ooo K", I thought, and then went to work. Not sure if I captured that exact sound since I didn't want to risk blowing up the studio trying to record a tube full of flames, but he seemed pleased with it out of the eight or more tracks of mixed sounds I used to produce the effect.

The bumper is posted on You Tube at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAGxwH7tg0o

Or scroll down to the bottom of the blog pages to the Movies player

Desolution

2009-08-01T08:21:00.003-04:00

Just finished a quick Foley gig. A well shot 5 min short film titled Desolution. (don't let spell check fool you)

It was nice getting to record some sfx again. Some of them realistic and some more artistic. Nothing too crazy, but there is a scene in the movie where the main character is shaving his face in a partial slow motion sequence, and the director wanted the effect to be bigger than life, as if the sound is in the character's mind. So with a bit of reverb and close miking I think I captured it. Good thing I had not shaved yet.

I uploaded the files last night and I hope they like the work that I've done. It would be nice if this leads to more work like this as I enjoy Foley and sound design. Though it does make it difficult to watch movies as I am always listening and wondering what the Foley artist did to create the desired effect.

What Film Composers Already Knew

2009-07-30T22:04:00.005-04:00

I found this article about how scientist confirm that it is scarier to listen to a horror film music or scary music in general with your eyes closed than it is with your eyes open.

Duh! Just think how lame horror flicks would be without music. You know that the blood you see on the screen is fake, but it's the music that asks, "is it"?

Dig it:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090730/sc_livescience/scarymusicscarierwitheyesclosed

Irony

2009-07-22T15:23:00.003-04:00

I know this really has nothing to do with recording or drumming, but I just saw an ad on TV. It was starring the late Billy Mays , may he rest in peace. The ad was of course, for iCan health insurance.

Which reminds me I still need to get some if it ever really becomes affordable.

Kinda Cool

2009-07-22T00:56:00.003-04:00

A friend sent this to me this week. Quite a fun way of being percussive. I've played in ensembles like this a couple of times, but this is the most interesting I've seen in a while.

Now what?

2009-07-11T00:24:00.003-04:00

Well when it rains it pours. I'm not complaining, but last week I had nothing going on, this week I've had a 8 1/2 hour book to edit, two gigs, two movie scores to mix, an hour long file to edit and five songs to mix. All due within about a weeks time. Geesh!

It has been worth it though. Mixed a short 10 cue film for Brian called Funky Pickles. Lots of interesting sounds and quirkiness. I can only imagine what images this music is reinforcing. Really looking forward to seeing it.

Hopefully things will stay busy, but that is always to be seen.

Yeah I hear you saying, "Well gee Matt, why are you wasting time blogging?"

Good question. Guess I'll get back to work.

The Retelling

2009-06-30T21:45:00.005-04:00

For the last week I have been mixing cues for a feature length horror film, The Retelling. Brian Satterwhite, the composer, sends me cues in Logic and I mix them and then I stream them over the internet for his approval. The system works very well using the program, Nicecast. It allows me to broadcast straight from Logic at a bit rate of 128Kbps and higher as well as a sample rate of 48kHz. so Brian pretty much hears the mixes as I hear them.

It has been a very interesting score to mix. I enjoy the elements of mixing for film but especially horror films. Mainly because instruments don't need to sound or we don't want them to sound as they normally would in most other musical situations. I might eq a cello in a rather unconventional way or add fx to it, to make it sound particularly unusually, or in this case frightening.

Also having not yet had the opportunity to see the film I rely a lot on Brian to convey what he needs the mix to sound like so that it fits well with picture. Hearing particular percussion hits and melodies keep me curious as to how these subtle and sometimes not so subtle notes and motifs are supposed to emphasize and support the scenes in the film. It is always interesting and exciting to see the completed film with the score mixed.

So far we are staying on schedule and should have the mix wrapped up by the July 10th deadline.

Hello

2009-06-25T02:11:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the new and under renovation www.mattcrawford.net.

In hopes of better marketing myself, and ease of web design, I have pointed my website to my new blog. I am anticipating easier navigation for visitors and to become more accessible to associates, future clients, and the just plain curious.

I look forward to building this site/blog into a fun and profitable endeavor.

Matt