Sound On Sound magazine ran this highly detailed account of mixing the inescapable summer jam of 2012. It’s the most thorough explanation of a contemporary pop song’s mix process that I’ve ever read. The specifics of the gear and the plugins are interesting, but the main takeaway is just how complex and nuanced the soundscape …
Tag Archives: Pro Tools
The great music interface metaphor shift
I’m working on a long paper right now with my colleague at Montclair State University, Adam Bell. (Update: here’s the paper.) The premise is this: In the past, metaphors came from hardware, which software emulated. In the future, metaphors will come from software, which hardware will emulate. The first generation of digital audio workstations have …
User Interface Design for Music Learning Software
Computers have revolutionized the composition, production and recording of music. However, they have not yet revolutionized music education. While a great deal of educational software exists, it mostly follows traditional teaching paradigms, offering ear training, flash cards and the like. Meanwhile, nearly all popular music is produced in part or in whole with software, yet …
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Remixing “Here Comes The Sun” in 5.1 Surround
For my final project in Advanced Audio Production at NYU, I created a 5.1 surround remix of the Beatles’ “Here Comes The Sun.” You can download it here. If you don’t have surround playback, you can listen to the stereo version: I was motivated to create a surround remix of a Beatles song by hearing …
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Put my thang down, flip it and reverse it
Missy Elliot is one of the most futuristic electronic adventurers out there, especially in her collaborations with Timbaland. Yet her stuff is as hot and soulful as music gets. How does she do it?
What does live music mean in the laptop era?
This weekend my electronica band Revival Revival is doing some shows for the first time in many months. We’ll be doing a lot of what my non-electronic-musician friends consider to be cheating. The lead vocals and guitar will be live, as will some of the synths. Everything else will be canned, recordings played back from …
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Inside the recording process
The vast majority of music that I hear is recorded, and if you’re reading this the same is probably true of you. Most people don’t have a clear idea what the recording process is like, especially using computers. Here are my adventures in recording. I grew up in the eighties. Cassette recorders were just starting …
Copyright Criminals
This PBS Independent Lens documentary on sampling culture is a good one, and you can watch the whole thing on Youtube. Their resources and links page includes my Biz Markie blog post. Thanks Beautiful Decay for posting the videos. Part one:
How we wrote this song
Boys And Dance Floors [audio:http://ethanhein.com/music/Revival_Revival_Boys_and_Dancefloors.mp3] Revival Revival vs Janet Jackson mp3 download, ipod format download Right-click or option click the links to save the track to your computer. There are as many different ways of writing songs as there are songwriters. Barbara Singer and I have arrived at a good one, so I figured I’d …
Janet (Ms Jackson if you’re nasty)
Janet has been on my mind a lot the past few months, what with Michael, and I was driven to go listen to Control again. It must have been quite a shock for Ms Jackson’s fans when it dropped in 1986. I wasn’t aware of her teenage bubblegum pop stuff as a kid, though I suppose …