Inside Sound

I spent a day at the NAMM show last Friday checking out all the latest music gear and software. NAMM is an amazing showcase of the incredibly broad array of products available for making music. And despite all the changes in the music industry over the past decade, the passion for making and sharing music is just as vibrant as ever.

Of course with the music recording industry business model changing, it means a lot more musicians have to go it alone. This has had positive benefits in terms of creative freedom for recording artists who no longer need label backing to record music thanks to the revolution in personal recording gear and software. For example, singer/songwriter Roger McGuinn uses Audition for his entire recording process in his home studio. He has a Windows PC, an audio interface for connecting his mics and instruments and a copy of Audition 3 to do everything including mastering and burning a CD for duplication. Compare that to the cost of production for one of my favorite albums "Grace" by Jeff Buckley that came out in 1994 and cost several hundred thousand dollars to make at that time.
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/customer-stories-video-film-and-audio/roger-mcguinn/

On the flip side, going it on your own as a musician means you have to wear a lot of hats. I recall an interview a number of years ago with singer/songwriter Tracy Chapman who talked about how she was essentially running her own small business as an artist. So as a DIY musician you have to be more than just a creative artist. You have to be responsible for all your marketing and promotion which includes your website, social networks, artwork, images/video, e-mail marketing, press and of course booking your own gigs and touring. If you're in a band this can be a shared responsibility or as an individual musician you might have friends and family help or even contract some of this out depending on your budget. However, in order to manage your costs doing a lot this yourself is unavoidable. You may even want to setup your own digital label, which was discussed in some detail in the December issue of Future Music (UK). Unfortunately, all this takes time away from developing your craft, but that is the price you pay for creative freedom as an independent musician.

While this blog is dedicated to discussing Adobe's audio tools, there's a wide array of other tools in the Creative Suite product family that are critical to making your DIY music business a success whether you're an individual musician, in a band or running an independent label. The tools you should be looking at to help market and promote your music include...

Photoshop - editing photos
Lightroom - cataloging and managing photos
Illustrator - Logo and graphic design
InDesign - CD and poster layout and design
Fireworks - website prototype and design
Dreamweaver - website and on-line newsletter creation
Contribute - blogging and website updates
Flash Professional - web and mobile interactive experiences
Premiere Pro - editing and producing music videos
After Effects - motion graphics for music videos

What Adobe tools do you use for packaging and promoting your music? We'd like to hear what tools you find most valuable and why.

Be Heard,
Lawson

Now that Windows 7 has officially been released by Microsoft, we have received many questions about Audition and Soundbooth compatibility. We are pleased to report that the current versions of Audition and Soundbooth are working well with Windows 7 and many of us here have already made the switch on our primary machines.

We worked closely with Microsoft during the development phase of Windows 7 and were able to iron out any incompatibilities early on. We are currently using Windows 7 on many of our test machines and have been pleased with the performance of Audition and Soundbooth with Windows 7.

Please let us know if you find any problems using Audition or Soundbooth with any flavor of Windows 7. Also, be sure to check with your sound card or audio device manufacturer for any device driver updates.

Ron Day
Quality Engineering Lead

Roger McGuinn (co-founder of The Byrds) visited our offices in Seattle yesterday to meet the audio engineering team. Roger has been a fan of Audition going back to the Cool Edit days and has also worked closely with our team as a beta user over the years. It was great fun for our team to have a music legend in our midst. Roger is currently on tour in the Pacific Northwest, which is what brought him to Seattle. You can find the latest tour dates and other info about Roger's work on his website.
http://www.ibiblio.org/jimmy/mcguinn/

You can also watch my interview with Roger on Adobe TV where he talks about making music and using Audition in his creative workflow.
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/customer-stories-video-film-and-audio/roger-mcguinn/

Rock On,
Lawson

Last night Soundbooth CS4 won the MacUser Audio of the Year Award as voted on by their readers. It's an honor to be recognized by the MacUser community. This award also acknowledges the huge leap Soundbooth took in CS4 including the new multitrack support, non-destructive editing and volume correction workflows.

Here's a list of all the winners on the MacUser site:
http://awards.macuser.co.uk/categories.html

Ever year at MAX I discover a new Flash audio application. When I rejoined Adobe in 2007 it was the audio editor/remix tool called Digimix that was one of the winners of the first Air Demo Derby. Alan Queen, the developer behind Digimix, joined Aviary last year and re-wrote the application (now called Myna) taking advantage of the latest audio APIs in Flash Player 10.
http://aviary.com/tools/myna#

Last year at MAX 2008 Andre Michelle presented his Flash audio toolbox called Hobnox. It allows you to patch together various synths, drums pads, effects pedals, etc. to create your own electronic music. The user experience is very cool and the simulated pedals and synths sound great.
http://www.hobnox.com/index.1056.en.html

This year I saw a really nice piano teaching tool called PianoMarvel which was one of this MAX Award finalists. It's a great way to use the power of Flash to help kids learn to play the piano.
http://www.pianomarvel.com/

And of course there are many others Flash audio apps out there. Here are a couple of others I've run across including...
Noteflight - Music notation tool
RemixGalaxy (formerly know as SpliceMusic) - remix tool for DJs and musicians

There are also a number of audio players on the web taking advantage of Flash including the BBC iPlayer and iHeartRadio from Clear Channel.

As the Flash platform continues to evolve I'm looking forward to discovering the next cool on-line audio experience.

-Lawson