Over the last year, I've been experimenting with various different software plugins and synths in Logic Pro to get a different kind of sound than my usual three chord rock / guitar - bass - drums kind of sound. The strangest thing I have come across is a weird open source modular soft synth called Bespoke. Calling it a software synth doesn't really do it justice. It's quite unlike anything else out there in that you piece together different software components (oscillators, FM synth, drum machine, effects, code) and arrange the flow of sound visually.  I had read about how Ambient music ..read more

We could have called this post "Your First Three Blues Scales" or "Your First Three Metal Scales" or "Your First Three Classic Rock Blues Metal Scales." These are the three scales you need to learn first and for some people, this may be enough. Heck, Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour built a whole career around the Pentatonic scale, so maybe one scale is plenty.   The first thing to make clear here, is that you don't need to worry about Phrygian Dominant scale, tapping the Lydian mode and the Hungarian Minor scale until later and maybe never! Both theoretically and practically, thes ..read more

  I've been using Logic Pro for a few years now (and GarageBand before that) and have always marveled at how good the Drummer function is. You can choose one of several styles (Rock, R&B, Songwriter...) then pick a drummer (Duncan, Logan, Kyle...) and you get a great drum track that sounds like a human. You can have the drummer track follow another track (typically the bass track) and there are controls to adjust the volume / complexity, fills, etc. I used the Drummer feature extensively on my rock opera and it sounds like a real drummer, even to my drummer friends. (Added bonus: at ..read more

I must admit, I've fallen down the rabbit hole into synth nerdvana lately. I'm not sure, maybe it was with Daft Punk's demise, and a Sound Opinions podcast that mentioned French synth pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre. I was vaguely familiar with Jarre's breakthrough 1976 instrumental album Oxygène. I was mostly listening to classic rock back then, before the 1977 new wave / punk tidal wave from the UK. Somehow, Jarre's work never really surfaced again for me, despite my recent interest in the Krautrock Motorik synth sound of Krafwerk, Neu! and similar proggy instrumental artists like Mike Oldfield a ..read more

I was fortunate to snag an interview with synth designer, prog-rock keyboard wizard and IK Multimedia Product Manager / Sound Designer Erik Norlander about his work on the new UNO Pro synthesizer. Erik is an accomplished keyboardist, composer and producer with over 40 album credits. He has toured for many years with his own band as well as with Asia featuring John Payne. He has been involved in synth design since the early 1990s and has worked extensively with the Bob Moog Foundation. Q. I thought the original UNO synth was fantastic. Great sound, cool design, nice presets and features that m ..read more

Sometimes I try to put a moratorium on buying new gear. It lasts for 12 or maybe 16 months and then something pops up and I'm like a weight-watcher walking into a pie shop. Lately, I've become intrigued by low-cost portable synthesizers. It all began with a Christmas gift of a Teenage Engineering Pocket Operator. This was like receiving a puppy as a gift; it's a gateway into more gear. If you've already got a fancy Prophet 5 or a bunch of Eurorack equipment, this blog post is not for you. But if you're synth-curious, read on to learn about your options. The ideal first synth would be battery p ..read more

A few months back, Robbie Robertson released "Once Were Brothers" a biography of The Band, adapted from his autobiography "Testimony." As with any good rock doc, it's a bittersweet story of the rise to stardom, fame and fortune followed by an inevitable decline.  If you're at all interested in this story, you might know a little bit about The Band already, including backing Bob Dylan on his infamous 1966 world tour where he "went electric" to a chorus of boos every night from the die-hard folk fans. The roots of The Band go back earlier than that, though. It was formed by four Canadians ..read more

I've been a fan of Elvis Costello since My Aim Is True fell into my life in 1977. I was still in high school and my older brother thought I would like it because of the nerdy guy with glasses on the album cover. How right he was. Over the next few years I listened to everything he put out. However, by the time Get Happy!! came out with 20 songs in 1980, I hit my saturation point. I regrettably put EC aside for more than ten years and then came back with a vengeance picking up CD versions of Taking Liberties (B-side singles), Kojak Variety, and many of the Rykodisk reissues of the '90s, replet ..read more

  Every couple of years I run into some breathtakingly fantastic band that no one has ever heard of. Often, by the time I find them, they have delved so deep into obscurity that they soon break up. (I'm looking at you BrainPool. And Thunder. And The Hellacopters.) I hope this doesn't happen to my latest discovery, Crack The Sky. This is a band that has been ahead of its time for so long that you sort of give up and think they'll never be famous. But in fact, they are big stars. Well, at least in Baltimore.  Crack The Sky was formed in the early 1970s. They managed to put together so ..read more

Looks like 2021 is starting with a ton of new announcements from NAMM and beyond. I've picked three new products to highlight here, all of which represent significant innovation in the musical instrument market.  Zivix JamStik Studio MIDI guitar Many readers are probably aware of Zivix original products the JamStik and JamStik+. These were innovative MIDI controllers that resembled guitars, but had only 7 frets. They were portable, lightweight and great for learning guitar, but not really suited to an experienced player.  Last year Zivix launched their JamStik Studio Guitar. It's now ..read more