7 thoughts on “Show 90 – Releasing your music online and making live backing tracks

    • It feels as though I was politely slapped with a little white glove! Although as fun as a duel sounds, we are actually in agreement. When tempo changes are appropriate, well planned, intentional, and/or impactful they absolutely should be used. I have seen far too many poorly executed and unnecessary tempo changes in my day. More still are unintentional tempo changes that when heard, my left eye twitches irregularly. Tempo is a fickle bitch and should be dealt with as such with extreme care. I apologize that I was not clear, but thank you for bringing it up for me to clarify it now.

  1. A couple of things on making backing tracks…

    I’ve done this a number of times, once for a ‘name’ act who wanted a little more flexibility for mixing the backing, but refused to have a computer on stage. I recorded the backing in 5.1 and encoded the final file in DTS. The resulted was something like:
    Left: Brass
    Right: BVs
    Left Surround: Keys
    Right Surround: SFX
    Centre: Click

    DTS takes up no more space on a CD than normal stereo data, so you’ll get an hour+ per CD. The resulting DTS CD plays back in a standard DTS-compatible DVD player – it is best if the player has discrete 5.1 outputs, or you need to decode the output.

    I’ve also created 5.1 backing sync’d with video for video-wall backdrops. That’s a bit more tricky, but there are ways.

    if reliance on a disk player is questionable then you can use a hard drive player and stream the DTS audio from there – even my little Archos player does this! (500GB audio/video player in the palm of your hand, plays raw DVD data and no need for iTunes – hoorah!!)

    As to creating a click for a non-clicked song – in Cubase this is a doddle. All you do it tap a MIDI keyboard along in time with the song, select ‘Merge Tempo From Tapping’ and the bars/beats grid is aligned in time with the song. No time-stretching required! Does Pro Tools have anything similar?

  2. Beat Detective can generate bar|beat markers for an entire song.
    The original performance was played by an idiot, so stretching to a common tempo was beneficial.

  3. Hi Guys,

    I created and maintain my own web using Dreamweaver. I have looked into switching over to use WordPress for my site in the past, but never seemed to be able to get past the initial setup process. Once it’s up and running, I’m sure it would be easy for me to update it and maintain it. I’m wondering if you can recommend a book or web site that you have found helpful in getting started with WordPress. I’m intrigued by it due to its functionality including “social follow”, etc. Thanks.

  4. Yes, a talk with Joe Gilder on technical stuff like “32bit or 24bit when I send files to a mastering engineer?”, “Average cost of printing physical CDs”, etc. etc, would be great!

    I know this kind of info can be found around the web, but the way you discuss this type of stuff gives always something much more than just a couple of google searches.

    Thanks for the great show guys!

  5. This podcast has been a blessing guys. I just bumped into it only by accident after more than 2 years of release. Thank you very much

    I will like to make a request though, I will appreciate if you can do a podcast strategies needed to help sign an artist to a record label.

    Let me put it in another way, how do you hunt for a record deal both as a producer, but more importantly, as an artist

    I will appreciate if you honour this request. Thanks in anticipation

    Kind regards
    Keys

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