SOPA

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/19/anonymous-hackers-claim-to-take-down-justice-department-website-in-retaliation/

So it's the Stop Online Piracy Act... Perhaps you've heard of it? It's basically everyone up in arms like how it was with Napster back in the day.

And as I'm sitting here typing this, crazy stuff is going down. See, a preemptive strike was made, shutting down megaupload.com. It's a site where you could upload music, videos, etc. Basically, it was "legally" used for piracy, like half a million other sites are, where you get others' uploaded content. Like Napster, but less blatantly illegal. But after word got around that that happened, that brought Anonymous, a global collective of hackers, out of the woodwork. Now they're going on a hacking spree. Here's the count so far:

1. justice.gov
2. universalmusic.com
3. riaa.org
4. mpaa.org
5. copyright.gov
6. hadopi.fr
7. wmg.com
8. usdoj.gov
9. bmi.com
10. fbi.gov

But what's the big deal with piracy?

Piracy is "theft." It's people stealing things they don't believe they should have to pay for. We live in a day and age where you can have anything and everything at your fingertips. It's no surprise. It's an age where it's harder to "make it" not only because of there being less money in recorded media, but there's also so many more people fighting for the same taste of the limelight.

The old way is done. You won't make money selling cassettes the same way that CDs are on their way out. I still like CDs, but it's all digital now. And digital, people believe, should be free.

As an artist, I'm actually all for sharing media. If you want to "steal" my music, please, do. Today, you need people listening to you. No one is willing to spend money on something they don't believe in, so first you've gotta make them believe in you. At that point, you've got fans, not just people spending money blindly. You actually have people vested in you. And that's how it should be.

I have no problem "stealing" music online from sites like megaupload. I limit my buying to two cases: artists I know or see/have seen live and artists that absolutely blow me away. The second accounts for hardly any of my music. But after downloading something, if I like it, I'll tell people about them, I'll see them live, and buy merch when I see them live.

Those complaining about piracy haven't caught on. Money isn't in the media, but in the experience. Make people want to support you and come up with new ways for that to happen. Innovate or be left behind ...or, as the case is today, HACKED :)

Get Back Up

I just got back from a weekend in New York with Kelly and her family. We were taking her sister, Jamie, back up to school and, while we were in the area, took a couple days to snowboard. It was a lot of fun and, since I haven't posted anything in a while, I feel like I should somehow relate snowboarding to music...

So here's what I've got:

The most important thing you can learn from snowboarding is to get back up. When you fall, you can either quit or you can get back up. Those are your only two choices and, as the case is with snowboarding, you are faced with that choice often.

See, snowboarding has one of the highest learning curves of any sport. If you didn't learn to snowboard when you learned to walk, tough luck. You WILL fall and you WILL get hurt. And it will take a long time until you are "good" at it. Through all of that, most people give up. You get a taste of snowboarding that is associated with catching your edge and having your head slammed into the ground. It's not a good feeling, but it is part of the learning process.

Me, being the adrenaline junkie that I am, have gone through all sorts of injuries in my learning process. I like to say that I was "raised" by skiers, as most of the guys I hung out with while I was learning were all experienced skiers. Experienced, meaning that I was constantly being pushed to go faster, steeper, and bigger than I would have liked. This led to injuries on all parts of my body - a fractured tailbone, unknown injuries to my knees and wrists, a mild concussion or two, etc.

When you're laying on the ground, wondering if you can move your legs and arms, you feel like quitting; like it's not worth it. Then you get up and do it again (sometimes after days or weeks of recovery). It's either because you've got masochistic tendencies or because you're passionate about what you do.

The first day we were out, Kelly and I took Jamie. Maybe she only got in 4 or 5 runs over the course of the day, but she ended with some accomplishments. Being able to link a few carves together is impressive, regardless of the swollen knees and sore appendages that it took to get there.

So this is where it ties to music. You WILL write crappy songs. You WILL play crappy shows. You'll hear people that can play circles around you. And you can either push on or you can give up. But if you're going to push on, do so intentionally. Bounce ideas off of friends, study your recordings, watch video of your performances. Go out with some intention on getting better. If you settle for what you're failing at, you'll just fall again and again.

And seriously, we don't need people who put out the same sound and the same performance over and over again. Know that it's okay to fall. You just have to get back up and keep moving forward.

Video - Ice Mountain

Kids! I did youtube! Finally!

See, I snowboard. Like, hardcore. I'm not the best. No backflips or huge jumps (though I think I hit a 45' once ...which is pretty big), but fast and steep. That's what I do. So when helmet cams came out a few years ago I was thinking that'd be pretty awesome to document some trips and whatnot. Well, originally, they were like $1000  ...which is a bit unattainable, seeing as how I also have other hobbies and, at the time, didn't have that kind of money to spend.

Fast forward a few years and you can get a helmet cam that shoots 1080p for under $200. Find it on steepandcheep and it's even better! So that's what I got for Christmas, just in time for the Vermont trip.

Unfortunately, the conditions weren't too great when we had the cams out on the mountain, so we didn't get any great footage. What I did get was used to adjust settings and whatnot.

But after getting back from Vermont and not having any more snow, I figured out how I could still make use of the cam w/out the snow - guitar stuff!

So here's the first installment - Ice Mountain.

Hello, 2012.

...and I'm pretty new to this youtube thing, but I think you can subscribe to my channel or something like that? Check it - www.youtube.com/alexbrubakerguitar 

2011 - Year in Review

I debated a lengthy review of everything that happened this past year, but decided that there was just too much that happened.

Instead, here are a few brief highlights of 2011:

• Played a ton of awesome shows, including a bunch of open mic's
• Released a website
• Graduated from Messiah College, got a job, and moved
• Played my first podcast on the NSFWShow
• Ranked #5 on amazon mp3 "easy listening" charts
• Began extensive work on the next album
• Got more amazing fans

And some things to look forward to in 2012:

• Bigger, better shows
• More looping, delays, etc.
• There are plans for more merch (i.e. t-shirts and stuff)
• Album #2
• Youtube

Details to come.

But in the meantime... check out my good friend, Caleb Hawley, bringing in the New Year!

Review: Christmas Music (Trevor Gordon Hall - Let Your Heart Be Light)

Christmas music sucks. It's the same songs, year after year, played incessantly for more than a month straight of EVERY SINGLE YEAR. It doesn't matter that there are new artists singing them; they're doing nothing new. For this reason, I limit myself to only listening to Christmas music at church and on Christmas and Christmas eve. That's it.

And it's not me being anti-Christmas or anything. I hate the commercialization of it and the music; that's it.

Needless to say, my expansive music collection has chosen to skip over the Christmas-themed music. I have 3 Christmas albums: the RelientK one from when I was in middle school, my friend Matt's band, and Trevor Gordon Hall's, Let Your Heart Be Light, The Christmas Album. I haven't listened to the Relient K one in eons and, honestly, I haven't unwrapped Matt's yet. If I try to preempt the Christmas music strike, bad things happen.

But somewhat out of obligation, I decided to take a risk this year. A HUGE risk. About a week ago, I got out Trevor's album and threw it in my car. I replaced the live August Burns Red album (that I was at the show for!) to listen to Christmas music?! And I'm there asking myself, Why?!


It's Trevor Gordon Hall. He's a musical genius, innovator, and a friend. My logic was that if anyone could do Christmas music right, it'd be a guy with vision like Trevor's. But the whole time I'm nervous. I REALLY don't like Christmas music. I'm thinking to myself, will my respect for Trevor disintegrate after hearing this? Am I going to impulsively drive into oncoming traffic to stop this? What will happen if I actually do like it?! How should I feel?


Yes, I did wonder ALL of those things. But in a moment of trust, I hit play and began my venture to work. It's less than 20 minutes, so I figured, worst case, it'd be a crappy morning drive.


I didn't expect, however, to pop the disc out and take it in to work with me. But sometimes you're broadsided like that. I had high hopes and reasonable expectations, but this album I would listen to year-round.

Here's the breakdown:

It starts out with Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas; commercialized and generic, but fresh. It's got a nice intro tacked onto it and some good harmonic work throughout.

Next is I Saw Three Ships. This is played in a very Trace Bundy-like style; some nice finger work to start off, followed by a very bouncy rhythm that has you bopping back and forth to the music.

O Holy Night follows with a more traditional sound, but done very elegantly. It's got a Don Ross feel to it. Nice and peaceful with few surprises, but just a generally good sounding piece.

The First Noel starts out with The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire). It's a good, familiar way to lead into the meat of the song. What got me about this one, time and time again, was how organic it sounded; there is so much string noise in all of the right places. So many people try to remove any extraneous noises when these are the ones that make the guitar sing.

White Christmas - from the start you've got this big, resonating harmonic. The song is big and open. A lot of times guys will try to cram as many notes as possible into these songs, but this is the perfect balance.

Frosty the Snowman - pretty typical, but spiced up with some sleigh bells and harmonica part way through the song.

Auld Lang Syne - he brings in a Rhodes and a glockenspiel for this song. I love the sound of glock and guitar. Matt Stevens turned me onto that. There's just something about that mellow bell-like resonance... It's a great arrangement.

Silver Bells - it starts out with what sounds like a ukulele and then gets some nice slide work overlaid on top. It's adds a nice mix to the album. If I had to guess, there's also some looping going on here, as Trevor does some pretty crazy stuff live and would probably be able to do the whole thing live...

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel - fretless bass intro. YES! It's super smooth and is coupled with a slow gear kinda volume swell effect on the guitar. There is actually a lot more focus on the bass than the guitar on this one - which on a 15 track album makes for a good break.

Christmas Time Is Here - this brings you back to the guitar-centricity of the album. It's got some nice quiet acoustic parts and then jazzy, lightly distorted leads with a hint of delay, over top.

Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep) - is that an e-bow? The spacey, sustain of an e-bow really adds to an album that is, overall, a little slower. Good call by Trevor.

Angels We Have Heard On High - it's nothing exciting, but definitely helps to bring the album together more. It's one of those things I guess you expect to hear, and, like many other tracks on this album, can take you back to the stripped-down simplicity of the original hymns.

Edelweiss - throughout the album, there a few places where Trevor uses an e-bow really subtly. It's one of those things that differentiates between good and great. Here's another instance of that.

Christmas Medley - Usually the contents of a song like this would be enough Christmas music for me for the year. Instead, I've listened to this album maybe 10 times so far. It really is that good.

And there's a bonus track. You'll have to check that one out for yourself...


So tonight and tomorrow you need to listen to this. It is literally the only album on my approved Christmas music list.

spotify: Trevor Gordon Hall – Let Your Heart Be Light - The Christmas Album


not on the album, but SO GOOD live -

Soundtrack Review: The Art of Flight

I say “movie soundtrack” and what do you think? I know I’m immediately thinking big orchestral scores similar to The Pirates of the Caribbean and Lord of the Rings. To a lesser degree, I think of movies like Juno and Scott Pilgram vs. the World. Film is one of those places where you can get a hipster to listen to an orchestra or you can get someone with slightly more class to listen to Sonic Youth. It’s a beautiful dichotomy.

But what is it that makes these soundtracks so great? If you were to throw the Juno soundtrack in with The Pirates of the Caribbean it wouldn’t bode well for either. Music is set there to compliment the film. It helps you to experience the film on a deeper level. In my examples, we’ve got POTC and LOTR as these big epics with battles and adventure …and music that makes you feel like you’re in the midst of those exact things. With Scott Pilgram, the music helps you to feel like you’re in the midst of a video game. And with Juno, you feel like a lost indie kid in a big confusing world.

The music is there to remove you from your seat and place you in the movie. Consequently, when you hear the same music without the movie, it is emotive of those same feelings. When I hear the POTC soundtrack, for instance, I immediately am thinking of scenes from the movie.

But this is a rare case. Unless it’s the theme song, for most movies, hearing something from it won’t evoke anything reminiscent of the movie. And even a more rare case is that there is a documentary with such a mind-blowing soundtrack.

Enter, The Art of Flight. It’s a snowboarding documentary. When I think of snowboarding documentaries, after thinking of how awesome the footage is, I am reminded of how terrible the music is. It’s so often over-produced rap, angsty punk, or something else that’s way too much of a sensory overload when combined with watching guys drop off 70 foot cliffs. The music rarely makes you feel like you are there.

And really, snowboarding is a lot more tangible than most movies, so it should be easier to emulate the feeling through music. If music can make you feel like you’re sailing across the ocean in a pirate ship, shouldn’t it also be able to make you feel like you’re doing something a little less fanciful.

So often this is botched up, but not with The Art of Flight. Everything is perfect. There is literally nothing I would change about the movie, except to maybe make it longer. Since I first saw it about a month ago, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about snowboarding or stop listening to the soundtrack.

The soundtrack to this thing redefines what you think of as a soundtrack. It has variety, dynamic, and puts you right in the middle of the movie. Sure, I’m not out there hucking backflips over 100 foot gaps on a glacial melt, but I do snowboard and am pretty well familiar with the sport. And somehow, this soundtrack is snowboarding. It’s complimentary to the images to place you right in the middle of the action.

This is finally a soundtrack that recognizes that snowboarding is more than just about big tricks. When I’m listening to this, I’m doing what I do on a mountain. I like steep and fast and, occasionally, a good cruiser.

Right off the bat, you’ve got some house beats (that's what they're calling this stuff, right?), compliments of Deadmau5, that give the vivid feeling of flying down a chute, airing over small features, but in such a fluid manner and with such intensity. The bass is driving, but at a palatable pace that focuses on the control of every little muscle movement involved with keeping up with gravity. It’s not about going big, but about style. It’s the beauty of a well planned line and the thrill of the moments when your board leaves the ground.

After that, there’s this song by The Naked and Famous, “No Way.” It’s basically like cruising on some packed power and then dropping some fresh tracks. You’ve got the opening words of “When the daylight comes, do you feel it?” It’s in a soft voice and makes you think of cruising blues on packed power after getting first chair, bright and early in the morning. When I’m listening to it, I’m hearing the crunch of cutting through the snow through nice, relaxed carves down an empty slope. Every verse is like this – like cruising leisurely and enjoying life. Then you’ve got these big choruses that take you from the lift lines and packed powder to the back side of the mountain, laying fresh tracks through huge pow turns. It’s like floating.

Next in line is Apparat’s, “Ash/Black Veil.” It’s set by a delay driven, beat that seems to be comprised of some guitar, violin, percussion, and random sound effects. It’s light and open. Listening to this one, I’m envisioning a tree run. Not an east coast run, but out west, where you’ve got big, open aspen glades and powder. The song takes you along this trail, where you’ve got nothing but trees ahead of you and nothing but trees behind you.

Basically, the album continues at this pace – exploring the many facets of snowboarding, snow, and winter. You’ve got tracks for big jumps, tracks for steep lines, tracks for danger, and tracks for relief. This is what I want to ride to this winter. This is a soundtrack beyond the scope of a movie. It’s one that spans to reach the snowboarding (skiing, snowmobiling, etc.) subset of the population to the point of being the soundtrack to our lives for the next 4 months.

Check it:

And, of course, the rest of the soundtrack:

Segment	Artist	Song
Intro 1	Defrag	Element 1
Intro 2	M83	Outro
So Far Gone 1	Hendrickson/Dick/Harry	Before the Storm
So Far Gone 2	Deadmau5	Ghosts n’ Stuff (Nero Remix)
Down Days	Oswin Macintosh	Passion Victim
Wizard	The Naked and Famous	No Way
No Bueno	Apparat	Ash/Black Veil
Darwin 1	Klaus Badelt	Nowhere to Run
Darwin 2	Blockhead	Sunday Seance (Loka Remix)
Home 1	The Album Leaf	Another Day
Home 2	The Naked and Famous	Young Blood
Home 3	Mel Wesson	Motional Rescue Pulse
Avalanche 1	Mel Wesson	Stark Light
Avalanche 2	Sigur Ros	Track 6
Aspen	M83	Intro
Revelstoked	Hum	Iron Clad Lou
More stoked	The Black Angels	Young Men Dead
Even more stoked	M83	My Tears Are Becoming A Sea
Credits 1	Okkervil River	Westfall
Credits 2	We Are Augustines	Chapel Song

Studio Session 12/9-12/11

So I was just in the studio this past weekend and thought it’d be good to share some insight for those of you who may want to someday record some music and also for those who just want to know what it’s like. I’ll summarize my time this past weekend and throw in some tips as well.

Over three days (Friday-Sunday), I was at MR. STUDIO (Jeremy Bentley) in Lancaster for about 21 hours. In that time, I laid down guitar for 7 songs, totaling close to half an hour of material. These ranged in complexity from one or two track songs to some that had 6 or so. I’ll need to go in for one more day/weekend to finish up the project, but it is coming along well.

Overview:

Friday:

I tend to try to get the hard stuff out of the way first. It makes sense to me.  So a song that uses two stages of looping, distortion, delay, and some crazy polyrhythmic stuff made sense. Between setup and this song, I ended up going over by an hour.

Saturday:

I started with some easier stuff on Saturday. Starting off with something straight forward made sense after Friday night’s work. After one easy one, I did one that had a bit more percussion involved, so it was a little more difficult to lay down and get dynamically correct.

Then I started on another complex one. Looping, reversed loops, distortion, delay, and surprises were all involved… And by surprises, I mean, you’ll have to wait and the wait will suck. In any event, this one took the cake for hardest. Some 6 hours later, both Jeremy and I were frustrated and didn’t have a complete recording.

Sunday:

Sunday started with an easier song that ended up with some extra goodies. I’m excited for this one. It didn’t take too long until I decided to start playing around with it. Then ideas just started popping up.

After that, I did an old one that really didn’t take much time at all. It was easy and straightforward. Then, one with some looping and some percussion that wasn’t too hard either. This one brought out some new ideas that drastically change how awesome the song will be, so playing around there took some time.

Finally, the song from Saturday was revisited. It took us up until the very end of the session, totaling somewhere between 7-8 hours on that one song… Frustrating, but a great final product.

Tips:

Guitars:

Get them professionally set up. This was the first time that my Taylor was set up (big thanks to Penn Avenue Music in Reading). I keep it in a pretty well controlled environment, so it wasn’t out too bad, but with the neck true, it plays noticeably smoother.

Restring your guitar. This will be done with the setup, unless you’re going to skip that step. Don’t experiment with a new type of string – use a gauge and brand that you are comfortable and familiar with. And break them in! No one wants a tinny sounding recording, so make sure you’ve got 20 hours or so on them.

Also, go into the studio with options. I never go in with just one guitar. This weekend, I only used one guitar, but I had another, as well as a bass, just in case I felt inspired. You don’t want to think up some great idea and not have the means to execute it. Sure, it sucks lugging tons of gear into the studio, but it sucks more when you want something that’s not there.

Electronics:

With acoustic, you generally just mic the guitar. You don’t use an amp, and, even with electrics, you want to avoid effects. The idea is that it is easier to add stuff later than it is to take it away. Ever try to take out reverb after it’s been recorded? Ha!

What you’re looking for with the electronics is that everything is working properly. This may mean a new set of tubes in your amp (or preamp, as was my case), isolating and eliminating any noise from your pedals, changing the battery in your guitar (for active p’ups), or servicing your vintage echoplex (mine needs to be cleaned). This will ensure that you’re not messing around trying to fix stuff during your studio time. When you do it there, it costs you money.

Practice:

You’re going to be playing your instrument for extended periods of time. And you’re going to be trying to get everything right the first time. So figure out what you want to play and then you’ve got two focal points: accuracy and endurance.

Accuracy is hitting every note correctly. In your practice time, focus not only on the right notes, but also on tone. At least with guitar, there are a number of different sounds you can get from the same note. You want the best one. So practice that way.

The endurance required may vary. For a solo instrumentalist such as myself, 20 hours in a studio means upwards of 20 hours playing guitar – in two or three days. If you’re in a band or also sing, you’ll have some relief. If not, you’ve gotta be prepared.

The first time I recorded with Jeremy, my fingers were raw after day one and I was in excruciating pain at the end of the weekend. I actually had to take time off of playing to let my hands recover. This time? My hands felt great at the end of every day and Sunday night, when I got home, I got out my guitar and started playing some more. The key was that leading up to the weekend, I put in quite a few 4-5 hour practice sessions, some on back to back days. Earlier I mentioned putting 20 hours on a new set of strings. I did that in a week. Including the time recording, I played for nearly 40 hours in a 7 day period. That’s a full week’s work.

Rest:

Don’t go in tired. Recording is mentally draining. Even if you are physically prepared, your mind needs to be in the game or you’ll get nothing done.

For vocalists, I hear you’re supposed to rest your voice. I don’t know, I’m not a vocalist.

Documentation:

This is a big engineering thing that has carried over to my music. I’ll never be one to write out my songs, but make sure you include any relevant details, so that you know them when you’re recording. This includes song names, tunings, effects used, effect settings, etc. I went a step beyond and made a chart that listed these things. Ultimately, it helped me to visually see which songs made sense in progression, giving me my album order. Sending this to Jeremy gave him a good idea of what was coming where as well. Be sure to keep track of anything that changes in the studio as well.

Be Open Minded:

Sure, I mentioned above that you want to have things figured out beforehand. The point there is that you shouldn’t be writing the songs on studio time. That doesn’t mean that they can’t change. Be open to changing things last minute. You may accidentally hit an extra note somewhere, but if it sounds better that way, then change it. When you’re sitting in a studio listening to the same section of a song a million times in a row, you’re bound to come up with some new ideas.

Let the Engineer Do His Thing:

These people record for a living. They probably know more about recording than you do. Accept that. Once I was in position with the mics, I was told not to move. Sure, I moved in between playing, but while playing I was in the exact same position EVERY TIME. Don’t screw that up.

Finally, here’s the gear setup that I used:

• ·      Guitar: Taylor 410ce (c. 2007)
• ·      Pickups: K&K Onboard Trinity
• ·      Effects: (in order) Presonus TubePRE (w/JJ 12ax7), Ernie Ball Volume Jr., Ibanez TS7, Line 6 DL4, Danelectro Tape Reel Echo Simulator, BBE Sonic Stomp, Fishman AFX Reverb, Boss RC20XL
• ·      Amp: Roland AC-60
• ·      Mics: (2) SM57 – 1 off of soundhole, 1 for amp. GT55 – off of 12^th fret.

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