When you watch shows like American Idol, America's Got Talent or The Voice most to the contestants perform songs that are older than they are. Not only were these songs recorded in analog studios on magnetic tape and pressed on to vinyl they were great songs and even of they were recorded digitally they would still be great songs. Where are today's John Lennons, John Fogertys, Paul Simons, Carol Kings, Randy Newmans, Billy Joels, Tom Pettys, Marc Bolans, Pete Townsends, Bob Dylans, Brain Wilsons, Buck Owens, Phil Ochs, Melanie Safkas Johnny Cashes, Pete Townsends, Wille Nelsons, Sir MixaLots, NWAs, Van Morrisons, Bob Marleys, Stevie Wonders, Ozzy Osbournes ect.. ect..? The difference between the the aforementioned artists and today's songwriters are that the songwriters of yesteryear had a conscience and wrote songs for a reason. In other words they had more noble motives and that is why I posted the picture of Bernie Sanders.
Today's music industry sucks and it sucks for many reasons one of which is corporatism and corporate mentality. Radio stations have gone corporate and with corporatism comes bad business and stupidity. When a radio station plays a song they don't even tell you the name of that song or the artist. How fucking dumb is that? What you hear now is a feed from the corporation that owns the local stations. Local radio was a good thing because it covered local events. It had integrity and that is the difference between the songwriters I mentioned and the ones like that filthy whore Nick Minaj and Justin Beber. Lady Gaga has some integrity but her music is quite lame. Kanye West just plain sucks.
I suppose you don't need a reason to write a song but when someone does they often end up with a better song.
Before you fire up your DAW and then look for a loop that "sounds cool" try to find a motive to compose something that matters. Listen to these songs and maybe you will find a clue. Better yet, listen to a Bernie Sanders speech and start thinking about being socially responsible and becoming a stellar citizen
Let's face it, music today sucks ass and great big giant elephant dick at the same time. There are many reasons today for why music sucks. The audience has been dumbed down into shit like Niki Minaj, Taylor Swift, song thief Kid Rock and Lady Gaga are talented and making good music. Music sales are down... way down. Radio went corporate and for years they don't even tell you the names of the song they are playing. The corporate turds that came of with that asshole idea need to have their testicles chewed off by a poodle with rabies.
A change in the drinking age from 18 to 21 had a devastating impact on the quality of modern music. Musician would cut their teeth in clubs but with 18, 19 and 20 yearolds banished from clubs that serve alcohol venues for bands fell by the wayside.
Many musicians played in bands that played as school dances and wedding receptions but now the asshole DJs have whored their way into that market.
Technology has done more damage to music than most people realize. Let's start with the iPod type devices. It used to be that most music was played on home stereos through SPEAKERS and the nerd of the day were happy just being audiophiles and that was actually a good thing because it allowed companies who were making sound reproduction equipment to continually create better product. Music then was still being recorded in analog studios on audio tape in studio that required sound engineers and producers with feel and talent and of course audio tape sounds and analog processing sounds better than digital processing and digital media.
Today's technology has allowed people that suck to sound halfway decent but worse than that it has given nerds the ability to create something that sounds like music. Auto tune has allowed people that can't sing such Bobby Brown to sound half way decent.
Songwriting has suffered. Instead of great songs being written shitty songs are over produced and the ease of doing studio wizardry by nerd people who have no business within a mile of a recording studio are cranking out more shit than a politician on Ex Lax.
Could the prefab artists today and the digit head producers do with 100 track what George Martin and the Beatles did with 4 tracks? No fucking way. Check out the above video and you will see what I mean. Maybe then you will know what enough is enough really means when it comes to writing, arranging and producing music.
The musical and recording treatment of songs today cannot even be described as putting lipstick on a pig. I can best be described as failed plastic surgery on an pug ugly crack whore.
You can do all that dub step type crap and looping on Mixcraft that you can on any other DAW but unlike most other DAW's Mixcraft is stable and it is IMO the most intuitive easy to learn DAW out their and it has a true analog feel. It is the least geek and nerd appeal of all the DAWs. Mixcraft is musician friendly.
I would like to see a return to analog but that is not going to happen. Today Mixcraft is the next best thing.
IMO you can make mix and master on Mixcraft Pro and Mixcraft 6.1 recordings that are as good if not better than any other DAW out there and with a lot less bullshit.
If your capture is good and that would mean a good performance using good mics and preamps then there is no reason why you can't produce professional quality recordings providing you are a good producer and decent engineer.
Mixcraft is easy to use and easier to learn. This is how DAWs should be but unfortunately most DAWS are a fucking nightmare to learn and a bitch to use. Geeks like software that is fucked up and that is why they love Reaper and Reaper will always suck. Artists like DAWs that work.
For singer/songwriters Mixcraft beats all other DAWS hands down and you can make professional quality recordings with it.
I bet your are thinking that this blog is about DAWs, and recording gear. Well it is unless something really really great comes along.
As a musician you know that there is now and has always been a lot of junk out there. One of the biggest pieces of junk and shitty engineering is the acoustic guitar. It seems that everybody and their brother is now making an acoustic guitar and most of them are JUNK even and especially the high prices ones like Martin and Gibson aka over priced crap. This may sound harsh to some of my readers so let it suffice to say with a bit of forward thinking in design, acoustic guitars could be much better. The acoustic guitar is a flawed design. It has changed little in 100's of years and the worst change IMO is the pinned bridge. Others may disagree.
As a guitar ages chances are it will develop a condition called belly bulge due to the constant pull of the strings. Belly bulge is when the top of the guitar develops a hump behind the bridge. You can't put send your guitar to Weight Watchers to get rid of the bulge and if you do nothing the bulge will only get worse. When that hump gets really bad the guitar will become unplayable and the top will probably develop a crack.
Repairman clamping heated caul to squeeze out belly bulge
Some remedies for belly bulge, include removal of the bridge and clamping on heated cauls and it inside and the other on where the bridge was. This will bend the wood back into shape but often it is only a temporary fix.
Removing the bridge is time consuming and it can damage the instrument. Squeezing out the top and the sound board will not change the fact that as some as the guitar is restrung and brought up to tuning the same 160+ lbs of force will be pulling up on the top.
Another method is to clamp the guitar as shown in the above picture. I have seen people humidify the guitar of several days and as it is being clamped they put in a 60 watt light bulb to soften the glue. They leave it clamped for several days. This is also time consuming and it never addresses the real problem which again is the force of the strings constantly pulling on the top. Eventually the bulge will come back.
The other common method for belly bulge is the dreaded neck reset. Neck resets are very difficult do, expensive and painful to watch. I won't go in to detail. If you are interested in seeing a neck reset watch the video. WARNING: This is major surgery and not for the faint of heart. Parental discretion is advised. There has to be a better way!
Well there is.The JLD Bridge Doctor is the not like most doctors. This device actually fixes the problem quickly, easily and permanently. The JLD Bridge Doctor actually makes your guitar sound better because it will first transfer more sound into the tone wood and in addition to that it decompresses the top by countering the force of the strings. With the top decompressed the top with move more freely and transmit more sound and a bigger sound. Maybe by installing one you can make your 100 dollar Takamine Jasmine sound better than a $4000,00 dollar Martin.
Meet the JLD Bridge Doctor
Here are some videos of people installing and having great success with the JLD Bridge Doctor. The guy in this video called it hit and miss but the fact is the JLD Bridge Doctor performed the way is is supposed to perform. It took the belly out of the guitar so now the guitar can now be made playable.
In this video most of the bulge was removed by the JLD Bridge Doctor. I suspect that if he humidified the guitar and heated it a bit that he could have removed all the bulge. That said, with the Bridge doctor installed the bulge will not get any worse and with a little shaving of the saddle and shaving of the front of the bridge this guitar will be very playable.
This video demonstrates and improvement in sound with the Bridge Doctor.
Breedlove guitars now have the JLD Bridge Doctor as standard equipment.
JLD Bridge Doctor installed after a belly repair to prevent a recurrence.
JLD Guitar Research and Development is located in Roswell New Mexico home of Area 51. Could this device be captured alien technology? Are these guys ETs? Who knows? It sure took long enough for humans to figure out how to make a guitar that sounds great and doesn't warp. It would appear that JLD has done what no human could do. This simple and elegant design is one small step for man and one giant leap for the beloved flat top guitar.
Click here to read more about their products and how to buy one.
I have not found any negative reviews on this device. It does what it says it will do. 1. It removes belly bulge. 2. It prevents belly bulge. 3. It improves the tone of the guitar. JLD Bridge Doctor or Bridge SystemCLICK HERE
If you want a JLD Guitar Doctor or Bridge System here is their contact information or CLICK HERE
JLD Guitar Research & Development PO Box 5764 Roswell, NM 1-888-696-1998 1-505-622-3694 - Don Kendall
Most DAW software has more bugs than an ant hill and is about as stable as the Middle East.
As most DAW users know, when a new version of a DAW come out that's when the shit starts and since most people are lemmings they will swallow that shit and deal with that shit. When a company releases a buggy version of a DAW what they are in effect doing is charging uses for beta ware and relying on the purchaser to beta test it. That is what I call a fucking screw job.
If a company is selling shitty software it is your right and moral obligation to trash that company because anything else make you fucking pathetic boot licker.
There are fucking nerdy weenies who will defend their shitty DAW of choice from any criticism. Some of the biggest assholes are the Reaper geeks in their pathetic defense of the indefensible. Reaper sucks. Reaper sucked then and it sucks now and there is no reason to believe that Reaper won't suck in the future.
Reaper is just a shitty DAW because of it layout, work flow, instability and functionality but that is not the worst part. Owning Reaper is like buying a shitty car that needs new parts to make it run right and that would not be so bad but in the case of Reaper those parts (the plug ins) end up making Reaper worse.
Reaper is at best an incomplete DAW that requires many third party plugins to make it live up to its alleged potential. Think of it as trying to get Chrysler parts to work in Ford or Chevy. Some may work fine, most will be troublesome and other will not work at all while causing a cascade of problems.
As many of the high priced DAW got shittier and shittier Mixcraft improved. What initially attracted people to Mixcraft is that they were looking for a PC version of Garage Band. Mixcraft is now even better than Garage Band and it has graduated to the big league and is now capable of producing recordings equal to or better than the troublesome high priced DAWS without all the bullshit.
Musician make the best music. Geek music sucks. Mixcraft is not only a good mastering tool it is a good tool for songwriters and composer.
While I will not recommend any DAW or audio gear I will say that since Acoustica has debugged Mixcraft it seems to be the most trouble free DAW out there. Others may not agree. It clearly beats the shit out of Reaper, Audition, Studio One, Cubase 7.5, Sonor, Protools ect..
Based on my recent experience and based on what I have read Acoustica's forum there seems to be very few users having problems with Mixcraft. Let's hope that Acoustica doesn't fuck it up when they release Mixcraft 7.
Based on all the criteria for DAWs Mixcraft is now a winner.
UPDATE:
If you go to Acoustica's Forum you will read very little users there presenting with problems. Other forums are loaded with users crying for help and forum insiders saying shit like, "This has never happened to me" and then picking a fight with the person looking for help. Reaper and KVR forums are loaded with fucking lying shit heads who are insiders.
If a DAW is troublesome chances are it is not the user of the user's computer, it's the DAW. Cubase 7 for instance was not horrible but experienced pro engineers are pulling their hair out because Cubase 7.5 sucks so much now. CLICK HERE FOR REAPERS FORUMIf you want to have some fun go there are troll the arrogant turds who defend the indefensible POS that is Reaper.
Mixcraft is not perfect... no DAW is but it is IMO now as good as anything out there at least for my needs. If your capture is good, even a rank beginner can make decent sounding recordings.
I would challenge a good engineer to use an identical capture of guitar, bass, drums, keys and vocals and mix and master them on the top DAWs and then Mixcraft and see which one sounds best.
Some how a rumor got started that Reaper is awesome. It was and still is a piece of shit that has more bugs than a white trash trailer park and more crashes than a demolition derby.
I got news for you geeks. Recording isn't about fixing bug and coming up with work arounds and that is about all you assholes ever do with Reaper. A DAW is a tool your fucking tools and Reaper is a broken tool,
Here is just one page of bug reports on the Reaper forum. Click on the link so that the geeks who run the Reaper forum get pissed.
Why is there Reaper?
If you were to download Reaper and learned how to navigate on it and it didn't crash constantly you would quickly find that the plugins are so fucking bad that they will make you throw up in your mouth if you are lucky. You will probably have projectile vomit all over your computer screen. Then you install "free" plug ins recommended by the tone deaf assholes on the Reaper forum. They also suck and Reaper starts crashing. You go back to the forum for advice and some Reaper zealot will tell you the problem is your computer. Another clueless turd tells you to uninstall all the plug ins you installed but he can't tell you how to do it. You uninstall the free plugins and Reaper doesn't crash and freeze quite as much so you buy some plug ins like Addictive Drums. Installing them is more painful than having a root canal done through your asshole. Reaper starts crashing again.
Don't even think about using a midi interface.
Reaper Mixer
Mixcraft Mixer
Reaper sucks you in with what sounds like a low price but all you get is a shitty audio engine and an ugly and difficult to use DAW. $225: full commercial license.
$60: discounted license.
DAWs suck and some suck more than others. The bottom line is... if your goal is to make music you will hate Reaper more than your drunk drummer but if you like wasting your time learning shitty software and having geekgasms you will love Reaper. WARNING TO ARTISTS TUNECORE IS A GIANT SCAM!
