Nashville Diaries, Week 20: The January Doldrums
The tour is officially over, and I'm trying my best to occupy myself with my newfound spare time. Here's how I entertain myself:
Read MoreMainstage Mondays: Free Atmospherics Pads for Mainstage 3
For this holiday week's mainstage monday post, I'm giving away a free bank of my favorite atmospheric worship pad presets. No strings attached.
Read More4 Quick Tips For Staying Productive While Traveling
I’ve been gone from home for the past week doing shows and recording sessions, and my schedule has felt terribly out of kilter. Here are 4 quick ways I’m trying to get something done while I’m on the road:
Read More5 Tips I’ve Heard From Top Nashville Sidemen
The knowledge of music that is Nashville continues to wash over me, deconstructing everything I think I know about how the music business works, tinkering with it, and then putting it back together in ways I never could have dreamed. And I’m the one stuck scratching my head, holding a bunch of pieces left over that I thought should have gone on somewhere.
Read MoreMainStage Mondays: Layering Instruments
Combining sounds together make them thicker and more interesting. Fortunately for us, MainStage does this in a super easy way. Here’s how to layer a piano and a pad sound over the top of each other:
Read MoreMainStage Mondays: Transferring Concerts Between Different Computers
This week I show a reader how to quickly transfer MainStage Concerts among different computers.
Read More10 Things I Learned From Moving
10. I have too much stuff.
Read MoreWhy Listening Is The Most Underrated Talent in the Music Industry
A few weeks ago I was working with someone that was trying to convince me to do something I didn’t want to do, something I felt would jeopardize my career in the long term.
Read More5 Tips On Becoming a Rock Keyboard Player
This week I help a reader get started playing rock keyboard:
Read More7 Ways to Make Your Music Gear Invisible
We own music equipment to serve a means, not to be an end in itself. Here are 7 ways to make your performances more about your music and less about fiddling with your equipment:
• Practice pressing buttons. The quicker you are at getting the sound you want, the less you have to worry about twisting knobs during the performance.
• Pre-prep everything. Don't wait to the last second to put together your equipment – test everything at home, so it's not a distraction at the venue.
• Buy intiutive equipment . If your live rig is difficult to work with, get rid of it. Speed is everything when you're making on the fly tweaks.
• Buy quality equipment. Settling for cheap may be easier in the short term, but paying a few extra dollars for something that won't constantly need fixing saves time and a lot of headaches.
• Don't switch equipment too often. It's tempting to always buy the latest and greatest, but having equipment on stage that you're comfortable with is often more important than having all the latest bells and whistles.
• Practice using your equipment at home. Don't just program at home – set up your equipment just like you'll be using it at the venue, and practice with it frequently.
• Simplify, simplify. The fewer cables, software instruments, and keyboards you have on stage, the less likely you are to have a problem with one of them.
