Switchfoot got reacquainted with Toronto this past Friday night, making a stop at The Phoenix concert theatre as part of the Hello Hurricane tour.  It was their second show there within a year, and after catching the first one back in June, there was little question that my wife and I would head down for another round.

On this tour they decided to do something a little different by playing the entire album start to finish, followed up with a bunch of fan favorites from previous albums.  Very cool.

If its true that a great live show is all about making a connection with your audience, then Switchfoot certainly succeeded on this particular night.  Two things happened. First, lead singer Jon Foreman took the time to make sure a fan was okay after they passed out during the show.  Second, he invited another fan up on stage to actually play guitar for a portion of a song!  The energy in the place was high all night but kicked it up to 11 after that!

Great show!

www.switchfoot.com/
The Phoenix Concert Theatre

With all the hype and attention given to the ground-breaking visual work done on James Cameron’s latest epic film (a hype that’s well deserved in my opinion), its easy to forget about the incredible soundscape that accompanied the film.

But the 3D aspect of the movie, as it relates to sound, is actually really interesting.  Surround sound has been with us for quite some time now, but I don’t think its really been utilized to its full potential.  The challenge has always been that a sound source placed behind us tends to pull us out of a story that is visually being told in front of us.

The exception is when there is a significant amount of material that happens off screen but is a key element of the story.  I think the best surround sound experience I’ve ever had was the movie U-571, where the majority of the movie takes place on a submarine and a lot of the sound sources for what you’re hearing are not on-screen elements.  Not only that, but the characters (what stories are all about) are also responding to those unseen sound sources as well.

The 3-dimensional experience that Avatar created however, takes it to a whole new level because the visual elements can now share some of the spacial environment created through surround sound.  That almost certainly helps our brains accept them as connected and part of the story, not some distraction happening at the back of the theater.

I know what you’re thinking – ‘but I feel like a loser wearing those glasses’.  Yeah.  Perhaps 3D movies won’t be here to stay until they can do it all without the 50’s style eyewear, and perhaps the glory days of surround sound will have to wait a little longer, but its definitely a step in the right direction!

Abbey Road Studio 1

There was a time when just acquiring the use of a recording studio was for an elite few – when the idea of building a home-based recording studio was about as realistic as setting up an assembly line to build cars for you and your friends in the basement.  Oh how times have changed.

In the 50’s and 60’s, the worth of a recording studio was largely to do with the size of the live room.  The spaces were designed to mimic live concert halls because there was little to no processing of the sound after the actual tracking (ever heard of Abbey Road?).  As a result, owning a recording studio was somewhat comparable to owning your own concert hall.

In the 80’s, recording spaces went in almost the completely opposite direction, where for instance, drums would be recorded in small booths practically devoid of any natural acoustics.  The worth of a recording studio became more about the control room and the equipment found therein.  And the cost of the good stuff was exorbitant – well out of the range of mere mortals.

Computer-based DAWs (digital audio workstations) dominate the process of recording today, and just about anybody with any kind of budget can create their own recordings.  The debate about whether or not they should is ongoing.

Regardless, today’s large scale commercial recording studios are closing their doors at an alarming rate, and professionals and amateurs alike are setting up smaller home-based facilities with steadily increasing success.

I would venture to suggest that there still remains an immense difference between low and high end gear, and immeasurably more to be said about having someone with the know-how and experience to operate whatever equipment is on hand.  Arguably, many of the factors that result in a great recording have never changed.   But there is little question that it is a brave new world for artists and an exciting time to be making music!

The energy that comes from live music is undeniable – its infectious and engaging.  I was reminded of that tonight as my wife and I decided to head out to a local restaurant and live music venue called Orleans.  We were really fortunate to catch a blues/jazz musician by the name of Andy Earle,  who had a drummer and bass player along for support.  It was good pub grub, good beer, and great music!

Our hometown (Newmarket, Ontario) is without question a suburb, so the fact that we have such a truly cool locale to take in such good music (literally 2 minutes from our house) is pretty darn cool.  Well worth venturing out of the studio for!

www.orleansnewmarket.com

Andy Earle

Frank Feather, author of Future Living and Biznets, reported that approximately 3 or 4 new blogs are born every 2 seconds.  For those of us who tend to spend more time in the right hemisphere of our brains, that’s about 1 new blog every 0.5 seconds.  I’m not exactly sure which 0.5 seconds I claimed but they will have come and gone in the time it took to get the first sentence down, and just like that, my voice is officially added to the fray.

To be honest, I never expected to be a blogger.  People who know me personally will likely attest to the fact that for the most part, I’m not overly talkative.  But, those same people may also report that under the right conditions, if a topic comes up that I’m particularly passionate about, you may well hear about it with some fervor.

So, with the glory of my 0.5 seconds now long gone, where are we headed?  Well, I’m a professional audio engineer and consultant, an amateur musician, and I designed and constructed a recording studio, so I expect you’ll find the majority of posts will fit neatly under the umbrella of those domains.  But be forewarned, I make no promises that I won’t wander from time to time into arenas in which I claim less expertise.

So there it is.  Welcome!  Enjoy.  Follow at your own discretion.