When Frank Zappa Discovered A New Talent

Here's a repost of something that I posted in 2009 about Frank Zappa. That was in the beginning of my blog and I didn't have too many readers, so I thought you'd might be interested.

Sometime during the 80's when the AES (Audio Engineering Society) conference was still being held at the Waldorf Hotel in New York city, I happened to meet Frank in the one of the hallways between hotel rooms (a lot of the manufacturers showed their gear in hotel rooms rather than in the relatively small banquet hall). He asked me to tag along with him up to the Synclavier room (Frank was a power user), and of course I did.

As we were about to enter the hotel room, a teenaged kid comes up to Frank and asks him to come over into the alcove at the end of the corridor to listen to him play. Frank, being ever so polite as he always was with anyone he did not consider a fool, told him he would be back to listen to him in a few minutes after he finished his business with Synclavier.

Of course it was never just a few minutes with Frank, since everyone there (probably about a hundred people) wanted a chance to talk with him. So after about an hour, the kid came in the Synclavier room and taps Frank on the shoulder. Frank sees the kid and says, "I promise I'll be out in a few minutes."

About 45 more minutes go by and the kid comes back again, taps Frank on the shoulder again, and looks at him with these big doe eyes and says, "Frank, pleeese?" It's hard for anyone to resist a kid pleading like that, so Frank said his goodbyes and headed out into the hallway with the kid, who took him to a quiet corner near the elevators.

The kid had a little battery powered Pignose amp and a Travis Bean guitar (the one with the aluminum neck and long out of business), and began to play for Frank. To everyone's amazement, he wasn't playing with a pick or anything like the usual guitar style that millions of players use - he was cradling the guitar so it's perpendicular to his body and tapping on the frets with both hands.

The kid was scared though, and pretty much fumbled through the song. Frank sensed this, and at the end of the song said, "Hey, that was great! Can you play me something else?"

The kids confidence instantly rose through the ceiling and he proceeded to rip off a song with his unique style that bordered on virtuosity. We were all amazed. Frank gave him his card and told him to call him if he ever got to LA (don't know if he ever did).

The kids name? Stanley Jordan, who eventually went on to a pretty nice career as a jazz guitarist using his unique style.

Frank could be totally brutal with players (or anyone for that matter) with an attitude, and was especially good at cutting them down to size (some good stories there too). But he was also sensitive to players who valued heart above technique and was always open to people showing him what they could do. I'm not sure how much Frank helped Stanley in his career, but at least for one moment on a cold Saturday afternoon in New York, he lifted him towards the sun.

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Bob Ludwig Discusses The Loudness War

This is the third or fourth week in a row that I've featured something by mastering legend Bob Ludwig, but both I and most of my readers can't get enough of this guy's wisdom. In this video from the 2009 AES show, he discusses how the loudness wars are as old as recording itself and even plays some before and after examples.

Perhaps the biggest pearl of wisdom is about how little a mastering engineer does (or should do) to a well-recorded master.

Speaking of AES New York, I'll be signing books at the Hal Leonard booth at 2PM this Saturday, the 22nd. Stop by and say hi if you're planning to attend the show.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.

Come To My AES Sessions And Book Signing

I'll be presenting a couple of sessions at the upcoming AES convention in San Francisco on November 5th and 6th entitled "Social Media For Musicians And Engineers - Part 1 and 2."

Here are the session descriptions:

Social Media For Musicians And Engineers - Part 1

For the first time in history, an artist or band can directly communicate, market and sell directly to their fans without the need of a record label. This presentation describes the basic elements needed for a successful online social presence, as well as the latest strategies for music and video releases, online promotion and sales, and interaction with fans and clients.

Topics covered include:

The meaning of Music 3.0

Why a website is the center of your social media universe

The elements of a successful site

The new release schedule

Your mailing list - old tech, new importance

The social media world is larger than you think

Measurement techniques

Social Media For Musicians And Engineers - Part 2

MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are important elements for developing a fanbase, but without the proper strategy they can prove ineffective and take so much time that there's no time left for creating. This presentation shows artists, bands, musicians and audio professionals the best techniques to utilize social media as a promotional tool without it taking 20 hours a day.

Topics covered include:

Social Media management strategies

Optimizing your YouTube presence

The secrets of viral videos

The online video world is larger than you think

Search Engine Optimization basics

Using Facebook and Twitter for marketing

The secret behind successful tweets

Is MySpace dead?

What’s next?

If you're attending AES, please join me for the sessions and book signing afterwards.

An AES Show 2009 Overview From Afar

While I wasn't able to attend the AES convention in New York City this year, I did get multiple reports on what's hot.

This looks to be one of the smallest attendance in recent memory although it appeared crowded because the show was limited to only 8 rows of exhibitors and few demo rooms. There were almost no large sound reinforcement speaker demos because it's just too darned expensive to ship large arrays these days. And DAW powerhouse Digidesign (now Avid) didn't even exhibit, choosing instead to take a couple of suites in a hotel across the street (much to chagrin of AES).

Most veteran attendees of the show seemed to be disappointed, while the new to the business marveled at all the gear. Everyone seemed to like the various panels and sessions, with the ones with Kevin Killen, Chris Lord Alge, Bruce Swedien and recording The Beatles garnering the most praise.

As has been the trend of the last half dozen years, there hasn't been a product or technology that was the overwhelming hit of the show. Everything was evolutionary instead of revolutionary once again.

That being said, the Novation Launchpad seemed to get the most interest, followed by new ribbon microphones by Audio Technica and Shure. Another trend that actually looks to be a good one is the fact that the 500 series lunchbox format has now become a standard, with more and more manufacturers releasing modules for it. Everyone seemed to like the 8 channel SSL X-desk, as they did the new Korg Wavedrum.

So if you didn't make it the show, you probably didn't miss much product-wise that you couldn't see elsewhere. If you really wanted to network or see the sessions, that's another story.

Blast From The Past: Frank Zappa At AES

After my post regarding Frank Zappa last Friday, I've had a lot of requests to post another story. Here it is.

Sometime during the 80's when the AES (Audio Engineering Society) conference was still being held at the Waldorf Hotel in New York city, I happened to meet Frank in the one of the hallways between hotel rooms (a lot of the manufacturers showed their gear in hotel rooms rather than in the relatively small banquet hall). He asked me to tag along with him up to the Synclavier room (Frank was a power user) and of course I did.

As we were about to enter the hotel room, a teenaged kid comes up to Frank and asks him to come over into the corridor and listen to him play. Frank, being ever so polite as he always was with anyone he did not consider a fool, told him he would be back to listen to him in a few minutes after he finished his business with Synclavier.

Of course it was never just a few minutes with Frank, since everyone there (probably about a hundred people) wanted a chance to talk with him. So after about an hour, the kid comes in the room and taps Frank on the shoulder. Frank sees the kid and says, "I promise I'll be out in a few minutes."

About 45 more minutes go by and the kid comes back again, taps Frank on the shoulder again, and looks at him with these big doe eyes and says, "Frank, pleeese?" It's hard for anyone to resist a kid pleading like that, so Frank says his goodbyes and heads out into the hallway with the kid, who takes him to a quiet corner near the elevators.

The kid had a little battery powered Pignose amp and a Travis Bean guitar (the one with the aluminum neck and long out of business), and begins to play for Frank. To everyone's amazement, he's not playing with a pick or anything like the usual guitar style that millions of players use - he's cradling the guitar so it's perpendicular to his body and tapping on the frets with both hands.

The kid is scared though, and pretty much fumbles through the song. Frank senses this, and at the end of the song says, "Hey, that was great! Can you play me something else?"

The kids confidence instantly rose through the ceiling and he proceeded to rip off a song with his unique style that bordered on virtuosity. We were all amazed. Frank gave him his card and told him to call him if he ever got to LA (don't know if he ever did).

The kids name? Stanley Jordan, who eventually went on to a pretty nice career as a jazz guitarist using his unique style.

Frank could be totally brutal with players (or anyone for that matter) with an attitude, and was especially good at cutting them down to size (some good stories there too). But he was also sensitive to players who valued heart above technique and was always open to people showing him what they could do. I'm not sure how much Frank helped Stanley in his career, but at least for one moment on a cold Saturday afternoon in New York, he lifted him towards the sun.

Words Of Wisdom

One of the smartest guys in the music business I know is Bob Ohlsson.

Bob was never an influential music executive for a big label.  In fact, he wasn't an executive at all. Bob was an engineer for Motown during their best, most productive years in Detroit and while he was there, he watched Berry Gordy build a world-class company and studied how the history of the entertainment business repeated itself.  From this came a worldly view of the business of music that always provides a "D'uh" moment whenever I read one of his posts. Bob sees the music biz (really the entire entertainment biz) on a global scale unlike anyone I've ever met.

Here's an excerpt from a recent post on the Mastering list regarding the state of live music that really hit home.

"The minute anybody has begun trying to treat entertainment as some kind of a generic commodity historically-speaking, they have always been headed for a financial train wreck.

Corporate investors really want to believe in movie mogul mythology because it appeals to their quest for power. The press loves to believe they know what people want and support the same myth endlessly as something to blame the failure of their pet projects on. Artists who fail to connect with a large enough audience to quit their day jobs also love to use "the evil industry" as their excuse. Obviously label execs love for people to believe they have great power and I think one of our biggest current problems are sorcerers apprentices at the labels who actually believe this pretention."

After some interesting private discussions at the recent AES show, I believe that we're going to see some of the great record makers of our time exit the business soon just for the reason that Bob outlined. For them, the record making process has become no fun and you have to have fun on some level to make great music.

It all comes back to a little saying that I have - "Art is something that you do for yourself; a craft is something you do for someone else."  The business of making music has turned far too much into a craft in recent years.

AES Trends

While AES 2008 was essentially the same as all recent AES's in that the audio products shown were evolutionary rather than revolutionary, there was one trend that caught my eye.

Several companies were displaying dual capsule mics where each capsule had it's own output (multi-pattern mics use two diaphragms but mix the result into a single output).  This enables you to manually change the pattern either while recording or when you're mixing.

I don't know how practical dual out mics will actually be since we've been getting along just fine all these years without this ability, but it's nice that mic manufactures are thinking outside the box.