Amy Whitcomb, lead vocalist of The Whits has been competing with the group Delilah in the Sing Off.  You can hear more of Amy singing for The Whits on our demos page.

McKay Crockett, is one of the leads of Vocal Point, BYU’s acapella group.  They are also in The Sing-Off.  McKay Crockett is also featured on our demos page with the song “Unbreakable.”

The Anser, featuring singer/songwriters, Patrick James, Jarrett Burns, and Gray Aydelott are competing on the X-Factor.  They recorded their acoustic songs for their videos, “Dancing in the Light (Unplugged), and “No Strings (Unplugged)” at Noisebox Studios.  These recordings were recorded live with no post editing on the tracks.  Here is their audition for the X-Factor:

Here are their Acoustic Videos:

I love this video that Blind Actuaries made.  Lots of video clips of them recording at the studio and playing live at venues.

With many requests from clients that we work with  We have added Logic 9 Studio to our collection of software tools that we have available in the studio.  Logic is well known through out the industry to be one of the top DAW’s used by composers.  Logic Pro really shines on it’s midi features and implementation and provides many instruments and loops.  But this isn’t all.  Many top artists and musicians on Major Labels have done their recording and music production within Logic Pro (more info here).

With Logic available, this has opened more possibilities for our clients.  For example, we can now help finish off songs that musicians may have started in Garage Ban or Logic Express.  With Wave Burner being a part of Logic Studio, we can do the final CD mastering on our Mac instead of moving to CD Architect on the PC.  We can also help convert projects for people who need to transfer a project from Garage Band to Pro Tools, or Sonar to Logic and etc.

Our flagship samplers that we use are set-up to run inside of Logic.  So if you compose a song in Garage Band with piano, strings or drums that are included in that software, we can upgrade those sounds to Synthogy Ivory, East West Orchestra, Steven Slate Drums, or Superior Drummer.  This will allow us to upgrade your project studio songs and make them big and commercial.

In high end studios, Pro Tools is the industry standard recording software and hardware.  While many other recording software programs are great tools for recording and can get professional results, Pro Tools packs a punch on the most important basics for recording, editing and mixing.  For example, beyond its unparalleled audio editing capabilities, its audio file management, grouping, automation, and stability are the best in the industry.  Recently, Pro Tools has released version 8 which steps deeper into the midi, virtual instrument world that most studios have been using other software programs for.  Many studios are now able to use Pro Tools as their only recording and composition platform.

Pro Tools 8 is an outstanding upgrade for Music Production.  It has been fantastic for our current projects.  The most exciting part of this upgrade has been the midi improvements.  Previously, we have been doing any complex midi editing in Sonar.  Transferring projects back and forth between different platforms always costs time and money.  However, now projects involving Midi can stay inside Pro Tools and we can make midi edits just as fast as we could in Sonar.

Clients will be happy to know that Pro Tools incorporates Sibelius Notation.  This last week a client came in with a Midi clip he had recorded himself without a click track (metronome).  We spent the time lining up his track to the time line and it resulted in notation that looked surprisingly good.  Pro Tools isn’t meant to take the place of notation software completely (no sequencer is currently meant to do that), but instead, it is meant to be a tool that allows you to get a rough notation of your song that is a usable way of sharing your music with others.  Pro Tools can export the notation as a Sibelius file which can then be taken into Sibelius (one of the leading notation software programs) where you can add articulations and polish it to its professional form.  The good news is that clients can now ask for a decent looking notation of their midi recordings.

Other huge improvements include the sleek new look, a playlist view that allows us to more easily put together the best parts of your takes, 10 inserts per track allowing us to shape each track just the way we’d like to.  New instruments are included such as a great authentic sounding B-3 Organ with leslie (my personal new favorite), a Vacuum Tube synth, Boom drum machine and others.  New plug-ins by Digidesign’s Air group are extremely innovative and will allow some fresh new sounds for artists that are looking for something new.

We give Pro Tools 8 a big thumbs up and we are excited to make it part of your future projects.

Please write 48 Hour Film Project in the subject line, or mail the materials to this address:

You may email the required materials to chadrussey@yahoo.com

Eighth House Productions

358 South 700 East #B136

Salt Lake City, Utah 84102

I look forward to hearing from you,
Chad Jeffrey Russey
www.eighthhouseproductions.com

www.russeyentertainment.com

No doubt that the talent level grows more every year as competition between bands continues to grow.  As a judge, I had the responsibility to judge the bands in many different categories including technicality, musicianship, creativity, crowd participation and etc.  The final goal was to pick the top three bands to go to State.  This previously would be a simple task.  However, this year the competition was very close.  In fact, all of the bands scores were within a few points.

The winners were Cluster Funk, Gypsy Cab and This Way to the Exit.  These three bands also won some time recording at Noisebox Studios and I hope to have the permission to post their recordings to show how talented the bands in Utah have become.   Check out the Demos page in the near future to hear recordings of the bands.