Emerald City Productions

Nuendo

Experiences with Computers Cubase and Logic Pro as a composer!

by Stokes-Herbst on May 24, 2010

in Electronic Music, Music

Hi,

I have been in the Music industry for more than 20 years working in rock bands that took me to playing to 15,000 people at a time, to the sole composer as I am at the moment.  The great change though came when I left the band and married and did family stuff!  But that was not the end of it.  I decided that Music was for me and that led me down ‘that’ path plus providence!   The ‘Holy Grail’ of recording at home without the high cost of renting recording studio’s and getting the quality music out there through contacts etc.

Fifteen years ago, cash in hand I started to look for a computer and the problems started!  PC’s then were in their infancy, and all the claims that were made about their ability in music recording terms were about as useful as a chocolate fireguard.  After 3 custom made PC’s at £1000 every time, failures in reliable recording without regular crashing and glitching were ongoing.  I became somewhat of an expert in all things PC, and was able to fix with time most faults whilst not writing music!  I was using Cubase at the time and gradually upgraded to Nuendo 2.  I thought that this final professional DAW would end my problems.

Then problems seemed to revolve around constant crashing or high latency with plug-ins etc.  Further there were problems with the Cubase/Nuendo 2 not performing tasks correctly or locking up.  These would especially be during working in the midi note edit page where dragging notes or selecting notes would lock up the PC.  One that was never solved, was recording midi in time with the click, then on playback it would be time shifted by 0.25s-by the way not my playing!  Whatever I did-offsets etc I never did solve it and I went over to Mac!

In more enlightened moments, I have wondered whether the PC processors/speed though powerful were just not fast enough for the programs and what was recommended. But then I ask why do the Mac’s work straight away out of the box?  Can anyone answer this?

It must be 10 years later after working with PC’s I found out that the Apple Mac’s existed!  It is only in the last 3 years, that I believed what I had been told by every musician worth his salt, that the ‘Apple Mac’ solution to music recording worked!’  Slowly in the past 2 years I have gradually migrated my whole studio to Apple Mac’s.  It has been a steep learning curve-in some ways-new architecture-new procedures-but worth every penny of it, and wish I had not believed the Windows-PC  evangelists brigade.

Looking back, if only I have spent the three grand on a decent Mac, and not on PC’s, I would still have the Mac and be working with it!  I have looked at the quality of build, their speed and seeming robustness of the Operating System.  Perhaps the wisdom of sometimes listening/researching all camps before taking the plunge and also cheaper is NOT always the cheapest option, long term!  Time is precious, and I am sad about the time lost, but perhaps in other ways, I learnt a lot about PC’S.

Logic Pro had been recommended to me and the moment I started hammering it-it held up with whatever I threw at it-or was it the Apple Mac? Whatever the combination I have never looked back-Logic Pro Studio is great, and so is the Mac.

Currently I am writing an LP/EP and have laid down 3 tracks.  I have invested in the Native Instruments Komplete 6 package and have used this as my main writing tool and find it fantastic.  Most of the sounds have been drawn from this stable so far and the sound bank is so vast that this is all I might ever need.  The tracks are Electronic in nature and the writing style.

I hope this little explanation of where I come from shows my hand well and helps in your journey.

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‘Concepcion-the first performance of ‘

by Stokes-Herbst on February 24, 2010

in Electronic Music, General, Music

‘Concepcion’ started out as a piece that was written whilst trying out an idea within Nuendo the software sequencer package.  The idea was Orchestral and Classical, scored with strings and a smattering of wind instruments.  I played it to Russ Conway, my A&R Manager at the time, who likened it to Goretsky, a famous classical composer.  He really liked the piece and suggested that I scored and modified it.  After some work, it ended up in it’s present form.  It seemed that many people liked the work and it was arranged by Russ Conway that the work would be performed at the Stockton Riverside Music Festival in July 2004.

I had to prepare the piece for public performance, so set about scoring the piece for production.  It took about 3 Months before I had finished with something that which is required for professional musicians.  The score was then passed on to Deborah Mollison who scored the hit film ‘East is East’.  We passed the score for correction between each other several times, visiting London to see Deborah before an agreed working score was achieved.  Without her input the dream would have never been realised.

The work has a melancholic sadness but beauty about it, which seems to deeply move people.  After some time it was clear the score needed a title.  After some thought, I realised that the name of my Fathers Burial place would be very appropriate, as A) I had not been able to visit the place, and B) it would be an appropriate memorial to him and his life.

My Father is buried in a little town-Concepcion in the Republic of Paraguay, South America where he was a Christian Missionary when he died under suspicious circumstances.

The works ‘tone of sadness’ yet beauty seem a very appropriate.  After the title was arrived at it was time for the work to be performed at its Premier performance.  It was arranged that it would be played at St Peters Church in Stockton on Tees that had very good acoustics.  Also as an experiment, because of the lack of monies, and the work would be experimentally produced and performed to massively save on costs of a full Orchestra.

I took up this challenge and assured Russ Conway that all would be ok!  We had one rehearsal to get it right-he not knowing my shear fright at the idea!

It was a challenge, but I set about producing the score so that it would play back through Nuendo and on a Midi Instrument if necessary.  This was to be a Yamaha A4000 Professional sampler.  In the score, I provided a Click Track so that the Orchestra would have a cue to come in to.  The idea was that I would record the Instruments and score them into Nuendo.  I would then play back the piece from the Orchestral Samples of my Garritan Personal Orchestra in Nuendo they would be recorded by the A4000.  The idea was that on hitting the ‘play sample’ button on the A4000 Sampler the Orchestra would play ‘in time’ to the ‘Orchestra’ recorded in Nuendo playing through the ‘fold back speakers’, and the orchestra players would accompany the playback adding that ‘real effect’-it worked like a dream!

Members from the Northern Sinfonia were recruited and made up the real orchestra to accompany the sample orchestra with one or two friends of Russ Conway.

On the rehearsal night, a PA was thankfully hastily arranged by Studio 64 in Middlesbrough at the time now called TMA (Tees Music Alliance).  Deborah Mollison was brought up from London.  However neither I nor Russ Conway or Studio 64 had thought about recording the great event!

On the night, all the musicians turned up, and the bows were ready!  The click started in the players fold back and off we went on a pre-premier practice-it sounded fantastic!-then suddenly, Russ Conway had the idea-what about the recording of the work!  Ideas were quickly gone through, and an engineer was suddenly dispatched home to get hold of his Sony handheld Mono DAT recorder!  30 Mins Later and just in time, the performance and recording started.  People were very complementary and I was over the moon with the sound that we had got.  Deep resonances of the piece worked well with the acoustics of the Church which enriched the energy and Pathos in the piece.  Paul Burns, the manager of TMA was more than complementary of the Pieces performance, and a celebration meal was held for the benefit of all the Players.

The only recording that survives is the mono Sony DAT recording.  So I set about trying to EQ and Master the recording for possible release on the Ether!  I used Wavelab 5 and Har-Bal including my beloved Reverb Wizooverb.  It still needs work on the Mastering, but it has been used for various projects.

On reflection, it was just a shame that the work was not in Full Orchestral mode and that we did not have a Stereo recording, however all were well pleased with the whole process and the effort put in on the night.

You can hear the recording on www.itunes.com/paulstokes on the album: Natural Force


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