Irishman Ciaran Hope is kept busy with various composing projects, such as the Hope Violin Concerto for Irish violinist Cora Venus Lunny.In his spare time, Ciarán has been known to blog about ProTools and Sibelius in the hopes of profoundly influencing the world...
http://www.ciaranhope.com
A ProTools Diary
OK, a little self promotion here - my score to the film Truth About Kerry gets a nice mention in this blog review here on tumblr so I figured I would share it on! Check out the movie if you are interested. Its available at amazon.com.
Finished watching “Truth about Kerry” not long ago (DVD has arrived earlier today) and let me tell you, this movie is a MUST SEE :) For every STANATIC and not only, just for everybody who loves good movies. This movie has it all - great story, wonderful acting from everybody, but especially from…
Also the music in the movie is beautiful, great job by Ciaran Hope, he deserves some awards for his score.
I know for sure that I’m going to re-watch this little gem MULTIPLE times :)
I’ve dealt with this before, but one more time, this time with video, here is how to handle any Pro Tools Product Registration Pop-up Problems.
After updating ProTools, I was getting harassed again, by the registration pop up – twice each time – every few minutes. Instead of boiling over with frustration try the following solution:
Manually delete the following file:
On Mac:
“DigidesignRegistration.app”
from Applications/Digidesign/Pro Tools/
On Windows
“DigidesignRegistration.exe”
from C:\Program Files\Digidesign\Pro Tools
It worked for me! Again!
Hi all. I figure for a bit of Pro-Tools blog variety, I should include the auction I am running on ebay for the MAGMA Type II PC card I bought to run my pro-tools expansion chassis on my Macbook Pro laptop. I never used it, so it is unused in its original glass case and bubble-wrap, waiting to give someone a slick mobile pro-tools rig among other possibilities!
Item Name: MAGMA Cardbus / PCMCIA (type II) Host Card Model
Part Number: 01-04551-02
Manufacturer: MAGMA
Condition: unused
Description: Genuine MAGMA Cardbus Host Card
* 68 Pin Proprietary PCMCIA card
* For use with MAGMA PCI Expansion Systems to provide a way to add more PCI slots to your computer
Main Features:
The Magma Card is the connection between your Magma PCI Expansion System and your laptop computer.
The CardBus (also referred to as a PCMCIA Card) is a Type II PC Card
It attaches a Magma PCI expansion system to a laptop computer via a PCMCIA slot.
This is for all my musician and composer geek friends:
For a limited time only, Soundtoys are offering a free plugin using sharing codes. Their Little Radiator™ plugin is free if you have my code.
Little Radiator is based on the warm sound of the classic Altec 1566A tube mic preamp. Soundtoys suggest it is great to fatten up bass, guitar, drums, or vocals. They also feel it is a fantastic addition on an electric piano track. Use a tiny bit or a whole lot. They also point out that Little Radiator brings a lot of grit and warmth to you sound – perfect for shaking the “clean” vibe off of your tracks.
Some History
Altec gear played a big part in shaping the early “sound” of Motown between 1961 to 1964. Songs by greats like The Four Tops, The Marvelettes and The Supremes owe a lot of their warmth to passing through Altec mixers.
Click the link I’ve included and use the Sharing Code: 386-7887-588 to get your free plugin!
Come on, you know you can’t resist!
Have to travel to Europe on a recording project, bringing the laptop and don’t want to buy a new $79 Apple power supply?
You could buy Apples $39 travel kit but you will loose 4-5ft of cable length and its annoying as hell. After much research I have a stupidly simple solution for you. A $10 travel Adapter head for a plug… check out the video..
Is it safe to say that the Sibelius notation software ROCKS the classical notation world. Why? Because it does. I’m sitting here entering my 1st violin concerto into Sibelius and it honestly could not be any easier. Yes, there is a little learning curve for the entry keys on a laptop when you don’t have a numeric keypad, but it certainly isn’t the end of the world.
Getting my score from Manuscript paper to computer score has never been easier
I first used Sibelius way way back in 1996, when it was running on an Acorn computer if you can remember that! It was incredibly user friendly, tied to the Acorn OS and couldn’t run on another machine. I ended up switching toFinale at the time, simply because I needed something that could run on a PC Laptop.
Years later I finally repurchased Sibelius now that it was available on Mac (having become a mac Pro Tools convert back ~ 2000). I have been slow to take to it, for fear of a large learning curve on a time sensitive project. I thought my concerto was the perfect time to re-introduce myself to it at a high level, seeing as I am feeding it into the computer in stages, as opposed to the usual overnight entry for a film score cue.
Surprising Simplicity
Keyboard entry -
was seamless to set up - go to Preferences and select Input devices and if your keyboard is not there already just click Find New Input Devices and voila!
Note entry -
was equally simple. Pressing N gave me two forms of entry into a measure, and pressing 1, 2, 3, 4 etc changed the note value which could then be entered with the mouse pointer or the keyboard.
Scanning through the document -
simply involves clicking and dragging the paper and it moves as if like a sheet of paper on a desk. Unbelievably intuitive and straightforward.
Playback -
is amazing! Sibelius chooses the instruments from its sound library that it feels best fit your score and does a helluva job mocking up the score, considering its notation software. Simplicity is the key for me. I just want to hear it to be sure I’m not messing up, and it more than handles the challenge with no real work required.
Printing -
As for printing! Honestly, it couldn’t have gone any smoother. To print out a test of the solo violin part, I simply opened up a ‘Part’ window by pressingOption+Command+R and selected the solo violin which opened and then I just printed it… no fixing markings, or titles or any shenanigans like that which I’ve been used to.
I’ll blog a little more on it, when I’m a little further into the transcriptions, but for now, I hope some of these shortcuts and Sibelius for Dummies tips help anyone reading.
Film Music Magazine announces the launch of ComposerStudios.com, the magazine’s latest online destination for film and television composers that features photos and descriptions of the studios of working film & TV composers from around the world along with links to the composers and their music.
The new website highlights the technology and tools used by working film and television composers, and features photos as well as and descriptions of the technology, hardware and software used in their studios.
“We’re excited to give composers a look at how their peers work in the industry,” said Film Music Magazine publisher Mark Northam. “One of our primary focuses with this project is on everyday working composers around the world who have streamlined their studios for maximum efficiency and production. Composers often spend so much time working by themselves that they don’t get a lot of time to see how other composers have designed their studios.”
I know a lot of people have forgotten these great consoles from Digidesign, but the ProControl and its expansion Edit Pack and Fader Pack are still fantastic consoles to work on. I’ve spent the last few weeks working closely with Producer/Guitarist Noel Hogan (The Cranberries) mixing the new Seneca album. While they are fresh in my mind, here are a few of the recurring things I do with the Channel Matrix on the control surfaces to speed up my mixing. Muting or Solo’s I use the Channel matrix a lot, to speedily Mute or Solo channels that are off my faders. I might be working on drums that fill my pro-control and have guitars on the fader pack but want to pop on or off several voice tracks to A/B the balance. In this case, I identify where the vocal tracks are on the matrix, and can access them speedily rather than having to hunt for them, which wastes good mixing time. Finding a selected Track I also like to use the Matrix to allow me to quickly call up the tracks I want onto my Pro-Control and Fader Pack. They can hold 16 tracks, so if on screen I know I’ve been screwing around with the lead guitar for example, but its not on my faders and I need it there now, I can select it on screen, and then look to the matrix to see what light is selected. If its in a different view than I am in (A,B,C or D) that view light blinks so simply pressing it will drag that group of 32 tracks into focus and then pressing “go to” on the upper left of the matrix followed by the channel you want, will call it onto the faders. TIP: when I call up a track I like it near my hands, so I select a channel 5-7 to the left of it, so that the one I want ends up near my hand position. Try it!
Channel Matrix at Work
So, getting all my plugins working in PT9 is the usual pain in the neck of a process.
Tip: Remember your plugin folder is in root/Library/Application Support/Digidesign
Let me share what I’ve discovered so far in case any of these are issues for you:
The new SampleTank 2.5 is available in 2 versions: SampleTank XL and L, which differ only by the number of sounds included. If you want the best, the new SampleTank 2.5 XL comes with 2 DVDs and over 2,000 sounds (for over 6.5GB of samples) plus an extra bonus sound disk! Your second option is the L version, an affordable introduction to SampleTank that includes 1 DVD and over 1,100 sounds.
You should also note ( as I discovered after using up an authorization) any instruments imported into ST XL will not play in ST SE, so just go ahead and use the ST XL if you are trying to decide!
TIP: Remember to point the root folder in preferences to the location where you have your instruments, most likely a folder called ST2SEInstruments - mine is on a separate internal drive. Also, remember your presents and FXs need to be in the root/Library/Application Support/IK Multimedia/Sampletank folder if you want the software to see them.
The new Sonic Synth 2 loaded very similarly to Sampletank.
TIP: As with Sampletank, point the root folder in preferences to the location where you have your instruments. Remember, your presents and FXs need to be in the root/Library/Application Support/IK Multimedia/sonic synth folder.
This loaded ok when I finally got the latest versions of everything (PT 9.0.2, OSX 10.6.7, Miroslav_Philharmonik_1.1.2.dmg) so finally I have some sexy samples again! Yay!
TL Space -
My goodness, what a load of bother. One of my favorite plugins giving me a royal pain in the ass during the update. The problem has been, that I cannot get the IR’s to install no matter what, and I can’t find my original install CD to see if that is any better than the downloads…not cool….
Inspector XL by Roger Nichols -
Well, after setting off thinking that this one was not going to work anymore, I discovered, much to my great joy, that my version was recent enough to at least get the master Inspector module running in PT9. In my plugins folder, I have:
- Inspector v1.1x11
and
- IXL Level Meter RTAS
- IXL Level Meter (H) RTAS
- IXL Multimeter RTAS
- IXL Spectrum Analyzer RTAS
- IXL Statistics RTAS
- IXL Stereo Analyzer RTAS
all v1.0x76
Inspector shows up and works (I have the ilok authorization as well of course), but the v1.0x76 versions do not. Its such a great plugin set, as long as it stays working I’m using it for now!
Discontinued Plugins -
Cycling 74 have discontinued a whole bunch of their plugins including Pluggo, Mode, Hipno, UpMix and Octirama. They say they will still continue to support current users as best as they can, but there will be no further development on either the plug-in packages or their supporting technology. so I’d keep away from buying new ones from a company that took thousands of dollars off me and now drops the products. If they did it before, they’ll do it again with others, so don’t say you haven’t been warned.
SRS Circle Surround have also discontinued their plugin, so now there are way less encoding plugins to choose from. Again, I find myself saying, why would I ever encode with SRS again, when I can’t trust them to leave me with the technology in my machine. Its going to be dolby all the way form now on… here is how everyone feels about this! I’m watching this forum discussion at the DUC to see if somehow someone finds a workaround in PT9. I can still hope can’t I?
ARL Soundstage is also discontinued, as it was never reconfigured for Intel and will be missed.
Paid Updates -
My Sony Oxford Eq ($25) and Eventide Harmonizer ($49) required paid upgrades so far.
