Coconut Radio is now an HD Video on YouTube – DIY Video TIPS

Mikooshka and Ulysses - Coco Bros...

The Coconut Radio video was a real pleasure to work on for the last year. Through the process I learned a lot about making videos. Let me share some of the experience and offer some tips.

The project was something I undertook alone. I had asked for some help from friends but realized early on that I didn’t need a government grant or anyone other than my star, the fabulous “Ulysses Castellanos,” to help me. I would go DIY. The process of “going it alone” means a few mistakes, a steep learning curve, and enormous satisfaction at the end of the process.

After discovering the documentary “Wild Men of the Kalahari” I knew I had the base footage for the video. I just needed to shoot some extra footage of ulysses and cut back and forth. I needed a concept, and some gear. The ideas that came to me mostly involved “pirate radio” and iconic images like television twest patterns and static. I wanted to the video to be about communication and culture and have a broken, frenetic quality that would match the strange spoken word that Ulysses dropped a coupel year back at that now infamous session.  I envisioned Ulysses in a dark, claustrophobic “studio,” hunched over a microphone as the beats rolled and the images of the bushmen were cut in and out.

Eventually we decided to use his studio and project images from “Wild Men” on Ulysses and a blank wall, a technique similar to that found in many early 1980s videos. I had bought a Canon HD video camera because I knew I’d want to do more video projects in the future. This was the only large expenditure. The camera cost $1000 and the software I went with was inexpensive but very capable (Sony Vegas which cost me about $130). The studio was hot and we spent about 2 hours on a dozen takes. Much of that footage made it into the final cut. Later I shot more footage of Ulysses and me in my bedroom with a white sheet as a blank backdrop.

I learned a little about editing during the process. I got a pretty hectic dynamic going in the first 45 seconds before I let it settle in and mostly focus on the bushmen and Ulysses. One great tool was the composite feature where one track sits on top of another. The effect of the projection in the first shoot meant I had multiple layers interracting all at once. To top it off I found a couple ways to tweak the contrast and colour, and I found the effect that really brought it all together – “Television Synch” which creates that erratic “vertical hold” effect I use a couple times through the video.

Aside from suggesting you check out cameras like the Canon HV30/40 which record HD, and editing suites like the afforadable Sony Vegas, the other tips I can offer are:

1. have a concept before you begin.  consider storyboarding, costume, lighting and colour

2. be the “director” and push to get what you want. you have to be strong – insistent and persistent.

3. be creative. you probably have very small budget so do something innovative. make it look GOOD. these days even “lo-fi” can be “hd”.

4. shoot from different angles and improvise some things. some “happy accidents” will bring stylish, artistic results.

Good luck with your projects – let me know how they turn out!

Superb Case for Korg “MicroKontrol” Keyboard from Advance Flight Case Enterprises

Not too long ago I received a heavy-duty flight case for my Korg Microkontrol controller keyboard. The Microkontrol is a small two octave USB controller with small keys and a large number of knobs, faders, touchpads and x/y joystick controller. I’ve managed to use the keyboard to write some synth parts and got started on using it to perform live material (in conjunction with Ableton Live!). Through a contact I was able to get my hands on a custom made case from a Hong Kong manufacturer called Advance Flight Case Enterprises. Here are my thoughts.

The case itself is quite beautiful. It is shiny, sturdy and attractive. I like the clasps that tighten up the case and I feel if I had to travel with the Korg that the keyboard would be in good shape if it were shipped in this case. I have a caveat though! The Korg doesn’t fit perfectly inside. It’s very close to perfection but the Korg will move a little in all directions. I have slipped my USB cable down the backside and placed a light sweater over the keys when I took it to a gig – just to be sure nothing would rattle about or get jarred inside.

My conclusion is that for a custom case, AFCE got it just about right. Where they went wrong was not that they made an error in sizing – they could have easily also made it a little too small which would have rendered the case useless! What I would suggest is that they might have shipped a few extra variations of the grey protective foam inside the empty case, along with some small glue packet or notes on how to achieve a perfect custom fit. Then the customer can tinker and get it just right!

AFCE make cases for a variety of products and industries. Visit them online at www.yiyuan-case.com

New music, new technologies, new distribution of my CD

Hi folks. I have been busy though I’ve neglected this blog for the better part of 6 months. My last posting was March when I wrote about playing a show at Labspace Studio in Toronto’s east end. Since then I’ve been working on the music I recorded with my pal Paul Schedlich, working on websites and video, and finalizing the material for  my CD release.

It looks a lot like sometime this fall I will be able to release an EP with songs like “Alright Kids” and “The Legend.” I will be at design school, studying graphics and motion at Centennial College, but I’ll try to keep producing and finishing my musical projects. There are some hot tracks cooking alongside those two as well, a burner I call “Tonight Kids” and a newer tune called “Moving On,” which reminds me of dark rock with funky house beats in a kind of Happy Mondays JoyDivision stew.

My biggest news and proof that I’ve been hard at work is the release of my album “Construct Deconstruct Reconstruct.” It is going live across a number of digital platforms including iTunes, eMusic, Amazon, Napster, Rhpasody and others (via Tunecore) and I’m finishing up the art for the Amazon “on demand” service called “CreateSpace” so people can buy the physical CD. I expect both to be good to go by September.

The video for “Coconut Radio” is almost finished and I am working on a promotional website that will encourage remixing, mashups, and other kinds of audio-video collaboration. Ulysses Castellanos and I are throwing a “free beer” party and sharing, open-source style, all the files and tracks associated with the original mix. I’ll also include a documentary and some stills, plus links to video sources and for those new to remixing, I’ll provide links and ideas about using software like Acid and GarageBand to rework our track. Expect a release very shortly and everything to go completely live by September as well.

I’m working a lot on impementing audio and video through WordPress as a CMS (Content Management System). there are a number of very useful plugins that make adding audio files, flash video and mail lists easy and attractive on your websites (more on technologies like Apture, FLV-Embed and MailChimp in a future post).

On a final note, I hope to make a little portfolio project out of the Coconut Radio video launch by designing a small fanzine as well. Want to try to build in a CD pocket into the back cover – any ideas? Let me know – looking forward to your feedback!

Mike

Show – Hot Soup – March 5th

I am playing a show on March 5th at Labspace Studio in Leslieville, Toronto. The venue is a large warehouse and the gig will feature an eclectic group of performances ranging from me (DJing and performing alternate cuts of my tunes) to some dancers, projectionists, bands, and experimental musicians. Should be a fun night. Doors open at 8pm. I will start off with a DJ set of downtempo and funky tunes and then around a bit after 9pm or so I’ll be doing a set of my tunes with some live FX, mixing and experimentation. I’ve been working with Paul Schedlich on bass and guitar and we should be in shape to perform 1-2 tracks.

I hope to see you there.

Mikooshka

http://www.labspacestudio.com/hotSoup.php

DJing and making music – Korg microKONTROL and Ableton Live

For about the last three years I have been determined to get my hands on a keyboard controller and finally the beast is here! After doing lots of research and waiting until I was ready to really make use of it I went over to Long and McQuade and hooked myself up with the Korg microKONTROL. It’s small, powerfully built and comes loaded with sliders/faders, endless rotary encoders, pads, joystick for X-Y control assignments and a phenomenal software package – which I think is what sold me on the unit.

There are two reasons I wanted a keyboard controller. First I wanted to be able to play my music and use effects while performing or DJing.  Second I wanted something to play with while composing music, and I wanted something with some decent bundled software – ideally lots of retro sounds including rhodes electric pianos and various organs / synths.

So far I have to say I’m very impressed! After loading / updating drivers and setting up the VST instruments it was basically plug and play! Connecting the USB cable to my computer I was able to play the AMAZING Lounge Lizard Session which is a ‘light’ version like all the other software and plugins in the bundled Creative Kontrol Pack 3. I also got light versions of Reason, Live, and a wide variety of synth VSTs with a banging variety of instruments. SICK is the only word for it.

So far I have not been able to figure out the ’scene’ parameters and use the controller to DJ in Live but I have to study the manual a bit more. I selected scene 12 and the controller displays ‘Live’ but doesn’t seem ‘ready to go.’  The playing / DJing thing will have to wait for the moment – but I’ll keep you posted!

Overall my first impression is that this is a solid unit with a wealth of incredible features. The case is brushed aluminum which reeks high-end build quality (compared with the plastic used on most other products in this class). The pads are not as responsive as I had hoped but I’ll probably use them to trigger samples rather than play percussion parts. (Using the keyboard might work well for laying down drums). The keys are VERY small – hence the ‘micro’ in the name – but they are responsive and feature three octaves which is decent (Octave ‘up’ and ‘down’ buttons are easy to use). My brother, the piano man blew me away when he got on the Korg and used one of the sweet lead synth presets – rich, warm tones with complexity and movement rang from my speakers. Those with fat fingers or looking for more accuracy will want to go with something full size (check out the Korg Kontrol49). I bought it just to jam and get ideas down. For this it is compact and very useful. I can just squeeze the unit into my backpack with all my cables and my laptop. Now all I need for proper transport is a nice carry case!

In my next installment I will let you know how the unit holds up as a controller using the Session view to play my samples with effects in Ableton Live. The bundle provided a light version of Live 6 and I already own Live 4 so I’ll be trying it with both. Stay tuned!

Selling out – When is the timing right?

That got your attention didn’t it!? Well, bear with me folks, I’m not about to suggest we all go and whore ourselves out to the first bidder or otherwise sacrifice your artistic integrity. But I want to initiate a little discussion and mention my brief experience with the concepts of ’sponsorship’ and ’selling out.’

Recently my brother alerted me to the fact that our Toronto mates ‘The Golden Dogs’ have a song featured in a Budweiser commercial. Sure enough a few days later I caught it one night as I settled down to watch some hockey. The song is called “Yeah” and rocks in a Sloan-style power rock kinda way. Upon checking with Google and Wikipedia I see I somehow missed “Birdsong” appearing in a Zellers commercial in 2006. In any event, the band have worked hard and I salute them – hopefully their publishing deal gets them paid fairly for this kind of license. (by the way, The Golden Dogs appear live in Toronto this weekend).

Ulysses Castellanos, whose wonderful voice and humour is found on my CDR on the track “Coconut Radio”, gave me a CD by his brothers a few years ago. Heineken sponsored their Quadrasonic disc and also many of their parties. The only complaint I had was attending a gig for Toronto’s Brazilian group “Maracatu Nunca Antes’ at Supermarket and being told the only beer for sale was Heineken – now that was taking sponsorship over the top! But I won’t knock the brothers Castellanos – they are a hardworking crew and non-sellouts.  More power to them.

The truth is it’s hard to finance the albums, videos and recording – getting a helping hand from a corporate sponsor is not much different from getting a loan or grant from a government agency. And in Canada, help from Factor or VideoFACT is very commonplace. So to sum up, I don’t pass judgement on other people’s business.  There is no perfect time to ’sell out’  – kidding! -but I believe all your actions have to be something that feels right and doesn’t aid and abet any blatant corporate evil. And on that note – keep on rockin’ in the free world my friends.

Technology for musicians: backing up – portable computing and recording

I’m going to share some ideas with you about how you can improve where your musical life meets your technological life. It horrified me to read recently about a semi-famous Canadian electronic band that lost an album because their “harddrive got fried.” In this day and age, that’s almost unheard of, but it does happen. Here are some ideas to help you with managing your music and your tech gear. There are some great products out there and I’ll identify a few here.

First off, back up your system and files. To be honest, I don’t do system wide backups. I should, but what I do is regularly backup my music data to external drives. I have 4 drives in fact. My first was a 200 GB Maxtor. Nearly full. I’ve got a dozen movies on there and most of the important folders from at least 2 different computers. Recently I bought a second drive, an ultra-slim usb-powered 160 GB model that cost me only $80 (excellent for portability but it is also slower at 5,400 rpm). I also have a 4 GB Sandisk USB stick, and a 60 GB iPod. As long as you have the iPod cable, and enable the IPod for ‘disk use,’ you can use it as an external drive (though transferring your iTunes content is a whole other kettle of fish).

What we’re talking about here is technology for file management. If you experience a crash, then you have duplicates of your files on a second drive, and you can probably recover most of your music. Of course, you can also organize the files. I like to create a “Mikooshka” folder, and then go deeper from there, with folders for “Samples/sounds”, “Recordings”, “Video”, “Songs” etc.

Other technologies on a similar tip include MojoPac. This is a virtual desktop that you keep on a portable drive – allowing you to transform any computer into a version of your computer, with all your settings intact. It looks amazing. If you recorded with your bandmates at different locations, you wouldn’t need to always lug your laptop with you. If you had an iPod and 20 GB of it setup to run MojoPac, you could have a library of sounds and programs all ready to go.

I have a Tascam US-122 recording interface which is fairly portable. It has two channels for input and is solidly constructed. The beauty of a USB or Firwire unit is you can use it on the road with your laptop or plug it into your desktop. An alternative I have used quite often for live recordings and quick demos is my Pocket PC. I have a Dell Axim and it’s quite handy. It records in CD quality WAV or various MP3 formats and the microphone does a decent job. The key is though that I don’t use the built-in software. I use a program called Sound Explorer from Vito Technologies. This little beauty has input / output levels and editing functions. Recording function in your handheld device is a major consideration if you are a musician.

Recently I heard about audio/midi cables that contain an audio interface (with phantom power for microphones!) from a company called CME. The cables (called U2) are for line-level input (guitars, keyboards), mics, and midi. Basically with these U2 cables we’re talking direct input to computer – meaning you don’t need to carry your Tascam, Edirol, M-Audio or Prosonus device around with you.

The future: less is more.

Using Social Networking to Promote Your Music

It’s been a long while coming, but I am finally getting into the social network thing, if only to promote myself and my music. About 6 months ago I registered for MySpace and Facebook but I didn’t really do much with the pages. So with the launch of ‘Mikooshka’ and the CDR in March, I deleted old versions and started anew. As you may have noticed, if you surf the web a lot, Web 2.0 is run-amok with social networking sites. Yes, there’s Facebook and MySpace, but there’s also a bunch that crossover into music and entertainment promotion too – and they include: imeem, linkedin, last.fm, garageband, ilike and vimeo.

I have just a couple comments on all this, especially as it goes toward promoting your music. If you want to prevent fraud then you might register your artist name/brand/self at all of the above. Beware that Facebook (for the ‘pages’ business section) is making people ‘prove’ their identities before allowing registration – I sent my driver’s license and was approved within a day or two. Linkedin is a more about professional networking than Facebook and charges to make contacts. Facebook has a very classy looking yet conservative interface (only problem is the really useless number string in the URL – see below). Imeem looks like a good place to promote your stuff, and surprisingly for an ‘Apple product’, Garageband is not much to look at and seems to be cluttered with poor design, and ominous rules and warnings. But no need to worry, because MySpace is king, and you can handily post your songs there, and videos via embedding from YouTube or the closest kin – MySpaceTV. Speaking of video, a new option for posting, especially for professionals or serious/aspriring video or filmmakers, is a site called Vimeo.

Don’t forget though to create your own website! You can customize a MySpace page but it’s still got ads and limitations. At your own site, you can do whatever you please and be ‘master of your domain.’

For the record:

mikooshka.com
myspace.com/mikooshka
imeem.com/mikooshka
facebook.com/pages/Mikooshka/10994758814

Interesting reading about Facebook and their ‘pages’:
http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/2007/12/facebook-pages-deletions.html

Coming soon: How to sell your product – looking at CD Baby, IndiePool, Tunecore and other indie artist sales tools.

graphic credit: http://www.davidrivier.com/images/networks.png

Video Production – Toronto Graffiti and Street Art

Today I posted a video on my website, and at YouTube and MySpace. The song is a hip-hop tune with a funky beat called “Westside 102″. The video captures some amazing street art in Toronto’s westend around Dundas West / Keele.

I want to share the process with you. First off, I shot this video over the last year, on many different days. I’d walk about, minding my own business, and some stencil art, or graffiti would jump out at me, so I’d snap a still. I learned early on that my Motorola Razr, which I used to shoot the video, has limited memory, so I had to install a little mini SD card. Recently I got the notion that I could shoot video with the phone, and so I started. I knew the video was really low res (176×144) so I thought when I cut it, I’d also drop a few stills into the mix as well. The stills were also taken with the Razr, and I cropped them all to 320×240 which would be the final output size.

To pull it all together I found conversion software called TVC and converted my 3GP captured cellphone video to Mpeg4. Then I started working with Sony Vegas software, which looks like their audio software (Acid) and is just as fun to use. I created a Quicktime video that’s about 16 MB and 4 minutes long. I will do another edit this week, and fine tune the audio settings so it’s compressed but sounds clear and tight.

So far YouTube has given me a ton of hits, but the audio is in mono (their default audio format when they compress to flash files). The best quality stereo file is at my page on MySpaceTV.

Show – John Oswald and Sandro Perri – Tranzac Club, Toronto

This city is pretty rad for live music and I’ve been thinking that I need to check out more shows. With that philosophy in mind I went to the Tranzac Club on Friday night and saw Sandro Perri and John Oswald. Sandro is famous around these parts for his Polmo Polpo project and Oswald is infamous for his ‘Plunderphonics’ sampling work. Both are pioneers and tend to the experimental or playful in their musical aesthetic.

As I entered the room, I noticed a grey-haired man playing saxophone with a younger guitar player. They were improvising. Sandro said ‘hi’, took my entrance fee, and said, “That’s not a warm-up, that’s their set.” I quickly got my hands on a beer and joined my friends. After the set, my pal Coyote asked me if I had ever seen ‘free jazz’ before and what I thought. He also explained that the guitarist was Eric Chenaux, who plays quite a bit of improv and is well-known in these musical circles. I said no, I hadn’t seen anything quite like this before, and gave it a moment to collect my answer. I told him I liked it. I appreciated the interplay between the musicians, their give and take, I could tell that the cohesion to pull it off was partly held in place by belief and commitment. Overall, I grooved to it. It was a nice warm up for hearing Perri.

Sandro surprised me by playing a kick-drum while strumming his guitar and singing gently into the mic. It was folk-house! Well, not really but, that steady beat through most songs, really added something to his tracks. He worked his magic and most seemed to enjoy his songs, which reminded me of Feist (with a caveat of perhaps more musicality, less vocal presence/range). He’s playing the Tranzac again twice in late April and I plan to attend. If you like sincere, soulful balladry with a folk-blues feel you should plan to be there too.