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Running a 66 piece orchestral session with StaffPad…

I recently had a 66 piece orchestral session and decided to produce all scores and parts with StaffPad alone. This is stretching the pu...

Friday, May 27, 2016

Dropbox


I've recently become a power Dropbox user and a big fan since my return from the USA.

Since then (and thanks to the meetings I had over there) I've been writing music for several different publishers and I've found that Dropbox is a fantastic tool to distribute the music to them. So, I now have Dropbox folders for each of my publishers and clients, so I can simply just drop a finished piece into the right folder and it'll find its way to London, LA or Copenhagen etc..., almost like having a network of wormholes from one place to the other. :-)

I also use it to sync files between The Artful Corporation computers and, on a more micro level, to sync files between my Mac and my laptop PC, which I use for music metadata.

Dropbox also comes in handy for sending music to directors/editors...The other day I was contacted by an editor who wanted to use one of my pieces on a TV show. I opened up and shared a folder with him, dropped the piece of music in the folder and it was on his timeline within seconds. Better still, the folder is still active, so I now have a solid method of transfer now set up for the next time he needs something.

A couple of other things I've found is that if you want to send a set of pieces to someone all in one go, you can upload them as they are finished one by one to the main directory of Dropbox and then move them en masse to the destination folder...They'll then show up together instantly at the remote end as they're already present on the Dropbox servers and don't need to be uploaded to be moved. It's also fun to export finished demos or masters directly into the destination Dropbox folder...You can't get hotter off the press than that!!!

One final use I've been trying out is as a collaboration tool. I have a folder shared with a fellow composer so we can work on the same files directly...Great stuff!!!


Saturday, May 21, 2016

Back in the UK


Just returned from the USA...Had lots of very promising meetings about future work and I'll be returning in mid-October. I started with a week in LA, followed by a train trip to San Diego to visit family and then ended up in Las Vegas for NAB to meet a lot of my international sub-publishers.

My timing was good, as I'd just missed a week of rain. The locals were very pleased to have had the rain, but having just left a wet and windy London, I was very pleased to enjoy the Sun!!! My second day of meetings was in mostly in Venice and I had a wonderful stroll up the boardwalk. I'll be going again in October and will be based mostly in Santa Monica which I'm really looking forward to. This time I was mostly in Beverly Hills (which is well positioned for meetings) and a couple of days Downtown, before heading off to San Diego via Union Station. That station is really quite something and I really enjoy sitting in those comfy leather sofas and watching the world go by.

So I could carry on working, I took my basic portable set up which is...

Macbook Air running Cubase and various other audio plug-ins/programs.
M-Audio Keystation Mini.

When space isn't at a premium, I can also take...

Lacie 500Gig SSD containing more sound libraries.

...and if space is even less at a premium...

Focusrite Scarlett Studio interface, and the Hohner Steinberger guitar and bass...And a mic and other instruments, if needed.

I've had a lot of music released recently...Firstly, my orchestral album Field Sketches is at...
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/field-sketches-for-orchestra/id1098018916

The rerecorded and remastered On Vacation is here...
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/on-vacation/id1095859419

...and a couple of compilations containing only my music are On The Orient Express...
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/on-orient-express-deluxe-chilled/id1102512389

...and Sands Of Meditation...
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/sands-meditation-calming-music/id1098832225

I also have music on new releases from Gold Leaf and Artful and wrote the theme and incidental music for as TV programme called Take Two, which features interview with British screen legends...People I've admired for ages, so it was a thrill to do!!!