Total Art Soul - for artists

Just a quick update withe regards to the progress of "Reminders For An Advanced Soul" project.
After struggling to maintain my full attention to this musical venture i have taken the bold step of opting out of the "Rat Race" .. quit my job, packed up my musical equipment & moved to Penzance just by Newlyn in Cornwall. This was a very brave & liberating decision, and having been here only two days, i am already feeling this was the best decision i have made in a long time! I adore Cornwall, and even though it is now October, the sun has been shining, the sea air is filling my city polluted lungs, and the freedom to concentrate solely on music is such an amazing feeling .. words cannot describe the weight that has been lifted from my shoulders.

My Father has a beautiful top of the range Roland Piano which can connect directly into my Logic Pro studio set up in my Mac, which is handy as i could not manage to carry my Synthesiser on the train !! So i can effectively continue my project exactly as i was in Brighton, continuing to collaborate with my musicians online & without the pressure or commitment of work & in such a beautiful & relaxing setting. I am currently writing this blog overlooking the sea & Newlyn Harbour with such a large smile on my face !! .. i wish you could see.

Again, technology has made all of this possible. I have bought a 3G Modem interface which is a wireless system that allows my Macbook to have instant access to the internet wherever i am in the UK.. thus allowing me to write this blog outside by the seafront !! ... Heaven :)

So, after a few days of re adjustment i shall throw myself fully into finishing my album over the coming six months, posting mixes & progress as before as it develops, & i can only say that as a recommendation to anyone ... if you are in a position to make such a positive change in your life .. and desperately feel the need to do it .. then i suggest you go for it. This is a very exciting new beginning for me & the support & encouragement i have received from everyone has been overwhelming. This is just the beginning, and i am so looking forward to completing  my album & sharing it with you. i am sure that this move will only enhance the quality of this project & will hopefully make it all the more pleasant to listen to :)
I will post all upcoming mixes in progress to www.gavinfisher.bandcamp.com .
Good luck to everyone with all their creative projects .. here's to a very productive few months! Best wishes .. Gavin.

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Hey, i am currently reflecting on the versatility of  modern music technology & recording systems & felt i should share how advances over the years have made such a difference .. particularly to my life.
When i was 20 i was fortunate enough to have trained in Sound Engineering at Logorythm Music in London. This covered all aspects of actual recording of musicians & instruments with microphones onto 2 inch multitrack tape. Modern samplers as we know them had yet to be invented. I myself only had a Yamaha DX7 synthesiser, a sequencer and a 4 track tape machine. In those days, keyboards were only capable of producing one sound at a time so i would have to record one part and then start overlapping sounds onto the multitrack tape at home, bouncing down & slowly losing quality of sound as i went. Great for demos but a professional studio was required for anything serious & at great cost .. Then came the sampler. I remember my first Akai s900 which was amazing but only had 11mb of memory i think. I do remember that if i put two cymbals with a long decay into the sampler then all the memory was gone ! But somehow i struggled along with noises & sounds making rhythms and adding guitars and vocals live... but then again hiring a studio to get it all onto tape. 
Looking back .. it seemed a labour of love just to get a couple of well recorded tracks together ... unless you had large sums of money to purchase the more advanced systems that Professional studios used  & to buy several synthesisers !

I can remember vividly the power that the multi timbral keyboards gave me as a musician, when they were developed. I bought a Korg M1 which allowed me to sequence 8 different sounds to play different parts at once .. and with the introduction of the Atari computer with Notator & Cubase editing software, & samplers that had huge amounts of memory .. i could now put together entire tracks at home, triggered live by the computer & without actually recording or committing anything to tape. What a difference this made & more importantly .. this system was relatively inexpensive .. in the region of £5000 as opposed to £30.ooo upwards. Studios were still required but all the pre production could be arranged and finished at home so all studio time was devoted to getting everything recorded and then concentrating on the mix.

Today.. it just seems to be  incredible. I cannot imagine how different things would be if i had my current system at the age of 20 !! I use Apple Mac with Logic Pro Audio & a MOTU audio interface which allows me to record anything i want .. including the facility to record 8 different things simultaneously .. with unlimited memory space. Endless amounts of keyboards & synths that can all be accessed quickly & played simultaneously or layered. I can compile entire albums at home and mix & master them onto CD .. and even distribute them around the world via the internet .. without leaving the room !! It is incredible how things have advanced but i am still very grateful to have had the experience of learning how studios work, using real instruments and recording with real equipment (as opposed to virtual synthesised equivalents). It has given me the knowledge of how music & sound works, something that youngsters today i feel may skip. They can just put something together without learning an instrument or crafting a skill in music. I just hope they appreciate how lucky they are to have all this technology at their fingertips at very affordable prices. I myself, am still in awe of what my system is capable of doing & thoroughly enjoy being able to express myself musically at home, with such ease and with so many endless possibilities. We are now creatively free !!! :-)

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