If you’re the kind of person who likes Christmas music, you should know about a fun Christmas album.
You may remember my friend Ben Gortmaker. He’s the guy who I interviewed on the podcast about his recently-released album, recorded and mixed completely in GarageBand.
Well, several years ago Ben wrangled up a bunch of independent Nashville artists to put together a compilation album of Christmas songs. Three albums later, Holiday Noise has gotten a lot of attention.
Now Ben has released a compilation “best of” album, featuring one song by yours truly (“O Come, O Come Emmanuel”).
These songs really are fantastic. I encourage you to check ‘em out.
Check out Holiday Noise: A Christmas Compilation on iTunes and Bandcamp.
Merry Christmas!
I love technology. It is a beautiful thing. However, while there’s nothing wrong technology itself, we need to consider the role that technology should play in our lives.
I’m mainly referring to technology as it pertains to making music, particularly in the recording world. These days everybody and their dog can have a home recording studio. Don’t get me wrong, that can be an awesome thing. Thirty years ago it simply wasn’t possible to spend a couple hundred dollars and be able to make high-quality recordings at home. The technology wasn’t there.
Technological advancements of the last few decades have brought a new, massive percentage of the population into the world of studio recording. My life would certainly be dramatically different if I couldn’t record my music (and the music of others). Without the onset of new technology, the entire recording industry would consist of the select few who could drop $400,000 on a huge recording studio, fully equipped with analog tape machines and massive recording consoles.
Today an average Joe can pick up an interface and a microphone and do a lot of things the big analog studios of the past could do, and a lot of things they couldn’t!
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Today I want to take a break from the 12 Home Studio Necessities series. When talking about all the nifty gadgets you need for your home recording studio, it’s important to beware “Gear Acquisition Syndrome.”
What is G.A.S.?
If you’ve ever worked in music retail, you’ve heard of Gear Acquisition Syndrome. It’s this phenomenon that happens once somebody gets hooked on music equipment. Suddenly having one guitar isn’t enough — they need seventeen. Owning one good vocal microphone isn’t enough — they need a closet-full.
Now this certainly can be an awesome thing (especially for the music store you buy from). Having a home studio decked out from floor to ceiling with all sorts of gear is pretty satisfying.
However, I want to raise a concern I have with Gear Acquisition Syndrome. I see it in myself, and I see it in most home studio owners that I meet (and I’ve met a lot). My concern is that we can get so caught up in buying new equipment that we lose sight of the music.
My last few years of college are a perfect example of this. My freshman year I had a cheap little audio
interface, a cheap mixer, and a cheap microphone, but I recorded a ton of music. Even back in high school, when I had even worse equipment, I recorded an album.
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