Summer is right around the corner and the good weather is here. What does this mean in the in Lake Tahoe? It means that around Lake Tahoe and the surrounding area, there will be tons of outdoor music events, big and small. (E.g., Harvey’s Outdoor Summer Concert Series, Montbleu Outdoor Event Center, Live at Lakeview, etc) This would be the perfect time to “capture” that live event. Whether its your band, a single player, a DJ or the entire event…

Real Audio Workshop is proud to announce the investment of a 24 channel mobile recording system. We have great pre-amps, mics, stands, cables, not to mention the professional and experienced engineering staff to “capture” your event. The recording can then be brought back to the Tahoe Production House studio and be cleaned up if needed, have over dubs placed on the recording, add a few effects if desired, or simply mixed down as it is. Then it can be mastered, copies can be made, CD covers…..the list goes on for services offered from audio production to video production to website design and graphic design…

These will be of varying sizes from 1 day easy-to-understand audio classes aimed at the beginner and/or intermediate sound guy in the band, church, or DJ that needs to gain more audio skills and tools.  We will be offering 1 day, 3 day and 6 day classes as well. Again the idea is to teach you to success, by providing solid techniques backed by our many years experience in the audio and sound industry. You will be taught from two of the best and most experienced current audio engineers in the biz today.  At some of the classes we will also have guest speakers.

About the Audio Teaching Staff:

Wayne Carlson, currently at Harrah’s for the last 25 years as head sound tech for the entire property, and Harvey’s. Before that, Wayne was on the road as head engineer with live shows, major headliners, to intermediate bands and professioal sound companies. Wayne has designed sound systems and also performed installations, for many production shows, show rooms, church’s, and more.  Before that, Wayne was in the recording studios for 10 years. Even though currently at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, all of this time Wayne was doing live and studio work for other companies and side-projects. Far to many main acts to list, including Sammy Davis Jr. and Sammy Hagar. Wayne’s experience of live production shows, indoor and outdoor, to main headliners, is very extensive. Wayne has also been a musician since the 60′s.

Joshua Carlson is currently monitor engineer and F.O.H. engineer at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe. Josh has been in the audio business all of his life and a musician as well.  Prior to Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, Josh came from the Harrah’s Reno show room where he did sound system design and operation of live shows in the main show room, conventions and the outdoor plaza.  Josh is extremely well versed in F.O.H. and monitors. Josh’s knowledge base of analog signal operation and signal flow as well as digital systems is outstanding.  He worked as an audio engineer with Moonlighting and Sound, where he moved up as an engineer to be among one of the best there. His most recent show with Sammy Hagar at Harrah’s Tahoe, left their engineers Josh’s boss what an outstanding job he did. Josh assisted first hand with Hagar’s engineers. He set up the entire monitor and mic set-up (A 2-day with a partial tear down and re-set up for the next night due to the Peek Night Club). They said Josh was flawless. They also quoted, “Josh commanded the stage with his sound knowledge….and was without a doubt…outstanding.”

In conclusion…This summer will be packed with many opportunities for events and shows to capture your sound. Look for our specials, advertisements or call Tahoe Production House to find out what we can do for you…Make this summer one to remember.  “CAPTURED IT FOR EVER”

Wayne

So what is crowdfunding exactly?  It builds on the idea of crowdsourcing: “The act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to an undefined, large group of people or community (a “crowd”), through an open call.” (Wikipedia).  In short, crowdfunding pulls together people to fund a project, business, or cause, over the Internet.

Crowdfunding websites are growing in popularity and are allowing entrepreneurs with an idea to get funding from investors, producers, and causes with contributors.  Also, social media is changing more than the way we market and communicate, it’s also changing the way we raise money.  The way these websites work are fairly simple enough, generally people, businesses, or charities pitch an idea, set a fundraising goal and set a deadline for raising funds.  Potential investors can review the pitches and decide if the idea is worth supporting.  On many sites investors or funders, are rewarded if the project hits it funding goal.

So how can you be successful at “Crowdfunding”?  To catch people’s attention and get potential funders or investors, you need to stand out, and engage your community and close the sale.  The first step would be to choose the right crowdfunding site for your project.  Each type of site caters to a specific audience.  More creative endeavors like video production projects do well on sites like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo.  Do you have a more traditional business model?  Look to ProFounder.  Non-Profits can raise money on sites like CauseVox or FirstGiving.  Choosing the right site can make all the difference.

Also, know your target audience and plan ahead.  Focusing on a passionate niche to target a specific narrow audience will set you up for success.  A target audience might be focused in a geographic area; religious group or share a common background.  Planning ahead can help out a lot.  The bulk of funding tends to happen at the very beginning and end of a project.  That’s why it helps to have things like e-mails or video responses planed out for the launch, middle, and end of a project.

One of the best things you can do is make a great first impression passionately and pitch your project.  Get people as excited as you are about your project, but also be informative.  Your project name, graphics, and description all are very important to stand out from the others.  Once you have the money, have a plan to spend it.  Tell people a detailed explanation of how exactly you’ll be using their money and keep all information transparent.  People like to invest in a solid plan.

Lastly utilize your social networks.  Crowdfunding is different, and people may not be familiar with it, so use what you are already doing to promote your campaign.  Also, create some compelling rewards to get people excited about investing or funding your project.  People love to be acknowledged.  Anywhere you can do this is a great reward.

GOOD LUCK!

One of the biggest benefits to shooting in RAW is that you get the highest quality files with the most information possible.  You can make the decision on how the image should look, and produce better results.  RAW gives you flexibility.  You can also record greater levels of brightness.  JPEG records 256 levels of brightness, and RAW records between 4,096 – 16,384 levels usually describes as bits.  JPEG captures in 8bit, and RAW is either 12bit or 14bit.  The additional control over your brightness levels lets you make more adjustments to your exposure, blacks, fill light, contrast, and brightness with out reduction to quality.  You also get better detail and you can edit sharpening and noise algorithms in software.

Sometimes you end up with over or under exposed images.  With RAW files, you have additional information in the file, so it’s much easier to correct these mistakes.  It’s also easier to adjust your white balance.  When shooting in JPEG white balance is automatically applied, where with RAW the white balance is still recorded, but because you have more data you can make changes to the image easier.

When editing your photos and making adjustments to your RAW file, you’re not actually doing anything to the original file.  What you are doing is telling the RAW file how to save in another file format like JPEG.  What makes this great is you never have to worry about ruining an image; you can always start fresh with your RAW file.  Also when exporting your images there is a different color space that work best for different situations like if your image is going to be printed or used on the web.  When you shoot in RAW format, you can export a single image in multiple color spaces.

When you are shooting professional photography, you should be providing your clients with the highest quality possible.  Most issues that can come up while on a photoshoot can be manipulated in post if its shot in RAW format.

A “good”audio engineer should understand what the artist wants in the final product be it recording or live. Then the audio engineer should know or have a good idea of how to get to that final goal. This is where his tool bag comes in: from audio training, knowledge of equipment, experiences, “Brian Files” as I spoke about in the blog #4, hands on experience with operating the gear, and even learning from past mistakes. You can’t be a pro audio engineer and not have made some mistakes. Having a good engineer or producer, and or both, along with what the artist wants to hear, is key to success.

You can have the best gear in the world and without a good engineer, you’ll likely not be successful. You may get lucky here and there, as it has happened, but there is nothing like an engineer with knowledge of technique. From the discussion about the final product before even starting any recording or live show set-up. And there is a technique to having a discussion before anything happens. Knowing what to ask and how to ask it is key to get the info you need. This is generally the starting point for a successful project.

Now with the above said, I have done recording sessions on the fly many times. In other words, there was not too much discussion at all. Instead, it was “let’s just start and see how it goes”. In these cases, the artist did not have the whole project in mind nor did the producer. However, they were pros and could play and sing very, very well; they had gone through the recoding or live show process many times. Also from the starting point I spoke of earlier, I knew what my gear could do and what it could not do. I knew my limits from an engineer’s point-of-view and what would probably work well in this situation or that. This all came from the above-mentioned preparations.

Be as prepared as you can and whenever possible, use a “good” audio engineer. It will be a big part of the key to a successful final product.

TPH Sound Team

Have you heard of Stageit.com?  It’s an online concert venue where performers can broadcast live and interactive experiences directly from a laptop, while offering unique fan experiences that are never archived.  Performers can make money by performing, and can be in any location.  The fans get to know their favorite performers, and get to request songs, tip, and make comments, as well as meet other like-minded fans.  Because it’s virtual, you can watch the concert in your underwear.

Ghost of the Robot consists of band members James Marsters on lead guitar and vocals, Jordan Latham on lead drums, Kevin McPherson on lead bass, Sullivan Marsters on lead guitar, and Charlie De Mars on lead guitar and vocals.  They all sing.  The band formed in 2002 utilizing members from Soccer Hooligans and Power Animals.

Over 400 people viewed the live broadcast on their computers via Stageit.com while Ghost of the Robot performed live on a virtual stage at Tahoe Production House.

“The video portion of the show used three JVC GY750 cameras and a Tricaster TCXD300 Live Production Switcher.  The Tricaster was able to generate virtual sets for the bands background, as the they were actually standing on an 18 foot cyclorama green screen.  One virtual set was a Star Field with 3 different angles, for the three different cameras angles, and the second set was an all white background.  The Tricaster was also used to for opening and intermission graphics, as well as playing back several video bumpers from its internal Digital Video Playback and Recorder.  A stereo mix from the 24 channel Presonus audio board was input into the Tricaster as well.  The entire mixed (audio / video) production was output to an AJA Ki Pro Digital Recorder in ProRes 422 (HQ) for editing in Final Cut Pro.  The three cameras were also recording the band with the native green screen background for later compositing in After Effects.”

- Tim Whaley, Production Director Tahoe Production House

“This show was an exciting new adventure for us at Real Audio Workshop and Tahoe Production House. Not only was it a pleasure to work with Ghost Of The Robot, it was also a blast to do a live show over the Internet via Stageit.com We have never done anything like this before, but we are glad that we did it! This whole concept is exciting because it allows us to provide studio quality audio with the feel and audience participation of a live performance. It is the ultimate fan treat in my opinion. We will be looking forward to doing future shows like this in the near future and I hope many will come very soon.”

–Joshua Carlson, owner of Real Audio Workshop

This was an amazing experience for the band, for the fans, as well as Tahoe Production House.  The band made thousands of dollars on this concert and it was well worth the production value!

In short, the three main components of the redesign are: 1)desktop to mobile device consistency 2) a greater emphasis on photography and video 3) providing users with multiple streams in their News Feed (similar to the Goggle+ layout) that enable them to organize and sort through the various types of “relationships” and “activities” they engage with on Facebook.

As of the announcement, the different types if News streams are “News Feed,” “All Friends,” “Close Friends” “Following/Pages” ” Photos” “Music” “Apps” and “Games”

The multiple news streams have brought up many concerns as it appears that users will have the ability to only focus on their “All Friends” stream….this is a stream that does not allow posts from a users business Pages.  Instead, if a user would like to view the Pages they are followings posts, they have to manually switch to the “Following” feed.  Additionally, it is not clear how Sponsored Stories and Promoted posts will be displayed across these multiple streams.

Due to upcoming release of the redesign the News Feed, I believe that right now is not the best time for small businesses to make  any long-range strategic decisions or financial commitments related to Facebook social media marketing.  From a marketing perspective, there are too many unknowns about how the redesigned News Feed will impact brand and business Page’s Facebook marketing tactics moving forward.  Because the redesigned News Feed is still in a testing phase,  even the social media “experts” are not fully equipped to provide meaningful guidance on how a business Page needs to rethink their marketing efforts to accomodate the changes to the News Feed.

The are a lot of questions that need to be answered. For example:

Will small business need to establish and dedicate a monthly marketing budget just for Facebook “advertising” costs. If so, how much should this budget be and how does one determine an ROI for this monthly investment?

What will the targeting and content strategy need to be to ensure that paid-for content by a business page is meaningful and relevant as to provide value to Page Followers?

Additionally, with the shift to placing greater emphasis on photos and videos rather than text only posts, what does this mean for business that don’t have deep photo or video assets? Whatkind of investment will a business have to make to get some sort of catalogue of higher quality images for use in Facebook marketing? In order to compensate for a lack of “great” product photography, a small business needs to be much more selective with the type of posts they make on Facebook to ensure that they include great photography. This will require a bigger time commitment of staff for weekly content post planning.

In summary, until the News Feed is rolled out to a broader audience, I do not recommend making any big decisions about Facebook marketing. Stay tuned.

The “Melodyne” program allows you to change the pitch of a vocal, or even an instrument or fix parts of the vocal that were off key. If your singer missed the entended note in a passage, no problem. Melodyne easily displays the vocal passage, then shows it on a chart where the problem or problems are. You can click on the note, thus hearing the note while also seeing what key the note is in and easily slide it to where you what it. The display even shows where the intended note was probably supposed to be. It is that intelligent. This can be done with guitar, bass, string instuments, horns…the list goes on.

This is only the scratches the surface of what Melodyne can do. Timing errors on all the above can be fixed as well. The program is easy to learn and use.

Josh and I have done lots of vocal repairing without the need for the vocalist to come back and record over and over again to get it right. It also will create harmonies. This combined with the skills of good hearing from our engineers, is outstanding. The corrections sound very natural. No side effects as I have witnessed with other programs. This is a producers, engineer, and musicians dream come true.

A great benefit of Melodyne is that it helps saves time in the studio, which translates to saving money. I will say however, it will not replace the way a person sings something in the first place, their tone, inflections, or emotions. Nothing replaces that. Remember it’s a “tool” not a replacement. But a great tool, like a great Mic, or pre-amp.

If you upgrade to the “Editor” version which allows great repair functionality, it is without a doubt a must for any studio in my opinion and we have it. Come by for demo. Call and set up an appointment.

Below are links to Celemony to give you an idea of how it sounds and works.

Follow this link:

http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=videos#top

Click on the Melodyne essential tab…. click “Note detection, melodic” (4:37) It’s a bit down the page.

Now the “Editor” upgrade:

http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=videos#top

Just look down the page a bit and click on “Fine-tunning vocals” (5:08).

• The biggest piece of advice would be to prepare your questions before hand.  Have a list of questions that you have thought about prior to meeting your subject that have to do with the kind of information you want to know.  There is no need to ask the same questions over and over again; usually 5 – 10 good questions will do the trick.
• Avoid “yes” or “no” answers at all costs, as they will lead you nowhere.  You need the answers to have substantial information in them in order for them to be useful to you in the editing phase.  So instead of, “Does the color blue make you happy?” Ask, “What is your favorite color and how does it make you feel?”
• Even though you have prepared questions, always allow some room for any questions that may come up based on an answer your subject may have given you and you would like to explore further.  Sometimes the unplanned questions and answers are the best in the whole interview.
• Make sure you get the interviewee comfortable in front of the camera by asking them some easy warm up questions.  It might sound silly, but starting with what they had to eat that day, or what they have done for fun in the last week will get them talking and their mind off of the camera.  This is key!
• Its okay to let someone know what their interview will generally be about, but never under any circumstance give a subject the list of questions you intend to ask them.  If you do, they will immediately start to formulate their answers, and in some cases try to memorize answers in advance, and you will loose all spontaneity in the interview.  Your interview will end up looking rehearsed.
• Always have your interviewee repeat your question in their answer.  This will save you a lot of time in the editing room and story telling later.
• Another  tip is to have the interviewee look to just the right or left of the camera, not directly at it.  The best way to do this is to have the person asking the questions to stand right next to the camera lens, and ask the interviewee to talk to them.
• Stay quiet when the other person is talking, this is also just good manners.  You don’t want to interrupt your interviewee just as they say something profound and interesting.  Also, don’t make “hmmmm” or “yeah!” noises.  Just ask your question and let them answer it, nod and smile, and no sound.
• Always ask the interviewee for their final thoughts or if you might have missed anything that they wanted to be included during the interview.  This sometimes can bring out some great information or bring up more questions that you haven’t thought about.

Keep your energy up through the interview and your subject will too!  The more you put into your interview the more you will get out of it!

Lake Tahoe Chocolate Shop is South Lake Tahoe’s only locally owned, family operated chocolatier. All of their hand-crafted chocolate and fudge is made on site at their South Lake Tahoe retail locations.

The Chocolate Shop offers a huge array of chocolate creations such as their signature favorites like Dark Chocolate Covered Bacon, S’mores, Tahoe Bark, Handmade English Toffee, Chocolate & Caramel Dipped Pretzels, Chocolate Gummy Worms and so much more.  They also specialize in finely crafted Truffles, Fudge and Caramels.

In the past two and a half years, The Chocolate Shop has opened two new retail locations, one at inside the Montbleu Resort and another at Stateline near Dart Beverage.

The owner, Doug Rousse, felt the final step in his growing retail business was to make his chocolate available for online purchase and delivery anywhere in the United States by creating a brand-new website design for the business.

Tahoe Production House chose to build Lake Tahoe Chocolate Shop’s new website on WordPress to help keep costs affordable for the Chocolate Shop new website. The beauty of using a Content Management System website platform like WordPress is that there are endless third party developers and applications available for free or at very low costs to make a simple website very robust and user friendly. We integrated a popular third party e-commerce platform into the WordPress website framework to enable the Chocolate Shop to sell their merchandise online, easily update their inventory, track and fulfill their sales and more with no need for the Doug’s staff to understand backend html or css coding.

Additionally, by choosing a Content Management System for the new website design, Doug and his staff have the ability to make simple updates to website pages and mange and publish their own blogs without having to re-hire a “webmaster” every time they want to make simple changes… thus keeping the long-term costs of website management low.

Be sure to visit their new website at www.LakeTahoeChocolateShop.com !

This takes preparation, experience and experimentation. So start now if you do not have a “Brain File” in your brain as to what you want a song or a note or an instrument to sound like. This applies to audio recording and live performances, from musician to engineer, to producer, to system tech, to guitar tech and so on.

Far to often, I have experienced when the above-mentioned personnel does NOT have a good idea, ahead of time, of what they want something to sound or should possibly sound like. For example: I have in my “Brian File,” I a sound for a rock kick drum. I can hear it right now as I am typing this. In fact I have many different sounds in my “Brian File” for just this one instrument and type of music and year it was roughly produced from Country, Jazz, Pop, Rap, Rock, and the other types of music and the years they have gone through. They have different sounds for just this one instrument. Remember, it’s a starting point. As an engineer, producer, and player, I am not claiming that I know the exact year that a rock kic drum was produced as it changes over time and from band to band. I have not heard or experienced them all, but I do have a clear “Brain File” as to where to start.  You get the picture? This is what makes music so unique and keeps us all coming back for more. This applies to ALL instruments, vocals, and audio of any type.

Having a starting point of what you want to hear, in frequency, content, tone, and overall sound, will vary from instrument to instrument, to the players, the mic’s, sound systems, pre-amps, speakers, and the entire audio path from beginning to end. Even the cables. I will go so far to suggest that the AC power or even batteries used in foot pedal devices have been sworn by many a “top grade pro musician” that they hear the difference when they change these things.  This comes from that specific “Brian File” they have. Their focus is that deep! I encourage of you, no matter what capacity you’re in, as far as the audio is concerned, no matter whether you’re a producer, player, engineer, drum tech, guitar tech, to have that file in your brain for a starting point. Then move on from there to your end goal.

Another aspect to hearing what you want, is to hear what you don’t want. This is equally important, yet difficult for lot of people. What does that mean? Here is one example: a “mechanical” sound produced by a kic drum pedal. There is a potential sound you don’t want to hear in every audio path and situation. Beware of this as well. Create this “Brian File” as well. It will come in handy!

This will save you time, but will also produce a better product. If you are working for someone or new to working with them, get to know how they play, their gear and what they like in what they’re attempting to do. Better yet, what they want you to do. This applies to producers big time. Try to hear their “Brian File” then put that into use with them and others. Over time, the more you do this, you will have acquired a great file base.

Have a great day,

Wayne