April 21, 2007
The Producers Conference, Los Angeles, USA
The kick off to 2007's series of Producer Conferences in the U.S. happened on Saturday, April 21st at the King King in Hollywood, California. Packed to capacity, the entire day was filled with intense discussions on using Reason and making better music.
Following up on last year's successful Producers Conference held at the famous Recombinant Labs in S.F., the Los Angeles session had a lot to live up to and fortunately the event surpassed our expectations.
Starting off the day was Line 6 Propellerhead Product Specialist, Chris Petti, steering the attendees through how to rewire Reason into an audio recording application (in his case, Ableton Live) and apply the incredible sounding Line 6 amplifier and effect plugins as well. Following Chris, our in-house guru James Bernard deconstructed his newest free ReFill on Multi-Band Compression, shared tips and tricks on how to use it effectively, and generally provided self-deprecating comments about his astounding ability to push Reason into new and useful areas for all skill levels.
Taking the helm after James, sound designer and IDM artist, Richard Devine was able to showcase his patch designs using Reason and discuss some of his commercial work that utilized a suite of cutting edge sound design tools, including Reason. After providing the perfect segue for pushing audio to its creative and sonic limits, Peff aka Kurt Kurasaki expanded our notions of Reason as a modular synth capable of immense and creative routing options that liquified and shaped the synth and sampler outputs to a mind bending degree. For those that wanted a better understanding of CV uses and the combinator, Kurt's presentation helped break through the typical set ups for more interesting creative uses.
Finishing up the day, DJ Babu deconstructed his use of Recycle, Reason, and his own methodology for beat making and also covered how to use those beats in the business of Hip Hop. Melding the creative and business aspects of being a successful producer was the point of Babu's presentation - and we were able to enjoy a discussion on the philosophy of sampling, the costs involved, and how and when to use.
Finally, Mocean Worker, Arabian Prince, and James Bernard were able to provide production, arrangement, and a bit of unsolicited advice on a wide range of topics concerning the work provided by our attendees. It was both exciting and inspiring to hear kind of work was being done with Reason, Refills, and Recycle in the name of making great music. Many thanks to those who provided their music for review and commentary - we hope you keep up the excellent work!
Watch out for our next Producers Conference coming up in the East Coast of the United States mid summer. We are looking forward to creating a better, more effective learning environment each time a Producer Conference is put together. Finally, we want to thank all the attendees, the artists, Keyboard Magazine, Apogee for their use of excellent audio interfaces, Line 6, and all our partners for helping to put together our Los Angeles event!
