Logic Pro – akadjblaze

Ok so it has been a busy last few months, 3 trips overseas, various gigs as well as my usual ones so here is a quick recap of what I have been doing these last few months

June

Well June was a interesting month, I got to do some pretty cool things and also finished my 12 week challenge, 10kg lighter and back up to maybe 75% on the touch field

– Spent my birthday and long weekend running around Japan buying as much stuff as I could! Harajuku for clothes and Akihabara for my anime obsession

– Next weekend was UMF which I got to jam out in the redbull party jeep, pretty cool that I got to go to UMF, wasn’t the greatest of festivals but it is def one of the biggest in Korea and around the world… just a shame the line up was mud

– Spun at venue, nothing but old skool and a bit of a MJ tribute. Also it was a great crowd for early on so made the night even better

Well that was June, short but eventful.

July

July proved to be less busy, was back at venue again but the night ended up being a dud unfortunately. The main thing for July was taking on a new residence at King Club, however that ended up being short lived. Scroll to the bottom for that story…

– I spent most of the time working on my BeFM set.

– I did take a trip to Taipei which was a lot of fun

– Met with Blossom Day which was a kick start to working with JC

– TBT at Venue with Pinnacle and Rich Ben, pitty it was a dud of a night

And that was July

August was a good month

– 2^nd Place at BeFM with a trip down to Busan, rocking it out on Gwangali

– Went to WDJ Festival with DJ Korea, jamming in the tent again, but to less fanfare than last year

– Started to do some proper work with JC, exciting times ahead working with her, but did have a fun night out at Bar Fly

– Started on some other projects including learning to produce music

And some other random things I got up to in August…

Went to the One Piece expo in Seoul, it was cool, mostly based around the Marine Ford Arc which was of course total epicness! (Full review in another post)

Went to my first Baseball game in Korea

And that was August, simple but fun, Sept is halfway done but it is also turning out to be another great month, it’s already coming into Autumn and the end of the year is rapidly approaching… again…

So here goes with the King Club story

My hours at bar fly changed to the late shift, so it opened up a time for me to play somewhere else, I was going to look at a second residency after summer since I am usually busy during summer but King Club offered so I thought why not, they are under new ownership and have a new direction that wanted to go in so at first I was excited about working there, because honestly I never liked the place at all or the people that use to frequent it but the hope that it would change and the possibility of the place had me in… But as I began working there it was quickly apparent that any change was going to be slow if at all. The American soldiers still frequented the place, and they bring their own brand of bullshit with them (for the 4 weeks I was there, there was at least 1 fight each weekend…) as well as wanting to hear all the new shit that you can’t dance too. The music they (the boss etc) wanted me to play wasn’t the kind of music the crowd they want to attract want to hear (I even had the bouncer? stop me at the door and start going on about some shit with the music, I just gave him the yeah whatever, like I’m going to listen to you look and walked on by, I listen to the crowd and the boss, not you) and it was just becoming apparent that the direction they wanted to go in was pretty blurry. Also at Bar Fly, the boss asked me to switch back to my old time, so since they come first, had to talk to king club and see if could switch up the schedule, the problem is all of the DJs there have a second residency that is more important to them than king club so none of them can change, which was fine with me, I was the late comer to the party and also working there was really starting to become an annoyance rather than fun, not to say I didn’t have some fun there thou! The place has a lot of potential, always has, and has some good people working there but as is always the way, direction needs to be decisive, not blurry… and changing styles up between the military and Korean/expat scene… seriously there is a reason why I hate Itaewon and even more so hate those young American soldiers and all their bullshit. I avoid the place like the plague

So one of the projects I am working on this year is learning how to basically run my own home recording studio so I can record vocals for some things I have in the works. Sounds difficult at first but the setting up and getting it running isn’t actually that hard, the difficulty really lies in first, reading through as many reviews as possible so you can decide which piece of equipment you wish to use and then, secondly, learning about recording and mastering of tracks (the second part I’ll cover in another post). So, for the mean time I’m going to quickly run over the gear I am using and also the price I paid just in case your interested in costing out your own set up

So first up lets start with the Microphone, after some exhaustive research I settled on the reasonably priced Rode NT1-A

In the box it also comes with shock mount, xlr, mic bag and pop filter all for 266,500won. I settled on this mic after reading reviews and its recommendation as a good mic to capture ‘Hip Hop’ vocals well. I will be looking at adding a second microphone soon, geared more towards female singers, and after reading reviews it will probably be the Audio Technica AT-2020

Cost is 145,000won so very reasonable (yes I am sticking to the budget end of the scale for now since I am only starting out)

Next along the chain from the microphones is the USB/Recording interface. At first I was going to go with an M-box of some design, but after talking to a friend I found something else that could turn out to be alot better and so I settled on a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2

2 Channel with phantom power, audio and headphone outs, this tight little unit will set you back 189,500won

Next along the chain is the DAW program. This was kind of a no brain-er since I’m using a mac so the obvious choice was Logic Pro. I have already had experience using this program in the past and find the interface pretty intuitive and easy to use

You can get Logic Pro from the Mac store for around 199.99$ (USD I think) and is worth the investment if you own a mac since it is very easily integrated into other mac features (one of the bonuses of using all apple based hardware and software)

The last main component is monitor speakers, again another long research process trying to find speakers with as flat as possible sound for a reasonable price, again after all most going back to M-Audio, I ended up settling on a pair of Alesis M1 Active 520 Studio Monitors

Still waiting for these to arrive, but should be here later this week and cost me 347,200won

Other bits and pieces I also picked up were a couple of mic stands (28,400won each), a mic thing to reduce ambient sound (75,000won) and adjustable speaker stands to make sure the monitor speakers are the right height (50,000won each)

The only thing I’m left to decide on is headphones (a pair for the artists to use as reference and maybe a pair for myself to use as second monitors) But I have a couple of pairs that will do in the mean time.

Since I am just starting out I didn’t want to break the bank with the best of the best gear so I did my research to try and find quality gear at a budget price that would hopefully meet my requirements and ended up with a full working set up for around 1,200,000won (1,400,000won if you include the second mic and a standard pair of headphones)

For those of you who are also thinking of making your own home studio, the most important piece of advice I can give you is to first decide just what exactly it is you are wanting to achieve and from there you can start doing you research into what you will need so you can start researching he right gear in your price range. Make sure you do you research and read reviews and if you know people who work in the industry, ask them!!

Chur!

Tag: Logic Pro

Review: June, July & August

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