Representatives from the software company Notion (www.notionmusic.com) Lubo Astinov (Product Manager/Berklee Alum) and Jim Boitnott (President) presented an engaging demonstration of Progression (their guitar-oriented notation software) and Notion 3 (a full featured notation, sequencing and audio recording package). Notion 3 has been in production for the last two and a half years, and is up for release soon. With a greatly improved user interface, intuitive playback features and painstakingly gathered and recorded instrument samples, the software is guaranteed to make a splash. This was the first unveiling of Notion 3. Providing pizza, which every hungry musician appreciates, they followed up the session with a Q & A.

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Just days before graduating, Music Synthesis student Aaron Cherof treated us to work he did for an MS-491 final project. He replaced all the existing audio and music from the game Braid http://braid-game.com. Going through the process, Aaron discussed pros and cons of working with an existing game, getting inside to swap out existing audio with his own via right-clicking on the game and going to "show package contents", and the trial and error of creating all his own sounds from scratch. Aaron demonstrated the tools the tools he used, from Peak and Pro Tools, to an application he downloaded calledÊMax www.sbooth.org to convert audio to .ogg audio file type for use in games.

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Tonight we be screened films with scores composed by Berklee film composers Jason Parks, Tim Maurice and Chris Fitzgerald. Afterwards the composers answered questions about getting the gig, working on the projects, and dealing with challenges.

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Thanks to Jonathan Williams, Jason Adams and Emir Cerman of the Berklee Electronica Club for an insightful forum. They demo'd tons of great techniques from sound processing to delays, EQs, compression, side-chaining and spectral effects, audio slicing and stutter-edits. Covering a lot of ground, they looked at Reason, Ableton Live, Logic, Kontakt and many 3rd party effects and audio processing plug-ins like Soundhack, Melodyne and Effectrix. Download example files from the forum here. Download a Reason refill created by the Electronica Club here.

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Trainer Chris Fitzgerald had to be a jack of all trades as he put together a demo based around vocalist Krysta Youngs' song "Silly Lives" during tonight's forum. First he gave a short background talk on some of the hardware and software necessary for working inside of GarageBand. Next, he sequenced drums and bass using the midi keyboard, which were subsequently quantized to tighten up the timing. Plugging in an electric guitar, Chris dived into the new amp and stompbox simulation feature in GarageBand called "Guitar Tracks". With the rhythm section in place, Krysta recorded her vocal part on top. Having reached the mixing stage, the tracks were blended together via volume and panning adjustments as well as the application of reverb. Chris even had time to go in and apply some creative audio editing and effect techniques to various tracks. Many thanks to our guest, Krysta for singing and also allowing us to use her track "Silly Lives" from her album Stories for the forum.

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Continuing our ongoing relationship with Berklee music synthesis alumni and local Ableton Live user group organizer, Ben Cantil, this evening we were treated to an inside look at how electronic musicians, DJs and other artists use Ableton Live 8. Beginning with the history of DJing and turntables, Ben discussed how the software realm and Live are allowing for amazing new tools audio manipulation. Giving an organized look at the Live interface, Ben showed signal routing, file browsing and organization, audio time warping, Live effects, working with and MIDI controllers in Live, and much more. Check out an Ableton Live Basics class at the Learning Center to get a hands-on look at Live. (Click here to sign up)

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In the final forum of the Guerilla series, we mixed down our recording, discussing mixing definitions, monitors and headphones, effects such as compression, limiting, reverb, EQ and delay, critical listening, and demonstrated mixing techniques. Despite dealing with a fire alarm, we were able to cover a lot of ground. Through the course of the three forums we ended with a completely recorded, sequenced and mixed production. If you missed these forums, check them out in the fall semester.

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Building on our recording session from last week, we took a look at editing techniques after the recording phase. Taking the arrangement into consideration, we looped sections, layering them to add interest. We built a drum groove by recording various sounds including hand claps, can and plastic bottle sounds, and a lip whistle toy brought in by a student. After sampling these sounds, we loaded them into Redrum, rewired from Reason into Logic, using the sounds for a breakdown drum groove. Often you may be working on a project with other people, switching back and forth between different applications, so we froze out the audio tracks from Logic and loaded them into Pro Tools. Using Pro Tools' high end audio editing features, we looked at pitch correction, audio quantizing, sound replacement, noise reduction, and other cleaning up techniques.

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In this forum we discussed types of microphones, audio interfaces, cable connections and stereo mic'ing techniques while recording some tracks. We walked through a recording setup, explaining all the steps, and recorded bass, guitar (mic'ing a guitar amp and discussing techniques) trombone, sax and vocals. This gave us a wide variety of instruments to record, and we used multiple types of microphones and mic'ing techniques. Come next week as we show audio editing techniques using what we recorded tonight.

Additional information : download here

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Nazer Lagrimas, president of the Video Game Music Club at Berklee (www.vgmcberklee.org) was on hand tonight to give a very entertaining look at the history of video game music on the Nintendo. He played Nintendo sound files (nsf) through freeware application Audio Overload (download it at www.audiooverload.com). Looking at everything from the original Donkey Kong to Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the Wii (just released this week), he discussed the evolution of the 8bit NES with 5 channels of audio, through the 16bit SNES with 8 channels to the N64, Gamecube and on up to the Wii. Nintendo has also dominated the handheld market with systems like Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, and Nintendo DS. Nazer had tons of great old television ads and game play videos. Look for more VGMC forums in the fall.

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Kicking off our summer forum series, we had Dave Roberts (MOTU Product Specialist) here to show off new features in Digital Performer 6. Looking at audio and MIDI routing, Dave showed DP's interface, focusing on efficient setup of the consolidated windows features. He demonstrated using DP with Reason in Rewire mode, DP's built-in instruments, Model12, Bassline, Modulo, Proton, Modulo and Nanosampler, and audio recording and editing features. DP6 is now available for Berklee students. Click here for more information.

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