Same old video...Christmas song video

Well we did it. Yesterday with the help of Laura Fay [blisstones] and Trip [Om designs] And Pam Scott {PMS management} we shot the video for "Same Old Christmas Song" http://www.oldies.com/product-view/12572.html. It's on a nationally distributed compilation cd with Shadows of Knight, Henry Gross. Glen Burtnick and others. It's already a top selling cd on the oldies.com site. We had some crazy lo-fi set design as you can see in the short poor quality video from my other camera posted below. The video shoot went really well and we all had a lot of fun shooting it. It's completely no budget and basically a wild performance of the song. We're going to edit this week and will have it up on youtube and on harleyfine.com as well as anywhere else that will show it. I'll be posting the song for downloads this week and sendijg it out to radio stations. Hey for $1.50 you can have a copy of the ANTI-CHRISTMAS SONG, CHRISTMAS SONG "Same Old Christmas Song by Harley Fine [www.harleyfine.com] .You'll be supporting good original music and musicians who are working really hard. It's like pre-sex offender Gary Glitter meets Ozzy Osbourne with a little Quiet Riot thrown in! Trip is insane as the drummer and Laura Fay looks amazing on bass and jaunty hat. Special thanks to Pam Scott [PMS Management] for her brilliant camerawork and Richard Mazda [producer of Wall of Voodoo/The Fleshtones/The JB's] for the gracious loan of camera and lights]

Zen & the art of home studio maintenance

NYC November 3, 2008 8am [or is it 9am] Woke up this morning after 4 hours of sleep and daylight savings time messing with my already jetlagged life. I was thinking about some recent experiences in other people's studios. One of the things I do is travel to professional and home studios either to engineer or for pre-production or to teach Pro tools basics. Many times I'll be there helping to optimize an already existing setup. I seen some extremely idiosyncratic setups. This is where the studio owner/artist has some crazy wiring schemes that make total sense to them and are totally counter-intuitive. They've worked this way for a while and, not knowing anything else is possible, have gotten comfortable with working this way. This works ok if you're the only person to use the equipment or you have only a limited amount of gear but when you start to introduce outboard preamps compressors etc, it becomes apparent very quickly that things can be improved. Now I don't consider myself a lazy person but I don't like working harder than I have to. For the most part, anything I'm commenting on, I've been guilty of in the past. One of the best things you can do in your home studio is get a patch bay for all of your equipment. There are several types including 1/4" /RCA/ XLR/ Bantam. The decision as to which one to use will be apparent when you list the number and type of inputs and outputs and any future growth you plan and oh yeah..your budget. Patchbays are not sexy like compressors or microphones and can cost a lot more when you add up all the cables and time it takes to plan and install. But I guarantee you will never want to go back to not having one. No more crawling around on your hands and knees with a flashlight in your mouth trying to trace wires in the back of your rack wtih people sitting around waiting. As I said earlier that was me in the past. One item that I consider a studio must have [especially in setting up a patchbay] is a cable tester. It doesn't need to be expensive, I think mine was $35 but it's been invaluable when signal goes down and you can quickly see if it's the cable and not your expensive piece of gear. It will save you a ton of time tracing which wires go where when you're setting up cable snakes etc as the testers have a signal output tone to make sure you're plugged inot the channel or gear you intended to. It will also save you money when you have a professional in your studio and you don't have to take time to figure out your secret personal wiring system while you're paying them by the hour! Now for the Zen part of this story. It occurred to me in my half awake state that the level of organization and ease of operation of your studio setup is analagous to how easy it is to operate your life. The easier it is to operate your life the more opportunities you can recognize and take advantage of. It's like the crazy notion if you have a clean and uncluttered workspace you wont have any creativity..when just the opposite is true. Have fun make music. harley

Michael Aguirre of the Blisstones

I've been engineering the debut solo album from Michael Aguirre of the Blisstones and I have to tell you, you're in for a real treat when this comes out in 2009. It's a really cool andinteresting project and some very talented musicians are on there especially Joe Magistro [Rich Robinson band, The Black Crowes] on drums...he's one of the best drummer I've had the pleasure to work with and made me sound like a genius

Finally...The Bramblemen debut cd.

Well..... after 2 years of hard work we finally completed the Bramblemen debut cd "FAST TRAIN TO MEMPHIS" The brainchild of Rich Bloom who began the project as a movie treatment and ended up writing and recording the sound track There's a cavalcade of talent that appears on this one. Including Ian Lloyd [Stories "Brother Louie"] Bill Cunningham [The Boxtops] Steve Holley [Paul McCartney & Wings, Ian Hunter band] Job Graboff [Ryan Adams, Beat Rodeo]. Richard Mazda [producer of Wall of Voodoo, The Fleshtones, the JB's] co-produced the title track with me and I produced and engineered 4 other tracks and mixed 9 out of the 10 tracks. I also appear in the video for Fast Train as a nasty bartender!

Reality check #1 oct 22 2008 nyc

REALITY CHECK #1 OCT 22 2008 NYC This is the spot where I get to share the knowledge I’ve accumulated over the years. I’ve had in depth conversations with engineers, producers and musicians about music and recoding and as a result have picked up quite a few ideas that can help you be more productive, save money and have an easier time in the recording studio. CLICK CLICK BANG BANG For this premiere reality check I want to talk about something I’ve encountered too many times in the studio. I’m guilty of this bad habit as well in some of my personal recording projects. This will be true for evey recording session you do at home and plan to bring to another studio to mix or overdub and for that matter every recording session you do anywhere......... YOU MUST CREATE A CLICK TRACK! i can’t tell you the number of hours of recording time and money I’ve seen wasted on trying to replace a drum track that’s slowing down and speeding up. And that’s not the whole problem as most times the rest of the tracks were played to this faulty drum beat and are off rhythm as well. It’s a terrible waste of time and money and can wreak havoc on your creative flow as well as your budget. If your drummer tells you he can’t play to a click a] you know he’s not professional b] he needs to learn how...right away c] perhaps you should consider hiring a profession for the session One trick that has worked for drummers and other musicians who have difficulty playing to a click is to lay donw a drum machine beat that’s synched to the tempo of the track. It can be a lot easier than a click track. In Pro Tools for example they have Grid mode which can be an invaluable help editing rhythmic material. Most if not all professional musicans have spent countless hours playing to a metronome to gain accuracy and have a much easier time with the click.