Vagner in Scarborough

John Here:

We're deep in the basements of Scarberia this week putting together a soundtrack for comedy web video maestro Kirby Ferguson. It's been a fun challenge, since the project is a mini-musical theater production. (Think West Side Story in three minutes complete with a fight scene and a romantic denouement.) We've been working with the amazingly talented Craig Riddock of MK Naomi and Reuben Cherry fame. He's been programming most of the dance sequences, knob twiddling (ahem) and showing us the ropes (ahem) when it comes to some new music software.

I fucking LOVE Logic and ProTools and all these audio suites. The technology is now at the point where you can make believable sketches of almost any type of music using the canned sounds that come with the software. Whether it's hardcore punk, gamelan or Vagnerian opera, once you learn the programs and some music theory, you can make a song that sounds authentic to the casual listener. We've been messing around with huge operatic kettle drums, orchestral strings, and blaxploitation clavinet to realize our demented Broadway visions. Back in the day you'd be spending several thousand dollars to rent all these intstruments, and several thousand more to hire trained players. Now we just dial them up in the drop menus and play around until it sounds right. I'm sure the Musician's Union might have a different opinion about robot trumpet players, but to me it feels like democracy.