URBAN METHOD

O.k. so I was in Eugene, Oregon with Peter Hollens from the second season of the sing off.  You might remember him from the awesome group ON THE ROCKS! Video below.

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Anyhoo. We just bought some SICK!! shoes and let me tell you they are AMAZING!  Ozzie told me about them and he wears them everyday, but I was not convinced unti I put them on.  The interesting thing is that everyone is hating on our shoes.  The shoes we love! So, I gotta ask…

What do you think?  Have you ever tried any of these awesome shoes. Do you know anyone who has?  Here is our little video about them.

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Would love your thoughts on them.  Oh and check out Peter’s music. Pretty Awesome stuff.

For more information on Peter visit Peterhollens.com

See you soon,

Troy Horne

Today’s tip is simple. You don’t have to make working out such a big chore. All you need to do is maintain an increased heart for 30 minutes, once a day. That could mean a half hour walk after dinner.

…Or in our case a late night opening number cleaning session.

Hey all!! So on our Sing-Off journey Urban Method stopped at Roscoe’s House of Chicken’ n Waffles. Before then I had never in my life had fried chicken and waffles in the same sitting. There were so many different options. You could get a leg, a thigh, a breast,…which one should I get?! I just wasn’t sure how this whole thing worked. So I went with a leg and a waffle. I got my food and it smelled delicious! But here came my next problem…do you eat the chicken and waffle together? With syrup on both? Or do you eat them separately? I just didn’t know. I started eating them separately but Kim corrected me and said “No you are supposed to eat them together!” I wasn’t brave enough to try them together plus I was almost done. I have to say I am now a fan of chicken’ n waffles but next time I go I will definitely try and eat them together. How do you eat your chicken’ n waffles??

What’s up, y’all? This is your resident music history nerd, Kim Dawson, coming at ya today with another little gem. I just found out that this week, long-time crooner Tony Bennett became the oldest living artist to have a number one album on the Billboard charts. He is 85 years old. That’s crazy! Bennett had his first number one hit in 1951 with the song “Because of You,” and the man hasn’t stopped since. Throughout his sixty year career, Tony Bennett has won fifteen Grammy Awards, two Emmy awards, and sold over 50 million records worldwide. And he’s done that staying true to himself, making the music that means the most to him, and never trying to appear as someone he’s not. He is class. He is hip. He is one of the best entertainers to ever grace the stage. I only hope to have such a long and successful career. Congratulations, Tony! You’ve come a long way, baby!

Alrighty, folks. It’s Kim again. Time for this voice coach to give you some tips on maintaining your vocal health. What a crazy schedule we have. Having long work hours and not getting a lot of sleep makes everything in your body tired, including your voice. Most of us fight vocal fatigue. We pretend it’s not happening, or that it’s really not that bad, and sort of push through it. That’s what causes permanent damage, people! Take care of yourselves and your voices! Here are a few easy tips:

1. Drink LOTS of water! Don’t think in terms of glasses. Think in terms of quarts. You should be drinking at least 2 quarts of water a day. Don’t worry about drinking too much water. It’s unlikely that will happen.

2. REST! Make sure to get as much sleep as you can, yes, but also remember to rest your voice. That means don’t talk when you don’t have to, and if you’re really experiencing pain, don’t talk at all. And don’t sing when you don’t have to. Give your voice the rest it needs. It will thank you in the end.

3. Don’t sleep with the air conditioner on! It dehydrates you all night, and you wake up dry and raspy. I mean, you drink a ton of water all day, and then you want to have the air conditioner dry it all up at night? No way!

Of course, these kinds of things are much easier to talk about than to put into practice. But, give them a try, and see if you don’t experience a change. That’s all for today. Check back here every week for more vocal tips. We all want to be able to sing forever, so let’s take the important steps to make that happen!

Continuing with the category of diet/nurishment. You brain is made of fat, so you need to eat fat to stay smart…in a manner of speaking.

Health Tip #7: Eat the right fats, the ones that contain Omega-3 and Omega-6. Two of my favorites, and staples in my diet, are fish and nuts (walnuts and almonds are some of the heatlhiest).

P.S. Any excuse to eat sushi! Yes please.

In mixing a cappella, there are several ideas and sound techniques that stray from what most engineers learn and practice in the industry.  I thought I’d start a blog that addresses these differences to help groups get a more full and clear sound.

Lets start with the ever important and most widely misunderstood vocal percussionist (VP) or beatboxer.

I start by using a “Y” split cable to bring his/her channel into two channels on the mixer. You can also use Whirlwind three-way splitter or internal buss on a digital mixer. This opens up the opportunity to EQ and place effects on the upper drum parts without affecting the kick channel and vice versa. The three channels are as follows: one being the kick (KK), the second being the snare and over-head channel (SNOH), and the third as a vocal channel in case they sing on the same microphone. That gives you the ability to effect and EQ each channel differently for swift mid-song changes to that vocalist by muting the vocal channel and opening up the Kick (KK) and Snare/Over-head (SNOH), of vise versa.  Just mute and open the channels as needed.  Never have all three open at once, that defeats the purpose.

Second, I EQ the KK channel to sound like a kick drum.  Have the artist do a kick sound and adjust only the KK channel to have a good amount of 60 Hz, almost no mids, and a peak at 5 KHz.  I also put the subwoofer send on an auxiliary out and route the kick channel to it.

Then mute the KK channel and open up the SNOH channel alone with the artist doing snare and hat sounds.  EQ it to handle all of the low-high mids  and highs.  I usually put a HP filter up to 150 Hz, bring up 250 Hz, put a peak at 3.0 KHz, and a shelf EQ at 11KHz and above.

Then bring the two channels together by bringing them both up.  Have the artist do their “full kit” and blend the two channels until it sounds good.  The best part is that you could put a little reverb only on the SNOH channel to give it some room.  During the show, the engineer can use either channel more or less to create atmosphere in the mix, ie. Dance tunes get more KK, slow songs, more SNOH.

For microphones, I prefer dynamic microphones that can handle high sound pressure levels (SPL’s) I use the Shure Beta 58 on on most beatbox, since it can be wireless. The Sennheiser EW100 with the 965 hyper-cardiod capsule is also a good choice. Small EQ differences can be heard by sending the signal through the airwaves so I prefer the wired models if I can get away with it.  Also, if you want a huge kick sound, use the Audix D6!!

Remember, you can always email your sound questions to tony@sonicaudiopro.com

During my incredible sing-off journey, I’ve become very familiar with the process of hurry up and wait. HURRY UP AND WAIT. We constantly rush around all the time and then end up waiting in holding or in the studio until it’s time to record or perform. With all of this waiting around, I’ve become heavily obsessed with playing games on my iPhone.

The game I am currently obsessed with is: ANGRY BIRDS. Whoo!!! So much fun…actually sometimes it’s not that much fun but it’s so addicting that I can’t stop playing it! It can be a pretty difficult game and I have to get 3 stars or else I can’t move on to the next level. AGHH! I’ve been late to many a rehearsal messing around with these birds. Any other games I should get addicted to?

Ok. So we made it past the first round. So Stoked!!! I hope you guys are too.

I know we gots to start thinking about week 3, but in the mean time I’m looking forward to hear what the other 8 groups have in store for us! We haven’t had much time to hang out with them since we’ve been working so hard on our stuff, but it’s nice to hear updates in passing.

As the resident health nut I’m trying to stay healthy and still be productive. I’ve been able to jump on the stationary bike, or swim, for an hour everyday since our show day. It’s nice to get away and let episode three stuff marinate (as Richard likes to say).

Health tip #5: Don’t eat too many carbs in one sitting it’ll make you sleepy.

Stay Healthy!

-Z

So I just discovered the most amazing thing in the entire world. Maybe I’m late to the party, but Denver does not have this magical place. Our whole group stopped by Yogurtland before going to Sony today, and I went crazy and sampled almost all of their flavors. This time around I stuck with the plain tart with mangoes, blueberries, and mochi. AMAZING! And I will tell myself it’s healthy too.

I thought I went crazy, but you should have seen Troy. Dude put just about everything imaginable on his fro-yo, including Fruity Pebbles cereal. And he ate it all. And Ozzi, being the health nut he is, got the Taro flavor. I guess it’s some kind of Asian sweet potato?

It is amazing what a big cup of delicious frozen yogurt can do for your morale when you’ve been rehearsing all day. Thank you Yogurtland! I think we’re about to have a serious relationship.