Home Recording Weekly Songwriting contest winner for July.

This past month saw all sorts of entries. I got some musicals, some country, and some of that good ole’ rock and roll.

This is the song that “caught my ear”, and I fell in love with the “hook”.

Congratulations, Cherell Willams, on a job so very well done!

Here is what Cherell Willams wrote to me……

“I am an amateur songwriter but not a performing artist. I spent years throwing away songs and recently I wrote a song and did my first home recording with the help of my husband and I was like "Wow, I finally wrote a song I actually like LOL ;)

We didn't have everything we needed but we used what we had and did the best we could with what we had. We had a regular old mic (we wanted a condenser mic), no pre-amp, and an acoustic guitar that rattles a bit and is not warm sounding at all. So it's basically a good quality song but the mix is not a very good mix. It definitely needs to be recorded over but I'm still proud of it LOL :)

We look forward to upgrading and getting little home studio up to par so we can produce a better quality recording. I'm excited now!

In my recording of "It's a new day" I played the guitar I'm not a professional guitar player by the way. I can play a few chords and a few songs. I'm not a vocalist but I do what I can. Didn't have anyone to sing the song for me, so I sang it myself and my husband who is a very talented singer help me with the background vocals.

My influence is just music itself. The genres I like to call my songs are "Positive". Just positive, simple, clean music along with some contemporary Christian. I just hope my music will be a positive, encouraging, uplifting influence to many. I desire to have my songs placed in T.V./Film. Can you imagine movies without music! The music is what enhances the plot. Can you imagine a world without music!
Thanks
Willams~Songwriter www.broadjam.com/rellspositivemusic”

Here is a list of prizes that Cherell has just won!

1) A 30 day, Full Access pass, to Groove 3 training videos. With new titles like “Reason Instruments volume 1”, and “Reason Instruments volume 2”, and my personal favorite “Mixing Rock”, there are videos waiting for you, and your musical journey!

2) From Bias, a copy of SoundSoap 2! This is such a perfect tool for video, music, mastering, and on and on!

3) From The Sound Guy, SFX Machine Pro ! A wonderful plugin for any application. Need effects? Here they are!

4) From LoopMasters, how about some DVD’s full of professional loops and samples! These are the best of the best!

Thanks for all of the amazing entries, and there is still one more month of contest left to enter! Good luck to you all!

Please refer to the post that details the rules for entering!

Big news from Propellerhead software today!

First of all, from Propellerhead, Reason version 6 has been announced!

New in Reason 6
Combining all the features from Record, Reason version 6 adds audio recording and editing, along with Propellerhead's acclaimed mixing console with masterfully modeled EQ and dynamics on every channel, multiple parallel racks, Line 6 amp models, new effect devices plus additional features. New creative effects designed for inserting directly into instruments and tracks include: Pulveriser, sound crushing effect with crunchy compression, dirty distortion and flexible modulation; The Echo, advanced stereo echo with modern delay and analog tape echo emulation: and Alligator, a three band pattern gate for complex rhythmic texturing. Interface enhancements, high definition audio transpose and true 64-bit compatibility highlight other new feature improvements.

But, as if that is not enough, Propellerhead software has also announced their new Balance audio interface. This is very big news indeed. A lot of my blogs’ readers have asked a lot of questions about just which interface I feel is best to partner up with Reason and/or Record. Here is a link to the spec page. Wow, and just check out the all of the input options onboard of the Balance audio interface too!

Balance, a two-in by two-out audio interface for Mac and Windows, is designed for the single person operated home/project studio. Fully USB 2 powered with separate volume controls for monitors and headphones, it contains 8 input connections to keep all instruments, mics and devices connected and ready to record with the press of a button—without software pop-ups or control panels. The included Reason Essentials packs in all the recording editing, effects, instruments and mixing tools needed to create great sounding tracks.

Lastly, a stripped down, but very powerful version of Reason has been released too, called Reason Essentials. This is better than Reason Adapted ever thought about being.

Just for the record, with no Propellerhead pun intended, please keep the song entries coming in! There are still two more months of the Home Recording Weekly Blog Songwriting contest going! I still have prizes to give away to some songwriting subscribers!