Matt Boynton
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Matt Boynton is a very lucky guy. Good timing turned into a long-term gig working at Steve Rosenthal's Magic Shop where Boynton was able to cut his teeth working under some of the industry's most esteemed producers, including John Agnello (Sonic Youth, Jimmy Eat World), Dave Sardy (Jet, Oasis) and John Goodmanson (Blonde Redhead, Sleater-Kinney) among others. But it's not all luck. After leaving the magic shop to go freelance, Boynton opened Vacation Island Recording in 2007 where he has worked on records for Gang Gang Dance, Bat for Lashes, Norah Jones and This Frontier Needs Heroes. The producer/engineer recently took some time to answer a few questions from Natalie B. David about his experiences at the Magic Shop, starting up Vacation Island and what it's like to get up close and personal with The Rolling Stones' masters. Read Here.
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Hans' Recent Playlist
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1. Adele "19"
2. Crass "Christ the Album"
3. Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings "100 Days, 100 Nights"
4. Mastodon "Crack the Skye"
5. FannyPack "So Stylistic"
6. Black Joe Lewis & the Honey Bears "Tell'em What Your Name Is"
7. Duncan Redmonds "Bubble and Squeak"
8. Jenny Lewis "Acid Tongue"
9. Metric "Fantasies"
10. Dusty Springfield "Dusty in Memphis"
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Musician's Resources
(Useful Links)
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 Aloha.
It's hot as hell in Los Angeles but thankfully, tax season is now safely behind us. And, an extra added bonus, I won't mention Susan Boyles for this entire issue. Heh heh.
I was treated to a private tour of Manley Labs a few weeks ago while I waited for Kevin (pictured right) to retrofit my Manley Vari-Mu's tubes. Needless to say, I totally geeked out and started taking pictures like a tourist. They were kind enough not to laugh in my face.
Last month's poll revealed that you all mistakenly think that talent is more important than lava lamps and drugs... I'm shocked and horrified. Not even the engineer category got proper respect. You people obviously haven't read Hammer of the Gods, the Led Zeppelin bio. heh heh.
Please read our interview with producer/engineer (and re-masterer) Matt Boynton. The sound of his work speaks for itself and I'm grateful that he took the time to speak with us.
Client News: Congratulations to Matthew Ryan for his new project The Dead Satellites and their great write up in the latest Vanity Fair. You can download a song for free here.
I wanted to brag about my friends, producer Greg Richling and engineer Bryan Cook and their work on Big Bang's new album "Edendale." The record just went platinum in Norway and managed to keep U2 (maybe you've heard of them) out of the number one slot for a few weeks now. Sweet indeed.
Music News: Virgin has closed it's doors. Yeah, this is old news but still worth a mention for all of you die-hard, brick and mortar, tangible-product types. Long may the 8 track live.
The owners of Pirate Bay, a swedish bit torrent/file sharing website have been found guilty of facilitating the availability of copyrighted content and will each be sharing 1 year in prison and paying a combined total of $3.6 million in damages to 17 different music and media companies. Probably more of a straw dog than a precedent, but time will tell.
Good Links: My friend Josh Freese has been getting a good deal of attention for the pricing structure on his latest solo album. It's not only funny, but working.
This is an interesting article regarding a new music-licensing website and I thought you should check it out.
R.I.P. Snooks Eaglin, Hal Gaba, Eddie Bo, Maurice Jarre, England Dan, Bud Shank, Charlie Kennedy, Rubin 'Zeke' Zarchy.
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The Proliferation of Bogus Music Placement Companies
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 The title says it all. If somebody "cold" contacts you and offers, for an up front fee, to submit your music to music supervisors, please beware. These companies work off of a simple business model; the more people they sign up, the more money they make, regardless of whether they really like your music or can do anything for you. And they easily get around the legal definition of the word "scam" by sending your music to places even if the submission was unsolicited and just winds up in the trash. Here's a list of things to watch out for:
1) Form letters or emails.
If it seems like the email you received is generic with the exception
of using your name or one or two of your song names, it probably is.
And you can often find a million other people on line sharing their emails
and comparing.
2) Typos in the emails or website. I've
said it before and I'll keep saying it, if the company in question is
not professional or smart enough to check their own spelling and
grammar, why would you want them representing you?
3) Hype. Phrases like "Industry leader," or stupid Twitter headlines reading "Making more stars today" means absolutely nothing on a quantifiable scale.
4) Time pressure. Emails
or phone calls where the companies representative says "act now because
the deadline is tomorrow" are total BS and a classic scam.
5) Don't neglect the power of search. Any
info the company provides you can be searched and cross referenced a
gazillion different ways. If the "head" of the company has a Linked In
profile with no discernible work history and no verifiable
testimonials, that should tell you something. If they list references,
contact them. If there's an "exclusive opportunity", look it up. Also search the company name and the word "scam" and see what comes up. You never know.
6) Bogus press releases. If you're trying to establish a companies credibility and stumble across something on line like "Super-sketchy Star Maker Co partners with Reputable Company to bring you the most awesome thing ever!"... don't assume it's true. Anybody can go to companies like Send 2 Press and issue a press release saying just about anything they want. Shoot a quick email to the reputable company and ask if monkeys really can fly out of your butt.
7) Pictures can lie. Anybody can stand in front of a Grammy banner and act like they're walking down the red carpet (remember your first fake ID?). These cats could easily be schlepping food or picking up trash at one of the these events.
8) Don't necessarily rely on the Better Business Bureau (BBB) rating. It takes the BBB a fairly long time (try years) to establish whether a company is really legit or not. And the bar is fairly low for entertainment companies. From the moment a new company registers with the BBB, they have an excellent rating. And as long as they respond to every complaint, citing their "contract" as the reason for not resolving the dispute, this will not really affect their score.
9) If there's smoke, there's probably fire. Ask
somebody that you know and respect in the music business to take a look
at the supposed opportunity and see what they say. Sometimes an extra set of
eyes can really sharpen the focus.
10) If you do sign up for one of these things and you're not happy, keep all of your correspondence and report them to anybody and everybody that will listen (including the BBB and the cities District Attorney where the company does business). Eventually this company will go away and another one will spring up.
Good luck.
Hans Dekline
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Q & A: What is dither and when should I use it?
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 Ah. A nice dry note to end on. Dither is noise that is intentionally added to a digital signal to help mask quantization errors. In english, it's a process that makes sample rounding or truncation sound less crappy. There are different types of dither but they all work off of the same principle: adding randomized noise to the signal. Typically this should be reserved for the final stages of audio production (ie printing mixes/mastering or creation of the CD), but it's a feature that is available on many plug-ins that process in higher resolutions such as 48 bit (which always need to be converted back down to the session's bit depth again).
Dither is great and does make a difference, but it you're using it in mulitple instances on an individual track, and then again, many times over and over as you process and re-process mixes, it tends to have diminishing returns. In fact, when over-done, it adds cloudiness to the high-end and blurs the mid-range too. If you've got doubts, you can toggle the dither on and off while you listen and see if you hear a difference. Don't just assume that it's doing something good.
That's it. Love you guys. Until next time.
Hans Dekline
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