The following script can be modified to fit your particular needs, but basically, it force-quits all of the applications in the MyProcesses list. You can add whatever you like to that list. If it’s running, it will shut it down, if it’s not running, it will ignore it. A word of warning – this will kill the apps without saving anything, and without any warnings. It’s the equivalent of running “force quit” in the finder.

Type the following script into your AppleScript Editor, modify as needed, and away you go! (presented as an image to preserve the formatting)

The Star-Spangled Banner

Orchestra Hits

Click below for the good stuff:

Download Orchestra Hit 80′s as a Logic EXS24 sampler instrument

It also got me thinking about this idea of networking, and how it really works. It’s frustrating to hear as a young musician trying to build a career, but most of networking comes from working a lot of jobs with a lot of other people. This project kind of distilled it down for me like this:

The guitars were tracked by Corey Witt, who I met playing on a gig 10 years ago, and have stayed working with ever since. He used a pedal built by Bomes Electric, a guy I know from college when we all emerged into the scene together. For some of the tones, he probably used gear by Line6, which was launched into the world in part with help from Brian Swerdfeger, the guy who first introduced me to Corey 10 years ago.

The bass sounds came from Trillian, which featured awesome samples of my buddy Matt Bissonete. I met him while we were both playing backup for Danny Donnelly. It took a few years, but then we started ending up on recording sessions and live dates together. Now, everytime I fire up Trillian I get a little smile on my face listening to his sound.

The drum sounds came from BFD. This little piece of software has some history to it. I first heard the prototype of it in Steve Duda’s living room. He was programming an album that I was producing for a no-name artist who has gone on to do, well, nothing. The prototype had no graphics, it was all just code and numerical inputs, but you could already tell that it was going to change the world. A group of us loved the sound of the original so much, that for about 5 years we booked everything we could at Eldorado Studios, where the samples were recorded. Chris Steffen was the recording engineer, and we became fast friends, and now he tracks or mixes a lot of the stuff I work on.

I use Logic Pro to do all of this, a program that I was introduced to by Phil Shackleton during my undergrad years. Phil is a beta-tester for the app, and helped write part of the manual back in the day. My default setup uses many of the environment tools and tricks that he’s helped develop over the years.

What’s the point of all of this? You’ve probably never heard of most of these people, but they are part of my musical ecosystem. They are the people who hire me, and that I hire. They are part of the structural support system for my career. They are my network.

You can’t go out and “build a network”. I don’t even know what “networking” is, but everyone who has ever talked about it as its own thing comes off sounding slightly creepy to me, like they might at any minute give up music and start selling vitamins in a multi-level-marketing scheme instead. The network is a byproduct of doing good work, being a positive and open person, and sustaining healthy relationships.

And that takes time. Stay close to the people you came into town with. They are your cohort. There’s probably no way that you’re going to “network” your way into working with Hans Zimmer. But, you might be in a position to grow into a network with the guy who’s going to be Hans Zimmer in 20 years.

Download UREI Click for Logic EXS24

The link above will download a zip file with a Logic EXS24 sampler instrument and the UREI click sample. The sampler instrument is mapped to all keys, and is not sensitive to velocity. To install the sampler instrument, grab the contents of the zip folder, and copy them to:

~/Library/Application Support/Logic/Sampler Instruments/

If you’re on OSX 10.7 or later, it doesn’t like to let you go to that folder. Instead, in the top finder menu select “Go > Go to Folder”, then type in

~/Library/

and from there, you can navigate to the folder above.

The simplest way to replace the Klopfgeist click is to launch a project, go to the mix window, show all tracks, then find the “Click” track, and replace the plugin with your new EXS24 instrument. This will cause your new UREI click to function just like the old click, responding to key commands and following your project settings click preferences.

If you need to print a click stem for exporting a session, right-click on the click track in the arrange window, and “Create/Select Arrange Track”. This will put your click track in the arrange window, and you can treat it like any other instrument in your project.

In one sense, I get it. The studio is sitting on a prime stake of real estate right near Sunset and Vine, and I’m sure the numbers just don’t add up. The income you can churn at a bodega selling cheap souvenirs to sweaty tourists is certainly more than you can generate by making albums these days.

I also know that I’m part of the problem. Even on projects where I have the budget to track rhythm or overdubs in a big room, the turnaround time is usually so short that I can’t. When you have 36 hours to deliver a 5 minute cue, there’s not enough time to write the piece, book the band, track it, mix it, and deliver it. You have to use samples.

So, it was a good session, but hard to see the brutal reality of the new musical economy. A little bit of history fading into the past, and a handful of people on hand to give one last musical benediction.