Fight the Chaos on your hard drive! Short preparation for every element – Andre’s Production Diary Part 17

Hi guys, it’s Andre,

16 entries in my Production Diary ago, I started my career as volunteer for Benztown and to be honest, I’m really proud to be there. In the last weeks, I had the opportunity to learn from the pros @ Benztown and to share the stuff I learned with you.

Creating Ramploops, being prodactive, how to choose FX or Beatjuggling in Pro Tools. These were only a few things, I showed and shared with you.

Today, I’m going back to the basics and show you how to increase your speed in preparing your sessions without sinking in the daily chaos of hundreds and thousands of audio files.

Save Time with Keyboard Command Focus Mode – Andre’s Production Diary Part 16

Hi guys, it’s Andre.

It’s my 16th week now at the Benztown studios and today I’m telling you how to work faster and more effective.

Like most DAWs and many other programs, Pro Tools is packed with different shortcuts for almost every action.

Mastering the shortcuts will make you faster and better in working with Pro Tools.

Listing all these shortcuts would take me ages, so I’m concentrating on Keyboard Command Focus mode. It turns most of keys on the QWERTY keyboard into shortcuts, which don’t require you hold down a modifier key.

By clicking the [a…z] button (which is located below the zoom buttons), you can activate Keyboard Command Focus mode.

Also, I’m showing you other useful shortcuts, which can be performed with pressing just one key.

So check out the keys and a cool overview as picture.

Do the work of several hours in a minute… meet Strip Silence – Andre’s Production Diary Part 15

Hi guys it’s me, Andre.

Since 15 weeks, I’m now a volunteer at the Benztown studios in Stuttgart and learning from Andy & Oli.

This week, I’m showing you a useful feature for cutting very long files in a few seconds… Strip Silence.

Get Life in your Elements or how samples can make a great Promo – Andre’s Production Diary Part 14

Hi guys,

It’s Andre and it’s my 14th week as a volunteer at Benztown. Today I’m going to tell you how to spice up your Promo.

You may have a great script, a great VO, great music and great effects, but you still think, there’s something missing. Something little to spice up your element.

I’m talking about  voice samples. Interviews, listeners or phrases recorded from an award show or a movie. Imagine, you’re presenting the Grammys and you’ve got nothing, no samples of the highlights and the announcement of the winners. In this case, samples can make or break your Promo.

Here’s an example how samples can make a good Promo

It might be annoying to record and cut all these sample, but it’s definitely worth it.

Add that little special to your Promo, now.

Video:The Sweeping Society – Create an unbelievable FILTER FX on Music.

For all you electronic music lovers –  here comes one of the (what I call) back to the roots FX every DJ and House Producer was after in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. It is still a very popular Filter FX in music production and radio imaging, especially for creating beatmixes and unbelievable hook promos. My volunteer Andre and I put together a Video tutorial for you….It takes you less than 3 minutes of your time, but will change your skill set in an extraordinary way. Enjoy!

The right Latte, Callers and ProTools – Andre’s Production Diary Part.1

Do you remember Andre, the first winner of our Xmas Contest? – No?

Well, here’s his story: Andre, a young guy living near Stuttgart, participated in our contest. He is young, motivated and really willing to learn, so we gave him a chance for a placement at Benztown. He is cooking coffee, taking calls and learns a lot about girls. It is a massive secret to do a great latte, ask him and maybe he wants to tell you. Beside that he is working out at the ProTools LE System for a few hours a day (gaining his bizeps) and cutting VO and producing some basic stuff.

As promised, here’s his first production diary. We follow Andre through his time in the Benztown team. To clarify it: This is more for beginners and great if you wanna learn production and imaging from scratch. So Andre, let´go!