Welcome!

Welcome to Multi-Platinum Pro Tools very first blog!

The last 12 months have been a blur and it seems each day has been full of surprises. In that time, we've released a book and two DVDs (just a couple of weeks away from releasing our third) and are already in the planning stages of another book and 2 more DVDs that are even bigger in scope than anything we've released thus far. We're also on the verge of partnering with a major online Music Retail company so I hope to be able to officially announce that partnership very soon. Once that's done we'll be able to reach a much wider audience with a greater range of products. It's been a very exciting year. This blog is one of several new Multi-Platinum offerings that we hope will become a valuable and ongoing resource for our customers. We're also planning a Pro Tools Tip of the Day Widget that you can install on your computer that will offer you valuable tips and secrets and give you important MPPT announcements regarding our products, seminars or new free downloads.

Who am I and why am I doing this?!?

Let me just set the stage with a little info about myself. My name is Brady Barnett and I've been a musician my whole life. I started playing piano by ear when I was 3 and expanded that to piano/keys/drums and percussion as I moved through high school and college. I went to Brevard College in North Carolina and got an associates degree in Piano Performance and then spent 3 years in Boca Raton, Florida studying piano performance at the renowned Harid Conservatory (music division now known as Lynn University Conservatory of Music) under world class pianist and professor Anthony Sirianni . After leaving the conservatory, I moved to Nashville, TN and attended Middle Tennessee State University where I received a double-major in Recording Industry Technology (Bachelor of Science) and Music Business (Bachelor of Music). MTSU has the largest 4 year Recording Industry program in the world and that was where I first developed a love for the technical side of making music. In 1996, I moved to Los Angeles and began working as a freelance recording engineer. I spent a year working at various studios in the LA and Hollywood area including The Enterprise in Burbank, Image Recording in Hollywood and Skip Saylor Recording in Hollywood. After a year, I made the transition to post production and began working at the world's first all digital post production facility called Pacific Ocean Post in Santa Monica. While at POP, I worked on large scale television and radio commercials, and conformed and mixed films for DVD Home Theatre release. POP was one of the pioneers in DVD Streaming technology and it was incredible to be a part of that process.

In 1999, I moved back to Nashville and started working with producer and songwriter, Keith Stegall. At that time, I started working with Pro Tools and became heavily involved in it on a daily basis. For the past 8 years, I've worked on over 50 gold, platinum and multi-platinum records and have learned from some of the best engineers in the business. I've also seen Pro Tools go from an occasionally used editing tool to a dominant platform that is commonly used on records of every genre, on television and movie sets, in radio stations, live recording rigs, etc. You would be hard pressed today to walk into any studio in the world and not find some form of Pro Tools system in use. And if you do happen to find a system other than Pro Tools, you can guarantee that it's certain to be Pro Tools compatible. In this day and age, if you don't know your way around Pro Tools, you almost have to have an engineer there to help run the session for you. ProTools has become an incredibly powerful set of tools that can be used on all aspects of any audio recording project. It has also become increasingly affordable and offered more and more features to entice users of all levels.

As Pro Tools became more and more widely used, I began to find myself having conversations with non-users about why I liked it so much. People saying it was ruining the music industry, lowering the bar of quality, tainting the vocal recording/performance of all the new records, etc. etc. My argument was always the same...that it was not the software or hardware that was causing all the problems, but rather the fact that people simply didn't know how to use it properly. My argument was that if a skilled operator was in charge, you could use it seamlessly in the record making process and actually ENHANCE the records, rather than detract from them! Over the past several years, I've learned to be more and more musical with my editing and tuning and I've learned to use Pro Tools to help me make great sounding projects on any budget. Multi-Platinum Pro Tools was conceived as a means for me to share my years of experience with Pro Tools users of all levels to help them learn the correct ways to use the software. Essentially, I'm offering our clients the opportunity to learn the tricks and techniques I've spent the last 11 years honing by watching over my shoulder as I work through a session.

What can I expect from this blog?

I'm writing this blog to give you some insight into my views on the recording industry, my reasoning for doing things the way that I do, using the plug-ins I do, etc. I will also comment on specific situations I come across in the editing realm and share the way I resolve especially tricky situations. I'll give out lots of tips, tricks and opinions about why I do what I do. Hope you'll join me each week for my thoughts and make sure to visit the Multi-Platinum Pro Tools website each week for updated products and information.

Brady Barnett
Of Sound Mind Productions /
Multi-Platinum Pro Tools
www.ofsoundmind.org
www.multiplatinumprotools.com