Jarome Matthew's Blog

Wow, what a year!

In many ways, it was great, and there were so many fantastic moments, but overall, the forces of darkness in the world and in my own life create a pretty hellish year.

I’ve learned a lot though, and focusing on the positive things, here are my top 5 moments as I blogged about them from the start of the year, not in order of importance:

My latest production: ‘Birds Of Love‘

Music production in Beijing

The Quest for Balance in My Life

New trance/pop production: ‘I know I Should Run’

Video production: Medieval Europe & the Crusades
.

Then there was the great trip to New York, which I never had time to blog about like many other things during the year…
Most of the other productions and accomplishments of the year I completed have yet to be released, I produced over 5 albums this year!

Here are some of my top blogs worth mentioning from 2009:

Pro Soul Alliance music business 2.0 insights

The Importance Of Music In Society

Is professionally produced music important anymore?

Information rich, attention poor

Improving vocal performance

The End Of Control: Waking Up From Life’s Illusions
.

I hope 2010 is a fantastic year for you, I know it will be quite an amazing year for me.
Thanks for reading, your why I do this, keep an eye out for some possible very big news from me in 2010, coming soon!

Yello – You Gotta Say Yes to Another Excess (Club Mix)

.

Not what you were hoping for?

Here are some old original Christmas songs I composed/produced

Happy Holidays and all the best for 2010!

.

In moving the studio recently and consolidating things, preparing for a more mobile production setup, I discovered some interestng items from my past. Over the years, I’ve been so busy pretty much non stop that I haven’t had a chance to go through old boxes and files that have been laying around. Well over the last month I have, and I found some pretty interesting memorabilia:

Floppy Disks with song files & sounds from my first productions (now in some landfill)

I also found an original copy of a magazine with a full page feature, also mentioning me that I got for one of the first artists I professional produced, Emeline:

Emeline in Vancouver magazine (edited scan from original)

Found lots of other very interesting things maybe I’ll share when I have more time.

There are a lot of cables when you have a midi based studio, even though I’ve gotten rid of a lot of analog equipment, and still am selling now as part of this process…

Audio, midi instrument, power, data, speaker cables for the studio

We’re supposed to be at the airport right now for a 2am flight to Vietnam to adopt our boy Evan Ut, but I’m here writing this blog instead.
Guess the only thing you can be sure of when you embark on the adoption roller coaster is that you can never be sure of anything!

The group adopting from the orphanage before us is still there, waiting for their paperwork which has been delayed now for weeks.
Unless they get what they need completed and come home, we can’t go.
Even once that happens, we don’t know when we’ll go as new plans have to be made around Christmas and New Years holidays.

This will give me a much needed break, as I try to be patient and wait for those with the authority to do so let little Evan Ut and the other waiting babies have a permanent family.
Until then, he’ll be waiting in the Orphanage in Lang Son, Vietnam as he is here in his most recent photo taken by our agency representative when she visited him.

That’s right, after 3 great years, I’m moving my studio to my home next week. I had planned to blog about it much earlier, but then we were suddenly told to drop everything and go to Vietnam to adopt a baby (An update on that & what has happened in my next blog…).

Because I will be doing a lot more work overseas next year, I decided it didn’t make sense to have a separate studio here that is costing me when I won’t even be here! So I’m moving the studio to my home and will be working with a friends studio locally when recording is necessary in Vancouver.

It was a hard decision, as this was definitely the best sounding studio I’ve had, interesting as it was quite a simple setup, but there was something about the sound in there that gave this lovely air when mixing, and it had a comfy homey feeling when recording.
Had some fantastic times in there working with amazing artists like Elika Mahony, Heather Dore, Laura Harley, and Bahiyyih.

We custom built the studio as a double walled enclosure, and acoustically treated the walls, and put in wood flooring.

It seems every time I build a studio, the time I actually get to use it before something happens becomes less and less… Hopefully my next studio will last more than 3 years! I really thought I would be there and use the space for a lot longer than I did, but life changes.

In terms of how this will affect my work, things will be continuing as usual as far as what I can do and the quality of my work. I’ve made sure those things won’t be affected. What will change is my availability in Vancouver. If you want to work together on a project, make sure you schedule it now, because my time here next year will be limited!

In going through everything I have to prepare to move, I found some pretty amazing memorabilia from my music past… Im going to post some of those things in future blogs, so keep an eye out.

I’m also selling some vintage analog gear as I part with things I don’t use as much to make room for new additions that I need more now with my work and the way technology changes. If your interested in an Emax 2 sampler, Korg SDD-1000 delay fx, Behringer MX 2642A Mixer, or a Symetrix 528 vocal processor/preamp channel strip, then let me know.

I have to say, I’m really looking forward to all the time I’ll be saving not having to commute, and the money that will be saved as well. This has been a really tough year, and I really need a break and to make some major changes in the way I work, badly.