Jarome Matthew’s Blog

So after dusting off some 80’s analog synth hardware, and researching licensing internationally for digitally released cover songs, Heather Doré’s new song is finally released and available online! Listen here!

She is a great lover of 80’s music, so it seemed fitting to remake an almost forgotten 80’s classic, so we chose The Human League, ‘(Keep Feeling) Fascination’ which I have always loved since I was a teen. I wasn’t sure how I could do justice to the fantastic original production, unique sounds used, and great male and female vocal tracks, but a little ‘future disco’ treatment, and Darryl Kromm of Strange Advance on background vocals turned out to be a winning combination in my biased opinion!

We have some very exciting things in progress for Heather’s next songs, so look forward to more soon!

In my last post I talked about how the quality and natural dynamics of music is being destroyed through digital software technology that allows unnatural processing of audio.

But there is a much greater threat to the quality of audio that has been the subject of my thoughts for some time now: The way we listen to sound.

Back in the 1970’s the quality of sound recording technology, production techniques and playback systems reached a pinnacle with some of the most incredible music and sound humanity had ever known, and this became further fine tuned in the 1980’s. Brilliant, rich full spectrum sound that went beyond the range of human hearing, but influenced the richness of the sound through frequency harmonics that enhanced what we could hear with our ears.
Two things initiated the downward spiral that has led us to where we are today: The Walkman and the CD.
Very briefly, the walkman influenced music lovers to listen to music on crappy little earphones, and the CD chopped off audio at 20kHz without researching the influence of harmonics above that hearing range on sound we do hear. This is why vinyl records really are better sounding than CD’s in many ways.
From there, the convenience of sound gave way to clarity, and quality until we come to the present day world, of massively widespread use by the majority of music and audio listeners of terrible sounding MP3’s played on the worst possible sound producing devices humanity has ever experienced: earbud iPod headphones, computer laptop speakers, and cel phones! And this doesn’t even begin to cover the music and production tools and techniques prevalent with the trend of do it yourself computer production.

To a producer like myself who has spent over a decade mastering the subtle art of trying to perfect music and sound, this trend is devastating to say the least. And if you ever compared how music sounds on a really nice hi fi stereo system (you know like the ones they used in the 70’s) with a computer laptop speaker, it would make you nauseous. You lose something like 80% of the sound! But that introduces another problem- people don’t really know what sounds good and what doesn’t, maybe because they have become so used to listening to terribly reproduced sound, in my humble opinion and experience.
(Just as a benchmark, and cost is by no means an accurate measure, if your speakers cost less than $500, they are probably cheap garbage that sounds terrible!)

This has brought up all kinds of questions for me with regard to what I do as a profession… Why create great sounding 24 bit 96kHz audio if it is going to end up at 80% of what you created? For the 20% of people that like good sound?
My only answer is to become more involved in the film industry side of audio production as a sound designer, since at least sound is formatted and reproduced in higher fidelity than with music. So that is what I have gradually been doing. A film I worked on last year is hitting the theatres in September here…

I truly feel for the future of music in an environment where it is so under appreciated. It makes me wonder what the future holds for someone in a profession like myself and wether or not there will even be the need for professional producers and engineers if no one can really appreciate or notice their efforts.

For those of you reading this who don’t really know what I’m talking about, you don’t know what your missing!

Yesterday, I got a long overdue visit from a friend and professional musician Darryl Kromm from 80’s band Strange Advance who I worked with on Past Becomes Future and many other brilliant songs he has written that have not been released (yet). He came in to discuss future projects and Heather Dore’s current songs that I am working on. I wanted some background vocals for one of her songs, and despite not hearing the song much or knowing the words, he threw down an almost flawless recording in 15 minutes, as he has always done. When I asked him about it, he said “when your singing professionally for paid gigs, you can’t fool around, and that’s where I started”. Early in his career he performed/recorded with Bryan Adams, Bob Rock and Paul Dean of Loverboy, and released a number of hit recordings.

It was a great experience to work with such a pro in the studio and get such strong results so quickly. Looking forward to more of that Darryl!

Darryl sings his rework of Bowie’s ‘Fame’ from the Past Becomes Future CD.

I got back from Beijing China and Hong Kong recently, and I’ve been putting off this post for some time because honestly, I don’t know where to start. It’s an incredible place. Combine that with an unforgettable experience working with the talented Elika Mahony and some other Chinese musicians, and it gets more challenging to summarize, but here is my attempt.

I was working most of the time I was in Beijing, so I only saw so much. It was cool to work with some local chinese musicians, composers, singers for one project. At one point, none of them could understand what I was saying when Elika was out of the room and unable to translate, so I just hit the record button and things worked out! It was really great to work with Elika in person on some exciting new music and help with her studio setup.

I realised China is quite different than what I expected and the ideas about it many have. Sure, some things are more difficult, but otherwise, in many ways, people there can actually have it better than we do. It rained for a couple days and was windy so I got to see the clear sky, otherwise it is a haze. But the pollution isn’t as big a deal as some make it out to be depending on where you are. There are rows and rows of trees in the suburbs as far as the eye can see, just to help with the pollution though. And there are dogs and cats running around everywhere, and people have dogs as pets. Another thing I found unexpected here: Unlike India, There are not only a lot of Caucasians, but people of all races and backgrounds that speak english and a number of other languages. I’ve went to Italian, Indian, and middle eastern resteraunts that are actually better than Canada.

Another thing that is superior China is the service. For every one person serving you in retail or food industry, there are 4 in China waiting on you, and they do it with pride and sincerity unlike ‘the great west’, and the selection is massive and cheap. Quality, well that is another matter, but that is getting better as well… China is the land of the seemingly perfect knockoff. I was fooled. And yes, the great wall is incredible, photos can’t describe how massive it is. You basically have to climb a mountain to get to it as it is at the tops of the mountains, and when you are on it, it is wide enough for a car to drive on it. When you look out from it, it stretches across the mountain tops as far as the eye can see like a dragon across the mountains. China is beautiful in many ways. You can very likely have a higher quality of life there than in North America or even Europe. Yes, that’s right, in a communist country. Another sign of the collapse of the supposed ‘developed world’

And then there’s Hong Kong, the massive mecca, New York of Asia, of excess and the ultimate in selection and diversity from around the world. The buildings are 4 times the size of any you have seen. It is intense, and exhausting, but cool as well. over 7 million people and the streets are spotless. Thanks Ron for giving me a good taste of the ultimate modern city.

So I would go back again, and my view of the world is now forever changed. I have learned some valuable lessons, some that will undoubtedly affect the future of my career as a producer. But I wouldn’t change the experience as I have grown as a person because I no longer have to rely on certain misconceptions.
Now it’s back to my regular life, at least for the moment.

Over the last 3 years I have been producing an album that is quite different than what I usually do by the very talented composer, pianist, and singer, Elika Mahony.
I have blogged last year about some of the challenges of producing an album like this, and about how intense a project like this can become.
With it’s combination of electronic elements with piano, live cello, guitar, and flute and other exotic live instruments such as Persian santur, nay flute, and Chinese erhu, I have to say that this album, called ‘Fire And Gold’ is not only the most diverse and elaborate production I have worked on, but one of the most expensive. But it has done extremely well, selling over a thousand copies shortly after release thanks to Elika’s innovative music promotion techniques worldwide. You can listen here.

For those who are familiar with the musical styles I usually produce, the classical and new age overtones of this spiritually inspired Baha’i album on the theme of tests and difficulties of life may not be your thing. But you will most likely still be able to appreciate Elika’s sweet voice and elegant melodies.

Elika is also using some of the latest online music promotion techniques such as selling electronic versions of her songs online by donation, and offering discounts for multiple CD orders. One of her fan’s have even created a music video for one of the songs, This Is Faith.