Black Dollar Productions » Music

BWNoise

Ryan — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 03:56:02 +0000

I’ve started working with BWN in LA as a freelance sound designer and composer.

Check out their site, they’ve got a great reel and a really talented group of in-house composers. I’ve already learned a lot about delivering great sounding queues on a deadline.

So far I’ve been close mic’ing cymbals, brushing up on my Logic 8 skills, and getting used to the Native Instruments Komplete collection – Battery, where have you been all my life.

How did composers pound out 30 sound-a-like queues before Logic?

Me Mountain

Ryan — Wed, 21 May 2008 21:31:00 +0000

In December, I bought a looper. The idea was to lay down a couple of foundation guitar parts, rhythm heavy things I could sing over or that would free me up to do something other than guitar. As things progressed the Fela-style afrobeat jams were by far the most interesting and fun to play.

Thus began Me Mountain – a combination of afrobeat and post-punk.

We recorded the drums and foundation loops live using a pair of C414B’s as overheads and a couple of MD421′s on the kick and snare. We ran those four tracks into my RME Fireface 800 and Digital Performer over a few hot days in our practice space.

I like the results. Would you like to join my band?

Circling the Bowl
Download audio file (circling_the_bowl.mp3)

Bury the Effects
Download audio file (bury_the_effects.mp3)

The Husk
Download audio file (the_husk.mp3)

The New People
Download audio file (the_new_people.mp3)

Greatest Muxtape Ever

Ryan — Sun, 18 May 2008 21:57:12 +0000

bdp.muxtape.com

I’m outraged. My muxtape has 0 favorites [ed: I'm up to 1 favorite!]. I mean come on people!

Who doesn’t like montage songs and credit themes?!

Who doesn’t like Real Genius, The Jewel of the Nile, Weird Science, Back to School, & Beverly Hills Cop?!!

Monster Eyes

Ryan — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 08:40:25 +0000

Once upon a time, Arlo worked at a bookstore. While Arlo wasn’t hard at work in the bookstore or hard at work going to USC, he was in a rehearsal space making up songs with his friends.

One day Arlo said to his friends, “There’s this writer, Jonathan Lethem, he has this really neat idea, and in the spirit of this idea he started a project.

And you know what else? He’s coming to the bookstore to read from his new book. Why don’t we actually write one of the songs from his book and play it at the reading?!”

Arlo made it happen. We wrote the song Monster Eyes from You Don’t Love Me Yet and played it at the reading.

Download audio file (monster-eyes.mp3)

Close Quarters

Ryan — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 06:01:01 +0000

Imagine a heart warming situation comedy about a group of friends learning to love in the big city.

Now imagine this show has no budget.

Now imagine the credit sequence to this show.

Cannonball Run Scavenger Hunt

Ryan — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:28:46 +0000

The Cannonball Run Scavenger Hunt was a bicycle scavenger hunt organized by Urban Bike Assault recreating the magic of the Cannonball Run on the streets of LA.

Black Dollar Productions rode along and filmed the ride. The short film documenting the day’s events went on to play in the 2006 Bicycle Film Festival in LA, the 2006 Filmed by Bike in Portland, and the 2007 Celluloid Cycles film festival in Melbourne.

I couldn’t find a version of the Cannonball Run theme song without the sound of revving engines drowning out the music. I used Reason and Pro Tools to cover the song.

Bicycle Film Festival
Celluloid Cycles
Filmed by Bike
LAist