Monday, December 20, 2010

Frosty Text in Photoshop

Start by filling the background with a solid color or gradient of your choosing, using either the paint bucket or gradient tool. Next type in the text you want to make look frosty using the Text tool. (This works best if the font is really large and bold mine here is around 240px) With the text layer selected click on the “fx” button at the bottom of the layers panel to open the Layer Style dialogue box.  First thing you’ll want to do is turn...

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Track Creation Short Cuts

Taking too long to make tracks in Pro Tools? Here are a few short cuts to get your sessions up and running a little more better: 1. Instead of going to the toolbar and clicking “Track + New,” try pressing Command+Shift+N to open up the track window. 2. Need to add another track? Just press Command+Shift+N again and the track window will extend.3. If you need something other than a Mono Audio track, use Command+The Arrow keys to change what type...

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Digital Performer- How do I get sound?!

In Digital Performer, midi tracks simply record information: the keys you play, the velocity, and so on. In order to "get sound" out of DP, you need to send that information to a sound source- typically, an "instrument track." Instrument tracks host virtual instruments that generate the sound. Let's set up an instrument track by going to Project -> Add Track -> Instrument Track -> BassLine. We'll use BassLine as an example, or you can pick...

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Finale-Piano Fingering

One of the great strengths of Finale is found in its flexibility. You can put any mark anywhere you want in the score. Although the names of the tools tell you their intended use, there are other creative ways of using them to get the results you want. Let's considering piano fingering in finale. We want to put little numbers above the notes-- but how? Furthermore, how could we do this quickly? One way is to use the Lyrics tool, above the "backward...

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Setting up your “Work-Space” in Sibelius

Making your work environment comfortable is one of the most important thing to keep in mind. Often times, Sibelius’s bright sky-blue default desk color makes people tired. Check out this simple, but very useful (and fun!) feature here.Go to the Sibelius Preferences panel, then choose textures. You can set up desk color/texture, also for the paper. There are tons to choose from, or solid color if you are “Simple is the best” kind of person. Note...