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 the “fill opacity” in “advanced blending” down to 0%.  This allows the text to be see through while the layer styles we will add can be seen.

Next select the “Bevel and Emboss” option. Set Style: Inner Bevel, Technique: Smooth, Depth: 75%, Direction: Up, Size: 13 px, Highlight Mode: Normal and color white, Shadow Mode: Lighten and color white with opacity 90%.

Select the Contour Make sure the Range is set to 50%.

Finally Select the Texture Option.  Change the Texture to “Clouds,” Scale: 27%, and Depth: +15%.

Ok we are halfway there as you can see it’s starting to look a bit frosty:

Duplicate the text layer (Command + J), and open up the Layer Style dialogue box again.  Leave everything the same except this time from the texture option select “Satin,” Scale: 125%, and leave Depth at +15%.

And there you have it, some awesome frosty text to use!

-Kat

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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 of track you will be using.
a. Command+Left/ Right Arrow toggles between Stereo and Mono tracks
b. Command+Up/ Down Arrow will toggle between the different track types (Audio,    Auxillary, Master, MIDI, and Instrument)

4. If you need more than one of the various track types, simply use the “TAB” key to scroll through your New Track window and type in the number of tracks you would like to create, or use the up and down arrows to manipulate the number of tracks.

by Taylor Hatty

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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 your own.

Notice in this example, the "output" of the instrument track is set to "Built-in Output 1-2" (computer speakers). Next, let's add a midi track: Project -> Add Track -> MIDI Track. Make sure the the output of the MIDI track is set to "BassLine-1-in."

There you have it. Now you've got sound working!

At the Learning Center, our work-stations have many different virtual instruments for you to use, including: Absynth, Akoustik Piano, Battery, Guitar Rig, Kontakt, Reaktor, and many more.

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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 repeat sign" in the tools window. Suppose we have a simple piano exercise:


The lyrics tool lets us put text underneath the notes. When selecting lyrics tools, notice the 4 triangles that appear on the left:


By clicking & sliding the left-most triangle, we can vertically position this text so it appears above the notes. Now, we can simply type "1 space 2 space 3 space 1 ", and so on, for the fingering.


If you want to get rid of the red extension line at the end, you can go to the Finale menu, Preferences, and Document Options. Select "Lyrics" on the left, and click on the "Word Extensions..." button. By un-checking "Use Smart Word Extension," we can remove the automatic red line that appears when there are more notes than lyrics (or in this case, more notes than "numbers"). Make sure to click "Apply" after changing this setting.

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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 that this is only for the computer display and won’t get printed out. I guess that’s good thing, right?

My favorite is Paper, coffee-stained. Yes, I’m a coffee addict!

-Sohta

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