A letter from Aerocade Music founder Meerenai Shim

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Dear Aerocade Music supporters,

I’m proud to announce that Aerocade Music, Inc., a non-profit corporation, was formed this summer to continue the mission of helping independent musicians distribute their music. This mission started in 2015, when Aerocade Music, LLC was established. Initially, it was supposed to be a vanity label to release my own projects. As soon as I announced the label I was approached by producer/engineer Lanier Sammons who was seeking a label for the Post-Haste Reed Duo album he was producing. I signed up to distribute that Post-Haste Reed Duo album and Aerocade Music became a regular micro-label for other independent classical music-adjacent musicians.

The first Post-Haste Reed Duo album released on Aerocade Music.

Since 2015, I have learned a few things and figured out a system to keep this small label going, but you can only go so far by doing things alone. In order to keep Aerocade going for the long haul, I asked some close colleagues for advice on starting a non-profit so that this label can support musicians well into the future. With guidance from Brent Miller (board treasurer), Lanier Sammons (board secretary), Elizabeth Robinson (board member), and For Purpose Law Group, Aerocade Music, Inc. was formed.

I’m actively working on tying up loose ends and closing up the LLC by the end of this year. The few assets belonging to the LLC are being donated or will be donated to the new Aerocade Music Inc.

Going forward, Aerocade will still be a tiny label since we don’t have any employees. It will still be my labor of love and my main volunteer activity. (I hope Aerocade can hire an Executive Director one day to take over most of the day-to-day tasks. You can help make that happen by donating!) In 2025 we will celebrate Aerocade Music’s 10th anniversary and the 1st birthday of Aerocade Music, Inc. by releasing four albums by new and current Aerocade Artists! We will also have a party in San Francisco sometime in March 2025 so please keep an eye out for that event.

Thank you for buying our albums and listening to our releases. Music and art is just as important today as it ever was. It’s an essential part of humanity. Even if capitalism doesn’t value music, we can’t live without it. If you’ve read this far into my letter, you probably think music is important too. There are many ways you can help get new music out into the world:

• Keep making music yourself.

• If you hear something you like, share those music links with your network.

• Buy recorded music on your favorite format or buy merch from artists.

• Go to concerts and take a friend.

• Donate to Aerocade Music, Inc. and other organizations working on getting more music out to the public.

Even if no one listened, I’ll still be making music, but it’s nice to know you are out there listening once in a while. Thank you for your continued support for Aerocade Music. I’m so excited for the future!

Sincerely,

Meerenai

Meerenai Shim, Board President
Aerocade Music, Inc.

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Aerocade Music Inc is a charitable not-for-profit 501(c)(3) corporation, tax ID number 99-4229727.

This post is adapted from Meerenai Shim’s blog (with permission).

In a previous blog post, I wrote about how to estimate the cost of producing an album/CD. In that post, I told readers to ask around for recommendations to find a good recording engineer or studio. Now, I feel like going with recommendations alone is not adequate. I’m revisiting this topic because I’ve experienced my share of disappointing experiences with engineers and studios in various locations and types of recording locations all over the country. I’ve produced 3 of my own solo albums plus 3 albums for other artists. I’ve co-produced 2 albums with my chamber ensembles, and a handful of singles/EPs. I’ve also seen (heard) some poorly engineered recordings when I evaluated recordings for release on my record label, Aerocade Music. I’ve had fantastic and terrible experiences in university settings. I’ve had wonderful and frightening experiences in small studios. My experiences with larger studios have been generally positive. I’ve worked with diligent, well-supervised student engineers-in-training and I’ve worked with terribly unqualified and overrated “professional” engineers.

The audience for this current blog post is Classical Music performers in the USA. I am also writing as if you are planning on recording a full-length album that you are self-producing and self-financing (with crowdsourcing or savings, etc.)

Don’t be like this squirrel. Read the rest of this post to learn how to invest your acorns well.

All studios come with a house engineer (or several). Some studios only allow certain engineers to record there. Many of the larger commercial studios (as opposed to the educational institutions and home recording studios) will allow outside engineers to record projects there. You can also hire an engineer to bring their gear and record you at a non-studio venue like a concert hall or church. Any of these scenarios can be legit and wonderful. Read on for some ideas on how to audition a recording engineer or studio.

Book a session. Record something (one piece or one movement) with the engineer or studio you are auditioning. This is the best way to tell if this person/place is right for you.

If a studio or engineer asks you to sign a contract other than acknowledging a simple outline of services offered, cancellation policies/fees, and the price list, this is HIGHLY IRREGULAR. You are self-producing and financing this album and hiring this engineer/studio for their time - on a “work for hire” basis. You have no legal or fiscal obligation to the studio or engineer beyond the recording time agreed to and the fees associated with that. You do not owe your engineer/studio any residuals or royalties, etc. If your studio or engineer is offering a package deal like a production or label services deal, that’s a whole different animal and there’s a whole other set of things to consider for those deals. This blog post will not help you evaluate those package deals. However, I will say that if you’re considering such a package deal, don’t sign anything until you do a lot more research and talk to other artists who have signed the same exact deal you’re considering. Don’t rely only on word-of-mouth and reputation. Ask to do a trial recording session like the one I’m suggesting in this blog post.

Ask all the questions you may have. Don’t assume they will explain as you go. Don’t worry about annoying the studio or engineer with your question. If your questions are genuine, and you’re not intentionally trying to be annoying, ask away. The way the staff/engineer responds to your questions will tell you a lot about if this studio/engineer is right for you. Are they patiently answering your questions? Did they ask you about what you’re trying to achieve during your session? Are they good listeners? Do you like the communication style of the studio staff/engineer?

Bring an external hard drive with you to your session and ask that they give you a copy of the entire ProTools* session at the end of your recording day. (Best practice: ALWAYS get a copy of that day’s work on your external hard drive. The studio or engineer may have it set up so that your session files are automatically uploaded to the cloud for you and that’s awesome, but it’s OK to be paranoid and want an extra copy on your hard drive.) If they give you any pushback on putting a copy of the session files on your hard drive, THIS IS A RED FLAG. 

*ProTools: Why? There’s nothing wrong with using another Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) to record. But I recommend a studio/engineer that uses ProTools because if you need to take the work you started with one engineer and finish it with another, using the same DAW will save you a lot of time because most professional studios/engineers use ProTools. 

Before they setup the microphones, the engineer should listen to you play up close, and from a bit away. They are putting their ears where they might place a microphone. If I’m playing cello, I’d expect the engineer to get on their knees to listen to my cello from around the bridge or F holes. (If they’re a house engineer recording you on the house piano while you’re playing conventional repertoire, I don’t expect them to put their head under the lid.)

After they set up all the microphones, they will record a sample of your playing. They should ask you to listen to the sample to see if the sound they captured is how you want it to sound. If you’re not sure, that’s OK. Just say so. The engineer can try other mic combinations or explain, based on their experience, whether this is a good sound for your instrument or the type of music you’re recording that day. You can ask for another option like different microphones or a different mix between the mics. (Most good engineers will offer an alternative before you ask.) If they push back on this and do not want to let you hear an alternative, it’s another red flag moment. Any time wasted is yours to waste since you’re paying for this time, so if they seem annoyed, it’s a red flag moment. Why is this a red flag? This is just the beginning of a long project. Recording an entire album is a stressful endeavor, even under optimal conditions. Evaluate the working relationship with the engineer as if you’re going to take a 30-day around-the-world trip with this person. (Or, if it’s the recording studio that you’re auditioning, pretend the studio is the tour bus that you’ll spend an entire month traveling on.) You will annoy each other at some point during the journey. That’s OK. Does this person seem like someone who can keep their cool and suggest a break rather than losing their temper? Does this studio have a separate room or outdoor space where you can go for a break? 

Setting up microphones and getting the sound just right can take some time, especially if there are many microphones that need to be set up. You may be ready to go but the engineer needs time to do their thing. Be patient at the beginning of your session.

From A/B Duo’s first recording session. Chris Jones warming up while the engineers at Chicago Recording Company finish setting up a bazillion microphones.

Is this engineer/studio proactive in helping you do your best work? Does the studio have all the basics you need? Clean bathroom, break room with basic coffee/tea, and a recording room that’s not completely dead so you can enjoy your sound in the space. 

While you record, keep a log of your takes. Your engineer can do some of this as well but you should keep your own record as you go. The engineer will tell you which take you’re on and you tell them if this is a good one, or a maybe. Note in your own log if it’s a good/bad take. An organized engineer should be able to flag all of the good or maybe takes as you go. (You definitely want an organized engineer!)

At the end of the recording session, ask the engineer to “bounce” all of your takes or all of your good takes so that you can listen to them at home to decide how to edit it. Depending on how simple or complicated your music/session was, your engineer may be able to make a compilation/rough edit of your good takes in a few moments. If you have studio time left, you can edit it with the engineer before you leave the studio. 

Post-Haste Reed Duo’s multi-day recording session at Fantasy Studios (Studio D). Listening to recent takes with bassoonist Javier Rodriguez, engineer Alberto Hernandez, saxophonist Sean Fredenburg, and producer Meerenai Shim.

Some engineers can’t read notated music but they can still be great to work with if they have amazing ears, like the ones I’ve worked with. If you’re recording new compositions with lots of mixed meter and/or have complicated form or instrumentation, I recommend finding an engineer who can read music. (Just because an engineer can read music, it doesn’t make them better than ones who cannot. A good engineer who can read music will make the editing and mixing process go faster than a good engineer who cannot read music.) 

Even after you’ve decided to work with one engineer or studio for your album, you can walk away at anytime (after considering the usual and reasonable late cancelation fees, if any.). No matter where you are in the process, you can always change engineers/studios. That’s another reason to get your session files on your hard drive at the end of every recording day. If you’ve recorded everything but the editing process isn’t going very well, you can stop working with that engineer and take your hard drive to another one to finish editing and mixing. Even if you’ve only recorded one of 4 movements, you can take those files and finish recording somewhere else. Listen to your gut. You can leave if you’re not feeling it or not 100% comfortable working with that engineer or studio.

I’ve had to bail on a studio/engineer twice. Once, at a small studio that had a good reputation, I asked for a click track of Q=112. They couldn’t figure out how to give me anything but 120. I didn’t feel safe pointing out the engineer’s mistakes or giving him advice on how to do anything so I paid for the rest of the time I booked for that afternoon and bailed. Another time, at a renowned conservatory with stellar facilities, the engineer couldn’t or wouldn’t set up a click track for me and I had to plug my iPhone into the headphone amplifier. This school didn’t have ProTools and it didn’t seem like a big deal in the beginning but it was obvious that this engineer didn’t really know his way around Logic (the DAW they had at this school) either. After that evening, I listened to that day’s recordings and there was a lot of click track bleed. (A good engineer should notice that the click track from the headphones is getting picked up in the microphones and will tell the musicians that we have to do it again after making proper adjustments.) We did not return for the next day’s session. 

After you’ve decided that the studio/engineer might be a good fit, listen to the recordings from your trial session. Does it sound good? This might be tough to evaluate because the way one listens to recording quality is very different from how classical musicians usually listen. Also, depending on what basic mix is used on your bounced audio, it can sound bad to a musician-listener because there’s no room mic (no reverb). Listen for extra noise like tapping feet or the click track that bled through your headphones to your mic. Is the sound equally clear when you’re playing loudly and quietly? Is everything super quiet? And when you turn up that super quiet recording do you hear a lot of hum/hiss of the air conditioning or fluorescent lights? Are there crackling noises or distortion? Some of the extraneous noise can be removed by a competent engineer after the fact but that could take a lot of extra time and money. It’s way better to have an engineer that will give you nice, clear recordings to begin with. If you’re not sure about the quality of the recording, ask a friend or colleague who has done a lot of recording or engineering for their opinion. Or you can contact Meerenai for a consultation. 

Do you have more questions? Did Meerenai miss anything? Let her know.

Kimberly R. Osberg (photo: Mauricio Herrera)

In Kimberly R. Osberg’s recent blog post about her pieces recorded by Elizabeth Robinson and company, the composer writes about the inspiration for each movement with photos and score samples.

Here’s an excerpt:

The last movement, Cock Flight, was inspired by the powerful and aggressive Sumatra chickens. While modern day Sumatras are more docile, they use to be bred as fighting birds and—what really sparked my imagination—could fly for short distances.

When it comes to a flute fight, there’s nothing more fun than pitting piccolos against each other. While I was tempted to score the movement for four piccolos, a few things kept me from doing so. One important factor being that I was trying to keep each part such that they only had to double one other instrument (so the first and second players double piccolo, the third player doubles alto, and the fourth doubles bass), the other being that—due to the limited range of the piccolo—I wanted to make sure I could really capture the raw power of the chicken, and felt I needed a lower octave to do so. While I didn’t initially anticipate it, having two piccolos and two flutes also opened a lot more possibilities for trading lines back and forth; this helped to really make the punches land harder and keep them coming faster.

Read the rest of the post on Osberg’s website.

Listen to the album, Aviary by Elizabeth Robinson.

Congratulations to Tehillah Alphonso on her GRAMMY® nomination for Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals for “A Change is Gonna Come” from “America Will Be” by Tonality & Alexander Lloyd Blake!

Photo courtesy of Tehillah Alphonso. Graphic design by Sean David Christensen.

Subscribers to The Wire Magazine, keep an eye out for a track from Elizabeth A. Baker in the Wire Tapper compilation CD that came with your latest issue of the magazine!

*We are proud to report that the Equal Sound Corona Relief Fund is a brainchild of Aerocade Artist, Nick Norton!

Dear Friends,

Our lives are in a topsy-turvy state at the moment because of Covid-19. In addition to cancelled gigs and tours, my musician colleagues and I don't know what kind of economic environment we will return to once we have a vaccine. Will there be any government support for the arts left? In the USA, there was very little government money for the arts and now I wonder if the pandemic will be an excuse for cutting out all "nonessential" programs/funds.

In the meantime, musicians need money. Many of us are independent contractors and are not employed by one employer so navigating the unemployment benefit requirements can take a long time. 

Please help us get through this by buying our music. Not just Aerocade's catalog but any artist that you like. Please buy their music or support their Patreon instead of only streaming on Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music, etc. 
 

To raise even more awareness around the pandemic’s impact on musicians everywhere, Bandcamp is waiving their revenue share on sales this Friday, March 20 (from midnight to midnight Pacific Time).

Aerocade will be donating 100% of our proceeds from Bandcamp on Friday, March 20 to Equal Sound's Corona Relief Fund*. 

Check out our Bandcamp page and treat yourself to some new music!

Thank you for your continued support and please take good care of yourself! 

Sincerely,

Meerenai Shim
Owner, Aerocade Music

Congratulations to the Post-Haste Reed Duo on their TEN YEARS playing together as a kickass duo! Help them celebrate at their show on August 15th at 1st Stage Tysons in Tysons Corner, Virginia:

THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 2019
AT 7:30 PM

1ST STAGE TYSONS
1524 SPRING HILL ROAD
TYSONS, VA 22102

$15

https://www.newmusicusa.org/event/post-haste-reed-duos-10th-anniversary-concert/

Equal Sound presents:
Isaac Schankler Album Release & The Furies

April 4, 2019
8:00 pm
Art Share L.A. (801 East 4th Place, Los Angeles, CA 90013)

Equal Sound’s First Thursdays series at Art Share presents an album release concert for Isaac Schankler’s Because Patterns in a performance featuring collaborations with Vicki Ray, Aron Kallay, and Scott Worthington. Intersectional feminist performance art violin duo The Furies join the bill with their project A Cure For Hysteria, featuring the music of Elizabeth A. Baker, Eve Beglarian, Olga Neuwirth, and ThunderCunt.

All attendees will receive a free download of Because Patterns.

Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/isaac-schankler-album-release-with-special-guest-the-furies-tickets-54837916685

Program

OLGANEUWIRTH ad auras...in memorium H.
THUNDERCUNT Incidental Music I
ELIZABETH A.BAKER A Cure For Hysteria
THUNDERCUNT Incidental Music II
EVEBEGLARIAN Well Spent

ISAACSCHANKLER Because Patterns

Aerocade Presents: Elizabeth A. Baker, Post-Haste Reed Duo, Meerenai Shim, and friends

Join Aerocade Artists for an evening of new music, free improvisation, electronics, woodwinds, and good vibrations! Contrabass flute virtuoso Ned McGowan will join the lineup as a special guest.

Saturday, January 5, 2019 @7PM
Center for New Music
(55 Taylor St. San Francisco)

Tickets available online at centerfornewmusic.com and at the venue box office ($20 general, $10 members/seniors/students)
Complimentary refreshments will be served when doors open at 7pm.

Elizabeth A. Baker, composer/performer from Florida, will perform selections from her recent release "Quadrivium," including the West Coast premiere of "Sashay" by Nathan Corder. The Post-Haste Reed Duo (Saxophonist Sean Fredenburg and bassoonist Javier Rodriguez) will perform works from their upcoming release, "Donut Robot!” Meerenai Shim will premiere “This is How I Feel” for flute and electronics by Elizabeth Bayer. Friend of Aerocade and contrabass flute virtuoso Ned McGowan will be visiting from the Netherlands to perform an improvised set.

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

Eschewing the collection of traditional titles that describe single elements of her body of work, Elizabeth A. Baker refers to herself as a “New Renaissance Artist” that embraces a constant stream of change and rebirth in practice, which expands into a variety of media, chiefly an exploration of how sonic and spatial worlds can be manipulated to personify a variety of philosophies and principles both tangible as well as intangible. Elizabeth has received recognition from press as well as scholars, for her conceptual compositions and commitment to inclusive programming. In addition to studies of her work, Elizabeth has been awarded several fellowships, grants, and residencies, in addition to sponsorships from Schoenhut Piano Company and Source Audio LLC. As a solo artist, Elizabeth represented by Aerocade Music, her first solo album on the California-based label Quadrivium released worldwide in May 2018 to rave reviews. She is founder of the Florida International Toy Piano Festival, The New Music Conflagration, Inc., author of two books, and the subject of a number of scholarly articles, thesis papers, and other academic research. In March 2018, Elizabeth retired from nonprofit arts administration to focus on her international solo career, though she remains committed to the community through workshops and public speaking engagements. Her first motivational book The Resonant Life inspired by her personal experiences as a professional artist will be released in 2019.

The Post-Haste Reed Duo (Saxophonist Sean Fredenburg and bassoonist Javier Rodriguez) has been spreading the beauty and warmth of their unusual pairing of instruments internationally for almost a decade. 

They have worked to increase the amount of quality chamber music literature for saxophone and bassoon duo, and to encourage young musicians to experiment performing in non-traditional chamber ensembles by collaborating with composers towards new works that highlight the capabilities of these two instruments individually and together. When they are not performing together as a duo, Sean can be found teaching at Portland State University in Portland, OR, while Javier teaches at the University of Idaho in Moscow, ID. 

Flutist Meerenai Shim is one half of the innovative flute and percussion duo, A/B Duo, and the a member of the award-winning contemporary flute ensemble, Areon Flutes. Her third solo album, the all-electroacoustic Pheromone, is available on the Aerocade Music label. 

Ned McGowan (1970) is a flutist and contemporary classical music composer, born in the United States, living in the Netherlands. Known for rhythmical vitality and technical virtuosity, his music has won awards and been performed at Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw and other halls and festivals around the world by many orchestras, ensembles and soloists. As a flutist he plays classical, contemporary and improvisation concerts internationally and he has a special love for the contrabass flute, in 2016 releasing the album: The Art of the Contrabass Flute. 

You can listen to an excerpt of "'Oumuamua" from The Oort Cloud in the latest issue of The Wire Magazine.

All copies of the April 2018 issue of The Wire will come complete with an exclusive free CD attached to the cover, The Wire Tapper 46, the latest volume in the acclaimed series of new music compilations.

As with previous volumes this CD, which has been compiled by Shane Woolman, Gustave Evrard and Astrud Steehouder is packaged in a heavy duty card sleeve designed by The Wire's art director Ben Weaver, with artwork by Clifford Sage, and contains a range of new, rare or exclusive tracks from across the spectrum of the kind of underground/outsider musics covered in The Wire.

https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/the-wire-tapper/the-wire-tapper-46

Join us, A/B Duo, and Post-Haste Reed Duo to celebrate the new album from A/B Duo at the Center for New Music in San Francisco.

Who: A/B Duo and Post-Haste Reed Duo
When: Thursday, September 22, 2016 at 8PM
Where: Center for New Music,
What: A/B Duo CD release party
Why: It's about time that we had a party!

All party guests will be entered into a drawing for an Aerocade music swag collection which includes an Aerocade Music t-shirt, A/B Duo shirt, and all 5 of the Aerocade Music CDs.

A/B Duo listening to mixes with engineer Alberto Hernandez at Fantasy Studios.

You can pre-order our next release, A/B Duo's "Variety Show," via Kickstarter right now. It will feature 7 compositions for flute and percussion by Drew Baker, Brooks Frederickson, Brendon Randall-Myers, Ian Dicke, Zack Browning, Andrea Reinkemeyer, and Ned McGowan.