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“Best Original Song” was the only award that I had invested any emotional energy into at the Oscars last night. If you have not seen Once and you have any love at all for the creative process of making music, you are doing yourself a disservice. The performance of “Falling Slowly” given by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova last night, while not quite on the emotional scale of the version featured in the movie, made it pretty obvious who the rightful winners should be. And then, lo and behold, the rightful winners won! Cheers, guys!

P.S.- Good on ya, John Stewart, for letting Marketa come back out to finish her acceptance speech. [ms]

I occasionally get asked about the gear I use for composing. While Burst HQ does have some expensive goodies (of course we spare no expense for YOU, our friends and fans), and I’ve already mentioned my beloved toys, some of my favorite things are free plug-ins. Because I’m a cheap bastard, I love to troll KVR Audio looking for that ever-elusive “free” tag.

I’ve compiled here my 8 favorite free plug-ins.

We love PASTE. Always have. We’ve even advertised in their pages back when we were spending a little more time - and a lot more money - on our record label (we’re a little busy with our other endeavors right now).

They even dug Julie Moffitt (a Burst Records artist) earlier this year… her song Let Him Be was selected by PASTE editors to be featured alongside Lucinda Williams and The Shins on CD in their Feb 07 issue.

So… two cool bits of news today from our favorite music mag :

As has been previously noted, I have a borderline-unhealthy predilection towards toy instruments. I scour thrift stores, search Ebay obsessively, and hit up Craigslist every day.

However, since my wife and I bought our first house, the pile of farthings available for vintage Casiotone purchases has dwindled to nothing.

Luckily, there is a man that I can live vicariously through. His name is Eric, he lives in Germany, and he has what I consider to be the coolest collection of vintage electronic noise-makers in the world. Not the most extensive, mind you, but undoubtedly the coolest. Sometimes, when I’m looking longingly up at the stars, I wonder it he’s looking up at the same stars (or rather, the blue sky where the stars are going to be in 8 hours). In a totally platonic, “hug-you-and-hit-you” sort of way.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Lambeau Field, and Burst’s own Old Man Malcolm has been appointed Game Operations Commander for music production at Lambeau for the 2007 Green Bay Packers football season.

Um, we’re a little giddy-goofy about this, being as we’re unabashed Packer fans. Duh.

Whether he needs to pick tracks to celebrate scores, pump audio into the stadium to jack up the crowd, or simply provide his natural abilities as a DJ for television timeouts, all the music you hear (if you’re lucky enough to score a ticket - been sold out since the 1960s) is being played for you by Old Man Malcolm.

Bill Wyman absolutely nails it with his Moby Quotient - The Art of Selling Out.

Using the criteria Disconnect, Sacredness, Origins, Reputation, Wealth and Time he offers a definitive formula for determining if an artist has, indeed, sold out.

Of course, I still maintain :

It’s easy to say you’ll never sell out when no one’s making any offers.

And we’re on record with an opinion of Moby’s recent offerings.

Full story at the Washington Post. Thanks, Hypebot. [dh]

Way back in 1997 we had a simple idea. We wanted to offer commercial music users real music, filled with genuine musicians playing live tracks, dripping with energy and vibe.

Remember… this was back in the day when production music libraries were dominated by corporate, lukewarm, safe music beds (perfect for slideshows and film-strips), and when so-called ‘hip’ and ‘trendy’ libraries offered cheesy, rip-off, sound-alike tracks.

So we launched the Gravity Music Library and proceeded to whittle away on occasional updates in our recording studio, Burst HQ, deep behind the Cheddar Curtain (tip of the ol’ hat to Greg Koch for that one).

Well, we’ve been left with a teeny bit of surplus creativity bouncing around our skulls since stopping production on the Velocity Music Library, so we’re ramping up Gravity again while we’ve got some free time in between our custom commercial music projects at The Burst Collective and our Burst Labs production music library updates.

We’ve been busy putting the finishing touches on six brand new Gravity library volumes. Here’s some selected highlights from the first 3 brand new releases :

Exotic Dancer - from GV1040 Lubricant [r&b]

Bushwhacker - from GV1041 Magnetic [rock]

Holdin’ Out - from GV1039 Bump [hip hop]

Fluffer - from GV1040 Lubricant [r&b]

Arcadian Interrupt - from GV1041 Magnetic [rock]

And we’ve also got GV1042 Spindown [chill], GV1043 Boing [quirky], and GV1044 Theory [trip hop drama] on the way this month. We’ll post some more previews as soon as we master ‘em up.

To be clear, we’re providing these here for demo purposes only (and for your listening pleasure)… if you like what you hear you can, of course, contact your worldwide Groove Addicts agent (distributor for the Gravity Music Library) for full licensing information.

More soon. If you have any requests, be sure to drop them in the comments below and we’ll see what we can do about getting you guys what you want more of. In the meantime, get ready for the next degree of Gravity. [dh]

Mediaweek reports that CBS is in talks with the creator of Survivor and The Apprentice about a show featuring a jingle production contest.

From reality guru Mark Burnett, and aptly titled Jingles, the eight-episode order will pit teams of contestants against each other in weekly battles to determine who can come up with the most effective commercial ditty.

Man, oh man, I’m getting all geeked out on this.

We may knock ‘em from time to time, but jingles are still in use in advertising everyday. Most of our custom music production work is of the underscore (or instrumental) variety, and the vast majority of our vocal productions are actual songs. But it would certainly be a blast, and I know we have a team of people who could actually provide some comedic elements to the show.

(eh, that’s you Matt and Judson)

We were stoked by the idea of teams competing on the show, since that’s what Burst is all about, and were a bit let down when the early talk of individual winners was the focus, but Burnett’s comments at Variety.com give us some hope that as a team we would still be considered :

“This show is sort of like America’s Got Talent but with a purpose,” said Burnett, adding that the competing teams will potentially benefit from royalties even if they are voted off early in the show.

Of course, if they’re looking for that Classic Sing Song Jingle thing, may we humbly nominate Terry Sweet as our Milwaukee representative. The dude has been at it longer than anyone we know in town, and he kills it everytime.

So, I say we enter. Let’s do it. I’m just left wondering who could be our Richard Hatch or Omarosa. Ideas, anyone? [dh]

UPDATE : um, okay, this does not bode well for us joining in (more from the Variety.com article) :

“A team could be anything from a sole singer-songwriter to a brother/sister team to a hip-hop group or a barbershop quartet,” Bank said. “Their performance onstage will really determine the vote.”

Performance onstage? Uh, yeah.

For the recording geeks among us :

The new Sept/Oct 2007 issue of Tape Op has feature on Bob Paquette Sr.’s Microphone Museum, located right here in Milwaukee (that’s right - it ain’t just Les Paul and Liberace… heh).

Paquette’s 840 page compendium on microphone history is as complete a guide as exists, so if you’re into the kinky stuff like pre-60s tube mics, ribbon element technology, and RIAA curves, be sure to check it out.

There’s more gear porn and info at their site.

Having had the privilege of being inside the sonic sanctuary at Select Sound Service, I can attest to the level of detail (nay, anal retention) and commitment to thoroughness and quality. Paquette sums up his attitude in the Tape Op article :

A famous concert pianist… [Ignace Jan Paderewski] said, “If I miss one day of practice, I notice it. If I miss two days, the critics notice it. If I miss three days, the audience knows it.” There’s the problem I have with [some] of the people I hire. They think that once they finish [a project] they’re done [learning]. They don’t even read the magazines or try to keep up. You’ve got to stay ahead.

An inspiration, certainly, and advice we apply every day at Burst. Our musical obssessions and voracious appetite for production ideas and recording knowledge drive us week in and week out while writing, playing and producing new tracks for our production music catalog.

For more on the ‘recording geekery’ tip (a term we use quite affectionately) :

If you haven’t seen Les Paul : Chasing Sound yet, find it and savor it. Tivo it. Netflix it.

Here’s Stevie Wonder performing Superstition live in the studio… 1973.

Here’s Rick Rubin in studio with Jay-Z making ‘99 Problems’. Rick’s been in the news lately, you know. Check it.

Here’s a documentary on Steve Albini… but don’t call him a producer.

And here’s a list of the Top Ten Recording “Mistakes” found on commercially released records. [dh]

There’s not much to say, really… just enjoy. [dh]