Stephen Arnold Music » Clay

Congrats to Larry!

Clay — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 16:14:43 +0000

We’d like to congratulate Larry Forsgren on winning the online drawing for the Apple iPad:

SAM Wins PromaxBDA “Sound Off”

Clay — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 18:39:15 +0000

At yesterday’s PromaxBDA Network Sound Off, Fox network execs selected our score to launch their new drama series “Ride Along,” (from the producers of The Shield), which breaks during SUPER BOWL XLV. How cool is that!

Yesterday’s session featured us against three other top music houses on stage competing for this high profile assignment.

Thanks to the Fox judges Brian Dollenmayer, SVP, On-Air Promotion and Creative Marketing, Matt Fife, VP-Creative Director of Special Ops, and  Rick Laurenzo, VP, On-Air Promotion for the honor.

In other PromaxBDA news…We gave way our first iPad yesterday. The lucky winner was… Rich Klenk of WPCH-TV

Don’t forget to register to win an iPad of your very own!

Hey, you! Want a brand new iPad?

Clay — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:50:39 +0000

UPDATE: Registration is closed. The drawing will be held shortly.

UPDATE: We’ve received so much interest in this giveaway, we’ve decided to extend the registration period until 2:00PM CDT Wednesday, June 30th. The drawing will be held shortly thereafter. Thanks to everyone for registering, and good luck!

It’s that time of the year again. Time to head off to PROMAX/BDA 2010. And guess what? We’re giving away four spiffy new iPads – one each day of the conference and one via online registration (contest rules).

If you’ll be attending the conference, just stop by the Stephen Arnold Music booth (#L) and register to win. Then come by the booth each day at 3:15 pm and see if you’re a winner. If you can’t make it to PROMAX (or even if you can), simply leave a comment below to register for the online drawing.

Still want more Stephen Arnold Music stuff, how about a double dose of knowledge courtesy of two sessions we’re involved with: “Sounding Off: Music, Sound Design & the Art of Sonic Branding” at Promo Bootcamp; and “PromaxBDA ‘Network Series’: Sound Off!” in which top music companies compete in real time for an actual Fox Network project.

Hope to see you there, and good luck!

Byte Me!

Clay — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 06:51:50 +0000

As the most left-brained musician I know (and the most right-brained tech head), I’ve always approached music like a math problem and computer programming like songwriting. It may seem a little odd, but for some reason it’s always worked for me. So it’s only natural that here at SAM I’ve become the de facto IT department. While it may not appear to be the most creative outlet, you’d be surprised. Be it Flash programming or database design, I’m always having to come up with some new way to do something. Sometimes, though, I miss just playing music.

So the other day when my workstation simply refused to boot and I had to begin the arduous task of reinstalling the OS & all my apps, restoring all my data from backup, and recreating all my preferences, I began to lament my inability to contribute anything musically to the company for the next day and a half. During one of the many progress bar purgatories of the day, I picked up this month’s issue of Electronic Musician, and lo and behold, there was this article by renowned producer/engineer Nathaniel Kunkel:

Okay, it’s happened. Knowing about network protocols and their implementations is now as important as mic placement. “Crazy fool!” you say. Not this time, not this time.

My TC Electronic System 6000 will only run on a 192.168.1.x subnet. My Drobo hard drive connects with iSCSI to the second port on the Mac Pro tower, and I am running that network without any DHCP leasing. I need to forward UDP Ports 6000 through 6002 and TCP Ports 80 and 5222 to the machine that hosts my Source-Live broadcast. My Aviom uses a form of POE, and I regularly run my computer remotely from mastering sessions to print and deliver file changes to myself while I’m more than 100 miles away.

Does that sound much like dialing in a guitar tone on a Fairchild or getting a slamming drum sound? Not to me either, but without knowing how to do that other stuff, my sessions might not ever get off the ground in the first place. And I think we can all agree that some of the first luxuries to go during these hard times are unlimited tech visits . . .

And it suddenly dawned on me: I’m not alone in the world! Every engineer, musician & producer in today’s music industry has to deal with tech issues all the time now. In order to be creative today you have to know more about computers than a top-level programmer knew twenty years ago. And the amazing thing is, it just kind of . . . happened. As computer technology has advanced, so has its usefulness to the music industry. And the industry has just soaked it up. Twenty years ago, a 1GB hard drive cost several thousand dollars, was the approximate size of a Yugo, and there was really no way to use it for creating music.

Yes, that's a 4GB SD card in that dude's hand.

Two months ago, I bought 4.5 TB (or 4500 GB !!!) of hard drive space on three hard drives, spent around three hundred bucks, and filled up half of it with BWAV files in a little under four hours.

The times, they are a’changin’, indeed.

So the next time you find yourself in IT Hell, do what I do: When that seemingly-without-progress progress bar comes up, place your mouse over it as a marker, run to the nearest guitar, and strum a few chords. When you come back, it may just be done . . . and you’ll definitely feel better.

And The Winners Are . . .

Clay — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:47:57 +0000

Well, we got a great response for the iNews giveaway. Thanks to everyone for participating. And special thanks for all the kind remarks about the music! We’re really proud of this new package, and we’re so happy to see that it resonates out there in the real world.

So without further delay, congratulations to:

Dave Medley of WLEX-TV – iPhone

Eric Christiansen of Film Garden TV — Laptop PC

Greg Suchanek of WHAG-TV — HDTV

Time For Another Giveaway! (UPDATED with winners)

Clay — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:37:53 +0000

Update: And the winners are . . .

To celebrate the release of our new syndicated news package “iNews”, we’ve decided to do another giveaway. This one is a little different, though.

As you may know, in the past we’ve given away some guitars. Considering the cross-platform nature of this new package, we’ve decided to go a slightly different direction this time. How does this strike you: an iPhone, a notebook computer, and an LCD HDTV!

Simply leave a comment below to enter the drawing. We’ll draw three names; the first will win the iPhone, the second gets the laptop, and the third name will take home the TV.

Click here for contest rules. Some restrictions apply.

As If Five Guitars Weren’t Enough!

Clay — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:32:54 +0000

UPDATE: And the winners are . . .

Well, we’re doing it again. We’ve got four more guitars going out to some soon to be very lucky people.

If you’re going to PROMAX this year, be sure to stop by our second-floor booth each day (Tuesday thru Thursday) to register for a chance to win. The Tuesday drawing will be at 6pm. The Wednesday & Thursday drawings will be at 4:45pm.

And as you may have guessed, we’re doing another online giveaway for a fourth guitar. As before, just leave a comment on this post, and you’re entered.

Stay tuned here for details and updates.

Click here for contest rules.

Note: This is a “sticky” post. New posts will appear below it. Comments are now closed; drawing will be held at 1:00PM.

Thoughts On NAB

Clay — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:08:57 +0000

Well, we’re back from Vegas. We actually got back late Friday night, but this is the first chance I’ve had to sit down and write anything. Those first few days back from a week out of the office are always a chaotic whirlwind of catch-up.

First off I wanna say that it was a blast! We had such a great time; met a lot of cool people. Most importantly, we got the chance to show off The Vault to a whole set of people who weren’t familiar with it. That’s always fun for us because we really love our music.

Attendance was down this year; 83,842, compared to 105,259 attendees in 2008, and the traffic was a little slower than we expected. But those who came by the booth were really interested in what we had to offer. I talked with several vendors, and the following from Broadcasting & Cable seems well in line with what everyone was saying:

Vendors B&C spoke with this week on the exhibit floor estimated the actual attendance to be even lower, perhaps 60,000, particularly when looking at barometers like short or non-existent cab lines at local hotels and the ease of securing reservations at top restaurants. While large vendors with prime floor positions like Harris, Sony and Avid (which returned to the show this year) were enjoying full booths, some of the hallways and booths on the periphery of the show floor were unusually quiet.

…

[Ricardo Flores, director of broadcast sales for satellite service provider GlobeCast] and other exhibitors, however, said that the quality of the traffic at this year’s show was excellent, as many lower-level employees didn’t make the trip this year. Instead of waves of “tire-kickers,” the broadcasters who were hitting the booths were senior executives with purchasing power.

Del Parks, VP of engineering and operations for Sinclair Broadcast Group, said he had met with one large vendor at the show Tuesday afternoon who had just earned two purchase orders.

“The people who came are buying,” said Parks.

…

So I really think it was a good show. And it was tons of fun getting to give away those great guitars. We got to make several people very happy. What more could you ask for?

New Music on Discovery

Clay — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:01:40 +0000

We just finished up a 3-part Discovery Channel series; “Cocaine Nation”, “Heroin Nation”, and “Meth Nation.” It was a lot of fun. They like a lot of music. That doesn’t mean that Discovery has an extensive iTunes playlist, oh no. Each 45 minute episode contained about 45 minutes of music. So yeah, the scores are pretty much wall-to-wall.

The series explores the drug problems in our country. Pretty compelling stuff. Each episode focuses on a specific drug: Cocaine, Heroin, and Meth. You’re given a look inside the lives of current and former addicts, their families, police officers, DEA agents, etc. It’s a really well-produced show . . . very intriguing. Definitely worth checking out.

Check your Discovery Channel listings for showtimes.

Free Fender Guitars at NAB & RTNDA 2009 (Updated w/5th Guitar)

Clay — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:24:23 +0000

WE HAVE OUR WINNERS!!

UPDATE: We have decided to give away a FIFTH Fender “Road-Worn” Guitar! To register for this on-line drawing, simply leave a comment below.

As we prep for our annual pilgrimage to Vegas for the RTNDA and NAB conventions, we thought we’d go ahead and let the secret out: Stephen Arnold Music is giving away, not just one, not two, but FOUR Fender Road Worn guitars this year!

Stop by our NAB Booth (SL10211) and register to win one of these battle-scarred beauties: a classic blonde Telecaster, a tobacco sunburst Stratocaster and more. We’ll be giving away a Fender guitar each day of the NAB convention (Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday), and another at the RTNDA convention (you can register for the latter at RTNDA’s main registration area). The drawings for NAB will be held each day at our booth at 3pm. The RTNDA giveaway will be during Tuesday’s Happy Hour Cocktail Party on the Exhibit Floor from 3:30pm to 5:00pm.

So be sure to stop by our NAB booth and register. You’re gonna love these guitars!

Please see Rules & Eligibility.