Guidance and Courage by James Bernard

I’ve know James Bernard since the early 90s. When I first started recording electronic music James was one of a very small group of musicians in NY making “techno” (under the band name Influx). He hosted a few after parties and I remember talking music making tech with him all the way back then. We lost touch and years later I noticed his tutorial videos for Propellerheads. I was living in Berlin at the time and I sent him a quick email just saying hello, etc… A couple of weeks later a package with pretty much everything Propellerheads offers showed up at my front door. Since then every upgrade the same thing happened. James it that kind of person and even if you didn’t recieve boxes of goodies if your a Reason user you surely benifited from his amazing and prolific video tutorials. It takes a lot of effort and know how to create those!

This morning I received an email from James that his wife died of Leukemia earlier this week. In true artist form James made some music (above). Peff the number one superfan of all things Propellerheads has set up a donation button for Nicole and James’s four childen the Bernard Childcare Trust. Let’s give back: click here

“While there has been a lot of buzz surrounding other Propellerhead news this week, a tragedy has befallen the family of our friend, James Bernard, PH Artists Relations and Reason Specialist. On July 13, 2011, James’ wife, Nicole, passed away. Nicole was 36 years old and was the mother of their four children, Ava, Chloe, Mia and Asher. People in the user community are leaving their expressions of sympathy on on the Propellerhead User Forum in this thread”. – peff.com

Donations: click here

James from Propellerheads shows us another workhorse tip in his latest 52 Reason / Record Tips. These prefab clips with automation data are great time savers.

“Whenever I’m working on music, one thing that I’ve had in my personal bag of tricks is an “automation clip toolbox.” Basically, it’s a palette of controller data curves and waveforms which can be applied to automation lanes like level, pan, filter cutoff, etc. Thanks to the new “stretch clip to tempo” function (Option+Drag for Mac or Control+Drag for Windows) I can resize these automation clips to whatever speed I want. This week I’m giving this toolbox away and showing you how to use it. These clips will breathe new life into an otherwise static pad or provide the creative spark for a new idea entirely. Enjoy!” – James Bernard

File download: http://www.propellerheads.se/stuff/JB34.zip

For more info: propellerheads.se

EMF (Electronic Music Foundation) Studios (link), 307 7th Ave. Ste 1402 NY NY 10001 ( between 27th and 28th, a couple buildings down from 28th. There’s a 1 – 9 subway stop right at 28th and 7th. It’s just a few blocks down from Penn Station.)

Dates: April 26th (With James Bernard), May 31st (With Gerry Basserman), June 28th, July 26th, and August 30th

Time: 6PM – 10PM (light refreshments will be on hand).

The venue will only hold approx. 20-30 people at a time so please RSVP with a timeslot that you would like to attend (6-7PM, 7-8PM, 8-9PM, 9-10PM).

RSVP:
4/26 – james.bernard@propellerheads-us.com
5/31 – gerry.bassermann@propellerheads-us.com
6/28 – TBD
7/26 – TBD
8/30 – TBD

I’ll be at some of these… see you there!

“Propellerhead Software’s product specialist James Bernard kicks off this series of tutorials with a demonstration on creative uses of the Record mixer’s dynamics section to create rhythmic gating effects, also known as ‘trance gate’.” – PropellerheadSW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jnZ1EwvW88

“In this week’s episode, James Bernard shows how to create a typical dub step wobble bass sound in Record and Reason.” – PropellerheadSW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mKL2xCw1Ds

“In the third episode, James Bernard gives you even more tips on creating dub step wobble bass sounds in Record and Reason.” – PropellerheadSW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGPYBnpt1ZA

“Week 4 is here and this time James shows you the basics of the Contol Volt and Gate features in Reason and Record. Many users shy away from CV/Gate for fear of not knowing what they do, but CV/Gate is an immensely powerful feature and quite straightforward to use once you grasp the basic concept.” – – PropellerheadSW

For more info: propellerheads.se

The always busy James Bernard from Propellerhead Software went to LA to interview Bon Harris one of the founding members of Nitzer Ebb. It doesn’t surprise me to hear he’s using Reason to create the music for the upcoming all new NE album. Reason seems to be a center piece in a lot of EBM bands today. It was a happy surprise to hear the bassline Mr. Harris let us have a sneak peak of because it had an old school Nitzer Ebb feel to it. If Douglas McCarthy can get angry enough to put proper vocals on this remains to be seen. I for one really hope the magic returns.

Keep up with NE here: www.nitzer-ebb.de and  myspace.com/nitzerebbmusic

If you remember not too long ago I mentioned I was recently endorsed by Propellerhead Software. An old friend of mine James Bernard who is a Product Specialist at the company helped set me up. Last week he started his own blog on the Propellerhead website. I think this is a great idea as the blog format is my favorite way to get info these days and James has a huge amount of pro-audio knowledge to share.

“Welcome to my first entry to my new blog page on the Propellerhead Website! I plan on using this page to share any tips or tricks I have picked up, insight on some of my travels around the world doing Producers Conference events and also share some useful files or links I might come across. Please let me know what you think of it and feel free to request any specific tips/tricks you would like to see.” – James Bernard, www.propellerheads.se

His first posts are great. He kicks it off by showing us his own project studio which includes a FM3 Buddha Machine, modified Roland TR-606, Auralex Treatment and of course Reason. Next, he creates a few songs using one sound. Yes. One single sound. In fact he uses just one single TR-909 kick drum. We all joke and think about doing things like this but James tackles the task and lives to tell about it.

There is more than just show and tell on his new blog which I believe is titled “.plan”.  You get free goodies such as Refills and Regroove Templates.

Check out James’s new blog: click here

So it’s official: The Horrorist is endorsed by Propellerhead Software. I, as you know record under the name “The Horrorist” and today the box of goodies you see in the above photo arrived at my studio. I also managed to get one of the bands on my label Ionic Vision the same deal.

So how does one get such a good proposal? To be honest it’s kinda like getting laid by a female… You stay nice, friendly and available and when they are in the mood it happens! When I was in college at Suny Purchase I spent my free time in the music department hanging out with John Selway, Scott Richmond (Satellite Records) and Jack Elliot. During that time, the early nineties, the rave scene was beginning to take over the NY area. John invited me to techno parties in Long Island where I met Frankie Bones, Adam X, Heather Heart, Dave Trance and many more. I’m not sure how it exactly happened but I ended up at the recording studio of a guy named James Bernard who had a techno act called Influx. Ah… bingo you say! James Bernard I know that name. Yep hold that thought…

Flash forward fifteen plus years, 75 singles, 3 albums, 3 studios, a move to Berlin, a pro-audio blog and some grey hair. A band on my label Things to Come Records called Ionic Vision was coming to perform in Germany. I met them at Club Maria and did a quick video interview with them to help promote their new single. During the interview they got all gushy about how great Propellerheads Reason is. I wholeheartedly agree Reason is the bees knees and the video went up on the internets. I mentioned to Andy de Decker (one of the band members) that I should send it over to Propellerheads and did just that.

I knew James Bernard worked at Propellerheads and from time to time I cracked a smile when I saw him demoing things on YouTube. I would say to myself, “There’s that Influx guy. Dam he landed a cool job!”. So I was pleased when I found out he was the one in charge of artist relations and more pleased when he was the one who emailed me back. Without me asking he offered the endorsement deals.

So what can we learn from this tale?

1. James Bernard kicks ass.

2. Propellerheads kicks ass.

3. Being nice to people and putting your work out there gets free stuff. (And laid by females)

This arrangement will be good for you too because I will be posting more Reason tutorials, videos and Refill reviews.

So far I can tell you the 15″ laptop bag is very nice. The area where you hold your laptop is well padded and smooth so you don’t need to use one of those crappy inner sleeve things. It’s made of “polyester ripstop” which like it’s name: feels like it won’t ever rip. It also has a rubber handle, zippered pockets, a mobile cell holder and key ring.

Check out more photos of the bag and goodies: click here

Listen to James Bernard’s music: myspace.com/jamesbernardmusic
Visit Propellerhead Software: propellerheads.se