Where did you guys get the G&G theme song & intro? It is nicely done. Is this an original jingle someone recorded for you or did you license it? Also we were speculating a bit that maybe the woman's voice belongs to one of your spouses? If you could tell us a little more about how you did it, besides the fact that Matt dances to it, that would be interesting.
Theme Song
Hey twowheeler...
Now you're just trying to flatter us :) But I'll take the bait...here's a little story about the theme song for G&G:
When we first started the show, many of you probably noticed that our theme was different. We used to use a song by a British Electronic group called Daft Punk. The song was Technologic (lyrics) We started using this back when MF and I thought this podcast was going to be something we'd do for a few episodes, find out no one cared, then we'd quit. Once the show grew and we started to see that people were listening, we knew we had to address the copyright issues because the podcast was no longer a private little toy. So, on our Mac vs. PC episode we decided that had to change.
(Here's where the story gets interesting)
About this time, my house was being totally destroyed. We were doing a major renovation and my wife and I were, literally, living out of our bedroom. It was the only room in the house that had a roof. I had a desk set up in there so I could work, it's where we slept and ate...it was like a really small studio apartment. It was in this disaster that I recorded the new G&G theme.
The theme was produced on a Powermac G5 using Reason, Pro Tools and an Oxygen 49 Midi Controller...the voice was recorded with a AT4033.
Basically, I sorta made it up as I went. I knew I wanted something similar to Technologic in feel because listeners had told us they loved that theme song. My previous job was a record producer, but I'm not really a full blown songwriter, so I just dug in and worked until it felt right.
I programmed all the loops and synths in Reason, and used it's Rewire functionality to sync that with a Pro Tools session. Then, while sitting on the floor of a totally destroyed house, my wife read the text that I had written into the mic. I edited it in Pro Tools to get the timing right then laid it over the music.
I then compressed, EQd, edited, and mixed within Pro Tools using Event TR8 reference monitors. Then, I output the final product as two stereo 44.1khz/16bit files (beginning and ending themes) , which I just dropped into our Pro Tools template that we use to record each week's episode.
All told, I think it probably took about 2 hours start to finish. It's not the best song in the world, but it does the job...and that was the goal. It was really fun to record and really fun to share the process. Thanks for letting me get long winded about this and share all the geeky audio details!
-Rob Feature
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.mustardseedmedia.com
64 bit?
Did you design it on purpose so that it would sound OK at the 64 bits per second you use for the podcast?
Or was that just a "happy accident"?
I've heard other podcasts that pick a great intro song, but it sounds lousy by the time they compress the podcast down to what they post on the web. Yours still sounds ok.
Full Rez Production
If you record the original tracks at full resolution (ie. uncompressed AIFF) then there's no issue when you downrez. I can imagine if the mix was bad to begin with, there might be issues, but as long as the mix is even and you're not doing anything crazy (like adding sub-freqs down at like 40hz) then it should translate ok.
Bottom line is: if the original is mixed properly, it should work well at any compression settings (this is something that folks who mix audio are always cognizant of. But me? I mostly got lucky.)
-Rob Feature
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.mustardseedmedia.com
love your work!
Hey Rob - thanks for sharing the story! You certainly haven't lost "the touch" since your music producing days!
I love the sub-bass that kicks in at about 24 seconds in... on a decent set of cans this sounds awesome!
cheers,
Pete
MP3...grrr...
You should hear it in all it's original AIFF glory!....it even makes MF dance. :)
-Rob Feature
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.mustardseedmedia.com
I was wondering too
I was thinking about this just in the last few days. Thank you for all of the details.
One of the first times I went back and heard the original theme song, I had to find the iPhone commercial on YouTube. I was sure I'd never heard the line, "Unlock it," before and I couldn't imagine Apple using it. (If I had an iPhone, I would unlock it.) However, "now upgrade it," sounds very much like Apple.