n-Track Studio's Featured Artist of the Month

APRIL 2002


The Five W
Featured Artist's Web Page: http://www.madscientistmedia.com


Where: Originally Boston, MA USA Currently in Tempe, AZ USA

Who: Neil Boettcher
When: Musician for 22 years

Why: ... to meet chicks

What: Eclectic Rock

In Short:

 Influences:[..] Growing up too poor to own a radio, I learned (to my friends annoyance) by playing keyboard along with their Nintendo games, and hitting the -reset- button whenever I got stuck on a part.

Gear:

Keyboard:
Alesis QS8.1
Best feeling weighted keys out there. Incredible sounds, especially piano and organ
Lackluster midi features
Best for performance as a single track

Guitars:
Fender 12-string
1976 Ibanez electric (she's got love and a warm sound)
Yamaha RBX270 Bass (great sound, bad action, but inexpensive)

Drum triggers:
Yamaha DD-50. sounds great when midi'ed into my Alesis

Harmonicas,recorder,violin, anything that makes noise
I've been known to play the frying pan on some recordings. It is now quite dented

Computer:
AMD Thunderbird 1,000 MHZ 233 bus
256 Meg DDR ram
7200 rpm 8ns seek 60 HD
Cheap 16bit Ensoniq SB
Sometimes I use the computer's built in soundcard for 4 simultaneous inputs, AGP Voodoo3 video card, and a 2meg PCI video card
Ntrack V2.3, Jazz shareware midi sequencer

Max so far: 22 tracks, 9 effects runs my cpu at about 74%

Neil Boettcher
 by Alessandro De Murtas
Featured Songs: 

 Kittens
#note: My first orchestral song! I couldnt play the piano ending fast enough, so I recorded each measure seperately, then volume blended them together.
Women's Studies
#note: I first recorded the music. Then I changed the recording preferences to a higher bitrate for the vocals. After changing the bitrate back, I had a super low pitch voice, but with better phonetic clarity than with a 'real' low voice
All Night
#note: My girlfriend CAN'T sing. So, I recorded 20 takes, then cut every word she sang and dragged them so they would be on beat.
Speedboat
#note: uses my favorite drum sample cloned and realigned multiple times


[..] "Happy Birthday" I was 5 years old and instead of getting a new bicycle (I had already crashed my Big Wheel in anticipation) I got this little Bontempi Air Organ. It had maybe 20 keys for my right hand and 12 or so 'chord' buttons for my left, and though it didnt sound all that good, it DID have two great features.

1: It gave me something to do when I was grounded to my room
(which was often, me being a little trouble maker).
2: It annoyed my older brother Ed and I LOVED to annoy him (little brothers perogative)

Well one day for 'show and tell' I decided to 'show and tell' Neil Be so I brought my little organ and showed it off. (the keyboard ladies, not the other thing) Well you know what? I always thought I was the man, but after playing that thing for my class, THEY started thinking I was the man too!!
I started my first band in 6th grade (we played 'Keep your Hands to Yourself' and 'Inspector Gadget). In 7th grade I taught someone how to play keyboard so I could sing and work the crowd.. Our first gig was in front of 500 people and we got a standing ovation (We headlined for the school band) In 8th grade I started to notice how those people with estrogen started to make me feel all tingly inside. Unfortunately they didn't like keyboardists so I had to learn guitar. 3 Iron Maiden records, 2 Guns and Roses cassetts, and 1 Gratefull Dead Sheet music book later and I was a guitarist .(funny That same Ed gave me the sheet music book) In High school I learned bass so I wouldnt be stuck without a bassist. Formed a bunch of bands and learned one important thing
All musicians are damn egomaniacs.

So I stopped playing with people and stuck to writing techno, classical, and alternative for my own amusement. oh, and i did Lots and LOTS of drugs. thats probably why I didnt go anywhere yet Well, one day in Virginia, some random guy named Coyote walked up to me, pulled out some Tarot cards, and read my fortune. He said I have a manifest destiny and it will come to be in Arizona. Well I thought it was bullshit, but I didn't want to hurt his feelings by telling him that. Instead I bussed out to Tempe, AZ, lived in a tent, and played guitar for food stamps. Then my brother Karl (i called him collect) said apply to college and the goverment will pay for your food and housing. So I did just that. I smelled so bad (kind of like an Atari 2600 programmer) so I decided to be a Computer Science Major."

Tips and Tricks from Neil Boettcher using n-Track Studio.


[..] "I created a template file which has the main and aux busses set with my favorite effects (compressor,reverb on main, chorus, delay, humanizer on busses) I load then save-as in a new folder when beginning a new recording.

Create a new folder for each song! This keeps all the files for each song seperate and allows for easy backup by dragging the folder into your cdwriter program

Turn off windows sounds and Internet. I've lost WAY too many "heavenly takes" when my chat menu pops up with an annoying 'bleep'

ZOOM ZOOM and ZOOM again. All your punchins and editing can be seamless by cuting at the right place.

MASTERING: I use n-Track to master my mixdowns before burning a cd.
Put all your final mixdowns into one song using Insert Wav.
Solo each of them at random points in the songs to compare and contrast volumes, while using the mixer to tweek volumes and eq's.
I usually put a Compresson, EQ, and light reverb in the master effects so that all the songs have a unified acoustic flavor.

Then just Solo one at a time and mixdown. You'll have a cd which has that consistant and professional sound found in $300,000 productions.

n-Track Favorite Multiple monitors.
Windows lets you use multiple monitors just by plugging in another video card. With n-Track, I keep my timeline on one monitor and my mixer and VU Meters on the other. This makes editing a breeze!"

What's Being Cooked Up?
Featured Artist of the Month - Comments and suggestions are welcome.

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I'm compiling my best recordings as a demo for video game companies and film producers. Check out the commercial music link for the newest and best tunes.