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Doug Robinson
Jazzooo@aol.com
www.dougrobinson.com
I was born and raised in San Diego, playing piano in my own progressive jazz/rock band, and then drums in the award-winning Crawford High School Jazz Ensemble. I was playing over a dozen instruments by the time I graduated high school.
From there, my life took an unexpected turn when I moved into Synanon, a dynamic community that was originally established to help drug addicts clean up but had later expanded to include non-addicts like myself. I loved the sense of community and helping others. For a while I taught music to 150 kids in the Synanon School and then found my own musical mentor in Frank Rehak, a jazz trombone legend who had played with Miles Davis and John Coltrane in his prime. Frank had come into Synanon to kick a 20 year heroin habit, then decided to stick around and help others. For 15 years, Frank and I worked together in various bands, and I learned the basics of multitrack recording overdubbing him on a steam-driven Tapesonic two-track machine that had been donated to the community.
One of the huge benefits of living in Synanon for over 20 years was stumbling into a career in creative marketing. We had a revenue-generating business which sold imprinted promotional items to corporate clients and I eventually became a vice president of the division. But I was always more interested in my music, releasing my own CDs since 1991.
One day my wife and I were sitting across from a client at Abbott Labs, and I had an epiphany. The client was about to order 60,000 coffee mugs with company logos for physicans, and I stopped him. "Why don't you do something original for a change? I lecuted him. "For example, how about giving out a jazz CD by some talented artist deserving wider recognition instead? That way, he gets exposure and you get to give away something really special that your target audience might actually ENJOY!"
At the time I happened to have some rough mixes from my 1997 album Plays Well With Others, which featured guitarist Mike Stern and bassist John Patitucci. The client said "Ok, let's give it a shot" and off we went. The CDs were a huge hit for Abbott, and for us.
Eventually my wife and I started our own company and so far have sold over 1,000,000 branded CDs to companies like Shell, BellSouth and Monster.com.
MY VS HISTORY
When I got my VS880 in 1996, I immediately recorded an album called Spinner by singer/songwriter Michelle Abby. It was an ambitious project that met with a lot of approval from the DIY recording community. After another similar project, I started doing basic tracks in NY and LA studios and then overdubbing at home on my 1680. In 2002, I scored an indie feature film (Lost Lake from Adams Entertainment) on my 1680 and soon after moved to my VS2480.
CURRENT PROJECTS
I stay pretty busy. In early 2004 I released Two Days in November, an album featuring my jazz trio (Jazzooo). It was tracked 100% in my home studio by Dan 'Dot' Richards. Quite an experience—three players and an engineer, live in a one-room studio with minimal isolation—but it all worked out. I also mixed my brother Andy Robinson's new release, Exotic America, and I've got two more projects in the pipeline for late 2004 release: a followup album by Michelle Abby and my own vocal debut album, Midlife Chrysalis.
SAMPLE RECORDINGS
I've got a lot of samples of my current VS work at my website: www.dougrobinson.com. I think the tracks from Two Days in November display my best work so far.
My email is Jazzooo@aol.com. I'm also a regular at VSPlanet , a stimulating cybercommunity where I find technical help and lots of talented people to hang out with.
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"I know click tracks come in handy, but I try to play without them as much as possible—even when I'm laying down the initial acoustic drum track. I like music that breathes a little. It's scary, and the first few attempts aren't always keepers, but I find I enjoy the end result much more when I work this way. Likewise, I'm kind of a dweeb about using virtual tracks and comping together solos—I've done it, but more often than not I'll aim for one-pass performances.
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"I can't imagine that any VS user wouldn't list automation as their most-relied-upon feature. To me, mixing is actually a function of arranging—that is, an arranger decides which instruments will play certain parts, and a mixer takes it a step further and decides not only how loud they'll be in relation to other instruments, but also where they will sit in the sonic soundstage. I love mixing—it's the second most creative part of the process. But I really couldn't accomplish much without automation.
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