In 2015 I became a Professional Composer when I received a royalty payment for music I wrote. A New York advertising agency picked up my song The Other Song from my days with Spirit. This happened again in 2019 when a movie production company purchased the rights to the same song.
Today, I record using Cubase. If you’d like to see my computer screen when I’m working with music here’s a link.
Cubase In Action
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“Ohm Lad” is a nickname given to me by Frank Zappa. I got this name by fixing his guitar equipment while on the road with The Mothers of Invention. The “roadies” would break his guitar pedals and I would fix them by using my Ohm meter.
The Ohm Lad nickname didn’t stop with me. When good friend, Jim Seiter, Manager of Mobile Recording Services at Wally Heider Studios in Hollywood, California learned of my nickname, he immediately coined one for my mentor, the great Harold Hill. Jim called Harold “Ohm Dad.” So . . . it came to pass that on any given day you could drive down Cahuenga Boulevard south of Hollywood Boulevard and north of Selma) and see Ohm Dad speaking in the most animated fashion to Ohm Lad as Ohm Lad pushed the test equipment cart (the OhmMobile) to Studio 4. Perhaps they would stop at May’s Eatery on the way to the (then) world-famous Studio 4 for a cup of coffee and some “tea cakes.”
John Dykstra once visited the Necam-equipped Studio 4. I was given the pleasant assignment of showing him how the (first ever in the United States) moving-fader Neve console worked. He was so impressed that he insisted that I accompany him to Van Nuys so that I could see the computer-guided motion picture equipment he used to film the space flight sequences for Star Wars. John was amazed at the Necam technology. I was equally amazed at seeing John’s motion picture studio.
ohmladmusic.com used to be, then it wasn’t, and now it is again. Where has this site been? I let the domain name lapse. Someone seized the domain name and camped out on it for years hoping I would feel like bribing him or her to release it. They didn’t use the domain. I could not use it. Finally they “went away.” So now Ohm Lad Music is back.
The songs in 1990 catalog were recorded in the 80’s and 90’s. The 1990 collection has some really good songs in it. These were recorded with a primitive Mac SE running Master Tracks Pro that could only record MIDI . . .
an Opcode MIDI Translator . . .
and a Boss BR-8 digital 8 track that recorded on popular Zip disks of that time. At first I did not believe the sound quality of the BR-8 would be good enough. I was wrong. The sounds I got were wonderful !
I did a lot of recording again to create Love Songs. By this time I used a 27 inch iMac running Cubase Pro 8. Cubase records both MIDI and audio. Click 2010 to listen.
It was a big project to rescue my heritage audio cassettes before they got so old that they would no longer play. The 45 year old, high quality cassettes all worked perfectly. You can enjoy the music I made Way Back When by clicking 1963 in the menu at top of the page.
2016 New Things are song inspirations that my Muses brought to me. To record them I would sit down, empty my mind of any music hit the RECORD button and just play. These song ideas were not pre-planed music events—they just came out of me without thinking of what to play first.
2018 Meditations are a combination of 2016 New Things and the sounds of nature. The music is mixed way “back” so that the nature sounds can take the lead role. The nature sounds are waves breaking, a gurgling brook and wind in the trees.
2020 I’m at it again with a more modern iMac and Cubase. Listen to my Inventions in the 2020 library. The musical equipment list now includes an Ibanez classical guitar, a Morris 12-string, an IC 6-string, a MIDI Stratocaster which plays through a Roland GR-50 synthesizer, a Vineguard baritone ukulele, a 5-string banjo, 2 Yamaha TX7s, a Yamaha MM6 and a Boss COSM (Composite Object Sound Modeling) system.
Devorah was a classically-trained pianist and vocalist. Her piano, B3 organ work and her singing are truly remarkable. I still marvel at the range of her voice and the speed of her fingers on the keyboard.
was a group whose recording engineer was my friend Gary Brandt. Their name says it all. wrote powerful protest songs and performed them.
Eddie One-String Jones is a unique artist who makes his own instrument out of a 2 x 4, the wire from a broom, two nails, a stick (from the garden) and an empty bourbon bottle.
February 14, 2021
Today, Maryvonne Fent, famous author of The 35¢ Dowry [ at Amazon ] sent me this photo and story from our past. In her email, Maryvonne wrote,
“My thanks to Gray Newell for finding this evocative photo shoot featuring old friends.
Lowell became a big star and, sadly, is gone.
Barry became a sound engineer for The Turtles, Frank Zappa, Alice Cooper, and Ike & Tina Turner. He wrote two textbooks on sound engineering: Practical Techniques for the Recording Engineer and Quality In Sound Engineering. Then he became a “rock star,” playing rhythm guitar for Ike & Tina and joining the rock group SPIRIT where he played bass and sang backup with Randy California. Sherman Barry continues to write and record music in Tucson, Arizona.
Lars and I were in several bands, notably the Total Eclipse in the US, and California Gold in Denmark. Lars continues to write and play in Montana where he now lives.
Looking at their faces made my day!”
January 2021
Adobe has just ripped off the entire music world by putting Adobe Flash through an EOL (end of lifetime) procedure. For years and years, Adobe provided the app called Flash for free. Then, one day, Adobe decided to ruin every music-friendly website in the world. That is why the useful music player you once enjoyed at OhmLad Music is gone.
What made them do it? Was it greed? Corruption? Stupidity? Dreadful management?
According to my reckoning, that makes five huge ripoffs for Adobe.
As far as Photoshop goes
It’s a good thing there’s the free
www.pixlr.com
that thankfully makes Photoshop obsolete.
LET THEM KNOW: BOYCOTT ADOBE.
A Blast From The Past
Multiple Atrocities Brought To Us By Adobe