I have been looking for a way to meet some music producers in Denver, so last week, I attended a gathering of the Denver Electronic Music Producers Meetup. ?Overall, it was a great experience and I plan to attend their monthly meetings. ?Here is a brief summary of my experience:
The Location
The meetup was in Denver, in space provided by Steno Co-working. ?This is a great, comfortable space that features a large table with ample power outlets to plug in a laptop anywhere. ?The large table was spacious enough that I could imagine everyone could open a laptop, maybe connect a controller, and get in some productive time in a DAW. ?The is also a stereo system and some great speakers that?facilitates critical listening.
The Format
The meetup was well structured and engaging the whole time. ?We kicked off with pizza and introductions including a brief background, and sharing our latest electronic music projects. ?We then got into a presentation related to electronic music. ?Then it was time to share the results of the month’s music production challenge. ?Then we had some time left over for networking.
The Presentation
DEMPer John Lightner put together a presentation on audio dynamic compression. ?John presented a great introduction to what compression is, how it is used, and some tips and tricks in Ableton (which is almost every members DAW of choice). ?At the end of his presentation, John opened up Ableton and demonstrated what various compression functions sounded like.
The Challenge
Attendees who had put together a 1 – minute project using media posted eariler in the month. ?There were a great variety of projects, all with their own strengths. ?Some projects had a great melody, others used only the supplied sounds in creative ways, others mixed it up. ?Next month, I plan to put together something using nuSpin (by the way, there is a free version you can download here).
Mingling
It was great chatting with a number of local musicians, finding out who uses what software, other meetups, and discussing the projects submitted for the challenge.
Next Month’s Electronic Music Producers Meetup…
For April’s meeting, the plan is for the organizer Rhys to present on his musician community startup. ?I am very interested in how that is going, and plan to attend. ?See you there?
