Remember Christmas 2001? I do, it was the Christmas that I let an EMU MP-7 Command Station into the house. Unlike the Casio Keyboard that my son, Chris, had when he was eight, this box of tricks should have come with the warning 'An MP-7 is not just for Christmas' or 'Danger MP-7’s can seriously change your life'! Why do I say this? Read on…..

Chris is left handed, Chris is now taller than me, Chris is a musician and a teenager !

Me? I’m right handed, I’m shorter than him, I’m not musical and I am most certainly not a teenager. I put myself in the techie category - people come to me when their PCs don’t work and I fix them. (But please don’t contact me asking for help - I’ve got enough on my plate !: )

Now, I’m not sure if this is a fair statement because I don’t have any facts to go on but here goes ...

Arty people don’t tend to be techie people (I can see my mailbox filling up but, Hey, its just my opinion). So now you can see where all this is leading right? Good. Now lets go back to Christmas 2001 = the time when I didn’t know the difference between a synthesizer and a sequencer and, although I'd heard of MIDI because I'd played a few MIDI files on my PC, I didn’t know much more than that (well, except that MIDI files usually sounded crap, that is). Not to mention compression, normalizing, EQ’ing and mastering.

There. I said it.

All that was about to change. Well, not straight away.

Around six months later, Chris started banging out tunes on the MP-7 and from that moment on I knew that music was going to be his life. Trouble was, I knew nothing about the music business or industry to help him. All I knew was that we needed to start recording his songs, and that’s where I came in.

I started to add the other bits of the jigsaw, bits like hardware and software to get a decent quality recording. Chris kept writing his tunes and they kept getting better and better, it became difficult for me to know when to record. Just when I bagged a track he’d say I have improved the drum beats and I’d be recording it again !.

We started thinking about what he wanted to be known as. I came up with Suggestions, he would say No’. I thought we needed a domain name so we could put his tracks on the web and I started looking around. Eventually, I said 'Zerohertz' and to my surprise, he said 'Yeah! That’s it!'

Chris is into drums'n'bass and hip-hop and it reflects in the tunes he produces. I was struggling to know what to do with his tracks. Were they any good? Would people buy CDs of his music? Do we need a record company, a manager, an agent, a publisher? Can he play this stuff live? Will people want to see him pressing pads and twiddling knobs to produce music? Just how do you make a career in this bloody business anyway ??

I emailed the management of a local artist and got some idea of what was needed. 'You need to create a buzz', set up your own production,'

I realised I'm in at the deep end.

A few months ago a couple of local lads started coming round to the house and rapping to Chris’s tunes. At our first meeting G.i..joe (one of the lads) asked me, Do you spit?' I stopped and thought, Did I hear that right? Yeah I heard it right. Then it dawned on me that he meant, Did I Rap?

I began to understand what this was all about.

By the time I saw ‘8 Mile’ I was well versed in spittin and it all made perfect sense. When I saw the Eminem Show at Milton Keynes, I really could admire the skill of the planets greatest rapper.

My techie skills came into use again because we now needed to record vocals and mix them down with Chris’s tunes. That’s when the Liberal Beats were born. ZerohertZ, G.i..joe and the eldest crew member Dark-e. Whoops there goes another domain name too ;- )

A lot of kit is needed. The space to put it. The cash to buy it. For now, we manage in Chris’s bedroom and we’ll carry on there for now.

I have no idea where this will all end up, but sometimes, you just got to go with the flow.

Down at the local bookshop I found myself this excellent read 'All You Need To Know About The Music Business' by Donald S. Passman ISBN 0-140-29947-5. I think it's a must if you're an artist, or interested in the music business. Don't sign any record contracts or any other deals until you've read this book. (And no, I'm not on commission for book sales - it's my single piece of advice to anyone who, like me, has no experience of the business).

That’s about where we are now. They're putting their songs together and I’m trying to think about the next step, creating the 'buzz. I think this'll take us to the live performance.

But there's a lot yet to do ............

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For now, if you're a parent of musical offspring, drop an email to rick@zerohertz.com. (Maybe we can
start a self help group here on Dmusic. Just kidding ;- )

If you're interested you can find us at zerohertz.com and liberalbeats.co.uk

EMU MP-7 is a 128 voice synth multitrack sequencer from the Command Station product line, www.emu.com

Eminem = a little known rap artist who most likely will never become rich and famous. ! ;-)

Milton Keynes = 52:00:25N (52.0069), 0:45:47W (-0.7631)

Still in at the deep end, this went up August 2003 now here we are in April 2004 thinking bout launchin a label by the end of this year ! Still goin with the flow.