# New member from the midwest in USA



## DPDAN (Apr 14, 2009)

Hi folks, Hans Adamson referred me to this portion of the forum and thought I should introduce myself to you all. Also thank you to Kevin (artsoundz) and guy Bacos for making me feel very welcome. Thank you guys!

My name is Dan Kury, I am 53 years of age, and have been around music since I was in my Mom's womb. She played piano and organ at church and my Dad has been in barbershop quartets as long as I can remember. I have been setting up sound and recording equipment since high school. I grew up around some great musicians like Jay Oliver and Dave Weckl. When Jay was in high school, I recorded his band for him,,, I taught him everything he knows.. just kidding..  I have no musical training except for three months of piano lessons when I was seven. 

Back in 2004, I had recorded an a cappella group named Voices Only at a local university with an Adat and an analog mixer. During the mixing process, Jim Henry (director) said "man you really need to get a Mac computer to mix on." My friend Jay who is in LA told me that he was coming home for Thanksgiving and he would bring with him his Digital Performer disc and load it into my newly purchased preowned Apple G4 computer that I purchased on Ebay. Jay has been with MOTU as a beta user since it's conception. He informed me that I would have to purchase my own version of DP and of course I did. He spent a few days with me showing me how to use the Mac and the DP software. I was absolutely in love with the things I could do with that setup. 

After finishing the mixes of "Voices Only" I found myself teaching myself how to use the "other half" of DP.... MIDI. I had just come home from Fort Worth Texas where I had recorded a Live concert at a church for Shirley Coleman. The vocalist at the concert sang with the church's praise band, but a few songs she sang with CD tracks, one of which was Alabaster Box. 

http://www.dankury.com/music/AlabasterBoxnoappl.MP3

Soon after I returned home, Shirley informed me that Alabaster Box could not go on the Live CD because of copyright issues. 
I told her if she got permission to use the song from the writer, we could legally put the song on the CD, but I would have to make her a track she could sing with similar to the store bought sing-along track. 

My Dad called to let me know that the music director at church was giving me their old keyboard... a Yamaha KX-88. Awesome! except it has no sounds and I knew that. I immediately went to the internet to find some sounds and stumbled across Garritan Orchestral Strings (GOS). Jay had already told me about Tascam's Giga Studio but I would also need to purchase that in order to use GOS. I could not afford it, so I bought a brand new product that Garritan had just recently released called Garritan Personal Orchestra. At 249 bucks, it could not be very good, I mean.. a whole orchestra for 20 percent of the cost of GOS??? I knew it would be good enough for me to teach myself about midi. Within a week of getting GPO, I taught myself how to use GPO and DP's midi while I transcribed by ear all the notes of the Alabaster Box CD track. I pretty much copied it as best I could. I then used Shirleys vocal and put it on top of the "Garritan" recording I had made. Since I have no musical training, and had only been a recording engineer dude all those years, I was able for the very first time to make music all by myself, and prove to myself as well as some others that indeed I was actually a real musician. I have always heard music in my head, I would ride my bike and sing (arppegiate) the four parts of barbershop songs. What a hoot! Anyway, all in due time things would come together and I would realize some of the potential of Digital Performer and GPO. 

So, Alabaster Box is all GPO,... copied by ear. I played individual notes and chords at a time, and eventually had it all copied and in fact sounded stunningly close the the Alabaster Box tune on CeCe Winan's CD. 

In the last four years, and because of GPO, I have taught myself the jargon and many other things that is associated with orchestral music. 

Recently, I offered to mix one of Guy Bacos' tunes, and he has been using my services ever since. I am grateful for him, I love his music, and of course I love the VSL sounds too. GPO, VSL, EW, KH, and all the others put together, will NEVER replace real musicians. Wait a minute, they already have in many recordings, but live music will always be performed by REAL people. That I am happy about. I too prefer to hear recorded music with real musicians. As we all know, using sample libraries is a very touchy subject, and can really get some people uptight. For me, they are tools that have allowed me to become better at what I do. Sample libraries have given me an insight as to what makes a lot of different types of music tick. I will always be humbled at real musicians playing instruments, but I have to tell you, even though I will never know what "my" music will sound like with real musicians... I have a pretty good idea, and I am in awe of what can be achieved "musically" with a jigsaw puzzle of samples. 

I am heavily indebted to Gary Garritan who is a fantastic person. He often encourages the use of other libraries... he calls it... "adding to the palette."

At one time Garritan had done some work with Herb at VSL, and has always had nothing but wonderful things to say about Herb and VSL. I wanted Gary to know that I was doing some work for Guy Bacos, and wanted to verify that there was no conflict of interest. Gary was very happy for me, and gave me his blessing in the colaboration. 

I have gabbed long enough, but these are some of the things that have brought me to the place where I am at in my career. 

Thanks everyone for your time reading this windy message. 
http://www.dankury.com


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## Hans Adamson (Apr 14, 2009)

Welcome Dan,

Very interesting background. Looking forward to your perspective, especially regarding the recording engineering aspects of sample libraries, and your special secret techniques for mockups...


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## DPDAN (Apr 14, 2009)

you are very kind,  
thank you Hans!
Dan


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## germancomponist (Apr 15, 2009)

You are very welcome, Dan!

Gunther


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## ComposerDude (Apr 15, 2009)

Welcome, Dan!


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## Frederick Russ (Apr 15, 2009)

Welcome to VI Dan!


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