Gussie Miller

I’ve been grooving on the soulful vibes of Gussie Miller ever since I got a sneaky-peek of his brand spanking new single ‘Wantin’ You‘ two weeks ago!

With having these classic powerful dynamic set of pipes, Gussie shows he’s been longer in the game than most people think. Not only does he give us that old school R&B flavour, but knows to appeal to the younger audience as well!

I just can’t wait till his much anticipated album ‘Forever Plan‘ drops, so I can pop that sucker into the TDGmobile and cruise the boulevard with the windows down…

Check in with Gussie Miller on:
Twitter: @GussieMiller
Facebook: facebook.com/GussieMiller
Website: gussiemiller.com
iTunes: Gussie Miller’s single ‘What More Can I Say’ - The Dutch Guy Blog

Los Angeles–based singer/songwriter and producer Gussie Miller (pictured at left) has finished up his new album, Forever Plan, and is currently writing and producing new material for emerging artists Lance Todd and Lindsay Douglas.

Miller heads up Artis Musicai, a music production company that specializes in contemporary pop, jazz and R&B songwriting, artist development and production. He is most recently recognized for his work with bassist Marcus Miller on the music for Chris Rock’s Everybody Hates Chris TV series and Marcus Miller’s new CD/DVD release, Free. Gussie Miller is also a featured vocalist on Chris Rock’s movie I Think I Love My Wife and has worked with artists such as Gino Vanelli, Lavern Baker, Seal and Cher.
Miller recently switched to Avastor hard drives for all of his projects. “I switched to Avastor after a catastrophic hard drive crash that cost me $3,500 to re-record and restore material for my new album,” he explained. "I haven't had a glitch since.

“The work that I do is very virtual-instrument related,” Miller says. “The speed and seek time of the HDX drives are killer, due to Avastor’s component choice for the bridgeboard and their 100-percent sustained throughput testing on every drive shipped. Additionally, the built-in fan adds to the professional quality and keeps everything cool.” Miller uses Spectrasonics software instruments in Apple Logic Pro 7 and needs consistently fast hard drives for his multiple projects.

“If I am working with a native application like Logic, it’s all about the track count and the speed. These drives load really quickly and the robustness of the construction is very apparent. I am now in the process of transferring my entire library to Avastor drives.”
Miller is also working with video assets that require speedy and dependable hard drives. “I am moving all my video files, too, over to Avastor. I’ve been working on a lot of projects with Final Cut Pro to prepare short videos for YouTube and MySpace.”
As Miller travels around Los Angeles and the country, he carries material stored on Avastor drives. “Engineer Dave Isaac does engineering and mixing on many of my projects,” he continues. “I met Dave while working with Marcus Miller and he loves those drives. That’s how I found out about Avastor.”
- Mix Magazine

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Gussie Miller is one of those amazing people who are equally talented on either side of the microphone. With the ears of a musician and the ears of an engineer magically merged, the singer/songwriter/engineer/producer brings a unique sensitivity to his projects. He understands, better than most, how a musical performance will translate through the recording, mixing and mastering stages. On the flip side, he understands, again better than most, that some gear fights against the musicality of a piece, whereas other gear enhances it. It is with these subtleties that Miller often finds himself turning to Metric Halo's ChannelStrip plug-in, of which he says - in a charming lilt that only a professional vocalist can deliver - "it's all about the algorithm!"

Based in Los Angeles, Gussie Miller is the vocal talent that jazz master Marcus Miller frequently turns to, and is the featured vocalist on the Chris Rock movie "I Think I Love My Wife." Over a career that spans decades, he has worked with a rich cross-section of contemporary music's prime movers, including Lavern Baker, Seal, and Cher. He is currently working on a solo release, "Forever Plan," and the music for Jonathan Lewis' forthcoming indie film, "Darkness of the Night."

Miller also runs Artis Musicai, a music production company specializing in pop, jazz and R&B songwriting, artist development, and production. Notable recent projects include the production of dance artist Lance Todd's crossover to pop and the debut effort of Lindsay Douglas.

A self-avowed "native proponent," Miller is good friends with many of the leading engineers at Mark of the Unicorn and Steinberg (Nuendo). He was first introduced to Metric Halo software while working in the sales group at Westlake Audio. "I've always been sensitive to how software sounds," he said. "There are huge differences among the platforms and huge differences among the plug-ins."

But going back even further, Miller cut his teeth behind the massive and unabashedly-analog SSL E-Series, G-Series, and J-Series consoles at The Soundtrack Group Boston. "To me, ChannelStrip embodies the classic SSL sound," he said. "It's musical and smooth, but it uses surprisingly few resources. I can run a tremendous number of instances, even on my older G4. It's all about the quality of the algorithm; the way it does the math. Metric Halo has it right!"

Miller turns to ChannelStrip to sweeten just about anything that needs sweetening, but it's most often inserted on vocals. "Contrary to popular belief and anything you might read on the Internet, my solo album is not completed," he laughed. "ChannelStrip will be used for guitars, bass, and, of course, my own vocals."

In addition to ChannelStrip, Miller frequently turns to Metric Halo's other flagship software, SpectraFoo. SpectraFoo contains every piece of analysis that an engineer could ask for, including level metering, high-speed, high-resolution spectral analysis, correlation metering, triggerable waveform display, power balancing, and a variety of power, envelope and spectral histories and phase analysis on any number of input or output channels. "I'm a visual person," Miller said. "Seeing what's going on is a great help!"
- Metric Halo

In the Studio: Marcus Miller

Marcus Miller is as versatile as he is virtuosic. Though he’s best known for his otherwordly mastery of the bass, he’s also a stellar bass clarinet player, a sensational saxophonist, a soulful singer, a prolific producer. He has toured the globe, written scores for television and movies, played with the world’s pre-eminent musicians. And he’s also a guru when it comes to Logic Pro — he produced his album “Silver Rain” from start to finish with the application running on a Power Mac G5 and a PowerBook G4.

“I can count the crashes I’ve had last year on one hand. It’s kind of a drag because I used to use the post-crash reboot time to practice my bass. Now I have to find separate practice time.”

“I was on tour when I started the album”, Miller says. “I’d start with some ideas and simply develop them in Logic”. He held impromptu recording sessions in hotel rooms around Europe, laying down the basic tracks on his PowerBook G4 that would eventually end up on “Silver Rain”. The album was later assembled and polished at Miller’s Hannibal Studios in Santa Montica, California, and released in 2005.

Since then, Miller has used Logic Pro for nearly every music project, such as composing music for Chris Rock’s hit TV series, “Everybody Hates Chris”, and for his upcoming album.


Logical Composition
Powerful Platform
“I choose Apple because it’s so cool”, says Miller. “I’m in my hotel in Europe, working on a tune in Logic, sending files through iChat back to a movie director in L.A., checking out possible album cover photos that the photographer sent me in iPhoto, and messaging my daughter about her homework — all at the same time. When I’m done, I pack up my PowerBook and split”.

Miller needed a powerful, portable and rock-solid, all-in-one system that could handle the rigours of travel and the studio without glitches. “Apple/Logic is very stable”, he says. “Logic uses Core Audio, which is at the centre of the Apple system. You no longer feel like you’re working at the periphery of your operating system. I can count the crashes I’ve had last year on one hand. It’s kind of a drag because I used to use the post-crash reboot time to practice my bass. Now I have to find separate practice time”.


His system has allowed Miller the freedom to write, record and mix music anywhere from London to Paris to Tokyo. The resulting tracks sound great, he says, no matter where they’re recorded: “My music sounds more natural because I don’t have to re-do a lot of things in order to improve quality. The quality of the things I record at home or in the hotel are so good that they end up on the record”.

Logical Composition
The path from dabbles to demos to record release is long and fraught with twists and turns. By the time a composer reaches the end, the original tune could get lost along the way. “With Logic, that’ll never happen”, says Miller. “You can keep everything right at your fingertips, switching between versions whenever you want. The self-contained keyboards like the ES1, Clavinet, Rhodes and the sampler allow you to have every instrument you need. And now, when you record guitar or bass, there are amp simulators so that you don’t have to live with a dry sound”.

When Miller needs backup vocals or recording equipment advice, he turns to singer, producer and technological whizz Gussie Miller. Gussie Miller worked with Marcus Miller on “Every Body Hates Chris” and many other Hannibal projects. He runs his own recording and production company, Artis Musicai, in Los Angeles.

Logic Pro gives both Millers the freedom they need to stitch together some groundbreaking music. “The new sound processing apps are really revolutionary”, says Marcus Miller. “I remember having to wait to hear the sound in my head until I got to the studio or until I could buy a certain piece of gear. I don’t have to wait anymore. If I have a few hours, I can create pretty much exactly what I imagine. And forget editing. I do things now that I would never imagine doing before. It allows you to be so creative. And you can always undo if you hate what you did. I can’t put into words how important that is”.

“Using logic has really opened up a lot of doors for me creatively just because I don’t have to depend upon external reverbs, external equalizers, anything beyond the program at all”, says Gussie Miller. “I haven’t found anything it can’t do.” - Apple.com