The Soundcheck Sessions - Live Music Web Series

From Genesis To Revelation

Hi my name's Ryan Noel, I'm the producer/director of the The Soundcheck Sessions. For those of you who are new to the series, let's get you up to speed...

Besides being a filmmaker, I'm also a musician and like most musicians and gear fanatics I found myself scouring the internet for videos of guitar pedals that I was looking to potentially buy. After hours of watching shaky footage and listening to highly compressed audio, I shook off the motion sickness, soothed my ears with some sweet hi-fi and decided to launch The Soundcheck Sessions in December 2010. The goal was to produce high quality HD video reviews that not only demoed the pedals, but also gave an unbiased opinion on each product. After a sucessful eight month run, I decided to put the series to bed and persue other projects. However The Soundcheck Sessions always felt like an unfinished project and one that kept beckoning to be made into something bigger and better. 

More

Being a filmmaker, musician and a HUGE music fan, it's always been my dream to merge these passions into one project. With the past success of The Soundcheck Sessions, the abundance of brilliant new bands on the scene and the trend of more and more people viewing content online, I felt there was no better time than now to make this dream happen and evolve the series. 

So what can you expect from The Soundcheck Sessions 2.0? Think Old Grey Whistle Test meets From the Basement. Every week starting in January we will be featuring one band or musician playing live in studio, followed by a candid interview with the artist. Each 20 minute episode will be shot in full 1080p high definition and treated to a professionally engineered stereo mix. And not to forget our roots, all you gearheads will have the option of watching bonus featurettes with the musicians discussing their instruments, amps and pedals. In edition to the episodes, there will also be weekly and monthly giveaways just for being a fan of the series. You could win anything from autographed albums to amazing music gear! 

Help!

Help! I need somebody. Help! Not just anybody... well actually anybody can help! As you can imagine, putting together a high quality series such as this comes at a cost. Between studio time, cast and crew, equipment, mixing, mastering and a fully interactive website, it all starts to add up... this is where you come in. Your donations, or investments as we like to call them, will not only help to produce a series that'll rival some of the best music series to date, but they'll also allow us to attract some of the best bands out there thanks to the high production value... and our fans deserve only the best right?!

But along with your investments, a kick-ass series is not all you'll get. You'll also receive some amazing perks in return. Things like special edition CD/DVD compilations or even the opportunity to hang out in studio and see how the magic happens firsthand. Just have a look to the right to see what other perks are waiting to be claimed.

Now that you know where your investments will go and what you'll get in return, let's talk numbers. We're looking to raise $5000 to help cover the costs of production. Now with that said, the more money we can raise the better the series will be. On the flipside if we don't reach our target of $5000, indiegogo will take almost 10% of the donations instead of the normal 4%. Why give them a bigger slice of the pie when that money can be used for more live music awesomeness?! So please help us hit or even exceed our goal.

Rock of Ages

Like I said before there's no shortage of great bands out there. Just don't rely on the mainstream channels to play them. Here's a sampler of some of the amazing bands we'll be pursuing for The Soundcheck Sessions:

Who Are You

Alys Crocker - Host

Hailing from the small town of Port Perry, Alys Crocker moved to Toronto in 2007 to study journalism at Ryerson University. While in the final year of her degree, Alys worked on Canada’s premier late night talk show, George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight. There she received a firsthand look at the real world of hosting and knew immediately that this is what she wanted to do. Since then Alys has worked as a promotional and print model and has appeared in such TV shows as Urban Legends and the upcoming feature film Tapped. Currently working within the Toronto music scene, Alys now looks to merry her passion for music and journalism as the new host of The Soundcheck Sessions. 

Ryan Noel - Producer & Director

Ryan Noel is a Toronto based filmmaker and owner of Retro Films Entertainment. Upon moving back from London in 2005, he enrolled at the Toronto Film School where he later graduated from their digital video editing program with high honours. During that period Noel wrote, produced and directed his first short film The One Regret. Quickly after that he began work on his first feature film, the award winning gangster mockumentary The Notorious Newman Brothers. Released in 2009, the film went on to play internationally and won “Best of Fest” at the 2009 ReelHeART International Film Festival. Working on various television and commercial projects afterwards, Noel always found time to write and play music. In 2010 he launched the successful web series The Soundcheck Sessions and now looks to evolve it into something bigger and better. 

Coda

For those of you who are already fans of the series, let me take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support. For those of you who are new, we're glad to have you a part of this exciting new project. We can't do this without you and remember if you can't invest, you can always help spread the word by sharing this campaign.