J. Anthony Allen : Ask.Video

J. Anthony Allen has worn the hats of composer, producer, songwriter, engineer, sound designer, DJ, remix artist, multi-media artist, performer, inventor, and entrepreneur.

J. Anthony Allen

J. is a versatile creator whose diverse project experience ranges from works written for the Minnesota Orchestra to pieces developed for film, TV, and radio. An innovator in the field of electronic performance, he performs on a set of “glove” controllers, which he has designed, built, and programmed by himself. When he’s not working as a solo artist, Allen is a serial collaborator. His primary collaborative vehicle is the group Ballet Mech, for which J. is one of three producers.

In 2014, J. was a semi-finalist for the Grammy Foundation’s Music Educator of the Year. J. Anthony Allen teaches at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN., and is an Ableton Live Certified Instructor. He has a PhD in music composition, 2 Master’s degrees in music composition and electronic music, and a bachelors degree in guitar performance. Through his academic travels, Dr. Allen has received numerous awards along the way.

Born and raised in Michigan, he has worked with many forms of interactive media including audio, video, installation and dance. Mr. Allen’s work has been experienced all over the world, and has been called “a study in ominous sound and motion,”(Baltimore Sun) “An aural hallucinogen,” (Minnesota Public Radio) and “A beautiful and engaging use of technology. ” (Cogapp: The Art and Science Blog). In 2003 Allen joined the team of the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Art where he was the assistant director and lead producer through 2009.

(If you run into him on the street, he goes by J. – as in, Jay.)

His music can be found on the Hackademica, SEAMUS, and Panacea3 labels.

We welcome "Jay" to our team of topnotch trainers!

(Photo by Dan Olson)

Courses by J. Anthony Allen

Reviews

Michael wrote on September 25, 2019

Clear and engaging overview of sampling and drum design.
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Ken wrote on December 28, 2015

Propellerhead should take note of how J is able to make so much seem so clear without going off track or getting bogged down in too much detail. I am new to Reason and it is my first DAW. I had been thinking that Reason is a large collection of tools with silly names, with many being similar in function but mostly they all behave in a similar way when you drag them into the Rack or Sequencer. After watching this course a couple times, I think I am beginning to grasp the overall Reason concept and it is a great benefit, even if it's not the point of the tutorial. This course starts at the synthesis beginning and seems to keep building in an interesting way. It's as if one section of the synth leads to the next part and then you move on to the next tool. We find out what is the same and why it is different and we find out why we need all 3 kinds. It is remarkable the way he makes 3 obviously different synthesizers seem the same and then joins them in the Combinator to show how they fit in to the rest of the DAW. In this tutorial you load a patch into the synth and see exactly what settings are affected. Then when you mess around with the settings, you will know what you are doing, and when you construct a patch of your own you will understand it! Often times these tutorials are written using similar DAWs and you can apply the principles to your favorite DAW but this is Reason 8 from someone who clearly enjoys it and I hope to see more from J Anthony Allen soon!
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BPGeez wrote on July 31, 2015

This was a pretty good course for beginners. Didn't really go into sampling as much as introducing you to Reason's samplers.. A better name for this would have been "Samplers Introduced 103".
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LaShawn wrote on March 15, 2015

I've been waiting on a course like this for sound design within Reason and macProVideo has delivered. It is well explained and a very good starting point into sound design with the Reason synths. Thanks!
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