Drum Editing and 31 Days To Better Sounding Drums

Last month I did a guest post for Travis Whitmore’s SilverLake Studio blog as part of his 31 Days to Better Drums series.

My article is below, you can read the rest of the 31 Days to Better Sounding Drums series on Travis’ blog.

The article is not meant to be a tutorial on drum editing, but an overview of the concepts and methods, reasons why you’d want to edit your drum tracks or outsource the work to a pro editor. I also go over why I prefer editing manually in REAPER rather than with the ‘industry standard’ Beat Detective in Pro Tools. [read]

An Inside Look At A 1965 Frank Sinatra Session

This video has made the rounds with my Facebook friends (I’m not sure exactly where it started, but thank you to whomever is responsible) and when you give it a watch you’ll know why.

It’s a 1965 Frank Sinatra live record date, complete with a full orchestra, of his hit “It Was A Very Good Year.”

There’s a lot to like in this video. [read and see]

Roadrunner Records sign Rush

Roadrunner Records has announced today that they have added Canadian prog rock power trio Rush to the family. Check out the press release from Roadrunner below for more details.

Press release

Roadrunner Records is pleased to announce a new worldwide partnership with Anthem Records and rock trio Rush. The band will remain on Anthem/Universal Music in Canada only.

“We have tremendous respect for Roadrunner Records, and what Cees Wessels and Jonas Nachsin have built on a worldwide level. After years of Roadrunner pursuing the band, Tom Lipsky presented a deal that worked and the timing was right. We wanted to be at a label focused on the rock genre – and that’s Roadrunner,” said Ray Danniels, manager of Rush. [read]

Apple loses another unreleased iPhone

In a bizarre repeat of a high-profile incident last year, an Apple employee once again appears to have lost an unreleased iPhone in a bar, CNET has learned.

The errant iPhone, which went missing in San Francisco’s Mission district in late July, sparked a scramble by Apple security to recover the device over the next few days, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

Last year, an iPhone 4 prototype was bought by a gadget blog that paid $5,000 in cash. This year’s lost phone seems to have taken a more mundane path: it was taken from a Mexican restaurant and bar and may have been sold on Craigslist for $200. Still unclear are details about the device, what version of the iOS operating system it was running, and what it looks like. [via CNet]

How to Engage Your Employees’ Self-Interest

“My managers are great guys and really know their stuff. But I always feel as if they’re torn in some way. They don’t give their all to the company – like they have something better to do.”

Todd had been working in the Mastery program for nearly nine months. He’d been making great progress in developing his strategy and structure for his business, Brookefield Construction. He’d created position agreements and was engaging more actively with his key managers, but was still feeling frustrated by their lack of motivation. [read eMyth]

U.S. Files Antitrust Complaint to Block AT&T, T-Mobile Merger

The U.S. government sued to block AT&T Inc. (T)’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA Inc., saying the deal would “substantially lessen competition” in the wireless market. AT&T shares fell as much as 5 percent.

In the complaint filed today in federal court in Washington, the U.S. is seeking a declaration that Dallas-based AT&T’s takeover of T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE), would violate U.S. antitrust law. The U.S. also asked for a court order blocking any arrangement implementing the deal. [read via 9to5Mac via Bloomberg]

Seven Secrets of Highly Productive People

Some people are incredibly effective and efficient. They get lots of work done – and it’s all high-quality. They seem to have boundless energy and enthusiasm. Maybe you’ve got a friend who’s like that – or perhaps it’s your colleague, or your spouse. You might think that they were born that way: they had the “productivity gene.”

The truth is this: you can massively increase your own productivity by understanding and using the secrets that highly productive people know.
Perhaps you’ll find that some of these are familiar tips: if so, are you actually following them? [read]

How to Beat the Midday Sun! – Photography

We’ve all heard the saying, even in photography, that the only people out in the midday sun are – Mad dogs, Englishmen and Wedding photographers!

Well after years of following that train of thought I decided to play around with the idea of not being beaten, by the sun that is!

The other weekend Molly – my 3 year old daughter and I, went down to the Toronto boating club and Redhead beach (NSW Australia), between 11am and 3pm to see what we could achieve with a bare speedlight, a neutral density filter and the sun.

As the sun is a harsh light source, we decided to fight fire with fire, and use a bare speedlight, absolutely no modifier! On paper it all looked straight forward – and . . . it was easier and so much fun. [read]

======= 3 Penguins Photography on Flickr

Make a Mic from Baking Soda, Cream of Tartar

Okay, I admit that this is a little off-the-wall, but at the same time it’s very cool. If you’ve been around audio for awhile you’ve heard of piezoelectric mics and tweeters. They’re cheap and not abundantly useful, but they are interesting in that they’re built around crystals that have the unique characteristic of developing an electrical signal when the crystals are physically compressed, even by something as small as sound pressure.

Here’s an interesting video about how you can make your own piezoelectric crystals in your kitchen, and turn them into a microphone. Below the video is a recording using the kitchen-made mic. [via Creative Digital Music, via The BIG Picture]

Why Success Always Starts With Failure

“Few of our own failures are fatal,” economist and Financial Times columnist Tim Harford writes in his new book, Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure. This may be true, but we certainly don’t act like it. When our mistakes stare us in the face, we often find it so upsetting that we miss out on the primary benefit of failing (yes, benefit): the chance to get over our egos and come back with a stronger, smarter approach. [read]