Studio Sense: On ‘Essential’ Software

Sure, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without Pro Tools for recording and mixing; Peak to batch convert WAV files into mp3s; Dreamweaver to post them to a custom website I create for the artist; and Mac Mail to let them know the mixes are posted. And iChat quickly connects me to a missing session file, sends out a mix, or circumvents FTP altogether. I use Toast to compile the mastered mixes and create a Red Book CD, and the iTunes to check the burn. The iTunes Store provides unlimited sonic references in 30-second chunks.

But get ready for a cliché: The most important piece of software operates between your ears. Think about this elementary example: We were born with the same ears we have now, yet those ears learn over time to make totally different decisions than they would have years before. I’m not just talking about mix decisions.

During a recent tracking session at Odds On Recording in Las Vegas [for PAR's inaugural "Facility Review" in our upcoming November issue — Ed.] I walked in on what I thought was a familiar “analog vs digital” debate. But Sean O’Dwyer, a house engineer with a deep discography, altered the slant.

To paraphrase Sean, the problem with digital has nothing to do with inherent sound quality, but that it is easier; everybody’s gotten lazy. All the records I like, the ones that stand the test of time, were made decades ago when there were no quick fixes — no grid, no elastic time, no Auto-Tune — all techniques which create musical blandness. A producer/engineer was forced to engage the artist and their music on some personal, intimate level and learn what he or she needed to perform and make it a memorable piece of work that someone somewhere will love . . . [read]

Radial Engineering SGI Studio Guitar Interface

I know I’m not the only person around who has tried the old 100-foot guitar cable trick: You know, the one where you run the really long cable from the guitar player in the control room to the live room (or iso booth) where the amp is. Like me, you’ve probably noticed that it doesn’t work very well; you get lots of hum and other noise or the guitar player remarks on the “dead” feeling of his normally lively rig. Enter the Radial Studio Guitar Interface (SGI) system ($300 list).

Features

The SGI is a two-part solution comprising the SGI-TX transmitter and the SGI-RX receiver. Built to Radial’s extremely high quality standards, both are very heavy yellow boxes, like steel bricks. The SGI-TX requires power from the included wall wart adapter, and, like some of the other Radial guitar-oriented boxes, there’s the somewhat-enigmatic Drag control. Don’t worry, you won’t be wearing a skirt if you turn it up; instead you’ll notice some pleasing tonal variations that allow you to darken the tone and change the “feeling” of the guitar/amp interface through some impedance-matching mojo. The passive SGI-RX has an essential ground lift button.

In Use

Operation couldn’t be easier. Plug into the TX’s input from your guitar (or bass) with a standard 1/4-inch instrument cable, connect an XLR microphone cable between the TX and the RX, find your signal in perfect condition at the output of the RX, and plug into your amp — done. For this review, I used a 50-foot Gotham GAC-3 mic cable and the excellent Vovox Link Protect A (5- meter length) for the instrument cable. [read]

Top New Product Picks From The 127th AES Convention

Plenty of exciting new plug-ins, and don’t forget about new hardware – recorders, ribbon microphones, and more

The dampening effect of our economic times was noticeable at the just-concluded AES Show at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City.

Even though it was a smaller show with less companies showing in downsized booths, enthusiasm and confidence coming from the big crowd was as strong as ever.

Everyone said they were doing great business so go figure.

PLUG-INS, PLUG-INS & MORE PLUG-INS!
Judging by the many fascinating and powerful new plug-ins offered, no software plug-in developers were out work.

Not only is the new crop of plugs more powerful, they seem to all be part of a new wave of super-beautiful GUIs that are wonderful to look at but also display more information in new useful and meaningful ways. [read]

Third senior executive leaves Avid in four months

Monday, 05 October 2009 -  Avid Technology has issued a statement following Friday’s resignation of Gerard ‘Tex’ Schenkkan from the post of VP and general manager, audio. “Given the recent integration of our audio and video groups into a single product organisation and the corresponding changes to our organisational structure, Tex has made the decision to pursue opportunities outside of Avid. Tex made valuable contributions to our audio products during his time with the company, including playing a central role in developing this new single audio and video product group. Avid wishes him well in his future endeavours.” Schenkkan’s departure follows the September exit of Frank Loyko, who joined Digidesign (now Avid) from LOUD as worldwide director of live sound sales just two years ago, and the further loss of chief technology office Dave Lebolt to Apple in June. [source: pro sound news europe]

Blue Microphones Mikey

Wired.com: Review – Portable iPod Mic Records Audio On The Cheap

[Ed. note: In addition to being a multi-talented designer for Wired magazine, Victor Krummenacher is the bass player for Camper Van Beethoven and an audio expert with more than 20 years of experience.]

The Mikey is touted as a “portable recorder for your iPod with awesome sound.” Although the “awesome sound” part is debatable, Blue Microphones’ Mikey is an undeniably smart and easy-to-use device. Simply plug the 2.5-inch black trapezoid into the charging port of a compatible iPod. (Compatible in this case means iPod fifth-generation, iPod classic, and iPod nano second- through fifth-generation.) Once the microphone is hooked in, it operates using the media player’s voice-memo function. It offers hi-def and low-def recording resolutions, while audio sensitivity has three levels of adjustment.

In our tests, the quality of the recordings depended on both the generation of the iPod and the audio source. We noticed fidelity was far better in fourth- and fifth-generation iPods than second and third. Voice recording yielded clear playback with great separation, but live music tended to peak out with some irritating compression spikes. But in conversational recordings, as well as use in a songwriting session with acoustic instruments, Mikey yielded usable and smooth-sounding files.

At best, Mikey is really a tool for recording audio fast and on the fly. There are better means of portable recording available, sure, but they’ll run you bigger bucks and certainly don’t fit as easily in your pocket.

WIRED No software installation. Gain control is adjustable. Not terribly bulky. Can be used with an iPhone …

TIRED … but only when iPhone is in Airplane mode. Big enough to dwarf the iPod Nano. Can’t capture complex audio (read: a live concert) perfectly. But hey, what do you want for less than a C-note?

• Manufacturer: Blue Microphones
• Price: $80

Taking The New Mackie Onyx-i, M-Powered Mixer For An Initial Spin

Mackie Onyx-i 820i 8-channel analog mixer

As noted a couple of weeks ago, I received a new Mackie Onyx-i Series mixer/interface that will run Pro Tools without the need for Avid hardware. (Read all about it here in Part 1 of this report)

My first inclination was to take it to the studio and try it out, and then I got to thinking that actually, a lot of people interested in buying this system might/probably be more likely to be using it in a home situation.

So instead I set up the Onyx mixer with my home PC laptop running Vista Home Premium (ugh), a set of headphones, and an inexpensive microphone. (Later, I took it into a bigger “pro” studio and also evaluated the M-Powered capability, and that will be the subject of my next report.)

The Onyx-i 820i that was supplied to me offers 8 channels, 3 of them with Onyx mic preamps, It’s also outfitted with a variety of Perkins EQ configurations, two aux sends, talkback controls, and flexible control room routing.

FireWire I/O lets you route all channels, auxes and the master L/R to many DAW software programs, (such as Pro Tools M-Powered 8, Logic, SONAR, Cubase, Ableton Live, and Final Cut Pro) for recording, and enables you to return a stereo signal to the control room, or into a channel, for mix integration.

I decided to first listen to the mixer, alone, using a set of Audio-Technica D40 fs headphones and a Audio-Technica M31 dynamic cardioid microphone – decent quality pieces that would be comparable, in price, when matched with the Onyx-i/Pro Tools 8 M-Powered combination. [read]

Cable Anatomy 101: A Look At Six Key Factors To Keep In Mind

Cable selection presents two primary challenges: myriad choices and overall quality.

I’ve explored these challenges and have defined six factors that can help point you in the right direction.

These factors include appearance, durability, flexibility, sonics, conductivity and shielding. Let’s have a look.

Appearance
Understand the difference between the look of quality – like shiny gold-plated connector housings – and actual quality construction and materials.

A primary problem arises when assumptions are made that the materials inside a cable housing are as fancy as those that can be easily seen in the connector.

For example, molded cable housings can hide poor construction, such as inadequate shielding.

Copper is the most widely used material cable component, offering high conductivity. (Silver is also highly conductive, but cost can make it impractical.)

It only makes sense that signal should travel through copper, tip to tip. [read]

The Bottle by Blue

the Bottle mic by Blue

If you know me, even a little, you know that I’m a fan of Blue Microphones.  They’ve done some really smart things over recent times and one is the Bottle.  In thumbing through my myriad of audio trade rags I ran across this picture of the Bottle.  If you’re interested, it’s in the August 2009 issue of ProSound News, page 20.  That’s all.  Just thought it was cool.  Nothing earth-shattering.

If you are interested in hearing the Bottle in a mic shootout you can check it out at either YouTube or Vimeo.

Using Compression To Increase Punch & Presence In Your Mixes

Unlike an expander, which increases dynamic range, a compressor reduces dynamic range. In recording, running a signal through both a compressor and an expander can be very effective.

Why would you want to reduce and enlarge the dynamic range at the same time? Actually, you wouldn’t.

They don’t both come into play at the same time; an expander does its thing when signals are at their quietest (or nonexistent), and a compressor does its thing in the louder part of the dynamic range.

So if you’re recording a cymbal crash through both a compressor and an expander, the expander will be working before the sound begins; the expander’s gate opens up immediately when the cymbal is struck, and then the compressor takes over.

The compressor works perhaps for a few seconds while the cymbal decays (with the expander doing nothing, since the signal is over the expander’s threshold).

Then the signal enters a kind of no-man’s-land, between the compressor’s and the expander’s active ranges, where neither circuit does anything to the signal.

Finally, when the expander senses that the crash is decaying below its threshold, its gate begins to close again (see Figure 1).

This process accomplishes two things: the expander cleans up the noise before and after the crash, and the compressor tames the initial peak and thereby allows the whole signal to be brought up in volume, allowing it to have more punch and presence in the mix.

If you were recording or sampling a series of cymbal crashes, one after another, the compressor would be even more beneficial: It would tend to even out the crashes in volume, which would make the quieter crashes less likely to get buried in the mix and the louder ones less likely to overwhelm the mix.

As a bonus, compression makes a sound less likely to overload stages downstream in the signal chain—which is particularly important if you’re recording digitally. [read]

Simple EQ Guidelines: Bobby Owsinski

Equalization is one of the most difficult parts of recording to get the hang of since there’s literally almost an infinite number of possibilities. Most of us learn by experience and usually massive amounts of trial and error, but there are some brief general guidelines that can be an enormous help for those new to the process. They are:

• If it sounds muddy, cut (decrease the level) at around 250Hz. Although you can get that muddy sound from other lower frequencies (especially anything added below 100Hz), start here first.

• If it sounds honky or veiled, cut at around 500Hz. This is where a huge build-up of energy occurs when close-miking instruments because of the proximity effect that naturally occurs with directional mics. Just cutting a bit in this area can provide instant clarity sometimes.

• Cut if you’re trying to make things sound clearer. If the sound is cloudy, there’s usually a frequency band that’s too loud. It’s easier to decrease it than to raise everything else.

Read more: http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com/2009/08/simple-eq-guidelines.html#ixzz0PruPKERo