Category Archives for "Gear"
While many software developers concentrate on reproducing the sound of old analog favorite outboard pieces, there are others that prefer to explore the digital boundaries of what hasn’t been heard or done yet. Such is the case with Unfiltered Audio and their new SpecOps plugin. It’s hard to place SpecOps into a category, but something […]
Continue readingIf you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, then you know that I post a fair amount about musical robots. I don’t know if it’s because of admiration or fear, but how they’re used in music is worth being aware of. As anyone who’s ever used a drum machine or software app knows, […]
Continue readingWe’re in a golden age of audio gear kits, with more manufacturers than ever offering DIY kits to build high-quality gear. Need a preamp, EQ or compressor? If you can wield a soldering iron, there are many kits to choose from. Need a condenser or ribbon microphone? There are multiple kits available there as well. […]
Continue readingAs anyone who’s ever played in a band before knows, there are times when you play a song and its just magic. Everyone plays their parts with precision, and the feel is undeniable. The problem for many bands (even some of the great ones) is that they can never seem to capture that same feel […]
Continue readingYou may or may not be interested in scratching, but you have to love the ingenuity of Jeremy Bell. In the video below you’ll see how he built a really unique tape-based scratching machine he calls the ScrubBoard pretty much from (excuse the unintended pun) scratch. The ScrubBoard is comprised of a fully functioning home-made […]
Continue readingThere are certain products that are iconic and remain that way over time, regardless of the trends of the industry that they’re in. This describes McIntosh hi-fi products, especially the amplifiers to a T. McIntosh have also been thought of as the Rolls-Royce of power amps, noted for their high power and extremely low distortion, […]
Continue readingRoyer Labs has almost single-handedly reintroduced the ribbon microphone back into modern recording, and it’s products (especially the R-121) have become staples in most commercial studio’s mic cabinets. The only problem is that ribbon microphone manufacturing is fairly time-consuming to get it right and still maintain quality, so a Royer ribbon mic has been just […]
Continue readingThere are so many digital audio workstation choices at all different price ranges and they’re all, at worst, pretty good. So why would anyone even consider a new one? For one thing, when it’s pedigree is Fairlight, and secondly, when it’s actually an all-in-one video editor as well. That’s what you get with the new […]
Continue readingWe’re all familiar with the sound of spring reverbs, but most of the plugins available are based on units with taught springs like the ones found in Fender reverb tanks or the old AKG BX-10 and 20. There was another type of spring reverb though, known as a necklace reverb, found mostly in Hammond organs […]
Continue readingA critical and often overlooked step in mixing (especially when you’re first starting out) is listening to a great sounding reference track to compare your mixes to. That’s easier said then done though, with level matching and instant switching between your mix and the ref track usually taking long for an accurate comparison in a […]
Continue readingWe’re at the evolutionary point in audio software where it’s not enough to be just another me-too plugin. If you’re going to launch a new product, it better have a new twist that goes beyond refinement of an old standard. That’s the case with the new Fiedler Audio Stage Stereo Toolkit, a new sound stage […]
Continue readingWith so much of our information now being contained in the cloud, we’ll soon be getting to the point where local storage won’t be as necessary as it once was. That said, the “cloud” seems so faceless, and few of us have any idea of what it really is. To give you a look inside […]
Continue readingIf delay is your thing when mixing, then you probably have a couple of multitap delays in your toolbox. It’s probably safe to say that none of them are as powerful as Eventide’s new Ultratap, which may very well be the ultimate example of the genre. What makes Ultratap so special? It goes beyond just […]
Continue readingIf you think “I hate carrying around all those 2TB flash drives,” or “I wish someone made a hard drive larger than 10 terabytes,” then you’re in luck. A new drive designed by Dutch researchers promises to fit 62.5 terabytes on a drive the size of a postage stamp and is 500 times more dense than […]
Continue readingIf you work with more than a few pieces of analog audio gear on a regular basis, you know how tedious the documentation can get. Trying to get the same sound back has been the bane of engineers for decades, and a variety of methods have been developed over that time period. Most of these […]
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