411 Music Group’s Kristen Agee, Katy Perry “Dark Horse” Verdict, And Musician’s SoundCloud Accounts On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast

My guest on the podcast this week is Kristen Agee, who is a classically trained violinist and started playing multiple instruments at the age of 7. She opened a studio in Silver Lake, California where she recorded punk bands and wrote music for various artists, all while touring as bassist after learning the instrument from Rolling Stone’s bass […]

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It Looks Like Avid’s Financial Health Is Better

Avid didn’t increase it’s earnings much, but the company appears to be in much better shape financially according to its second quarter report. That’s good news if you’re a Pro Tools user. The report stated that revenue for the quarter was $98.7 million, up slightly year-over-year from $98.6 million. The operating expenses had dropped by 7% […]

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3 Techniques For Miking Hand Claps

It seems like it’s difficult to do a project without using hand claps on at least one song. Sometimes they’re heard as very distinct claps, while sometimes they’re used to fatten up another element like the snare or percussion. Here’s an excerpt from the 4th edition of my Recording Engineer’s Handbook that takes a look […]

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The Legitimate Reasons Behind The Mass Gibson Firebird X Destruction

I’m sure that many of you have seen or at least heard about Gibson destroying hundreds of Firebird X’s by running over them with a large tracked backhoe. There’s been a huge outcry about this, but this video below by the Guitologist sheds some light about the reasons why it happened. The original video that […]

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New Music Gear Monday: Zoom F6 6 Track Field Recorder

While video and film creators many times need a way to record multiple tracks of audio in the field, musicians, songwriters and producers are often faced with the same problem. Rehearsals, preproduction and songwriting sessions require documentation, and that’s were a small recorder can really come in handy. Portable 4 track recorders are everywhere, but […]

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Engineer Steve Genewick, Producer’s Union, And More On My Latest Podcast

My guest on the podcast this week is Steve Genewick, who has worked at Capitol Studios in Hollywood for 25 years and during that time he’s had the opportunity to work with a wide variety of legendary artists including Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Queen, George Harrison, Michael Jackson and many more. Steve has also been able […]

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Get In On The Peavey Auction Of $12 Million Worth Of Gear And Parts

If you’re into getting a good deal on music and audio equipment, you might want to check out the upcoming Peavey auction as the company sheds its unused or unsold gear and parts valued at as much as $12 million. Among the items on the list include nearly new products from Peavey and its various […]

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A Look At The New “Classic” Microphones

While many believe that microphone technology hasn’t really improved in at least 30 years, a host of new mics have taken the technology to the next step. Some have even become classics in their own right and can be found as standard equipment in mic lockers the world over. In this excerpt from the 4th […]

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Data Transmission Via Hard Rock Is Now Possible

By now most of us have heard of or experienced audio watermarking, where metadata is hidden inside the audio signal so the artist, song, record label, publisher and songwriter can be identified when it’s played. That’s been around for at least 20 years, but the idea has been taken to another level by 2 PhD […]

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New Music Gear Monday: Wilkerson Audio DeBleeder Leakage Suppressor Plugin

Depending on the era that you grew up in the audio business, you have a different point of view on leakage, especially on the drums. If you’re old-school with experience in limited analog tracks and lots of musicians playing in the same room, leakage probably isn’t too much of a bother. There’s so much music […]

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Producer/Remixer Dave Aude On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast

My guest on the podcast this week is Dave Audé, who’s a producer and remixer with an astounding 133 #1’s on Billboard’s Dance Club chart. That’s more than any other producer, and what makes it even more impressive is that 14 are his own singles as an artist. He’s also won a Grammy for his remix of “Uptown […]

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There’s Finally Some Good News For The Retail Music Store

Music stores across the country have been sweating it for about a decade now as the industry recovered from the 2008 recession, only to be punched in the gut by online sales. For a while it looked like the local brick and mortar store was heading for the scrap heap. Not so fast – things […]

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Modern Conducting Lessons From Frank Zappa

If you’ve ever gone to music school and studied conducting, you know that there’s common group of hand signals that you learn. This works well for orchestral music, but an electric band requires something more. That said, one has ever conducted a band like the eclectic Frank Zappa. Frank got his players to express his […]

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Reverb.com Acquired By Etsy For $275 Million

In only a few years Reverb.com has established itself as the premier site for musicians wanting to buy and sell used music and audio gear, so it’s no surprise that larger online sales companies would eventually want a piece of the action. Yesterday the company announced that it was being acquired by the online marketplace […]

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New Music Gear Monday: Avid S1 Control Surface

For everyone that’s admired the various Avid S-series control surfaces but felt they were out of reach price-wise, the company just announced it’s new S1, the smallest of all its offerings that looks like it will fit in just right in any small studio environment. The S1 packs a lot of punch into a small […]

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