Yes, There Is A Guitar String Recycling Program

If you’re interested in helping progress towards a healthy environment and you work in the music business, you’ll be happy to know that there’s actually a recycling program for guitar strings. Established by D’Addario and now joined by Martin Guitars, the Playback program has already recycled over 3.9 million strings. Playback string recycling is now […]

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Ken Scott On Working With Elton John On Honky Chateau

I thought it was time for another peek at what it was like working back in the glory days of the 1970s. Here’s an excerpt from producer/engineer Ken Scott’s great From Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust book that I was lucky enough to co-write. He talks about working with Elton John on his highly acclaimed […]

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It Turns Out That Stonehenge Had Excellent Acoustics

There’s been all sorts of scholarly theories about the purpose of Stonehenge over the years, but it turns out that the one characteristic rarely looked at is its acoustics. A research team from the University of Salford in England reproduced the historic site in 1/12th size and placed it inside an anechoic chamber to discover […]

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New Music Gear Monday: UK Sound 1173 Mic Pre Compressor

For about 50 years now, the Neve 1073 pre amp and the UREI 1176 compressor/limiter have been an unbeatable combination. This versatile signal path has been used time and again on countless records and has almost always worked for recording a variety of sources. It’s getting more difficult to find the original hardware devices without […]

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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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