Perhaps the greatest detriment to a session running smoothly is the inability for players to hear themselves comfortably in the headphones. This is one reason why veteran engineers spend so much time and attention on the cue mix and the phones themselves. In fact, a sure sign of an inexperienced engineer is treating the headphone […]
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Richard Gibbs has composed the music for over 60 films as well as some great television shows like The Simpsons and Battlestar Galactica. He’s a good friend and a great story teller, so it was time to have him back on the podcast (he was on Episode #38 a couple of years ago). In Part […]
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2,500 years ago the Greeks composed songs where the voice was accompanied by the lyre, reed-pipes, and various percussion instruments. Much was already known about these instruments thanks to the descriptions, paintings from archaeological remains, which Greek scholars then used to establish the timbres and range of pitches the instruments produced. The songs however were lost to time until a […]
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From the beginning of recording time we’ve been aiming microphones at the source by eye when first setting up. For the most part they’re pretty forgiving if we don’t point them exactly perfectly, and a quick listen will tell us if we need to adjust. But wouldn’t it be cool if there was a more […]
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Some might argue that “Staying Alive,” both song and the movie, heralded in the disco age. It’s certainly a song that everyone knows as it was iconic for the time as has seeped into our musical heritage. Whether you like disco or not, the Bee Gees had a sound that was entirely unique and hasn’t been […]
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Here’s a great distorted guitar recording tip that I got from Richard Chycki, engineer for Rush, Dream Theater, Aerosmith and many more. I liked it so much I’ve used it on every session since, and included it in the latest version of my Recording Engineer’s Handbook as well. Distorted electric guitar is notoriously difficult to edit, […]
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I’m proud to announce the fully updated fourth edition of my Recording Engineer’s Handbook, a complete compilation of the best recording techniques currently used today. Along with the rich treasure trove of information from the previous versions of the book, the latest edition also includes new sections on immersive audio recording, electric guitar recording tricks, and DIY […]
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We pretty much know about life in the studio around us, but how different is it in other countries? My former assistant Joshua F Williams has been one of the top engineer/producers in the Middle East for the past 10 years, and he’ll tell us what the music scene is like in the Dubai area […]
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All of us know that animals respond to music (my cats Roger and Chloe love to hang with me when I mix), but are there certain genres that they like better? A new study by the University of Glasgow in conjunction with the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals found out that shelter […]
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It looks like the days of the floor monitor are numbered as the live gig world quickly adapts to in-ear monitoring, something that the concert industry embraced many ears ago. Today IEMs are priced within reach of just about any gigging musician, but what really holds back many players from jumping in is the complicated […]
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Lady Gaga’s debut album was a worldwide smash, and the 5th single off the record, “Paparazzi” continued a streak of hit singles that would last for years. The song was written by Gaga and former manager Rob Fusari, who also co-produced the track. The mix was done by Robert Orton and mastered by Gene Grimaldi at Oasis […]
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It’s tough out there for songwriters and composers of every genre. There’s more competition than ever, thanks to better training and the proliferation of home studios, so the last thing that’s needed is another obstacle to go up against. That’s why the rise in A.I. composed music (meaning by artificial intelligence) is so disconcerting. Most of us […]
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Today is the final installment of my Winter NAMM overview, and we’ll look at a few very cool products, but mostly at the oddities of the show. As you may know, downstairs in Hall E is where the newer companies and first time exhibitors dwell – the “mad inventors” as we like to call them.As […]
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The Winter NAMM show is always the one exhibition of the year to look forward to. Not only are some manufacturers now skipping AES in favor of NAMM, but it’s so much more fun and colorful, as musical celebs seem to be everywhere. Here’s a report from the show, from the big picture point of […]
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Yesterday was a lot of fun looking at some of the major items that caught my eye at NAMM, but today we’ll look at some of the other audio products. Once again, this is in no particular order. Digigrid displayed a couple of audio interfaces called M Cube that allow you to connect to a computer […]
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