It’s hard to believe but there was a time during the early DAW days when there was no such thing as a monitor controller. You either used a console or kluged together an extra master fader in the DAW in order to control the level of your monitors, which was very clunky indeed. Today just […]
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We all love top 10 lists no matter what they’re about, but when it comes to guitar-based music, we usually see things like top 10 best guitar players. Billboard Magazine decided to go in a different direction though. It put out a Top 100 Best Guitars article that looks at the guitars made famous by […]
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In this week’s podcast episode, I sat down with someone you’ve already met before (in fact, he was one of the first people I interviewed on my podcast, specifically in episode 51), the amazing Mark Schulman. Mark is a world-class drummer and motivational speaker. He has played with rock n’ roll royalty, manning the drum […]
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I can remember a time when we never even considered putting a compressor on the mix buss except for a quick check of how a mix might sound on the radio, but those days passed as soon as SSL introduced its famed mix buss compressor on its consoles. Today it’s a given that you’ll use […]
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When I first came to Los Angeles I worked for an audio dealer who represented a computer notation device call the McClayvier. Music copying was all done manually in those days, and there were 3 and 4 story buildings on the film studio lots just filled with people copying music all day. Being able to […]
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In this week’s podcast episode, I sit down with the co-founders of Neural DSP, Doug Castro and Francisco Cresp. For those who aren’t aware, Neural DSP manufactures the highly regarded Quad Cortex amplifier modeler as well as a line of modeling plugins. Even though Neural DSP is located in Finland, both Doug and Francisco are […]
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It’s not uncommon for musicians with home studios to record everything with a single cardioid microphone. That can lead to a frequency buildup that must be tamed in order to keep the mix from sounding muddy. It appears that Shure has recognized this and has designed its new SM4 microphone to help counter that problem. […]
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You’re probably not a musician if you don’t know the joys and sorrows of buying second-hand gear. We’ve all come across some favorite instruments, amps and audio gear as well as our fair share of dogs on the used market. Of course, buying used gear happens a lot more when you’re younger, don’t have much […]
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In this week’s podcast episode, I sit down with two guests who have done the most amazing work on some of David Bowie’s most beloved albums, Ken Scott and Emre Ramazanoglu. Ken is a legendary producer and audio engineer (who also appeared on Episodes 461 and 462), who aside from being one of the five […]
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There are plenty of software emulations of some of the most widely-used hardware compressors, like the 1176, LA-2A and dbx 160. It seems like a new version of one of these comes out every week. What we don’t see many of are emulations of the Fairchild 660/670, mostly because the hardware is so rare, and […]
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Almost every DAW available these days is a good one so it’s difficult to make a bad choice. They now all pretty much have the same features, but the big difference is in the price and user interface. Sometimes because of the forums or groups that we hang out in we might get a perception […]
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The world of music is constantly evolving with new inventions and instruments thanks to the innovative minds of people like my guest on my latest podcast episode, Alexandra Fierra. Her creation, the Demon Box, is almost indescribable. The device utilizes electromagnetic fields (EMF) to create and manipulate sounds from everyday electronic devices. She found inspiration […]
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Every musician needs a portable digital recorder for recording gigs, rehearsals, and capturing ideas, but in most cases the ones available have more features than than are needed most of the time. Let’s face it, having the ability to record more than stereo and having microphones leads to a large device, when all you might […]
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The voice is just as much of an instrument as any other in the band. That means that it must be looked after the same way before and during a session to ensure that the singer provides their best vocal performance. While vocalists that have lots of studio experience know this already, they often concentrate […]
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My guest on my latest podcast episode is drummer Ray LeVier, who’s extensive career spans live performances, teaching, and composing for top TV networks like TLC, Discovery, FOX Sports and others. In addition to his performance career, Ray is a dedicated teacher and clinician for manufacturers like Yamaha, Paiste, and Evans. Despite a devastating fire […]
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