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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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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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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Gibson has certainly been through a rough few years but it seems that the ship is now righted, with the introduction of new throwback instruments at lower prices and better dealer relationships. That said, it seems to have gone over the top protecting its brand with a rather public lawsuit against Dean Guitars and a […]
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (there’s a difference) is being used in more and more software audio products these days, and the online mastering platform known as LANDR has been at the forefront of the technology. It looks like we’ll see even more on the AI side from the company as it’s just closed […]
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When signal processing is timed to the pulse of the track, everything in the mix sounds a lot smoother. This applies to compressors, delays, modulators, and especially reverb. One of the questions I get a lot is, “How do you time your reverb to the track?” Here’s an excerpt from the 4th edition of my […]
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My guest on the podcast this week is Greg Penny, who has produced hits with k.d. lang, Cher, and Paul Young among others, but a meeting with Elton John while Greg was in his teens turned into an award-winning mixing journey with the legend many years down the road. Besides producing and mixing Elton’s many albums in surround, Greg […]
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Everyone knows how difficult it is to actually mix on headphones. Since the drivers are so close to your ears, you lose the sense of space that you get with speakers, which means that some of your balance, panning and low-end decisions can be out of wack with what you hear on a pair of […]
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My guest on the podcast this week is the CEO of Primphonic, Thomas Steffens. Primephonic is a music streaming service dedicated to keeping classical music alive and serving the needs of the classical music consumer. Most streaming networks are geared towards modern pop music and don’t serve classical well. It’s difficult to find what you want, and labels, […]
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A gong is a wonderful percussion instruments with a lineage that goes back centuries in most countries of Asia. It’s a member of the bell family, made from bronze or brass alloy, and has a wonderful unmistakingly unique sound. What you might not know is that there is a such a thing as a “Gong […]
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Mastering engineers are some of my favorite people in the music business and many of the best are friends that I speak with frequently. One subject that’s been coming up more and more in conversation is how much that business has changed, and that work is getting much harder to find. It’s No Surprise This […]
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All of us have embarked on a do-it-yourself project from time to time, sometimes out of necessity when money is tight, sometimes to try to improve a piece of gear we already own, and sometimes just for fun. If that describes you, here’s a project that you might want to try building – something that’s […]
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Track enhancer plugins are all the rage these days and most of them do a great job of making a track or mix sound more alive. A new enhancer with a different approach is the FireCobra from United Plugins, which features a very unique user interface. The FireCobra is a fairly simple plugin with an […]
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My guest on the podcast this week is Jim Dunne, founder and senior acoustic consultant of the ground-breaking Smart Studio, which completely disrupts how recording studios and dubbing theaters have been built. Smart Studio supplies a modular system that provides not only isolation but excellent acoustic design. Jim has over 30 years experience in the acoustics and noise control […]
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Happy July 4th to all my American friends. To my readers from other parts of the world, nothing signifies this holiday celebrating the birth of our nation like the John Philips Sousa march “Stars And Stripes Forever.” It caps off our holiday festivities amid great fanfare and fireworks, especially when played well. No one plays […]
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