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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Like many other aspects to mixing, the use of reverb is frequently either overlooked or misunderstood. Reverb is sometimes added to a track to create width and depth, but also to dress up an otherwise boring sound. The real secret is how much to use and how to adjust its various parameters. When you get […]
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The recent Notre-Dame Cathedral fire in Paris was devastating, but work is now well underway for a complete reconstruction. Over a billion Euros have been pledged for the rebuild, and 40 teams of workers under the watchful eyes of 4 lead architects are now on-site. But as fighting over how much to modernize rages on […]
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One of the things that automatically happened during the old days of analog “big iron” consoles is that you got heft and weight in your recordings almost without trying. We can still get that today in our home digital worlds, but it takes a bit more of an effort to get there. That’s why whenever […]
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My guest on the podcast this week is Bree Noble, who is a champion for women in music thanks to her Female Entrepreneur Musician Podcast and Female Musician Academy. Bree quit her corporate job as a Director of Finance at a top opera company to pursue a successful run as a touring singer/songwriter where she won several songwriting and artist awards […]
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We all know Focusrite for building great computer interfaces, mic preamps and channel strips, but not everyone is aware of the company’s history building state-of-the-art consoles. Founded by none other than Rupert Neve after he left his namesake company, Focusrite didn’t build many consoles, but the ones that were built are highly prized and most […]
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Engineers that don’t work with horn players much often don’t understand the difficulties or the technique for getting a great sound. Here’s an interview with Jerry Hey, who may be the most widely recorded horn player ever, from my Studio Musician’s Handbook that explains things from the player’s point of view. Bobby Owsinski: I understand that you have […]
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If you’ve following this blog for any length of time you know that I pretty much stopped going to concerts because most sounded so bad. It’s like an entire generation of FOH mixers learned (incorrectly) that the most important thing on stage was the kick drum. Well, I finally heard a great one at the […]
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I like gear that’s build with a singular purpose in mind. Not because it’s fun to find alternate uses for (which it is), but because that one application is usually much easier to deal with when using that product. With that thought in mind, the new DPA 4097 CORE mic touches all those bases as […]
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My guest on the podcast this week is Jonathan Stone has had a long career as a director of creative services in music publishing at heavyweight companies like ATV Music, MCA Music, Quincy Jones Qwest Music Publishing, and Windswept. He now runs the disruptive music service Rocketsongs, that not only helps artists to find and license songs, but […]
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If you’re a Pro Tools user then you’ll want to read this. Avid announced on its Facebook page that it’s going to change its prices on July 1st. As would be expected, most of the prices are going up, but a few will actually decrease a bit. Here’s what the company said: We wanted to […]
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I’ve posted many times about how streaming has changed song structure, and how many songs are now written primarily for streaming distribution. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t stand by your creative impulses and take a song wherever it needs to go – it just means that you might have to do a bit of […]
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Virtually everyone on the creation side of the music business nows the name Rupert Neve, as well they should. Rupert’s consoles have been amongst the most beloved in the business, known for their quality and sound. In this excellent video from Sound on Sound, Rupert (who’s 89 and still sharp as a tack, by the […]
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