I think if you’re part of the music business in any way, one of the reasons is that music excites you. In some cases it excites you so much that it gives you goosebumps while listening. Believe it or not, that doesn’t happen to everybody, and according to a recent Harvard study, it means that […]
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Regardless of whether you dig the Grammy broadcast or not, what goes on behind the scenes is truly a massive feat of audio strength. How big? Take the largest audio setup you ever heard of and multiply it by at least another order of magnitude, as you’ll soon see. Dani Deahl wrote a great piece […]
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Boy, do we love vintage gear. The problem is that often when we get that long lost gem home we find that a few parts are missing, and the easiest to lose over the years are knobs. That’s usually not a problem though as replacement knobs, even vintage ones, are readily available today. But what […]
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Live sound engineers have struggled with the variance in venues ever since the beginning of the discipline. Whether a sports arena, a roadhouse stage, or a house of worship, every space presents its own unique challenges when it comes to sound engineering and speaker placement. And while there are some great analysis tools available, none have […]
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My guest on my latest podcast episode is Bill Reynolds, who’s a Grammy-nominated producer, engineer, mixer, songwriter and former bass player with Band of Horses. Bill’s credits include the Avett Brothers, Band of Horses, Truth and Salvage Co, Tim Chaisson, Lissie, among others, and his songs have appeared on TV shows like House, Justified and Army Wives. He currently works out of his […]
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Many of us still love vinyl. For all its faults (and there are many), there’s still a warm sound that makes believers out of listeners when combined with a good playback system. That said, the technology of the black plastic analog disc isn’t discussed much these days, which is why I think you’ll find the […]
Continue readingWhether you like football or not, you have to admit that the Super Bowl has risen almost to the level of a national holiday. While most of us tune in for the game itself, the halftime show is also the music event of the year to many. With an audience of around 100 million, what […]
Continue readingMIDI changed music creation in so many ways when it was introduced, but you hear less about it these days thanks to virtual instruments and so much music making in the box. That said, it’s still a very important tool, especially if you want your DAW to talk to outside instruments. Even though MIDI might […]
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The cynical engineer looks at compression these days and says, “It’s all already been done. The world doesn’t need another classic compression emulation.” While the second part of that statement may well be true, the fact of the matter is that there are still new ideas in compressors being released and one of the them […]
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My guest on the podcast today is Robert Marshall, who is sound designer, mixer and partner of Chicago audio post house SUM1. Robert has spent the last 15 years doing sound design, mixes and ADR for film, television and radio, including several Superbowl spots. He’s also a founding partner of Source Elements, a company that provides a number of […]
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For about a hundred years loudspeaker technology has worked pretty much the same way. An electronic signal is changed into mechanical energy thanks to a magnet and moving coil attached to usually a paper diaphragm, which then moves the air. Sure, there have been other tries at transmitting sound through the air, like electrostatic and […]
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There are two parts to recording that many engineers are either super concerned with or completely oblivious to and that’s placement of the room mics when tracking and phase. In my experience, phase is something that you have to be aware of, but sometimes spending gobs of time on trying to get things just right […]
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There’s a lot of controversy over the sound of what many think is the ultimate stringed instrument – the Stradivarius. To some, it can never sound any better, while others feel that much hype surrounds the name and that a new instrument achieves the same results in a blind A/B test. Whatever the case, the […]
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If you weren’t able to attend the 2019 Winter NAMM this year, undoubtedly you’re going to read a number of reviews that will be long on new gear. As usual I’m not going to give you much of that because it’s been covered to death and probably in much better depth than what I could […]
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My guest on the podcast today is Andrew Peters, who started as popular radio personality and eventually transitioned to television as the host of Australian music shows like Rock Arena, Trax, Simulrock, the Live Aid broadcast, and interviewer for the MTV special Australian Made. After 20 years on radio and television he’s become one of the top voice actors in SouthEast Asia, Australia and […]
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