Back in October 2008 I did a post that estimated the cost of getting all the gear to have a recording rig for your big band. Now, lets take a look at if things have changed. The original post I went with an Alesis HD24 which was $1600 then. Its the same price now. For [Continue]

So, I’ve been working on this CD for a big band I play in. I have no idea how much it cost to get the person to record it, multitrack, and a couple of sessions. I’m thinking at least $6,000….if not more. So, say you have ProTools (or something similar) that can handle 30 tracks [Continue]

I just picked up a Samson Q1U for a student as a going away present. He wants to do some webcam lessons or something (we’ll see how that goes…….yeah). Anyhow, there are a number of USB microphones out, or adapters for Microphones to USB. The Samson was a well under $100 mic that includes a [Continue]

AKG has a new mic out, the AKG C214. From the press release: Based on one of the most successful studio mics released by AKG, the C 414 model, and using all the feedback that during 30 years they have received from its users (maybe they could release a new version earlier, but…), AKG has [Continue]

Gearjunkies.com has opened a neat new little site called Gearjunkies UserStudios. Here, people can flaunt their pro, semi-pro, project, or home studios. Though, right now, it seems that a lot of info is left out such as microphones, computers used, etc. But it was just launched, so, hopefully, that will be coming soon. [Continue]

The NAMM show kicked off the other day. So far, I haven’t seen anything that pops out “Whoa, that’s neat” to me. Some interesting things are: New line of AKG Headphones. I use AKG headphones, and they are excellent. Tascam DR-1 Portable Recorder, Yamaha Pocketrak 2G, and Marantz Digital Performer 6 Lots of recording devices [Continue]

Last year, I didn’t do a Christmas guide. This year, I am going to. What holiday gift would you get your favorite saxophonist(s) this year. Here are some ideas. Under $100 Reeds. Pretty obvious. Should be fairly easy to figure out what they use as well. There will be dead ones in the trash, and [Continue]

Gotta love technology. M-Audio has introduced a new USB2 audio/midi interface. 4 really excellent microphone preamps, and DSP (for near zero latency mixes/monitoring). List price, $450, but the street price is quite a bit less. UPDATE 11/28 by E: After checking the Mic preamp specs, and that of the Project Mix I/O, the Mic preamps [Continue]

I have been setting up all this new gear, and I finally got a chance to play with the Project Mix I/O a little. All I have to say is, whoa. Fun, cool, Rad (can we still use that word?). I mean, motorized faders……so much fun. I haven’t used it in Protools yet, but in [Continue]

I mentioned before that I get this email letter thing from Shure every now and then. Well, the latest issue is out, and it gives some stereo micing techniques tips. There is also an archive of all the previous ones. Great, free information. [Continue]

Electronic Musician has their 2004 Editors Choice list out. Among the winners are MOTU for Digital Performer 4.1 (Digital Audio Sequencer/MIDI Sequencer) and for the 828MkII (Digital Audio Workstation/Audio Interface), AND for MachFive (Sampler/Software). Wow. Congrats MOTU! For a company that gets blasted on the MOTU mailing list for everything [Continue]

Wired magazine has an interesting article about how a number of artists and schools are going to laptops to do music. Artists such as Steve Vai. A couple of things that I thought were interesting. One, Berklee professor Michael Bierylo hinting that days of learning piano are over and computer learning is in. And two, [Continue]

Peter Gabriel has a great studio called Real World. Pretty neat looking place. An old English build converted into an ultra high tech studio. However, I still think the coolest setup is Skywalker Sound. Not only do they have the latest/greatest high tech gadgets, but perhaps one of the best recording stages anywhere. [Continue]

I thought Mark Of The Unicorn was cool for releasing the 828 firewire interface. And then they became even cooler by allowing you to have up to 4 of them on a Firewire chain. Now, they have released their 896 interface. Wow! “2-rack-space 96 kHz FireWire audio interface, eight channels of 24-bit analog I/O, eight [Continue]

There are a bunch of new midi items out there I think are quite interesting. PolyPhontics which is a sound font program for the mac. Propellerheads have released a great Strings addition to Reason. My god is it good. I want it! And there is are some nice new instruments available for Protools from Native [Continue]