You are browsing the archive for Recording.

Auto-Tune Abuse

February 7, 2008 in Articles

I came across this article from Hometracked.com.

Pitch correction software has applications from restoration and mix-rescue to outright distortion of a voice or instrument. I’ll discuss some of the more tasteful uses of these auto-tune tools (whether the original from Antares, or a variant like the free GSnap) below. But first I thought I’d highlight their misuse to illustrate the effects we usually try to avoid.

I think the second example on the page is more of a vocoder thing, ala Gorillaz or Peter Gabriel. However, there is a band I play in where we are trying to do a CD, so, we hired someone to record us live. After 3 months, he had two songs done, and I’d say they are not anything to write home about. He even put in clapping which makes it sound even more fake.
When I record, I try NOT to do much to it. Balance it, sure, but pitch correction…..not really, unless there is something that totally sticks out like a sore thumb. I had a two or three songs that students did before Christmas that I had to do some pitch correction with, but it was not the whole song. Just a couple of notes here and there.

M-Audio Fast Track Ultra

January 25, 2008 in Reviews

Fast Track Ultra PictureI got into recording a while ago, my first interface being an original MOTU 828. That thing works great. However, it is not supported in ProTools, and I kind of want to start using ProTools more. Plus, I want to move it to my home studio to hopefully make it easier to record virtual tracks by connecting my PC and Mac together via the ADAT outputs of the 828. Anyhow, M-Audio came out with a diminutive new little recording box that works with ProTools M-Powered, and supposedly has excellent microphone preamps as well. This box would be their new USB2 Fast Track Ultra interface.
Read the rest of this entry →

NAMM Show 2008

January 18, 2008 in News

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:

I haven’t seen anything saxophonish yet……..

Portable Recording Studio with your iPod?

January 13, 2008 in News

Belkin has a product coming out that looks rather good. Belkin Podcast Studio.

Belkin Podcast Studio is an advanced attachment for your iPod to add high quality recording capabilities. Dual XLR and 1/4-inch channels offer a solid range of recording options. A built-in mic and speaker are powered by their own battery, saving your iPod juice better used for listening to your genius later.

Engadget has some more pictures of it.
Seems no one knows if it has phantom power or not (probably not), and it seems to be 16 bit. Though, if you hook up a iPod Nano to it, and have 4+ gigs of free space, that would easily give you 6 hours of 16bit 44.1Khz recording.
Two potential problems. First, battery life. If it is iPod battery powered, who knows how long it will last. Plus, if it has phantom power on the XLR plugs, that would probably kill the iPod’s battery in no time. Recording on my Marantz flash recorder using phantom power pretty much kills 8 AA batteries if I record 3 hours of stuff.
Second problem, Windows formatted iPods. You can’t get, as far as I know, over 2 gigabyte files on a FAT formatted drive. I tried copying Pirates Of The Caribbean on an FAT (PC) formatted iPod that was 2.6 gigabytes in size. The iPod did not like that. Mac formatted ones didn’t complain.
So, it’s an interesting idea, especially since most everyone already has an iPod, but until we see it actually come out (June?), we can only guess.

First Wave Of New Audio Interfaces

November 28, 2007 in News

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 on this new box are a lot better. After doing some recordings with the Project Mix I/O at 96Khz, I thought the preamps were amazing……..so this little box might be capable of some even more amazing recordings.

M-Audio Project Mix I/O First Impressions

November 6, 2007 in Articles

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 Digital Performer it is great. I have my analogue modules coming in on channels 7 & 8, and the GPO stuff on 5 & 6. Though, coming from the PC, 5 & 6 are noisy. I’m thinking about moving that to a SPDIF input…..more soon.
Read the rest of this entry →

Shurenotes

October 12, 2007 in Articles

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.

Herbie Hancock Talks Math, Music and Mastering the Tech Toolbox

October 3, 2007 in Articles

Wired magazine has a very interesting interview with Herbie Hancock out. Way too short of an interview. But some interesting insights from the piano master.

Michael Brecker Article in Mix Magazine

August 5, 2007 in Articles

In the July 2007 issue of Mix Magazine, there was a little article about the recording session for Michael’s last album. Some more insight into this album, Michael, and how they recorded it. Two microphones on Michael (U67 (vintage mic) and a Coles 4038 (ribbon mic))

EM Reviews Field Recorders

October 3, 2005 in Articles, Reviews

Electronic Musician reviewed a bunch of field recorders, including the the Marantz 671, Marantz 660 and the Edirol R1 among others.

Basically, they panned the Marantz 671 (successor to the 670, which I love) for having firmware issues causing the mic preamps to be noisy. The Edirol R1 came out on top of the two Marantz units. Though I would really call the article a “introduction” to field recording. They do not list exactly what they tried to record, and with what. We all know that the microphone is key to getting a good recording.

I would totally recommend the Marantz 670. I used it this weekend and got some great recordings putting it about 6 feet infront and 7 feet above the band. Of course using my Rode NT4 mic (awesome piece that it is).

I imagine the issues with the 671 have been fixed. I would take the EM article with some grains of salt. The reviewer used these units to record a snare drum (why??), the “ambience in a suburban neighborhood” (um, ok), and dialog. Ok, great tests there. NOT.

Oh, and EM was reporting, like it was news, that Sony introduced a new format called MiHD. Um, guys, these things have been out for OVER A YEAR. Get with the program!

Pro Tools M-Powered

May 17, 2005 in Articles

I came across this yesterday. You can now get Protools if you have M-Audio‘s line of interfaces. This is totally cool. 32 Audio tracks, and it ships with 30 plugins. Wow!Downside, it’s $350. Upside, cheapest M-Audio interface is about $99. Still, for the power of the software, this is a huge value. I’d still like to see Digidesign just offer the software for sale to use with any interface. There are so many excellent interfaces out there, including Mackie, MOTU, and Tascam. I think if Digidesign knocked the price of Protools LE down to $299 and have it work with any interface, they could have something going.

Portable Recording Studio/Who Needs a Studio Anymore?

February 28, 2005 in Articles

One of the many bands that I am in was considering spending a lot of money to record a CD. But, there was a lack of clarity of what the CD would be for. Vanity project? Demo CD to get more gigs? Christmas CD?

After some discussion, I believe that, instead of plunking down $2-$3K or more on studio time, we are going to invest in Mackie’s new line of Onyx mixers.

So, instead of just using the mixer to do sound, we could record everything channel to hard drive and mix down at a later time. Supposedly the firewire output levels are independant of the slider levels (but not the gain levels). With good close micing, we could potentially have some excellent raw recordings that would just need a little mix down.

Am I wrong, or is this the ultimate Studio thing? Who needs a studio now?

Avid Buys M-Audio/Midiman

August 13, 2004 in News

Press release: “Tewksbury, MA – August 13, 2004 – Avid Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVID) today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Midiman, Inc., doing business as M-Audio – a leading provider of digital audio and MIDI solutions for electronic musicians and audio professionals. At closing, Avid will pay approximately $80 million in cash, issue approximately 2 million shares of Avid common stock, and assume all outstanding M-Audio stock options. The deal also includes earn-out provisions, which would be payable to M-Audio’s equity holders based on the successful achievement of certain financial milestones. Under the terms of the agreement, M-Audio will become a business unit of Avid’s Digidesign audio division and market its line of computer audio peripherals, PCI sound cards, keyboard controllers and control surfaces, microphones, speakers, and distributed software and proprietary sound libraries alongside Digidesign’s award-winning digital audio workstations for the professional and home/hobbyist markets.”

Very interesting stuff. M-Audio has been producing some very good stuff recently, such as their Firewire interfaces, plus their excellent sound cards.

EM 2004 Awards and More

December 25, 2003 in News

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 under the moon (like Performer being too slow, etc, etc), this is quite a feat. I believe they had the most awards for a company. Emagic’s Logic didn’t get an award.

Digidesign won DAW Control Surface/Audio Interface for it’s Digi 002. Rode won with it’s NT1-A Mic (Microphone under $600). And speaking for Rode, they had an advertisement for the NT2000. A VARIABLE Pad, VARIABLE filter, and a VARIABLE PATTERN mic. Whoa. Under $900 as well. Anyone had a chance to look at this? Looks really interesting.

The Incredible Shrinking Studio

October 2, 2003 in Articles

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, the seeming decline of recording studios. I know that I have a little studio running (G4 cube, AKGC414 mics, MOTU828), and the quality of sound I am getting is good, but not as good as one could get in a real studio. But still, its a whole lot cheaper than renting studio time and space ;-)

Update: 10/02 18:24 GMT by E :Seems Slashdot has an article on this as well. Some interesting comments over there.