You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December, 2006.
AllofMP3.com Ignore RIAA Suit? AllofMP3 countered the music industry’s claim, stating the service is completely legal in Russia as all necessary fees have been forwarded to the Russian royalty collection firm, ROMS Year’s chart-topping album fails to crack 4M sales … in a sign of how piracy, a la carte single sales, the closing of […]
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What is “harmonic balancing” and why should I care? (Or more appropriately, why should I ignore the hype?): Peaks and valleys in your spectrum don’t determine what’s “good” or “bad,” your ears do… And what causes records to sound different in different listening environments is a poorly balanced mix, again something you fix with your […]
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From PCRecording.com (though the advice applies equally to recording on a Mac,) here are some basic things to consider when mixing: One major mistake many make is to mix by addition rather than subtraction. That is, if you cannot hear one track well enough you turn it up. In addition, the level changes are oftentimes […]
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Music labels have to prove sharing With today’s ruling, it appears that the record labels will have to demonstrate that someone actually infringed on their copyrights by downloading music from Lindor’s computer. That’s a step beyond the RIAA’s argument that making files available for download constitutes infringement. Beatlemaniacs publish books on their own Now, if […]
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While a cheap reverb can hurt your recordings, some of the best-loved reverb sounds in history were happy accidents. Electronic Musician has a great article on finding your own distinct reverb sound in the space around you: … for all its wonders, digital reverb is not indispensable, nor is it always the best way to […]
Read the full post ...If you made your first recordings on a 4-track tape machine before migrating to a computer-based DAW, chances are you have dozens of old cassette tapes lying around. These tapes won’t last forever … Magnetic tape degrades over time, and if you keep them long enough, those old 4-track masters, and the mixed tapes you […]
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Recording harmonica: i’ve also had decent results with the harmonica player playing straight into an sm58/vocal mic, and driving (overdriving?) the preamp a little/lot. it’s an entirely different sound–more immediate and “direct” sounding (and can get brittle if you don’t watch out)……but one that may work depending on what the song/production calls for. Some thoughts […]
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We’ve all experienced it: 3 seconds into a track you’ve never heard, you know instinctively that it was recorded and mixed in someone’s bedroom. Amateur recordings often sound “amateur.” But what differentiates these hometracked opuses from professional recordings? It’s not just fidelity or sonic quality: Many competent engineers produce lo-fi or distorted mixes on purpose, […]
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Ticketmaster Invests in Music Site Ticketmaster hopes to use links to iLike.com to help ticket buyers learn about new music, while iLike hopes Ticketmaster can help its users find out about scheduled concerts. Record Labels Finally Sue Allofmp3.com It will be interesting to see how this lawsuit turns out — as it was filed in […]
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Paul White (the editor of Sound On Sound) gives us the A Concise Guide to Compression and Limiting, a great introduction to the subject. When it comes to individual tracks, it is pretty much routine to compress vocals, bass guitars, acoustic guitars and occasionally electric guitars, though overdriven guitar sounds tend to be self compressing […]
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Here are a couple of great articles on recording better vocal tracks. Successful Techniques for Recording Vocals from Electronic Musician covers the entire process, from preparing the singer, and microphone selection, to compressing the final track. The 10 tips on page 6 also make a handy reference. I want to dispel the myth that large-diaphragm […]
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Unless your recording room is acoustically treated, you probably capture “room sound” in your recordings. This isn’t necessarily bad: Some rooms have a great ambience which adds natural depth to a mix. But the room sound in smaller spaces, like most bedroom and basement project studios, usually hurts rather helps a track. Ethan Winer outlines […]
Read the full post ...From the film Before the Music Dies, this is basically “anti-Hometracked”:
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Omnidirectional microphones pick up sound from all directions, so an omni mic on a guitar cabinet or vocal will capture more of the room sound. Depending on your recording environment, this can be both good and bad.
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What is parallel compression and when should I use it?: parralell[sic] compression is when you double a track and compress one copy very hard, and mix it under the original. It preserves the dynamics of the instrument but makes it sound more solid. Help me learn to properly mix tracks. The key lesson I learned […]
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Regardless of your comfort level with EQ, it’s worth setting aside 15 minutes to read this fantastic article in Electronic Musician: Equalizers: Equal time “The Bonham kick drum is the quintessential rock drum sound,” Martin explains. “I usually obtain it by boosting the frequencies between 120 and 240 Hz by about 4 dB or more. […]
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Net Music Makers acquires My Virtual Band The website will allow bands and solo artists to create personalized websites, join a band, collaborate, and mix tunes. The new site will also provide a multi-channel internet radio station to showcase original songs. iTunes sales ‘collapsing’ While the iTunes service saw healthy growth for much of the […]
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A few weeks ago, I discussed Gert’s experience collaborating online. Peter Wolf offers another perspective on virtual collaboration in his article The Care and Feeding of a Virtual Band. You all know how difficult it is to find the time to get together and rehearse, write, record and produce, but, nevertheless, it usually works out […]
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Many of us learned the basics of compression from books and magazines, but compression can be difficult to grasp this way, especially for hands-on or visual learners. If you’re in that category, you might find enlightenment in these videos (with minimal sales pitch) from t.c. electronics. Straightforward overviews of compression, expansion, limiting, and parallel compression.
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Here are 5 things you can do right now to improve your recording and mixing skills: Stop worrying that you don’t have a major label sound: You also lack the mics, preamps, converters, and tracking rooms of a major label band. But that shouldn’t hold you back. Remember: listeners want to hear songs, not production; […]
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Stripping away digital rights management could shake up online music. Last February, Yahoo Music chief Dave Goldberg told Music 2.0 conference attendees that record labels should try selling music online without copy protection.It has taken nearly a year to see that sentiment put into play because content owners are hesitant to open up music files […]
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Tips and suggestions for faking the sound of an upright bass with an electric bass: You’re probably not going to fool anyone but it might be enough to imply the sound of an upright by having (or exaggerating) a few of its distinguishing traits. I think the decay is important. Uprights seem to have less […]
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The DAT-Heads Microphone FAQ, while no longer actively maintained, is a great repository of information on microphones. Much of the information targets DAT recording, but the descriptions of mic selection based on venue, microphone response patterns, and stereo miking techniques apply to all mediums.
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Guitar players think of distortion as “that pedal I stomp on to add crunch!” But in signal processing, distortion has broader meanings and uses. Harmonic distortion, in particular, is of interest to recording engineers. Aural exciters, such as the industry-standard Aphex 204, use harmonic distortion to alter the sound of recorded tracks in (hopefully) pleasing […]
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This instrument/frequency chart from The Independent Recording Network (and Southside Productions) is the most detailed I’ve ever seen. It shows the fundamental and harmonic ranges for more than 25 instruments (including drums,) along with the perception each creates (“boom”, “warmth”, “crunch”, etc.) in various segments of the audio spectrum. Tufte would be proud. You can […]
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Music Labels Smell Money in Second Life Sony BMG has cast the longest musical shadow in the virtual world so far, purchasing an island in Second Life called Sony Music Media Island, where residents can listen to music and watch music videos. Music lovers mourn ‘whole universe’ of jazz history destroyed in Katrina These deeply […]
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One thing unites engineers of all skills and backgrounds: The need to show off our gear. Here are some threads from gearslutz and hr.com with pictures of: studios drum setups miked guitar cabs It’s pure studioporn, but you’ll probably see some things that make your 2 mics and 4-track look like Abbey Road. Previously: Home […]
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From the Muse’s Muse: “Singing and playing a great song is almost as good as getting a lesson from the person who wrote it.” With recording and mixing, lessons from experts come even easier when the engineers and producers volunteer to share their knowledge. Michael Tretow, the engineer for all of Abba’s studio albums, offers […]
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The definitive takes on the loudness war are probably The Death of Dynamic Range, and Rip Rowan’s Over the limit. Most articles on the subject, though, are addressed to engineers, by other engineers and producers fed up with the hammering their mixes receive at the hands of overzealous mastering engineers. For the average music consumer, […]
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Apple gains control of critical digital download patent With this patent in hand, Apple will eventually be after every phone company, film maker, computer maker and video producer to pay royalties on every download of not just music but also movies and videos ‘Before the Music Dies’ Diagnoses an Ailing Industry In fact, the business […]
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In the age of DAWs and firepods and CD burners, it’s easy to forget how good we have it:
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