tonedeaf?

are you tonedeaf? well you can test it with this nifty little flash app... good luck!

i was well chuffed with my 83.3% :)

all the best for 2010

i'm really sorry i've been so quiet the past couple of weeks. thing is the web development company i work got liquidated and now i'm running around to find some web work to survive until something permanent comes up. i'll have to move to a cheaper house as well - will send pics of the new studio layout. anyway, i wish you all the best for 2010 and hopefully it's going to be a blast and a year to remember. cheers!

compressor settings

i don't know about you but when i started recording i didn't have a clue what to set the compressor to when i record a specific instrument. here are a few guidelines.

note that these are the settings for recording an instrument, so you don't want to squeeze the hell out of your signal. you just want to tame the peaks but still leave enough dynamics for the mixing stage.

guitar/bass: set the ratio 4:1 and adjust the threshold until you get a gain reduction of about 10db on the loudest parts.

drum overheads: set the ratio 6:1 and adjust the threshold until you get a gain reduction of about 20db to 22db on the loudest parts. you can use the same settings for the snare and toms. (if i record the drum set i always use the recorderman technique) and then put a mic on the snare and bass... just in case.

vocals: set the ratio 4:1 and adjust the threshold until you get a gain reduction of about 6db on the loudest parts.

mix bus compression: set the ratio 2:1 and adjust the threshold until you get a gain reduction of about 2db on the loudest parts.

attack and release: my hardware compressor doesn't have knobs for these but if yours does i'd say use your ears. you don't want the attack to kill the transients and you don't want the release holding it too long or not long enough, depending on the application and source. so use your ears.

note that the above are just a few guidelines - so tweak to taste but remember to leave enough dynamics for the mixing stage.

my album on iTunes!

at last!!!! my album is on iTunes. i've worked pretty hard on this one... even drew the cover :)

audio interface - to usB or not usB

if i could choose again i would definitely go for USB over FireWire (IEEE 1394 interface). sure FireWire has a faster sustained throughput but it's very finicky as well. it will give you way more problems if you haven't got a Texas Instruments FireWire chipset. which means that if i upgrade to a new Macbook Pro, i'll be stuffed because Mac doesn't use Texas Instruments FireWire chipsets anymore. and that means that i'll struggle with pops and clicks again. now if i had a USB audio interface i wouldn't even have noticed the transition to a new machine. if i knew this when i first bought my gear i would have picked USB. sure FireWire will provide the fastest performance - if you've got a compatible chipset and if it's 800 and not 400 - but for convenience and compatibility between multiple computers and audio interfaces USB 2.0 would probably be the better choice because FireWire's extra speed is just not worth the hassle.

Toontrack SD2.2

before i tell you how i went about adding the NIR Z midi folder i just want to tell you this... if you've got superior drummer 2.0 don't upgrade to 2.2 because then you can install Hit Factory and it will work without authorization!! now don't get me wrong. i hate it when people steal software, music or movies. if you do that - you only want noise around you to break the silence. if you really appreciate the music you'll buy it out of appreciation and respect for the art and artist. anyhow... if they make a mistake like this then they didn't really care if i use it or not. i did upgrade though so i can't use it any more but it was nice to demo. if you don't upgrade then you can't see the groove library in the midi groove browser.

anyway, they did give instructions on how to install the NIR Z files but it doesn't seem to work for me. so i had to take the long way... by browsing to the folder on the mac and pasting it there in a folder that i've created. see images above.

Superior Drummer 2.20

i can't seem to drag the Nir-Z midi files into the browser on my Mac. i'll see if i can find another way off adding it :( there must be another way right?

9 things i can't live without:

1. chocolates - who wants vegetables anyway?

2. coffee - i'm not addicted i just need to stay awake till the mix is right

3. pen and paper - where all good ideas start

4. my phone - annoying when it rings, frustrating when it doesn't

5. music - because my life is a movie and i need a soundtrack

6. my guitar - because a rock god is nothing without it ;)

7. my sneakers - they witnessed - almost - all my adventures

8. ctrl+z - because even i can make a mistake ;p

9. my macbook - i just don't want to record with anything else

before staining the guitar

now that i'm happy with the shape and contours of the guitar i can stain it. i'm using real wood stain for the dark stripes - mulberry - and just normal clothing dye for the lighter red parts. but before staining the wood you have to wet it with a flannel/cloth soaked in hot water. then vigorously rub the wood where you're going to stain - why? because when wood gets wet the cells swell and when it's dry you can sand it off to nice smooth surface. after you've sanded back the raised grain - wait till it's dry - you can stain! i used the back of the guitar to test the stain because the longer you leave wood stain the darker it gets. it's not the same for the clothing dye.

mic protection from humidity

saw these "Glad - Snap Lock" bags the other day when i went to the shops and thought it would work great for protecting my microphones from the humidity here in Auckland. i also threw in a silicone bag for some extra dryness :) i guess if you're going to record vocals every other day it's going to be a royal pain to bag and un-bag all the time, but it's perfect for my needs.

guitar body cut and carved

at last i'm satisfied with the contours of the body! even though it looks like i copied the strat contours it's actually my own body contours. i simply pressed the guitar against my body and traced the line with a pencil - i pressed it pretty hard! and then the same for the area where my arm will rest. luckily the bass wood is easy to work with! i only used a rough file to create the contours - something like this. next i'll wet the body to raise the grain of the wood to make it ready for the wood stain. isn't that the meanest ankle biter ever?!

guitar headstock design

here's what the headstock looks like. i'm quite happy with it. oh - and i see you can now buy decal paper for lazer printers. i'm definitely going to make use of that for the headstock logo! i wonder if the lacquer will dissolve it? i'm almost done with the body shape and contours too so check back soon!

Toontrack - EZDrummer - Nashville EZX - recording blooper

Nashville EZX - if you whack the second tom and let it fade out to silence you'll hear the recording engineer's radio play in the background (turn up the volume though - it's not that obvious) Not what I'd expect from these guys but I guess we all make mistakes now and then.

Other than that it's a really awesome kit and well worth the money.

great site if you ever need help

http://www.recordingreview.com is probably my most favourite recording site out there. register and join the community. Brandon Drury is in the driving seat over there and he's a really nice guy with loads of advice too. he's also about to release a few recording books "Killer Home Recording"

find the bad spots in your room

use this bass tone (wave sweeping from 40Hz to 300Hz) to hear the bad spots in your room. it will sound like the volume goes up but it's actually the bass waves building up. if you use logic you should put eq on it and see how the eq graph "walks" from left to right. so as soon as you hear the bass waves clash in your room - getting louder - check where the eq graph is peaking - that's where your problem eq is.

http://www.hometracked.com/2008/01/25/quick-home-studio-monitor-tests/

Logic Express 9 and Guitar Rig 3 - bug?

installed logic express 9 yesterday and - yup - it's worth all the hype! just one thing that caught my attention, when i load Guitar Rig 3, with a few amps and FX, everything works fine until i try and select another preset. for example: if i want to select a different reverb preset and switch from the default "init" to "nice room" it doesn't work. it took me a while to figure out that you have to hold your mouse down and slide/drag it to the preset you want to select instead of clicking on the drop down menu - release the mouse button - look at preset list - click on the preset you want to select. a bit annoying really but i guess they made up for it by adding other cool stuff!

Room Acoustics by Steve Kindig

hey everybody! i just found this really good article on room acoustics.

glass for bass traps?!? "...The sound-absorbing effectiveness of some common room surfaces. Fibrous materials like carpet and drapes provide significant absorption above 500 Hz, but have little effect on lower frequencies. Conversely, window glass and drywall can absorb bass frequencies, but are very reflective above 500 Hz. The most successful approaches combine materials like these with professionally-designed room treatment products..."

glass? (:0

enjoy!

after recording a band

now i've recorded the band. now what? here's a snippet of an email that i send to one of the band members that i recently recorded.

..."just want to give you an update of what's happening... for the next week or so i'm going to go through the material with a fine tooth come and select/match up the good bits of Craig's guitar parts. that means listening through all the tracks and making notes of the track number and where in the song the good parts are i.e. "song one" - great solo at 2:15 - track 3) - with the help of some red wine :) 'For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.' - Friedrich Nietzsche"...

after that; the mixing begins!

joemeek threeQ

i think that technology has advanced so much that it doesn't really matter that much anymore if you buy $200 or $1000 dollar piece of recording equipment. i'm sure there's going to be a difference but it i doubt if you'll hear it in the final mix/master... if you do hear it, it might be 1%, max 2% improvement. the only drawback with the cheaper stuff is durability and that's the only reason i'd go for something a little more expensive. i don't want to buy it today and then replace it six months down the line! i also look into how flexible it is going to be in my studio setup. i would definitely want to use it on more that one instrument...

so when i was looking for a mic pre i decided to go with the joemeek threeQ. the joemeek threeQ is a half-rack metal case and powered from an adaptor. but the cool thing is that it's not just a preamp it's got some other goodies too:

• preamplifier - with phantom power and a front switch to toggle between XLR connector for Mics, and a Line connector for everything else.
  
• Joemeek optical compressor
• equalizer
• and makeup gain

so in a nutshell - it takes a signal, amplifies it, compresses and equalizes it ready to be recorded.

preamplifier:
it takes a microphone, instrument or other source of audio signal. i love recording guitar and bass with it because you can plug the guitar directly into the 3q and then split the signal - one goes to the amp and the other goes directly to your DAW as a clean signal so that you can re-amp it later if you feel the need to. it's a clean robust sounding preamp and i personally think that it's a bit of a step up from similar products in the same price range.

compressor:
this is not just any compressor it's a PhotoOptical compressor! this thing can slam the life out of your audio signal so apply sparingly - the louder you get the harder it slams - so to avoid squashing the life out of your audio apply a slow attack and fast release... to be honest I just use the compressor on the threeQ to take off the spikes, i'll do more compression once it's in the DAW. the "compression ratio" is fixed at 5:1 so you can see why i love using it on guitar and bass and especially rock vocals - for vocals 2msec attack should sound natural if your signal is not too hot - anyway 5:1 is a good compromise between gentle and slamming.

"meequalizer":
the "meequalizer" is a very musical three-band equaliser. its LF (bass) is fixed at around 80hz - nice for pushing bass or kick. mids can be tuned anywhere between 300Hz and 5kHz and the highs are fixed at about 12kHz, nice to give vocals some sparckle. personaly i prefer to record "flat" but i do however switch the equaliser on, this gives the audio a little bit of that nice meek colouring.

and lastly there's the makeup gain knob which, well, makes up the gain you reduced/lost with the compressor. so if you want a clean pre, tight compressor and musical equalizer you can't go wrong with the joemeek theerQ.

using the joemeek threeQ on vocals:
start with the preamp at 25 (0db) and sing into the mic. now turn the preamp gain until the peak light starts to flash when you sing at your loudest - it should only flash now and then. move on to the compressor... switch the compressor on :) and compress at about 3 or 4, the attack at around 5, and the release somewhere between 0.3 and 1. if you're not hearing the compressor work, increases the amount of compression by turning the compress knob clockwise. you should start to hear the softer passages come up in level, and if you scream, you'll hear it start to squeeze the audio. set it so that it doesn't sound unnatural. next i turn the EQ on, and set the Low, Mid, and High frequencies at 0. now you can turn up the output gain. also experiment with mic placement and proximity of the singer. a setting that works for one singer may be completely wrong for the next.

dithering

dithering is - man this is difficult to describe - i guess i can say that it’s adding noise to your audio to prevent harshness. in other words, it smooth things out and make it sound less jagged and raw. it's almost like a filter on a camera to soften the image or like blurring the lines of your pencil drawing... i'm more of a picture person so i’ll explain it with a few illustrations below where i'll use colour instead of sound. i guess the guys from Izotope Ozone describe it best - quite a good read. if you want to know more about 16-bit vs. 24-bit TweakHeadz is the place to go.

the gradient fill on the left represents the audio we want to capture... :)

we record at 24-bit (bit is short for binary digit = 10110 etc). i’ll illustrate 24-bit as 24 colours.

when you export your mix/master to CD it goes down even further to 16-bit. why? because CDs can only read 16-bit data.

to fix this raw sounding audio file you apply dithering. now it looks (sounds) more like the original audio we intended to capture :)

Logic 9 from Apple

just been to the Apple site and saw they launched logic 9! here's a few things to lookout for: Flex tool - to push audio around, Audio Quantize - not just for MIDI anymore, Editing drum tracks - to edit across a set of grouped multitrack drums and my personal fav! Drum Replacer replace or double drum tracks with triggered samples... and then loads of guitar gear like classic amps and pedals! see what's new here.

i wasn't born a mac/logic freak! i used to be a Cubase and PC fan but I got into so much tech/compatibility problems that i decided to give mac a try and i never looked back. even Cubase didn't come close to Logic 8. Apple just make it so simple and straight forward to create music that you can focus on your art and not have to worry about tingkering with computer bits. i'll NEVER go back to the dark side again! thanks Apple!

bass traps in the making - step 1

ok, so i finally finished my two corner bass traps and i thought i might as well take a few pictures along the way. first i created a wooden frame, 70 cm x 250 cm (width x height) - you're wasting your time if you go narrower than 60 cm. i'm no wood work buff so i just used a glue gun, staple gun and some brackets to create the frame.

bass traps - wire mesh

next step is to cover the one side with some wire mesh before i filled it up with insulation batts

bass traps - add the greenstuff

now i add the insulation batts - i used greenstuff's insulation. easy to work with and you won't cough blood when you're done.

bass trap - add some vinyl

wedge some vinyl before you fold it over for some extra density

bass trap - close both sides

now you can close the open side with some wire mesh too...

bass trap - final cover

and then lastly i put some "felt blanket type cloth" - if that makes any sense - over it

bass traps - tie-dyed

i bought some cheap bed sheets that i tie-dyed to create some cool looking retro covers. there's a method behind this madness... the colours that i used stimulate creativity.

bass trap - final product

and here's the final product in my magic-room-project-mixing-recording-studio

and they work really good too!

Toontrack DrumTracker does not work on my Mac OS 10.5.x

so i thought i'd download Toontrack's DrumTracker demo and give it a shot. but sadly it doesn't seem to work with my configuration. i've got a Mac and an Edirol FA-101 and when i open a drum file in DrumTracker i just get an error saying: "unable to start audio device: Edirol FA-101". I tried to search for a solution but to no avail. that sucks! i was really looking forward to DrumTracker and now this! luckily Logic Express 9 is on the horizon and it will have a drum replacer - among other things. can't wait! i just hope it's not as disappointing as DrumTracker from Toontrack.

EQ

i read a great article on hometracked.com about EQ. all the articles on that site are pretty good actually. anyway - it's about how you should cut narrow and boost wide because the human ear will find it strange if you do it the other way around. there's another article about EQ for vocals so that it "sits" better in the mix. the way that i always approach it is by creating a "hole" in the frequency range for the vocals (see above) to sit in and the another instruments around it. i usually follow the EQ settings given by Bobby Owsinsky who wrote The Mixing Engineer's Handbook. in there he clearly specify the EQ for each instrument so that they can all coexist in the frequency spectrum.

there is no magic

over the years, i've heard people refer to ''studio magic'' as if there is some sort of magic knobs the engineer/producer can do to make everything sound great. in the end, people make recordings... not machines... not gadgets. so, much of the tone of the drums, bass, guitar and vocals is within the musician themselves. don't believe me? hit the drums and try to make them sound bad! intentionally make your guitar sound bad just by the way you are playing. it's not difficult to make an instrument sound bad. obviously, the better the player, the better tone they can get out of it. for example: Dave Grohl on a kids drum set.

bass traps

acoustic treatment - not to be mistaken with sound proofing - is possibly the most important component in the recording studio/mixing room. over the years i looked at quite a few commercial options - RealTraps, GIK - but the biggest turn off for me was not the product price... it was the shipping price to me from where ever in the world to New Zealand.

after spending some time on the web researching bass traps and acoustic treatment, i decided to go the DIY route. the one ingredient that was constantly mentioned in the forums was 705 and 703 rigid fiberglass. just one problem... i can't find it here in New Zealand! so i'm going to go with the GreenStuff option from Autex or Pink Batts - Silencer.

the name bass trap is actually very misleading, as it is easy to think that it will be trapping the bass and that it would only be useful in a room with too much bass. not true!! what a bass trap does is to reduce problems caused by room modes (standing waves) etc, and distribute them more evenly in your room. you will find that by evening out the peaks and troughs of the low frequency standing wave, you're likely to hear more high quality bass at your listening position. you'll also hear more midrange clarity. every room can benefit from bass traps, whether you have too much bass or not enough bass.

i'll put some pictures of my DIY bass traps project up soon... maybe i'll even do a step by step "phototorial" :)

my approach to recording a band

the band records the guide tracks live.
the drum tracks get put down.
the bass tracks get put down - rhythm foundation section out of the way.
the guitar tracks are next.
lead vocals.
backing vocals.

then the mixing begins! when i'm happy with the final mixes i'll send it off to get mastered... you can do it youself if you want by using some mastering software like Ozone from Izotope, but i prefer to stand back when it comes to the black art of mastering.

oh and none of the above would be going smooth if it wasn't for logic 8 from apple...

sample-based drum software

if there's one thing any serious singer/songwriter should have it's sample-based drum software, like EZdrummer from ToonTrack. of course there are other drum software out there... i've tried them all and i find EZdrummer to be the most straight forward and easy to use. And the EZX expansion packs ROCK! don't take my word for it, listen for yourself! the only thing i still need is an electric drum kit to play my own custom beats if i need to. but that will have to happen when I've got the "time" for it. i'm looking at the Roland V-drums TD4...

now, if you don't like EZdrummer then check out XLN Audio's Addictive Drums. i sometimes think that maybe I should get these as well because it just sounds so bloody good. But I'm used to EZdrummer now and to tell you the truth... too much options slows me down because I can never stop tweaking stuff.

headphones

i bought some really cool headphones! (well they're cool according to all the reviews i've read) it's the AKG k601 series... i can barely feel them on my head - and it sounds really good too, but they definitely need a headphone amp... without the amp i actually prefer to listen through my Sennheiser HD 202s. i just hope the AKGs will sound way better than the Sennheisers when i've got the headphone amp because the Sennheisrs where a fraction of the price. i'm looking at the Rega Ear headphone amplifier for the AKG K601s. it's not to expensive and it's got enough power to push the AKGs.