REW - Room EQ Wizard

Room Acoustics Software 

 REW is free room acoustics analysis software for measuring and analysing room and loudspeaker responses. The audio analysis features of REW help you optimise the acoustics of your listening room, studio or home theater and find the best locations for your speakers, subwoofers and listening position. It includes tools for generating audio test signals; measuring SPL and impedance; measuring frequency and impulse responses; measuring distortion; generating phase, group delay and spectral decay plots, waterfalls, spectrograms and energy-time curves; generating real time analyser (RTA) plots; calculating reverberation times; calculating Thiele-Small parameters; determining the frequencies and decay times of modal resonances; displaying equaliser responses and automatically adjusting the settings of parametric equalisers to counter the effects of room modes and adjust responses to match a target curve.

Download and donate!

Pipe Guy proves that anything is playable!

Recording drums on a budget

One mic recording / Three mic recording (SM57/SM58)
Recording Drums With Only One Mic (Condenser cardioid)
How To Record Drums - With 1 Mic (Condenser cardioid) Tchad Blake method

And my favourite:
With two mics (Recorderman Drum Mic Technique)

Vadrum Speaks Morse Code (Drum Video)

How Much Do Music Artists Earn Online?

Source: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/

Logic Remote

oh yes! finally a digital controller! Logic Remote

Logic Pro X

apple has released Logic Pro X, the most advanced version of its professional recording studio for the Mac. featuring a modern new design, Logic Pro X comes with new plug-ins, sounds, and tools that keep the music-making process flowing. new features include Drummer, a virtual session player that jams along with your songs, and Flex Pitch, which allows you to fine-tune the pitch of your audio tracks. also new is Logic Remote, an app that lets you control Logic Pro X wirelessly from your iPad.

i'm especially interested in Drummer!

don't "upgrade" to mountain lion if you've got a pre uni-body macbook/pro

OMFG!!!!!! never ever ever ever ever upgrade to mountain lion (more like a mountain of a fuck up!) if you've got a pre uni-body macbook pro! one would think that the toss pots at apple (rotten apple more like it since Steve departed) would warn you that the latest software won't work on your old machine. i've tried everything to make it work. i've tried EVERY thing on the forums to make it work but to no avail.  i've done it all: safe mode, verbose mode, command+S, boot in terminal to manage starup items etc etc... my mac was stuck in a boot loop and only once out of 1000 reboots it would boot and go to the desktop so that i could make a backup of the files - and then crash (f@#$ apple!!!!!!).

i then tried to erase and install leopard. but because i had mountain lion it wouldn't let me. F@#$K you Apple!!!!!!!! F@$#k You!!! luckily i had a - btw F@#$ YOU APPLE!!!!!!!!!! argh!!!! i'm so enraged right now i could strangle all those f@#$kers with their "we're so awesome because we're hipster f@#$king apple people"...  anyway i had a partition on my HD drive and the other partition was windows (because i'm a web developer/designer and need to check my work on windows - hence windows) so i could use the windows drive to do a fresh install of mac osx Leopard(respect!) that was a good Steve Jobs version with some quality control by someone that knows his stuff.

don't do it man!!! don't do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Logic Express & Mountain Lion (10.8.4)

if you're planning on upgrading to Mountain Lion and have Logic Express then be prepared to upgrade to Logic Pro because Express will not work on Mountain Lion. I'm also having display issues on my 2008 Macbook Pro since the upgrade along with boot loops and pixelated startup screen. i read on the support.apple that booting in 32bit mode might solve the problem. i finally logged in after many safe boot attempts and am now making backups before this thing craps itself. i'll let you know how the 32bit boot is going. on start hold down the 3 and 2 keys to boot in 32bit mode.

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EDIT:
32bit boot does not work (for me at least). just don't bother to load mountain lion if you're on a pre (uni-body) mid 2008 macbook pro.

Interactive Frequency Chart

cool tool for when you're not sure/forgot where to filter the EQ...
http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/main_display.htm

Logic EXPRESS - discontinued!!!???

thanks apple! thanks for giving us a discount to upgrade from logic express to logic pro... NOT! i can't believe they did this!!! i guess you could argue that it doesn't work like that because if i buy a mac and then a new mac comes out i shouldn't get a new one for cheaper because i already paid for the old one. but this is software and updates are free. if i update my r.a.m i don't expect that to be free because it's hardware... it's cowboy moves like this that makes me realise how much they simply don't give a damn about their clients. i wonder if cubase and sonar would do this? i think not!!

The Waves Black Friday sale

Woa! Waves are having a massive sale!!! Up to 80% off!!!! check it out

not sure if you've been reading my blog since the first post... if not, then see this post - my first actually - about the headphones that i own. mmm... no; that's half the truth! in the meantime i bought a pair of Sennheiser EH 250's to replace my HD 202's that broke during a recording session. anyway! back to the post!!

when i bought the AKG K601's i was disappointed because it simply didn't compare to my Sennheisers (HD 202's at the time) so i thought i'd have to buy a headphone amp to bring out their real potential.

WRONG!!!!!!!! they still sound thin :(

yesterday i finally bought a dedicated headphone amp (a Little Dot MK III) to drive the AKG K601 headphones. boy was i disappointed!  i have to admit they are louder. BUT - they still do not come close to the (fraction of the price) Sennheisers! i guess i'll "shtick" to "Zem" Sennnheiser headphones - JAWOHL!

ps: i still need to add those posts of how i've built the guitar, the house move with new studio layout, the Fender Mustang amp compared to software amps, Little Dot MK III headphone amp, all the new stuff i bought software/hardware etc etc... i'm very busy at the moment running my own web design/development company (chapter5 interactive) and contracting to other companies as Johan Pienaar, so i'll do it as soon as i get a moment ;) have a good one! LIFE IS SHORT! now there's a thought!!!! life is short... i don't know about you but i'm already one-quarter through my life (and you're probably too). Are you satisfied...?

software drum panning vs. drum panning on recordings

it sounds to that the panning in drum software like EZDrummer is by far wider than drumming that I hear on recordings. for example if you open EZDrummer > load any set > select a groove and press play. Or just click on random drums and cymbals... notice how wide they are panned?

now listen to this - notice how the toms, cymbals and sometimes even the room mics are all pretty much close to mono
"No One Loves Me & Neither Do I - Them Crooked Vultures"
"Hardened Sole - Firebird"
"Druganaut - Black Mountain" (this one have the hats on the left but everything else is very centre.)
"The Day I Tried To Live - Soundgarden"

happy new year!

if this is not an overdub then i need to know how they did it! i don't even think it's possible because wouldn't the guy's strings be muted by the girls chord changes?

mixdown for mastering tips

here's a really nice read: http://www.onlinemastering.dk/pdf/mixdown-for-mastering-tips.pdf
let me know if the link doesn't work anymore because they might take it off in the future and i'll email the document to you :)

tape hisssssssssssss

i was experimenting with some tape hiss to fill the black holes in my crystal clean digital recordings.
if you want some hiss - you can download it here: http://www.freesound.org/people/BoilingSand/sounds/49005/

in the market for a new Røde mic?

then check out this cool tool helping you decide which mic will be the best for the job at hand. and if you are a Røde member you can even download all the sound files.

Video Stroboscopy of the Vocal Cords

next time you record a beautiful vocal - this - is where it comes from...

reverb - one the most powerful tools

from the earliest recordings through to the 80's up to now. reverb is one of the most powerful tools you can use to craft/tweak/create your sound. here are a few articles on it (below). my favourite (that's how we spell it) bang for the buck reverb - Reflektor. i've got logic express so no space designer for me :(

a few basic reverb settings:
- drums: plate / rev time 1-2.5 sec / predelay 20-25 ms
- guitars: Small Room or plate / rev time 1-4 sec / predelay 15-50 ms
- vocals: small hall or plate / rev time 1.5-4 sec / predelay 20-70 ms

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Nov01/articles/advancedreverb2.asp

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul08/articles/reverb1.htm