This is a bold statement but recording, mixing and playing are about making bold and calculated moves. Inching our way to success. What is so fun about Smith Music's recording studio? Over the last year my entire mind set has shifted. This is the main reason I've been able to make the best possible studio experience for myself and translate that to my clients. I LOVE mixing now. My experience until the last few years has been one of mixes getting progressively ...
This is a pretty bold statement that doesn't come easily from me. Background When I started to get pretty good as a musician I went though a phase were I was super picky about everything. Instrument, string brand, cable length, Even building custom instruments to achieve perfection. As I achieved success I ditched all that pickiness insisting that 99% of my tone was the player. I played on absolute crap for a while. I continued working even when ...
After exploring Reaper and have it crash and burn 75% of the way through getting my template set up I decided to learn more about Logic(the Daw I've used for the last couple years after switching from cubase). Reaper has AWESOME import/export functions and it turns out that logic has pretty good ones but far more rudimentary then Reapers. Logic has handled my crazy routing though. I decided to take some time making my ultimate template for mixing and another one for tracking now ...
So I had sinus surgery just before Christmas and while I was recovering I decided to learn everything I could about reaper and see if it was a better daw then logic. A much better solution then watching T.V. and feeling miserable. What did I do to give it a fair shot? I watched a video course on line. I really was able to dig into every aspect of the program. What it can do. It can do everything that logic and cubase ...
One of the places I've struggled with recording and mixing is with room mics. If I had shame I'd say I've struggled to an embarrassing degree:-) With no formal training(not for lack of looking) and a decade and a half experience I've finally started to make some head way into the black art of room mics. My other blogs and threads will mark the headway in the battle. I'll start off by saying that I like my drum tones. I found ways around, and even not, needing room mics. This ...
I wrote a bog a while back about how encouraged I was with the iPad and its possibility to be used as a controller. I own them all. V-comtrol, touch OAC, and even Lemur. With the exception of Lemur none of them are stabe enough to depend on. For short periods of time they all work great. Often if you don't touch one for a few minutes it "goes to sleep" and losses lock with the program. To means you need to reboot booth the daw and the app. Not cool ...
I've been on a room treatment kick again lately. This has become my holy grail. I found what I thought was the perfect combination of cool idea and ease to build design and got to work. Here is the design I roughly followed. Primacoustic Acoustic Solutions I like the stackable idea primacoustics have with this gobo. I wanted to make something anyone can build and afford. I made 4 2x4 gobos in round one. Total cost $210.00 for 4 gobo's that ...
Updated 10-12-2012 at 06:13 AM by paul999
I have documented my gradual shift into embracing the digital world in probable painful detail but no one has said "shut up 999" so I'll continue:-) The plugin addiction begins I bought the waves MPX and NLS plugins. They convinced me that emulation technology can make great sounding plugs. Like the original no. Different yes. Better, sometimes. I can make such extreme harmonic distortion with these to plugs that it blows my mind. I can make more then ...
I had the good fortune to have some time on my hands and I've always wanted to a "head to head" plugin vs hardware shoot out. I own a bunch of API(and other hardware) gear including some API 550b eqs. The waves audio API collection is a well respected emulation of some API pieces. The 550b eq is the only direct comparison that I own. How I set it up I did a mix that was about 80-90% done. No automation or fixes etc. I used all my normal hardware on 24 channels ...
It is funny that the functionality of an $50 mouse only seems to get beaten by a $20,000 protools command station. I have tried a ton of controllers out trying to find something that comes close to the speed, straightforward workflow and functionality of a mouse. Over time I developed a great knowledge of key commands, and have a really good transport control on my Focusrite 2802 with a fantastic jog wheel. So why replace a mouse? ...
After using the ipad for about 4 months, 2 of which I did only a couple of mixes but did a few days of tracking, I do feel like I can evaluate this tool for recording engineers. * Cost I bought a new ipad 2 as the ipad 3 came out saving myself $100. * -ipad $419 -apps $125 -Wireless keyboard $70 -case $40 Total cost $654 This is about 1/2 the cost of a macbook laptop. *There are always extras that you ...
After my 3 month absense I am so happy to be back! Here is the beginning of my trials that kept me away. What it took to work myself to death and not only survive but thrive. In the music business we too often measure our success by how little sleep we get. *That may be fun for a short period of time but after a while it starts to change who you are and how you view the world(at least it does for me). * As I stated in a thread a while ago I knew I would ...
So I've been mixing ITB for the past few months and I am starting to notice some differences that may be attributable to analog summing vs Digital summing but there are too many variables to know for sure. I had been mixing fully analog for many months. I was running everything out through my convertors summing through hardware and my console and then recording 2 tracks back into my daw. A few months ago I set up my console so that each channel would be an input plug in on my daw and using my ...
Challenging project 1 I finished a strange gig. A local theater company needed a pianist to record a very complex score and then play the vocal lines on a separate track so I could make a mix for the production and a mix for them to learn vocal lines. It was a total of 55minutes of recorded music. Piano only. I needed to be able to record quickly so I thought that using a keyboard rather then micing my piano was the right thing to do. I hired a piano player and asked him to bring ...
For me it is well established that awesome mixes can done digitally and fully analog. As I wrote in my last blog I am now summing fully digitally but using a boat load of analog gear with in my system. What Happens to an Analog Guy ITB? What I am finding is that as I am working ITB more then I was for the last 6 months there are changes to my mixing. I am finding that my mixes are consistently harder fought. They take more time and I don't get a ...
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