Archive for the ‘Recording’ Category
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
by Jon Goad
A couple of years ago, I read a book called “Guerrilla Home Recording: How to Get Great Sound from Any Studio”. A neat tip that I picked up from the book is to record the signals from both a DI box and a miked bass amp to different tracks. Then you can blend the two tracks together to get a different tone for different songs. You’ll get a very clean tone from the DI box (because it’s coming straight from the bass guitar’s pickups), and depending on how hard the amp is driven, you’ll get some grit and distortion, and more color from the miked amp. I’ve used this technique with some limited success. (more…)
Posted in Recording, Recording Tips, Signal Processing | No Comments »
Friday, July 30th, 2010
by Jon Goad
As the owner of a recording studio, one very common question that I’ve been asked is, “can I record a cover song and put it on my CD?” To which I’ve usually answered, “you can, but you have to get what is called a ‘mechanical license’, and it can be kind of a pain. If you’re serious about it, just go Google-search ‘mechanical license’”, to which most people respond with a “deer-in-the-headlights” kind of look. (more…)
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Thursday, June 24th, 2010
by Jon Goad
In this installment in my series of articles on Samplitude 11 Producer, we’ll cover one of the features that I use probably more often than any other: the Mixer window. I believe that the virtual Mixer is probably one of Samplitude’s strongest points. I’ve used some other DAW software in the past where all of the mixing controls were accessible from the equivalent of S11P’s Arrange window (the main user interface where most of the editing is also performed). This works okay, but for someone who’s accustomed to working with a real mixer, it takes some getting used to. On the other hand, S11P’s Mixer window is laid out almost identically to a real hardware mixer. The only difference is, if you don’t have enough mixer channels, you don’t have to buy a new mixer–you can just add channels with a mouse click (cool, huh). (more…)
Tags: daw software, samplitude, samplitude 11 producer, samplitude 11 producer review
Posted in Recording, Reviews, Signal Processing | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
by Jon Goad
In Part 1 of this series, we covered the evolution of Samplitude 11 Producer as a product. Here in Part 2, we’ll begin to cover some of the highlights of the software in detail. First, we’ll begin with the Arrange window. The Arrange window is where you see a visual overview of all of the tracks in your project, as well as one or more Wav files or MIDI passages on each track. It’s in the Arrange window that you can do things like zoom in on a track and perform delicate editing on a particular passage. Depending upon the zoom level, you also have common track functions available on each track–controls like Volume, Pan, Mute, Solo, and Record (to arm the track for recording). Also on each track, you will see one more “objects” that represent the Wav files or MIDI passages that have been recorded on that track. This brings us to one of the nicest features of S11P–object-based editing. (more…)
Tags: magix, samplitude, samplitude 11 producer, samplitude 11 producer review, samplitude producer
Posted in Recording, Reviews | No Comments »
Friday, June 4th, 2010
by Jon Goad
Samplitude 11 Producer is a Multitrack Recording Software Application, and is the latest version of what used to be called “Magix Music Studio Deluxe” and subsequently “Samplitude Music Studio”. Music Studio Deluxe started out as two separate programs–MIDI Studio and Audio Studio. Starting with version 12, they combined the MIDI recording functionality into the Audio Studio and renamed it “Samplitude Music Studio”. They kept this name up through version 15 here in the US. They also released a version 16 in Europe, but it was never released to the US market. (more…)
Tags: magix, samplitude, samplitude 11 producer, samplitude 11 producer review, samplitude producer
Posted in Recording, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Friday, May 21st, 2010
by Jon Goad
When discussing modern recording techniques, you can’t get far without someone bringing up the topic of compression. If you’ve seen a compressor in the mail-order music catalogs or online music store, but never understood what it was or why you might need it on your recordings, sit tight. (more…)
Posted in Live Sound, Recording, Recording Tips, Signal Processing | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
I recently rearranged the control room in my project studio so that I could add a second LCD monitor to my computer. Before adding that second monitor, I was using a desk with a shelf that would support both my computer monitor and my nearfield monitor speakers. But after adding the second monitor, the desk was no longer wide enough to hold all 4 (two computer monitors plus 2 monitor speakers). However, the desk was too wide to allow room on each side for monitor speaker stands, so I actually needed a smaller desk. (more…)
Posted in Recording, Reviews | 4 Comments »
Thursday, November 19th, 2009
by Jon Goad
It’s been my experience that many drummers both young and old have a real lack of knowledge when it comes to tuning their drums. A properly-tuned drumset will not only sound good, but it will also motivate the drummer to want to practice and play more. It’s kind of like the difference between driving a old beat-up clunker and racing around in a new sportscar. (more…)
Posted in Drums, Recording, Recording Tips | No Comments »
Friday, November 6th, 2009
by Jon Goad
When connecting a mixer to a digital audio interface or multi-track recorder, you normally connect the Direct Out jack of each mixer channel to a track’s input on the interface. For example, let’s say your kick drum mic is connected to channel 1 of the mixer. If you wanted to record the kick drum to track 1, you would connect the channel 1 Direct Out to the track 1 input of the interface. You would then connect the channel 2 Direct Out to the track 2 input of the interface, etc. Using the Direct Outs in such a way takes each channel’s signal post-fader and post-EQ and sends it straight to the recording device. This allows you to record that one instrument (and only that instrument) to its corresponding track on the recorder or in your DAW software.
But what if your mixer doesn’t come equipped with Direct Outs? (more…)
Posted in Recording, Recording Tips | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
by Jon Goad
When you’re ready to do any serious recording, the question inevitably arises: should I, or should I NOT use a click track? If you’re new to the term, a “click track” is a track that is played in a musician’s headphones while they are recording to help them keep in time. Because the drums help to form the foundation or backbone of a rhythm track, the click track is most commonly used when recording the drums.
(more…)
Posted in Drums, Recording, Recording Tips | No Comments »
