Posts belonging to Category Signal Processing

I own an ART Pro MPA II mic preamp, which I really like. I most often use it for tracking vocals, in conjunction with my ART Pro VLA II compressor. I bought the Pro MPA II used, and ever since I’ve had it, it’s had a problem: when the unit was first powered on, the right VU meter would not light up. If it was left on for a while (usually a few hours), the light would usually eventually come on and stay on until I powered it off. This didn’t affect the performance of it as a mic preamp in any way, but it was annoying and looked bad when paying clients would come into the studio and my gear didn’t appear to be working correctly. That doesn’t exactly instill confidence in your customers. (more…)

One of my most popular blog posts has been The Stereo to Mono Summing Cable that No One Makes. I get contacted pretty much on a weekly basis from someone who wants to buy or build that cable to connect their iPod, phone, laptop, etc. to their PA system. I decided to take the concept a step further and build a balanced, line-level stereo to mono summing box. Just like the mono-summing cable, it appears that there aren’t any readily-available, off-the-shelf products that do exactly what this box does. There are some mic combiners (e.g., Galaxy Audio’s JIB/C) that are made for connecting two microphones to a single input, but those use much lower-value resistors, making them unsuitable for line-level signals (I even contacted Galaxy about the JIB/C, and that’s what they told me). (more…)

If you’re looking to expand the inputs and/or outputs of your recording interface, and that interface comes equipped with ADAT (also sometimes called “Lightpipe” or “Toslink”) inputs and outputs, look no further than the Behringer Ultragain ADA8000. The ADA8000 is an 8-channel Mic/Line preamp and A/D (Analog-to-Digital) converter. But as a bonus, it’s also an 8-channel D/A (Digital-to-Analog) converter. This comes in handy if you need additional analog outputs from your DAW, like maybe for mixing “out of the box” using an analog console, or if you need additional analog outputs for creating headphone mixes for multiple performers while tracking in the studio. (more…)

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…)

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…)

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…)

For the uninitiated, “plugins” are the software effects that can be plugged in to your DAW recording software to add various effects or virtual MIDI instruments to your recordings. (more…)