Posts belonging to Category Reviews

Over the course of the last several decades, the Shure SM58 has become the de-facto standard vocal microphone for live performances. And for good reason: it’s built tough, reasonably priced, and generally sounds great on just about any voice. With a price tag of around $100, the SM58 may still seem out of the price range of some musicians, tempting them to look for other cheaper alternatives. But in the remainder of this article, I’ll attempt to persuade such frugal buyers to think twice before compromising, and why you should definitely buy the SM58 if you are able. (more…)

In my studio rack, I now have one dual-channel and three 8-channel rackmount mic preamps (for a total of 26 inputs) that I use for recording all of the vocals and instruments. One of the challenges to any session is remembering which mic is connected to which preamp. On more than one occasion, I’ve found myself twiddling a Gain knob to no avail, only to realize that I grabbed the wrong knob by mistake. So the thought occurred to me–wouldn’t it be nice if I could label each preamp channel somehow, so that I could easily see which one I was actually adjusting? (more…)

Originally released in 1976, the Shure SM7B has become the stuff of recording legend. It was the mic that was used to record the vocals on the best-selling album of all time: Michael Jackson’s Thriller. It’s still the preferred vocal mic in the studio for many famous Rock vocalists. You’d be hard-pressed to find a recording forum without dozens of threads about the SM7B, and how every engineer should own one. The demand for these mics is so great that you’ll pay almost as much for a used one as you would to buy a new one. (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…)

I’ve always been somewhat obsessive-compulsive when it comes to setting up my drums. When I get everything set just the way I like it, I want it to stay that way. And when I need to tear down and set up for a gig, it’s always been a challenge to get everything positioned just right. (more…)

The Behringer Ultramatch Pro SRC2496 is a Sample Rate & A/D/A Converter that allows you to transfer digital audio between devices with different sample rates, formats, or interfaces, and remove dropouts or jitter from digital media. The various digital outputs can be used simultaneously, allowing the unit to also serve as a digital signal splitter/patchbay. The SRC2496 also provides up to 24-bit/96 kHz A/D/A conversion, making it what could be the most affordable stereo A/D/A converter on the market. (more…)

For several years, I’ve had some Sennheiser e604’s that I’ve always used for recording the toms on drum kits. Lately though, I had been particularly unimpressed with how my tom tracks have sounded, so I decided to try out a pair of the much-loved-for-toms, CAD M179’s. I only bought two M179’s and set one mic between my two high toms (10″ & 12″) and the other between my two floor toms (14″ & 16″). I engaged the -20 db pad on the M179’s and set the pattern to hypercardioid to try and minimize bleed. (more…)

The Behritone C50A

For quite some time now, I’ve known about the merits of checking your mixes in mono to test for phase problems, and having some “grot boxes” (cheap, lo-fi speakers) to see what your mix will sound like on a less-than-stellar playback system. The idea behind the mono grot box is this: who cares if your mix sounds great on your studio monitors if it sounds like garbage on most listeners’ playback systems? (more…)

I recently bought a second drum kit to use for live gigs to save myself the trouble of constantly setting up and tearing down, and to reduce the wear and tear on my main kit. So I bought a second kit used, but the only catch was that it didn’t include a snare drum. So I set out on a quest to buy one.

I began scouring the Internet for snare drums and came across the Ddrum Shawn Drover “Heavy Hitter” model. (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…)