The Dreaded Upgrade...

So you might remember that I mentioned before that I planned on getting the Wizoo W2 Reverb plugin. Well, I've had it for some time now and have been using it and trying to form my opinion about it. But that's not what I'm writing about tonight.
That's just the back story to something every engineer faces here in the digital age...The Dreaded Computer Upgrade.
I was in the middle of a mix of one of my more ambitious tracks and was using a good number of plugins including my new Wizoo Reverb. I dialed in the setting I wanted which happened to use HDIR (High Definition Impulse Reverb); a very CPU intensive effect. And that was it. My computer had had it. Three times I tried to finish the mix and three times my computer made sure I knew it wasn't having any part of it. So you know what that means...Upgrade!
Yep. Upgrade has a positive connotation to it. You know, improvement and all. But as anyone who has been through an upgrade knows, it's usually a terribly painful process. Especially when building a machine for audio only use and of course, time is money!
My new gear came today. Got it from Newegg.com which is not my usual vendor, but they had the best price for what I wanted. Of course ProTools is pretty picky about what it will work with (although I must admit, there are many more choices now). I ended up getting an ASUS mobo (motherboard), the AV8-MX, a socket 939. Couple that with an AMD Athlon 64 spec'ed out to 3200+ with a 2GHZ front side bus. And finally a gig of Kingston RAM. Total $230 (including shipping). So not too bad.
I was nervous for days before the actual upgrade, thinking I'd spend days reinstalling software and troubleshooting hardware. But guess what. Everything was perfect. In fact, I didn't even reformat my hard drive, didn't reinstall my OS, didn't lose ANYTHING. All in all, from box to finish it took about 3 hours. Unprecedented.
I'm not analyzing. I'll just take what I can get.

Anyway, I'm about to buy some new equipment so I'm sure I'll be back to gear reviews soon.

Bruce Springsteen The Ghost of Tom Joad right now.

Rock On

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Mardo Rocks!

Just got back from seeing the band Mardo at the Grape Street Pub here in Philly. They were opening for VAST along with a few other bands including Kill The Alarm (formerly Granian) and Cross Culture. But Mardo was on another level. They were fantastic! It was the most fun I've had a rock show in a long, long time.
Musically, they are amazing and really so tight you won't believe it.
Check out their latest album The New Gun, out now. This is what rock and roll is all about. And the coolest guys you'll ever meet.
Buy there album...NOW!!

Right now I'm listening to Mardo's self-titled debut (on vinyl of course).

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Korg D888

Ok, so I'm breaking a rule of this blog. (this blog has rules?)
There have to be rules otherwise there is just chaos.
One rule I have is: "A clean studio is a happy studio."
But that's beside the point.
I usually review gear I own, but I just heard about a piece of gear that is so great (at least on paper) that I wanted to give it a short mention even though I don't own it.
I'm talking about the Korg D888. On the surface it looks just like any normal compact 8 channel mixer. But in reality it's the first mixer I know of that is designed like a normal live sound mixer but also has a built-in 40GB hard drive to record as well.
HALLELUJAH!!
No more lugging around an interface and a laptop and pulling signal from the insert points of a mixing board to record a live performance. It's all in this little box. Actually it works in much the same way as other stand alone DAWs but it is designed to specifically work transparently as a normal compact mixer in live situations. You just happen to have the ability to record 8 discrete tracks with the touch of a button.
Genius.
It goes on the street for about $700 so I'm not rushing out to buy it immediately, but hopefully before my next major live recording gig.
Check out www.korg.com for more details and read the review by Mike Metlay in the September issue of Recording Magazine. Again, I don't make any promises on this piece, but it sure sounds good to me.
Oh, and for those wondering, I checked the specs and it is recording pre fader so you don't just end up with your fader rides from that day.


Enjoying a nice Sunday evening listening to Leonard Bernstein conduct the New York Philharmonic doing Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 in D Major on vinyl. Part of an 8 record collection that I have in pristine condition. Sounds fantastic.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Fake Slide Guitar

Evening, Tweakheads

I want to talk about a fun little workaround for getting a slide guitar sound when you don't know anything about playing slide guitar. These instructions will give you a basis for getting those slide sounds on your next song. I don't promise anything revolutionary here; you won't sound like Elmore James, but it is just enough to get you that distinctive metal (or glass) on metal sound that cannot be replicated.
I consider myself a proficient guitarist, not great, but I can certainly hold my own in a few different styles. But I have never spent much time studying slide guitar method; kind of interesting seeing as I am a huge lover of the blues and the slide guitar masters. But I digress...
I learned this little trick from a guitarist named Josh Sinclair of the Iowa-based band Little Mojo while he was living at my house in the late '90s. An easy way to play slide guitar with little or no slide guitar knowledge is to simply tune your steel-string guitar to an open E major tuning. That is tune your strings (from low to high) E - B - E - G# - B - E. So really take your standard tuning and tune the A string up a whole step, the D string up a whole step, and the G string up a half step. Now when you play all the open strings it sounds like you are fingering an E major chord in first position.
Now grab your favorite slide tool (metal will give you a 'sharp, tinny' sound, glass a slightly more 'muted, warmer' tone, a beer bottle works quite nicely too and looks really cool) and put it across all the strings. Don't press down, when playing slide guitar you no longer need the frets (but they are a good visual guide). Wherever you put the slide you will be playing a major chord. So if you're at the third fret, you would be playing a G major, at the fifth it's an A major, and so on. You can strum like this or pick out individual notes like a solo or riff. Just do whatever sounds good to you. That's it, you're off and running.
I personally prefer to lay the guitar on my lap and play horizontally (think Ben Harper see image) but do whatever feels comfortable for you. The only caveat is that you can't really play minor, diminished, or augmented chords using this method. If you're strumming the chords in this manner and you get to a place with a minor chord, I would suggest that you mute or don't play the third of the chord (what would be the G string). That will take care of that problem.
This method will work with other open tunings as well. You could tune to an open A, open G, whatever you're comfortable with. Another note about technique: it's a good idea to mute the area just to the left of the slide on the fretboard (for right-handed players). This will give you a better tone as there won't be any string vibration behind the slide to cause sometimes unwelcome overtones.
So have at it and enjoy!

Right now I'm listening to George Szell and The Cleveland Orchestra doing Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8 In B Minor, (aka Unfinished Symphony). On the 'A' side is Felix Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 In A Major (aka Italian Symphony) another 'unfinished' work. Lucky for me, this record is in perfect condition and sounds wonderful. Two of the finest symphonies in existence. It's on vinyl and is a Columbia release. I don't think these two were ever paired on a CD release.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

AKG K-44 Headphones

Good evening gearheads

I was struggling to think of something good to write about today, then I realized the answer was sitting on my head. Headphones.
Every studio needs 'em. No one wants to think about them. They are included on the list of things that are absolutely necessary but certainly aren't exciting or even cool. They are just expected to be there and do their job.
Being a budget minded studio owner, I can't really afford to go for the default $100 phones that many pro studios have (Sony MDR-7506 [my personal fav] or AKG K 240 Studio [terrible leakage]). With a budget of $30 as the absolute max I can spend on cans, that really limits the quality possibilities. And as any experienced engineer can tell you, what the artist hears is detrimental to his/her performance. For years I used Sony MDR-V150 which can be had for as low as $15 if you know where to look. I own 5 of them. The problem with these is not that they are very present in the mid-range (I actually kind of like that), but that they are too small to really cover your whole ear. So extended wearing becomes uncomfortable. Luckily, I don't have too many sessions that last over 4 hours and I certainly am not wearing them the whole time. They also come apart quite often. Not beyond repair, but the adjustable part of the earpiece adjusts itself right off the unit sometimes. But I thought these were as good as I was going to do under that $30 price point.
Then I purchased something that came with free headphones, the AKG K-44. As soon as I put them on, I was blown away by how comfortable they are. The extra-large ear pieces are amazingly comfortable and the overall weight of the cans is so low that it barely feels like you're wearing them at all. A big improvement from the MDR-V150. But sadly there is only one other point that the K-44 excels in. They have a very clear and transparent sound. Very 'open'. This is great when listening to finished albums and such, but when listening to un-mixed, un-mastered audio while tracking, some of those hi frequencies easily distort. They also have a very 'uncontrolled' low-end. Not tight like the Sony's. The K-44 also leaks a good bit. So for those of you who love to listen loud while tracking, this may be a problem. Generally, it doesn't cause too much of an issue for me.
From an ergonomic perspective, in addition to the light weight and comfortable ear cups, they have a nice long attached cable that runs only from the left ear piece. So no cable dangling in front of the artist. It's very easy to throw it over your left shoulder and it's out of the way entirely (excellent for instrumentalists). And you never have to adjust them for size because they adjust automatically with an elastic band across the top.
All in all, a good set of headphones that retail for as low as $20. I'll probably be buying these as needed instead of the MDR-V150 simply for the comfort level.

Right now I'm sitting on my couch resting before a session tonight, listening to Jeff Buckley Live at Sin-e (Legacy Edition) on my iPod, through the AKG K-44. What an amazing talent, lost too soon.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Steinberg WaveLab

Hey there audioheads

Tonight let me give you a short bit about a wonderful application I use for everything audio short of multitrack recording (well, I guess I even use it for that sometimes).
Steinberg's WaveLab is labeled as mastering software but really it's so much more. I started using it back in 2000 when I was working at the Ground Hog Recording Studio. Walt Mecleary, the owner and chief engineer there, used it for mastering and also used it as the destination for his mixes coming from ProTools. He had his main ProTools system running on a Mac (I think a G4) and had some digital outs going into a PC running Windows XP. So instead of mixing in the box (ITB), we would do a real time mix into WaveLab. That was my first introduction to the program.
When I went off on my own, I got WaveLab 4.0 because it seemed easy to use when I worked at the Ground Hog; one of the main reasons being that any edits you make are instantaneous because it's only working with a temp file, not the actual file you think you're working on. Coming from SoundForge 4.5, that was a major step in the right direction. Plus the fact that there is a mastering section with up to 8 real time effects in a chain is awesome.
So I used it for mastering for the longest time. Then I discovered what a world of opportunity there is with this program all because of a little thing called Audio Montage.
Audio Montage is many things, but primarily its a way to create audio CDs while having total control of all aspects. It accomplishes this by working almost as a multitrack recorder/editor. You place a bunch of different audio files in your timeline either all on the same track, or on separate tracks, just like a multitrack editor.
I don't want to go nuts describing this to you, but you can move the files all around, mix them, cut them, fade them, add effects to a single audio clip, or all the clips via the master section, place markers, CD track markers, raise and lower volumes with one click, etc, etc. It just makes track sequencing and volume matching the simplest thing in the world. The way I use it for CD mastering is that I'll master each track individually, then place them in a montage in the order I want them, and place the track markers. Then I'll throw the Waves L1 Ultramaximizer on the master section (set at -0.3) and raise and lower the volumes of the tracks as I see fit to match levels. The L1 keeps me from clipping, so no worries there.
But I use Audio Montages much more frequently for editing, mixing, and mastering long dialog files all at the same time. So rather than importing 4 audio tracks into ProTools to edit and mix and then bouncing the mix down (in real time, mind you) and mastering in WaveLab, I simply import the files into an Audio Montage and use the volume envelopes to mix, add effects on each clip as needed, edit each clip as needed (simply using the volume envelope is a great way to reduce plosives), use my trusty combination of Waves plugins in the mastering section (RennEQ6, RennComp, L1), and I'm good to go. And when I'm finished, I don't have to bounce to disk in real time like ProTools, I just render it to a new file which (depending on the number of effects) takes significantly less time.
I haven't made the jump to WaveLab 5.0 yet as I don't have a need for surround capabilities yet. And if I've learned anything in the digital audio game, it's that you never upgrade just to upgrade. But I did purchase WaveLab Essentials which is a stripped down version with a few limitations, that I use on my laptop for remote work.

In short, I love WaveLab.

I'm listening to Sufjan Stevens Come On Feel the Illinoise. Great, trippy album. And don't let the pun of the title go over your head.

Another quick note, I'm listening in my bedroom right now where I have a set of old Soundesign speakers that I picked up at garage sale for $1 for the set. The reason I mention this is that for some reason they have RCA cables connected to them instead of normal speaker wire or other "normal" speaker connections. This is great because then I simply hook up a Y-cable adapter to go from RCA to 1/8" stereo and my iPod has enough volume to power them without a separate amplifier. Not that it's room shaking volume, but for about $4, I have a great sounding system in my bedroom running off my iPod.

Rock on.

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Vonage VoIP

Hey knuckleheads

Ok, so VoIP is not exactly a pro audio topic. But I can't resist chipping in my two sense.
I've been looking at and thinking about making the jump to VoIP for quite some time now. But every time I got close to doing it, I would read a bunch of reviews that said it was horrible and they had tons of problems. So I shied away, thinking I don't want to go through such a hassle.
Then the decision was all but made for me. My wife and I share a cell phone plan which doubles as my business line, but we also have a land line that is mostly used for incoming calls. Our cell phone bill is usually about $88/month for 850 anytime minutes and unlimited mobile to mobile and nights and weekends (Cingular). Our land line is with Verizon and is one step up from having nothing but a dial tone. It costs about $28/month if we don't make more than a few calls. Well apparently one of us, I won't say which one (my wife), made a bunch of calls and our bills ended up being over $200 and $50 respectively. That was it for me. Vonage here I come!
I had done a bunch of research trying to decide which VoIP to go with, but ultimately it came down to the fact that Best Buy had a Linksys Vonage router for $70 with a $100 mail in rebate and your first month free. So really, you make $30 on the deal. So I went with Vonage and hoped for the best.
So I open the box and it's the easiest thing in the world to hook up. Just plug the unit into your modem or router, plug a phone into the unit, and turn on the power. Then go to Vonage.com and register your new account. I chose the unlimited calling anywhere in the US, Canada, PR, and Europe for $25. To me, that's an unbelievable deal if it's true and it works. Remember how I said the first month is free? Well, almost. There's a $30 setup fee, so really the first month is not free and you have to pay some extra. But whatever. It's just annoying and I hope that isn't a bellwether of what kind of company Vonage is.
So I register online and set up the 911 feature (very important!). And I pick up the phone that I have connected and it works! That's it. It was super easy. I wanted to keep my same phone number so I requested that and was told (via email) that it would take 20 days from the time the request was made. Well, it really took only seven! How great is that? Prognosis: awesome. During that seven day period, I was kind of using that time like a trial to make sure the service works. So I left all the phones in my house connected to the Verizon service but had the phone in the studio connected to the Vonage adapter. Everything worked fine.
So once my number was switched over, the Verizon service was no longer active and I came to a crossroads. Another reason I had waited so long to go VoIP was that I don't have one of those multiple phone systems that only has one connection to the phone line with a bunch of satellite phones. I've got a cordless in the studio, a cordless in the living room, a wired in the kitchen and a wired in the bedroom. The last thing I wanted to do was drop a c-note on a new phone package. I just don't care about phones that much (the two wired phones cost a grand total of $7). And everything I had read online about hooking Vonage up to your current phone wiring sounded like rocket science. But I bit the bullet and decided I'd give the internal wiring a shot before spending the money. I did one more Google search about VoIP wiring and voila! I stumbled upon the Vonage explanation (which I couldn't find by just looking around their site, but I did when I searched for "wiring"). It looked do-able but still a pain. So I grabbed a philips-head, needle nose pliers, and a roll of electrical tape and set out to do some wire cutting. When I got to the phone box outside my house and actually read the directions closely, I realized that all I had to do was unplug the phone jack type plug in that box and that was it. So I did that, came inside and plugged the Linksys adapter into the nearest phone port (because they are all wired in parallel) and Bingo! it worked instantly. No wire cutting, no screw driving, no electrical taping. Just idiot-proof unplugging. Great. Fantastic. I did run into a big spider. But I don't think that was Vonage's fault. Well, maybe.
So that's my story. So far I've actually made money on the deal and I can now call anywhere, anytime, for no extra charge.
My vote: YES for Vonage.

Right now I'm taking a vinyl break and listening to one of the best albums of all time. Bruce Springsteen Born to Run. Sounds better on vinyl.

I'll get back to audio stuff next time. I've got that Wizoo W2 Reverb that I want to discuss after I use it a bit more.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com