In One Ear and...

How Podcasts on iTunes Work

2011-08-11T20:18:00.002-04:00

A client of mine just asked me a question that I get often regarding podcasts on iTunes. Questions on this topic are frequent and there seems to be a general lack of understanding about how podcasts on iTunes work, so I thought I'd post my answer for others to read as well.

This explanation of how a podcast works with iTunes may help.

iTunes is simply a marketplace for people to find podcasts.

For a podcast to successfully show up in the iTunes store, a few things need to be in place:

1. The podcast file itself (in mp3 or other acceptable format)

2. JPG image that displays as the artwork on the page and on the playback device

3. XML file - which is essentially a file that contains programming that gives iTunes the information it needs to display the podcast info correctly and allow iTunes to know when a new podcast in a series is created

All of these things need to live on a server, somewhere on the internet. iTunes does not store any podcast files.

For a company to put all their podcasts under one account, they'll need to gather all the podcasts together and create an XML file that has the proper iTunes info pointing to the podcasts. Then that will need to be placed with the audio files on a server and that feed will need to be submitted to iTunes.

There is then a review process that takes between 1-7 days before it goes live.

This is a service I provide for my clients during the podcast creation process.

I think the key takeaway here is that all of these files are stored on a server somewhere that is NOT iTunes. iTunes does not store podcasts on their server. The iTunes store is just a good place to find podcasts.

Richard Dodd's Top 10 Recording Tips

2008-04-01T19:32:00.002-04:00

I'm not one to recycle copy, but I came across this blurb in the Mix Magazine email and thought it was too apropos not to share with all of you.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

RICHARD DODD'S TOP 10 RECORDING TIPS
Nashville-based engineer Richard Dodd, whose career credits include artists such as the Little River Band, George Harrison, Joan Baez, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sheryl Crow, and many more, says that in recording, "There are no rules, as long as no harm can come to man or gear."

Here, Dodd offers his personal Top 10 recording tips:

1. Do no harm, step back and make sure that you are not getting 'in the way’ of a good 'sound.'
2. Change, don’t 'tweak;' no one hears 'tweaks.'
3. If someone asks for the vocal up 0.2 dB, laugh as if it’s the funniest joke you’ve ever heard, burst out laughing later, too, and quote the joke. Repeat as needed.
4. Don’t use 'brickwall limiting' on your mix for any reason other than you like it. A good mastering engineer can make it louder/better than you can, but they can’t remove an inappropriate decision.
5. If in doubt, don’t.
6. If it’s 'right,' do it.
7. Be ready: The 'wrong' gear choice that is ready beats waiting past the 'best available performance window.'
8. Share your knowledge.
9. Keep something secret.
10. Stop when you aren’t having fun anymore.

For more on Richard Dodd, watch for Eddie Ciletti's "Tech's Files" column in Mix's May 2008 issue.

Great little multi-tracker

2008-03-30T15:43:00.002-04:00

Here's a great little multi-tracker for a little less than usual due to a factory misprint!

Artists In Their Own Words

2008-02-28T22:08:00.003-05:00

Hey all,
I know I haven't posted in a LONG time, but I promise to get back to reviewing gear and giving you some great free advice soon.
In the mean time, check out my new video blog at: www.artistsintheirownwords.blogspot.com

The videos are of me interviewing the artists that come through the studio, finding out about why they make their music. I find it very interesting, although I am a bit biased...

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

SpiralFrog.com

2007-08-24T00:23:00.000-04:00

Just a quick note about the cheapest LEGAL music downloading site out there right now.
It's well-known that I'm a faithful eMusic.com and LaLa.com user, but my latest resource is the not-yet-public SpiralFrog.com.
I think it's by invitation only at this point, but I've been checking it out for the last couple of days. User interface kinda sucks, it's definitely annoying to download albums because you have to sit there and initiate each download as it finishes, and there are many holes in their catalog, but...IT'S FREE!!
The company and the artist get paid through paid advertising on the site. That's why the interface makes sure you sit there and look at the screen during the downloads. An interesting concept, I wonder if it will remain vital. I doubt it, but maybe...
One more downside is that the downloaded files are WMA with Windows DRM protecting them. So for iPod users like me, you have to strip the DRM and convert to MP3 to make any use. Just a couple of extra steps, but worth noting.
Now you have to ask yourself, is it worth the time it takes to get these downloads for free or is your time more valuable?

Right now I'm listening to the excellently funky and beautiful Feist album,
Let It Die. Downloaded from SpiralFrog of course :-)

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Another Construction Update...

2007-07-18T22:25:00.000-04:00

Got some good work done on Tuesday with the help of Dennis Hancock Sr. and Larry Lavelle.
The drywall is up in the iso booth and most of the large live room.
Thumbs healing. Looks like I'll keep that bit. Won't be as impressive, but probably better overall...

Don't I look like I'm having fun?

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Ceilings are done!!

2007-07-13T23:52:00.000-04:00

Alright!!
The first layer of drywall for the ceilings is done! Thanks to Bob McCouch for helping me start and finish.

Only one problem...I nearly chopped my thumb off!
On the very last cut of the whole thing, the knife slipped off the rule and went through my thumb. One trip to the doctor later, and I may or may not lose that bit. But who really needs the inside quarter of their thumb anyway? Here's a picture of it the next day after it's all fixed up. Now I can truly say that I put my sweat and BLOOD into this project!

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Studio Construction Update

2007-07-11T12:43:00.000-04:00

Still Under Construction...

2007-07-06T20:18:00.000-04:00

Here we are in the middle of July and we're still under construction. But I'm done waiting for contractors, woo hoo!!
Now it's all up to me. Drywall, drywall, drywall.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

If It Ain't Broke...Audio Recording and Windows Vista

2007-06-11T07:57:00.000-04:00

Hola y escuchame

I do a fair amount of remote work (recording and editing). You know, live concerts and such, and recently working with Dr. Pat Carrington (author of books like The Book of Meditation: The Complete Guide to Modern Meditation) on some of her EFT Meditation audio products. So I need a laptop that ALWAYS works and works well without glitches. I don't need a top of the line machine, just something that can record 4 tracks simultaneous (I usually use Cubase for this) without problems and something to run Wavelab for editing sessions. So I've been getting by with a used Dell with a P3 (that's right, less than a gig of processing power). And that's been fine. But during a recent concert recording, it started giving me troubles and then shortly thereafter the power cable started disconnecting randomly and I decided I needed a new laptop, pronto.
I checked around briefly and found a good price on a Toshiba Satellite A135-S2386 with an Intel Dual-Core processor and everything else I need (sans firewire, but let's not get greedy) for only $479. Problem: Windows Vista.

But really, I didn't see one laptop during my succinct search that was running XP, so Vista it is. I'd heard horror stories already about it but I figured it looks kinda like Mac OSX so how bad can it be? The answer: BAD.
I started up my new workstation and it dragged and dragged. Every time I clicked on something I got multiple boxes popping up asking if I really wanted to do that (even just running a program!) and God knows what was running in the background that I couldn't see! Not to mention that most of my audio hardware is not yet compatible with Vista.

So after a short affair with the "latest and greatest" from Microsoft, it was back to Windows XP for me. It was a pain getting the correct drivers for everything, but an evening of frustration is better than a year of anger working on a Vista laptop.

My suggestion to anyone thinking about upgrading just to get the newest thing: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I've been very happy with XP since I started using it about 5 years ago. Until my hardware requires it, I'm staying right where I am. Sorry Mr. Gates.

Studio construction is halted right now while I wait for the electrician to come in. I found a great guy to do the work, Terry Conrad of TL Conrad Electric, but these electrician types are BUSY! So I've just been doing what I can with running my audio cables between rooms and strengthening the frame-work. I may even get to putting a new exterior door in this week...stay tuned.

Right now I'm listening to a great album, Badly Drawn Boy The Hour of Bewilderbeast. Great melodies and great DIY production.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Framing is Finished

2007-05-04T13:42:00.000-04:00

Nobody Frames Like The Amish!

2007-05-02T18:31:00.000-04:00

Today was the first 'official' day of construction on Bobby Bender Studios V.
I contracted an Amish carpentry team to do the framing because, let's face it, the Amish do this right. Check out the video tour of the work completed on the first day:

They should finish tomorrow, then some finishing HVAC work scheduled for next week and some electrical installation. Then on to drywall!

Rock on!

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

MB Puncher Free VST Plugin

2007-04-07T12:52:00.000-04:00

Hey there gear junkies

Got another suggestion of a great free VST plugin for ya.
The MB Puncher is a compressor type plug with the typical controls, input, threshold, release, and output, but it behaves differently than others I have used. It's kind of hard to explain except that it does just what its name suggests, it makes the input "punch" through your mix.
I've taken to using it on drums that just don't seem to make as much of an impact in the mix as I want. I create a stereo buss for the drums (something I almost always do anyway) and throw the Puncher on it. Almost instantly the snare and kick bite right through the mix to give that bang that was needed.
Such a simple and easy plug to use and free (which is always good).
Get it here: http://www.kvraudio.com/get/2250.html

Studio construction update: Slow going. I was hoping this would be quick and exciting, but instead it's taking forever. I've got the water pipes covered with a mass loaded vinyl to cut down on noise from there, and I had heat/AC installed (thank God!). Next is framing which should be finished this month. Then electric...Stay tuned.

Listening to Naci Griffith's The Dust Bowl Symphony. Nice and quite for while my baby takes a nap...

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

W1 Limiter Free VST Plugin

2007-02-24T15:41:00.000-05:00

Howdy huksters

I know, I know. It's been ages since I last posted. But I've been busy actually MAKING MUSIC! Imagine that. Making music instead of talking about it. What a novel idea. That plus taking care of a new baby and getting everything together to start the new studio construction.

But I wanted to take some time out to talk about a free VST plugin that I've been using for some time now and am very pleased with. Most free plugins are worth what you paid for them (that's nothing for those of you who don't quite get the allusion), but there are some out there that are worth their weight in gold. The W1 Limiter is one of the good guys.
I use the Waves L1 Ultramaximizer with nearly every mastering project I find myself working on because of its ease of use and utter transparency of sound. I won't even upgrade to the L2, L3, or the new L3-16 whatever it is, simply because they make it too complicated. All I want is a brickwall limiter that won't color my sound. So the L1 is great for that.
But I sometimes have to work remotely on projects (I ended up mastering 5 episodes of B. Original while on vacation in Hilton Head, SC last year) and work from an ill-equipt laptop. I run WaveLab Essentials from that machine (a stripped down version of Wavelab) but don't want to purchase another copy of the amazingly expensive Waves plugs just for these rare occasions. So I use the W1 and it does just what it says it will. It's got fewer options than the L1 (just dithering mostly), but works in the same manner with the same results.
So give it a go and if you like it, drop some cash to George Yohng for his kindness in making a great VST plug available for free. Thanks George!

Right now I'm listening to John Prine Pink Cadillac with the click clack of my daughter's swing in the background as she takes an afternoon nap.

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Pizza Hut Rap Song

2007-01-26T16:47:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite things to do is write and record ridiculous songs with my friends.
I recently completed the newest edition to this list that includes "The Fred Song" about the former UNH strength coach Fred Domowitz, "U Can't See Me" which is a battle rap between myself and CJ "Chesta the Molesta" Parsons, "Puzzo Road (Thunder Puzzo)" which is essentially Springsteen's "Thunder Road" with almost all of the nouns replaced by "Puzzo."
"The Pizza Slut" is the most innovative yet and includes break-neck production (by me) and intense lyrical delivery by Benny B (me) and Steff "Screwcap" Kelsey.
"The Pizza Slut" is an ode to our love of the Pizza Hut Lunch Buffet. You see, back in my college days at the University of New Hampshire, I was a javelin thrower on the track team (see my profile). Steff was also a javelin thrower and had a mutual respect for PHLB as we like to call it. So every Friday, we would both go to either the Dover or Newington Pizza Hut and just get wrecked on pizza before track practice.
But the PHLB is about more than just pizza. It came to define us a students, as javelin throwers, as friends, and really, as men. Listen to the song and you will understand.
Hear it at www.myspace.com/javboyrecords and hey, while you're there add me to your friends.
Good day and happy Lunch Buffet

Click Play - The Pizza Slut

Right now I'm listening to Paul Simon's self-titled album. One of my favs.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

New Studio Design

2007-01-15T16:18:00.000-05:00

Salutations Soundmen (and women)

Big news!
After working in my new space, Bobby Bender Studios V, for about a month now it's become painfully obvious that my plan of starting construction on a 'real' studio in a couple of years is no longer feasible. It has to happen now!
Really exciting.
I've been conversing with the very helpful folks over at www.johnlsayers.com and getting some design ideas and have setttled on a design by Glenn (gullfo). Thanks Glenn!

Now I'm just waiting on the recording studio construction book that everyone suggests when building a studio, Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros by Rod Gervais.
I've got a thread over at johnlsayers.com and will be posting a construction picture diary.
Yeah!

Right now I'm listening to The Allman Brothers Band An Evening With The Allman Brothers Band

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

DIY Gobos

2007-01-05T22:06:00.000-05:00

Aloha Audiophiles

Ok, it's been over a month since my last post. But in the mean time I moved my home (and studio) and had a baby in the midst of the holiday season, SO GIVE ME A BREAK!
Not that my email box was full of faithful readers begging for more of my musings...

Let me tell you about a little project I did last week. I just moved into a new studio space and the new place is like 6 times bigger than the old one. Like Bobby Bender Studios IV, BBS V is a basement facility that is basically concrete and cinder block construction. In IV I remedied the inherent sound problems caused by such construction by covering all the surfaces with deflectors and absorbers, but because the new space is so much bigger, there's really no way to do that without dropping a bunch of cash. My solution was to get some gobos to give me the effect of having a moveable booth. But rather than break the bank for some store-bought barriers, I built them myself as is my nature.

What I did was go to Home Depot and get three sheets of plywood (5/8") and some castors. Couple that with the 2x4's I already had, plus the ugly window treatments my wife pulled off the windows of our new house and that's all I needed. I cut the plywood sheets down to about 47" x 70" just so I could fit them in my car (yep, I got three of those to fit in the Vibe!).
Here's what I did:

#1: Lay the plywood flat on the floor
#2: Use a heavy duty staple gun to staple the curtains (and I threw in some carpet padding for good measure) to the plywood
#3: The 2x4's will be the 'feet' of the barrier, so cut these down to the appropriate size. This will vary depending on how tall your plywood sheets are. I tried everything from 4" to 18" and I think 10" worked the best for my 70" sheets. You also may want to cut one end at an angle so to give you better support. You want four feet for each sheet.
#4: Attach some castors (wheels) to the 2x4's. Put them on the end that will be furthest from the plywood to give you better stability. I used 2" castors.
#5: Attach the 2x4 feet to the plywood and VOILA! you're done!

Try different dimensions and materials to suit your needs. This effectively reduced the flutter reflections in my new space and gives me something to work with until I get the 'real' studio built.

Right now I'm sitting with my in-laws and my wife and new baby as they watch Law & Order. What a rockin Friday night!! Woo hoo!

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

The End of Bobby Bender

2006-12-01T22:36:00.000-05:00

It's official. Bobby Bender Studios 4 is no more. I just finished shutting and tearing her down a couple of hours ago.
It made me pretty sad, actually. Although this was the fourth iteration of Bobby Bender Studios, it was the first where it was a 'real' studio. A dedicated and treated space that was all my own.
I did a lot of work down there and made a lot of music that I'm very proud of.
So "Goodbye Bobby Bender 4. Thanks for the memories"

Stay tuned...Bobby Bender Studios 5 coming very soon!!

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

More beat fixing techniques

2006-11-29T20:48:00.000-05:00

Hello all you rhythmically challenged folks

Another Beat Detective alternative today. Can you tell I've been working with nothing but drums for the last few days? It's all for Larry Lavelle's project, Level on the Line, that should be finished in the coming months.
Today I was working on a song were I am replacing some simple fake drums with some simple real drums with nearly the exact same pattern. (Larry, if you're reading this, the song in question is "Up To The Sky"). So instead of wasting countless hours using Beat Detective to make all my mistimed hits sound right, after recording a few takes to get my best performance, I simply listened to the track I recorded and the programmed fake drums at the same time and adjusted the offending hits when I heard them. Turns out I'm a better drummer than I thought :-)
This whole process took just an hour and a half, far less time than the arduous process of fixing every single hit in Beat Detective.

On another note, I released a new album today. Get it here: www.javboyrecords.com/home.htm

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Beat Detective - a short cut

2006-11-28T00:02:00.000-05:00

Hey there slicers and dicers

I am not a drummer.
That being said, I do a lot of drumming. This happens mainly because I'm an independent producer who works with artists (and on my own projects) with miniscule budgets so hiring a session drummer is usually out of the question.
What this means is that I spend a fair amount of time working with Beat Detective in ProTools LE. I haven't yet made the move to the Music Production Toolkit (upgrades you to 48 audio tracks and multi-track Beat Detective among other things), so I have to be creative when using Beat Detective across multiple drum tracks. When I record drums I'll have anywhere from 3 to 10 tracks, so keeping everything together using the lite version of BD is a process and I tend to use the method described by Shan on the DUC (see post here: Beat Detective Workaround).
But right now I'm working on a project with Larry Lavelle (Level on the Line, Larry's first album will be done soon! Check Javboy Records for updates) and the drum parts required are a bit more complex than I usually play. This is fine, but Beat Detective doesn't really like complex beat patterns.
Necessity is the mother of invention, right? So to simplify things a bit I started using BD in a new manner. Instead of cutting up and syncing each hit (all the way down to 64th notes), I tried just chopping at the quarter notes (sometimes half notes) and moving those into place and leaving the in-between hits alone. They tend to fall into place, I mean how far off can you really be on a 64th note? This method takes less time and maintains that real drummer feel.
So just use Shan's method, but don't cut the beat up so minutely. Just get your main beats.
Simple, effective, brilliant. Ok, maybe not brilliant, but give me a break!

I'm moving the studio this week. Pretty exciting! Then construction can begin!!
My new album is coming out this week too. Check it out Javboy Records

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

The Recording Process (Formation of a Song)

2006-11-08T11:58:00.000-05:00

I received an email yesterday that reminded me of why I wrote the following article. So often people have no idea of what it takes to make a record or a song and it just makes the whole proces difficult for all parties involved because of unreal expectations.
The following is an article I wrote last year to help combat such problems.

Formation of a Song

By Ben Blakesley

As industry insiders, we sometimes forget that when discussing the recording process, the rest of the world really has no idea what we are talking about. Hopefully this will provide an explanation of the song formation process in layman’s terms so that there may be less disconnect between the professional and the consumer.

As with any creative process, there is no absolute hard and fast procedure that must be followed stringently, but there is a logical development that all recordings must go through, which includes:

Composition

Arrangement

Recording

Editing

Mixing

Mastering

That being said, this is an explanation of that general process and what takes place during each of these steps.

Composition

Composition is really where a song or piece is born. Preceding this step may be brainstorming and idea formation, but the song actually begins to take a real form and become an entity in itself during this stage.

This is what separates ideas and melodies floating around in the air from actual well-formed songs. There isn’t a whole lot to be said concerning Composition, other than it consists of forming a melody (and often basic accompaniment) that flows chronologically from a start to a finish. Lyrics (if applicable) will also likely be written at this time.

Arrangement

Arranging is taking the Composition that has been created and determining what instruments will be used for the recording, writing the parts that those instruments will play, and the tempo (speed, beats per minute) that the song will be played in.

To best illustrate this point, think of the song “What a Wonderful World.” The most famous version of this song is arguably the one sung by the great Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong. Compare this to the Ramones version of the same song. Both are based on the same Composition, but with entirely different results based on the fact that they are Arranged differently using very contrasting instrumentation and are at vastly different tempos. (You can use any number of examples to illustrate this principle; “Yesterday”, “Happy Birthday”, etc.). Arrangement, as with Composition, may range anywhere from informally assigning parts to instruments to drafting the parts using musical notation, all dependent on the preferences of the arranger and the formality of the project.

Recording

Now we start to get a little more technical.

The term Recording is often used to refer to this and the following three steps as a whole, but for simplicity’s sake, the term Recording is used here to mean “putting performances to tape” (or as is the case now, a digital format). This is also referred to as Tracking, Cutting Tracks, etc.

Recording Studios have long been somewhat of a mystery to industry outsiders, but basically what takes place during Recording is microphones and various (expensive) sound altering equipment are used to capture a sound being produced in an acoustically tuned room or environment and storing that sound information onto some sort of media (be it magnetic tape, a computer hard drive, or, in the old days, acetate discs).

Generally, a process called Multi-Tracking is used for commercial recordings in which each microphone (and hence, each sound, be it vocals, guitar, or cello) is printed discretely to the storage media to be manipulated at a later time.

To simplify it a bit, the ‘normal’ stereo recording that a consumer would hear is comprised of two tracks or channels, the Right and the Left. During the Recording or Multi-Tracking stage, there are virtually innumerable quantities of tracks or channels that can each be controlled separately from the other tracks. For instance if you have recorded a vocal part on one track and a guitar part on another, because they were recorded discretely in a Multi-Track setting, the volume of the vocals can be increased or decreased without affecting the sound or volume of the guitar track whatsoever.

In a typical session, what you would be left with after completing the Recording stage is any number of discrete tracks each containing an instrument. An example of a track listing for a rock song might be:

Track 1: Kick Drum

Track 2: Snare Drum

Track 3: High Tom

Track 4: Low Tom

Track 5: Overhead Left

Track 6: Overhead Right

Track 7: Bass Guitar

Track 8: Electric Guitar

Track 9: Acoustic Guitar

Track 10: Keyboard Left

Track 11: Keyboard Right

Track 12: Lead Vocals

Track 13: Background Vocals

Meaning that each of these tracks had a microphone assigned to it for the specific purpose of recording the desired source. (Notice that tracks 1-6 are for various parts of a typical drum set).

Also (not to complicate things further, but…) these instruments need not be recorded at the same time. The bass guitar player could record his/her part on Thursday, and the vocalist might lay down tracks a week later. Basically, because they are on separate tracks, the musicians do not have to be playing at the same time or even in the same place to create a finished product that sounds like they were looking right at each other. This also enables a multi-instrumentalist to record all the instruments themselves and create their own ‘virtual’ band where they are the only member.

Editing

Had this exercise been written 15 years ago, I would not have included Editing as its own section as it generally takes place during Recording and Mixing on an ‘as needed’ basis. But with the evolution and general industry acceptance of digital and non-linear recording formats, Editing has become a much more important and functional stage in the creation of a musical work.

Simply put, Editing consists of changing the original recording by way of altering the timing, pitch, or speed of an individual track, or tracks to change the performance. One such common practice is referred to as “comping.” Comping is the idea of recording multiple takes of one instrument with the intent of compiling all of the takes into one cohesive take for the purpose of eliminating errors or creating a ‘perfect’ take.

For instance, a vocalist may sing the same part over and over again making mistakes in different parts on each take. Rather than continuing to search for a complete perfect take, or settling for the best take and having to live with the mistakes, the recording engineer (the guy turning all the knobs J) will choose the best take and then after identifying each mistake within that take, pull the line, phrase, word, or even syllable from another take where the mistake did not occur and paste that into the correct spot on the best take essentially eliminating the mistake and making it sound like it was performed and recorded without it.

Digitally, this process is simple and can be completed with just a couple of mouse clicks. Using analog tape, it becomes much more cumbersome and requires a series of meticulous tasks to record to a third track while muting and un-muting the source tracks, or pulling out the old razor blade and slicing away.

This is just one example of the use and purpose of Editing. To go into the virtually infinite uses would be long and redundant as the editing limits in the digital domain are nearly limitless.

Mixing

The Mixing stage is necessitated by the differences in the format that is used in the Recording stage and the format that the end consumer is able to use. If you recall, when we finished the Recording stage, we were left with (for example) 13 different tracks, each with it’s own instrument. Each of these tracks by now has been edited to contain the best possible performance during the Editing stage, but they are still individual tracks and not one cohesive song that a consumer can pop in the CD player. For argument’s sake, we will only discuss Mixing down to stereo and not touch upon surround sound, 5.1, 7.1, 9.1, or any other format as stereo is currently the most generally accepted format (for now…). Mixing is the process of taking all of these individual tracks (in our example, 13) and by way of using sound altering effects, changing volumes, and manipulating perceived position Left and Right (panning), creating a stereo (two track) recording. Think of it in terms of a funnel. The individual tracks are the wide end, and they must be brought together to form two tracks (the narrow end).

Again, we will not go into the intricacies of Mixing in practice, but in order for all of the tracks to sound good together (play nice kids…), they must be twisted, manipulated, affected, squashed, and combed so that they sound just right and like they are all playing together in one space just for the listener instead of all separately and in padded booths like they actually were.

Once this is accomplished, we are left with a stereo (two track) recording with all the instruments sounding great together and the song is nearly finished.

Mastering

This is the final and most often overlooked step in the song creation process. In fact, if you were to ask a group of musicians what mastering is, chances are a good portion would not be able to tell you what it is and why it is so important.

Essentially, Mastering is preparing the final stereo recording for commercial consumption by pumping it up to a usable volume and making sure that the song will sound good on any sound system it plays on, from a home theater system that costs thousands of dollars, to your little tiny, terrible laptop speakers.

Mastering is most important if you have multiple songs and are creating an album or if you are preparing your recording for commercial release. This is because when the Mixing stage is complete, the stereo recordings you are left with were mixed to sound good on the speakers that they were mixed on regardless of how that sound translates to other spaces and speakers. Also, in the case of making an album, you don’t want Song #1 to be a whole lot louder than Song #2 or even Song #15. Have you ever listened to a CD where you were constantly adjusting the volume just to maintain a consistent pleasant playback level? This is a CD that has not been mastered (or was mastered poorly). The same applies for making the songs sound like they belong together in that you don’t want one song to sound ‘tinny’ (a.k.a. too much high end equalization) and another ‘boomy’ (a.k.a. too much low end).

So that explains why Mastering is important for album, but what about commercial releases? Imagine if your un-mastered song were on the radio between two wonderfully mastered songs. You would get swallowed up. Your song may be too quiet, or have too much low end and basically just sound unprofessional by comparison.

As mentioned before, Mastering will also make sure the final product sounds good no matter where it is played or what system it is played on. When making a presentation of your final product to a client, record label, or even friend, you don’t want to say, “Sorry, I can only play this through Yamaha NS-10 speakers.” And you certainly don’t want to be taken by surprise and find out that it sounds bad everywhere but in the studio.

So there you have it. The real deal on how a song is created from Composition to Mastering and now the final product. No more mystery and technical jargon. So now that the cat is out of the bag, everyone can do it all on his/her own right? Wrong. Just knowing an automobile works on an internal combustion engine doesn’t mean you can start building your own cars. Audio professionals have spent years learning what to listen for and how to make things sound ‘right.’ Not information that can be gained in a four-page discourse. Contact your local audio professional to get your project started, but at least now, you’ll know what you’re in for.

THE END

Right now I'm listening to an Arlo Guthrie bootleg from 1966 in preparation to go hear Arlo at WXPN's Free At Noon concert this Friday with Lavjaveler Productions owner, Steff Kelsey.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

DiskFaktory

2006-11-06T21:55:00.000-05:00

Hey there creative kids

Being a small studio, most of the projects that I work on end up getting duplicated (not replicated; there is a difference) in the end for small runs of CDs, usually between 100-300 copies. This being the case, I've done a lot of searching and trying and comparing to find the best quality at the best price for this sort of service. Allow me to share my findings with you.
Easily the number one company in my book is DiskFaktory.com. You may have seen them if you've ever visited the Guitar Center website or MusiciansFriend.com as they are partnered with them. Now let me get this straight, they're not number one because they have great customer service. I have needed customer service on numerous occasions as almost every project comes down to the wire and needs some special attention to make the deadline. I have never been able to talk to someone on the phone, but have had a more than a few live chat sessions with reps to work out an issue. Most of the time they were not helpful and said something to the effect of "That's not my department, let me transfer you."
But they are #1 because of their prices, quality of their work, and the ease of getting set up. They offer a few different short run packages that give you different artwork options. That being said, they are totally inflexible with the packages, which I assume is due to automation of the process. But the automation of the process is what makes it so easy to get the project going. Amazingly, this is the only duplicator I've used that has a way for you to upload your artwork and see what it will look like immediately. It seems like such a simple idea, I don't know why other companies don't do it. So I usually upload my artwork and mail a master audio CD. You can also upload wav files (which I have done and takes forever!) or upload mp3 (which I had to resort to once and it honestly turned out pretty well all things considered).
So check them out for your next short run of CDs.
Another company that I have used and like is ESP. They had great quality and customer service (thanks Deb!). Their prices were ok but not for anything under 300 copies.

Right now I'm finishing up a project that will be an even shorter run of 50 copies so I'm talking to a few companies about it now. It's for my own EP You and Me, which will be out by mid-December. I'll post my final choice and the verdict after that all goes down.

Listening to Calexico Garden Ruin right now.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Info Product Blueprint

2006-10-25T22:54:00.000-04:00

Hey there movers and shakers

A slight departure from the norm for today. I want to tell you about the Info Product Blueprint. It's an information product by Ken McArthur and essentially what it does is it takes all the experience Ken has as a successful internet marketer and gives you a step by step process for developing, creating, marketing, and selling a product on the internet. It's pretty great. I know this because Ken tapped me to work on it with him. Now I'm no internet marketer (although I did have a marketing concentration with my business major in college), I was simply editing and mastering audio for the project. But now that it's finished and 'out there' I've already started working through the package myself and am developing a product of my own. Anyone with any ambition can use this package to successfully create, market, and sell a product on the internet.
It's got me pretty excited because it takes the guess work out of it. It tells you exactly what you need to do to run a successful launch. So if you've ever thought about selling something on the internet, get Info Product Blueprint.

Right now I'm listening to Jeffrey Foucault Ghost Repeater. It's pretty good, but if you've never heard Jeffrey Foucault, get Miles From The Lightning. That album is beautiful.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Lexicon Omega

2006-10-18T16:39:00.000-04:00

Howdy Humbuckers

While I'm on the topic of giving bad reviews...Let me revisit the Lexicon Omega again. If you will recall, I purchased this to up the ante on my remote recording rig so that I could record 4 tracks simultaneously to my laptop for live records and such. My experience with the Omega has only gotten worse and I find something distasteful about it every time I use it.
Right now my biggest complaint is the noise floor. To put it bluntly, it sucks. Every recording I do with it has some kind of hum or buzz lying underneath that I have to use a denoiser to remove. I'm currently recording some teleseminars for internet marketing big-wig Ken McArthur and as if telephone recordings weren't bad enough, the Omega adds its own noise to make it worse.
So add that to the unusable hum this unit gives with phantom power engaged, and it's a pretty frustrating piece of gear. Which is too bad because if everything worked correctly, it would be a nice unit. Drop it to 2 stars out of 5.

Right now I'm listening to the sounds of the world through an open window on an unseasonably warm Philadelphia day. But soon I'll probably hear the sounds of my wife snoring while taking a nap next to me ;-)

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Audix D6 Kick Drum Mic

2006-10-15T22:07:00.000-04:00

Hey there kick drum thumpers

(Note: After you read this negative post, read on for the addendum added a year later...)

Something I've noticed with reviews on the internet (and in the media, etc.) is that the reviews are usually favorable. I realize that I am not exempt from this as the reviews I've put on here have all been good for the most part. I think sometimes it has to do with purchase validation and in the cases of paid advertising, it's good business not to piss off your customers. But I have no problem writing about a product that I own and falls short of expectations. That is this post in a nutshell.
I'm talking about the Audix D6 Kick Drum Microphone. I've had this piece since June (so about 4 months now) and I've used it numerous times because I'm convinced that I just haven't used it right or something. But now I'm willing to read the writing on the wall. This mic sucks. It's touted as an excellent kick drum micing solution and I've heard nothing but good things about it which is why I tried so hard for so long to like the sound it was giving me. But it's really been nothing but a headache.
The first time I used it, I used only the D6 to mic the kick (inside the shell, no outer head, pointed towards the beater, about three inches away) only to end up having to EQ the hell out of it to get anything but mush. And of course you can't salvage a good sound from mush if you EQ all day so I just ended up with a dull kick. Dull really is the best word to describe it. The mic has no high end response and the low end is just mushy and undefined. I thought that maybe this was just the sound of my kick, so I tried the D6 on a bunch of other things too including a guitar amp, figuring that if the highs don't come through there, they won't come through on anything. Again mush. Bummer.
Maybe I have a defective one. But I doubt it. Maybe I'm just used to the fantastically crisp sound of the AKG D112 (which incidentally costs the same as the D6, about $200). Now I guess I'll try craigslist or ebay and try and trade it for a D112 which I know sounds great. Just another reason to never try new things.
So Audix D6? 0 out of 5 stars. That's right, zero. It has no redeeming qualities in my book.
Alright, that's not true. It seems to be made well. Quality metal casing, cool look, nice adjustable clip. But that don't mean squat if it sounds like crap, and it does.
If you want a more technical description of what it sounds like, email me at ben@javboyrecords.com
I'm too annoyed with it to go into any detail right now.

Listening to a Ray LaMontagne bootleg, 2005-05-05 Queens Hall, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Rock on (but not with the D6).

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Addendum added December 4, 2007:
I hadn't thought of this post for a long time, but I just received a comment from a reader about it so I thought I had better update what was written.
The Audix D6 is NOT a terrible mic. Apparently it's just terrible on ME. All of the test I did with it before writing the above post were on projects where I was playing the instruments. Since then, I've used it on other people's kick drums and bass cabs to much better success. I still end up EQing a good bit of low mids out of the kick, but it does sound much better than my previous uses. I should mention I also started using it further away from the beater; just barely inside the shell.
I think I wrote in another post somewhere that I did have better luck with the D6 on people who have a heavy kick foot (mine is pretty light), so that may be part of the difference.
So I hope that sets the record straight. D6 gets 3.5 out of 5 stars. (it's still no D112...)

FXpansion VST to RTAS Adapter

2006-10-07T16:08:00.000-04:00

What's up, bit crunchers?

Sorry it's been so long since my last review, but things have been crazy and I've been out of town.
Anyway, I'd like to talk about a piece of software that doesn't do anything. Ok, so it does something, just not the usual something (process audio) that other audio programs do. It's the very popular FXpansion VST to RTAS Adapter. This plugin/program/wrapper has been around for quite some time but has recently been updated to v2.0 to work with VST v2.3 and ProTools 7 (MP, LE, and HD).
I've been hearing about it for the longest time and heard mixed things about it's functionality and stability. Enough that I just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger and spend the c-note to buy this "do nothing" program. But then I just got the urge to have about a million new plugins and VST instruments to play with so I gave it a couple of hours' thought and finally decided to go for it. And am I glad I did! This thing is fantastic!
So I bought it from the FXpansion website and was able to immediately download and install it without a hitch. Then I read the manual to make sure I was setting it up correctly (imagine that, RTFM!) as I have nearly 500 VST plugins and instruments, not all of which are good or even worth having in PT's list of plugs. It was easy to figure out how to set it up, simply start the program, indicate which folders your VST plugs are in, and have it search them to populate a master list of available plugs. Once it identifies them, it give you info such as manufacturer, type (effect, midi-enabled effect, or instrument), I/O, and location. Then you manually choose which plugs you want to be 'wrapped' and appear in your RTAS list in ProTools. Couldn't be simpler. Well actually, it can be. They give you the option of automatically wrapping everything so no work is required at all. But as I said, there are a lot of bad VST plugs out there (and on my computer) so unless you're completely computer illiterate (why are you working on a DAW?) I wouldn't suggest it.
That's it. Start PT and you're off and running. So I went through and tried a bunch of plugs that had never before seen ProTools on my system to see if I'd have any new 'staple' effects and instruments in the arsenal. The biggest plus are the instruments, as there are some really good ones out there and until Digidesign had not provided any freebies of any worth. There are some good resources for finding free VST plugs. Try KVR and one of the DUC's superusers spkguitar's site for starters. But remember, there are A LOT OF POOR plugs out there. So to avoid cluttering your system, try them out one at a time and just deleting them if they're not up to par. I'll try to remember to post some good ones as I come across them.
The biggest concern I had with the wrapper (and one of the main reasons I didn't buy it sooner) was that I thought it would use CPU that I couldn't spare and it would be unstable. Wrong on both accounts. It's virtually transparent as far as CPU usage and I have yet to experience a wrapper-based crash. Only two things that have been annoying since I got it: 1) When certain plugs were included in my wrap list, when starting PTLE I would get an appellate that said something like 4CC ID. It didn't mess anything up; you just click "ok" and it continues loading, but it's a small inconvenience. I think it refers to a display problem?? 2) When using plugins from the Kjaerhus Audio Classic Collection (Classic Compressor, Master Limiter, etc.) sometimes I lose the GUI and have all but an empty plugin window. That's kind of annoying because I like that effect series for certain apps and I don't really want to use them if they're unstable.
But that's it. For under $100 I now have a lot more effects processing and virtual instrument options. Kudos to FXpansion for making a great product that does its job simply and effectively.

Other big news...Javboy Records is moving! By the end of the year I'll be in a new place in Douglassville, PA, still about an hour from Center City Philadelphia but now within a few minutes of the Reading, PA community as well. The studio will be bigger, better, and ready for business!

Right now I'm chilling out to the sounds of Tim Buckley Goodbye and Hello.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Rode NT2-A

2006-09-14T22:42:00.000-04:00

Good evening from a rain soaked Pennsylvania

Today I spent some time working on a project that has been in process for over 6 years now. Yep, and you thought the new Guns n Roses album was taking forever...oh wait, that's taking 10 years. Never mind.
Anyway, it's the debut album from my talented and bi-lingual brother, Josh Blakesley. It's going to be a great album. He writes great songs, has an excellent voice, and an ear for beautiful harmony. We're hoping to finish in time for a Christmas release.
So anyway, we were just about to lay down some vocals when I hear a loud thump on my doorstep and off I ran to see if it was what I hoped it was. It was!! My new Rode (or RØDE depending on how you want to type) NT2-A large diaphragm condenser microphone was just outside my front door. I love getting new gear and getting a new mic is just about as exciting as it gets. No time to waste, I ripped open the box and had the NT2-A set up in no time and ready for a trial by fire.
The first thing I noticed was how big and heavy this thing is. I've spent too much time recently working with Chinese manufactured mics; I almost forgot what real quality feels like. These mics are made in Australia and the NT2-A is an update on the tremendously popular NT2 (which coincidentally I think was made in China). After I figured out the funny mic clip and made a change to the only mic stand I have that has one of those really tiny screw connectors, I fired up the phantom power, put the mic in cardiod mode and let 'er rip.
What a transparent sounding mic! No EQ, just a bit of compression, and viola! Great sounding vocals. The mic is very quiet and has an even frequency response across the board.
As for specs, I won't bore you with the typically stuff like 20-20k freq response. You can get that from the Rode website. The features are very nice and include three polar patterns: omni, cardiod, and figure 8. Hi-pass filter selectable at 40, 80, or off, and a pad selectable at 0, -5db, or -10db. All in easy to use FINGER SWITCHABLE switches on the front of the mic. You heard me right, you don't need to stick a pen anywhere to make these switches. Just use a normal human finger and you're fine. Score 1 for Rode. It amazes me sometimes that the most obvious things are the most overlooked by companies. So thank you Rode for being Captain Obvious.
After recording that lead track we worked on a part that required both of us singing together in close harmony. What better opportunity to try out the figure 8 setting? This was the first experience for either of us singing in this fashion and we found it a bit uncomfortable being that close face to face while singing. We have a problem of laughing whenever we look at each other. But we made it though and found the recording to sound very natural and we were able to blend our voices nicely by being so close. Plus we felt like George Harrison and Paul McCartney while doing it. :-)
Next I was tracking my brother and his wife singing together for a song of my own where there will be a large group of people (about 22 different voices) singing together although they are all recorded separately. For this I thought I'd try out the omni pattern and get a bit of room sound. As expected this opened up the sound quite a bit and gave a little boost at around 10kHz for a pleasant and airy effect.
That's all the time I had to work with the NT2-A today, but I have to say, I love it so far. My only complaints are with the stand adapter as it's cumbersome to set up and to change positions, but I suppose going forward I'll just use a shock mount instead.
Worth every bit of the $399 price tag and probably quite a bit more.

Listening to Greg Brown Slant 6 Mind. A very cool, chill kind of album. I hope to make a record like this soon. Far enough to the folk side of blues that it works for a white guy to make it.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

UPDATE: I just used the NT2-A as a room mic for drums and it sounds fantastic all by itself! If I was going for mono drums I wouldn't use any of the other tracks I recorded. I set it up about 5 feet from the kit and 3 feet off the ground. It was in omni mode with the -10dB pad engaged. From there I went into the Joemeek ThreeQ (see previous post) with the compression set to 3, attack at 5, and release at .3. The EQ was not active. I love it when new gear sounds good.

Joemeek ThreeQ

2006-09-07T22:54:00.001-04:00

Howdy studio rats

Day before yesterday I got a new piece I've been eying up for some time, the Joemeek ThreeQ. This unit is pretty much a stand-alone version of a single channel strip of a console. Meaning that you've got a preamp, optical compressor, and parametric EQ. All your initial processing needs in a half-rack space.
One of my clients gave me an unexpected bonus so I thought I'd treat myself to a little fun. I read some reviews and most of the reviewers that I respect gave it great marks while the 'no namers' said it sounded weird.
So I pulled it out of the box and looked it over. It's got a cool green metal casing with nice metal knobs and looks really sharp. Finger tested the buttons and was disappointed that they felt cheap and plastic with shaky springs. I can easily see one of these going bad with a lot of use (the buttons are for mic/line selection, compressor active, EQ active, phantom power, and +4/-10). Another pet peeve is that it didn't come with those little rubber feet that you attach to most gear that sits on a desktop. So it slides around if I'm not careful. Bummer.
But anyway...Gave the manual a quick check before hooking it up as the 8th input of my Digi 002R and took note that the compressor is set to a ratio of 5:1. Had to pull the plug on a MIDI keyboard I liked to keep hooked up because the Meek comes with the dreaded wall wart. Another bummer, but at least one I'm used to.
To be honest with you, I haven't even used this on a project yet. I've only done the initial tests to see what it sounds like and how it works. The test I put together for this one involved taking two Nady SCM900 large diaphragm condensers (I've never heard two mics sound so much alike, including some matched pairs) and running one through my default audio chain of the ART TubeMP, this vintage graphic EQ (I have no idea who made it, I got it at a garage sale), the Behringer Autocom Pro MDX1400 compressor, into PTLE, and the other through the ThreeQ into ProTools. I then got the levels as close to equal as I possibly could and bypassed the compressor and EQ in both chains to test out just the preamps against each other. I know, I know, one's a tube and one is solid state like comparing apples and apple pie, but what I'm trying to determine is if my new default will be the ThreeQ or if I'll stick with what I got. This first test was important because I had heard that the Meek had a noisy noise floor. Whoever I read that from was wrong. I heard no problems at all even at a high gain. So, I had the mics right next to each other and the preamps set pretty equal and gave it a speaking/singing test to hear the difference. There wasn't much. Besides the warmth acheived by overdriving the MP at a high volume, they were very clean and clear with little coloration.
Next test, the EQ. The Meek has fixed high and low frequencies (12kHz and 80Hz, respectively) so I gave a little boost at 80 and did the same on my graphic EQ. I'll be honest with you by saying I'm not really great at comparing EQs so suffice to say they both sounded 'fine' to me. No really noticeable phase shifting problems or anything. Just an increase in the low end, as expected.
Now on to the compressors. I dialed in an equal threshold, attack, and release, and set the Autocom to 5:1. It was tough to get them to have nearly the same gain reduction but when I got it close, I went for it. Listening to playback I was shocked at how hard the Meek hits. Behringer stuff always gets a bad rap, and I'll admit that I have my issues with this compressor, but the Autocom was so much smoother than the Meek. The ThreeQ just hammered the sound and held it. Like it's a hard knee or something. Not that it's unusable, you just have to know going into it that when the compressor kicks in, you ain't goin nowhere.
So that's it, that's my test. I'm sure I'll have more things to say about it as I get used to it in action, but I'm glad to have it in my arsenal. Used as simply a preamp, it holds it's own just fine and doesn't have a wacky signature sound (as I read elsewhere), and adding the compression can tame even the wildest vocalist. Looking beyond the little things I don't like about it (why the hell do companies keep insisting upon putting phantom power switches on the back of units? ahhhh!), I'm pretty pleased with this unit.
And my patience paid off in that I was able to pick this bad boy up for a mere $229. Almost half the price it was originally released at.
I'm expecting to receive a new mic at the end of the month, the Rode NT2-A, so keep an eye out for that review.

I'm listening to The Band The Last Waltz. Everything a concert movie/recording should be.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Update (12-13-08):

I just got a comment asking if I had any updates on this (thank Anonymous!)...
I do.
I've now been using this unit for a couple of years and I find that my initial review is close to my overall experience, though not spot on by any means.
This is definitely NOT my go-to preamp.
It behaves quite differently than the other single unit preamps I've got (mostly all tube stuff) so I usually end up using this unit when I want a different flavor. It's pretty straight forward on the preamp side of things and I've used the EQ to great effect, mostly on voices that normally sound too muddy. I shelf the lows and give the high end some lift to clear it up.
Probably the biggest surprise to me about this unit is that I don't use the compressor. Ever really.
It just hits too hard for my taste. Its fixed ratio of 5:1 without any kind of soft knee or gradual reduction is just too much for me. One second you're rolling along fine, then you cross that threshold and you're squashed to hell. I'm sure some people like this sound and are adept at making it work for them, but I prefer to keep my compression to multiple stages of light reduction to get that smooth sound.
If you've got other preamps and are looking to add something new, this is a nice unit.
If you're looking to save some bucks by getting your pre, comp, and EQ in one box as your only channel...keep looking.

Rock on.

Ben

Wizoo Wizooverb W2

2006-09-05T22:24:00.000-04:00

Hey gearnuts,

I know that I've been promising a talk about the Wizoo W2 reverb plugin for a while now, but the problem is that not only does it take a long time to get used to a product like this, but because it's so feature rich it takes a long time to write about it too! But here it is...
I've been reticent to jump on the 'new' reverb train because a) reverbs are notorious for being expensive, b) they are notorious for being CPU hungry beasts (in the software versions), and c) while reverb can be important, it does not alone make for a great song. Give me a Radio Shack mic into a cassette recorder with a great song and great singer and I'll be much happier than a full studio full of gear with a tone deaf singer and horrible song. I once worked on a children's version of the "Electric Slide" at world-class Sigma Sound with two tone deaf kids, and two adults pretending to be kids. Nightmare. But I digress...
So, reverb. I made the jump into modern reverb with the Wizoo Wizooverb W2 room emulating reverb. It's made by Wizoo which is now a part of the Digidesign family. Honestly, I had never heard of Wizoo before but I did a bit of digging and read some good things about it although I found no in-depth reviews of this product.
I've had it for about a month and a half now so I don't really remember how the install went. But I guess that's a good thing; must've been easy! I of course am using it with my ProTools LE system as an RTAS plugin. So I opened it up for the first time in a session of minimal complexity to just give it a run through and really 'hear' it for the first time. Inserted it as an Aux send (as is my habit with reverb) and CRASH! Out of CPU power. Bummer! There's nothing I hate more than getting a new piece of equipment, getting really excited about it, only to have a huge problem with it right away. But read on, Javboy does endure.
So after a few mumbling words under my breath, it was off to read the manual to figure out what was wrong. Luckily, the W2 comes with a great manual with excellent and easy to understand directions and explanations.
Bonus #1: Customizable settings to tailor the W2 for working with YOUR computer.
Clicked on the Setup button at the top of the window and changed a couple of the processing settings (much like the hardware profile menu in PTLE). Voila! It works. Not perfectly, mind you, but it works. The problem is that the W2 defaults to start on one of the most CPU intensive presets. So as soon as you open it, you've got a problem. Once you get off that preset, you're ok. Additionally, after I decided to keep and use the W2, I made a CPU/mobo upgrade I was considering anyway (see previous post). Now the preset thing is really no problem and I could change the Setup settings again.
Enough techie stuff, how does this thing sound?! I'm a big preset user as a starting point because in the studio, time is money. I start with a preset and tweak to taste. So I proceeded to try all the presets just to see what sounds this thing is capable of.
Bonus #2: It comes with no less than 100 presets.
All presets are categorized by type to make it really easy to navigate. Plus, depending on where you click, it's one click to switch between them. Ambience, Chamber, Hall, Plate, Church & Cathedral, Non-linear, Post Production, Studio, Room, it's got it all covered. I tried them all and they all have a 'similar' sound. It's funny because most reverb units I've used have a completely different sound for each type. The W2 was very...um...cohesive. I still haven't decided if this is a good thing or not. Not to say that calling up a Cathedral setting will give you the same effect as reverse reverb, but there is just something about the characteristics of all the presets in the W2 that give off the same vibe. Maybe this is a function of all IR (impulse response) reverbs, I don't have a lot of experience with them. But I was able to find a few that I could tell would be my 'go to' effects (love the short vocal reverse).
Ok, beyond the presets you can really get down to the nitty gritty with all of the control Wizoo packed into this unit. You can adjust EQ, frequency response time, early reflections, tail, and more. Here's where it gets really cool. Wizoo built the W2 around what they call HDIR which stands for High Definition Impulse Response. In theory, it's supposed to be what HDTV is but in the IR world. And it does a good job. I didn't hear any artifacts even on long reverb tails. The problem is that HDIR is very CPU intensive because it requires so much more information to be hi-def. So Wizoo in their infinite wisdom also includes AIR which is a traditional algorithmic type reverb. Brilliant! And I really like the AIR function. It sounds good and it's got that sound that I'm used to with traditional reverb units. But wait, it gets better. Let's say you need to save on CPU but you love the reverb tail you're getting with an HDIR preset.
Bonus #3: The W2 lets you mix and match your early reflections and tails. So you can have an HDIR tail and AIR early reflections. Genius!
So with all these tweaking capabilities your options are endless. And then you can do even more! You've got the Width knob. This controls the stereo image being input and output (separate controls) of the unit. One more thing. You can import your own room emulations to really customize your sound. Just think, you could sample the live room of your studio and use it in your mix! Oh wait...Ok, so I will never use this feature. But maybe someone would. It sounds cool in theory. (And for the record, I realize what people would actually use this function for).
All this in a unit that costs less than most others in its class. MSRP $249.95 for RTAS, VST 2.0, and AU. But you can pick it up at any time for $199. Or if you're as cool as me, you can happen to find it on sale at AudioMidi.com for only $99! But not everyone can be that cool.

Watching the indie doc Rock School right now about Philly's own Paul Green School of Rock.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

The Dreaded Upgrade...

2006-08-28T22:03:00.000-04:00

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!

2006-08-23T23:51:00.000-04:00

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

2006-08-20T22:40:00.000-04:00

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

2006-08-14T22:36:00.000-04:00

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

2006-08-10T17:34:00.000-04:00

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

2006-08-05T23:37:00.000-04:00

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

2006-08-04T23:45:00.000-04:00

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

Recording Handbells

2006-07-28T23:09:00.000-04:00

Hey mic heads

Today I spent all day working on a recording I did a few weeks back for St. Ignatius Catholic Church. The recording was mostly their girls choir augmented by a string quartet, flute, oboe, organ, and a small group of handbells. Recording the voices, strings, winds, and organ is nothing new or terribly exciting, but I had never recorded handbells before. Not only that, but I'd never seen anyone do it, heard about anyone doing it, or even read anything about how to do it. So I thought now that I've got one handbell session under my belt I'd let you know what I did and how it came out.
This was a remote session that took place at St. Ignatius Church in Yardley. It's a LARGE sanctuary with a great natural reverb, but all the music is set up and takes place in the choir loft which is a balcony set in the rear of the sanctuary about 25 above the main floor. The balcony is about 18 feet deep and is the width of the room. Fine for close micing but pretty much impossible to get any distance from the source without having really long mic cables and running up and down a lot of stairs.
I brought my small mobile rig which consists of a laptop (running Cubase LE), the Lexicon Omega, and various mics and such. So this limits me to 4 tracks simultaneous recording. On the songs with the other instruments and the kids singing, I used one large diaphragm condenser mic just on the other side of the table from the ringers, maybe 18 inches from the middle ringer. I think it was an MXL 990, running through a Mackie board and into the Omega.
This produced a really great sound although of course there is no stereo image. But the mic placement combined with the fact that there were only 6 ringers playing in this configuration kept everything very simple and because the bells were merely a part of the ensemble, this method worked great. Added a touch of reverb in mixing with the Wizoo W2 Reverb (I'll review in another post), but that's it. No other effects were needed (and I'm a compression fiend, so that's pretty amazing).
The problem came when recording the three songs that were only bells. The personnel increased to 8 players and since I only had to worry about the bells I moved over to a four mic configuration, one mic splitting each pair of ringers. I used 2 large diaphragm condensers (the MXL 990, and a Nady SCM900) and two small (MXL 993 and Oktava MK-012) putting the Oktava on the lower range bells because of its clear and extended low frequency response. Again, all mics were just on the other side of the table (it was a cramped space) about 18 inches from each pair of ringers. I figured this would yield great coverage and allow many options in the mix to bring up or down each section as needed. Not to mention give the possibility of a wide stereo field to create a more realistic image from left to right, which is something very important IMO.
But it was not to be. When I got back to the studio and started mixing the multiple close mics resulted in a very in-your-face bell choir with more than a few out of control frequencies. Not half as good as the single mic method and not even in the ballpark for what I wanted. Not to say I didn't salvage a decent sound out of it, but it certainly wasn't what I had hoped. A bit of multi-band compression (Waves C4), a touch of EQ (Bombfactory Pultec EQ-5), and rolling off some of the piercing hi end using the simple Digidesign EQ1.
So next time I'll definitely forgo the multiple close mics in favor of finding any way possible to get at least one mic (preferably a stereo pair) a minimum of 6 feet away. I'll let you know how that goes.
Anybody have any handbell recording experience or different techniques?

Listening to Muddy Waters Electric Mud. Oh yes.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

Samson Resolv 65a

2006-07-24T18:28:00.000-04:00

Good evening Gearheads

I was trying to decide what to write about today when I realized I haven't written anything about my most used piece of equipment.
Studio monitors along with a great audio interface, are the most important part of any digital recording or post-production facility. If you can't accurately hear what you're working on, how will it ever turn out decent?! Being a small studio/production room, I rely upon active near-field monitors exclusively.
For the past 2 years I have been using the Samson Resolv 65a bi-amplified active monitors. They consist of a 75 watt powered 6.5" woofer coupled with 1" titanium tweeter (25 watts), with a crossover near 2.3khz. It's got a ported MDF cabinet with a sleek black with blue trim design. The speakers also come with rubber foot pads. Mine also have a feature where if they aren't used for 10 minutes, they hibernate. A very cool feature, but I believe that the newer models don't have this feature.
These monitors are billed to be "clinically accurate" by Samson and they nearly are. The mid-range is more pronounced than I would expect from "clinically accurate" speakers, but Samson has covered this by building in a mid-range contour control. This comes in the form of a rotary on the back of each speaker that increases or decreases the mid-range (around 1.7khz) from -3db to +6db in 3db increments. A nice feature for those who are used to other classic near-fields. I personally don't use this feature. When I first set these bad boys up, I fiddled with this until I got a sound I was comfortable with which just happened to be in the 0db position. They are spec'ed with a frequency response of 45hz-20khz. They have a very tight low-end response that sounds great, but this can often lead to "boomy" mixes for those not experienced with them.
Joining the mid-range control on the back of each speaker are 3 input options: balanced XLR, balanced 1/4" TRS, and unbalanced RCA. Very handy for running multiple sources. And of course there's an on/off switch, volume knob, and AC input.
In use, it really took me almost 6 months to really get used to these speakers, but now I'm locked in. So much so that a few months ago when one of them stopped working in the middle of me trying to meet a looming deadline, I went out and purchased another pair as a backup. Luckily these speakers come with a 3-year manufacturer's warranty and after a few weeks and a replaced driver amp, I had it back in my hands and back to work. Thank goodness for the warranty!
So I'm very happy with them. I listened to quite a few others in the same price range when I was comparison shopping (Alesis MKII, Behringer TRUTH, M-Audio BX5, Event TR-5) and obviously these were my favorite. They can be had for $299/pair.

Right now I'm listening to the new Dashboard Confessional album, Dusk and Summer. This is surprisingly a very cool album. They were way too emo for me until now. But this is a well written and nicely produced record.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

ART Tube MP

2006-07-18T18:00:00.000-04:00

Whew! What a frenetic couple of days. As I mentioned, B Original is down to the wire but we made it! Deadline met. But not without a lot of hard work and FAST work. And I'm just the audio guy. I can't imagine what the atmosphere was like in the video editing room...Kudos to the people at 2 Chics and a Camera Productions for a job well done.

Anyway, today I'd like to talk about one of my oldest and most frequently used pieces of gear. The ART Tube MP is a single channel tube microphone preamplifier that is insanely inexpensive. I picked mine up for $80 I think, about 5 years ago. Now they can be had for as little as half that.
It's a simple thing really. Just two rotary knobs on top combined with three push buttons and an LED make up the entire face of the unit. Knob #1 is for input and shockingly [sarc] Knob #2 is output. But honestly this feature is one reason I like this pre so much. Many of my other pres only have a Gain knob and no output so I end up having to back off the input of the next thing in my signal chain. Often the next thing in line is this old graphic EQ unit I like and it doesn't have an input gain so I'm screwed without a way to control the output of the pre. But I digress...
The first button is a gain booster that adds 20db of gain to the input. This gives you a ton of flexibility to use mics and sources that are really hot. When depressed, you can still get enough gain to record those quiet sources. Excellent. Button #2 is for 48volt phantom power. Obviously useful and important. The third button is for phase inversion. I don't use it a whole lot (usually just for top or bottom snare and such), but it sure is nice to have when it's needed.
The LED is a single light that goes through a few colors depending on how loud the signal is. Green is good; yellow, getting warmer; orange, tube saturation; red, crunched. Which brings me to the tube. It's a 12AX7 as with most modern tube gear. I had a problem after a few months of ownership where the unit was not working at all. I called ART (Applied Research and Technology) and asked them if it could be a tube problem. I was assured it wasn't. But we couldn't figure it out over the phone so I sent it back (under warranty) and when it was returned there was a tube in the box with it with a piece of masking tape on it to label it 'BAD.'
So much for the tube never going bad. Anyway, since then it's been working well although every now and then I get some sizzle and distortion from the tube for no reason. This has yet to really bite me in the ass, but I'm sure it will sometime.
Those problems aside, this is a great unit. It really warms the sound and has a great sounding tube saturation. I've also used it many times as a DI for bass and other things and it does the job splendidly. On Gavin Beaudry's self-titled album, Jared Wilayto played electric guitar and for one of the songs I simply ran his semi-hollow body (I think it was a Gibson 335?) directly into the Tube MP and into the recorder. I pushed the MP pretty hard and got a really fat, fuzzy, distortion that worked great for the track.
So needless to say, I really like this unit and will probably buy a couple more in the coming months. For a 'budget' pre, very much a good start for any studio or recordist.
Oh yeah, it's got XLR I/O as well as 1/4" unbalanced I/O and plugs in with a wall-wart (ugh).
There you have it. Definitely at least 4 out of 5 stars (just because of the tube problems).

Right now I'm listening to Sister Hazel's Chasing Daylight but I just finished listening to Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer Drum Hat Buddha as I typed. Check out the song "Gentle Arms of Eden" if you get the chance.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

No Rest For the Weary

2006-07-17T16:37:00.000-04:00

I'm back!
Yes, I was gone. Thanks for noticing.

I just got back last night from a very wondeful week of sand and sun on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Being self-employed, you can take these respits without having to clear your time off with anyone but yourself. But...there is also no one to do your work while you're gone.
So there I was in paradise, hooked to my laptop with my headphones on. B Original, the TV show I do the audio for has a deadline of 5pm today (Monday) for the entire 1st season to be finished and in the hands of the network. This translates into me working on my vacation (as best as I can remotely) and then having to work twice as hard today to finish up despite having spent nearly 14 hours in the car yesterday driving home.
But what separates the people who 'make it' running their own business from people who don't is often simply doing what you said you would. I would like to succeed (duh!) so I make this my focus. So as I type I'm sitting at Starbucks uploading the final episode for this season as another episode uploads from my studio. And I'm tired, but feeling pretty satisfied that the goal has been met and everyone's happy.

Look for the show on DIY Network and HGTV airing this fall. It's on everyday, literally (sometimes twice), so I imagine this won't be the last deadline that is made dangerously close.
Such is the life...

I'm listening to James Brown 20 All Time Greatest Hits

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com

WXPN Free At Noon Concert

2006-07-07T17:29:00.000-04:00

One of the many benefits of not having a 9-5 is that (duh!) you don't have to work 9-5.
Today I took the morning off and headed down to 30th St. to check out the WXPN Free At Noon Concert. This is a live on-air concert series that is broadcast by NPR and XPN every Friday at noon from their World Cafe Live venue. It's a great place. I try to get down there when I can.
Today I made an extra effort to attend because one of my new favorite artists was performing, Alexi Murdoch. You probably know his song "Orange Sky" from the OC television show and I think it's on some car commercial too. But anyway, he just put out his first full-length album (Time and Consequence, check it out) and is in Philly today and tonight to promote.
That's one thing about being a studio guy that I miss. The 'performance' aspect of the music. There's nothing quite like being in the same room as a bunch of other people experiencing the music all at once.
But I don't really have time to write today. One of the bad things about being self-employed is that if you skip out for a few hours there's no one there to cover for you...Time to catch up.

I'm listening to Nanci Griffith The Dust Bowl Symphony right now.

Rock on

Ben

Behringer BCF2000

2006-07-06T00:07:00.000-04:00

Behringer gets a bad rap. Every audio forum I've ever browsed has a contingency of posters that love to trash this company. Ok, ok, it's not like they have no reason to, but I'd be willing to bet that many of them haven't owned a piece of Behringer gear in the last year or so.
I on the other hand own three Behringer pieces and am very happy with two of them. Today I'd like to tell you about the BCF2000.
For those who don't know, this is billed as a MIDI control surface. It's pretty simple. It consists of 8 motorized faders, 8 endless rotary encoders (with push button feature), 2 assignable buttons per track, and another dozen or so assignable buttons. It connects to your computer either via MIDI cables or USB. All for a street price of $199. Nothing like it on the market for even twice that price.
I won't vouch for it as a straight up MIDI controller, but I do have experience with it in the ProTools realm. In fact, I have three of them giving me 24 motorized faders and rotaries to control my PTLE system. And I couldn't be happier.
I did a lot of research before buying them and found a lot of negative feedback aimed at Behringer in general but nothing about the BCF2000 itself. So again, I took a leap of faith and bought one. For the price, it was worth the risk. Man did it pay off! Within a week I had ordered two more to give me 24 faders for under $600 which is less than half of the Tascam unit I was considering and still 25% cheaper than ONE bank of 8 faders using Mackie control.
It took a bit of work and manual reading (imagine that, reading the manual!), but I got all three working via USB and have been happily using them hiccup free for a year.
There are only two real complaints I have about this unit. 1) Because there is no scribble strip, it can be hard to tell which track you're adjusting. But I can count, so I have overcome this issue. 2) The motors that move the faders are not quiet. To the point that if you have a one-room studio and automate a fader movement while recording a really quiet part and you're near the faders, you may hear them. Again, not something that was a deal breaker for me. I don't automate until the mix usually.
They work well with PTLE and give transport, send, pan, and record enable functionality in addition to the faders. Like I said, I couldn't be happier.
Check out the DUC and search for the BCF2000 for my many posts on the subject there. I knew that I couldn't find any info before I bought so I thought I would help out other people considering it.

Listening to a Pandora station based on Alexi Murdoch right now. It always fits this time of night for me.

Rock on

Ben

SM Pro Audio AO8

2006-07-04T19:29:00.000-04:00

Happy 4th of July!
Ok, so I really didn't get to celebrate at all. In fact, I worked all day (big surprise) but when you've got deadlines, you do what you have to do. There aren't any good events around here anyway. For some reason towns in my area like to celebrate the 4th (and any other holiday) only on Saturdays so the activities will be on the 9th. Sounds pretty stupid to me.

Anyway, I'd like to share some thoughts on a little nearly invisible unit that I purchased about 6 months ago. It's the SM Pro Audio AO8 which is a simple A/D converter. When I was deciding whether or not to purchase this piece I did my usual Google check to read reviews and see what people think before I lay down my hard earned cash. This time I came up empty. I found no one with any experience, no pro reviews, nothing. But it's pretty inexpensive so I took a leap of faith (although all the reviews of SM Pro that I found were negative....eep!).
Before I get too far into this let me tell you why I bought it in the first place. For all you Pro Tools LE users out there, I was in the boat of having 8 simultaneous inputs which serve my purposes nicely for most of my projects, but now and then I'm working with a larger band that needs more. So I was looking for an economical way to utilize the digital inputs of my Digi 002 rack unit. It didn't have to necessarily be the highest quality as I didn't plan on using it all the time. After looking at my options, I found the SM Pro Audio AO8 for about $150 which is by far the cheapest I've seen, then or now.
It's a simple thing. Just 8 unbalanced 1/4" inputs on the front with a power switch. The back sports word clock I/O via BNC connectors, a sample rate button (44.1k or 48k) and an ADAT lightpipe out. Should be an easy setup right? WRONG!
To make a long story short, I had MAJOR problems getting this unit to work with my PTLE system but in the end the problem turned out to be something stupid (as it often does). PTLE could not find the unit and as I was using the AO8 as the clock source (that's the only way to get it to work with the 002R because the rack doesn't have word clock I/O), it simply wouldn't work. I tried different combinations for many frustrating hours and found no helpful info online. Then finally I tried something that shouldn't have worked. I set the session I was testing in to 44.1k and set the AO8 to 48k and voila! It worked. So the problem was/is that the AO8 has the sample rate button on the back mislabeled. Had this not been the case, it would have worked right out of the box. I notified SM Pro so they may have fixed it on subsequent releases.

Since then the thing has worked flawlessly and I don't even have to think about it (unless I'm changing sample rates). Does just what I wanted it to.
Definitely worth the money. It's not an Apogee or anything, but it does the job.

Listening to Paul Simon's new album Surprise right now. Very cool. Contemporary arrangements, even some samples and loops, but the songs are still rock solid in typical Simon fashion.

Enjoy the fireworks!

Rock on

Ben

Lexicon Omega

2006-07-03T23:14:00.000-04:00

Hey all,

Today I'd like to talk about the Lexicon Omega. For those of you unaware, the Omega is a little 4 channel audio interface made by legendary reverb aficionados, Lexicon. I bought this unit to use as the guts of my remote recording rig. For me it was an upgrade from the Tascam US-122 unit that I had used for the last 2 years and of which I have nothing but great things to say. So the Omega has a lot to live up to.
I made the upgrade because I had a few projects coming up immediately that required more than 2 discreet inputs. As a general rule, it's a good idea to make equipment upgrades only when the financial benefits of the upgrade are immediate. At least that's the way that I keep my gear lust in check.
So I got the Omega from Musicians Friend and went the B-stock route which saved me about $70 and put the unit in my hands for a little over $230. Certainly the only unit of it's nature in this price range. Especially since the laptop I use for remote recording doesn't have firewire which rules out nearly all other options with more than two channels.
It's a nice little unit with pretty intuitive controls although the direct monitoring control is not as functional as the one on the US-122. It's got 4 line inputs which worked great and sound clean to my ear (I hooked them up using the inserts from a Mackie mixer). It's also got 2 built-in mic pres. This is where I ran into problems. The pres worked fine with my SM57 or any other dynamic mic, but as soon as I hooked up a condenser and turned on the phantom power it was hum city. Horrible, horrible, unusable hum at any level. I figured this must be a cable or mic problem so I tried 3 other cables and 3 other mics in each preamp, but had the same problem. Bummer.
I contacted Lexicon customer service via email and got a response asking what mics I was using, etc. I replied that I had tried with lots of different mics and got no response. That was weeks ago. I sent another request for service two days ago and haven't gotten a response yet (although it is 4th of July time so people with real jobs might have off).
So that makes the whole thing nearly worthless for me as most of the remote recording I do is of classical ensembles where I'm only using a stereo pair of condensers. So for the time being, it's back to the Tascam for that.
But, when using external preamps, I must say I am pretty pleased with the Omega. It comes bundled with Cubase SE which I am not a big fan of but it does ok. The only problem I had is that when recording long, long passages sometimes a digital click would show up in the audio every once in a while. I imagine that this takes place when the screen is scrolling although I can't be sure.
This is a problem as well when I'm doing remote recording because usually it's continuous recording for 30 minutes or more at a time. At a conference I just recorded it was sometimes 80 minutes a shot. So I fix the clicks during the mix, but I shouldn't have to.
Another step back from the Tascam is that the Omega requires external power, not just USB. Not a big problem for me, but just one more cable to get tangled as I frantically set up for live event recording session.

So overall, I give the Omega 3 stars out of 5. It could easily be at 4 or 4.5 if only the phantom power worked right. Maybe it's just my unit, but tech support hasn't given me any reason to believe that.
But if you've got to go USB and need 4 ins, this is a decent bet as long as you have external mic pres.

On another note, as I write this I'm listening to a Pandora station based on Alexi Murdoch. If you don't know about Pandora, check it out. It's a great way to discover new music and listen to music that really fits your mood.

Rock on

Ben

Waves Musicians Bundle II

2006-07-01T23:05:00.000-04:00

Howdy fellow surfers

Right now I'm listening to Del Amitri Twisted which honestly I wouldn't recommend as a great album, but is worth the price of admission for one song tucked in the middle of it. "Tell Her" is simply a great song. It's funny, I bought this album when it came out in 1995 because I liked the song "Roll To Me" and then a few years later during a CD cleanout it didn't make the cut. Relistening to it now, I see why. But after I got rid of it, the song "Tell Her" snuck back into my subconscious and really dug in. So I started playing it for my own satisfaction (it's one of those 3 chord wonders on guitar) and I grew to really love it. So I just got the CD again and am listening to it right now. The funny thing is, the recording of "Tell Her" doesn't live up to my memory of the song. The arrangement isn't terribly good and the tempo feels all wrong. But it's still a good song.
That reminds me. This is a CD that I got from a great service called La La. It's this online CD trading website. You list the CDs you have and then another member indicates that they want something you have and you agree to ship it to them (with LaLa provided envelopes and shipping). Then you find some CDs you want and request them. So essentially you're trading CDs but the discs you get aren't necessarily from the member you're sending the CDs to. Just a great idea. Plus La La pays royalties so the artists don't get screwed in the deal. Check it out.

So anyway, I thought I'd talk about some plugins today. My studio is ProTools based for the most part. I use other programs for other things, but for tracking in the studio I work almost exclusively in PTLE. With DAW work comes the inevitable conversation about plugins. What do you use, how do you use it, where do you get it, etc, etc. The problem with plugins (as with most gear) is that people get obsessed with getting the newest thing whether they need it or not and insist that if you don't have the new Mega Volume Pumper Plugin X, you suck.
I'm not immune from this disease either, but as a budget conscious studio owner I have to keep myself in check and really only buy what I think I need or would really justify itself by it's contribution to the sounds I'm creating. That said, the best plugin purchase I've made is also the cheapest. Over a year ago I got the Wave's Musicians Bundle II. Now I'd had experience with Waves from other studios I'd worked in, including the actual hardware version of the L1 (imagine that, actually using an outboard limiter!). I also use the Rennaisance Compressor, C4, and L1 as my default mastering chain. But I digress...
The Musicians Bundle II comes with about 5 plugs, honestly I don't remember them all. But for $150 I would be happy with just the RVox plugin. This is just a great tool and makes my job a ton easier, especially while tracking when speed and time are of the essence. It has only 3 control parameters: Gate, Compression, Gain. That's it. And really 90% of the time I only use the middle control. And it sounds great. Some people have said even better than the RComp, but to me they are just different. Anyway, I love it. Love it. I've probably used it in some capacity on every recording I've made in the past year. Not to say you can't make it sound bad. If you push it too much it introduces artifacts into the track that sound pretty horrible. And if you're into having intense control of attack, release, etc, this is certainly not the compressor for you. But to me, it's worth it's weight in gold.
Also included are some delay modules, 2-tap and 6-tap. I use the double tap with the analog preset (minus the direct sound) as my default vocal delay. I don't think I've even used the 6-tap more than twice. The RAxx compressor is not great. Now before I turn you off this plug, let me explain why I don't get much use out of it. Most of the recording I do is for corporate or commercial use and what not. That being the case, I need a lot of different guitar sounds so I'm a Line6 POD guy. I think it's a great tool. Some people don't like it, but for what I do, it's perfect. For that reason most of the guitar sounds I get are pretty controlled and don't require additional compression in the box. And my chain for recording acoustic guitar (which I do even more often than electric) includes compression so any additional compression added ITB is minimal at best. So I don't get much use out of RAxx and I haven't been impressed when I have used it.
So all in all, if you're looking for a nice, easy to use compressor for not a lot of money, get the Musicians Bundle II from Waves.

UPDATE: I just found out they are now including the Rennaissance Compressor with this bundle. Major bonus.

My next purchase, probably next week, will be the WizooVerb Convolution reverb. So I'm finally jumping on the convolution reverb bandwagon. I'll let you know how I do.

In the meantime, check out LaLa.com and trade some music with me. I love music.

Rock on.

Ben

In the Beginning...

2006-06-29T20:10:00.000-04:00

The best part of your first post on a new blog is that it doesn't matter what you say because no one is reading yet anyway.

I know, I know, if it becomes popular people might go back and read from the start, but really, let's not fool ourselves.

So I'm technically an 'Audio Professional' (Javboy Records, that's me) and all that really means to me is that I make my living working with audio. When people ask what I do, I usually just say I'm a songwriter. It's so much easier than explaining all the things that I do as an audio professional. Songwriting is a part of it, and I'll stick with that. Plus it sounds cool.
The reality is, I make most of my money in this profession working with audio that isn't even music. My biggest client right now is a TV show, B Original , and to put it simply, I make the audio that they provide me sound better and make sure it's within the specs of the network. It's called mastering, but no one really knows what that is and again, it's less impressive than being a songwriter. Don't forget to check out B Original on the DIY Network and HGTV in the Fall 2006. It's a fun show (of course I'm biased...)

As another example, right now I'm working on a recording that I did last weekend of an internet marketing conference. The conference was put on by a company called JV Alert which is owned by a friend of mine, Kenneth McArthur. So apparently, Ken is a big-wig in the internet marketing game and he put together a conference with 14 other big names in the biz and asked me to come and record it to put out an 18 CD set to sell. The speakers were: Sterling Valentine, Carl Galletti, Len Thurmond, Frank Sousa, Jane Mark and Phil Basten, Joel Comm, Holly Cotter, Michael Port, Willie Crawford, Allyn Cutts, Frank Garon, Mike Koenigs, Joel Christopher, and Cody Moya. Ok, so I've never heard of any of these people. But if Ken says they're important I'll believe him. Everyone was really nice (especially for rich folks) and it's certainly not the worst gig I've had. I'll post something about how to purchase when the CDs get released although unless you're into internet marketing, I can't imagine you'd want to buy 18 hours of people talking money and computers. Of course, if you actually do what they tell you, you'll be rich too (or so I'm told).

Enough shameless self-promotion disguised as insight into what I do.

I'll end this world-changing blog by saying that as I type I'm listening to the Colin Hay record Going Somewhere for the third time since I downloaded it yesterday. I'm in love. Thank God for emusic and if you don't know what it is, close iTunes and go there and you'll never go back. Unless you're one of those 'radio listening people' in which case we're probably not friends (unless you're my wife). If you like emusic, let me know and give me the referral so I can get some free downloads!

Rock on.

Ben

PS. I'm a grammer freak so if you see something wrong, tell me. I'll give you some good Karma.