Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Ian Shepherd (ProductionAdvice.co.uk) is organizing a Dynamic Range Day in protest of the Loudness Wars that have been going in recent years in the industry.
Dynamic Range Day is March 20th, 2010
Join us in a day of protest against the CD “Loudness Wars” – more info below
- Show your support – check out the Facebook Event
and RSVP to say you’ll “attend”
- It’s easy to take part – just SHOUT (type in all caps)
ALL DAY, EVERYWHERE !
- Use the Twitter hashtag #DYNAMICRANGEDAY
- And when people ask, tell them why you’re shouting
More info here: Dynamic Range Day
Posted in commentary, mastering | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
Don’t get the wrong idea from this article, I’m not hating on home studios, I have a home studio, I host The Home Recording Show. I’m not complaining, just pointing out some of the negative sides of the average home studio. An average home studio being a room in a house or apartment that was not specifically built to be a recording studio. Purpose built home studios are the exception, they have some of the qualities of professional studios, but some of the downsides still apply.
- Less than ideal acoustically. More often than not the home studio is a spare bedroom or in the corner of the basement. Most home studios have little invested to improve the sound in the room.
- Noise issues. Professional studios are constructed with extreme acoustic isolation in mind. They keep sound from escaping and outside sounds interfering, allowing them to operate at any time of day. In the home studio you have to deal with your neighbor mowing his lawn, children running around and other noises. Additionally you can’t work at a normal volume too early or too late in the day without neighbors or your family complaining.
- Never ending money pit. You may think you have everything you need but it won’t be long until you succumb to G.A.S.
- Low perceptions of quality. If you’re trying to use your home studio to make an income, there is a limitation on the kind of work you’ll get. A major label is not going to send a band to your bedroom to make a record. There is still plenty of jobs you can do at a quality level but you’re at a disadvantage from the start.
- Pro studio owners HATE you because you take business away and put out an inferior product. Whether that is true or not can cause some heated debate.
- A major distraction. You just wanted to make a quick recording of a song idea. You spend the next two hours doing software updates, scrolling through synth patches to find the perfect one and oops you’ve forgotten that great idea for a song.
- It changes your role from musician to engineer. Instead of spending your time improving your playing and songwriting abilities you must spend your time learning recording techniques, troubleshooting,
- Equipment that doesn’t match in quality or is low quality overall. Cheap mics into a cheap mixer into a built-in soundcard using cheap cables. If you want a professional sound there is a minimum level of equipment that must be invested.
- Less respect for your time. I’m finding I sit around waiting for late clients much more in my home studio than as a staff engineer at a studio. Another side of this, a band spends two years recording their album in their home studio but could have gotten the same or better results in two week at a professional studio. Time has value.
- It never ends. Without strict self imposed time limits you will never finish the album. A fear of commitment and the ability to tweak absolutely anything makes things take so much longer than necessary.
So there’s 10 negative sides to this Home Studio thing we’ve gotten ourselves into. Obviously these don’t apply to everyone, and some points are very general.
Without my home studio, this website and half my income wouldn’t be here. On the other hand I’d probably have a lot less grey hair on my head and a lot more money in the bank.
I’m well aware of the limitations of my studio (the room specifically) and what it is perfectly capable of accomplishing, however this doesn’t satisfy me.
There is a long of discussion of this topic on episode 65 of The Home Recording Show.
Comments? Agree or disagree? Tell Me!
Posted in commentary | 7 Comments »
Monday, February 8th, 2010
A week worth of Twitter activity from @theaudiogeek
theaudiogeek
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I DEMAND SATISFACTION!! #futureshop #yousuck #iwantmymoneybitch
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FUTURE SHOP’s price matching policy is a fucking joke. I will henceforth never shop there and I urge my 1200 followers to as well.
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Honesty is the best policy….unless you’re dealing with a delusional psycho.
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“Honesty is the best policy, unless you’re the producer.” Words of wisdom from my friend
@sydneygalbraith
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Never had to turn down work before. This time it was in my best interest not to participate.
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I finally found a worthy new avatar. BEHOLD!!
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New AGZ post: Pro Tools Tip – Don’t trust the timing accuracy of Audiosuite processing
http://cli.gs/qvGXS
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About to brush my teeth and put pants on. That means it’s time to work.
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white carpet & black sock fuzz. FML
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Some one wants a studio tour. I really need to vacuum!
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@joegilder Chrome doesn’t work with a few sites for me, like gmail. Back button/backspace key does nothing.
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This chicken noodle soup has not even 1 noodle.
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@joegilder no man, this is some real lunch time shit going down. [in response to:
@theaudiogeek is that a metaphor?] &[
@theaudiogeek Dude. You need to start a revolution or something. We the people have a right to have our noodles.]
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Tip for bands – budget for cables for your music videos, especially performance videos. It’s annoying to the engineers in the audience.
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Just got my first “First!” comment on my site. What a great day.
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New AGZ post: HSC Production Club – A 12 week Online course on music production
http://cli.gs/MsQaM
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Woke up early today because my arm was completely dead and after dealing with that I thought my clock was lying to me.
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I mixed this EP a couple months ago. To be released soon. RT
@aniazmusic: EP sample of some songs at www.myspace.com/aniazmusic
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A tip for bands that want a great recording: Don’t Suck! Take care of that and the rest is easy.
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Posted in Site news, Tweetdump, commentary | No Comments »
Monday, February 1st, 2010
If you listen to our podcast you’ll know that a few weeks ago the topic was “The Best Albums Of The Decade”. Jesse, Ryan and I all shared our favorite albums from 2000-2009. I thought it was a topic worth repeating.
Here is my list:
Queens of the stone age – Songs for the deaf[02]
65daysofstatic – the destruction of small ideas[07]
Alexisonfire – Crisis [07]
Long Distance Calling – Satellite Bay [07]
Killswitch Engage – The End Of Heartache [04]
Marilyn Manson – Holy Wood [00]
Dub Trio – New Heavy [06]
HIM – Love Metal [03]
Junius – Junius [07]
Karnivool – Sound Awake [09]
Katatonia – The Great Cold Distance [06]
A Perfect Circle – Mer De Noms [00]
What are your favorite albums of the past decade?
Comment below with your favorites.
Posted in commentary, podcast | 3 Comments »
Sunday, January 17th, 2010
In case you missed something, here’s what @theaudiogeek has been up to on Twitter this past week.
theaudiogeek
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@gmgranka I tend to assume a drumber will be unreliable, it’s in their nature.
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I love when I sit down to make music and spend all my energy troubleshooting instead.
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Cubase AI 5 (5.1.1) – Halion One has no presets or sounds. Anyone know what to do?
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Fixed it….FFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUU
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These sounds are so laughably bad I should have left it broken.
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- [in response to: Do you know of anywhere I can learn about recording true stereo IRs? Thx]
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@dmlandrum 2 speakers, 2 mics. Stereo recording of left speaker, stereo of right. 2 stereo files merged. I think that’s it.
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@dmlandrum if that were of a room. Hardware would be L and R recorded independently and then interleaved.
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OK ordered the Magic Mouse from Futureshop. Got to use this gift card, and they gotta pricematch. Expecting the worst. LOL
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Hypothetically, if I were a lazy bastard, would Apple install Snow Leopard for me?
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PT LE is 10 years and 4 months old, still no delay compensation.
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There’s new AIR Virtual instruments coming at NAMM, The AIR User Blog has a teaser video up.
http://trunc.it/4op0i
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Just finished recording a great podcast with Ryan and Jesse. It’s a long one, good thing
@rcanestro is editing this week.
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Posted in Site news, Tweetdump, commentary | No Comments »
