Showing posts with label Studio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Studio. Show all posts
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Monday, December 9, 2013
Fun in 5.1 : Icram/Flux HEar v3 App Allows Surround Sound in Headphones!
However, everyone has headphones. As more media is consumed, watched and listened to on smart phones and tablets this Plug In App from Flux / Icram allows for discrete 5.1 (and other surround formats) to be down converted into a binaural stereo surround file that can be played pack on any device.
This means for $35.00 USD this plug-in is the gateway to open the flood gates to surround sound via binaural for the masses. This is really exciting. I'll be posting some demos soon of some mixes I've been playing with using this technology.
Some may have seen the Z+ App for the iPhone from Hans Zimmer for several of his scores.
http://www.ircam.fr/
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Monday, September 23, 2013
Ocean Pacific - New Guitar Part!
I've been struggling with this one to get just the right added guitar part, guitar tone. At :50 you can hear the new part (I've also marked it on the soundcloud file). I'm playing two new chords over the existing parts and it seems to work really well harmonically.
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Below is the previous version for reference. The guitar part at :50 is what to listen for in this older version. I may have also brought the drums down a pinch on the new mix. The felt a little loud coming in on this one.
Friday, October 26, 2012
The Work Room 2012
View From The Studio Door
View From The Amp Closet
The Guitar Effects Racks
The Amp Closet
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Big Sur : Wide Guitars Demo Sketch (Soundtoys Crystallizer)
This is how a lot of my tracks start. Just a basic drum loop and then I find a couple chords I like and just try to play them well enough to get a decent rhythm track down. Once that's done, I'll double (or in this case copy) the part and try to add some space to it by effecting it and hard panning the two tracks.
You can see from the screen shots below this is really just the bare minimum to get the raw idea out. A lot of my process is trying to find a vibe. Recording for me is a lot like sculpture as I try to figure what to take out to make room for other parts and ideas.
In the tracking screen shot here there's only 4 parts comprised of six channels of audio total:
1) Drums from Toontrack's Superior Drummer - Stereo
2) The basic rhythm part played on the Telecaster recorded - Mono
3) The duplicate (copy) of the rhythm part w/ SoundToys Crystalizer added - Mono
4) Effects Returns of the basic rhythm part processed in Eventide Effects - Stereo
You can see from the screen shots below this is really just the bare minimum to get the raw idea out. A lot of my process is trying to find a vibe. Recording for me is a lot like sculpture as I try to figure what to take out to make room for other parts and ideas.
In the tracking screen shot here there's only 4 parts comprised of six channels of audio total:
1) Drums from Toontrack's Superior Drummer - Stereo
2) The basic rhythm part played on the Telecaster recorded - Mono
3) The duplicate (copy) of the rhythm part w/ SoundToys Crystalizer added - Mono
4) Effects Returns of the basic rhythm part processed in Eventide Effects - Stereo
In the mixing screen shot you can see minimal use of effects plug ins and eq to just give the track enough vibe to start figuring it out.
Some of these old projects I'm opening up for this blog were recorded in previous versions of Sonar. So when I'm opening them in X1 I'm having to do a little tweaking to adjust the project from previous settings which may have included plugins I'm no longer using.
One of the really nice things about Sonar X1 is the Pro Channel with compression and EQ on each channel. I also like the way Sonar expands and collapses the channel strip. The compressor allows you to toggle between a sorta 1176 Compressor model and an SSL 4000 series compressor model. The EQ settings also provide three options of "Pure", "Vintage", and "Modern." I'm assuming that Pure is completely digital with no coloration, "Vintage" is some version of a Neve 1073 (I'd hope) and "Modern" is SSL.
This particular project is using two plugins from my UAD-1 card. Generally speaking, I find the UAD plugins to be the best sounding to my ears. On the Drum Buss I disabled the AUD Roland Space Echo, but I'm still using the UAD LA2A compressor and the UAD RealVerb.
My Guitar Buss Compressor of choice is the Waves Ren Comp. It just works for me. And finally on the 2 Buss is the tried and true Wave L2 limited for quick and dirty leveling. All of the EQ on this demo track is the Sonar native EQ within X1.
It may be interesting to listen to the Demo Sketch of Big Sur above, and then listen to this completed version of the song with added Lap Steel, arrangement changes, and effects editing.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Review and Demo : Rogue AE-3 Lap Steel Basics
For $99 from Musicians Friend you can't really complain about this little wonder! The Rogue AE-3 Lap Steel is a great buy for experimenting with the lap steel / pedal steel sound.
You'll note that I've tuned the Lap Steel to Open G, which allows for the strumming of a few major chords across all strings when using a slide. Referring to my favorite chords/scale website Guitar Chords Magic you can see that the Dmaj chord below is comprised of the notes D, F# and A which are all played while barred with the slide across the 7th fret. I can play the Cmaj chord while playing the 5th fret, and I can play the Gmaj chord on the 12th fret.
The minor chords in the scale of Gmaj require moving the slide down one fret on the note that is the third in the chord. I don't know that people really strum a pedal steel, so this is good starting place to practice small moves between the major and minor chords.
Using my other favorite website, Bob Craypoe's Dr. Psychotic, here's what chords in the key of Gmaj look like in Standard Tuning, say on my Telecaster (pictured above).
Below are two songs I recorded using the Rogue, see what you think. The Lap Steel was routed through an effects rack to a Fender Pro Jr amp, mic'd with an SM57. From there the mic was run into a Universal Audio 2-610 pre-amp, then to a Emperical Labs Distressor and finally an Apogee Rosetta 800 / RME 9652. My recording program of choice is Sonar, now into version X2. I'm still very happy with version X1 and this recording was most likely done in version 6.
I'll post tracking and mixing screen shots of the sessions soon. If I have time I'll also print these projects as stems for anyone who wants to dig deeper into them and hear the tracks in isolation.
You'll note that I've tuned the Lap Steel to Open G, which allows for the strumming of a few major chords across all strings when using a slide. Referring to my favorite chords/scale website Guitar Chords Magic you can see that the Dmaj chord below is comprised of the notes D, F# and A which are all played while barred with the slide across the 7th fret. I can play the Cmaj chord while playing the 5th fret, and I can play the Gmaj chord on the 12th fret.
The minor chords in the scale of Gmaj require moving the slide down one fret on the note that is the third in the chord. I don't know that people really strum a pedal steel, so this is good starting place to practice small moves between the major and minor chords.
You can see how to play more chords in Open G tuning here at Jamplay.com.
Using my other favorite website, Bob Craypoe's Dr. Psychotic, here's what chords in the key of Gmaj look like in Standard Tuning, say on my Telecaster (pictured above).
Friday, September 21, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
First Impressions from a Nashville Recording Session
I'm very fortunate to have the opportunity to enjoy many great experiences in music. Recently I got to spend two days in Nashville working with a major artist who was recording two songs for an upcoming soundtrack album. Although the artist had already recorded amazing versions of these songs for the film itself, he decided that he wanted to take it up a notch for the soundtrack album.
Nashville is legendary for having some of the best musicians, and some of the most legendary studios in the world. The artist wanted to have a very organic sound for these songs so the decision was made to go old school and record live to 24 track, 2" tape. Although I had worked in the format in the early 90s it had been a long time. Also, the artists I had worked with in the 90s we're not tracking tracking live to tape - but rather laying down scratch guide tracks and then building the recordings via overdubs.
In this case the 24 track machine was configured to 16 track width, providing more fidelity. The featured artist played acoustic guitar and sang. The backing band consisted of an electric guitar player, a dobro player, upright bass and a drummer/percussionist. All takes were tracked directly to the 24 track tape machine and also to a Pro-Tools HD rig (after the tape in the signal chain). There very were minimal overdubs. The focus here was on rehearsing the songs, and tweaking the arrangement along the way.
This really confirmed something I've known for a long time. Arrangement is production. Performance is production. The large decisions about how these songs would sound were made before the session began. The day before the recording session with the artist, the backing band loaded in, and worked with the producer and engineers to mic up the signal path for each instrument. This included setting up the tape machine, etc. Each instrument's signal path was a complete production signal chain including EQ, Compression, Reverb and Delay (if, and as needed per instrument) on the way to tape. By the time the signal hit the tape, it was pretty much dialed in.
This organic approach to recording has it's own limitations and trade offs. The primary disadvantage to recording this way (if you can call it a disadvantage) is that the sound you are tracking is more/less the sound you are committed to. There will be room bleed, and that means limitations for overdubs. Also, because the effects for each instrument are in the signal chain there's little that can be done about reverb, delay and compression later.
The obvious advantage however is the musicality of the recording. There's nothing like live players hitting a groove. Also, because the performance is the production it really encourages critical thinking of the arrangement for each song. Another advantage to this type of recording is that songs can be recorded relatively quickly assuming the same instruments, players and signal chains will be used on each song. This also ads to a very cohesive feel to an album of songs all recorded in the same environment.
Nashville is legendary for having some of the best musicians, and some of the most legendary studios in the world. The artist wanted to have a very organic sound for these songs so the decision was made to go old school and record live to 24 track, 2" tape. Although I had worked in the format in the early 90s it had been a long time. Also, the artists I had worked with in the 90s we're not tracking tracking live to tape - but rather laying down scratch guide tracks and then building the recordings via overdubs.
In this case the 24 track machine was configured to 16 track width, providing more fidelity. The featured artist played acoustic guitar and sang. The backing band consisted of an electric guitar player, a dobro player, upright bass and a drummer/percussionist. All takes were tracked directly to the 24 track tape machine and also to a Pro-Tools HD rig (after the tape in the signal chain). There very were minimal overdubs. The focus here was on rehearsing the songs, and tweaking the arrangement along the way.
This really confirmed something I've known for a long time. Arrangement is production. Performance is production. The large decisions about how these songs would sound were made before the session began. The day before the recording session with the artist, the backing band loaded in, and worked with the producer and engineers to mic up the signal path for each instrument. This included setting up the tape machine, etc. Each instrument's signal path was a complete production signal chain including EQ, Compression, Reverb and Delay (if, and as needed per instrument) on the way to tape. By the time the signal hit the tape, it was pretty much dialed in.
This organic approach to recording has it's own limitations and trade offs. The primary disadvantage to recording this way (if you can call it a disadvantage) is that the sound you are tracking is more/less the sound you are committed to. There will be room bleed, and that means limitations for overdubs. Also, because the effects for each instrument are in the signal chain there's little that can be done about reverb, delay and compression later.
The obvious advantage however is the musicality of the recording. There's nothing like live players hitting a groove. Also, because the performance is the production it really encourages critical thinking of the arrangement for each song. Another advantage to this type of recording is that songs can be recorded relatively quickly assuming the same instruments, players and signal chains will be used on each song. This also ads to a very cohesive feel to an album of songs all recorded in the same environment.
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