Studio Solutions 73
Recording an Old Upright Piano
The piano is a beautiful instrument with unmatched emotional depth. Without it we would be without the music of Elton John, Thelonious Monk, Alicia Keys, and many more. There are many types of pianos and each presents a different challenge for recording engineers. Recently, I had the chance to record an old upright piano, and […]
How to Start a Podcast
Podcasts are blasting through a popularity level we really haven’t seen since the release of the Apple iPod back in the mid-2000s. There was a time when podcasts were a very hip thing that was just on the cusp of becoming mainstream. Well, welcome to the mainstream kids: podcasts are for normies now. From the […]
Let it Bleed
It’s become a standard practice of modern recording to try and isolate each vocal and instrumental track as much as possible. For instance, making sure there is only snare coming through the snare mic, or isolating the vocals from the guitar during a simultaneous guitar-and-vocals track, etc. The idea behind this, which makes a lot […]
Why Choose a Line Array Speaker System?
If you’re in the market for a new PA system, you may have noticed the emerging category of consumer line array speakers from brands like JBL, Altec Lansing, and QSC. What makes these speakers ideal (or not) for a given venue or live performance situation? Let’s take a look. Sound Dispersion Line array systems have […]
Understanding Speaker Sensitivity
When choosing a passive loudspeaker, one of the most important specifications to look for is sensitivity — a measure of the volume output you can expect from the speaker, relative to its input power. Speaker sensitivity reflects the speaker’s ability to efficiently convert power into sound. Why Does Speaker Sensitivity Matter? Sensitivity matters because a […]
Road-Friendly Recording
Build Your Tour Studio As much as you’d like it to be, sometimes a recording studio isn’t always conventional. When you’re on the road for weeks on end and still need to keep track of your ideas, a recording studio can often be a hotel room, green room, laundromat, or the bench seat of a […]
Important Akai MPC Updates
Lately, Akai has been releasing some incredible updates for the MPC Live and MPC X. There’s been little talk of these updates, but they are truly game changing and I would like to discuss their importance in case you haven’t hit that update button yet. Update 2.3 When I purchased the MPC Live, I was […]
The Devil Went Down To Georgia (Or Maybe Nashville)
What the heck is a fiddle? Recording violin (aka the fiddle) is something that I feel was a lot more prevalent throughout mainstream music history than it is now. While “fiddle” can mean a few different instruments – the lyre, hardanger, viola/kontra, the cello (aka the “big fiddle”) — it’s most commonly associated in modern […]
UAD-2 Preamp Bass Overdrive Shootout
Ever since I picked up my first electric guitar, I’ve always loved the sound of overdrive. Now, of course, when I first started playing, I thought that distortion was an effect or a sound only reserved for guitars, and preferably generated from a monstrous tube amp. As I grew older, I started aligning myself more […]
