Archive for December, 2007
Ribbon Mics: The Secret Weapon of the Mic Locker
December 14, 2007 UncategorizedThis post is going to highlight the ribbon microphone: the neglected and underutilized black-sheep citizen of the mic locker. If I do a session without using a ribbon mic, I get cranky. What’s a ribbon mic? Why should I care? Ribbon mics are the stepchildren of dynamic microphones. Dynamic mics such as the Shure SM57, [...]
Read More »Dealing with Latency: The Audio Buffer
December 13, 2007 UncategorizedThis post is going to focus on the subject of latency in the digital medium, mainly adjusting the audio buffer to achieve the results needed. One thing that people who are new to the realm of recording on a computer will notice is that there is a lag between what goes into the computer and [...]
Read More »Scouting: Noticing, Being Noticed, and Following Through.
December 12, 2007 UncategorizedThis post is about techniques for scouting and following through with potential clients. Unless you’re an institution in the industry, whether locally or internationally, chances are clients won’t be calling you or knocking on your door for the chance to work with you. It used to be that labels would almost always choose the producers [...]
Read More »Ideas for Choosing the Album’s Track Order
December 11, 2007 UncategorizedThis post focuses on ideas for choosing the track order of an album. You’ve completed your songs, all the details are done, the mixes are smashing, and you’re ready for mastering. But wait… we need to arrange these things somehow! An often overlooked and often very arbitrary step in the production process, track order can [...]
Read More »Audio Data Compression: Myths and Controversy Part 2 (Lossless)
December 10, 2007 UncategorizedThis post is part 2 of 2 on audio data compression. The first part focused on lossy compression whereby audio quality is decreased and quite a bit of size is reduced. This post will focus on lossless compression whereby quality is retained and some size is reduced. As I mentioned in the previous post, there [...]
Read More »Audio Data Compression: Myths and Controversy Part 1 (Lossy)
December 9, 2007 UncategorizedThis post will focus on lossy audio data compression: the types, the pros and cons, and how to get the most out of the most popular format. In the audio world you will no doubt run across some very paranoid people who believe that anything that touches your audio will degrade its quality and, in [...]
Read More »
Roll Your Own Multitrack Drum Sample Kit
December 8, 2007 UncategorizedThis post describes how to create your own multitrack drum kits by creating and layering samples from existing multitrack drum recordings. Despite the samples being sequenced, you’ll end up with separate, mixable tracks for each mic just like you would have from a live drum performance. Samples are a reality of modern music production. [...]
Read More »The Role of a Music Producer Explained
December 7, 2007 UncategorizedAs I have worked with artists and discussed what it is that I do with people who are not directly involved with the music industry, one of the things that has become very apparent is that not many people are familiar with the role of a producer. They listen to produced albums, love them, but [...]
Read More »
