Key Of Grey

September 6th, 2010 - I've had my M-Audio Firewire 410 for a long time. I picked it up in 2004 when I needed a mobile recording solution and I still use it. Lately though, I've been having audio drop outs. The software mixer will register audio output, and the card itself will light up its LEDs, but no audio will play. I can unplug and replug the interface back in, and it still won't register. What's especially weird, is that it will be ... Read More

August 26th, 2010 - I'm working on a track for my brother's upcoming album, and while I was working with the drum part, I thought of a tip that might help some of you out. In situations where we cannot record live drums (definitely the case for a lot of us home studio guys), it's pretty easy to pull up a great sounding drum plugin. Many producers I know use Addictive, BFD, or Superior drums, and I'm also partial to the Steve Slate ... Read More

August 20th, 2010 - Lately I've been working on fixing an old Powerbook. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I'm thinking that it might be cool to build it into a dedicated live rig. I remember when I got it and installed Logic for the first time. I was super excited to try out my new production rig. Imagine my disappointment when within the first 5 minutes I experienced a core audio overload; my shiny new (at ... Read More

August 12, 2010 - Have you ever seen the send fader (usually it's a rotary pot) and wondered what it was for? Why send the signal somewhere else for effects? After all, in DAWs, you can insert an effect directly on the channel strip without having to send the signal elsewhere. You can think of a send like running parallel processing. While inserting an effect directly on a channel strip sends the signal in a linear flow (audio > effect > out), ... Read More

Photo courtesy of John Bell August 9th, 2010 - Thanks to DigitalLush for the question. As always, please feel free to email me questions and I will do my best to answer them. Stumbled upon your site the other day and have been checking back reading different articles of interest. I came across one you had written on mixing. So here's a question that I don't know if it was covered indirectly, but I'm still curious about: When mixing for live performance or ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Kimble Young August 8th, 2010 - If you've been on the internet for any amount of time (which I assume you have been since you're reading this), you'll no doubt be familiar with the phenomenon of rickrolling. Internet meme aside, I just read a Sound on Sound article on the creation of that song, from the songwriting, to the production, and finally to the engineering stage. It's a good read. Also, although I love the song, I hate being rickrolled. Classic ... Read More

August 7th, 2010 - If you've ever cut apart a song for samples, and then tried to a create a song in a different tempo with the pieces, you'll know the frustration of samples that end too early. While you can stretch and warp vocal and melodic samples within reason, percussive samples never sound quite right. AudioTuts has a tutorial that explains a technique to extend the tail of a drum sample. Essentially it involves copying another reversed version of the same ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Mike Senese July 29th, 2010 - Sure you can pirate audio, but you can never pirate the soul and grit of vinyl. Or can you? Check out this DIY tutorial on making a playable copy of a vinyl record. The process involves making a silicone mold of the original vinyl record, then applying a liquid plastic to the negative. Once you drill out a hole in the middle, you're good to go. I would mix this tutorial with the one on ... Read More

Photo courtesy of xyz_man007 July 28th, 2010 - According to an article in Psychology Today, ceiling height affects productivity. Based upon my own experiences with cramped spaces, I can see how this would be true. When I feel closed in, I get distracted and irritable which clamps down on my creativity. I know that many music producers like working in a cave-like atmosphere, but along with the potential negative psychological effects for some individuals, low ceilings are generally detrimental acoustically. Early reflections are a ... Read More

July 23rd, 2010 - A few days ago, I put out a call on my Twitter account for suggestions of mic preamps that would work well with an M-Audio Sputnik tube microphone. I got several great suggestions, and Randy Coppinger came to the rescue with an awesome Sputnik test he had posted on SoundCloud (embedded below). In the test audio, Randy uses an M-Audio Sputnik tube condenser on 6 mic preamps: Martech MSS-10, True Systems P-Solo, Millennia Media TD-1, Universal Audio Solo 610, ... Read More