Key Of Grey

Photo courtesy of John Bell February 23rd, 2011 - Lately, I've been working on mixing a small musical that will debut this Friday. It's definitely a step outside of my comfort zone as mixing live is very different from mixing in a studio, and mixing a musical is very different from mixing a band. Here’s a compilation of some of the things I’ve learned and things that are different from studio work. For one, there's a lot of waiting around, but when the ... Read More

January 23, 2011 - A new year, a brand new product review! Audio-Technica was kind enough to send me a set of their DJ headphones, the ATH-PRO700. I've been itching to try out a good set of headphones since the ones I've used to mix and listen with for the past 10 years, have begun disintegrating. Because I check my mixes with a couple sets of in ear monitors, one of them being the Ultimate Ears Triple-Fi I reviewed last month, I haven't ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Fide January 17th, 2011 - I hope you guys have gotten a great start to the year. Mine has been quite busy and I have big plans for the site. For one, I'm working on a visual overhaul, but as regular readers may have noticed, I've stopped posting as many articles on new gear coming out. I will still continue to post about new gear if I find it exciting, but I'd like to focus this site on more DIY engineering, ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Simon J. Campbell December 29th, 2010 - Hey everyone, hope your holidays are going well. With all the hubbub these past few weeks, I haven't had much time to write music. The other day however, I got to record a bit with some friends which was a refreshing change from my normal work week. Yesterday, I sat down to polish a couple of my own songs, and it got me thinking about the phrase "Don't bore us, get to the ... Read More

December 13, 2010 - I recently received a set of Ultimate Ears TripleFi 10 IEM's (in ear monitors) and I've had a few days to put them through their paces. The TripleFi 10s, as the name suggests, contain 3 drivers, each corresponding to the low, medium, and high frequency ranges. Many earphones claim to go down to super low frequencies, lower than the normal range of human hearing in fact; in the TripleFi 10s Ultimate Ears says the can get down to ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Lollyman December 9, 2010 - Ok, we are a go! Participation for this project is closed, and I've sent out invitations to the Dropbox account to everyone who showed interest. If you missed out on this project, we'll get you on the next one. Hopefully this will all work out awesome, and will be the start of a cool collaborative community. First off, I want to really thank you guys for your enthusiasm. I started this site a couple years ago, ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Dave Conner November 18th, 2010 - So several of you have expressed interest in the collaboration project, and those that I have contact info for through your comments have been added to the shared DropBox folder. If anyone else wants to be part of the project, please comment on this post and enter your contact info in the form (email addresses won't be shown publicly). Also, please tell everyone about this project as the more people we have, the better ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Roomic Cube November 13, 2010 - We've all been there fleshing out a track and thinking "Oh this is the chorus"; Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V. It happens in every genre, but especially to independent producers who do everything themselves. After all, if we want another chorus, we just need to clone another one and maybe add some new stuff on top right? Wrong. Have you ever finished your production and it sounded a little flat. With stellar mixing and careful production, why doesn't ... Read More

November 11, 2010 - When I first started working with Logic, I immediately maxed out its processing power on my laptop within the first 5 minutes. In the time since then, I've done full 36 track mixes with effects, and mixed my own complete productions; all of this involved eking out as much processing and hard drive performance as I could from my laptop. One of the problems with Apple is that upgrading your machine (in terms of processors) just doesn't happen. ... Read More

November 3rd, 2010 - I'm sure you've all heard that Protools, along with going native, now has an SE version that ships with either a USB microphone, an interface similar to the Mbox mini, or a MIDI keyboard. You may also have heard that you don't have to go to your local Guitar Center to buy one either; you can get them at Best Buy. Power users may scoff at the baby Protools (after all it has a maximum of 16 tracks) however ... Read More