POLL: GEAR OF THE YEAR – 2009

Despite the long tail effects of a sharp economic downturn here in America, 2009 seemed to be a barn-burner year for music production software. Many companies delivered on promises made at the 2009 NAMM Convention back in January by coming through with products that have advanced the composing game a few steps ahead yet again. Although it is difficult — if not impossible — to whittle the year’s releases down to a small group of five, we’ve given you what we think are the top five most important releases of 2009, based solely on sales data from one of the leading musical instrument retailers in North America. Cast your vote in our GEAR OF THE…

DSP cards and the Universal Audio UAD 2

In keeping with this month’s theme of “Gear and Software”, I wanted to talk a little more about my number 1 “My Perfect 3″ find: The Universal Audio UAD2 DSP Card. DSP cards for use in DAW’s have been around for a while now, predominantly starting with Digidesign and ProTools, then later came the UAD-1 card from Universal Audio and TC Electronics released the Powercore card around the same time. The Digidesign DSP cards used a proprietary TDM architecture that ran only in ProTools hardware and software. For the rest of us who did not have a spare 10-15K lying around to get into ProTools, we were left out. When Universal Audio and TC Electronics…

Personal Studio Acoustics

The first hint was not being sure what was up with my bottom end. Not the one in the chair, the one in the speakers. I know, I’ve been there. In the chair, in front of the speakers. Spent a good part of my life there. I should know. I’m a mixer. (Sorry, went into Dragnet mode there!) With keyboard, screen, mix controller in front of me, and speakers outside of and behind the computer screen in a nice equilateral triangle with my head and ears, the mix is coming together pretty nicely. Got the harps and guitars panned and strings nicely textured with a good convolution reverb. But now — what about the bass?…

Mixing: Technical Guidelines, Part 2

Recording and mixing music is a collection of skills that can take a lifetime to acquire. But almost every composer needs to do their own mixing sometimes, whether for a demo, low-budget project, or other reasons. The equipment keeps getting better and is widely available, especially with the computer software packages most composers work with. Let’s take a look at a few ideas and concepts about mixing music for the screen. Setting up your studio First of all you need an appropriate place to listen and work. A deep discussion of room acoustics is too much for this article, but for a fantastic resource check out “Acoustic Design For The Home Studio” by Mitch Gallagher….