Don LaFontaine, also known as “The Voice”, died Monday at age 68. The man who narrated more than 5000 movie trailers became an indisputable legend in the world of voice overs.
LaFontaine died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications from a collapsed lung. He had been taken to the hospital on August 22 with a blood clot in the lung. [Video after the jump] More…
Universal Audio today announced the UAD-2 Powered Plug-Ins & PCIe DSP Accelerator Card for DAWs. The UAD-2 is the successor to the revolutionary, award-winning UAD-1 Powered Plug-Ins & DSP Card Platform. UAD-2 offers scalable DSP power via 3 different types of cards (Solo, Duo or Quad) which can be mixed or matched in any combination up to 4 cards. Each UAD-2 is powered by the same Analog Devices® 21369 SHARC® floating-point DSP in single and multi-chip configurations. UAD-2 offers 2.5X (Solo), 5x (Duo) and 10X (Quad) the power of UAD-1. More…
I have met some composers who were not completely up-to-date in their blockbuster movie knowledge and enjoyment…
And there are some flicks from the past twenty years that you definitely need to watch if you’re a composer. Considering that most of them work for film, it’s important to know the good music that is being created for movies. Just like the way alternative or hip hop producers and engineers should know the work of Andy Wallace – even if they don’t like the music he is mixing. Because some productions are just meant to raise the bar and become a reference. More…
Buying the perfect guitar without killing your bank account has been increasingly easier, and I guess we all owe that to a lot of market competition. But that also means people need to be a lot more careful when picking their axe: I still see a lot of folks spending their whole savings on something that is worst built and worst sounding than competing models that would have cost less than 1/3 (one third) of the price! This personally makes me really sad, because everyone deserves a great guitar or bass, whether they’re learning to play or been doing it professionally for decades.
The market may be cruel and misleading, but if you know how to look, you can find something good. Being a guitar player for 12 years, I learned it the hard way. More…
Great news for the huge crowd of AC/DC fans – after 8 years of absence, the legendary Australian rockers’ new single “Rock’n'Roll Train” will hit the radio August 28. This will prepare the market for their new album, to be released in October 18 exclusively at Walmart stores, entitled Black Ice.
The band finished the record with respected rock producer Brendan O’Brien in Vancouver in just eight weeks and recently filmed a video for Rock’n'Roll Train, which will premiere next month. Black Ice will feature 15 tracks including She Likes Rock’n'Roll and War Machine.
Coming soon
Microsoft Windows XP is still the number one choice of operating system for DAWs on PC. Yes, it’s worse than Linux (if only we had Pro Tools for Linux), but better than Vista in the part of not being a total memory and CPU hog (you know, kinda like OS X Leopard is now). But unlike Mac OS X, Windows is not about having big Fisher-Price icons and the hopes that things will “just work”, or not work at all.
Windows XP is less black & white, and needs work before audio projects can call it a home. But here are some performance tips for all the Windows XP DAW users. Use this article as a reference. More…
Update: 20 Intermediate Pro Tools Tips now posted!
During my years of experience in the field, I’ve had tons of people asking for advice. Specially advice on DAW systems – mainly Pro Tools, because it’s the industry standard – and because Digital Audio Workstations can get complicated.
The tips I keep repeating are rarely heard, and then they come back with more serious problems – because they didn’t listen the first time. It’s not because they are stupid, but because it’s normal to be excited about this new investment, thinking Digidesign is just like any other company who makes products that “just work”. Unfortunately products that “just work” are a very rare breed in today’s technological age, so people need to be prepared… More…
ILIO announced today the release of Synthogy Ivory Upright Pianos. Featuring 4 different sampled instruments, capturing every key in up to 10 velocities.
The four pianos included are a new Yamaha U5 upright, a well-preserved 1914 Hume, an early 1900′s tack piano, with genuine tacks in the hammer felts, and a 1915 Packard Honky-Tonk piano, which spent many years in Boston’s famed Cheers bar. Upright Pianos was designed to be versatile, appealing to musicians interested in alternative rock, pop, country, folk, blues and period music. More…
It’s been some time since the Moozek preview of the unique DAW plug-in manager Lok and Load. A lot has happened, and a new version was released. We were offered the new version for reviewing, and I made sure an unbiased review was written about this new application with a very exciting concept. More…