Heard often in radio broadcast, but also useful for music (i.e. tracking), the side chain compression technique, simple in concept but complex to implement correctly, is widely used and widely known. Video tutorial by db audioware, but you don’t have to buy their plugin - it has some good tips for generic use. Click here to check it out.
German Microphone brand Brauner, somewhat known as the new Neumann competitor, announced the Phantom Classic condenser.
Based on the Brauner C, a design aimed at creating an affordable microphone while still maintaining Brauner-like aspects and characteristics, the Phantom Classic follows the success of the limited Phantom Anniversary Edition that celebrated Brauner’s 10th Anniversary. The Phantom Classic is a (surprise!) phantom powered condenser microphone with fixed cardioid pattern based on the famous VM1 capsule design, and, knowing Brauner, we hope it sounds just great!
Brand info at www.braunerusa.com
Apparently, Digidesign listened to the user requests for an almost software-only version of Pro Tools LE. This new MBox is basically a blue USB 1.1 dongle with 24-bit/48 kHz headphone output and a tiny volume knob. And that’s it. No feature list needed. That’s all you need to know.
It allows you to run Pro Tools LE 7.3 or higher for the bargain retail price of $250 (estimated). You can’t record audio with it. Just edit sessions.
Still, it might sell pretty well and become very popular. Or maybe not, because… the lowest price LE product requiring another Pro Tools system to record the sessions before editing on the move? That might be confusing to some people! Considering the average low-budget Mbox users out there, I can already imagine the user posts at the DUC saying things like “I just bought the little tiny mbox for my band and where do I plug in the mic and the guitar? Please help!”
It’s going to be fun 
Waves GTR3 (Guitar Tool Rack) is out and no one made a lot of fuss about Digidesign Eleven – Sorry Digidesign, but the demos seem to suggest it’s another average amp modeler.
But not GTR! That one sure sparked a lot of interest at AES 2007 in the field of high quality amp modeling, and made everyone curious about the technology used for modeling paired with the convolution (yes, the one used in convolution reverbs) used in the speaker + mic modeling stages.
On the other hand, we have the “oldies” Native Instruments Guitar Rig and IK Multimedia’s Amplitube 2. Up until recently, Guitar Rig was the king, but lately Amplitube 2 appeared to be accepted as the winner, not for overall options and tweakability, where Guitar Rig shines, but simply sound quality and realism of simple & straightforward amp modeling possibilities.
So how does the old & current winner look against the apparent new kid from AES 2007? Who would win in a street fight for amp modeling sound quality in different music genres and playing styles? We put ‘em both face to face and got ‘em really angry. And it wasn’t pretty. More…
Now that Pro Tools 7.4 was announced for release very soon at AES, bringing the major Elastic Time feature, some would say this is not the best time to write an introductory tutorial about tempo matching “the old way” in Pro Tools. But it might be interesting to compare the tempo matching, time stretching and tempo mapping processes, which could not be fully included here due to their extensiveness, with the upcoming Elastic Time feature.
Kudos to all the folks & Jeff Rudisill at Telcom 147 (DAWs/Pro Tools) at Pasadena City College! Hope you enjoy. More…
It’s Blog Action Day! Let us think about how simple it is to stop destroying the environment.
Blog Action Day is about what bloggers can do to use their communication power and nag everyone one more time about the planet and what we’re doing. Little things can make a big difference: take short showers, avoid too many disposable things, don’t use your printer so much, carpool, stop watching so much damn TV, turn off the lights when you leave a room, use compact fluorescent bulbs instead of incandescent ones, check your car tire pressure, talk to your kids about the environment, turn down your water heater, use a low-flow shower head, lower your thermostat, put a plastic bottle in your toilet tank, drive a small car, walk short distances instead of driving, buy used, unload your car, stop buying bottled water and just install a water filter (or drink tap water, it’s just great), join Blog Action Day …
Also, proud congrats to Al Gore for his very well deserved Nobel peace prize!
Line 6 finally has a new release in the digital arsenal - 78 guitar amp models, more than 200 presets, Multi-channel USB 2.0, with the ability to combine 2 tones at once, 28 bass amps and 6 mic preamp models, XLR mic input and digital output. It will be curious to compare the mic preamp modelings to the real deal, or at least to mic preamps in the same price range of the POD X3. But should we expect anything revolutionary from the guitar/bass amp simulations? Also new to the line up, the LIVE version of POD X3. More…
And surprinsingly, it sounds just great! Mark Tremonti’s band took the time to write new amazing songs for this second album, and they didn’t even need Mr. Ben Grosse on the mixing console to sound unbelievable. Spoiled by a great mixing engineer on their debut album, this time they gave a shot to a new guy on the block - Brian Sperber. And he definitely made it work. Besides the great songwriting work and great musicianship from the whole band, the mix sounds just as killer as before, with One Day Remains.
Blackbird is a great new addition to a new wave of pure Hard Rock reborn from the ashes. And it’s now available on Amazon MP3, in high quality downloads.
…And another Pro Tools plug-in: Digidesign Eleven.
This time, guess what, an amp simulator! Probably the best companion for Digidesign Strike. And this one goes to eleven - Digidesign decided to dethrone Amp Farm and come up with their own in-house solution, and we’re hoping it’s a good one. Currently the kings in this competitive market are IK Multimedia’s Amplitube 2 and Native Instruments Guitar Rig 2. But who knows what the future has in store…
A more detailed review will be coming soon! By the way, RTAS, TDM and AudioSuite for OSX. No RTAS for Windows. Yet.
You know all those outdated articles and online guides that you, as a musician or audio professional, keep googling for, because of how they help you learn all those things that should be simple to find?
Moozek is the cheat sheet to keep coming back for that kind of help - except with brand new articles, written for the 21st century artist and engineer.
Moozek is a pro audio & music blog presented by composer & producer Jonathan H. Grand, as well as some other contributors and members of The Recording Academy (NARAS). Moozek is centered in quality content that promises to fill your bookmarks with tons of handy links. They include information helpful to all kinds of industry professionals:
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From producers to professional recording artists and composers, it’s a site that caters to everyone who knows how to use a microphone, or intends to. Subscribe to our RSS2 feed, or to our email newsletter.