Kick drum and bass level

Kick drum and bass level

by | Feb 2, 2016 | Bass, Drums, Percussion, Studio Techniques

When producing tracks that need a good kick and bass balance (that would be most if not all tracks!) it is interesting to see what happens when monitoring on small monitors or headphones. If there is no sub in the system then it can be too easy to overdo the level of bass so that when the track is played over a big pa it distorts and overpowers the track. Many is the time that I have thrown together a new track for a live show that sounds great until I get to play it out live. Now my solution is to use a little 2.1 system with two little tops and a small sub. If it sounds good on here then it will sound good live. I have always wanted to have the luxury of a live pa set up in the studio just for checking mixes. Maybe one day…

Writing a new jive song for a female artist.

Writing a new jive song for a female artist.

by | Feb 1, 2016 | Song Writing

I have been asked to write an upbeat Jive song for an Irish female singer. So far I have narrowed it down to a tempo of around 200 bpm with a certain kind of drum sound, bass pattern, guitar upbeats, some organ, a bit of accordion, some harmonica and a bit of tambourine. Lyrically its all in my head at the moment but it is coming together. I know it will all come together in time for the recording. Right now its kind of whooshing around in limbo but getting better as time goes on…. watch this space…

New samples and loops library

New samples and loops library

by | Jan 24, 2016 | Loops and Samples, Percussion, Sound Library

I have been meaning to start an online store selling loops and beats. It’s time to make that happen. I think that there is a room for a more useful format for loops where there is a lot more creativity left in the selection of sections of longer loops. I also always look for loops with starts, variations and endings so that they can be really used in the creation of a song structure rather that just one bit of audio that does only one thing. I hope that there will be other people interested in these more customisable loops.

A new kind of studio

A new kind of studio

by | Jan 17, 2016 | Studio Equipment, Studio Techniques

I have been thinking about where technology has taken the studio over the last 20 years. So much of it now is software based and the actual recording of sound seems to have taken a back seat to what happens in the computer. Sure, you can do a lot without ever recording anything new or original, but if you want to find your own sound you need to get sounds coming in to your system that are original. That is where the new concept for a recording studio comes in. I have an idea for a docking system where there are multiple sources of sound, microphones, inputs from old synthesisers, guitars, percussion and keyboards. The difference from the old days would be that the sounds need to be captured into the new system rather that left running live like they used to be in the days of midi. It is only a subtle difference in thinking but to me it represents a new way forward where I can create original sounds and capture the magic.

Old rack gear keeps breaking

Old rack gear keeps breaking

by | Jan 15, 2016 | Studio Equipment, Stuff that really happened

Sadly it turns out that most bits of rack equipment just don’t stand the test of time. I have been digging out some old bits of outboard to add them to the studio set up again only to find that one after the other they don’t work any more! It is probably battery power for the internal memories that has gone, which should be easy to fix with a bit of courage and a soldering iron, but its weird they all seemed to have failed at the same time.