Buddy Miller recording with Robert Plant on the road

Here is a great article talking about Buddy Miller recording with Robert Plant on the road using M-Audio gear like the Profire 2626, M-Audio Sputnik Microphone and Pulsar II microphones. Think you can't get pro quality with affordable recording gear? You should listen to Buddy Miller's new amazing album "Written in Chalk," read the article and then make your decision. Click here for the full article.

One-Minute Drum Mixing Tutorial

Our One-Minute Mixing/Mastering Series of articles have been some of our most popular articles to date. So this month we are continuing with One-Minute Drum Mixing. To emphasize once again, getting a really good mix of drums will take you more than one minute. But if there is only a minute to mix, or someone wanted to make a quick mix for a quick reference, here's a step-by-step on what to do.

First, some preliminaries. Let's a assume one has recorded with a fairly standard and simple four microphone drum recording setup:
- Condenser matched Stereo Pair for overheads (L & R) (On the top end, the SE4 pair are recommended or the M-Audio Pulsar II Pair for half the price)
- Dynamic mic on kick (the AKG D112 is a standard mic or the Audio Technica ATM 250 for a tighter sound
- Dynamic mic on snare (the new AKG D5 sounds great)
With decent mics and good positioning you can achieve an excellent recorded source with just four mics. Adding more microphones can bring more mixing flexibility, but can also increase the chance of phasing. And always remember this equation for success: good source sound + good mic selection and placement = much easier mixing

Now for the Mixing step-by-step:

1. Create a stereo group or sub-mix called "drums" in your DAW (5 seconds if you know how to do it, but this will take longer if you have to look it up for your particular program)
2. Pull all 4 drum track volumes down to nothing and route the outputs into the group "drums" (5 seconds)
3. Kick Drum: Insert a compressor on the kick drum track. Put the ratio to around 4:1. Bring the kick volume up to around unity on the mixer (usually says 0) and pull up the make-up gain on the compressor until it is just starting to grab the kick and it has a solid gut or chest punch. (10 seconds)
4. Snare Drum: Insert an EQ on the Snare Drum Track and make a high pass filter starting at around 200hz. (Basically use the EQ to take out anything below 200hz). This will help focus on the snare and take much of the Kick out of the snare mic. Bring the gain level up to about where it sounds balanced with the kick. On the EQ you can also bump up a little of the frequencies at around 5kHz for an increase in the crisp sound of the snare, 10kHz for more of a snap, and somewhere between for a combination. Pan the snare about 1/3 to 1/2 way to the right. As a final touch, insert a plate reverb on the track and give the snare just a enough to make it linger. (20 seconds)
5. Overheads: Pan the Left hard left and the Right hard right. Put a high pass EQ on each of them at about 100Hz to leave the proper kick channel lots of frequency room. Bring both channels up into the mix until it fills out the sound to taste. (15 seconds)
6. Add a room or hall reverb onto the drum group and add just enough of the wet/dry mix to taste (don't overdue it, in one of our favourite reverbs, the UAD Real Verb Pro plug-in included in all UAD-2 cards, I usually don't take the wet mix above 5%). (5 seconds)

You can take these same principals, use a little more time and get an even better sound out of the drums. But if time is of the essence, we hope this one-minute drum mix will help.

Do you have a Music Hobby or a Music Career? What Susan Boyle can teach us.

By Jason Johnston

Do you want a career or do you want a hobby? A hobby is something that takes time and your money but only gives back enjoyment for yourself and maybe some others. Hobbies are a great way to relax and spend time with a fellow musicians and fans and add great quality to life. Everyone should have a hobby and music is the best I know. But some musicians think their music is a career when it is not. What is the defining line? A career puts food on the table. It doesn't have to be a lot, or even your main bread winner, but until it pays you back you are not a professional musician and you do not have a career.

Of course, I can hear the justifications right now: I'm in it for the love. The money ruins it all. Music Business is an oxymoron. That is one stance, and if that is yours then maybe the hobby approach will give the least frustration while bringing the most enjoyment. Music as a hobby is certainly a less troublesome path and can be very fulfilling. There are many easier and more certain ways to make money than a music career.

Looking at a current example, is Susan Boyle a hobbyist, or a professional musician? Well, she certainly has a good set of pipes and is now world famous. Her Youtube videos of her blowing away the judges and audience of "Britain's Got Talent" earlier this year were watched over 200 million times. But where is the career? The sale of the song she sang 'I Dreamed A Dream' from Les Miserables has increase exponentially, but without her singing it. The sales of Les Mis tickets have seen a resurgence, but without her in a paying roll. In comparison, the previous Youtube champion, Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend", generated over 120 million views and was estimated at giving the Canadian singer at least $2 Million in revenue.(1) Susan has had more than her 15 minutes of fame, Youtube is basking in the hits, and "Britain's Got Talent" is certainly profiting from the Cinderella type story, but where is Susan Boyle's cut? And since coming in second place in the reality show, where is her career?

You don't need to be greedy, but if you are serious about making some money and subsequently a career from your music, what are you going to do when opportunity strikes? When you have your 15 minutes of fame, will you bask in the glory or think of your music like a business and ask yourself, how can I build a career from this moment in the spotlight?

Sources:
(1)http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/04/susan-boyle-nev/

Home Made Hi-Def Speakers? Putting Sound Physics to use.

Want to make your own speakers? Here's a video with 2.5 Million views and a string of lies.

Don't bother even trying: It makes no sense from a physics standpoint. The electrical impulses need to be turned back into vibrations in order to move air, which is the way a speaker works. Putting the two wires on the back of a penny is a lie.

Here is Myth Busters taking this myth on (it's pretty funny):

There are some examples of homemade speakers that will work and will teach us about the necessary laws of physics that we all must follow. Here is one that makes sense:

There are others out there with variations of a theme ussing plastic cups, etc. Will they sound as good as your Yamaha's, JBL's or M-Audio monitors? I can pretty much tell you for a fact, no. But it will be a good learning experience even if it's not a good listening experience.