It’s Vista Launch Day, and Create Digital Music has the shortlist of music software with full Vista compatibility.
I certainly would not make Vista my primary system at this point, but a dual-boot might be very feasible (and will probably remain the best option for some time). We’ll track compatibility here; I expect to have a permanent page up soon so you can track your stuff and upgrade when it’s ready.

The Rise of the Song
You’ve got to spend only a short time online to realize that songs, not albums, are the principal medium of exchange on the Internet. Every time someone buys a portable digital-music player (and 1 in 3 music buyers owned one last year, up from 1 in 4 in 2005), that person has one less reason to buy CDs. What’s less clear is how this is reshaping our ideas about popular music, and what, if anything, may replace the conventional album — or the conventional single, for that matter.

Quantegy Says Goodbye to Magnetic Tape Lines
We have to face the current role that tape plays in the industry …

Tags: newsdigest

You could spend $1000 having Bob Katz master your CD, or you could save a few bucks, like Ry Cooder did, and simply entrust the job to iTunes:

Then Mr. Cooder noticed something else: When he burned a copy of the album using Apple’s iTunes software, it sounded fine. He didn’t know why until one of his younger engineers told him that the default settings on iTunes apply a “sound enhancer.” (It’s in the preferences menu, under “playback.”) Usually, that feature sweetens the sound of digital music files, but Mr. Cooder so liked its effect on his studio recordings that he used it to master — that is, make the final sound mixes — his album.

As the article states, Cooder is likely the first well-known artist to master an album through iTunes. But the effect of iTunes’ sound enhancer is obvious to anyone who hears it. So does the software do anything that might qualify as mastering? Here’s a collection of thoughts on how iTunes ‘sound enhancer’ functions:

What iTunes does in this respect is the same as the ‘Wide’ button found on ghetto blasters in days of yore – some high frequencies from each channel are phase-inverted and fed to the opposite channel. This makes the stereo-width apparently greater – but comes at the expense of any real definition of placement.

(And for the record, I’m not endorsing the use of iTunes software in place of a trained mastering engineer. Your music should mean more to you than that.)

Tags: mastering

Mix Magazine’s Classic Tracks looks at Phil Collins, and the recording of Face Value:

The famous drum fill, Collins contends, could have been anything. What is on the record is what came out at the moment. “When people talk about the ‘Phil Collins drum sound,’ that is actually a huge variety of drum sounds,” Collins says. “We never left the setup; we always broke it down and started again so we could end up somewhere different. The Townhouse Studio actually wasn’t that live. It was quite tall, but not really a big room — probably smaller than most people’s bedroom. The Genesis studio we designed had a much livelier, bigger room, glass and reflective surface. So when you listen to “In the Air Tonight,” it is not really that live, it’s big. The snare drum and tom toms kind of bark, but it is made from a lot of compression with ambient mics as far away from the drums as possible, and those are noise-gated.”

Collins and engineer Hugh Padgham are generally credited with pioneering the use of SSL’s talkback mic compressor as a drum channel compressor, and it’s a huge component of Collins’ drum sound on Face Value. (SSL now offers the talkback compressor as a free plugin.)

But distinctive as his drums (and famous drum roll) are, with In The Air Tonight Collins actually relied on drum machines, at least up to the point where “all hell lets loose”

Tags: drums, freeplugins, professional-engineers, vst

Some quick tips, for recording on a Saturday night:

Monitor through different sources while mixing and mastering: As you work, periodically check your mixes through near-field monitors, HiFi speakers, computer speakers, headphones, even an old boom box if you have one. As the mix nears completion, you’ll be much more confident that your work sounds great in any listening environment.

When recording electric guitar, add a 2nd mic near the guitarist’s ears: Guitar players naturally move to a spot where their amp sounds best. So along with a mic directly on the amp, use the guitarist’s instincts to your advantage, and record the sound that the player hears.

Get the sound you want before pointing a microphone at it: It’s easier to capture the right sound when it sounds right.

Tags: tips-digest

How does one capture that transparent acoustic guitar sound?

I like to record steel stringed acoustic guitars with two mics, one aimed at the bridge and one aimed towards the neck, just about where the neck meets the body. The mic aimed at the bridge will get the bright stuff and the one aimed at the neck gets the dark stuff. The beauty of this approach is it lets you mix ‘n’ match to taste at mixdown. In other words, if it’s just naked guitar or guitar and vocals, you can balance the tracks for a full sound.

This Gearslutz thread has tips on getting a stereo sound from only one guitar:

If you put up a room mic, and you aim it to the side instead of the amp, then that mic gets no direct sound from the amp, and you get no phase problems when you blend it into the mix. Figure 8 pattern works great for this, because there is more rejection at the null point. If the player is into the purity of a trio, with no doubletracking, this would be a good way to go.

And here are some approaches to recording a BIG guitar sound:

take a split of the guitar track & feed it through an eq, then a compressor, then another identical eq. find the spot, usually around 800hz, where the guitar sounds nice & thick & boost it till the eq just starts to dominate, then double that boost. compress that sound like you normally would a guitar, then, on the second eq, cut the same frequency by half the amount you boosted with the first eq. blend this sound in with your original track.

Tags: guitars

Toys for making noise
While the U.S. recording industry continues to slide under pressure from illegal downloaders and file-sharers, the other side of the music world — businesses catering to those who create the music — has nearly doubled over the last decade to become a $7.5-billion industry.

Indies aim to grab share of online sales
Indie labels account for some 80% of new music releases in major markets but only about 30% of total revenues, according to industry data for 2005, partly because the majors spend more on marketing and have — until recently — maintained tight control over distribution channels.

Tags: newsdigest

Self-recording artists often focus mainly on the instruments in a mix, and pray the vocals will somehow take care of themselves. This is understandable, as many of us started our learning on guitar and keyboard, so it’s these instruments we’re most comfortable mixing. For a guitar player, vocals are sometimes a necessary evil, rather than a core element of the music.

But as producer of your own songs, you need to concern yourself with all aspects of recording, especially vocals, since listeners tend to hear the singer’s voice first and foremost. While the instruments are obviously important, to really impact on your listeners, you need the vocals to stand out.

If yours sometimes fall short, the tips below can bring new life to your vocal tracks:
(more…)

Tags: vocals

Make your own paper CD holders.

Advice from Diskfaktory on hassle-Free CD Pressing.

Some short thoughts on duplicating and distributing your CD.

Tags: business

It’s been quiet around Hometracked for a few days. Was I at the Winter NAMM show?

Well, no. But lots of people were. And while I like to focus here on technique and tips, it’s hard to completely ignore the importance of technology in the lives of home recordists. So, for those who aren’t yet NAMM’d out, here’s the web’s best coverage of last weekend’s show:

• Mix Online has a site with their take on the 2007 NAMM show.
• Future Music’s two day roundup (day one, day two) is a personal take on the show, with none of the typical marketing-speak.
• Musicthing has good coverage of the new synths from Korg, Arturia, and Waldorf.
• Create Digital Music has more on the Waldorf pianos, and a drool-inducing spread on the new Rhodes pianos.
• And finally, if you’re the type to water your lawn with a firehose, Gearwire’s NAMM coverage is … comprehensive.

Tags: hardware

C’mon, we all wish we’d thought of this:

Tags: humour