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1) Buy quality gear that you can feel proud to own, even if you have to save up longer and buy it one piece at a time. Cheap gear quickly loses resale value and will bring you regret and frustration in the long run.

2) As long as it has the features you absolutely need, it’s better to get a higher quality thing with fewer features, than a lower quality thing with lots of extra features. In other words, better to get a very good single channel audio interface than, say, a 12-channel mixer with tons of knobs, if that’s all you really need.

3) Research thoroughly before buying: the manual, user reviews, and forum threads. Look for cut corners, missing features you might need, and general shortcomings.

4) Instead of having a poor performance or poor sounding audio source and expecting to fix it later with plugins, get the source sounding as good as possible first, so that you need as little processing as you possible. Reason is that trying to fix things with plugins introduces artifacts that take away from the realism.

5) Beware of how your recording space sounds — the echoes, reverb, reflections, etc… of the room. A small room with a metallic echo, or a microphone placed too close to a wall, will make even the most expensive of microphones sound bad. Learn about acoustic treatment: hanging up blankets or mattresses, reflection filters, portable vocal booths, or using acoustic foam, bass traps, diffusion panels. Acoustics have more impact on your recording tone than the brand of microphone used.

6) Condenser microphones are more sensitive to room acoustics as they pick up a wider field of sound. Dynamics are less sensitive to that, but they also sound a bit more up close and stuffy on vocals. Dynamics are great on loud blaring sources like electric guitar cabs, trumpets, snares, and so on. Condensers are best for acoustic guitar, vocals, piano.

7) How you position the mic relative to the audio source, and how both of those are positioned in the room, is very important. Mic position relative to your mouth or the guitar amp speaker, that’s something you’ll really have to play with. Do many tests to see what sounds best.

8) Pick five or ten songs from your music collection that you think have the best production sound similar to what you’re going for. As you mix, constantly refer back to those songs to see how you’re matching up. Make sure volume is adjusted so that your song and theirs are equal volume.

9) Beware of ear fatigue. That’s where after several hours of listening, your ears get numbed to certain frequency ranges and your sense of hearing is totally inaccurate. Most likely you’ll be unable to hear lower bass and upper mids and trebles, and will attempt to turn them up in the mix to compensate, only to realize the next day that the mix sounds scooped and harsh. When your ears are fresh, listen to an awesome sounding professional song … then as you mix, refer back to that song … when it starts sounding dull, you know your ears are shot for the day. Give it a break. For severe ear fatigue it can take up to a week to recover to 100%.

10) Studio monitors must be your single most valuable investment. Do not skimp on those. If you are serious about recording, you must get good, flat spectrum, accurate studio monitor speakers. They are your microscope into the mix. If they are off, your mix will be off. Good monitors are ones that, if what you make sounds good on them, it’ll sound good as can be on everything else. For mixing bass, since subwoofers are expensive and room acoustic resonance will make them inaccurate unless your room has bass traps everywhere, you may need to invest in some Audio Technica ATH-M50s headphones to accurately judge the bass. This will allow you to buy studio monitors in the 5-6” cone range (way cheaper than the 8” ones) and not worry about having to mix bass only on those. You can also mix on the Audio Technica cans, but speakers will give you better judging of relative volume levels and not be as ear fatiguing. If you can’t afford good monitors, then mix on the best you have, and then listen on car stereos, pc speakers, anything you can find to see what you need to fix. But I swear, good monitors are the key to good music production.

11) On microphones. My personal preferences. Dynamics: SM57, Sennheiser e906, or Audix i5 on guitar cab. SM7B on vocals. Condensers on vocals and everything else: Audio Technica AT2020, AT4050, AKG C214 or C414, Studio Projects CS1 or CS5, Kel HM-7U. Beware that dynamic mics need a lot of gain (40-65dB) and some cheaper audio interfaces aren’t powerful enough. Also, condensers require 48V phantom power and not all audio interfaces have those either.

12) Audio interfaces. If you’re not recording a whole band or a drum set, all you need is a 2 channel USB interface. The cheap unreliable ones are under $75. Passable are $75-$165. Decent are $165-$225. Good are $225-$350. Very good are $350-750.

Copyright Lunahelia.com © 2008-2011

Copyright Lunahelia.com © 2008-2011

Here are some great tips to get better metal guitar recordings.

1) Reduce the lows (bass) of your guitar signal before the distortion, then boost the lows after distortion. This is how you get a very tight rhythm. Use a Tube Screamer type pedal or the Hardwire CM-2, to cut the lows before the amp. Then you can use a bit more gain to sound more brutal without losing your dynamics. With a pedal that lets you adjust the low end, you can make even a crappy farty amp sound tight. Just turn the gain all the way down on the pedal, turn the level up to middle or higher, and then adjust the low and high knobs to taste. If you turn the treble down on the amp, but turn the treble up on the pedal, you’ll get both a warm and rounded distortion tone (like in power chords as they ring out) with simultaneously accentuated pick attack.

2) Don’t turn your gain all the way up on your amp or preamp. Heaviness comes from a balance between dynamics and distortion, not from the highest distortion possible. You don’t need high gain to sound heavy. Too much gain reduces the difference between palm muted and open notes, reduces dynamics, and takes away all the impact and punch. Palm mute and pick string repeatedly and turn the gain up just enough to get some sharpness that damps out quick, but not so much you have a continuous sharp buzz throughout.

3) If you’re using a real mic and cabinet, you will need a 4×12 and standard mics like the SM57, e906, Heil PR40, and MD421 to even get close to what you hear in professional recordings. Even so, if the room you’re recording in has bad acoustics, all that will be for nothing. If it works out for you, cool, but if not, look into tube preamp like the ENGL e530 or Peavey Rockmaster run into cabinet impulses by Catharsis, Guitar Hacks, or Redwirez. You’ll get 90-95% the sound of an ideal mic/cab/room combo, repeatedly day after day with that.

4) If you use impulses, pay attention to the treble, presence, or edge settings on your preamp. Impulses are recorded with a particular level of highs in mind, so if your preamp isn’t as sharp sounding as the one used to create the impulse, you’ll be doing a lot of post-EQ fixes to bring it up to level, with the associated undesirable phase distortion artifacts. This applies mainly to distortion pedals, which are designed to run into the clean channel of an amp which itself applies compression and high boosts. Thus a pedal by itself straight into the computer will lack the highs,edge,presence of a recording guitar preamp. So turn up the presence/edge as needed until it sounds good through the impulse, then tweak EQ further to your desire.

5) Parametric EQ is your friend when it comes to shaping guitar sounds. You can almost make one preamp sound like any other using just post-EQ. Ear piercing fizz is usually found in 4.8-5.2kHz region. Top end “dry” clarity is 6-9KHz. Thus if one reduces around 5k and boosts a little in the 6-9Khz, you can simultaneously reduce unpleasant fizz yet prevent the “blanket over the speaker” effect that comes with doing a simple low pass at 5Khz. In mic/speaker recording, this is often done manually by positioning the mic further away from the central cap where it’s harsh and fizzy, and then boosting the 6-9kHz region later in the DAW. If you find yourself boosting anything by more than 10dB, then there’s a problem with your signal source or choice of impulse – go back to the source (amp, guitar, pedal, etc…) and correct that, as you want as good a signal as possible since the more you process it afterwards the more undesirable and artificial artifacts you introduce.

6) You cannot evaluate the merit of a guitar sound if it’s solo and mono, well unless it’s a lead guitar sound. For rhythm, you MUST have at least one track panned left and another similarly played track panned right. Only through this stereo effect can you know whether your choice of impulse and EQ is good. What may sound fine mono and solo may not sound fine stereo. And even then, that’s still not as ideal as what it will sound like in the final mix with vocals. For instance, by itself, even a solo’ed stereo guitar track may sound rich and full, but that’s because it has frequencies that would otherwise be taken up by other instruments like bass or synths or vocals. So get it sounding as sharp, full, tight, and crisp as possible in solo stereo, then later don’t be afraid to do gentle cuts in the 1k-3k region to make some room for the vocals.

7) Sweep through your EQ spectrum with a relatively high and narrow peak on your parametric EQ to identify problem areas. As you sweep, you will find sudden jumps in nasty ear-piercing frequencies. Reduce those a bit until they’re comfortable. Do this for at least 2-3 problem areas. Load up another EQ plugin after that one if you run out of parameters to adjust.

8) It’s better to use a low shelf than high pass filter on guitars. The reason is that while you want to get rid of the boomy muddy bottom end, you still want a little to be there to provide “information” to the listener that yes, your guitar indeed has balls. A shelf reduces the lows without cutting them off completely. Don’t cut off your balls.

9) For the thickest tone, quad track your guitars. That means play the same thing twice and pan both tracks full left, and that or a complementary thing played twice and panned full right. That’s four tracks total, a pair left and a pair right. In each pair, play one with regular level of distortion gain, and the other with a bit less. This way the buzz from the distortion in each won’t interfere, as one buzzes less and is taking care of the lower and mid frequencies to provide greater body and dynamics. You can also get by with just double tracking (one left, one right) IF the EQ of each track is finely tuned. The better your guitar sound, the more you can get away with just double tracking. If you do double track, make each track slightly different in the EQ or guitar or preamp or impulse choice, which will add greater stereo separation for a big sound.

10) From your album collection, pick songs that you think have the perfect rhythm guitar tone. Then find a part of the song where just the rhythm is playing by itself. Excerpt that part into your DAW (recording program) and use it as a reference for when you’re establishing your own guitar tone. You can even use a Match EQ to get an idea of how your tone differs from theirs, but don’t use the Match EQ’s generated match curve to mold yours into their sound; it won’t sound right; rather match it visually and in a general way using a separate parametric EQ, and most of all, use your ears to come up with something that, while different, is still good. Finally, try it out in a full mix and see if it works. This Match EQ trick is mainly to give you an objective idea of what exactly is happening in these professionally mastered recordings. You may realize they differ in a part of the EQ spectrum that previously you hadn’t thought to examine.

Copyright Lunahelia.com © 2008-2011

Copyright Lunahelia.com © 2008-2011

Those antihistamine mosquito bite sprays and sticks barely even work for me. But after much experimenting, I have found the perfect solution. Tiger Balm.

Maybe Icy Hot and similar will work as well. Point being that itches are, in fact, tiny little pains. The same nerve receptors that give you the sensation of pain at high levels of activity, create itching at low levels. Thus a balm that works for muscle aches ought to work for mosquito bites. And indeed it does. The cool, warm, tingly sensation of Tiger Balm does a nice job of numbing and overriding the mosquito bite itch.

Copyright Lunahelia.com © 2008-2011

Copyright Lunahelia.com © 2008-2011

This is an informal review of the Apogee Duet 2 audio interface, which I have been using for two weeks now. I’ll go through each feature and share my observations.

Key Features

• Cast aluminum body with black glossy plastic top. The aluminum looks brushed (but is actually cast) and matches the aluminum finish on Apple products. Plastic top is very shiny and picks up dust and fingerprints easily.

• Large aluminum wheel button. Rotates with gentle clicks, with each click increasing the volume/gain level by one unit. Button itself can be pushed, which switches between settings for the 2 inputs and 2 outputs. Push is sturdy feeling. The button has very slight wobble on some Duet 2s, which is within manufacturing tolerances.

• OLED screen, measures 2.5 by 3 cm. Resolution seems around 110 dpi, pretty basic but does the job. Looks to be situated about 2mm beneath the surface of the plastic top. Screen is not too visible in direct sunlight, but easily visible in regular room electric lighting. The contrast is lower than shown in the promo pictures, and you can see the black background of the screen as a dark gray against the surrounding black plastic. These are minor cosmetic observations.

• Meters on the screen. These are very useable and respond accurately to the input/output signals.

• Headphone out. Apogee is revered for its DAC (digital-to-analog-converters). Compared to the Mac Mini line out, or Focusrite Saffire Pro headphone out, the Duet 2 is like going to 320kbps MP3 from a 128kbps MP3. The difference is that noticeable. It’s remarkably smooth and balanced sounding without any harshness anywhere, and yet without rolling off any highs or lows. An incredibly honest and true sound without color. Unlike harsher sounding DACs, these won’t give you (as much) ear fatigue. Also has very good image separation among various layers in music, so that you can hear each thing clearly. The DAC on the Duet 2 will reveal any flaws in a mix. Also, the Duet 2 has more power to drive headphones, despite being USB instead of Firewire; I doubt there are any headphones it lacks juice to drive to loud volumes.

• Balanced Out. These are 1/4” outputs for studio monitors. Balanced means the signal is less prone to noise over longer cable lengths. The DAC is the same as for the headphones, just as clear and detailed and smooth yet accurate.

• Maestro 2. This is the software app used to route Duet 2 signals and set functions internally. Straightforward to use, not much to it. Single window and slicker looking design compared to Maestro 1. Should be mentioned that if you change the headphone volume on the Duet, on the computer a headphone volume icon comes up with the volume bar showing.

• Breakout cables. Just four output wires this time with the mic and instrument inputs shared on the same connector. The cables are pretty sturdy.

• Preamps. Just as good as the DAC. Does 75dB of gain without hiss. An SM7B sounds very crisp and clear on this. Phantom power is activated via Maestro 2 setting. I would imagine that two SM7B’s plus a power-hungry headphone might require use of the external AC power supply (included) but I haven’t tested or encountered such a situation yet.

• Touch buttons. Two buttons, outlined as faint gray circles between the wheel and the screen. Each can be assigned a function: mute, clear meters, sum stereo to mono, and dim (turn volume down). Stereo to mono is convenient if you like mixing in mono. Very easy to just tap the button instead of having to navigate to that function in your DAW. The buttons do work with the protective film that the Duet 2 comes with, even though the instruction manual says to remove the film for best results. The film, by the way, is a soft transparent vinyl-like “sticks to glass without glue” kind of film, and not that milky thin film you see on certain cheap electronics. Long story short, you can leave it on if you wish, although there are some bubbles in it.

• Sample Rate goes up to 192 kHz. I never go above 44.1kHz so haven’t tested this yet, but it’s there.

• Overall form factor. Measures 6.25 × 4 × 7/8 inches and seems rather handy, like a pocket field manual. Due to the plastic top I wouldn’t just throw it in a bag though…would maybe get a small padded case or wrap a hand towel around it.

Subjective Impressions

It is absolute worth the money if you want maximum quality in the smallest package with the best design. That’s basically Apple philosophy, which Apogee shares. This, versus other similar or cheaper priced interfaces which may have many more ins and outs and bells and whistles, but which are clunky and don’t do any one thing extremely well. If all you need are two inputs, if you’re on a Mac, and if you can afford the $595, then the Duet 2 is a sure choice. The next best thing in terms of portable interfaces is either an RME Babyface ($100 more, does some things better and some things worse than the Duet 2) and the Metric Halo ULN-2 Expanded ($1800, truly a step up from the Duet 2).

How does it compare to a $200-$300 interface? Well, the latter is “pretty decent” compared to the Duet 2 which is “amazingly excellent.” The difference is large enough that you can and will hear it, and other producers and artists will hear a difference in the result, but the difference is not so large that the average listener who casually hears your tracks without A/B’ing between them will notice.

In other words, you can do pretty well with, say, a Focusrite Saffire Pro unit. Just if you want a step up, increased portability, faster workflow, and the comfort of knowing you have pro level quality converters, then the Duet 2 won’t disappoint. Personally I value the DAC the most, both for regular listening and especially for tracking and mixing, because what good are accurate monitors or accurate headphones if the DAC is inaccurate?

Audio pros know that $595 is actually on the low end of the scale for equipment since single-channel preamps can run up to a couple thousand bucks! So everyone seems to agree the Duet 2 is one of the biggest bangs for your buck out there right now.

They are still hot items and Apogee is struggling to fill demand. Right now there are some in stock at Alto Music

Copyright Lunahelia.com © 2008-2011

Copyright Lunahelia.com © 2008-2011