Sampling Frequencies & Bit Rates: 96 v 44.1Khz & 24 v 16bit
Sampling Frequencies & Bit Rates: 96 v 44.1Khz & 24 v 16bit by Stephen Powell I had a conversation recently with a guy who described himself as a “glitch-dubstep-lo-fi composer” He went on to describe a couple of his tracks which turned out to be pretty much what you might expect from such a description. When I asked him about his production he said to me: “I make all my tracks with a low sampling-rate and bit-rate for the whole project”. At this point I was a bit confused and so asked him to elaborate. Apparently all his...
read moreWhich DAW is best? – Logic, Pro Tools, Ableton or Cubase?
I asked top engineer, Ableton guru and GSS tutor Al Riley to continue the debate. Which DAW is best – Logic, Pro Tools, Ableton or Cubase? My first multitrack workstation was my 4-track Portastudio (not a DAW, an AAW I suppose?), which gave me the novel luxury of changing the volume and panning different instruments after recording them! I could even use insert effects (a guitar pedal) and punch-in recording to fix questionable guitar solos. Things got a bit psychedelic after I realised I could record backwards audio by flipping the...
read moreBuild a synthesizer | THINK, MAKE, PLAY | Max/MSP
Build a synthesizer | THINK, MAKE, PLAY | Max/MSP. article by Mr Steve Powell What’s the first thing you do when starting a new track or build a synthesizer on your computer? Fire up Logic or Max/MSP? Warm-up the TB808? Sit on top of a hill and hope musical inspiration hits you whilst pondering the meaning of existence? Any of those things would do, but if you’re like most people, you sit in front of a blank screen wondering where to start for at least ten minutes. If it’s a bad day you sit there for hours, not getting anywhere. One of...
read moreApproaches to electronic music production (EMP) in Max/MSP
New Approaches: Max/MSP Digital Synthesiser Building in electronic music production (EMP) by our course designer and instructor Steve Powell: 11/1/11 Everyone has different ways of writing music whether you sit down with your guitar, play and hum until you get something you like, or draw out some beats in Reason. However, one thing that many electronic music production (or EMP) composers often have in common is linearity in their music making. What I mean by this is that when you sit down in front of a sequencer and program in some notes,...
read moreWhich DAW is better – Logic, Pro Tools, Ableton or Cubase?
Which DAW is better – Logic, Pro Tools, Ableton or Cubase?: Okay I don’t suppose I am the first nor will I be the last to raise this question that is which DAW is best out of Logic, Pro Tools, Ableton or Cubase but here is part one of my thoughts and coming up soon, part two and the thoughts of music production school tutors, Al, George and Paul. When I very first started in the olden days (early 90′s) we all used Atari ST’s with a whole 512k of Ram for sequencing Midi and not much else. Obviously all audio was dealt...
read moreAntares Autotune pitch correction software on Xfactor shows
Antares Autotune pitch correction software on Xfactor shows: I had a chap called Will Payne from the Sunday Mirror contact me and ask if I could spot any Antares Auto-tune pitch correction software on Susan Boyle’s pre-recorded audition performance of ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ on Britain’s Got Talent, which is a Simon Cowell show like Xfactor. He gave me two Youtube links to analyse – one of the pre-recorded audition which apparently had been Auto-tuned and one of a performance in the live final which can’t...
read moreApple Logic Pro with Avid Pro Tools HD DAW Systems
Apple Logic Pro with Avid Pro Tools HD DAW Systems: I heard here that Apple (Logic) are to stop support for Avid’s Digidesign products (Pro Tools). This is a massive kick in the teeth for Avid who I here are struggling a bit at the moment. Neither rumor surprises me; I cashed in my (digital signal processing) chips a long time ago when Apple brought out the G5. The chips I cashed in were a Digidesign HD 3 (before excel) and a 192 interface. I could see the end for the need of processing power on PCI cards.I thought I should get as much...
read moreLogic Pro training: Zoom tool and using loops with regions
Logic Pro training: Zoom tool and using loops with regions: I made a video at my studio about zooming for Logic Pro Training. I don’t know how I managed to talk about zooming for over 6 1/2 minutes but I love it. The first 4 minutes can get a bit tedious if you’re familiar with all the weird and wonderful ways you can zoom in and out in Logic 9 but I have to say that the way I zoom with the zoom tool assigned to the right mouse button is very quick and I haven’t seen anyone else zoom this way before I’ve showed them....
read moreAbleton Live 8 music production and DJ courses coming soon!
Ableton Live 8 music production and DJ courses coming soon!: I’ve been making some records with Toby Tobias recently which seem be be getting picked up by labels before we’ve even had a chance to mix! I know I can’t complain but he does have this habit of playing very rough demos to labels, then we’re up against it to finish the master because everyone is excited and people want to put the record out. It does say a lot for the A&R guys these days when they can hear the potential from such a rough demo. We are going...
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