bitflipper

I found this, which says it's just a contact mic and a bunch of fx and a looper. And, of course, played with exceptional panache. Hmm, come to think of it I have some bassoons in my Kontakt collection...

Please upload your submissions to dropbox. A great compliment coming from you, Geoff.

My goodness, this vocalist has got pipes. Her pitch control is better than some analog synths. I can't tell if the bassoon is going through an exotic fx chain or being translated into MIDI to control a synth.

I knew my mixer could be used as a recording interface, but Yamaha documentation seriously sucks (always been that way) so it took a few trials and errors to get a proper recording. I still don't know how to adjust send levels over USB, so some tracks were very quiet and others were very loud even though the mix we heard while playing was balanced. Fortunately, the result is extraordinarily clean and even massive gain boosts didn't result in audible noise. I've been meaning to try this for awhile, ever since the whole band went amp-less and everybody now goes through the PA. I've done simple two-track recordings of rehearsals - that's as easy as plugging in a USB drive. But we're in the process of building a new promo package that will include a thumb drive of music samples, so I needed multitracks that can be properly mixed in Sonar. The hardest part was switching to an alternate interface. Windows would get confused, seeing a new interface and deciding on its own that from that moment forward I was to forever listen to Netflix through my stage mixer. Ultimately came up with a batch file to easily switch interfaces by swapping aud.ini files. Here's my first test: https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=14852856 This is a cover of a Janis Joplin tune, recorded here in my garage at last Sunday's rehearsal. There's been very little done to it post-recording, just some volume automation and added reverb/delay. It doesn't sound particularly polished, but it's an honest representation of how the band sounds live, which is the purpose of the exercise. I'm considering adding some fake crowd noises - would that be dishonest?

A Janis Joplin cover, recorded live, no editing other than some volume automation. This was my first experiment recording direct from the mixer. The drums are a little unbalanced because all I had was a stereo mix of the whole kit. But all in all I think it came out OK, and is an accurate representation of what the band sounds like live. https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=14852856

I smell a hit!

"Saturation" is one of those words that has been abused and misused for so long that it no longer has any real meaning beyond whatever magical properties the Marketing department has decided to imbue it with. As self-defense against BS claims, it would behoove everyone to read up on the history of the term and understand its actual definition. It comes from magnetics and refers to a magnetized substance reaching a point where it cannot take on any more magnetization - iow, the medium has become magnetically "saturated". When you push magnetic tape hard, beyond the range in which its response is linear, you begin to approach saturation. This results in non-linear compression due to the tape gradually becoming less responsive to higher frequencies as you push it harder. And of course a side-effect of compression is harmonic distortion, which in this case is also nonlinear. Hence the modern definition of "saturation" has come to mean nonlinear harmonic distortion. Except that nowadays even that definition has been watered down to just mean "harmonic distortion". And there are a gazillion ways to create harmonic distortion. What Plasma does is apply distortion to specific frequencies. FabFilter's Saturn does this. Meldaproduction's MDistortionMB does it, too. iZotope's own Exciter plugin does it. Any of these will give you more control than any automated distortion effect could possibly achieve. Plasma's purported contribution is the application of "AI" (an even more abused term and universal red flag) to determine which frequency bands it thinks will benefit most from distortion. Distorting specific elements is a valid approach, potentially much better than just distorting everything. A little distortion on a lead vocal can make it pop out of the mix. Drum distortion can make it sound more percussive. Distorted basses throw more energy into the higher harmonics that can be more easily reproduced on small speakers. But such techniques are not new, and they are most effective when validated by ear. So is Plasma snake oil? I don't think so, given that what it does is valid. Is it a waste of money? Absolutely.

The problem was not caused by FoH. It was excessive stage volume, from the guitarist's amp. We've all had the misfortune of being onstage with a guy like that.

When I first saw the video my kneejerk reaction was "singers, amirite?" Then I found out the reason for the blowup, and it was something I can absolutely relate to: guitar was too frickin' loud.

Fortunately, CTL-Z works for every edition of Melodyne. Which of course doesn't prevent a truly motivated user from screwing things up. I have some old projects from when I was first finding my way around Melodyne to prove it.

Unfortunately, this is part of the "Sound Editor" feature, which is available only in the Studio edition. Here's a comparison of features between each version.

Although I am a longtime Melodyne user - going back to version 1 with a now-discontinued 8-track version called Cre8 - I use it so rarely that every session sees me re-learning many fundamentals. It's a deep application. Did you know you can also use it for compression?

I fiddled with Melodyne's EQ window for about 10 minutes back when the feature was first added, intending to go back and explore further. I never did. But today this video was recommended to me and I am now inspired to revisit it.

These guys doing original music in the style, feel and tone of early Beatles...

I've used Gorilla Glue in the past (for hanging paneling) and it's well-named. So in your experience, just how good is the double-sided tape? Would you use it on a ceiling? These will need to stay in place even when the door is in its horizontal position. You might say we spend our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key.

It's a standalone VST.

Not practical. You'd need a matching mirror on the floor to maximize the amplitude of standing waves.

Groan. What's better than roses on a piano? Tulips on an organ. IKM's B3-X is currently the best Hammond/Leslie emulation out there.

That pretty much describes my setup, too. Except that I long ago gave up on packing blankets in favor of OC703. But tbh not a lot of science went into my configuration, mostly trial and error followed by measurements to tell me if what I did actually worked. The important thing is that any treatment is better than none. I can't think of any acoustical mistake that would actually make things worse. (OK, lining the walls with mirrors would make things worse.)

I, too, am no Ethan Winer. But I've read everything he's ever written on the subject and I've seen photos of his home studio as well as his living room / listening room. I'm sure he would agree with me that yours is easily the most beautiful acoustic treatment I've ever seen in a home studio!

All the rest of my treatments in this room are rigid fiberglass in wood frames. Framing allows use as both free-standing gobos or hung on walls with spacers behind. I also have a ceiling cloud hanging from chains a foot below the ceiling (which is actually a false ceiling made of pegboard, allowing the attic space to serve as a bass trap). All in all, the room already sounds pretty good for mixing, recording and rehearsing. The garage door is the only surface with no treatment. My mix position is about 12 feet away and otherwise surrounded by absorption, so the door isn't normally a problem. But then I don't normally place microphones in front of it. Here's the frequency response for these 2" panels, which are pretty much what I would expect and actually a little better than the Auralex equivalents below 800Hz. These come in 3" and 4" thicknesses as well, but as my goal is preventing mic feedback around 4-8KHz, the 2" thickness will do just fine. While I wait for delivery, I'll give some thought to the posterboard method. The company actually suggests that technique if you think you might ever have to remove the panels, because the really good glue that builders use rips the foam. I'd also like to figure out a way to put a small air gap behind them, which lowers the lowest frequency at which they're effective. I will experiment, given that I'll have a pack of 48 and need only 30 to do the garage door. Hmm, I wonder if I'd sleep better if my bedroom was acoustically treated...

To glue to my garage door. It's a little cramped when the band's rehearsing in here, so the guitarist and bassist both have to stand close to the rollup garage door. I believe that's contributing to mic feedback, so I've decided to put up some 12x12x2" panels on the door. Wish me luck - the door is made of segmented painted wood panels, so I might have to get some "permanent" industrial adhesive so they don't fall off when the door is retracted. I've been meaning to do this for awhile, but sheesh, the Auralex stuff would be kinda pricey for what's basically an experiment. But I wanted to pass along a resource I discovered, a foam factory out of Michigan that sells direct - unimaginatively called Foam Factory. Based on published testing, their stuff seems to be comparable to Auralex but considerably cheaper. A pack of 24 from Sweetwater was $119. A pack of 48 from Foam Factory is $45. Shipping was $13, so even with Sweetwater's free shipping that's still a much lower price. Yes, you can find similar-looking products on Amazon for like twenty bucks. Read all the 1-star reviews before wasting your money on that crap. I will report back to let you know how these worked out.

Windows 11 is compatible with Sonar, probably going all the way back to Sonar 1. Or even Cakewalk for DOS 1.0. I haven't tested this, as I will remain on Win10 until Microsoft tells me I can't anymore. That said, one of Cakewalk's great strengths has always been version compatibility. It's why if you upgrade you'll be able to open all your X2 projects in the current version of Sonar, assuming you leave X2's plugins in place. Your issue is probably with drivers. Don't waste your time with asio4all. If you are using the motherboard's integrated audio, e.g. RealTek, try going to the manufacturer's website and downloading the current version of their ASIO driver. If that doesn't do the trick, try using WASAPI Shared. That usually works. If still no success, make sure Windows isn't somehow confused by which devices are enabled.

Functionally, they are - insofar as both are points where tracks get combined. The differences derive not so much from what they do, but when they do it. A bus is traditionally an end-point, the last stop before going out to the world, in keeping with Sonar's (and most DAWs') model that is based on conventional hardware consoles. Except that If you were mixing on outboard hardware, you'd be able to route signals from the bus module back into a channel. You wouldn't want to, though, because that can create a feedback loop. In a DAW, that is simply prevented from happening. The solution is an aux track, which has all the functionality of a traditional bus but is processed beforehand, as a track. In practical use, they can pretty much be treated as tracks, e.g. moving them around on the screen, putting them in a track folder, freezing, bouncing, even recording. Internally, they are technically patch points rather than busses. If you've used hardware patch bays, you know that while they are technically busses in an electrical sense, they have their own capabilities and limitations. This doesn't address why bus soloing doesn't behave the way you expected; that's a deeper subject. I just wanted to try and clarify how aux tracks and busses differ, despite both being functionally "busses".

Neither. It's an iterative process. 1. Dig jazz and blues 2. Employ nature's music enhancer 3. Get jazz and blues 4. GOTO 1