1 December 2007 - Audio Pro Map Upgrades

The Audio Pro Map is a tool designed to help find studios, audio engineers, producers, gear manufacturers, mastering services, and other audio engineering related services. The new map adds a colored marker based on the type of service the Pro offers. Studio = Studio  Manufacturer = Manufacturer  Producer = Producer  Engineer = Engineer  Other = Other. We will add other types as needed. Also added is the website links for all Pros that have a site and an email link to contact them.

Recording Junkie hopes you find these improvements helpful. Now, try it out... Find a studio or other audio pro service today!


S!
Jason

-------------------------------



30 November 2007 - Forums Changes

The forums we use got an update and in the meantime broke the nice looking forum style we worked so hard on. We will be using the default forum with a few cosmetic changes until a more concrete version of the forum code is released. It is only cosmetic :).


S!
Jason

-------------------------------



29 November 2007 - Forums down for an hour or two for updates

We are currently performing some maintenance and updates to the forums. They should be backup by the end of the night. Meanwhile take a look around at the resources section, or find something in your own stash to share and send it on over via the contact form.


S!
Jason

-------------------------------



1 November 2007 - Solid State Hard Drives in Audio

What has been the biggest bottle-neck in digital recording for as long as you can remember? The answer is Read and Write access to your hard disk drive. Computers have attained faster clock speeds on the CPU, so they can process information quicker, they have multiple cores, so they can process more items simultaneously, and faster bus speeds, the volatile memory (RAM) has become faster and larger, allowing for quicker access to application files, but the hard drives have lagged miserably behind for years. SCSI has been the consistent favorite for speed for over a decade. The speeds of SCSI drives are somewhat misleading however. SCSI is the interface technology from the computer the drive, but the speed of the SCSI comes from the platters spinning at higher speeds than the IDE interfaced drives are typically capable of. SCSI disks are 10K and 15K RPM respectively. IDE and SATA drives are 5400, 7200, and a few 10K RPM. The drives depend on a mechanical arm and a magnetic platter and record and read the data to/from the disk. All of this data and the limitations of the mechanical device add up to time to "seek"(find) the data, time to "read" the data, and time to "write" the data. These times have been the bottleneck for pro audio recording for some time now.


Time delays anywhere in the signal chain add up to "latency"(time delays) in the recording of audio, and can add up to some interesting problems within your DAW. Ultimately this costs the recording engineer time, and possibly money, by requiring the engineer to nudge tracks around to get them to line back up in time properly, as well as making overdubs a challenge at times. Hard drives have long been the cause of much of the latency in digital recording. The human ear can begin to hear latency above 10-12ms. With a typical disk drive having inherent read/write/seek times of 9ms/11ms/8ms approximately. 15K RPM SCSI drives jump to almost twice as fast, but none the less, the time does add up to an audible amount. Audio recording software has had to account for these by allowing us to adjust latency, which has worked, but still been limiting in recording.


Are Solid State Drives the answer? SSDs have been coming to puberty in the market. The price is, as of yet, still too high for most of us to invest, but does the performance justify the cost for a select few recordists?


SSDs come in two flavors, the SDRAM type, considered volatile memory, because the computer must be powered for the data to remain intact, and NAND type. SDRAM type are approximately 250 times faster than their mechanical counterparts, but are not the type in which manufacturers are focusing on as HD replacements because of their volatile memory. NAND type drives are similar to the flash drives we have all become so fond of. They are fast to read/seek in comparison to mechanical HDs and they have non-volatile memory.


NAND drives are better at read and seek times by several orders of magnitude than your standard mechanical drives. There are several well written documents on implementations of these drives in enterprise level applications here. NAND drives are lacking in write speed however when compared to mechanical drives with smaller file handling. The quote below details the performance write speeds of SSD drives.


"Because Flash SSDs have write performance that is so much worse than their read performance, the overall performance mix with reads and writes can be confusing. If you are doing pure reads, a Flash SSD will typically be 20x faster than a hard disk for small random reads. If you are doing pure random writes, the same drive might be 15x slower than a hard disk. But what about a 50-50 mix. You might think that the performance would balance out, but you would be wrong."article


Write speeds of these NAND drives can and does outperform the mechanical disks when working with larger file sizes however. A general rule of thumb is the larger the file the better the write performance because the NAND drive does not have to do what it is bad at as often, that is random writes. Therefore, the SSDs seems to be an improvement over the mechanical drives, though this is dependant upon the file size you write. Typically an audio file from a protools session is easily large enough to see a performance boost. Your own personal testing will be required to determine if there is actual benefit. I would think a 10 second pre-roll, like in the days of tape, would be time enough for the NAND drive to ramp up to speed, though I have not tested this.


SSD technology has come a long way. It is getting better at a rapid rate. In this tech's opinion it is not a significant enough change to warrant the cost. The drives are wildly successful in server applications, where data is being "served" rather than written, such as database applications or even in serving up sound libraries. As many of you that have research SSDs have found, the cost is not cheap. One reason for this is that the market is still very new, the main one I believe is the fact that these are essentially enterprise targeted products, so you will be paying the price for enterprise technology. NAND drives will be cheaper soon, so hold off.


If you are still set on buying an SSD drive however, I can get them through one of my distributors. Please let me know, I will be happy to get you a quote, and would appreciate the sale.


S!
Jason

-------------------------------



25 October 2007 - History Lesson 1

I thought I would highlight the manufacturers that we all love with "history lessons" that I would like to continue into the future. To be diplomatic and fair, I am simply going to start with the As. So here goes. History Lesson 1.


Ampeg Company was started in 1946 by pianist and bassist, Everette Hull, and Stanley Michaels. The company was originally called Michaels-Hull Electronic Labs. Hull designed a new microphone pickup for the bass guitar that was placed in the end of the bass. The pickup was called the "Amplified Peg" and the name was shortened to, you guessed it, Ampeg. The pickup needed an amplifier that would not distort when the stronger transient attacks were played.1


Ampeg built small bass amps called, creatively, "The BassAmps", until 1960 when they introduced the Portaflex series of amplifiers. Portaflex amplifiers are a mainstay in many recording studios and are easily recognized by their "flip-tops". The amplifier is stored inside the enclosure for transport, and flips out while being used.


In 1969 Ampeg marketed new bass amps with SVT, Super Valve Technology, which were 2-3 times the power output of other amplifiers that ampeg had on the market. This power advantage made them popular with large venues. Dumb luck happened to Ampeg in 1969. The Rolling Stones came to the states with their Fender Amps, the guy plugging in the amps failed to realize that voltages are different across the pond and blew the amps. The Stones were given the use of the prototype SVTs to use for the remainder of the tour. Rich Mandella, Ampeg's Hollywood liaison, stayed on with the Stone's as their Ampeg tech. Despite the ability to handle more power than the original Fender's the Stones had brought, they were still pushing them to the limit and Mandella had to switch between heads when they were nearing the breaking point.2


Ampeg has ventured into other music equipment making as well with their "Baby Bass", Ampeg guitars and Basses, "scroll"-basses, horizontal basses, as well as effects pedals and stand alone reverb units.


Check out our resources section for more info on Ampeg bass amps, and Ampeg guitar amps.


S!
Jason

-------------------------------



5 October 2007 - Studio Database Beta version LIVE!!

Recording Junkie is proud to release the Beta version of our Studio Database and mapping application. The purpose of the database is to help individuals and companies to find audio recording services, as well as to help studios find clients. The Beta version has no restrictions on range of search, so all of the studios will be displayed that are in the database, this is not optimal, but will work in the short term. Range limitations will be implemented as soon as the resources can be devoted to development. If you would like to register your studio visit the map and complete the registration process.


Recording Junkie is very proud of the work completed on the mapping app. If you would like to leave us some feedback, please send us an email. And as always, if you have any resources to submit to the database, you can submit those in the submissions forum, or can send them via the email form.


S!
Jason

-------------------------------



27 September 2007 - Propellerheads Reason 4 Released

New sequencer, groove tool, arpeggiator and synth. Check out the news and download the demo over at Propellerheads.


Keep an eye out for a write up on solid state hard drives. I've had word that some of the DAW softwares are already tested and working with them. HD write speed is getting ready to drop dramatically! This will improve that constant headache "latency".


S!
Jason

-------------------------------



23 August 2007 - dbx products added to Resources

I have added a bunch of dbx products to the resources database. I hope to have more soon if/when I get approval from dbx. They are good enough to put many of their resources on their site anyhow, so hopefully they will be equally good in getting us any we are missing.


Products added include 160/161/162, 160s, 162SL compressors, 504X digital output card, 223/234 crossovers, 933 distribution amp, 1086, 286A pre-amp and dynamics processor, 166, 166A, 168A, 172, 1BX series III dynamic processors, 263A, 902 de-essers, 274 quad expander/gate, 463X OverEasy gate/expander, 904 gate, DDP, 296 spectral enhancer, 120X, 120XP subharmonic synthesizers, 1531X stereo/mono graphic eq, 242, 905 parametric eqs, 30 series eq, F900A and FS900 chassis, 140X type II noise reduction, 150, 150X, 180 type I noise reduction, 563X, 929 single-ended noise reduction, 911, 941A noise reduction.


Hope you all find them useful :)


S!
Jason

-------------------------------



21 July 2007 - WEB STORE LAUNCHED

Recording Junkie has launched a limited stock web store. The purpose of the store is to maintain the growth of this engineer's resource and keep the resources here free. The store has a small stock of items and it will be expanded with other small items that recording studios find useful as time and capital permit. For now the store has a selection of drum heads, and I am able to sell used equipment. FYI if anyone would like me to sell anything through the site for them, please email me with your item and what you would like to sell it for. Recording Junkie will sell items on a consignment basis, but will require you to send the item to us. This is mainly to make sure the item gets shipped and remains as described in the listing. We will be putting our name on your items and therefore would like to make sure shipping and quality are up to Recording Junkie standards. Email us first before sending any items. Items not pre-approved will be returned to sender at owner's expense.


I, (Jason), will be creating recall sheets for various gear as time permits. Please send me high resolution pics of your gear and I will get it in the queue to make a template. I will email finished jpgs to the original senders as well as put copies into the resources database. Feel free to send in recall sheets, to save me some time, if you already have them.


S!
Jason

-------------------------------



04 July 2007 - GUITAR RECORDING PRIMER

Every element of the instrument to recording chain affects the final outcome of the track. It is therefore important to use high quality elements at every stage of the process. That is not to say you won't be able to get a good performance with lackluster equipment, but it will greatly reduce the quality of something that could have been stellar.


1. The guitar - What are the primary variables of the instrument?
a. Pickup type. There are several types of pickups that all have their own sonic qualities. A single coil pickup as used in guitars like the Stratocaster and telecaster by fender are focused, and bright. Hum buckers on the other hand are warm, and thick in sound. Gibson Les Pauls use hum bucking pickups. Piezo electric pickups are a fuller range pickup than standard magnetic pickups used in electric guitar and are better sounding through a more full range amplifier than a typical guitar amp. Try a PA in the case of using a piezo type pickup as in the Parker guitars.


b. Strings. Most importantly NEW strings will have more harmonics than older used strings that may have rust or other gunk muffling their sound. The size of the guitar strings will affect not only tone, but also playability. Larger strings require more tension to reach proper pitch. This tension makes them a bit more difficult to fret, but also makes it possible to adjust the height of the fret board closer to the strings (you can do this by adjusting your bridge or your tremolo system or both, have a shop do it for you if you are not confident).


c. Electronics other than pickups. Try to keep all the electronics clean. Pots can get dirty and will make a lot of noise when turned. The jack can become loose and cause noise with a cable hanging from it. Replacement parts can be found from a multitude of online retailers at reasonable prices and these items don't have to be replaced very often. Only rudimentary soldering skills are necessary to replace most of these parts on a guitar.



2. The Amp - What are the different types
a. First, the tube amplifier. One of the primary reasons a guitarist may prefer a tube amp, in addition to the tone argument, is because a tube amplifier when over driven "soft-clips". That means instead of a hard ceiling you hit on digital and solid state amps an over driven tube amp gets a warm, smooth ceiling, resulting in a more pleasing distortion.


b. The solid state amp is designed around low distortion. Some of the best sounding clean amps are solid state. The Roland JC120 is a solid state amp and has been popular as a jazz guitarist's amplifier since its introduction in 1975.


c. An emulator amplifier is a solid state amp that has been programmed to sound similar to other popular amplifiers. I have purchased a Line6 Flextone III modeling amp myself. There are other amps I would prefer, but with limited space an emulating amp can be a good choice to expand the range of sounds you can get from a limited number of amplifiers.


3. The Mic - What kind and where should you put them?

a. The primary mics used in guitar amp recording are dynamic microphones such as the Shure SM58, SM57. Condenser microphones should be chosen carefully as the high level sound source can damage them. Look at your mics specs and make sure it can handle the SPL before you mic the cabinet too closely with a condenser. That said the condensers generally have a wider frequency response than dynamics so they do have their place. Ribbon mics are the typically thought of as the grail tone for guitar cab recording. They are very sensitive to sound pressure and have wonderful response at mid to high frequencies; they can be a bit bass heavy if miked to closely to the sound source. AEA makes a ribbon the R92 that is made specifically for closer miking the guitar cabinet (6-12"). (Careful with larger ribbon mics as the ribbon could get knocked off of its suspension mount.)

b. Placement is not a hard and fast science, but here are some tips to start. From these places you will almost always want to move the mic around a little to get the sweet spot. Keep in mind the closer you mic the amp the more low end the mic will pick up. Additionally the more off axis you mic the amplifier the less high end you will pick up in the recording. So to pick up more high frequencies move the mic closer to the center rather than the edges and move the mic back away from the speaker until you get the desired tone.

c. Multiple mic placements can be very beneficial. You can get differently colored versions of the same performance from one take. Multi setups give the availability of blending tracks to get tone you can't get with a lone mic setup. It also gives the important "fallback" option. You have a backup in case one of your tracks has a gremlin. This is annoying, especially when you have a great natural first take. Those first takes never come around again and if a good one gets wasted it is a damn shame. A potential drawback can be phase issues. With multi-mic setups you can end up with audio canceling out other tracks a little and making parts sound thin or dull. A great trick to combat this was learned from one of my friends. You can plug a metronome into your guitar amp and DI into Pro Tools. Record the tracks for the multiple microphones for at least 3 or 4 clicks. You will see the metronome spikes in the PT track window and you can use them to shift your upcoming guitar tracks in order to line them up perfectly.

4. to tape or HD.

a. The last stop for the audio in this chain is to the recording device. If you have chosen tape, you will not have to worry about recording too hot (at least you don't need to worry as much). If you are recording ITB you will need to make sure you are not clipping any of the stages. If you are recording too hot at any point in the chain you will end up hitting the ceiling of the A/D converter and the recording will sound horrible. If you are too hot, go back through your signal chain from the guitar forward and back it off at the hot spots until you get below clipping and give yourself a bit of headroom. (Note - there is some evidence that tracking quieter produces better digital recordings anyhow.)

b. Now that you have spent all this time in setup, hit the record button and capture the recording.

A PDF version of this article can be downloaded here

I hope these tips help. If I missed anything let me know :). I will try and make this doc more complete as I get suggestions.


S!
Jason

-------------------------------



13 May 2007 - RECORDING STUDIO PITFALLS DODGED

Studio time is a precious commodity. It is very important if you want to get the most out of your recordings to be prepared before you go into the studio. Here are a few things to consider before you book studio time, and before you start tracking.


PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!!
I have seen it many times. A band will walk into a studio and expect to track down a song with the same energy and vitality they get from their live performance. While this works for some bands, it does not work for the majority. The reason it does work for a few is directly tied to how prepared and rehearsed the band already is. If a band has been playing a song for years daily, they will have a much easier time than a band that comes in with new material. Although this seems like common sense, I have seen many bands come in with new songs they haven't even worked out completely. This is the worst possible situation for the band and for the producer/engineer. The band will likely not get a complete song recorded, or at least not a very good version of it. The producer will have not gotten a good product to hand over to the band. The band will still be out the studio fee, and will come away with very little of use.


The best practice is to bring material that has been in the band's repertoire for a while, and practice that material heavily for several weeks before the studio session.


Practice with a click track/metronome. Most studios use click tracks. There are very few drummers that can keep perfect time and if the recording is not in good time it can make editing more difficult.



PREPARE YOUR INSTRUMENTS
Old guitar strings, old drum heads, vocalists that don't take care of their voices all produce bad recordings. Make sure the instruments have new strings, heads etc. A good method is to replace these items on your instruments the day before the session and then have a practice session of 1 or 2 hours to break them in. This way the strings and heads will hold their pitch properly, but still retain the brilliant higher frequency energy that makes the recording sizzle. Lackluster equipment makes for lackluster recordings.


Make sure instruments are in tune before every recording. If the musician forgets to tune the instrument the first time, it can be very difficult to get a matching sound in future recordings if the intonation can not be recreated. So make sure tuning is checked regularly.


The vocalist should lay off of smoking, soft drinks, milk, and anything else that will their vocal dexterity. Drink plenty of water. Tea with lemon helps if the singer is suffering from a dry/sore throat. Vocal exercises can help to extend the vocalists range prior to the session, as well as help with pitch control after the singer has stepped into the studio.


In the studio the band's instrument setup may vary slightly from the live setup. Consider where microphones may be placed and be prepared to play around them or to adjust instrument setup to allow for them. Kick drums need to leave access for a mic by either removing the resonant head, or by having a res head with an access port for the microphone. Brass players should get accustomed to playing into a microphone, especially if they are used to moving around while playing. Bass and Guitar players are advised to get used to not playing so much through effects. It is usually preferrable to track without too many effects in the chain and add effects in mixing. It is much easier to add effects where needed. It is impossible to remove them if that is what is originally recorded. Drum kits will have a TON of mics. Be prepared to play with cymbols slightly higher so that tom mics can be put in place.


MAKE A LIST

It is a good idea to make a list of things you would like to accomplish in order of importance. There is almost never "extra" time in the studio. Make a list in order of importance of what needs to be done. There is no point spending 2 hours trying to get the perfect keyboard intro if the session is only 4 hours and the most important task is to get a basic demo of your 4 piece band.

A PDF version of this article can be downloaded here

I hope these tips help. If I missed anything let me know :). I will try and make this doc more complete as I get suggestions.


S!
Jason

-------------------------------



28 Apr 2007 - AUDIO-TECHNICA SUPPORT

Audio-Technica has been kind enough to allow us to include their product inventory in our database. A big thanks to Jeff for his help. A-T resources will be added over the next week or so. I will be focusing mainly on items used in recording, but if there are any other items that anyone would like me to include, drop me a note.


S!
Theremin

-------------------------------



3 Apr 2007 - SCHEMATIC HEAVEN

I have been very busy with work and life. I appologize for the long break in between news updates. That does not mean I haven't been working on RJ however. I have added some topics to the Audio WIKI. I also just added near 200 amps to the resources section.


Items added to the resources section, amplifier models include: Model 30, model 75, model 140, 7 Bandmaster, 5 Bandmaster Reverb, Bantam Bass, 23 Bassman, 2 Bronco, 9 Champ, 5 Concert, 9 Deluxe, 7 Deluxe Reverb, 2 Harvard, 1 Musicmaster Bass, 4 PA heads, 9 Princeton, 5 Princeton Reverb, 10 Pro, 10 Pro Reverb, 3 PS series, 3 Quadreverb, 3 Reverb Units, 13 Showman and Showman Reverb, 1 Studio Bass, 9 Super, 7 Super Reverb, 3 Super Six Reverb, 1 Super Twin, 1 Super Twin Reverb, 7 Tremolux, 8 Twin, 9 Twin Reverb, 2 Vibrasonic, 3 Vibraxonic Reverb, 6 Vibrolux, 3 Vibrolux Reverb, 3 Vibroverb, 2 Vibratone/Leslie, 1 White.

All schematics this update were found at Schematic Heaven. At some point in the near future I am going to need to put a search function on the database. I have it up on my design board and will get to it soon. :)


S!
Theremin

-------------------------------



25 Feb 2007 - SERVICE MANUALS AND SPECIFICATIONS

Updates to the database consumed the bulk of my time this week. Hope you enjoy all the new content.


S!
Theremin

-------------------------------



18 Feb 2007 - SITE IMPROVEMENTS

I have made some small changes along with a very big one. Small changes first. I updated the resources page so that all the links should open in a new window so you won't have to navigate away from RJ just to view your document.


The big change. I have added a dedicated WIKIwiki removed at present due to spam and non-legit use for audio engineers. It is a format that a lot of you may be familiar with. It is the same software as used by wikipedia. I feel this is just the tool that many industries could really get some good use from. Unfortunately for all those other industries out there, we here at RJ are only interested in audio. :)


Get to crackin'. I don't have too much time to write articles :P. I am busy trying to add other functionality to this here community.


S!
Theremin

-------------------------------



4 Feb 2007 - SUPERBOWL SUNDAY

Great game tonight. I was fearing the worst about 14 seconds into the game. That 92 yard return was shocking! But good ol' Peyton figured out how to work the bears over and he pulled out a win despite the numerous turnovers.


Well, after the game I felt obligated to keep good on my word and finish up with the database transfers this weekend. They are done!! I got all the info in the forums into the equipment database. All seems to be working well. I hope everyone is able to find and retrieve the data they need quickly and easily now. I will continue to add content to the database in the coming weeks and will start figuring out what the next additions to recordingjunkie will be.


As always please let me know if anyone spots any errors. This is a "user driven" site after all. And a few hundred pairs of eyes are much better than one set. :)


S!
Theremin

-------------------------------



31 Jan 2007 - DATABASE STRUCTURE and PAGE COMPLETE

The developers have come thru!! (Me and a little help from my friends :P). The page which will access the database is done and the database itself is laid out. I am not going to make the page live until I get my data in there however, but I should be able to do most of that this weekend.


This new layout will allow me to make updates easier and more importantly allow you guys to find things quicker. I am very excited about getting this functional and hope everyone enjoys it half as much as I enjoyed getting it done. :).


Along with the new format for keeping track of our resources, I will be doing away with quite a few of the forum categories. I will continue to take new submissions there as well as by email, but ultimately most of what we now see in there will disappear soon. I will also likely rename the general discussion (in a vain attempt to get around some of the spam bots).


Until then keep an eye out for good resources and get me some scans if you are holding onto something :).


Theremin

-------------------------------



21 Jan 2007 - DATABASE DEVELOPMENT

Database looks like it will be in production a bit longer than expected. In the meantime I thought I would throw up a few updates the the tech specs forums. I added quite a few AKG mics as well as some other AKG items.


Originally, I had emailed Harman to see if I could get access to all of their service docs etc. to share with other engineers. A week or so later without ever recieving a response they posted them all on their site. :) YAY!!


I have no idea if it has anything to do with my request, but it was nice of them regardless. So I have linked to the AKG documents from here and will add the rest of the service doc links in the near future.


THANKS AKG, you are "the bomb!!"
Theremin

-------------------------------