RecordingJunkie

Recording Junkie's old news stories are archived here. If you are looking for an older write up it will be here.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 WIKI^{wiki 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

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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

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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

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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

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22 Dec 2006 - UPGRADES

It is a part of the engineer's life. Upgrades! I am going to be putting some focus into developing a better way of archiving all the info I hope to contain in this site. I am working behind the scenes (with some help from some gurus) to make an easier method for users to find the data they need. I will still be accepting submissions for new materials and will post them on the current forums for use, but I will not be searching myself for new material for a bit. I am going to focus on these upgrades. They will make more sense for the kind of info we are going to hold here. The forums will serve a function and will remain, but when the new system is up they will not hold schematics, manuals, etc. Those will all be housed in another database.

In the meantime, please continue to submit materials, as it will help RJ to keep content coming in, while we have our energies focused elsewhere. Keep an eye out for the new format in the coming months. I will keep everyone posted on the progress here.

S!
Theremin

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14 Dec 2006 - recordingjunkie.com email working

The mail server was being directed to other DNS servers and the RJ email addresses weren't being resolved. This should be fixed within the next 24 hours after the DNS updates propagate throughout the internet. If you have submitted any material in the last few days, please resubmit it. We appologize for the inconvenience.

S!
Theremin

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11 Dec 2006 - SPAMMERS NOT WELCOME

Making some changes behind the scenes for search engine optimization and also to hopefully thwart any spam bots that may come to the site or forums. I will try to add some content changes in the following days, but the functional changes made today will help us all in the long run.

S!
Theremin

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9 Dec 2006 - If it isn't listed make a request and I will do my best to get it.

RJ will begin to only list many of the less common documents, but not saving them on the hosted server. These documents will include service manuals for consoles and the larger equipment that not everyone has in their studios. As they are listed they will be available for request by sending a pm or email to the admin of the forums. RJ is doing this to save on web space storage and avoid higher server storage costs. We may up the server storage at some point, but not at present. There is still plenty of room for Mics and processors and those categories will continually have new documents available as we are able to upload them.

S!
Theremin

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1 Dec 2006 - Recordingjunkie.com LIVE!!

The website is live on the web. Domain name is done. Search engine optimization and submission will begin this week and hopefully we will start seeing the results of that very soon. Now on to building up this community resource.

Recordingjunkie.com is a user driven resource. Much of the content here will be requested by the users and hopefully a good bit of it will initially be posted by users. RJ Admins will organize and catalog the items for later use as items are submitted, but RJ's success will depend greatly on you. Post your requests and post your resources. Contribute and benefit. Enjoy recordingjunkie.com!

S!
Theremin

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20 NOV 2006

The graphics are coming along as you can see. I am still struggling with the layout of the site, but I am determined to do it right from the beginning and using notepad as my webpage and css editor is a longer process than you think. Especially while doing my best to keep the code to a minimum. Hopefully the pages will load quickly even for our slow dial up friends.

Next I will try and spend a bit of time on adding some more content so there is actually some useful content here while I plan the next enhancements. Until the next update, keep your heads degaussed.

S!
Theremin

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1 NOV 2006

Recording Junkie is now tracking. RJ is dedicated to becoming the premier online contribution site. RJ members will be responsible for much of the content and will ultimately determine what features are available for one another.

RJ members will be able to submit materials, how-to articles, links, and anything useful and related to the recording industry. RJ admins will simply keep everything organized and available for reference to users.

So submit your tech specs, post reviews, share your experiences. The knowledge you provide can make the difference to someone's next big project, or perhaps something you find here will help determine your decision on the next mic to buy for tracking drums.

Welcome to recordingjunkie.com

S!
Theremin