Archives
May 2011
It's May, and time for a topic that has a long and beautiful history and yet is endlessly fascinating and fresh: the human voice. The voice touches us deeply and instantly; when it's right, it goes straight to the heart and lifts an ordinary song into the realm of magic... and when it's wrong, everyone knows it, and it doesn't matter how good the rest of the song is. In this issue of RECORDING, we take a look at vocal recording and how to get your voice tracks right every time.
Our issue centers on an in-depth article by recording engineer, performing artist, and educator Paul J. Stamler, who's been helping budding engineers at Webster University hone their craft for years. Paul teaches how to select a mic based on the performer's voice, how to hone and tune the performance itself, and take much of the guesswork out of capturing great vocal takes.
Also in this issue, Joe Albano goes in-depth on when and how to use Celemony's Melodyne intonation-correction software, Giles Reaves takes the newest version of Antares Auto-Tune out for a spin, and chart-topping producer Sebastian Arocha Morton returns to our pages with a look at how he uses both Melodyne and Auto-Tune in his production workflow.
Our vocal coverage continues with reviews of great microphones at all price points, including the TS-1 MKII from Chameleon Labs, the Clarion by Lauten Audio, the VR-1 ribbon from sE Electronics, and a first look at the brand-new Samson Meteor Mic. Also on review: the exciting new S16 digital console from Phonic, Roland's Octa-Capture audio interface, and a fascinating roundup of three different takes on the Empirical Labs Fatso saturation/compression rack: the original, the UBK version from Kush Audio, and the virtual version available for the Universal Audio UAD-2 DSP engine.
And that's not all! We return to our legal look at the business of producing, Brian Tarquin brings us mini-interviews with Billy Sheehan and Stanley Clarke on bass recording, and more. Get your best vocal tracks ever -- grab the May issue of RECORDING!
Pick it up now on the newsstand... and so you get your next issue early (and save on cost), why not hit the big red Subscribe Now button on this page and have RECORDING delivered to your door each month?
Phonic S16 Digital Mixer
|
Reviewed by
Mike Metlay
Phonic S16 Digital Mixer |
Reviewed by
Mike Metlay
Moving-fader automation, DSP power to spare, and smooth computer integration in a very appealing package.
Readers of Recording know that I'm a big fan of the modern computer-savvy mixing console, both as a central ro......Expand
Moving-fader automation, DSP power to spare, and smooth computer integration in a very appealing package.
Readers of Recording know that I'm a big fan of the modern computer-savvy mixing console, both as a central routing and processing system for the analog microphones and signal processors most of us still need to work with, and as a useful and flexible interface to a DAW. While one can do many of the things a big console can do with a small interface box and a control surface these days, the digital console's natural consolidation of inputs, outputs, inserts for external signal processors, effects, and (usually automatable) controls is a powerful incentive for the small studio. Everything's in one place, everything talks to everything else smoothly... less hassle, more music.
We've reviewed Phonic's entries in this realm before, most recently the Helix Board 24 Universal in our January 2010 issue. Up until now, these mixers have been all-analog affairs with a set of A/D and D/A converters and a USB 2.0/FireWire interface at strategic points in the architecture. Phonic's new S16 (formerly named the Summit) is a different beast -- an all-digital board with internal DSP effects and moving-fader automation, all for less than $2000...
Read more in the May 2011 issue of RECORDING!
Collapse
Chameleon Labs TS-1 MKII
|
Reviewed by
Paul Vnuk Jr.
Chameleon Labs TS-1 MKII |
Reviewed by
Paul Vnuk Jr.
This tube condenser mic shines on vocals and instruments alike, thanks to a flexible range of capsules.
We first met Chameleon Labs back in our October 2009 issue when we looked at the 7802 Opto Tube compressor. CL's goal as......Expand
This tube condenser mic shines on vocals and instruments alike, thanks to a flexible range of capsules.
We first met Chameleon Labs back in our October 2009 issue when we looked at the 7802 Opto Tube compressor. CL's goal as a company is to take both classic designs of the past as well as new innovations and put them in the hands of audio engineers at a price that does not require a second mortgage.
This time around we are looking at the TS-1 MKII tube condenser microphone. It is a small-diaphragm microphone that was designed by Terry Setter, a Washington State College professor and circuit designer also known for his microphone mods to Chinese and Russian microphones. Rather than copy an existing classic design, Chameleon Labs asked Terry to design a few mics from the ground up, and those designs became the original TS-1 and the large-diaphragm TS-2. The new TS-1 MKII is a direct descendent and update of both...
Read more in the May 2011 issue of RECORDING!
Collapse
Roland OCTA-CAPTURE
|
Reviewed by
Mike Metlay
Roland OCTA-CAPTURE |
Reviewed by
Mike Metlay
This USB audio interface has what it takes to record an entire band in style.
Roland is no stranger to the interface world, and indeed was responsible for the first commercially viable USB 2.0 multichannel audio interface so......Expand
This USB audio interface has what it takes to record an entire band in style.
Roland is no stranger to the interface world, and indeed was responsible for the first commercially viable USB 2.0 multichannel audio interface some years ago. The Roland line now includes a portable USB 2.0 interface ambitiously named the OCTA-CAPTURE Hi-Speed USB Audio Capture Interface, and that's precisely what it does: capture audio from up to eight analog sources-more specifically, from eight microphones-at once.
There's a real market for a small interface that can handle more than two or four inputs, capable of recording a small band or a fancy drum kit in one pass at good quality without breaking the bank... and Roland offers some sweet extras to ease the recording process.
Read more in the May 2011 issue of RECORDING!
Collapse
Samson Meteor Mic
|
Reviewed by
Mike Metlay
Samson Meteor Mic |
Reviewed by
Mike Metlay
A USB microphone that combines great sound, practical features, and a uniquely arresting look.
"It's a Dalek cell phone!" That's what my 10-year-old said when she first saw the new Samson Meteor Mic. If you're a fan of Docto......Expand
A USB microphone that combines great sound, practical features, and a uniquely arresting look.
"It's a Dalek cell phone!" That's what my 10-year-old said when she first saw the new Samson Meteor Mic. If you're a fan of Doctor Who, then you may well see why this mic elicited the above reaction; whether you are or not, you'll want to know how it works. Read on...
Read more in the May 2011 issue of RECORDING!
Collapse
The FATSO Family
|
Reviewed by
Paul Vnuk Jr.
The FATSO Family |
Reviewed by
Paul Vnuk Jr.
We review and compare the Empirical Labs EL7 FATSO, the Kush Audio UBK Edition, and the Universal Audio FATSO Jr/Sr plug-in. How do they stack up?
It's not often that we review a piece of audio gear that is already an establ......Expand
We review and compare the Empirical Labs EL7 FATSO, the Kush Audio UBK Edition, and the Universal Audio FATSO Jr/Sr plug-in. How do they stack up?
It's not often that we review a piece of audio gear that is already an established studio staple, but this month we are looking at the Empirical Labs EL7 FATSO Jr and two of the interesting adaptations it has birthed: Universal Audio's FATSO Jr/Sr plug-in for the UAD-2 DSP platform, and the Kush Audio UBK Edition FATSO.
Everyone asks, "So how does the software really stack up to the hardware? And how is the UBK different from the original?" My curiosity got the better of me and with the cooperation of Empirical Labs' Dave Derr, Kush Audio's Gregory Scott, and the good folks at Universal Audio, I was able to line up all three and compare them...
Read more in the May 2011 issue of RECORDING!
Collapse
Reviewed and Revisited: Antares Auto-Tune 7
|
Reviewed by
Giles Reaves
Reviewed and Revisited: Antares Auto-Tune 7 |
Reviewed by
Giles Reaves
Auto-Tune adds time manipulation to its bag of tricks, and makes it easy to work with timing and tuning at the same time.
When Antares first released Auto-Tune in 1997, I was working for Dann Huff on Faith Hill's album Faith......Expand
Auto-Tune adds time manipulation to its bag of tricks, and makes it easy to work with timing and tuning at the same time.
When Antares first released Auto-Tune in 1997, I was working for Dann Huff on Faith Hill's album Faith. Readers who are new to recording might not realize that while Auto-Tune did a lot to make the pitch correction process reliable, repeatable, and relatively easy (thereby opening the door to arguable abuses), it didn't invent the process by any means. I had been using an Eventide H3000 Harmonizer to pitch-correct vocals note by note, using a remote controller with one fader for "sharp" and another for "flat"!
The day after the program came out, Dann and I got a copy of Auto-Tune and tried it out on Faith's vocal part in one track, possibly making "Let Me Let Go" the first Auto-Tuned hit single in history. I wasn't planning to do the whole track -- it was just a proof of concept -- but the process went so smoothly that I finished the entire song almost before I knew it. I've had lots of experience with Auto-Tune since then, and I was curious to jump in and look at version 7's new features, especially its suite of time correction tools...
Read more in the May 2011 issue of RECORDING!
Collapse
Lauten Audio FC-357 Clarion Mic
|
Reviewed by
Paul Vnuk Jr.
Lauten Audio FC-357 Clarion Mic |
Reviewed by
Paul Vnuk Jr.
A large-diaphragm condenser mic with a distinctive and versatile tone.
In August of 2007 we introduced you to Lauten Audio's microphones with the launch of the Horizon large-diaphragm tube mic, then in October of 2009 it was......Expand
A large-diaphragm condenser mic with a distinctive and versatile tone.
In August of 2007 we introduced you to Lauten Audio's microphones with the launch of the Horizon large-diaphragm tube mic, then in October of 2009 it was the small-diaphragm tube-based Torch, and now the story continues with Lauten's first solid-state/FET offering, the FC-357 or Clarion for short. So far we have found Lauten mics to be sonically and visually unique, and they are beyond-Tonka tough.
The Clarion is a large-diaphragm FET-based condenser microphone with a choice of cardioid, figure-8, and omni polar patterns. It features not only a 10 dB pad, but a 10 dB boost as well. This allows the mic to capture very quiet sources with very low self-noise, which in turn allows you to place more distance between the mic and the source while your preamps can stay out of the way by not working so hard...
Read more in the May 2011 issue of RECORDING!
Collapse
sE Electronics Voodoo VR1 Ribbon Mic
|
Reviewed by
Paul Vnuk Jr.
sE Electronics Voodoo VR1 Ribbon Mic |
Reviewed by
Paul Vnuk Jr.
Call it voodoo, call it magic, but something out of the ordinary is going on inside this remarkable mic.
The Voodoo VR1 is the newest ribbon microphone from UK-based sE Electronics. ... The newest offering, the Voodoo VR1, c......Expand
Call it voodoo, call it magic, but something out of the ordinary is going on inside this remarkable mic.
The Voodoo VR1 is the newest ribbon microphone from UK-based sE Electronics. ... The newest offering, the Voodoo VR1, continues in this vein with a 20 Hz to 20 kHz near-linear frequency response. While this is the norm for your average large-diaphragm condenser microphone, it is not typical of most ribbons. ...
sE is clearly on a mission to build a ribbon mic with an extended top-end response. But where the RNR1 used a specially-built circuit board to reveal the high end usually hidden in most ribbon mics, the new VR1 makes use of an entirely mechanical, and at this point top-secret/patent-pending process, which was designed and implemented by Zou Siwei, the founder and CEO of sE Electronics.
Does the VR1 succeed in this approach? Let's take a closer look at the black magic of the Voodoo...
Read more in the May 2011 issue of RECORDING!
Collapse
Game Audio -- Your Next Career Move?
|
Reviewed by
Ben Long
Game Audio -- Your Next Career Move? |
Reviewed by
Ben Long
You have the gear and you have the talent -- but do you have what it takes to get into this potentially lucrative game?
Game audio is more challenging than any other form of music or sound creation. Why? Because you......Expand
You have the gear and you have the talent -- but do you have what it takes to get into this potentially lucrative game?
Game audio is more challenging than any other form of music or sound creation. Why? Because you watch your favorite movie maybe five times tops, whereas a favorite game can easily be played hundreds of times. This means the audio must not only entertain, but it must do it again and again for the same person. That's a challenge!
Creating custom music, sound, and dialogue content for video games requires patience and a willingness to work within technical limitations. It's the ultimate marriage of cutting-edge technology and boundless creativity ... How do you become the composer and sound designer who gets these gigs?
Read more in the May 2011 issue of RECORDING!
Collapse
RECORDING's Bass Column
|
Reviewed by
Brian Tarquin
RECORDING's Bass Column |
Reviewed by
Brian Tarquin
Three famous bassists -- Billy Sheehan, Stanley Clarke, and Randy Coven -- shed light on their recording techniques.
As a guitarist, I find it is sometimes easy to forget about our 4-string swaggering bass-playing fr......Expand
Three famous bassists -- Billy Sheehan, Stanley Clarke, and Randy Coven -- shed light on their recording techniques.
As a guitarist, I find it is sometimes easy to forget about our 4-string swaggering bass-playing friends who lay down the foundation for us musicians to wail! The truth is that guitar heroes couldn't do without them. Without John Paul Jones, the Led in Zeppelin would have been a lot more porous, and without the mop-top violin-bass player in the Beatles there would have been a huge void in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
We tend to forget how important a role the bass player has in music, and how we may have taken them for granted all these years. No wonder bass players are misunderstood creators, seemingly with a chip on their shoulders. That chip has been nailed there by us guitarists, we who have a never-ending thirst for showcasing our own talents in the spotlight, with two-handed fancy techniques that are sure to send any bass player to the bar during the guitar solo.
Well, no more! It's time to stand up and shout out for all the bass players, who need to be heard along with all the shredding tone-freak guitarists. I sat down with three of the most outstanding bass players in the industry -- Billy Sheehan, Stanley Clarke, and Randy Coven -- to get an idea of how they each approach their recording techniques...
Read more in the May 2011 issue of RECORDING!
Collapse
Lift Every Voice
|
Written by
Paul J. Stamler
Lift Every Voice |
Written by
Paul J. Stamler
Vocals rule the recording world; here's a comprehensive look at preparation, setup tips, and choice microphones for capturing voices at their best.
It's the perennial question. Why is it so hard to record good vocals?
......Expand
Vocals rule the recording world; here's a comprehensive look at preparation, setup tips, and choice microphones for capturing voices at their best.
It's the perennial question. Why is it so hard to record good vocals?
One answer is that it's not, really. All you do is put a mic in front of the singer's mouth. Another answer is that it's fiendishly difficult and requires esoteric secret knowledge acquired over a lifetime of experience... or in midnight meetings with spirits, at a crossroads.
Both answers are true. Voices are tough to record because they're universal. We've used our voices for thousands of years and along the way, our ears have developed acute sensitivity to the nuances of vocal sounds. People, to survive as social animals, became closely attuned to the sounds their neighbors made, using the minutiae of vocal inflection to recognize each other, pick up meaning, and sense the emotional states of their fellows. The ones who failed probably got hit over the head.
So we're good listeners, and particularly sensitive to the sound of the human voice. It's a complex sound, created by a double-reed sound generator and amplified by a variety of resonant chambers in the mouth, nose, sinuses and chest. The variety of possible sounds is huge... and the interaction with the room is daunting. Somehow, we manage.
Which brings me back to the first answer, with the simplicity of Zen. Put a microphone in front of a singer's mouth, and hit Record. The right microphone, in the right place in front of the mouth, in the right room. Oh, and the mouth should be singing at its best...
Read more in the May 2011 issue of RECORDING!
Collapse
Melodyne In Action
|
Written by
Joe Albano
Melodyne In Action |
Written by
Joe Albano
Celemony's pitch-correction software sometimes seems to be able to work miracles. Get inside Melodyne and find out the truth about what you can and can't do.
It's hard to believe that it's been ten years since Celemony first......Expand
Celemony's pitch-correction software sometimes seems to be able to work miracles. Get inside Melodyne and find out the truth about what you can and can't do.
It's hard to believe that it's been ten years since Celemony first shook up the recording industry with the introduction of Melodyne. The groundbreaking app's capabilities to manipulate audio note-by-note, the MIDI-style editing display, and the sound quality of the pitch shifting... all contributed to Melodyne's elevation to the top of the heap in pitch-processing tools.
Of course, over the years, other plug-ins and DAWs began to incorporate similar features and capabilities, but then Celemony upped the ante once again with DNA -- Direct Note Access -- which allowed individual pitch editing in polyphonic audio files, re-asserting Melodyne's place as the industry leader in the world of high-end audio tweaking. But what's it like using this kind of editing power in the real world?
Let's take a look at Melodyne in action, and see how a few of its advanced processing features perform in some typical studio situations, and then perhaps give it a bit of a torture test to see how far it can be pushed... and where possible, I'll provide audio webclips on Recording's website for you to hear what I'm talking about. (You'll find them in our Resource Library, under Magazine Extras > Audio And Music.)...
Read more in the May 2011 issue of RECORDING!
Collapse
Comparing Auto-Tune and Melodyne editor: A Producer's Perspective
|
Written by
Sebastian Arocha-Morton
Comparing Auto-Tune and Melodyne editor: A Producer's Perspective |
Written by
Sebastian Arocha-Morton
A hitmaking producer explains when and how he uses both of these top-end pitch correction programs.
When I was asked to give my thoughts on these two leading pitch-correction plug-ins, I knew I'd have to take a somewhat subj......Expand
A hitmaking producer explains when and how he uses both of these top-end pitch correction programs.
When I was asked to give my thoughts on these two leading pitch-correction plug-ins, I knew I'd have to take a somewhat subjective approach. I can tell you that I have both of the latest versions and use both constantly.
Why use both? Because they each go beyond their immediate goal, which is to correct vocals. So for any given project I use the one that solves the problem at hand. Let's see how each does what it does best...
Read more in the May 2011 issue of RECORDING!
Collapse
It's Your Music -- Know Your Rights. Chapter 14: The Role Of The Producer, Part 2
|
Written by
Todd Gascon and Bruce Kaphan
It's Your Music -- Know Your Rights. Chapter 14: The Role Of The Producer, Part 2 |
Written by
Todd Gascon and Bruce Kaphan
Last month we talked about the legalities of working with an outside producer. But what if the producer in question is YOU?
In the last installment of It's Your Music -- Know Your Rights, we discussed the basic role ......Expand
Last month we talked about the legalities of working with an outside producer. But what if the producer in question is YOU?
In the last installment of It's Your Music -- Know Your Rights, we discussed the basic role of the producer and the primary contract terms a producer should focus on when entering into an agreement with a record label (to produce the label's act) or an artist. In this installment we will dig a bit deeper and discuss some other roles you may find yourself in as a producer in the ever-changing music industry...
Read more in the May 2011 issue of RECORDING!
Collapse
Fade Out
|
Written by
Mark Hornsby
Fade Out |
Written by
Mark Hornsby
Who On Earth Was Kevin Gilbert?
If you know who he was, chances are good you own everything he recorded. If his name doesn't ring a bell, it only takes a minute to recognize his work.
He performed, rec......Expand
Who On Earth Was Kevin Gilbert?
If you know who he was, chances are good you own everything he recorded. If his name doesn't ring a bell, it only takes a minute to recognize his work.
He performed, recorded and released albums while still in high school, but he first came to some prominence with Giraffe, a San Francisco band that won an international talent contest sponsored by Yamaha in 1988. From there, he went on to become frontman and co-writer of Toy Matinee, a Patrick Leonard collaboration that studios the world over play alongside albums like Steely Dan's Aja to show off their rooms and/or speakers to potential clients.
This spawned a relationship with the producer Bill Bottrell, which later led to him being a principal musician/co-writer in "Tuesday Night Music Club", the L.A. group of musicians who spawned the 1993 Sheryl Crow album of the same name. He released a solo album called Thud in which he performed, engineered and produced almost everything entirely by himself. He co-wrote the hit song "Come What May" from Moulin Rouge, composed TV and movie soundtracks under an assumed name, and worked on countless other albums for the likes of Madonna, Michael Jackson, Linda Perry, and Keith Emerson -- just to name a few.
This gifted and unique individual passed away in 1996 at the age of 29...
Read more in the May 2011 issue of RECORDING!
Collapse
