One day, I want to make my own impulse responses of my speaker cabs. I want to be able to share them with you, so that you can recreate the signal chain I use for yourself. That’s something I can’t do with any impulse responses that I buy.
I’m going to be using Celestion’s official impulse responses on the CAB M, until I can replace them with my own impulse responses.
The whole point of last autumn’s home studio revamp was to get things to the point where I could start recording music again. However, as I mentioned in my 2019 review of the home studio gear, I wasn’t sure I’d got my signal chain order sorted out.
Slate Digital has launched the VRS8, their 8×8 recording interface for Thunderbolt-equipped Macs.
https://youtu.be/mP3IhLrnDW4
For home studio enthusiasts who want pro-level gear, there’s really only three ways to do it: Universal Audio Apollo, Slate Digital VRS and the Everything Bundle … or buy a standalone interface and collect your own plugins from lots of different vendors.
The UAD system relies on DSP chips in the Apollo hardware to run emulations of analog outboard gear. You have to buy these plugins separately, and they cost hundreds of pounds each. The results are fantastic, and not only well worth the money, but also far cheaper than buying (and maintaining!) the real outboard gear.
There’s just one problem, and it’s the reason why I haven’t bought any UAD plugins this year. The Apollo hardware is simply underpowered. It doesn’t take many plugins to max out the available hardware. And if you’re a home studio enthusiast, it’s a lot of money to move from the Apollo Twin up to the Apollo 8.
Enough money to consider looking at switching to something else.
Now Slate Digital has its own serious problem to take into account. It’s secured by an iLok key. Look at a modern Mac. Where the hell do you find a free port to plug the iLok into these days?!? One port is taken up by power, one by the external storage that the session is on, one by your audio interface, and one by your external monitor.
Yes, I know there’s a virtual iLok now. I live in the UK, where our broadband is about as reliable as a Trump tweet or a Brexit promise. I don’t want a (rare!) creative day ruined because of a broadband outage.
That said, the Slate Digital VRS looks really interesting. For pretty much the same price as the Apollo 8 Quad, you get 8 preamps and a year’s access to the Everything Bundle. (The equivalent UAD Ultimate Bundle is currently over £2,300 and doesn’t include all of the plugins). And your Mac will be able to run far more plugins at once than the quad-DSPs of the Apollo 8.
Thing is, if I’m going to use all 8 preamps, I’d want the Apollo 8p, not the Apollo 8. The difference? The extra Unison preamps, which model the electrical behaviour of whatever outboard gear you’re simulating. I’m a big fan, and a big believer that part of the organicness of a recorded tone comes from the interaction of the electrical circuit.
Question is, though: is it a difference that is noticeable in a final mix? And is it a difference that’s worth the extra money?
Glenn Fricker has posted a super-useful introduction to sidechain compression, as part of his Audio Basics series:
Sidechain compression is one of those audio mixing techniques that makes a huge difference to your own recordings. As Glenn explains, it’s used to make a bit of space in your mix whenever you have two instruments competing for the same set of frequencies.
The classic use is to carve out a space for the kick drum. The kick drum is used as a trigger for a compressor on the bass guitar. The compressor reduces the volume of the bass guitar a little bit, so that the kick drum is easier to hear.
I use sidechain compression on my guitar tracks too. I like to turn down my rhythm guitars a little bit when there’s a lead guitar part or a vocal part. I find that it makes it easier to hear the lead / vocal parts, and it helps keep the overall master output volume from jumping too much during those parts.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you found Glenn’s video helpful.
Shane has been making new backing tracks for his YouTube channel, and he’s shot a video showing how he does it.
He’s got a pretty slick and efficient way of putting these together, and a very firm opinion of what to do for drums in a track (plus recommendations for where to get great drums from). You’ll have to watch the video to see how he does it 🙂
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Shane’s video.
For this week’s Tuesday Talk, Mary Spender walks us through the history and recording of her new song ‘Only One’.
https://youtu.be/juikboGFLTw
This is the first song where Mary has done all the engineering herself. She normally records in a studio, but this time she wanted to have more time to work on the song – and studio time quickly becomes very expensive.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment. It takes a lot of courage to share this kind of information, especially in today’s world of armchair critics and trolls.
Brian Wampler has posted a great video, walking us all through his exact recording process for the amps and pedals in his videos.
It’s incredibly generous of Brian to share this with us. For many YouTubers and professional musicians, recorded sound quality is a competitive advantage – and teaching these techniques is a source of income too.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you found Brian’s video useful.
Graham over at The Recording Revolution looks at how you can add drums to your recordings without having a real drummer or playing a real drum kit.
Many of us can’t play drums, and we don’t have the physical space for a drum kit of any kind either – and yet, we play music genres where drums are a major component of the overall sound.
So we need options – and Graham’s video shows 3 common options to fill in (pun intended) for a real drummer.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you found Graham’s video useful.
Steven Slate is back with another of his vlogs. This time, he’s taking a look at 5 ways to approach mixing.
His points really resonate with me, especially his first point on envisaging what you’re trying to achieve, and the need for a reference mix to compare against.
Oh, and he also endorses products like SonarWorks Reference 4, which I posted about earlier today.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Steven’s video.
