I figured out how to make a passable bass sound. I just can’t find a bass synth I like anywhere you see. (yes I know, I could just use real bass – but it’s the principle of the thing now….) My friend Josh and I are going to make a sample based bass VSTi next year – but until then I have a solution. Playing low notes on MDA piano – then using a compressor like ME Compressor; Bring up the frequencies that sound most like a bass guitar, and scrap the ones that are excessively piano.

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Well, it’s pretty much the end of 2007. I looked through my myspace blog to see if I’d set any goals at the start of this year. Apart from a vague intention to get my tattoo coloured in – I didn’t set any. But if I could time travel back to the start of 2007 my goals for the year would have been…

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Songwriting is one of those odd things, I can never explain quite how I do it. I think it often starts with a riff. When I have a guitar in my hands and I do the audio equivalent of doodling on a notepad with a ball point pen, while day dreaming about something irrelevant.

Sometimes it starts with a thought, a sole line or lyric that might occur to me while driving, cooking, talking, thinking, walking the dog. If I have a pen and paper it may eventually become a song. If I don’t, it’s lost forever. My memory is terrible.

But where ideas for songs don’t happen for me, is when I’m trying to write something. When I sit there and try to write a riff, or come up with a lyric. Just doesn’t work. They have to surprise me.

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I think it’s great, that there’s so much cool free stuff available on the dub dub dub. I’m not talking about dodgy pirated versions of software that tarnish your morality and fill your computer with bugs. I’m talking about stuff that is free or funded by donations/advertising, or fully functional lite versions there to convince you to buy the ‘pro’ version. It’s great. Not that I’m completely stingy, I have bought much software and hardware, but I’m always on a budget, and free stuff comes in handy. So big ups to the following providers of free stuff… You guys rock! Read more…

Not many things will get me to arrive an hour early for work. But test driving a few mic’s to potentially prove a drummer wrong, that did it. The drummer in question had recommended to me, that I do not try to choose between the Shure SM58 and the Shure BETA58, but instead to go with an Shure SM57 as “they are great for female vocals”. I was dubious, very dubious, to me the SM57 will always be an instrument mic. But I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and put his wisdom to the test… Read more…

Naturally, i’d rather have Logic, Protools, or something decent. But for something on a limited budget I’m hard pressed to choose between them. Luckily I have both….

I bought Adobe Audition 1.5 for a spectacularly cheap student price. Student discounts rule! Since then they’ve brought out version 2.0 which I’ve used at a friends studio and I hear rumors that there will soon be version 3.0 (which makes my meager 1.5 sound awfully crappy).

Cubase comes free with audio interfaces by Tascam, Lexicon, and Yamaha. You can buy it on it’s own too, if you really fancy. Most interfaces come with the ‘light’ version, but that is still very good. And it’s a bargain if you get something like a Lexicon Alpha for only $349nz. Though, personally I’d go with an interface that at least has phantom power – eg Tascam US-122. Which I have got, and it does me well. For now…. admittedly I do want something bigger and shinier with ten ton’s of inputs, and jack outputs instead of RCA’s…..

Anyway, back to my subject at hand – Cubase vs. Adobe Audition….

Adobe Audition seems to be much better for mixing in. By better I mean; it’s really user friendly, it has a really good waveform editor, lots of built in vst plug-ins, an excellent pitch correction function (IMHO waaay nicer than le ProTools one) unlimited tracks, lockable effects for when your computer can’t handle ten million reverbs in real time. Good stuff.

But Adobe Audition isn’t without fault. (Now I’m talking about version 1.5 here – if newer versions are better then yay for them ) I wish, oh how I wish, that Adobe Audition did Midi. How can I record cheesy synths, and drum machine drums if we can’t do midi? I also wish Adobe Audition had a proper grid system for editing things to a click. And I wish I could solve my Adobe Audition recording latency problem.

On the things Adobe Audition lacks, Cubase comes to the rescue. Writing with midi controllers and VST plugins is easy breezy lemon squeezy with Cubase. Even blondes like me have very little trouble. The grid is great for those quick “can’t be arsed” copy&paste demo’s. And I’ve never had the slightest problem with recording latency on Cubase. Though admittedly both programs were equally bad for monitor latency, but that doesn’t bother me so much. Who needs monitors anyway

But Cubase is a damn pain to mix in. The panning is all wrong, the bus’s are a pain in the neck, I can never get my head around the automation system. And horror of horror – I get a limited number of tracks and effects per track! How can I go completely overboard when I have limitations like that!?!?

So, neither program is close to perfect, but I’m having a good run lately by recording in Cubase, and then mixing in Adobe Audition. (And then completely screwing everything up by mastering in an old version of wave-lab that’s quite possibly from the 90′s.)

Every time I record I end up wishing I had more money to spend on gear (Specifically LogicPro… Oh yeah…) But if you’re thinking about getting some cheapy software for yourself, I’d recommend going with Cubase to start with. You can do some pretty good stuff with it if you keep it simple.

And there’s always the spectacularly free Audacity. Which keeps getting better and better I’ve noticed.

Well, I’m finally on WordPress. It’s frustrating me that I’m not competent enough to get a layout that I want…. yet… This one is far too tidy and easy to read… Read more…

I have a Digitech Vocal 300 Vocal effects processor. I bought it cheap one day on impulse from my local music store . Intending to use it for making a cool delay sound on stage, somehow I managed to never once get it set up at band practice let alone take it to a gig.

As far as useful sounds go, it’s about as useful as the average guitar multi effects pedal (e.g. GO BUY A DECENT AMP YOU MORON!) There is a tube pre-amp modeler, which is, pretty crap. A grunge distortion which is, basically, also pretty crap. There is an overdrive too, which I assure you, won’t make your day. So does buying this ridicules purple monstrosity make me some kind of moron? No. Definitely not. Not a moron at all…. Read more…

I feel defeated writing this weblog on ‘blogspot’. I had first started just HTMLing it on it’s own page, where I have a fetchdata function that fetched it neatly to the index page when required. However, blogging in HTML can be a pain in the arse. It totally ruins your flow when you have to manually put in your paragraphs. (though secretly, I was just ignoring the idea of paragraphs altogether)… Read more…

Spent the afternoon recording sound effects for my friend Josh’s new online game he’s making… Read more…