In ep 39, Bruce answers a listener query about audio quality vs file size (when it comes to encoding mp3 files). Plus, another war story.

sl039.mp3 [ 16:05 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In ep 73, Bruce discusses some of the ways to use markers in Audition, plus a bit more on Steve’s 96kHz recording issue.
Also, Sine Language is now a part of the Home Recording Network, a reminder about the audio2u Cafepress store and the Lynda CD-ROM giveaway, and a guick footnote on the Science@NASA podcast audio quality story from a few weeks back.

btp073.mp3 [ 21:13 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This week, Bruce talks about microphones and additional (outboard or plugin) processing, plus a bit on Skype quality. Also, check out Telarc’s recording of the 1812 Overture, and the audio2u cafepress store (not much there yet, but more is coming!).

sl038.mp3 [ 16:48 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This week, Shelton talks about the photographic rule of thirds. Also, thanks for the donations, and check out the audio2u cafepress store (not much there yet, but more is coming!).

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In episode 72, Bruce takes another look over the multitrack, and the various automation modes in Audition 2.0.
Also, check out the audio2u cafepress store (not much there yet, but more is coming!).

btp072.mp3 [ 31:15 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In ep 37, a bit more about setting gain on USB mics, and gain structure in general. Also, some freebie (or almost free) multiband compressor plugins (courtesy of Geoff Hankerson).

sl037.mp3 [ 17:50 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This week, Shelton declares that “light is boss”. Also, a couple of sample pics to show the difference between the Nikon D100 and D200, Shelton’s blog, Shelton’s YouTube tutorial, and those Gorillapods are coming!

si054.mp3 [ 23:47 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In episode 71, working with sub standard voice tracks.
Also, a sneak peak at one of the tracks that Bruce has recorded, produced, mixed and mastered for Dave Garner‘s forthcoming album “Hard Road Home”,
a quick chat on MIDI in Audition,
and the Lynda.com CD-ROM giveaway is finally ready. Go here to enter.
This will run for 4 weeks.

Recording and mix notes for “My Lover and I”
The recording process for Dave Garner’s forthcoming album, “Hard Road Home” has taken almost 2 years.
This track, “My lover and I”, represents one of the rockier tracks on the album.
The recording process for almost all the tracks on the album was the same.
Dave would come over to my house and perform a solo acoustic version.
If we decided that the song was a contender for the album, we’d work out the tempo for the song.
We would then lay down a click track in Audition (v1.5 back when we started tracking this album!).
I would then set up 2 mics… one for Dave’s vocal, and one for his acoustic guitar.
Dave would then perform the song again, this time, to the click track.
This performance of guitar and vocal would be considered “scratch tracks”. For those new to the process, “scratch tracks” are only there as a guide… they will never make the final mix.
Once we had done this for half a dozen songs, I would then organize for Darren, our drummer, to come over to my house.
I would clear out the lounge room, lay a rug on the floor (my lounge room has cypress pine floorboards), set the kit up, and slap a handful of mics around it.
Generally, they would be a Beyer M88 (kick), SM57 (snare), 2xAKG C3000′s (rack toms), MD421 (floor), SM58 (room) and another pair of C3000′s (overheads… I know, not the best choice, but it’s all we had access to).
I would then give Darren a headphone mix of the click track and the scratch vocal and guitar tracks.
He’d lay down the drum tracks to that mix, straight into Audition (via my Delta1010 sound card).
Once drum tracks were down (we’d generally knock off 3-4 songs per “drum recording day”), I’d get Dan (bass player) to come over and lay down some bass on whatever songs had drum tracks recorded.
Once we had drums and bass, Dave would then come back and start working on guitar parts and lead vocals parts.
Then, as the weeks rolled on into months, we’d get the girls in to lay down backing vocals, we’d re-record guitar parts 15 times while Dave agonized over the right “tone” (the guitarists reading this are all nodding their heads), I’d lay down some harmonica (if required), and we’d dabble with hand percussion and loops.
This track doesn’t have any harmonica or loops, but that’s a general wrap of our recording process anyway.
As for the mixing, a lot of the songs on this album ended up having in excess of 25 instrument tracks per session at 48 kHz 32 bit.
That represented quite a challenge for my aging Athlon 2800+ XP (running at a real clock speed of 2083 MHz) with 1GB DDR-RAM, especially once I’d added 20+ Audition native, VST and DirectX effects!! (As you’ll hear from the final mix, I’m a big fan of plugins.)
To list all the plugins used would be too exhaustive, but trust me, there were LOTS.
I hope you enjoy the track.
Hard Road Home will be available later this year from www.davegarner.info
Cheers
Bruce Williams
Producer, recording, mixing and mastering engineer (and photographer, and caterer and …..) for Dave Garner.

btp071.mp3 [ 30:52 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This week, a chat with Hart Shafer (Snr Product Manager for Audition and Soundbooth) from Adobe, plus a new version of Audacity.

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He’s back from Canada, eh? Shelton talks about the great time he had, and shares a few pics that his son took whilst on the trip.

si053.mp3 [ 22:51 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Due to time constraints, a very short ep this week. Audition 2.0 and 96kHz recording issues.

btp070.mp3 [ 4:58 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download