Archives for January 2015

New Zoom Mid-Side Stereo iPhone Mic Now Available

January 29, 2015 by Ken Leave a Comment

Zoom-Mid-Side-iPhone-Mic-attachment — Zoom iQ7 Mid-Side iPhone Mic

Just announced at the 2015 Winter NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) trade show, the new mid-side stereo mic iPhone attachment – the Zoom iQ7 – is available as of today at B&H.
Why is this such a big deal? There are plenty of stereo mics out there that can attach to the iPhone these days. But this is the first mid-side stereo attachment mic that I’ve seen. And THAT is what makes it such a big deal.

Mid-Side Versus “Regular” Stereo

So what is so special about this thing I keep calling “mid-side (M/S)?” And what the heck does M/S mean anyway? In a nutshell (see our article “5 Audio Recording Tips For Newbies – Part 1: Stereo Or Not?” for a primer on stereo recording), stereo mics are usually set up to where two microphones are pointing in different directions toward the subject. The idea there is to try and mimic the way a human head (specifically the ear parts of the head) picks up sound naturally, that is from slightly different places in space (the left and right sides of your head). So two mics will theoretically provide timing cue differences which your brain will convert into a more spacious, more natural sound than a mono or “point’ sound source.
The problem with the traditional two-mics-pointing-in-slightly-different-directions method is that once it’s recorded, you have very little flexibility to change the stereo “image.” But with M/S, which is typically a bit more complicated to do (you need two different types of mics – a figure-8 mic and a cardioid mic – and they have to be set up in a very particular way), you not only get a wonderful stereo sound, but you can adjust the width of the stereo image after the fact! M/S is the preferred stereo technique for broadcast recording, mainly because when the two stereo channels are converted to mono (as is often done for radio), the audio doesn’t suffer. With standard stereo techniques, you often get phase cancelation problems (meaning “the audio sounds odd”) when converted from stereo to mono. M/S is also often used for live recording because of how much control you have over the stereo field in the mixing stage. There is a nice article about M/S stereo recording on the Universal Audio (UA) site here: http://www.uaudio.com/blog/mid-side-mic-recording/
So THAT is why I’m so excited about this brand new microphone attachment for the iPhone. The iQ7 works with the newer devices that use the lightning connector. And the price is fantastic at just $99.99 at B&H. CLICK HERE to find out more or to order one for your very own!

Craig Anderton's Six Favorite Home Recording Studio Accessories

January 13, 2015 by Ken Leave a Comment

Craig Anderton, who is famous in the recording and electronic music making world for his books, articles and, of course, as a musician, just published an article about his six favorite home recording studio accessories. That definitely caught my eye as something our readers might be interested in. So I checked it out.
There are some very useful items on that list (which you can see for yourself at the link below), but the one that truly made me sit up and take notice was a pop filter. These are really common and usually pretty inexpensive – around 20 bucks – but I have never really had one that worked so well that it eliminated ALL of my vocal p-pops/plosives (see our article, How to Fix a “P-Pop” in Your Audio With Sound Editing Software for more on this topic). In the past, I have usually had to edit them out with audio software. I’ve even doubled up, using two pop screens when recording vocals, but some plosives still get through.
Well Craig swears he has finally found a pop filter that actually, REALLY works…and I hope so, because it’s expensive! Even so, I’ll be getting one to try out, and I’ll post the results of my review right here. This super pop filter is the Pauly Ton Superscreen pop filter.
Below is Crag Anderton’s full list. Enjoy!
http://blog.discmakers.com/2014/12/six-home-studio-accessories/

Making A Song Sound Wider or Thicker

January 9, 2015 by Ken Leave a Comment

Sometimes, when you’re recording a song, you’re looking for an open and spare sound on purpose. But other times, you may want the sound to be more “filled-in” – wider or thicker – if what you want is a thin or empty sound. One excellent way to do this is to add a “pad,” which is a sound that is sustained and held out over a long period of time (my definition), such as a string section or organ. Often, it is possible to add a pad to your mix and allow it make an almost unconscious impact on the listener, who will sense a larger or thicker sound without knowing why.
I usually use a virtual instrument to add pads to my mixes. Lately, my plug-in of choice has been Omnisphere, by Spectrasonics, which has hundreds of preset sounds, as well as the ability to alter or create your own sounds. I load an Omnisphere instrument on its own track in Reaper, then play the instrument with an external MIDI keyboard.
Below is a video by Joe Gilder showing you some other ways to thicken up your mix, either with a plug-in/virtual instrument like I usually do, or with a real organ.

The Home Studio Gear You Need – And Nothing More

January 5, 2015 by Ken Leave a Comment

One of our core beliefs at Home Brew Audio is that you should never spend money on gear that you don’t need. It sounds logical, but the truth is that most folks who decide to start a home recording studio go out to their local gear dealer and wholeheartedly listen to the salespeople who suggest buying thousands of dollars of gear right off the bat. This leads to a bunch of problems, such as perpetuating the myth that it is expensive to get into home recording; saddling customers gear with software and equipment they not only don’t need, but often don’t know how to use; and ultimately leading to unsatisfactory recordings, even after dropping thousands of dollars.
So we say “let your need drive your gear purchases.” We help folks understand what gear they need to get started – see our series “How To Build A Home Recording Studio.” After that, you can incrementally add to your studio, spending small chunks at a time, AS YOU NEED TO. Heck, some folks – those doing primarily voice-over or video narration recording, for instance – won’t ever need to go beyond the basic setup.
Our aim in 2015 is to show people how inexpensive and easy it is to record and produce professional audio at home. So I was really pleased to find a post on the Disc Makers blog (by Graham Cochrane at The Recording Revolution) giving this same advice. Check out “Equipment You Need For A Home Studio Setup.”
And good luck with all your recording in 2015!
Ken

Learn Home Recording Fast Using My Learning Curve

January 3, 2015 by Ken Leave a Comment

Hey Everyone! I just wanted let you know about Home Brew Audio. It’s a website I wish had been around 15 years ago! Why? So I wouldn’t have had to spend so many years learning to do recording at home through the painfully slow-paced “trial-and-error” method. That learning process actually started closer to….oh let’s just say “many more than 15 years” ago;). I’m gonna post some of the gruesome details about THAT in another article…but the point is this: learning home recording by yourself when you have little-to-no cash can take decades!
Yeah, I know. I just gave away my coy little secret….basically it all started when I was a kid (which is why I don’t mind saying it was 30 YEARS AGO!). That way I don’t seem so old when I say “back then.” ANYWAY, yes…you heard right….decades! My cohorts and I have been through the frustration, the false-starts, the 2:00 am “pulling-out-of-the-hair-by-the-roots” sessions because we couldn’t figure out what was wrong, spending months just assuming our poor-sounding audio was caused by cheap equipment (it wasn’t!) when in reality it boiled down to forgetting to turn off the “noise-reduction” button on my car stereo! And just generally 30 years of learning curve.
Why is this good news for you? Because you get to use OUR learning curve! We had nobody to teach or guide us. We had no Home Brew Audio! If we HAD, that 30-year learning curve would have been condensed to something more like 1 or 2 years. It could have been much less even than that, but we had other “supposedly important” things to worry about, like school, and then working a day job. Oh and the partying (of course). Hey, we were musicians, which is why we wanted to learn to record audio in the first place. But you get the idea.
Home Brew Audio is an idea we came up with to share our knowledge with folks who don’t have the time to spend years “figuring it out” on their own, or sitting around in a recording studio. So we have assembled step-by-step tutorial videos that will show you how to create great sounding audio recordings on your computer. Also, we will be your one-stop-shop. Once you learn your new “mad recording skills,” you can get “royalty-free” music clips, loops, sound effects, etc. through us as well.
There is something for everyone! If you have no idea at all about audio, the The Newbies Guide To Audio Recording Awesomeness 1: The Basics With Audacity takes you by the hand and shows you how to create a professional audio production in less than one hour! If you’re a starving artist (or a college student, or otherwise unable to drop $1,000 just to get started), there’s something for you too…the “Starting on a Budget of $0.00” videos! (if you have a computer and an internet connection). For you old…I mean experienced recording engineers, there are some greate vids here for you too. And of course , we’re always listening for other great ideas on what help you need might need creating audio for you blog or for your websites, music productions, audio-books, podcasts, etc. Just let us know!
Check out our hundreds of articles here. And when you are ready to get started with the courses, start from the beginning with The Newbies Guide To Audio Recording Awesomeness 1: The Basics With Audacity.
Be seeing you (or maybe “hearing you:)”) soon!
Ken