NAMM, the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), holds two trade shows each year with displays, booths, classes, demonstrations, etc. concerning musical gear of all kinds. That includes recording, live sound, music-making, and everything.
In January, 2013, it was held in Anaheim, California. Now, they just announced the summer Namm, which will be July 11-13 in Nashville, Tennessee.
NAMM is an awesome place to be if you want to see all the latest in gadgets, especially if you are a gear-head like me. Journalists and bloggers (also, like me) can post from the show floor to tell their readers about the latest and greatest. Unfortunately for me, a temporary medical condition will prevent me going this July. But if you’re interested, check out the site here: http://www.namm.org/
Audio Recording – Punching In And Out With A Footswitch
I recently wrote a 2-part article on fixing mistakes while recording (Quickly Fix Audio Recording Mistakes by Overdubbing), but not using the traditional punch-in/punch-out method. Punching where you set a point just before your mistake, and automatically (used to be an engineer doing it manually in the old days) the software starts recording over the mistake and continues recording on the same track,or punching out after the mistake if “patching” the mistake in an already-recorded track.
Rather than punch recording, I like to use a second track instead, basically overdubbing to fix my mistakes, especially when recording acoustic guitar. I like to preserve the original recording as much as possible and retain as much control as possible in the fix. I’m being medicated for this. Anyway…
Joe Gilder, from Home Studio Corner, explains in this video post, which you can see here: – http://www.homestudiocorner.com/footswitch-recording/ – how he does punch recording using a foot switch, giving him control from the microphone. He is using Presonus Studio One, along with the hardware fader and transport control unit, Presonus Faderport (which you can use with Reaper, BTW) and an M-Audio SP-2 Keyboard Sustain Pedal, which can plug into the back of the Faderport. With this, he can stop and start his DAW and punch in and out remotely.
Check out the video below:
Vocal Harmony Experiments
One of the main reasons I got into recording audio was frustration that none of my friends seemed to know what harmonies were – even if they could sing quite well. So I decided the only way to sing cool harmonies was to do it with myself. I had an old cassette tape recorder with a tiny crappy mic on it. And my brother had a boom-box that could play cassette tapes. This was long before the days of portable CD players, and certainly long, LONG before the advent of mp3 players.
So I sand the melody of This Boy, by the Beatles, onto my tape recorder. Then I ejected the tape and put it into my brother’s boom box, placing a new cassette tape into my tape recorder. Then I played back the part I just sang from the boom box, recording it onto my recorder while singing George’s harmony. Then I took THAT tape out of my recorder, stuck it into the boom box, and put the other tape back into the recorder and pressed “play” on the boom box while recording it onto my recorder and singing Paul’s part. Voila! 3-part harmony with myself. It was like magic – pure, hissy (boy was there a lot of tape hiss noise!) vocal harmony magic.
Well, I messed with all the technology through the years and in 2013, we have wonderfully quiet, high-quality recording tech at our fingertips for just a few bucks. I’ve been doing harmony with that tech on this site. Below are some of the examples of what you can do now.
Our courses – The Newbies Guide To Audio Recording Awesomeness 1: The Basics With Audacity, and The Newbies Guide To Audio Recording Awesomeness 2: Pro Recording With Reaper, both show you step-by-step how to sing harmony with yourself. Also, see the article whose link is at the bottom of the page with one of the first articles we ever published – Sing Harmony With Yourself – Learn How to Record Your Voice on Your PC and Sing Along With It!
1. Fat Bottomed Girls (Queen) – From The Article: How To Be Your Own Glee Club – Queen Harmony Demo
2. Carry On Wayward Son (Kansas) – From the Article: Kansas Harmony Step-By-Step
3. Helplessly Hoping (Crosby, Stills and Nash) – This one is a video and is the entire song!
4. Sing Harmony With Yourself – See The Article https://www.homebrewaudio.com/sing-harmony-with-yourself-learn-how-to-record-your-voice-on-your-pc-and-sing-along-with-it/.
Succeeding In The Voice-Over World
I’m sure you’re aware of the voice-over industry. Media producers of all kinds contract voice actors to read commercials, audio books, videos, animated productions, etc. Apparently, there is also an industry in selling the dream of becoming a highly-paid voice actor – the business of certain voice-over coaches promising to get you closer to Hollywood producers. Before I go further, let me state that there ARE lots of reputable and helpful VO coaches out there that won’t charge you tons of money in exchange for a false promise. They genuinely sell their service of helping you become a better voice actor.
But the sub-industry of coaches promising the moon for a lot of your money is growing. And you should be wary.
In my experience, the only way to make money as a voice over actor is the same as any actor – start with talent, get a bit of help, and then start auditioning, auditioning, auditioning. And also like any successful actor, you’ve got to have a thick skin and freakish level of persistence. Even then, you’ll probably not make more than a decent living wage. It is the rare – and extraordinarily lucky actor of any kind, that makes the big big bucks.
If you are serious about getting into the voice-over business, see my article Voice Over Jobs: Where to Find Them and How to Get Them, which will show you how to get started. I’ll now add to that the advice to be careful about finding a voice-over coach. My advice is to avoid anyone wanting to charge you more than about $100 per hour. And of course, you should ask other voice-over actors you meet along the way to recommend someone.
See this article for more on the scam of terrible coaching: http://www.thevoiceovercoach.com/voiceoverblog/the-hollywood-myth-that-people-are-selling-you-is-exactly-that-a-myth
Fix Certain Pro Tools Issues In Windows
Pro Tools, the industry standard audio recording software program, originally was made for the Mac. So there are always going to be folks who think every issue with Pro Tools when using Windows is down to the fact that it is Windows. Well, even though Pro Tools has been usable on Windows since the mid-1990s, there are still some things about the Pro Tools – Windows combo that causes problems (yeah, cuz no other software ever has problems on Windows – but I digress).
Here is a short article on how to fix certain issues with sound cards or launch issues in Pro Tools by clearing preferences. A pretty easy fix.
Read the article here: http://obediatutor.tumblr.com/post/7701315777/how-to-clear-pro-tools-preferences-in-windows-to-fix