Audio Tech News

Novation update Automap Universal, software automation control

Posted on January 14th, 2008 by admin.
Categories: Digital Demons, Software And Plug-ins, Studio Shenanigans, Take A Walk On The Live Side.

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Novation has developed an updated version of its ‘Automap Universal’, a software automation controlling system, which will be showcased at NAMM ‘08, prior to a February release.

Updates include RTAS and TDM plug-in, and the software comes with Novation’s new Nocturn controller, and will also be compatible with Novation’s ReMOTE SL and ReMOTE SL COMPACT ranges.

Novation says:

Featuring a revolutionary ‘heads-up transparent control GUI’, Automap Universal 2.0 allows you to view all parameters simultaneously on your computer screen, as well as on an SL or SL COMPACT’s huge screens. The size of the window can be modified, as well as the degree of transparency, so a permanent view of the GUI is possible without interfering with your regular setup.

Automap Universal 2.0 also categorises all your control maps. A simple browsing facility allows you to view mapped plug-ins by type, then quickly switch to control any one of them.

1 comment.

Big Fish Audio release Bone Crushing Drum Loops

Posted on January 10th, 2008 by admin.
Categories: Studio Shenanigans.

Big Fish Audio has released a drum loops collection entitled ‘Bone Crushing Drums’

BFA says

It’s time for some serious rockin’. This collection of ferocious and hard-hitting drum loops gives you the intensity of rock’s heavy side. Leave the lighter side for another day cause we’ve packed punk, garage, hard rock, and straight rock into this DVD. Each Genre contains 10 to 16 song sets giving you 50 total sets of loops to create full drum tracks with.”

There are two editions to play with - 24-bit ProTools/OMF addition with the great idea of a ‘moveable mic’ feature, and the Apple Loop/REX/RMX/WAV/Acid edition.

See the BFA website for further details

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VST plugins - iZotope updates mean good news for Pro-Tools users

Posted on January 9th, 2008 by admin.
Categories: Software And Plug-ins, Studio Shenanigans.

iZotope has updated its Ozone mastering plugin to v.1.14 and its Spectron (spectral effect) and Trash (amp simulation) plugins to v.1.12.

The greatest benefit is to Pro-Tools users, although iZotope says performance and stability has been improved on all platforms.

For more details, visit iZoptopes website.

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Gladiator for Mac OS X and v1.1 for Windows

Posted on January 8th, 2008 by admin.
Categories: Software And Plug-ins, Studio Shenanigans.

PC Music got this one….

Gladiator for Mac OS X and v1.1 for Windows

Tone2 has announced that Gladiator for Mac OS X is available now and that the Windows version has been updated to v1.1.
Some of the newer features include:

- Opening the plugin is 250% faster. When the plugin is started for the first time it creates cache files (.1 .2 .3 .4) within the Gladiator_data directory. These cache files help to improve the performance.
- Drastically reduced the hard disc space for saving audio in Cubase and other hosts (previously 1.5 Mb per instance, now 850 byte).
More info at Tone2.

That should keep you engineers happy.

0 comments.

AmpliTube 2 DUO & Ampeg SVX UNO available free to Digidesign’s AmpliTube LE users

Posted on January 7th, 2008 by admin.
Categories: Software And Plug-ins, Studio Shenanigans.

Digidesign is giving you techs a nice start to the new year by upgrading all its users to Amplitube 2 DUO.

That’s why this recording artist is smiling. I bet the engineer is wondering what’s going on.

Protoolerblog says

AmpliTube 2 DUO is a special edition of AmpliTube 2, IK’s award-winning amp & stompbox modeling software. DUO updates AmpliTube LE’s features with more realistic tone, separate preamp, EQ, & power amp modeling, and all new amp, cabinet, mic and stomp-box models.

For a limited time, you can also receive Ampeg SVX UNO too!

Ampeg SVX UNO delivers one of the four classic Ampeg® amps from Ampeg SVX. Like AmpliTube 2 DUO, Ampeg SVX UNO gives you access to models of classic gear, from an Ampeg® bass chorus pedal to the famous BA-500 amp and cabinet.

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Rain Studios - searching for premises

Posted on January 3rd, 2008 by admin.
Categories: Analogue Anarchy, Studio Shenanigans, You Might Not Care But We Do.

The owners of Rain Studios, a recording studio previously based in Nottingham, England are searching for new premises.

The impressive studio boasts a Neve Capricorn desk, runs Pro-Tools and Nuendo on Mac, and PC respectively.

The engineers at Rain pride themselves on combining the old with the new - digital technology combined with an old school way of recording and mixing.

For more info - visit their website

0 comments.

105 more free studio plugins. It must be Christmas!

Posted on December 21st, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Software And Plug-ins, Studio Shenanigans.

Here’s some more sites for your reference. Some of you will find these really useful.

100 free plugins. Yes, there’s more. We want to hear from you to see which ones you guys think are the best, and why.

Email me - chris@audiotechnews.com
DSK Brass: Sample-based brass instrument, with two layers and 23 waveforms, effects, automation support, and even micro-detuning.

DSK StringZ: Sample-based strings, two layers, separate ADSR envelopes for each layer, effects, automation.

Syntar: A sytar-like synthesizer.

Dr-Fusion 2: Drum sampler and synth with, layering, per-sample controls.

Tapeworm: Mellotron-inspired synth with fine-tuning and automation support.

Enjoy.

0 comments.

Greg Thompson in the spotlight

Posted on December 17th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: In The Spotlight, Software And Plug-ins, Studio Shenanigans, Take A Walk On The Live Side.

Greg Thompson has been a pro audio engineer for about 15 years. He cites his first love as making rock records. He’s worked with artists like 50 Cent, Iggy Pop, Norah Jones, The Killers, Pink, Sherryl Crow, and more than a careers worth of others.

“I’m the chief engineer at Kampo in Greenwich Village. I work regularly as a crew member on ABC’s Good Morning America, on the Record Plant Remote truck, and I freelance when I can. I spent a long time at the now defunct NYC Hit Factory, but we don’t like to talk about that.”

Audiotechnews found Greg a funny, friendly and likeable guy, more than willing to share a few stories and some experience. So much so, that we took advantage of his good nature, got him drunk and REALLY got him talking.

(The drunk bit is not true).

Here’s some of what we spoke about. The rest of the interview is available to RSS subscribers.

ATN: You’ve worked with a massively eclectic array of artists now, but there must have been times in your career when you’ve thought ‘How am I meant to record this?’

So tell us about them!

“Well, I got to spend quite a few years assisting many other engineers at many levels of the industry so I got to see all sorts of methods used on all sorts of instruments for all sorts of genres. Many engineers brought an attitude of “this is the only way to record ________” and I sort of saw through their bull, because i’d seen plenty of situations where that method either didn’t work, or there was an alternate that worked just as well. I spent time with engineers who’d spend an hour on each instrument swapping mics out and wearing out musicians, and guys who got killer sounds in no time flat and worked seamlessly and invisibly with the flow of the musicians. I worked with guys who wouldn’t accept microphone substitutions when they were asking for some pretty esoteric mics in large numbers, and folks who could roll with the situation and whatever was available from the mic locker.”

“Many bands come through with a fixed touring setup that I can’t change much or the band will get cranky. Some bands will have mic endorsements and carry all their own mics and I have to deal with what they give me with minimal substitutions. More often than not, that leads to me having to deal with at least 1 element in the mix that is simply mic’ed with the wrong tool for the job.”

ATN: Have they become career highlights for you because you worked through and delivered a successful product?

“Mm.. Hard to pick any one particular band or situation. I’m always proud when I do something for a live show or something that’s meant to be short lived like a broadcast or webstream and winds up on an album, enshrined forever. Occasionally I’ll even get credited for it too. That’s happened several times, and I’ve only found out about most of those things by being vain and tossing my name in a search engine.”

“But lets see who some of the coolest bands were……”

Only for subscribers

ATN: Do you have any particular gear that you consider puts the ‘Greg Thompson stamp’ on things? Whether its a particular mic/pre-amp for a kick drum, outboard effects or plugins?

“No. I believe that gear comes in 2 types - priceless and worthless. An original C-12 or U-47 may be as close to “priceless” as microphones get, but if it starts crackling midway through a recording, then it has just become “worthless” to me. I’ll take 10 working SM-57s over 1 “touchy” U-47. Also, because I do a ton of live band on a stage or in the same room, I never get to use something like a 47 or a C-12 because their pickup pattern is too wide for me to get a usable vocal or acoustic guitar sound. So in that situation, mics like that are worthless to me.”

ATN: Going into it more - whats your ideal gear rider for a recording session?

“I never want to see a Beta 52 on bass drum.
You’d better have a damn good reason to be using a Neumann KMS 105 on vocals. That’s about it.
Both mics sound good on the right source in the right situation, but I’ve been hosed by those 2 mics more often than any other microphones combined.

ATN: What are you working on right now?

“Right now I’m doing mostly television work that’s pretty unglamorous, but pays the bills in between doing the big video shoots.”

ATN: Anything you’d like to work on/anyone you’d like to work with?

“I always joke that I’d like to work with Led Zeppelin or that whomever I may be working with sounds good, but they’re no Led Zeppelin, but I believe that you should never work with your idols if you want to keep them as idols. Because once you work with them, you’re exposed to their shortcomings and it ruins the illusion of what makes them your idol in the first place.”

ATN: What should we look out for of yours in 2008 then?

“Keep an eye open for things posted online from Clearchannel and AOL, as well as some indie band releases and the occasional band performance I mix on Good Morning America.”

ATN: Anything else to add?

“It’s a brave new world out there for folks working in audio. Anybody can afford the gear to record and mix the music, and so anybody does. Few musicians under 40 feel that they should pay to make an album, when they can do it themselves for free. Few labels feel they should have to pay anybody to record an album since the bands can do it themselves for free. Few people feel they should pay for music since they can download and share copies of it for free. The same 10 engineers have been mixing every album you hear on the radio and TV for the past 10 years and they’re not retiring anytime soon. I see advertisements for schools to teach you “the exciting career of audio engineering” and they pump out students by the hundreds every year. I don’t know how many folks breaking into the business are going to be able to do it for a living, so keep that in mind when you decide you want to take out a loan and open your own recording studio.”

I’m willing to bet there are dozens people out there who think they can do what I do faster and better and are willing to do it for half the price I charge. I have a wife and 2 kids to look after. I have bills to pay. I need to save up for my retirement and college for my kids. This isn’t the dream job they promise you in the ads for those recording schools, and if I’d put as much effort into selling life insurance or mutual funds as I had in working my way through the studio system, I’d have a heck of a lot more to show for it. I still enjoy going to work almost every day, and I look forward to pulling up the faders and seeing what cool things I can do. I’m not sure how many other people actually enjoy their job as much as I do.

The rest of the interview is available to RSS subscribers only (and there is some cracking stuff in there). Greg is an engineer after my own heart. Any type of live sound involves some sort of compromise in order to make the overall result the best it can be. Anyone who says otherwise….?

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NY Plans 200 Seat Theatre and Recording Studio

Posted on December 13th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Studio Shenanigans, Take A Walk On The Live Side.

A new 200-seat theater is planned for 192 Water St. in DUMBO, the former home of the East New York Fancy Basket Company

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reports

The new owners, identified as DumboSpace LLC, plan to convert the ground floor and part of the lower level into a 200-seat theater; add a recording studio and gallery on the second floor; and create 10 condominium units on floors three through five.

0 comments.

Pro Tools 7.4 - 10,000 downloads

Posted on December 10th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Studio Shenanigans.

10,000 people can’t be wrong. It’s hard to argue with them, anyway.  And as that’s the amount of people who downloaded Digidesign Pro Tools 7.4 in its first 25 days of release, Audiotechnews won’t even bother.

Pro Sound News dish up the goss.

Pro Tools 7.4 software has been updated with numerous music and post-production features and workflow enhancements for users of Pro Tools|HD, Pro Tools LE, and Pro Tools M-Powered systems. Among them is a new music composition and production tool called Elastic Time.

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