Audio Geek Zine » Sound Design

New product – Home Recording Tactics

Jon — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 02:40:44 +0000

What is Home Recording Tactics? This is a collection of audio interviews with 9 hard working, successful home studio engineers (including me). The interviews were led by Joe Gilder of Home Studio Corner. He got these guys to share all their secrets on a variety of home recording topics.

My part of Home Recording Tactics can be heard below:

Get it for $17

Recording on a Budget
with Graham Cochrane, TheRecordingRevolution.comGraham shares some fantastic advice to keep you from playing an endless game of Gear Acquisition Syndrome and instead getting great-sounding recordings.
Microphones
with Slau Halatyn, SessionsWithSlau.comSlau’s passion for mics is evident in this interview, where he explains the differences between various types of microphones and also shares why he uses different types of mics for different sources.
Arrangement
with Dave Chick, InsideHomeRecording.comAs a professional composer for video, Dave shares his approach to composing and arranging music, and we discuss how to apply that to any
recording project for awesome results.
Editing & Workflow
with Jon Tidey, AudioGeekZine.comJon shares some really useful tips for becoming better and faster at editing and your general recording workflow, regardless of what recording platform you use.
Mixing
with “Big Al” Wagner, HomeStudioGuru.comBig Al’s mixing expertise stretches back to the days of analog tape and big consoles, so he brings a really valuable perspective to the table and gives practical advice that you can use on your next session.
Sound Design
with Nick Maxwell, NicksTutorials.comNick introduces us to the fascinating world of sound design and shares how sound design skills can be extremely useful when applied to your studio productions as well.
Recording for Live Sound
with Ryan Canestro, HomeRecordingShow.comRyan gives us some great advice on how to effectively pull off a live recording, whether you simply want to capture the audio for a YouTube video or do a full-on multi-track recording.
Recording Sound for Film
with Jesse Zoller, TheIceShop.netJesse gives us a glimpse into the world of recording sound for film. A great video can only be a great video if it has great audio, and Jesse shares with us how to make that happen.
Mastering
with Ian Shepherd, Mastering-Media.blogspot.comWhether you want to master yourself or hire a mastering engineer, Ian will help you understand this extremely important process and enable you to make an educated decision.

More info and order page

Great field recording lecture from Chuck Russom

Jon — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:39:37 +0000

Yesterday Chuck Russom posted a recording of his 2006 lecture on Field Recording at the Game Developers Conference. He covers equipment, finding unique sounds, recording guns and exotic animals. It’s 45 minutes long but seemed to go by quickly and was entertaining. It was very cool to hear the same gun shots from different mics and placements. Plenty to learn from this lecture if you’re somewhat interested in field recording or sound recording for games, TV and film.

Listen to the lecture here: http://chuck-russom.blogspot.com/2010/03/gdc-2006-field-recording-lecture.html
There are some pictures near the bottom of the post that go along with his presentation.

Who is Chuck Russom?

Badass mofo Freelance Sound Designer and SFX Recordist.
Credits include a number of top game franchises including: God of War, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, James Bond, and others.

Chuck’s website is definitely worth following for anyone interested field recording, game audio, sound design. He often posts some of his interesting sound captures and goes into details of how it was recorded.

I’m starting to get interested in sound design & field recording and all the things that go along with it so expect more posts on those subjects (unless you don’t want me to post about those things, speak up!)

Free Plugin Of The Week – SoundMagic Spectral

Jon — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:00:48 +0000

Yesterday my friend Nick [@AbletonTutor] of Nick’s Tutorials posted an article about these AU (Mac only) plugins: SoundMagic Spectral by Michael Norris. They’re not the typical sound shaping tools you’ll find in a DAW, but for something completely different check these out. I’m sure I’ll get plenty of use out of these especially Spectral DroneMaker.

Included in SOUNDMAGIC SPECTRAL are the following plug-ins:

Spectral Averaging • Spectral Bin Shift • Spectral Blurring • Spectral DroneMaker

Spectral Emergence • Spectral Filterbank • Spectral Freezing • Spectral Gate and Hold

Spectral Gliding Filters • Spectral Granulation • Spectral Harmonizer • Spectral Partial Glide

Spectral Pitch Shift • Spectral Pulsing • Spectral Shimmer • Spectral Shuffle

Spectral Stretch • Spectral Tracing

Chorus • Comb Filter Bank • Grain Streamer • Idee Fixer • Mr Filterbank

Get SoundMagic Spectral {Audio Unit for Mac OSX}

Pro Tools Audio Time Stretching Test – Round One

Jon — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:40:09 +0000

The other day I was playing around with my bowed cymbals samples and found that they didn’t timestretch particularly well with Elastic Audio or otherwise. I like Elastic Audio for many purposes but I keep running into it’s limitations. Stretching bowed cymbals to 200% is one of them, I later discovered that most other methods aren’t much better either. I’ve created some examples so you can come to your own conclusion about which is the ‘best’ way. As you’ll hear, some of these have the painfully obvious audio equivalent of THIS IMAGE.

Download RAR file with original file and 17 stretched files. 16 bit, 44.1kHz (same as original recording)

original
TCE Digidesign
TCE Timeshift Default
TCE Timeshift Stereo Mix
Audiosuite Time Shift default
Audiosuite Time Shift follow transient
Audiosuite TimeCompressionExpansion Default
Audiosuite TimeCompressionExpansion accuracy 5
Audiosuite TimeCompressionExpansion accuracy -5
Elastic Audio Monophonic No Event markers
Elastic Audio Monophonic
Elastic Audio Polyphonic default no event markers
Elastic Audio Polyphonic default
Elastic Audio Rhythmic default
Elastic Audio Rhythmic default no event markers
Elastic Audio X-Form default
Elastic Audio X-Form Formant
Elastic Audio X-Form No Event Markers

In my opinion and for this specific situation there is one method of stretching that is clearly better, the least “stretch marks” it’s also the most time consuming.

Let me know what you think about the test. What would you like for round 2?

Conan Does Foley

Jon — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 19:11:44 +0000

Recently on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien there was a skit where Conan visits a foley stage to ‘help out’. Enjoy!

If the videos don’t work try here:

Part 1: http://www.tonightshowwithconanobrien.com/video/clips/conan-does-foley-pt1-060409/1118589/

Part 2: http://www.tonightshowwithconanobrien.com/video/clips/conan-does-foley-pt2-060409/1118699/

Composing music for Warhammer Online

Jon — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:00:01 +0000

Sound Borb

Jon — Mon, 07 May 2007 02:05:25 +0000

Sound Borb is an audio ambience generating system. The generative nature of Sound Borb’s audio engine means that once you hit play, the ambience you’re listening to will never end.

Sound Borb is pretty cool little windows program (not a plugin), it creates constantly changing ambiences that never loop. You can use it as a way to relax or help you sleep, or as a great way to create some unique pads and drones for your music.

Create your own Borb with the Borbifier, turn it on and record it. Chop out a section you like, time stretch it, pitch shift it, send it to delays and reverbs or whatever, you’ve got an endless source of ambiences now.

Sound Borb