The Ocean are an ‘experimental’ prog-metal band from Germany. They have a new album coming out April 30th called “Palagial” which takes a musical journey to the bottom of the ocean. It is intended to be heard as one continuous 53-minute piece of music. The album was mixed by the amazing Jens Bogren.
In these two studio report videos below we get a look at some of the recording and mixing process. There’s some really cool stuff in here.
A couple years ago I posted a popular article on great Ikea stuff for the studio. This month Ikea published a video of DJ Harry Love’s home studio which was filling the entire house with vinyl records. It’s kind of odd to post an add for Ikea here but it’s kinda awesome how they cleaned up and organized his little studio in such a life changing way.
In this video Robert Koch talks about his experience mixing his Robots Don’t Sleep EP at the amazing Emil Berliner Studios in Berlin. Robert’s music is electronic with a strong emphasis on songwriting. This project used the studio’s 40s, 50s, 60s vintage processors and tape machines as well as the echo chamber in the studio’s basement.
Find out more about the studio here: http://www.emil-berliner-studios.com/en/index.html
Another great TED Talk by Julian Treasure (watch another, and another) about architecture, acoustics and education. I can certainly relate to this, my high school had terrible acoustics and the lecture rooms in my audio school were even worse!
Towards the end of the video Julian talks about the Sound Education seminars and the free app called Study with sounds designed to mask ambient noise, help focus, improve cognition and reduce fatigue.
After I posted about the book in November, Santeri contacted me about proofreading and editing the book. He’s a fan of the blog, I’m a fan of the book concept and content. I was happy to help. Together we got the book finished nearly a week early.
I may be biased since I worked on the book… but I’ve also read this book cover to cover five times! It’s an excellent drum recording guide and a must for everyone working in hard-rock and metal, from drummers to producers, in basements and project studios. There’s something for everyone with solid advice and techniques that can be followed even on the smallest budget and in less-than-ideal spaces.
Santeri guides you though choosing and setting up the drums to get the best acoustic sound. Picking the best mics and placement for each drum. There’s an overview of acoustics and microphones. There’s a strong emphasis on getting the phase right, and how to correct it. Tuning, headphone mixes, editing and mixing are also covered.
Here’s a video tip from the book on getting huge ambience in a small space.
The format is pdf, over 100 pages with tons of photos and diagrams.
I came across this interesting discussion on film composing today through a tweet from Diego Stucco. Really cool to see these hugely successful composers talking about finding inspiration, working with directors, emotion and the creative process.
Writing music often is a solitary pursuit, so it was no wonder that when six renowned composers — Marco Beltrami, 46 (The Sessions), Mychael Danna, 54 (Life of Pi), Alexandre Desplat, 51 (Argo, Moonrise Kingdom, Rise of the Guardians, Zero Dark Thirty), Patrick Doyle, 59 (Brave), Danny Elfman, 59 (Frankenweenie, Hitchcock, Promised Land, Silver Linings Playbook), and Fernando Velazquez, 36 (The Impossible) — gathered in one room, they relished the chance to discuss the complexities of their trade as part of THR‘s roundtable series.
