Introduction
T-RackS 3 is a suite of high-quality digital and analog-modelled VST/AU/RTAS Dynamics and EQ processors, for mixing and mastering. T-RackS can also be used outside of your DAW as a standalone mastering application. Version 3.5.1 is the latest at the time of this review.
T-RackS Standard comes with the 4 ‘classic’ processors and metering suite as individual plugins also available within the T-Racks Shell or standalone.
T-Racks Deluxe has all the same functionality but adds a few more processors for a total of 9 including two analog modelled devices, the Fairchild Limiter and Pultec Tube Equalizer.
Each of the processors are also available for $99 each. The two newest additions to the T-RackS family – Black 76 Limiting Amplifier (modelled after Urei 1176), and White 2A Leveling Amplifier (Modelled after Urei LA2A Tube compressor/limiter), are only available as add-on purchases.
The decision to offer the individual processors was based on user feedback and common use. When T-RackS 3 was first released it was considered a mastering plugin, but users started liking the effects for mixing as well. Splitting up the system outside of the T-RackS Shell has made things much more convenient. Continue Reading
Review: IK Multimedia T-RackS Deluxe
Filed in Mastering | Mixing | Plugins | Review | Software | Virtual Effect 4 Comments
Review: TC-Helicon VoiceLive Rack
Filed in Gear | Review 2 Comments
This post is adapted from my review published on The Home Recording Show episode 154
Back in November, Craig from TC Helicon sent us one of their new products the VoiceLive Rack, to try out and review. I got to play with it first and here’s what I thought of it.
Overview
The VoiceLive Rack is the latest vocal processor from TC-Helicon, a company who have a long history of building excellent harmonizers and vocal effects. The VoiceLive is a complete vocal processor for live and studio use with eight effects such as delay, reverb, harmony, in addition to the global tone control and chromatic pitch correction. This is the bigger brother of the VoiceLive Touch, TC-Helicon’s mic stand-mountable vocal processor. It has many of the same features but with more in-depth control, and more i/o options.
Physically the VoiceLive Rack is a shallow 2-space rack. The top and bottom panels have a curved finger groove making it easy to move the Voicelive around when not in a rack.
On the front panel there is large, very bright backlit display, 5 rotary encoders, an 1/8″ headphone jack and power button. The majority of the front panel is covered by a large touch sensitive interface.
The rear panel includes a wide array of i/o options. From left to right, XLR mic input, 1/4″ Line input, Guitar input and guitar thru, 1/8″ stereo aux input. The output are stereo on XLR and 1/4″ TRS. A ground lift is available for the XLR outputs. Next there are S/PDIF in and out on RCA jacks, a footswitch jack, 3 MIDI ports – Thru, out, in and lastly a USB port.
IK Multimedia T-RackS 3 Deluxe Double Deal (limited time offer)
Filed in New Product Announcement | Plugins | Software | Virtual Effect 1 Comment
This month (Feb 2012) IK Multimedia is running a special 60% off on T-RackS 3 Deluxe. It’s just $199 in the online store or from your favorite retailer. [update - $99 upgrade offer for T-RackS 3 Standard users]
Buy and register Deluxe before Feb 29th and you qualify for the group buy to get a T-RackS 3 Single Black 76 or a T-RackS 3 Single White 2A for FREE.
Here’s how it works:
1. Buy T-RackS 3 Deluxe for only $199.99/€149.99* on our online store or your preferred music retailer.
2. As soon as 2,000 registrations are received, you will also be given a FREE T-Racks 3 Single title to choose from Black 76 and White 2A.
Make sure to spread the word so everyone gets a better deal! Building your own mixing and mastering studio has never been easier, but hurry, this promotion ends February 29th, 2012.
Check the Group Buy Counter here.
* All prices exclude taxes.
Optimizing OSX Lion for Audio
Filed in Mac | Software 3 Comments
Apple computers are almost studio ready right out of the box. There is very little required from the user in terms of optimization.
- Enable secondary click in Mouse Preferences
- Disable Natural scrolling direction in Mouse Preferences
- Set scrolling to without inertia in Universal Access>Mouse>Mouse Options
- Change show spotlight from CMD+Space to Option+Space in Keyboard>Keyboard Shortcuts
- Disable Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible in Energy Saver preferences
These are just some of my own suggestions. Continue Reading
New Product: AGZFX03: Hell Piano HD Sample Library/KONTAKT instrument
Filed in Circuitbending | New Product Announcement | Samples 2 Comments
My latest addition to the AGZFX store has been released. HELL PIANO is the result of intentionally short circuiting and reverse-engineering a Fisher Price toy piano from the ’80s.
256 mono wav files recorded and edited at 24bit, 96kHz. 10 KONTAKT instruments were created from these samples. This library/instrument is great for apocalyptic sound design, scoring and electronic music production.
Find out more and buy AGZFX03: Hell Piano
More AGZFX Sample Libraries
Find out more and buy AGZFX03: Hell Piano
More AGZFX Sample Libraries
3 Mid-Side Processing Tricks
Filed in Mixing | Techniques | Tutorial 7 Comments
In this article I’ll explain how I use Mid-Side processing on stereo sources for practical or creative effects.
Mid-Side?
Two channels of audio can be combined in a way that gives us control over what is the same in each signal, the middle, and what is different, the sides. The middle is where the kick drum, snare, bass, vocals and a lot of other instruments are, the sides have any hard-panned instruments and spatial effects like reverb. It can be pretty interesting to listen to music like this, there can be a lot hidden in the side channel.
MS is also a stereo microphone technique using a cardioid microphone facing the source and a bidirectional mic turned 90 degrees away just picking up ambience. In this situation the two signals would need to be decoded into stereo. The side mic signal is duplicated, polarity inverted and the two side signals are then panned hard left and right. This is not a true stereo mic technique but can sound very nice. The balance of mid and side signals can be adjusted as needed by changing the level of the 3 tracks.
You can manually encode and decode stereo files to MS and use mono plugins to process mid or side individually. A lot more plugins have an MS mode now. Many of the modules in the T-Racks suite allow mid side processing, as does Ozone, a few compressors and equalizers and a distortion also come to mind.
You can do this for subtle or crazy effects, its a fun way to experiment with plugins and get some unique sounds.
Loud and wide
For a recent mastering job I used a Fairchild compressor plugin in MS mode (Lat/Vert) to compress the middle and increase the level of the sides. I did this in parallel so I could blend the effect in easily. I was also using this to get a lot of extra loudness. You can call this parallel MS Compression.
Compare the master without the parallel MS compression, then with, then the parallel compression soloed.
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Parallel Mid-Side Compression with Fairchild
No more messy verb
I had someone ask about clearing up the middle of a mix when using a lot of reverb. Using Mid-Side Compression on the reverb return can work well. Compress the middle more than the sides and increase the side volume if you want more width.
Here is an example of that on some drums. The drums are Steven Slate playing in KONTAKT. The whole kit is sent into Valhalla Room. With the Fairchild after the reverb I’m lowering the middle by 2dB and raising the sides by 2.
Here you can listen to this effect with lots of reverb on the drums.
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An now with MS compression on just the reverb bus.
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There is NO compression on the drums themselves, I’m only compressing the reverb return and widening it.
Wacky effects
Here is an example of what you can do with a stereo loop and any plugin. This is a little more complicated, and only works if there are hard panned sounds. The loop I started out with had a hihat that wasn’t panned very hard, I copied it to a new track, filtered out all the lows, boosted some highs and then panned it hard left. I recorded the combined original and panned track to a new file.
Here is what I’m starting out with
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Now that I had something on the sides I could mess around with Mid Side Processing.
The first thing you have to do is convert Left – Right to Mid and side. I use the free +matrix MS decoder from SoundHack.com. After that I used a delay plugin to add some filtered echoes just to the middle by disabling the right side input.
In the next insert I used a distortion on just the right side. This brought out a lot more of the reverb than was heard in the original loop. Lastly, second MS decoder was used to bring it back to stereo.
Soundhack +matrix MS encoder/decoder
Here is how the loop sounds now with delay in the middle and distortion on the sides.
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Pretty cool right!? I hope you have found these tricks useful.
