Archive for the ‘Columns’ Category

Ableton Live is, as you may know, an extremely powerful piece of music software. You can produce, mix, master, and even DJ inside of it with ease.

With Live’s Audio Warping engine and friendly “Session” layout, DJing is a very real possibility. Whether you’re sidegrading from turntables/CDJs to an all digital setup or are an existing Live user looking to use it for all aspects of your musical work, chances are you’re going to need to build a type of live performance/DJ rig.

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I recently dealt with a client that was in need of a 12 channel mixer for use with hybrid live and recording situations. They were looking at either the Soundcraft M12 or the Allen & Heath MixWizard WZ3 12:2. I wasn’t sure what to tell them. I’ve used the 16 channel MixWizard and, as far as smaller format live mixers, I loved it. I’ve never used anything from the M series, but I do know Soundcraft makes solid (and great sounding) gear. So what do I suggest? I had to do a comparison for them, and why not share it with you?

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Will this iPad-thing be useful for musicians and engineers?

Do we really need to talk about the iPad? There’s so much tablet fodder out there that I doubt anyone will ever come across this, but just in case someone is interested, I’d like to offer my sound-guy perspective on the device.

First Thoughts:

My first impression of the device as images and tweets were pouring out of the closed-door press conference, was that this gadget looks a lot more square than I expected.  But my first music-related thought was that this device could be AWESOME at wireless, multi-touch-enabled MIDI controlling.  It’s not hard to imagine the iPad running a touchscreen version of Ableton’s Launchpad hardware unit.  There’s really enough space there to see mixing control surfaces like the Jazzmutant Lemur and Dexter app.  So, yeah, first thoughts were “this is kind of square” and “big multi-touch screen with wifi and bluetooth = totally rad control surface apps!”

Nitty Gritty:

Sadly, in tune with the general disappointment of the day, the features (or lack thereof) started to get in the way of the potential of this device to make an exceptional addition to a music-nerd’s arsenal.

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TC Electronic Polytune Polyphonic Tuner Pedal

In the world of guitar gear, there are thousands of sleek, gritty, cool or knob-overloaded boxes out there.  With all the flashy pedals out there with “X-treme!!!” names, it’s easy to overlook some of their less-than-exciting counterparts – namely tuners.

Sure, they’re brilliant devices that provide important and necessary features, but let’s be real about it.  Every time I see someone walking out of a guitar shop with a $100 tuning pedal in his hand, he seems less than excited.  No new sounds or tones? No badass names?  In most cases, there aren’t even any novel tech features.  But no more!

<trumpet fanfare>

Finally something new!

<enthusiastic fingers-on-desk drumroll>

Polyphonic tuning!

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Applie Acoustics Systems are announcing native 64-bit VST plug-ins for their Professional and Session series instruments on Windows 7 and Vista. This new feature allows for 64-bit VSTs to be supported without the use of any “bit bridge” technology.

The update will take place in the form of routine maintainence and will be out in the first quarter of 2010 to all registered AAS users.