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stage7

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  1. Cool Lee, those are great ideas. If I can remember what it is, there was a free VST pitch correction plugin I was using a while ago that had a chart as it went through the song and showed exactly how far off stuff was. I actually have a frequency chart like that too, the one that comes with Bob Katz's Mastering Audio book.
  2. Recently I've been pretty interested in the idea of ear training excersizes for audio engineers. More importantly, I've been trying to think of a way to more easily and accurately identify frequencies, hear when a voice or instrument is sharp or flat (even just by a little), hear when a rhythm is off by a little bit and if it's early or late. All the kinds of things that could easily come up on a day-to-day basis. Right now, I can get there if I hear things a couple of times usually, but I'd like to get myself to the point where I can hear this stuff while tracking is going on. I've considered making myself a playlist of audio clips with various tones to get the first part down, but for the rest of it there's not much I can think to do but keep working on it in real life situations. I'm also looking at the book Critical Listening Skills for Audio Professionals by F. Alton Everest. Link. I'm not familiar with any of his other books, but it's got pretty good reviews. Any thoughts/comments on this book? Or any on things you've done in the past to train your ears? Thanks!
  3. +1 to all of sean's advice. Just how loud is "stage volume" to you? If you're cranking the amp to the point where you'd need earplugs to be in the same room, chances are it's too loud. Try turning the amp down a bit if this is the case. Your problem definitely sounds like mic position to me. Just because you have a mic in front of a speaker doesn't mean you're going to get the same sound in it that you're getting out of the speaker. Especially with something that's close miced, very small adjustments can make a drastic difference in tone. Generally speaking, the center of a speaker cone has a very bright sound, really heavy in the high end. Moving further out to the edge of the speaker will increase the low end. Remember we're just talking about having the mic pointed straight in at the speaker now too... if you angle the mic differently, that will also change the sound. As a starting point I like to try putting the close mic about halfway between the outer edge and center of the speaker cone, with the front of the mic angled in a bit towards the center of the speaker. Then put on some headphones and listen to the difference it makes as you move the mic around. Like seaneldon said, try moving the mic back & forth across the speaker, angling it different ways, moving more towards top or bottom until you get a sound like you want. After you do all that, then you can start worrying about the AT4040. If you're still not liking the sound you get out of the close mic, throw the 4040 back a couple feet from the amp. Move it around and blend it with the close mic. Good luck
  4. my weakest point is getting people to be on time! The owner of the studio that I intern at right now told me last week that they used to have a lot of problems with getting people to show up on time, or sometimes at all. They started requiring a deposit for the first 2 hours of each session when you booked time there. If you were late they'd take the money for the extra time out of your deposit, or if you didn't show up they'd just keep it. Now they rarely have anyone show up more than 15 minutes late.
  5. I suck at getting paid. I'll second that I have a serious problem with asking people for money or charging them for the hours I actually put in. Like a few weeks ago I did audio for a DVD for a nonprofit organization and I really didn't want to charge them that much. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist when setting EQ or other effects, and I feel like I spend way too much time on it so I really don't want to go and charge someone for the 3 hours I spent getting this one track "just right". I ended up billing them for 7 and a half of about 14 hours that I actually spent on the project. And I ignored the hour drive both ways, cost of gas, and time spent setting up and tearing down. The other major issue I feel like I'm facing right now is keeping the "big picture" in mind when getting individual sounds. Like I'll set up my mics for each instrument until I have a great tone for that instrument as a soloist... and completely ignore where I want it to sit in the mix later. All of a sudden I've got huge drums, huge guitars, huge bass... and a severly cluttered mix that needs a lot of EQ to get it to work. To compensate for this, I've been listening very carefully to CDs to hear what space each instrument is REALLY taking up. Like where the bass sits in relation to the guitar and the kick.. what frequency ranges are brought out and where it's cut. I feel like it's helping... so we'll see how my current project turns out
  6. Originally posted by toddlans Can you posabley try too use a little grammer and spellin. Nobody is perfect, but you're starting to resemeble somebody that I haven't seen around the forum in a bit. And the award for worst spelling and grammer in a "use proper spelling and grammer" flame goes to.... BTW twostone - 23 and in a metal band but as someone planning on making a career in music, I'd like to be able to continue hearing it for a few years. Hearing damage is cumulative and takes a lot less than most people think, so actively doing things that will destroy your hearing is just irresponsible.
  7. Originally posted by twostone My all time fave listening to music is thru my 2kwatt PA system there you feel the music but not recommended for reference monitoring but definitely enjoyable to crank up a favorite CD and rock out. But back to the topic you might do a search on what's a good commercial CD for referencing thru studio monitors that cover the whole frequency range. hearing damage anyone? I prefer listening to music on my monitors rather than listening on anything else. The reason some people prefer commercial speakers is that they tend to be equalized in a way that most people find pleasing.. meaning that the sound is colored by the speakers. Monitor are just designed to reproduce the sound without any equalization so it may not sound as "good" to some people, but it's more accurate. Just don't crank them too high and it'll be fine
  8. Fortunately, this is a peice of gear you can definitely try before buying. Take a couple hours, go to a Sam Ash or Guitar Center, or whatever else you have nearby. Bring your guitar. Compare the POD to other amps there, and to what you're used to at home. I have a POD 2.0 and I hate the thing. It's noisy and all the distortion types on it sound fake to me. The clean channels are pretty decent but that's about it. I've heard good things about some of line 6's actual amplifiers though.
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