Phil O'Keefe

Let's PLEASE keep things civil folks. HC has their rules, but as long as this forum has my name on it, rule #1, over and beyond the HC site rules, is that while it's okay to disagree - even strongly / passonately, personal insults, threats and ad hominem attacks are not acceptable here. Ever. Period. "Be excellent to each other." If someone is late, I might charge them from the time they were supposed to be there. Not always - I try not to be a jerk about it - if the excuse / reason seems reasonable, and they're generally on time and good clients, I might / probably will let it slide. If it starts to become a regular or semi-regular occurance, all bets are off. Ditto that for clients who cancel without notice. On the subject of pay, I think it's not unreasonable to do things for free when you're still learning / starting out... but that dosn't have to be for the public at large. It can be for close friends or at school or whatever... but I think that you have to be careful about that because it can become "expected" and it might seem hard to break out of it and start charging for your time / services as your skills increase. Plus, it does devalue things in the eyes of your clients, and in a way devalues what engineers do in general. At least get something out of it - even if you're relatively inexperienced. Materials costs, lunch / dinner, help with building acoustic bass traps - something. You're doing something for them, and even if your not JJP or RTB, you deserve respect and some sort of compensation in return.

One of the best engineer/studio owners I worked with asked for payment at the end of every session (at least with us ). I'd say he was more firm than ruthless with regard to the clock. If the band kept him waiting (arriving late, being unprepared), they had to pay. That said, he often cut a "discount" at the end of the session for any of a number of reasons... sometimes it was just because we'd all spent ten or fifteen minutes joking around and talking... so I'd say the band's banker seemed to feel that the studio was firm but fair. That's more along the lines of the approach I try to take. If I am going to err insofar as time vs money, it's going to be to the client's benefit and not mine. I don't give the farm away, but if it's a question of a half an hour here or there, I don't lose sleep over it. I certainly don't want the band to leave, and then tell their friends that "he charged us for seven and a half hours, but we took a 45 minute lunch so it should have only been seven and a quarter..." or whatever.

If you had to pick one specific aspect of studio production / engineering that you feel is your weakest area, what would it be? It can be anything - scoring strings, EQ'ing, use of dynamics processors, getting parts to blend, mic technique, drawing out the best possible performances from talent, etc. Now, what are you going to do about it? Seriously, list what you've been doing or are considering doing to attempt to improve in that specific area. Feel free to quote someone else's post and offer suggestions on how you dealt with / overcame your own problems with that issue if you have a suggestion.

Um, no. I agree - and I disagree. In general, I hold to the theory that the smaller a room is in terms of cubic volume, the drier / deader it should be - not just HF absorption, but broadband. I also like natural room ambience, but only if it is a good sounding room, and only on certain instruments - not all over everything. If the room is dreadful, then I'd rather kill it and its effects and add my own ER and verbs via boxes and plug ins later than have to deal with too much of a bad thing printed on the tracks due to the poor acoustics of the room. IMO, Ethan's correct if he's saying that most home studio rooms - small converted bedrooms, etc. - should be fairly dry. However, if you have the room to do it up right, I think a well balanced room with a bit of ambience is better than a dead dry room - you can always dry it up more with goboes and so forth as needed... When vocals are done in large commercial studios, it's not uncommon to build a vocal "booth" out of goboes and moving blankets to dry things up. In general, I do not want a ton of room tone / ambience on my lead vocal tracks, although I might want a bit with BGV's, depending on what we're after.

http://www.smproaudio.com/MICTHING.htm Yup, that's the one I was talking about - thanks AJ. I have not tried any of the three yet, so no comment... Craig did review the SE Electronics Reflection Filter, and appeared to like it, so if anyone has any questions on that unit, I'm sure Craig would be happy to discuss it. Here's a picture of it: Of the three, the Real Traps product seems to be the largest. Does that translate to better isolation? On the surface, I would tend to think so, but short of independent, side by side testing of all three products, I can't say for certain. I do think that these products are probably useful and interesting for many of you, so I wanted to let you know about them.

There was another company with a similar type of product at NAMM... I'll try to dig up the lit and post on it later.

I got this press release in my email today - just passing it along FYI: ****************** REALTRAPS ANNOUNCES NEW PORTABLE VOCAL BOOTH New Milford, CT, USA - February 15, 2007 - RealTraps is pleased to announce their newest product, the Portable Vocal Booth. This clever device mounts on any microphone stand to create a highly controlled environment for recording vocals and spoken narration in acoustically hostile spaces. Unlike other products that are too small to be effective in noisy or live sounding environments, or that color the sound, the RealTraps Portable Vocal Booth is much larger comprising a pair of 2 by 2 foot absorbing panels in a fully adjustable V shape. The integrated base attaches easily and securely to any inexpensive microphone boom stand. The RealTraps Portable Vocal Booth can also be placed directly on a table or other flat surface. The RealTraps Portable Vocal Booth costs $299.99 direct from the manufacturer and begins shipping the end of February. Complete information is on the RealTraps web site www.realtraps.com/p_pvb.htm. Data on the Portable Vocal Booth product page shows how well it blocks unwanted sound, and a short video demo lets you see it in action compared with a popular competing product. The RealTraps site also contains educational videos, magazine articles, extensive advice on all aspects of room treatment, as well as showcasing their high-performance acoustic solutions for rooms of every size and purpose. RealTraps is owned by Ethan Winer and Doug Ferrara. Ethan is known throughout the industry for his many technical articles in audio and computer magazines, and he has engineered and produced several classical music CDs including a recording of his own cello concerto. Doug is a professional musician and has owned a recording studio for more than twenty years. Besides his interests in audio and recording, Doug holds an advanced degree in engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic, and has been a systems engineer for Intel and Motorola. Product and contact information: www.realtraps.com Phone, toll-free: 866-RealTraps (866-732-5872) ******************

Yes, that's a Reel Echo. A buddy told me about them when they first came out, and I grabbed one because I liked his. It's pretty cool, but the delay time slider is a bit coarse in terms of fine tuning the delay time. Other than that, I have no real complaints. It's not a true tape echo, but it sounds pretty good. I've actually got two boards - one for dirt and one that is primarily modulation and echo. On the dirt board, it has: BYOC Fuzz Face Clone Dunlop Wah Demeter Compulator HBE Germania treble boost Ibanez TS-9 MAD DD30 overdrive HBE Power Screamer w/ fat boost Danelectro Fish & Chips EQ Boss PS-5 Pitch Shifter Lovetone Brown Source OD There's also a Morley ABY switch and a Bos TU-12 On the second board there is a... SIB! Mr Treminator tremolo Line 6 MM4 modulation modeller Dano Reel Echo Lovetone Doppelganger phaser / vibrato Lovetone Wobulator dual tremolo / panner Diamond Memory Lane (analog delay) Two Exp pedals I don't play out live very often, and so they mostly get used in the studio, but I do take them with me on those rare occasions when I play a gig, along with my Princeton Reverb II and Vox AC15cc (with a Weber Blue Dog AlNiCo) and run in stereo. I have a few other amps - a couple of the cool little Guytronix tube amp kits ( www.guytronix.com ), a modded Super Champ, a silverface Super, a THD Univalve... I've got a bunch of guitars - about 14 at last count. Pictured are my modded Tele Special, my Casino and my Epi Les Paul Ltd Ed. I also have a pair of Strats (one with a S/N that matches my birthday ), a Ric 610 (also pictured I think), a Dano DC-12 and Baritone, a Taylor Baby and 510, a Gretsch Pro Jet,a couple of basses... the idea is to give me (and my clients) different tonal options in the studio. At least that's what I tell my wife.

Thanks Mazi... I shall endeavour to rahque most diligenty!

Please add me to the list Mazi.

Processor Scheduling: Set this for Background Services Memory Usage: Set this for System Cache Do these two things and you're usually good to go... while some of the other tweaks are useful / good, IMO, these two are usually essential, as they deal with memory and sound card drivers / priority. Turning off auto play for any CD drives, and turning off hibernate / power management are also useful tweaks. Some say that turning off System Restore is a good idea, but if it saves your butt just once, IMO, it's worth the very slight amount of system overhead it costs you...

Great post AJ - thanks for the heads-up. I may well be among those who goes out to buy one last copy of XP... Well, here's the thing - they've already got a time bomb strapped to our XP systems - it's called "authorization". Once they drop XP for Vista, and once XP OS support dies, how the heck are we going to keep XP running on our systems? What will we do if we have a HDD failure, or build a upgraded system and install a new C drive once MS will no longer support XP? How are we going to get an authorization? That won't happen immediately, but it is only a matter of time - MS isn't going to support XP forever...

My main DAW is a dual core with 2 GB of RAM and SLi PCI-e dual video card capabilities, and it can handle more RAM than that - and from what I've read, all of that will come in handy when I'm eventually forced to switch over to Vista. Forced? Yup... eventually, if I want to run the latest versions of the software I use daily, I'll need to go to Vista. But I'm personally not going to be in a major rush to do so. What I have works, and works well, and with the relsase of a new OS, all sorts of potential issues arise. Compatability with hardware - gonna have to make some upgrades there. Compatability of software I've used for ages... what if some of that isn't ported over, and the legacy stuff doesn't run under Vista? Gonna need new drivers too... how fast will they become available? Is the OS itself stable, or will I be dealing with incompatabilities and crashes? Nope, I'm probably going to let others ride the bleeding edge this time - I'm too busy and have too much work to get done, and don't have the time to get into massive testing and troubleshooting if I can avoid it. Eventually though, I'll be on Vista, as will most of the rest of the PC users of the world. And the 64 bit OS will have some advantages... think of how much RAM we'll be able to run - that should be great for lots of plug-ins and softsynths...

Originally posted by t-rave frontier design wavecenter pci - $80 shipped to US only PM sent!

Originally posted by zeronyne Do they have a client list? A mailing address? A website? Referencable clients? Written marketing and legal collateral? Yup. Start with the references and NAMES of clients they have broken. If they can't provide you with names and proof of their previous successes, and names of people you can directly contact for testimonials, then look elsewhere. $300 for six months of promotion is WAY underpriced in the world of "real" promotional firms. The link doesn't work, but my nose is already telling me "beware".

Uh, not on my forum...

One of my clients was recently written up in the LA Times. You can read the article here.

Originally posted by the stranger Ken says--->This is kinda like the giant lobby with the chandelier and the two sweeping staircases, with Phil standing by the elegant crystal doors welcoming visitors in, huh? stranger says----> Who's the guy swinging from the chandelier? Probably Nursers. He's from Globe - Wrong Side, aka Oz, so he tends to be more comfortable hanging upside down.

You probably have an untreated and / or fairly "live" sounding room. Maybe get some quilted packing blankets and hang them on mic stands that you have on three sides of the mic - basically making a little "fort" around the mic position to soak up some of the room ambience. Then try a bit - not too much - of compression. Just enough that you're taking maybe 3 dB off the peaks / loudest parts. One trick that works for some singers is to position one foot slightly in front of the other - kind of like you would if you were walking and taking a fairly small step. If you're singing softly, put your weight more on the front foot, which will lean you inwards towards the mic a bit, and when belting, put more of your weight on the rear foot, which pulls you back away from it a bit. "Working" the mic - getting closer when singing soft, and further when belting, is something highly experienced singers do fairly naturally. Two things you have to watch out for with varying distances is the change in tonality due to proximity effect if you get in too close (less than 6" or so), and room ambience if you get too far away - especially in a very live sounding room. But if you're moving between 6 - 12" from the mic, that's usually not going to be a big problem, especially if you've deadened the room's acoustics a bit. Also, be careful you don't swing from side to side, as many cardioid mics change tonality off axis - especially at close range. With a 2:1 or maybe 3:1 ratio on the compressor, and knocking 3 dB or so off the peaks (loudest parts), and with the mic preamp set so it's not overloading on the loudest parts, you should have plenty of gain available to capture the soft sections without the quiet parts being overly noisy... especially if you "work" the mic a bit... unless you're an extremely dynamic singer.

Phil, an additional "thank you" for taking the time to listen to the tracks on myspace. Not a problem at all - I enjoyed it.

I'm going to run a bit contrary to the pack here. I do not hate Pods. Okay, I'm not crazy about my first generation Bass Pod - it IS noisy and gets this strange flutter / sputter at the tail end of long sustained notes. Due to that, I never use it. However, my first gen Pod, which I later updated to 2.0 (just before I sold it) was pretty cool, and I really like my Pod XT. Craig Anderton likes both IIRC, and kept his 2.0 because he likes some of the different sounds it offers, while I definitely prefer the (IMO) more capable and somewhat more "refined" sound of the XT and the vastly increased effects capability it offers over the older models. However, I don't normally use a Pod as the only or the main guitar sound on recordings. But layered with other things; as additional tonal options, it can work well IMO - especially if some of the othr tracks were done the 'traditional" way; with mikes and tasty tube amps. And of course, some of their best uses is for things other than guitars - distorting vocals, drums, etc. For some people, a Pod is fine for both recording and live use - like so many things, it's about expectations, preferences and individual needs. IMHO, they do a much better job at heavy guitar tones, and a decent job for clean tones, but fall a bit short on the "in between" stuff - the land between super saturated tones and ultra-squeaky clean tones. For that, I think it's still pretty hard to beat a tube amp. I checked out your MySpace page loner22. Pretty cool. For what you're doing, a Pod XT in front of your Classic 50 may be fine. I certainly wouldn't have picked a Classic 50 for your style though. While they're good sounding amps, they're really not a hard rock amp. I don't know what the current situation is as far as gear availability in Belarus (yes, I know where that is - too bad you don't have that as a location option in MySpace ), but if you can, I'd recommend that you try as many different amp and amp modeller options as you can. Use your own setup as much as possible - bring your own guitar to the store, etc. And then don't be in a hurry to make up your mind. Try as many things as you can and give them all a fair amount of time. Then go home, and go back and do it again on another day. Take your time and then make up your own mind based on what YOU hear.

I have not spent a lot of time with that unit, so it really depends on what the questions are. How can we help?

Louie Louie?

Originally posted by Megadeth7684 I'll continue to make individual SPAM threads thank you very much. And I'll continue to pull them. And if you continue to do so after repeated warnings, I'll get tired of dealing with it reasonably (since you're apparently not willing to play within the rules and be reasonable yourself) and take further action. Your call bud.