UstadKhanAli

well Italy is the first to suggest dropping the cap and trade scheme because of the economy. If you get the time read Monckton's letter - it puts the case of the GW sceptics to the full. Okay, thanks, I'll read that!!!!

But aren't there a lot of strategies that can avoid this in the U.S. or other countries? Of course, with the economy the way it is, some of those strategies might be hampered.

well yes and no Ken - I'm right into alternative energy systems as my previous posts will confirm, but I'm not about to be snowballed into supporting economic destruction based on a lie. Economic destruction? How would this happen if we are conserving, using alternative energy, and keeping the air clean?

Yea, but... do you want to buy a house in Vero Beach? Ah, that's the MAIN question here!!!!

Thanks. Even if one doesn't believe that global warming is man-made, there's still so many reasons to do these things...including economics.

Actually they are very stupid at times, it's all in the implementation... Having good intentions doesn't mean you are generating net-positive results. Sure. But this doesn't change the fact that running cleaner cars, having less toxic emissions, putting less crap in the air, and conserving natural resources and energy are beneficial to us. Implementation is always a problem whenever one is trying to do something on a global scale. Still, shouldn't we try?

Why, thank you. Mighty kind of you!

I've never accepted the "fight climate change" hysteria. Nature does what it does. For us to invest resources into an intentional attempt to block nature from taking its course in order to somehow "reverse" the unintentional harms we create is probably the single stupidest idea I've ever heard. Regardless of whether there's climate change that is man-made or not, running cleaner cars, having less toxic emissions, putting less crap in the air, and conserving natural resources and energy are all things that i can get behind and don't consider stupid. There has been extremely noticeable climate change, by the way, in the last hundred years. That is indisputable, as it has been measured by scientists from everywhere and acknowledged by, well, pretty much everyone. The controversy is whether it is man-made. The article you linked to also points out: Molnia says one cold summer doesn't mean the start of a new climatic trend. Sooooo...who knows. Have we had a warming trend? Absolutely. Has it been man-made? Possibly. Will the warming trend reverse itself? Got a crystal ball?

You're input is greatly appreciated as always. Keep up the great work... and BTW, do you have a demo page or something like that (ie. Myspace?). I notice that a lot of people here talk about ridiculous gear, but I've always valued your opinion where you have a more realistic (in terms of budget) view-point. Not to bash guys with the high end stuff (I'm jealous!)... I value their input equal to your's... but I can't exactly go to Fletcher's page, and order all that stuff! Fletcher, Phil, and others who post here who have some nice gear seriously know what they are talking about, and I greatly value their opinions. Anyway, thanks for the kind words. Yes, I have some music up. Check it out: This is my Blueberry Buddha Recording Studios page: http://www.elevenshadows.com/studio/studio-virtualtour.htm most of these were done with the TC Electronic M300 reverb Nectarphonic: http://www.elevenshadows.com/nectar/music.php Most of these were done with the TC Electronic M300 reverb Eleven Shadows: http://www.elevenshadows.com/ Probably a combination of the Lexicon LXP-15 reverb and and an ancient Alesis Quadraverb A lot of my stuff was recorded with budget gear. I would love to buy more from Fletcher's shop too, but I simply either can't afford it or cannot warrant the extreme cost. I'd love to have a Manley Massive Passive, but I can't afford it. No matter. It is important to have some perspective on just how good that stuff is and how musical it can make something sound so that you have a sense of what you are going for. But really, I can't complain; I've won a Lawson mic, I have a Neve Portico, and I can make really good recordings in a small house. I'm darn happy.

He's also super knowledgeable and helpful about a variety of equipment and techniques in addition to making good sounding recordings.

Why would you compress the send, and do you mean compress the reverb bus track, or like the stuff before it hits the reverb? Regarding your first question, it depends...you can simply send your signal to a auxiliary track in which you reverb is on, and slap a compressor plug-in on there. Of course, if you are processing several items through this reverb track, then all of them will obviously get compressed, not necessarily a bad thing, but something you should know. Think of a compressor as a wave-shaper of sorts, not just as something that squishes. So if you send a signal to a reverb but you compress it first, you take care of some of the "pokey" transients, or can even out the volume so that the reverb is "catching" more of the low level stuff, if that's what you want...or another way of looking at it is that the reverb doesn't catch the peaks, transients, or loud parts as much. This is a common trick that has been used for decades in which many of us sent signals through to a compressor before going to a reverb...same idea, it's just now people are doing it with plug-ins sometimes. But I guess my point is this, would it be worth it to invest in room mics? or should I just move my overheads a little further away, or should I just use plugins (I have digiverb that came with old protools)? The answer, in my opinion, is "maybe". Room mics can definitely help, but think about how your room sounds. If it sounds awful and you add room mics, are you helping or hindering? With sound sound treatment, you can fix this. I love room mics, and even though my living room sucks, I find that if I am really careful with mic placement, I can still get add a nice amount of depth. I use room mics regularly (although not always) with drums and guitar cabinets. I'm using a Digi 001... And finally, I also have Digi001 (although I use outboard mic preamps and bypass their {censored}ty converters). I've heard the Digiverb that comes with it, and it's so bloody awful that I just refuse to use it. I use the TC Electronic M300, which sounds infinitely better, and although perhaps not the greatest thing, it really sounds considerably better (see one of my earlier posts), so you might want to consider getting a hardware box and offsetting some processing from your CPU and probably getting a better sound anyway. The old Digiverb just blows. I think it's completely useless. A decent plug-in was the Trueverb by Kind of Loud Technologies, which I think got bought out by Waves. I have an old system, as you can tell, so I'm not quite up on the new plug-ins and stuff. I don't know if this is the best or whatever. I'm just telling you that it was decent.

I was curious as to what you'd recommend for a multi-FX or Reverb box. I use a TC Electronic M300 with my DAW via S/PDIF. Please note that I'm not saying that this is the best, but I also purchased it for less than $200, and it sounds surprisingly good and, obviously, since I use this in place of a reverb plug-in, you don't tax the CPU, if that's a concern to you. I've generally liked Lexicon stuff, although I'm definitely not up on the current bunch of boxes. I've found that their stuff sounds good, although it doesn't sound "realistic". Then again, it's rare that any of these things sound "realistic". EDIT: I missed the bottom part of your post, and this older box does not have USB or Firewire capability. I connect it via S/PDIF. I'll leave the post up in case it helps someone else.

I should point out that reverb boxes, whether good or bad, have been coming with predelays for quite some time now, so dialing them back so that the reverb hits after the note or voice stops makes the reverb space seem a little clearer, and as a bonus, you can typically dial back on the reverb level as well. Another great way of creating space without having everything awash in reverb is to use delays, which can often create a sense of space, thus allowing you to use less reverb level and/or a shorter reverb.

I catch flak occasionally because I use a mouse. I never did get along well with trackballs, and it seems like that's what nearly everyone else in LA uses. Phil, check this mouse out....totally saves my wrist: http://www.zerotensionmouse.com/

Well, this got a little off topic, didn't it? But I think it's clear that "good mic" doesn't always equal "expensive mic" and vice-versa. You don't have to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to get a good-sounding mic. Isn't that what I've been saying? No one has said otherwise.

Headphone mix made the singer perform better than ever before? I think this is wishful thinking -- I don't think there's a single competent studio vocalist who will credit their best performance to an inspiring headphone mix. I give up.

If you read my post, you'd realize that I never said "exceeding their capabilities", but instead used the word "inspire" quite a few times. If you disagree that a great sound and great headphone mix will not sometimes inspire the vocalist to reach new heights or sing better than s/he ever did before, then we'll have to agree to disagree. You'll also note that I also wrote: And whether that's an SM 57 or a 251, it doesn't matter, as long as it sounds great and we all feel inspired. YOU'RE the one who brought up the expensive microphones, not anyone else. Bear that in mind.

No human in history has ever exceeded their own capabilities. Spending $2K on a mic won't change that. Nor will spending $9K on a mic. Nor $15K. Nor will a big fat wheelbarrow of hype. I'm sorry, but I have to completely disagree here. We are trying to use equipment that inspires. We're not talking about how much money we throw at something here. We're simply talking about achieving a sound that inspires the artist to new heights, to emote, to communicate. And to do better than before. If we didn't do better than we did before, we'd still be {censored}ting in our pants and crawling on the floor. We get a microphone and a mic preamp because they sound great, they sound inspiring. We give the singer a monster headphone mix and make them sound great because we want them to be inspired and to emotionally express themselves. This is the {censored} I live for. I don't give a rat's ass WHAT I'm using as long as I'm inspiring the artist, or as the artist, I'm inspired. And whether that's an SM 57 or a 251, it doesn't matter, as long as it sounds great and we all feel inspired. I hope we haven't forgotten that this is about music, and music is about emotion, not about how much money we're throwing down for a mic.

I would love some feedback on our recording. there are 3 songs on reverbnation and 2 on Myspace. http://www.ReverbNation.com/FiVe0SiX It depends on what you are using this record for. It's very clear, and you can open the parts. The songs sound good in terms of songwriting and the parts being played. It makes a good demo. Now for the part that pisses people off - what I would personally want to improve if I were recording it. If it were for commercial release, then I would say that there doesn't seem to be a sort of "gel" that glues the whole thing together, as if they are recorded in different spaces. The guitars sound like they were recorded direct, which is not personally not my favorite sound, but this reflects my bias more than anything else, I suppose. I don't know what to say about the bass, but it sounds "odd" to me, but I can't define it further, but it sounds "fake". And finally, the drums could use a lot more body and presence. They frequently sound like they were recorded in an adjoining room with the door open. The snare sounds "tappy" (not full-bodied) and disembodied from the recording, and the cymbals sound washy, ill-defined, and the toms sound anemic. Actually, the drums sound anemic in general. I don't know why the cymbals sound the way they do, but I'm not getting a strong sense of overheads gluing the whole thing together and giving the drums cohesion, and the snare and toms sound like they are predominantly close mics. In some of the songs, notably the second one, I might be inclined to sink the snare back in the mix a little more and give it a touch of reverb to get it to "gel" with the rest of the kit and the mix in general a little more, and maybe compress the overheads or the drum buss a little bit to try and make it glue together a little more. Actually, you might want to do a drum/bass buss and glue that together. And finally, the vocals are nice and clear, but for some reason, they don't gel sonically in the mix. I feel like they sort of "stick out" sonically. The screamed vocals in "Bruised" seem to fit in more. I don't know why I feel this way about the vocals, but maybe it's a combination of EQ to allow the vocals to "sink in" to the mix a little more, and maybe a little reverb in the mix in general to try and have everything gel and give it the same space more. I don't do these reviews very often for several reasons: 1.) I haven't had decent computer speakers in quite a few months 2.) I rarely have extra time to give feedback 3.) I'm extremely demanding on what I want out of a recording, and I'm always toughest on myself, and I'm concerned about pissing people off. However, you're from Illinois, and I grew up there, and your songs show a lot of potential. Best of luck with your music!!

WTB: I am interested in buying an Akai MG14D (rack-mount analog 12-track with proprietary tape format that looks like Beta videocassettes). Please PM me if you have one of these that you wish to unload. Thanks. (MG 14D)

You connect a 1/4" cable from the amp's output to a snake that goes to the room (whether it's through the wall or whatever). On the other side of the snake, you connect the associated 1/4" output to the cabinet. In my home studio, I run a snake under the doors out from the control room (the second bedroom) to the drum room (that'd be the living room) and connect it as above. It's just that the whole snake is going under the doors instead of being neatly tucked into the walls, but it's the same idea. And of course, I suppose anyone could just get a super long cable and have them go under the door. I've done that too. Now, I should put in my two cents. I defer to the guitarist's comfort level, obviously, but whenever possible, I try and have the guitarist in the same room as the cabinet because I like to capture that energy and interaction that comes when the guitar's pickups and the cabinet interact, and the whole interaction of someone being in the same room as the sound that they're creating. But, like everyone else, I don't always do that.

No, I haven't gone mental. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Depending on the sound source, I don't know if the firetruck would resonate or not, so you might have to cushion the mic a little bit. Other than that, if you can control the ladder fairly easily, I say go for it. It's a great conversation piece, and if it serves a practical function, cool!

tape a PZM to the back of a 4x12 cab. No phase issues either.

Although if you're close micing with a cardioid mic, you should have bottom end for days. Micing the back of the amp does give some very nice thrust and ooomph, though. We are talking about open-backed cabinets, aren't we?