December 16th, 2008
I have been helping out at Cuyahoga Community College’s Recording Arts and Technology department since my graduation and have found myself alone with my PC in a world of Mac computers. 90% of our computer labs are outfitted with completely brand new Mac G5 Pros and only one of the small labs consists of Core 2 Duo PCs. Also, almost all of the instructors and any student with a laptop are carrying around shiny new Macs, while I carry my Core 2 Duo (Thanks MusicXPC) PC. It has been quite a struggle to crossover any large amount of information from my PC to everyone elses’ Mac.
I know there is a huge OS war on the ‘internets’ but I will leave that for much more educated (read non-educated) people to fight that out. However, I am a firm believer that an operating system choice should be made by deciding what applications you will be working with. I feel that applications strongly define how an operating system feels to a user. An OS choice also depends on what is standard in the particular field you are looking to use your computer in. This brings me to why it is difficult for me at times to collaborate with my PC and everyones Mac.
If I have a PC, I can’t readily, out of the box, read or write to any Mac formatted (HFS+) drive. With a Mac, I can read but not write to a Windows formatted (NTFS) out of the box. Over the last few years with Macs becoming much more popular in both the public and in artistic fields, a lot of development has gone into crossing the two platforms. Unfortunately the speed at which these two platforms are groing is quicker than the development of crossing applications. As soon as someone has figured out a way to link the two devices together, that platform releases something completely new and unsupported. For example, newer Leopard Macs now feature an optional and brand new file system developed by Sun Microsystems. I can’t imagine that someone has already thought of a way for PCs to read this file structer for customers right now.
As of right now, there are a few ways to work around this cross platform dilema:
Read on for the work arounds…
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Tags: audio, computer, mac, pc, software
Posted in Computers, Personal, audio | No Comments »
November 24th, 2008
I just uploaded the mixing stems for the 80HD song “Do You Dance” to a remixing online community called CCMixter. I have always been fascinated with the idea of releasing music and different material on the internet using a Creative Commons License. By releasing your work under a Creative Common License, you aren’t giving up the copyright to your work, but allowing the public to have certain rights but only on certain conditions. There are a bunch of different licenses you can choose from and you can learn all about them by visiting the Creative Commons Wiki. Read more to find out how you can remix 80HD. Read the rest of this entry »
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October 23rd, 2008
A lot of cheaper microphone clips and even expensive microphones have hardened molded plastic threads on the end of the mic clip that goes onto a microphone stand.
Although they are pretty hard, they still tend to break, bend, and fail all the time. I have gone through tons of mic clips that become unusable because of this cheap design. Along with cheap mic clips, I have also come across cheap microphone stands which have a silver metal microphone clip adapter.
I’m not entirely sure why they use these sliver caps because the mic stands work fine without them. With that being said, if we take the metal mic clip adapter and attach it to our plastic mic clip, we get a mic clip with a metal threaded adapter. This mating of the two pieces together gives us a mic clip that has a strong thread that is a lot harder to damage than the hardened plastic one!
Read more for more pictures of mic clip and metal adapter combos.
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Tags: akg, akg c414, audio, c414, clip, diy, mic clip, microphone, mod, music, recording, sound
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June 11th, 2008
With the advent of electronic parts being so inexpensive today, a lot of people are trying to learn how to solder in order to fix or create their own products. For an audio engineer, knowing how to solder correctly can lead to a lot more job opportunities, and also help you cut down on the cost of creating such things as cabling or custom adapters. Buying bulk microphone cable and then soldering individual connectors on yourself can sometimes save you up to 50% in cost and allow you to make your own lengths or even repair them when they break. You may not save a huge amount if you buy the supplies for only one or two cables, but buying say 5 or more will yield better savings. You can even sell the extra cables you make for extra profit. Go HERE for some great beginners tutorials on soldering basics.
Here is an example… Read the rest of this entry »
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June 9th, 2008
Here is an update of whats been going on for the beginning of summer 2008!
Just recorded mixed three songs for a friend of mine and his new project Underdogs of Nipomo. Everything was recorded in my living room using my Presonus Firepod and a PC into Cubase SX3. I will also be mastering the songs for their upcoming release as soon we finish recording and mixing the rest of their songs. You can hear the mixed versions of the songs over on there myspace: http://www.myspace.com/underdogsof. You can also check them out live at BereaFest on July 19th.
Speaking of BereaFest, 80HD will also be playing on the July 18th date. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 15th, 2008
With gas prices skyrocketing into the $4.00 plus per gallon price, driving can really up your cost of operation. According to IRS.gov, you cannot directly deduct mileage that is calculated to and from your regular places of business (home to work, work to home). Now this only means that you cannot deduct mileage to and from your house and homebase of work. You can however deduct mileage cost to and from work sites that you do not normally work at. Imagine if you arrive at your office and need to go on location for a recording or live sound gig, you can write off the mileage that is calculated from your office to your gig. Below is the IRS announcement of its standard mileage cost for business driving and the guidelines to which you can writeoff business mileage.
IRS Standard Mileage Rates
IRS Guidelines for Business Mileage
Tags: audio, business, car, engineer, freelance, irs, mileage, pro, pro audio
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April 2nd, 2007
I recently had to do some research on metadata in order to see how to control the distribution of mp3 and other lossy formats. Some of the information is hard to wrap your head around, but I think I have simplified it to the point of anyone being to understand most of it. My entire bulletin I wrote is after the jump. If you have any comments on things I messed up or to give more insight, just hit the comment button and type away! Read the rest of this entry »
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