Makusop

Alan Parsons 10 things everyone recording music should know More from Alan Parsons (Part 1 was here), via MT reader Adam, his all time best recording tips: 1. Keep cable runs short particularly low impedance I.e. guitars and mics. It WILL affect the sound. Having said that I dont believe expensive cables offer significant improvement. 2. Even the best instruments and recording equipment will probably sound like crap in the wrong hands. The reverse can also be true. 3. Dont suck the life out of a recording by overuse of limiting and compression. 4. Go for performance not perfection. 5. Log EVERYTHING on a recording so that anyone can pick up where you left off. Particularly tracks that should not be used - better still, get rid of them. 6. Always consolidate tracks (in other words all tracks should have the same start and finish times) so that they can be loaded onto a different platform. Give every track a meaningful name. 7. Even if your ideas are making all the difference, mak...

Alan Parsons 10 best bits of music gear ever MT reader Adam lives in California, near Alan Parsons, who engineered Dark Side of The Moon and lots more. Adam kindly picked Alans brain for me, persuading him to write this list of his all-time favourite gear... 1. Neumann Km84 Microphone - good for anything except vocals. 2. Fairchild 660 Tube Limiter - great for vocals and bass. 3. Drawmer Noise Gate - although modern plugins can do the job 4. Orban or dbx de-esser for problem sibilance on vocals 5. Audio Technica AT 4033 Microphone. Ive been using this as a favorite vocal mic. for years 6. Autotune when used tastefully. Most times it is overused 7. The Fairlight and the Linn LM1 Drum Machine changed the world. I worked with both. Its hard to imagine life without Sampling and Drum sequencers 8. A real orchestra with a great arrangement and a competent conductor. It saves hours and usually $$ too 9. Yamaha Motif XS synth. Easy to use and great sounds 10. Any DAW for time shifti...

A Music Thing Muxtape In case you havent seen it yet, Muxtape is a wonderful, ultra-simple, fairly illegal mixtape-sharing site. Upload 12 mp3s, arrange them, pick a header colour and thyre there for the world to stream. Theres no easier way to share you music (or anyone elses.) My spring is here, haul the barbecue up from the cellar mix is at musicthing.muxtape.com. Wheres yours? BONUS: Get extra Music Thing updates at: http://twitter.com/MusicThing or in the sidebar at http://musicthing.blogspot.com download file now

25 great music making tips from musicians UPDATE 2014: Advice From Musicians is now a thing - click here to see the best tips submitted by Music Thing readers In the results of the Music to make you happy survey in February, the things that impressed me most were the answers to the question "Whats the best piece of advice about making music that youve ever heard?" Within the 1,100+ responses are hundreds of great tips - some old, some new, some obvious, some arcane. Like these, for starters... Like Kraftwerk, have a non-music day every week or so (Anonymous computer musician) If things go wrong, just maintain that you were playing jazz (Max/MSP enthusiast) Play less (Guitarist, and lots of other people) When learning to play a piece of music, play it first so slowly that you dont get a single note wrong. Then slowly increase the speed. Then, play louder than normal at the proper speed and youll play more confidently (A bass player and a synth tweaker) When editing, don...

25 Awesome things Ive failed to post on Music Thing over the last couple of months My new favourite Wikipedia page is Unusual types of gramophone records. (Thanks, Steve) Bleep Labs BitBlob is the only thing to buy this Christmas. A patchable synth encased in a pyrex glass jar complete with glowing monsters. $216, limited edition of 30... Another xmas essential is Benges Twenty Systems album - a lovely booklet/CD package with twenty tracks recorded on twenty different systems, from Moog Modular to NED Synclavier. (More pics here at Hardformat) New synth #1: Dave Smith Mopho, tiny yellow all-analog synth for $399 (from Analog Haven). Like the button marked push it, dont like the lack of knobs. The Trons are a robot band from New Zealand (MySpace) (Thanks, Louis) Totally Wired is an interesting-looking obsessive documentary about the Berlin synth store Schneiders Buero. Trailer. (Thanks, Luka) Wonderful podcast #1: Welcome to Mars, the series about sci-fi and the cold war is now a...