Hey there! I got something for ya. Here’s a pile of 30-second tracks from the sessions we did recently with Briana Tyson. Every signal on this recording was recorded direct via an ADL 700 or ADL 600 preamp. Because we could.
No other processors were used in these recordings. The guitars were recorded with Shure SM57s and Royer R-121s, and the bass was ran direct into an ADL 700. The stereo sources—keys, drum overheads, and two room mics were ran through the ADL 600s.
Here’s the mic list for this session:
Kick (Shure Beta 52)
Snare (Shure SM57)
Hi Tom (Sennheiser 421)
Low Tom (Sennheiser 421)
Stereo Overheads (Neumann K184’s)
Stereo Room Mics (AudioTechica 4080)
Bass Guitar (Direct)
Electric Guitar (SM 57)
Electric Guitar (Royer 121)
Female Vocal (Brauner VM1)
Keyboard (Yamaha P100 direct)
These tracks are available via SoundCloud for download. Help yourself to them and do with them what you will. Mix ’em up! Or down.
We hope you think they sound as amazing as we do.
Here’s the tracks:
Here’s video of this session:
[Olesya Star is a 26-year-old UK singer, songwriter and record producer. In 2010, she co-founded the independent record label Graffiti Records, purely to release her own material. All work on Olesya Star has been done through Graffiti Records to date – including all self-produced videos, recordings, production, photography, artwork, social media and general music management.]
Perhaps it’s a lack of interest in the subject. To be perfectly honest, I got into all this “record and produce myself” affair because I couldn’t afford to pay good studios for all those hours, and pay their producers for every song I wrote. Besides, I wanted unlimited access to recording any crazy idea I got in the middle of the night, be it a song or a beat. I wanted to experiment with my sonic identity. But it is only now that I’m into record production, that I get excited discussing the benefits of a particular piece of gear. Speaking of gear… I must say, I still think that men get more irrationally excited about all the hardware, all the knobs and faders, and the look of a console with its industrial design and funky lights… I, personally get more excited about what it does to my vocals! I care more about the end result than all the reasons and logic behind third level harmonics that tape produces.
It also seems to me that most girls lack confidence, probably because of men, because of all the jokes that men make about women… Could that be one of the reasons why there are not more females in audio engineering? I read somewhere that many female scientists submit their works under a male pseudonym. Food for thought? Are they afraid of prejudice and being judged?
It could be a cultural thing too, as traditionally it’s a male-dominated field. And many girls think, “Oh god, I’m not going into all this technical wizardry…. boys ‘n their toys, etc.” Our society, unfortunately, still has many gender stereotypes, and it’s very slow to change. How many women are there as fighter pilots? Or train engineers?
Girls are highly capable of understanding sound engineering. They’re quite often better at math than guys. Us girls have a knack for multi-tasking. But then again, maybe, the male ability to concentrate on one thing solely, like the harsh frequencies around 2 kHz is a good thing. The smallest gain changes, harmonics and sub-bass frequencies that I hear often differ from the sounds a guy will hear, and vice versa, so I think that you need both sexes to make a truly awesome mix. Like most girls, I tune in to the top end easily—guys will always opt for more bass, often way too much in the mids, and then struggle to find ‘air’ in the mix. This is where you need the female ear!
I think, however, it’d be a good thing if more girls got into record production. Nice, clear mixes that aren’t over-compressed, lifeless and flat—that’s the goal! And girls really get that. I think educating people on the differences between being a producer and a sound engineer would help. Sometimes you don’t need to be the latter to be able to accomplish the former.
[This just in from Rob Seifert Gage, producer/engineer and owner of Audio Evidence Mobile.]
As an independent engineer/producer since the pre-DAW era, I had the opportunity to see the development of the modern-day DAWs. Some had all the bells and whistles but sounded terrible. I have learned so many through the sessions I’ve worked, and I am so excited about PreSonus Studio One 2.5 ! The sound of 64-bit processing and the extensive native plugins put a smile on my analog face every at session.
So, (Sound) check this out. Brad Zell had debuted his new vlog series, SoundCheck, over on YouTube. In it, he’ll be visiting PreSonus Artist studios, videocamera in hand, and grab tips, tricks, advice, and words of wisdom from some of today’s hottest professional producers, engineers and musicians.
This debut episode of SoundCheck features producer/keyboardist Kevin Randolph from his Los Angeles-based Studio. Kevin has worked with Keyshia Cole, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg and many others. Check it out!
Subscribe over at YouTube to receive updates!
[This just in from Paul Svenson, lifelong audio engineer, AV contractor extraordinaire, and mastermind behind Dad’s Songbook Music. Paul runs PS Audio Video in San Diego. He recently made the switch from Pro Tools to Studio One Professional 2.5—within three hours of using the software! I asked for more detail regarding the reason for his decision. His response follows.]
Hey PreSonus!
I’ve been recording since 1971, starting when I was 18—mostly projects where I was part of the production, engineering, mixing etc., although I also worked as a staff engineer in studios during the 80s. In 1990 I was a rep for one of the early hard disc recording systems, ProDisk. Our 8-track machine sold for $50,000. The other guys who were always around were the guys from Digidesign, with their very early version of Pro Tools. After all the rest of us vanished into irrelevance, Pro Tools kept growing to become the de facto standard. I made the switch from analog to Pro Tools around 1997 and had used it ever since.
Aptly-named Jam in the Van travels around in a a KILLER tour van that includes a StudioLive 24.4.2 and a sweet, sweet, paint job. They record all their in-the-van performances, shoot some killer video, and post the results online for the benefit of all musiciankind.
Here they talk a bit about their use of the StudioLive and QMix in getting their productions done. Hot stuff comin’ through!
Learn more about Jam in the Van at—wait for it—www.JamInTheVan.Com!
Those of you who have been watching PreSonus LIVE for some time now will likely remember the time we lugged a bunch of cameras (and talented dudes) into Oak Street recording and tracked Terence Higgins’ Swamp Grease II. We had 11,000 people tune in. It remains our biggest PreSonus LIVE ever.
We followed it up with a show on mixing the record, and we wanted you to know that the record is
finally done and available on Nimbit! Have at it!
Hey PreSonus!
My new CD, Mixture, was recorded with Studio One 2.5, has spent five weeks on the CMJ top 40 charts, peaking at number 9 alongside other jazz greats like Lee Rittenour, Chick Corea, Marcus Miller and Diana Krall. We’re getting many great reviews!
One of the powerful tools we used in producing this record is the PreSonus Studio One. My co-writer and co-producer Tom Rule used Studio One for his demo keyboard tracks at his home studio. When we brought the tracks in to my pro studio, Shadow Sound Studio, to finish adding real instruments and mix and master, I fell in love with many of the sounds included with of Studio One. In particular, we loved the stand-up bass sound that shipped with Studio One so much, that we actually left it on the record and never had a live bass player come and replace the MIDI. I have now made Studio One part of my studio tools and of course use PreSonus for my jazz band’s live performances.
PreSonus Artist Andrew Oye just wrapped up a suitably stompy score for this rough’n’tumble TV advert for Carhartt T-shirts. Per the norm, Andrew relied on PreSonus Studio One for the task at hand. The result is a gritty homage to the workin’ class alpha male, complete with ropin’ cattle, roofin’, layin’ concrete and wreckin’ stuff with sledgehammers.
This music makes me feel tougher than Mickey Rourke in Sin City. Please enjoy the following video while I go smoke a pack of unfiltered Marlboros and hit on your wife.
[This just in from all-around badass and PreSonus Artist Nikola Jeremić!]
Just wanted to tell you that you guys really are making AWESOME products, and most of my musician friends have started using them and a lot of them praise Studio One.
Last night I had a recording session at Belgrade Music Academy with a not-so-traditional string quintet called Infinity Quintet. These guys have cello, viola and three violins, instead of traditional quintet which has a double bass instead of the third violin.
I wanted to record them in an old-school way with just one stereo mic setup. I chose two AKG 414s in M-S setup, but get this: I recorded with nothing but a friend’s AudioBox USB and Studio One Free on my laptop, and for monitoring I used the PreSonus HD 7 headphones. I just told the band to sit down and play their asses off, and they did just that. We recorded cover versions of “Sweet Child Of Mine” by Guns ‘n’ Roses and “Black Magic Woman” by Santana, and we are all happy with the result.
I used this recording for my competition entry in “Traditional Acoustic Recording” for 134th AES convention in Rome. And, by the way, I’m using Studio One also for editing sound to picture for my competition entry in “Sound For Visual Media” also for AES in Rome.
Anyway, just wanted to say a BIG THANK YOU to you and all of the guys at PreSonus, your support means the world to me! 🙂