Category: Recording

Nashville Outlaws: Motley Crue Country Tribute Reveal Album

Posted 20 May 2014 in Artist News, Music, News, Performance, Recording

Motley Crue has built up the reputation of being one of the hardest rocking, hardest partying and long lasting bands in the history of heavy metal.  There is no doubt at all that Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee and Mick Mars have earned their reputation.  There have been monstrous hit records, binge drinking and drugging, car crashes, meltdowns and even a homemade porno.  So you can imagine my surprise when I learned that the band has endorsed a tribute…

Foo Fighters New Album: HBO Documentary Coming Soon

Posted 19 May 2014 in Artist News, General News, News, Performance, Recording

Dave Grohl is at it again!  I have no problem admitting that in my personal opinion Paul McCartney is the coolest person alive.  The reasons for that statement about Sir Paul are fairly obvious if you know anything about the history of music and Paul will occupy the top spot as the king of cool until the time comes for him to move on to another plane of existence.  However, Dave Grohl is making a strong case to fill the…

Using the Mac as a Guitar Workstation

Posted 23 Jul 2008 in Recording, Studio

I popped into an Apple store on the weekend and was intrigued to see a MacBook Pro setup, connected to a guitar with a built in USB interface.  I unsuccessfully tried to get it working in-store with GarageBand, but to satisfy my curiosity, I Googled it and found that it was none other than the Behringer iAXE393 USB guitar.  This $100 Stratocaster copy comes with a software pack from Native Instruments, with multi-track recording and editing, and amp simulations. For those…

RiffWorks T4 – Free Guitar Recording and Collaboration Software

Posted 19 Jul 2008 in News, Recording

We’ve featured the paid version of Riffworks from Sonoma WireWorks previously, and they’ve just announced a free version of their Riffworks guitar recording and collaboration software.  One of the benefits of Riffworks T4 is that it: allows up to four musicians to collaborate on a song and chat simultaneously. Loop-based recording allows collaboration without latency or distance issues. As a track is recorded, it streams to other players and is perfectly in sync with the drums. All contributions are saved…

Sonoma Riffworks 2.2

Posted 22 Jun 2008 in News, Recording

Sonoma Wire Works has updated Riffworks, their guitar recording software, to version 2.2.  The improvements in this version include: New “Quick Start” walk-though tutorial in English, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish. Improved InstantDrummer panel for easier viewing. Online collaboration: boosted performance for opening and loading collaborations and improved overall stability. Online collaboration drum sharing: collaborators now hear each other’s InstantDrummer Sessions. RiffWorks saves the Hardware Monitoring state, Input Effects settings, and VST plug-in selection and…

Edirol UA-25EX USB Audio Interface

Posted 18 Jun 2008 in News, Recording

My brother has the Edirol UA-25 and seems to swear by it – he uses it every week for recording at church.  He’ll be most happy to note then that Edirol has released an EX version with “pro studio extras”.  The Edirol UA-25EX is a 24-bit/96 kHz USB audio interface is equipped with pro-grade microphone preamps, a newly developed analog compressor/limiter, and ground-lift functionality for studio and stage.  Input/output wise, it offers two mic preamps and XLR/TRS combo jacks with 48V phantom power, Hi-Z…

ASUS Eee PC as a Cheap Guitar Rig

Posted 15 Jun 2008 in Accessories, Hardware, Recording

If you haven’t heard about the ASUS Eee PC already, it is basically a paperback sized, ultra-portable laptop, scaled down on features but offered at a price point that is almost irresistible.  It comes in Linux and Windows versions, an on my digital photography website, Shuttertalk.com, I spent quite a bit of time looking at it to see if would be suitable as a photographer’s companion out and about. I was excited then, to see people over at CDM doing the same thing…

New Recording Gadgets Roundup

Posted 06 Jun 2008 in News, Recording

Some gadgets and new products which have been launched for the recording market recently:   Vestax VAI-80 USB Audio Controller: smaller than the previous model, this recording controller  RCA and XLR and mic inputs, 4 stereo and headphones (with level control) outputs, 2-band EQ and gain and volume controls per output, LED level meter, direct PA and USB connections.   Guitar Rig Session and Guitar Rig 3 XE: “Guitar Rig 3 XE is a new declination of the Guitar Rig software which…

Recording Acoustic, Electric Guitar Into Your Mac

Posted 01 Jun 2008 in Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Recording

An interesting post from Jim Dalrymple of Macworld regarding his adventures in pursuit of recording the right sound for his upcoming album.  Check out the two videos too, as he goes into his method and process, and the different guitar, gear and effects combinations at his disposal. With so many options available to me to shape the tone of my Taylor GS acoustic, I actually stopped recording for a while so I could play with all of the effects at my disposal.  That…