Compressors – The theory

No matter what music you compose, you’ll eventually have to deal with compressors. There is just no escaping. Compressors are what you apply to make music better. That’s right. They help you make your music beyond studio quality. You’re one plug-in away from stardom!

All the glamour aside, compressors are one of the studio workhorses that are applied to achieve anything from subtle smoothing to downright squashing. It does help to know how the tools you use work though, and I’m hopefully going to provide you with just that. Let’s go from knob fiddling to consistent predictable results! Follow the link for an easy FREE introductory promotional kit (order the full 3 x video tape kit NOW and receive an instant $3.00 rebate!)

Juno 106: Chip Replacements + Symptoms

Great news everyone – D’Naab 136, the guy who designed the replacement for the Juno 106 chips, has just let me know he released a version two of his creation, which is smaller, better, and helps to keep your dog happy. Or your snake. And it’s still 40 euros. Awesome!

I bought a bunch of original chips off eBay last year, and one of them already died, plus there is one more that’s getting really noisy. Learn from my stupidity, and get the replacement chips.

Now, I’ve received quite a few comments to my original post with people asking how to fix their Juno. Most of those had to do with the same old VCF/VCA chips dying. I have put together a list of possible symptoms of a dead chip.

PowerBook + Ultralite: Unable to Launch MIDI server

We had a guy drop in the store with a machine today. He just couldn’t get the MIDI to work at all, and the problem appeared to happen on the OS and not the software level.

We would go into the Audio MIDI Setup utility, and after spinning the beach ball for a little while, the MIDI tab would tell us that it was “Unable to Launch MIDI server”. Turns out, Digidesign was to blame. I think they are quickly turning into the audio world scape goat ala Microsoft, and for a good reason too.

UPDATE: One of the people who commented on this post, franck, may have come up with a solution, or at least a temporary fix. I don’t have an Ultralite on hand so let me know if it works out for you. And make sure to comment if it doesn’t – maybe we can at least make MOTU listen and absorb the costs of getting this worked out. Seriously, what the fuck.

The Mbox 2 and Pro Tools LE Tale

Lately, the market has been flooded with affordable audio and video products for amateurs and professionals alike. The much increased variaty in the choice of such solutions has created a problem of choosing the appropriate product, as there are so many things to consider.

After slightly over half a decade of composing, and doing some film and audio work in the past 2 years, I have decided that I need to gradually build up the hardware to move up from my current level quality- and possibility-wise.

Pro Tools was something I started considering due to the availability of Digidesign software and hardware at relatively reasonable prices. Or so I thought.

UPDATE: For those reading and thinking Pro Tools ruined my life and ate my dog… Uuhh.. Yeah.. Ever heard of a literary device called hyperbole? It is quite often used in various pieces of writing. Such as tales, for instance.
Pro Tools really did suck though.