Author: Jeremy Fisher
If you’re a young musician wanting to break into the world of the West End theatre orchestras, where do you start?
It is impossible to walk into a West End pit job (or “hold a chair”) with no previous experience. Therefore, your first task is to deputise for the existing players in a show.
Experience is what you get just after you need it. Many bands make the same mistakes in their early (and often not-so-early) days, but as a wizened old pro I can help. Get a leg-up on the opposition as I reveal the top 10 reasons why your band sucks:
Electronic Musician have a very interesting article up comparing real guitar amps versus their software pretenders. Basically, they got a few classic amps in a studio and knocked up their equivalent patches in a few different software amp sims, before presenting the lot in a blind test to a few ‘name’ producers. The results are interesting, the take-home message of which is it is pretty much impossible to reliably distinguish an amp sim from the real thing. In addition, even if you spot it the amp sim may give you a ‘better’ or more useable sound, not to mention all the benefits of total recall and all that jazz. If you’re not convinced, check out the listening test and see if you can spot the real amp. The experiment is described here, and you can check out some discussion about the results in a video.
The audio gear industry is chock-full of opinion and ‘wisdom’ rarely based on hard evidence. This kind of testing really appeals to the scientist in me, as did the Focusrite Liquid Mix Challenge. At the end of the day if it sounds good it is good, whether it’s vintage valves or the latest DSP, and you should always be open to having your preconceptions challenged.
From the stable of Sound on Sound, the venerated music recording magazine, comes Performing-Musician.com, “The Practical Magazine for Musicians & PA Operators”. The site mentions e-subscriptions, but the vast majority of articles seem to be accessible for free. Loads of good information from a trusted source, from speaker reviews to lighting design techniques. Well worth a gander.
Following up the announcement of Superior 2.0, Toontrack have released Solo, a stand-alone host for users of DFH Superior and EZDrummer drum romplers. It’s a free download for registered users and allows you to run your drum instrument without needing a 3rd-party VST host application like Cubase or Logic. Solo promises lowest-possible latency when used with an appropriate ASIO soundcard. I tried it last night and managed to get down to a solid 64 sample buffer without any problems, which to me does not incur a noticeable delay at all (AMD X2 4200 / Tascam 1082). Running within Cubase I am normally limited to 128 samples without glitching - 64 is right on the limit with the odd pop and crackle. Solo should be a great tool for anyone brave enough to go out gigging with their eDrum kit, a laptop and a decent portable firewire audio/midi interface.