Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.

One of the nice features of buying cheap, non-“virtuoso” style Indian musical instruments (or any musical instruments, for that matter, but Indian instruments seem to have the biggest low-budget marketshare) is that I don’t feel too terrible “hacking” them.  Yeah, it’d suck ( Read more... )

Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.

You’re on stage.  This show is great.  The crowd is eating it up.  This will be the defining moment of your musical career.

Hey, what was that popping sound?

Where did the vocals go?

Oh…oh, hell.

It’s an inveitability.  Play enough gigs and something catastrophic will ( Read more... )

Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.

As both a guy who makes music and a guy who masters other people’s I’ve encountered the tendency - sometimes even in myself - to write off some mix errors as just “stuff that can be fixed in mastering.”

While maybe it’s true that the mastering engineer *can* indeed fix ( Read more... )

Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.

With the rise in the DIY Mastering ethos for independent studios, a number of companies have put out all-in-one mastering solutions, generally a single program or an all-in-one plugin that handles every major step in the mastering chain.  I can’t say I’m a huge fan.

With ( Read more... )

Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.

Friday night was the late-night, barely-controlled chaos that was a Caustic show.  I mention that merely because I was rocking the theremin and some keys for that gig.  I also mention that because it meant I didn’t get home to sleep until well after 2am.

Ordinarily, a ( Read more... )

Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.

Recursions is almost done.  I’m in the process of getting the final masters together.

It occurred to me, with a bit of prodding from Matt Fanale, that I’ve never actually talked about what mastering really is.  I’ve blogged passionately about what to do and what not to do, ( Read more... )

Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.


( Read more... )

Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.

I’ve been doing a lot of research on this topic, as every studio move I make means I have to re-treat a room.  So I’m getting decent at doing this, usually on a budget.

What I can’t stress enough is just how important even just a little acoustic treatment is.  Good ( Read more... )

Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.

Actual screaming teenage girls.

This is…new.

This was the first non 21+ show we’ve played since the Burnsville Debacle, so it was a chance to play to an audience that hasn’t already seen us play 600 times.  This resulted in a knot of people in the audience who were very ( Read more... )

Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.

I can’t get over how good these preamps are.

The downside, of course, of having clean, high-gain preamps on a non-terrible mic is this, though: I am picking up EVERYTHING.  Vocals, yes.  But also the water heater running two rooms over.  And the cats chasing around upstairs ( Read more... )