Signal to Noise

I’m an audio guy who moved into the video world nearly 20 years ago. One of the first things I noticed was bad audio mixes (particularly in what was then called the “multimedia” world): the music could be as loud as the dialog; the sound effects were often disruptively loud as well. Oh - and the noise, hum, and room tone might also be loud. Multimedia didn’t necessarily mean people were mixing the media well…

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Epic Drums

Bombastic. Action. Chase scenes. Energy. A touch of exotica, with occasional ethnic percussion elements, odd metals, and other special effects such as angrily strummed piano strings. Not subtle. No love scenes. Those are the terms that come to mind upon auditioning this loop library of 40 percussive construction kits from prolific producer Steve Sechi of Funk/Soul Productions.

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Vibration and Hum

I’ve already written about eliminating buzz and hum from audio connections. However, truth be told, I’ve been fighting an insidious low-frequency rumble in my latest studio for over a year now. Everything seems clean electrically, but when I listened to the playback of my voice recording sessions, I heard an extra low-frequency component whenever the downward expander (noise gate) on my Focusrite VoiceMaster Pro opened up. But I think I finally have it licked.

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Drums & Drummers: Two Drum Loop Libraries

This time around, we’re going to step outside our normal realm of song construction kits and review a pair of drum loop libraries to be used in combination with other melodic instrument parts that may have came with your music creation software or other construction kit packs. But even though the subject matter may be the same, the approaches these two collections take are very different.

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Big Fish Audio: Club Hip Hop

This bargain-priced collection (list price: $49.95) from producer Mike Kumagai delivers an edgy take on hip-hop: The drums are lo-fi and slammin’ with an in-your-face filtered and gated kick; the synth basses are alternately reedy or squelchy; the keys, clavs, and strings are often shrill and urgent. The songwriting triggers thoughts of mutant funk with a pseudo-ethnic overlay. In other words, you’re not going to fall asleep listening to these tracks.

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Big Fish Audio: Textured Beats

Some libraries try to give you a wide variety of flavors. Others have a strong consistent flavor of their own that permeates every kit or loop, frankly telling you “take me or leave me.” For what it’s worth, Textured Beats is one library I’ll take.

So, what is that strong, consistent flavor? You may have heard the saying that writing about music is like dancing about architecture – which translates to you should go to Big Fish’s web site and listen to the demo file to make sure your tastes are the same as mine. To my ears, the beats here are a sleek synthesis of a rock feel with an electronica sound, utilizing a nice combination of programmed synthetic and acoustic sounds.

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Microphone Madness

After recently adding some sound treatment to my new studio, I was curious to go back through my microphones to see which one sounded best on my voice in this new environment. I found that what sounded “best” depended on what I was playing the resulting audio through. I thought I’d share my results and observations with you, as well as solicit votes to see (hear?) what sounded best in your particular listening environment.

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Big Fish Audio: Hadeeth 2 Arabic Rhythms

Unlike the original Hadeeth collection that combined a drum kit with Arabic percussion, this collection (also produced by Ara Antranik) is a pure hand percussion affair. You get 66 construction kits, each containing a full mix plus three to eight individual instrument loops including the duff, mazhar, rak, tabla, sakat, tar, and duhollah (all percussive instruments) played by Haythm Blat. About two dozen different regional and traditional styles are represented, sometimes played at different tempi (ranging from 80 to 180 bpm) or with variations on the same theme.

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