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badger

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Posts posted by badger

  5. Studios with Pro Tools TDM rigs in Scotland

    in Musicians' Corner

    Posted

    We charge 100 extra a day for ProTools HD3 with engineer. Are you sure you really need it?

    There seems to be a great deal of mis-information here about ProTools.

    There are three types of recording and editing packages:

    1. Black box

    2. Harware based' date=' but using dedicated software on PC or Mac

    3. Software only on PC or Mac

    The main platforms in all these are as follows:

    1. Fairlight, Radar, Tascam, Mackie, Alisis. Fairlight and Radar cost about 12,000 and up and an Alesis costs just 800 for the cheapest version.

    2. Pyramix, Sadie, ProTools, Soundscape. These all use the same Motorola chip set, but each has its own software. Prices start around 5,000 for a complete Soundscape system and Pyramix can cost over 50,000

    3. Software only systems abound in the hundreds and you can use just about anything, though the very good Logic works only on Apple (because Apple bought it!) but there many good packages that cost almost nothing. Logic costs about 1,000.

    We are a commercial studio and have somthing in every one of the three sections. In section one we have a large Radar 48 track system that covers all our tracking needs. In section two we have Soundscape, ProTools HD3, and ProTools Light. In section three we have Audition, CuBase, Nuendo and a host of others that I canot remember. (We also have a reel-to-reel, the way God intended.)

    Each system has its strengths and weaknesses. Although the London Post Production scene is pretty much ProTools or Pyramix, 60% of all films made in Scotland are done on Soundscape. Soundscape is very fast for audio editing, but is only now having some MIDI tracking added to the software. Logic is massive for MIDI, but I would be reluctant to use it for audio. Radar is the only game in town for audio tracking, but is slow for editing, so we end up exporting things to either ProTools or Soundscape just for the cuts and then bringing them back in again to Radar for the mix.

    The choice of platform is largely driven by what the engineer is used to and happy with.

    What you say about the Aberdeen scene is true for the whole of Scotland. Apart from one or two studios that belong to friends, I cannot comment on the studio scene and I have never been into an Aberdeen studio. Glasgow has a bit of a media industry (if industry is not too grand a word for it) serving the few films and the BBC. Aberdeen should have something going on around Gampian TV, though my guess is that these are just guys with an HD3 rig somewhere and not a full-blown studio.

    You cannot blame Aberdeen or the studio owners for the lack of facilities. Putting up a propper music studio is numbingly expensive (think 500,000 minimum!) and unless you can attract an international cientele, commercial failure is guaranteed.

    Three quarters - no, even more - of our work comes from outwith Scotland. Germany, Iceland, New-York and of course London, they all come here, but hardly anyone from Scotland.

    That are many reasons for this: Firstly the Scottish music scene is poor. There are very few venues large enough and I cannot think of a single club that holds more than 500 people. That means that you will only ever get small acts.

    Then all the good acts leave for London or New York. Here you are lucky to get MU rates for a gig.

    Then, to put it very bluntly, the music industry in Europe is fucked. There are all kinds of theories behind this and I have my own theory:

    The standard of music made in the UK is crap because the standard of musical education has fallen to rock bottom. I am 55 years old, so I wnt to school in the 50's and 60's and back then everybody had to learn to read music and play an instrument. Almost every second home, rich or poor, had a piano, organ or harmonium in the front room, so there was a real knowledge of music in the general population. Even if you did not particularly aim for a musical career, you got music lessons and mother used to show the kids how to pick out a bit of Beethoven or Mozart on the living room piano.

    Also everybody sang hymns everyday at school and went to church and Sunday school on Sunday. Making music was something everybody did from a very, very early age.

    Now nobody goes to church (I can't blame them!) and music is just noise on MTV. Add to that the total rubbish that is shown on TV like 'The X Factor' which permiates the myth that even untalanted and ugly people can make it in the music business and the result is that nobody sees the need to learn an instrument or read music.

    America is different. They still go to church and they still learn music at school. That is why there are so many great new bands coming out of the US, but almost nothing from Europe. If you learn to sing harmonies in church, then singing harmonies on stage is easy. If you learn to play organ in church, then rocking on a B3 is easy. If you have to practice scales to a metronome at school, then keeping time in a band comes as second nature.

    And talking about a great new band from the US and rocking on a B3, have a listen to this lot (mp3 players to the ready)

    [url']http://www.wdr.de/cgi-bin/mkram?rtsp://ras01.wdr.de/rockpalast/govt_mule/govt_mule.rm

    Cheers

    www.the-byre.com

    P.S. I forgot to mention, that band is a new band called Government Mule. Best thing I've seen and heard in years!

    Best Post I've read in a long time here.!!

    I'd love to get my hands on Soundscape, Pyramix or ProTools, just to get the experience of using them. Isn't Pyramix usually used in Film Post at the moment?

    Most of my Recording work was done back when DA88's were brand new on the market, and we had 3 racked up together, topping and tailing using SAW. Nowadays, I'm more likely to be using Cubase, or Nuendo, but I have to say though, I am still a fan of Hardware, especially with the ease of use of machines like the Alesis HDR24. Been mixing a few tracks in the Foyer this week as a favour, and it's a fantastic little piece of kit.

  10. Nero - Normalise Function?

    in Musicians' Corner

    Posted

    If you have a copy of Wavelab, you can compile the whole CD in the Audio Montage, along with any crossfades you may want and use the Meta Normalise funtion. In essence it will be very similar to what your doing with Nero, except you have the safe knowledge that Wavelab will do a much better job ;)

  23. Ableton Live Users

    in Musicians' Corner

    Posted

    Users of Live 5 are reporting instability and sys crashes when trying to run the app on P3 machines' date='

    P4 seems to be the min spec for this "Mac" style prog

    Does it still have no "right click"?

    Anyway, some form of analog controller is also said to be useful, for real time mixing,

    .........................................;)[/quote']

    Ah, those knobs on my MK-249C might come in hand for something ;)

    I'm running Live 5 on an Athlon XP 2400 with no percievable stability problems, so yeah a P3 may be a bit "old hat" for this. I'm assuming this can be "Rewired" - like reason into the likes of reason or cubase maybe? Like I say, only had a quick play with it.

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