Rants

Often it’s the lack of experimentation with room treatment that leaves many a home recording sounding thin, resonant and harsh. Left unchecked, untreated room reflections can severely impact upon the clarity and focus of direct signals into a microphone, though initially this may be hard to judge. It’s often only when mix compression is applied…

It was long enough ago but still flashes into my mind whenever I’m being actually pure and nice and someone is being directly mean and nasty in return. We were doing an outdoor gig at Katherine in the N.T., and at the end the modest fireworks display absolutely delighted the indigenous kids. They were amazed,…

  The downside of having a nice big truck to drive the PA around in was that bands always wanted you to go and pick up the lights from the lighting company for them, and take them to the gig in your nice big truck. And then, of course, take them back the following morning.…

What do you say to someone who values your work at zero? Do you laugh them off and tell a dismissive joke to avoid confrontation? Do you calmly explain that your work is as valuable as that of any other professional or do you chuck a wobbly? If you haven’t experienced this insult first-hand you’re…

LL, the drummer for the Harris Tweed band popped into the factory the other day, and over a coffee we started reminiscing over funny things that have happened in the course of earning a living. Mine have been well documented [some might say ad nauseam!]in this column but he has had no-one to write his down…

Well it wasn’t me alone. Grub had a lot to do with it. I collected him and the bass player from Littlewing at their place in Five Dock. We loaded their stage gear into my production truck, a Ford F350, and we drove the three hours out west over the mountains to Bathurst. It was…

By rights, no-one should even remember the MP3 format by now, any more than people can remember Betamax or Hi-8 tapes in the video industry. Somewhere along the line the audio industry was sold a miserable lie that has all but poisoned our capacity to advance the hi-res digital cause. It’s time we woke up from…

When it comes to audio production, one thing is certain; there are no rules. And for that we can thank people like Geoff Emerick of Beatles fame (amongst others). He used to break rules on a daily basis: put mics close to drum kits, feed line-level signals back into mic preamps, man-handle spools while the analogue…

The gig was called Metal for Melbourne – a celebration of Heavy Metal music from eight bands who would have won prizes as Spinal Tap clones, but in this case they weren’t intending to be funny! I made sure I packed my ear plugs for this one! What is it with metal bands? A bigger…