In the following few posts we’ll be building some broadband absorbers which, as the name suggests, will help absorb some errant frequencies. Obviously each room will be different - perhaps you suffer from lots of reflections, or maybe you’d benefit from some bass traps? Your mix can only be as good as your room - that is to say that if your room is impeding you and your ear’s ability to accurately interpret what’s coming out of your monitors, you’ll never have a truly good mix that will translate well over any playback system. It’s common to invest so much money into monitoring systems, plugins, instruments, DAWs, yet rarely do project studios spend anything on acoustic treatment (a rule of thumb I’ve heard repeated as mantra is ‘spend as much money on treatment as you do on your monitors’). When it comes to mixing the sad reality is that you’re not only as good as your ears. Tutorial Tuesday 5: Broadband Absorber Build (Part 1)
Highly recommended for guitarists and synthists looking to inject more grit into their productions. TSE’s replacement is the next best thing, and whilst I enjoy running my synths through hardware distortion units it’s nice to have non-destructive editing options! I owned a RAT a few years ago, and sadly a friend fried it and I (read they) never got around to replacing the loveable rodent. Recently the score’s I’m working on have called for lots of synths/drums to be ran through distortion pedals, so I’m always on the lookout for new sound manglers. I’m only focussing on TSE’s RAT Pedal emulation here, but the whole host of plugins offered are well worth downloading. Most impressive perhaps is its Harmonic Content Morphing synthesis, which is more easily explained by reading the website than here!Ī solid addition to anyone’s synth article. It’s a very versatile synth, and features all of the bells and whistles you’d associate with a modern VA instrument. It’s been around for 7 years, so it’s kind of a vintage bit of kit in its own right, but it still holds up as a very good synth, and has received acclaim from many respectful music publications.
Free Plugin Friday 9 - FireBird and DistortionĪ previously commercial product, with an RRP of $79, Firebird has now been uncaged and released as freeware.