This is an enjoyable short film about the making of Amon Tobin’s excellent Foley Room – a great album which you may already know about. If not, I strongly recommend it.
I talk a lot about classic albums, recording live instruments and ¨real, natural sound¨ on Production Advice, mainly because in this time of virtual instruments and laptop recording studios I think it’s becoming something of a lost art that needs highlighting.
BUT I have always had a passion for electronic and dance music – Jean Michel Jarre’s ‘Oxygene’ was the second tape ever played in my Sanyo personal cassette player (I couldn’t afford a Walkman !) and it would be hard to overstate the importance of Orbital in my music collection – to pick just two examples.
(What was the first tape ever played in my Walkman ? It’s too embarrassing to reveal in public, but ask me on Twitter and I’ll DM you the answer :-p )
OK, I think it’s time to come clean. This may shock some of you, so brace yourselves…
I’m not a Pro Tools expert.
…I know ! How can that be ?!? I’m a mastering engineer, a pro audio geek and I write blogs on music production – HOW can I not be a Pro Tools whizz-kid ?
Well, before you unfollow me, block my email address and blacklist my RSS feeds – let me explain.
Yes – another Brian Eno post ! But it’s completely worth it. This Arena documentary about possibly my favourite music producer is simply outstanding – partly because it contains plenty of Eno snippets for the enthusiast, but also because it’s beautifully made and put together – fascinating, intelligently chosen visuals and audio accompany the interviews throughout.
It’s also great for me to see Eno in his Suffolk habitat, because that’s where I grew up, too – and seeing the familiar serene, slightly surreal landscapes accompanied by his music and words somehow makes perfect sense in a way that hadn’t registered with me before.
I’m sorry things have been a little quiet so far this year – it’s because there’s all kinds of stuff going on behind the scenes that I’m really looking forward to telling you about… soon : )
Meanwhile, regular readers might like to check out my latest guest post on the RecordProduction.com site:
This is a question I get asked a lot. But before I answer, the disclaimer:
Personally, I’m not happy mixing on headphones.
Of course I use them all the time, for an alternative perspective my monitors, and for listening in very fine detail for clicks, distortion etc. But for real judgements, speakers are the way to go. Headphones just don’t give me the visceral, physical feedback I want.
(So, don’t read this post, blow a couple of hundred quid on a pair of headphones, spend 6 months trying to mix on them and then come back blaming me for bad advice !)
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