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Keith Hatschek

Last Day in Gear Heaven – NAMM Blog, Day 3
“When Worlds Collide”

by Keith Hatschek January 17, 2011

More than ever, the NAMM show is becoming a mash up of the analog world – with its historic musical precedents made up of strings, reeds, mallets, speakers, mics and the best traditional music making elements – with the increasingly digital music world, where speed, portability, and innovation rule. When it comes to acoustic instruments and music making, there really are no new products, simply refinements and leaps ahead that improve existing tools and techniques. Read more…

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Another Day in Gear Heaven – NAMM Blog, Day 2
“Show Me How It Works”

by Keith Hatschek January 17, 2011

Yesterday, I ran into a friend who suggested I check out a soft synth program from Spectrasonics called Omnisphere 1.5, and I caught the tail end of a demo by keyboardist Jordan Rudess that day, but just what the Omnisphere program could do was still a bit murky to me. So today, I trekked back to the Spectrasonics’ booth and got a full 20-minute demo from the company’s founder, Eric Persing. Rarely have I seen a company’s found having as much fun with his creation as Eric did. Read more…

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One Day in Gear Heaven – NAMM Blog, Day 1

by Keith Hatschek January 15, 2011

Today was my first day at the 2011 Winter NAMM Convention, a gathering of more than 80,000 people involved in the music products industry. Everything from harmonicas to the latest recording hardware and software is on display from more than 1,300 companies, often demoed by the engineers and techs that invented them. This will be the first of three postings about what I discovered at this year’s show. Read more…

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Home Recording Shopping Guide

by Keith Hatschek December 15, 2010

Many people have a limited budget this year to upgrade their home recording systems. Because of that, it’s helpful to prioritize what is the most important element you need or would benefit from upgrading. If you consider your entire home recording system as 100% of your sound, assuming that you already have a digital audio recording system, then as much as 50% of your sound comes from the quality of the microphone you use. When you purchase your first really nice microphone, you’ll be surprised at what a difference in the overall recording quality it makes. Read more…

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Recording with Reverb and Echo – Tips and Lessons from Six Classic Tracks

by Keith Hatschek November 23, 2010

If you’re recording and mixing your own tracks, you may have already begun experimenting with reverb and delay, two time-based effects that offer the opportunity to change the perceived time and space coefficient of an individual instrument, voice, or an entire mix. Simply put, the use of reverb and echo effects can create the perception of music being performed in a small concert hall or a 20,000 seat arena, or anywhere in between. We’ll consider the aesthetic use of each, and recommend a few classic tracks worth checking out that make excellent use of these time and space effects. Read more…

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Composing for Film and Video

by Keith Hatschek October 12, 2010

There are definitely composers who need help; the thing is, they’re not going to advertise for a film composer to help them. They need somebody to get their system up and running, they need engineers, they need music editors. I think that those positions are really valuable for the same reason I really enjoyed working with Mason – to just get in the door and watch. I would suggest though, that if you get in that position, set a time frame so you’re only doing that for so long. Read more…

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Sampling Safely – A Primer to Avoiding Lawsuits

by Keith Hatschek August 9, 2010

The use of samples is a staple of many genres of music. With the advent of sampling technology in the 1980s, musicians, producers and recording engineers began to experiment with incorporating clips of historical and/or significant audio recordings as an element in new records. Read more…

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DIY Performance Video – Part 3: Titles & Distribution

by Keith Hatschek July 19, 2010

Over the past five weeks, we’ve explored the pre- and post-production processes involved with the DIY video shoot I did with the band Sugar Water Purple. We’ll wrap this series up by adding the final touches to the video and then publishing online via YouTube.
Read more…

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DIY Performance Video – Part 2: Post-Production

by Keith Hatschek July 13, 2010

Last month, I described the pre-production planning process and the DIY video shoot done with the band Sugar Water Purple. Now let’s step through the DIY post-production process used to finish up the video.

First, I wanted to recap a few decisions we made in the pre-production process that came up in reader comments to last month’s story. Read more…

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DIY Performance Video Part 1: Pre-Production and the Shoot

by Keith Hatschek June 15, 2010

DIY VideoAs I was filling my car with gas the other day, a television was blaring commercials to me at the pump. Video has become the ubiquitous window that allows us to glimpse the good, the bad, and plenty of the ugly aspects of 21st century life. According to the latest Nielsen Television Audience Report, there are now more televisions (2.93) in the average American household than there are people (2.54), and an average of two computers per four-member family. Read more…

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Drum Sampler Picks

by Keith Hatschek May 27, 2010

The new breed of drum samplers are affordable, flexible, and really easy to use. PSE takes a close look at four top programs.

For many home and project studios, the dream of setting up a full-size drum kit and inviting a drummer to “let ‘er rip” is just that. For those who don’t have the luxury of a fully isolated recording space, drums pose one of the most difficult challenges to creating realistic recordings. Read more…

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Putting Apple’s GarageBand to the Test

by Keith Hatschek May 17, 2010

GarageBand is a music creation software application that is part of Apple’s iLife suite (GarageBand, iMovie and iPhoto) and ships on all new Macintosh computers. For this column, I jumped into learning how well GarageBand might work as a musical sketchpad to rough out a basic song demo. I enlisted the help of two friends, vocalist Josh Washington and songwriter/percussionist Dan Faughnder, for the home sessions. In the process, we recorded live vocals and electric guitar to go along with the software-based instruments and loops found in the program’s library. We wondered just how good a song demo could be created in a couple of hours by GarageBand rookies. Read more…

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Recording vocals to a computer with Shure’s X2u

by Keith Hatschek May 17, 2010

There’s been no shortage of products designed to help musicians get their musical ideas into their computers. While at the Winter 2010 NAMM show in Anaheim, I saw the then-new Shure X2u XLR-to-USB signal adapter. It’s a compact, affordable single channel palm-sized adapter that promises to help solve the problem of how to interface a recording mic with your home computer. Read more…

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Analog Recording in Digital Times

by Keith Hatschek April 8, 2010

analog recordingWhile the revolution in recording technology centers on affordable digital audio workstations, the affection for the old analog traditions and sounds is more than just nostalgia.

To that end, Britain’s six-piece Band of Bees is working hard to reclaim and recapture some of the vintage sounds of legendary artists from the ‘60s and ‘70s like The Beatles, Buffalo Springfield, and the Young Rascals in their recordings. Read more…

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In Search of Vintage Gear

by Keith Hatschek April 7, 2010

There are some astounding values placed on vintage instruments and recording equipment these days.

A 1958 Stratocaster in excellent condition, for example, may fetch as much as $25,000. Vintage recording devices from bygone years may also be valued at $10,000 or more for the most coveted items, such as rare German tube mics or broadcast limiters. For the vast majority of people, these prices put items like this out of consideration. Read more…

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