YOU MIGHT BE THE ARCHITECT OF YOUR OWN FRUSTRATION

This tip is short but important - I know it looks cool, but cupping the mic when you sing is a horrible idea, unless you want to punish your audience and sound mixer. If you're a cupper you're going to need a supercardiod mic with insanely good rejection. Audix OM7's are one of the few mics great for singers how love to "cup the mic". (Don't do this on a BETA unless you're a sadist.) The reason you don't want to cup the mic is because the moment you cup it, it turns from a d

Pink noise is basically static that we engineers and mixers use to calibrate our gear, our PA systems, our listening environments etc.. But we can also use it to see a microphone's response curve. On a frequency analyzer Pink noise looks something like this. pink noise It has a very linear slope in that the frequency gain drops off on roughly a straight line from 20khz to 20hz. But put it through a mic or an EQ, and the slope changes to reflect how the pure sound source is be

It started with Mods. I modified a cheap guitar for Gabrielle Graves, and liked how it turned out. I modified her amp, and then another one, and amps for a few other people, and this gave me the confidence to try my hand at not just improving a guitar or amp, but getting them to sound a certain way.... the way I heard them in my head -- Before I knew it I'd become a tone chaser... Magic Guitar The funny thing about chasing tone is that you never seem to ever actually catch it

The hallmark of any great live vocal mic is in it's gain before feedback capability and it's directionality - meaning that it is designed to pick up sound clearly right at the tip of the mic, and reject sound entering from the sides and the rear. People are crazy about BETA's. And I get it. The Beta series mics do sound amazing. They are crystal clear. And on paper; the supercardiod design should be ideal for the stage. But despite the marketing hype, they have terrible rear

When you walk into the guitar store there's usually a wall of guitars to choose from, but what most don't realize is that 95% of them are junk. Over the course a few weekends some guitar player friends of mine and I decided to go around to different stores, and play every guitar they had, just so we could say, "Yeah, we've done that." What we discovered kinda depressed us. We had to play 20 guitars to find one good one. And that was in line with the manufacturer and model. S

I don't want any venue owners getting mad at me, but if your setup is similar to what I'm describing, and you haven't taken steps to correct it, so as to make the soundscape a usable one, then sadly you are contributing heavily to the problem. Artists; you're in trouble when... Well, for starters; you notice that the PA speakers are going to be on the stage with you. Or even better; one is on the stage, the other is on the floor. As a rule; PA "mains" speakers should sit at l

I get it -- you wanna hear and feel your performance on stage. As someone who plays both guitar and bass, I really feel you. And to get that thump on guitar or bass you need to turn it up the amp, right? Well, someone needs to crank the volume, but that person is not necessarily you. What we're going to explore is the additive nature of sound... But first - you need balance, Daniel-san. The key to getting a great live mix is ensuring that the sound sources on stage [amps, dru

There's much debate about whether or not the quality of your cables matters. Whether Mogami cables are worth their exorbitant price tag. In my opinion, Mogami makes the best cables. Monster comes in a close 2nd, and in some cases Monster cables sound better, it depends on the where in the chain they are used. And Live Wire cables from Guitar Center are also decent. Most good cables have a lifetime warranty, so if it shorts out (which it eventually will) you can have it replac