As some of you know, for the last 6 months or so I’ve been playing with the Presonus StudioLive 16.0.2 mixer in my home studio. Being a long-time fan and user of Presonus gear, I was thrilled to get to put this thing through its paces.

I’ve done everything from recording a live concert, to mobile tracking sessions, to recording podcasts, videos, and live streaming video/audio online.

So yes…I’ve put it through its paces. I absolutely love this thing. Having a physical mixer with all the benefits of a firewire audio interface is the bomb.

Check out this quick video where I share with you three of my favorite things about the StudioLive, and why it’s a great option for us home studio folks.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9z8YL2SgmE

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I’ve talked about acoustic treatment a lot here on Home Studio Corner. Why? Because it’s one of the most important components of your home studio (if not the most important).

Everything you do in a studio is centered around audio waves, right? We’re in the business of capturing, manipulating, and reproducing audio waves.

While we audio cowboys are in the process of wrangling in these unruly audio waves, they’re bouncing all around our room. The more reflective surfaces your studio has, the more unwieldy the audio becomes.

Acoustic treatment is like Ritalin™ for your studio. Audio waves have ADD. They bounce around the room like crazy until they finally run out of energy…then they do it again.

Okay. Enough analogies.

An Undercover EQ

Regardless of your involvement in audio, whether your a casual hobbyist or a full-time professional, your music has a slim chance of sounding decent if you don’t have acoustic treatment.

As these waves bounce around the room, certain frequencies are boosted. Others are cut. If your studio is untreated, the room itself acts like a graphic EQ gone crazy. 100 Hz might be cut by 19 dB while 250 Hz might be boosted by 6 dB.

Every room is different. No room is perfect. You can never have a perfectly flat frequency response, but you can “flatten” it out with acoustic treatment and tremendously improve the sound of your room.

Reflections Galore

Another big reason to treat your room is to improve the sound of your recordings.

Let’s say you’re recording lead vocals. You could have a $1,000 microphone running into a $1,500 preamp, but if the microphone is in a room with a bunch of bare walls, your recording is going to sound like it was made in a room with bare walls. (Shocking, right?)

The microphone will pick up the direct sound of the vocal, but it will also pick up all of the early reflections as the sound waves bounce off the walls and ceiling and race back to the microphone. By treating your room, you can cut down on these reflections and capture a nice, up-front vocal without building a vocal booth.

Auralex Roominators Project 2 Kit

I’ve been a big fan of Auralex for quite some time. I was planning to purchase a set of their LENRD bass traps and extra foam sometime this year, so when they approached me about reviewing some of their products on HSC, I jumped at the opportunity.

They sent me a few things to review, but today we’ll focus on the Roominators Project 2 Kit.

[Disclaimer: Yes, Auralex gave me the Roominators Kit in return for a review. However, I only review products I believe in. I've turned down similar offers from other manufacturers.]

What’s included?

The Roominators kit comes in two gigantic boxes. It includes the following:

• (8) LENRD Bass Traps
• (24) Studiofoam 2′x2′x2″ Wedge Panels
• (5) tubes of Tubetak Pro Liquid Adhesive

LENRD Bass Traps

I think I was most excited about these. I already owned some Auralex Studiofoam panels, so I had a fair amount of absorption in my room, but I didn’t really have adequate bass trapping. Bass frequencies are the hardest to tame in a studio, because they’re such large waves. Bass traps like the LENRDs go in the corners (where bass likes to build up) and helps absorb them.

Studiofoam Wedge Panels

Like I said above, I had some acoustic foam in my room, but not nearly enough. With these 2-foot by 2-foot panels (each 2 inches thick), I was able to liberally treat my entire studio, rather than cutting corners like I had done before.

I applied them in the following areas (in order of importance):

• Directly to the left and right of my monitors – This is probably one of the most important applications. Without treatment here, the sound from your monitors bounces off the side walls and reaches your ears at a slightly later time than the direct signal from the monitors. This slight delay causes the monitors to sound undefined. Placing studiofoam here immediately tightened up the sound of my monitors. They sound tighter, and the stereo image is much wider. (It sounded almost mono before.)
• Directly behind my monitors – To prevent sound from reflecting off of the rear wall and interfering with the direct sound of the monitors.
• Directly above my monitors – Sound waves bounce off ceilings, too!!
• Dispersed evenly throughout the room – After thoroughly treating all the areas above, I still had a bunch of panels left, so I applied them evenly throughout the room.

Tubetak Pro Liquid Adhesive

I didn’t use any of the Tubetak adhesive. I simply used a hammer and small nails to place all the pieces where I want them. Once I’m convinced that’s where I want them, I may glue them to the wall with the Tubetak. Until then, the nails are holding up okay…somewhat.

One thing to note about Tubetak. If you decide to glue your foam to your walls, you shouldn’t use standard adhesive, as these oftentimes eat through the foam. (That’s bad.)

See it in action. You can see exactly how I applied the treatment around my studio by checking out my latest Home Studio Tour video.

The Verdict?

There is an IMMEDIATELY noticeable difference in the sound of the room. It feels much more…”tame.” When I talk or clap my hands, I don’t hear the sound bouncing all around the room anymore. It does a little bouncing, but it quickly dies out.

One thing to keep in mind when applying acoustic treatment – don’t try to cover every square inch of your room. If you do, the room will be TOO absorptive and it’ll feel dead. It’s okay to have some reflections, just not an overwhelming amount.

Mixing

From a mixing standpoint, my speakers sound much more clear. I can hear details in my studio monitors that I could only hear with headphones prior to the acoustic treatment. Also, thanks to the bass traps, my studio has a much better low end. It’s not perfect, there’s still some resonance around 200 Hz or so, but the bass is much more pronounced.

Check this out: adding bass traps to my room actually INCREASED the bass response of my room. (See Low End Woes for more on that.)

Recording

From a recording standpoint, I’ve noticed that my recordings sound much cleaner and “tighter.” I don’t hear quite as much room in my lead vocal tracks. The room just seems quieter, which is always nice.

Play some audio already!!

Want to know what a lead vocal sounds like recorded in a completely untreated room versus a treated room? Of course you do.

The bedroom right across the hall from my studio is almost the exact same size as my studio. There’s a bed in there, but nothing on the walls.

I set up a mic in the guest bedroom and recorded a vocal. Then I set up the same mic (with the exact same settings) in my studio and recorded the vocal again. The audio files are 320 kbps mp3′s, and there’s no EQ or compression on either file.

Each was recorded through a M-Audio Luna microphone into a Presonus Eureka preamp into Pro Tools. I was standing 12 inches from the microphone each time.

The Untreated Bedroom:

[See post to listen to audio]

The Treated Studio:

[See post to listen to audio]

What do you think? Pretty big difference, right? And it totally makes a difference in the mix as well. Once you add compression to that first vocal, the sound of the room gets even louder, and you’ll hear it in the mix. The second vocal? Sits in the mix just fine.

The Auralex Roominator Project 2 Kit currently sells for $599 over at Sweetwater. That’s how much you’d pay for a nice preamp or microphone, which are both great, but neither one will help you make better recordings and better mixes. A properly treated room will make your current gear sound much better.

So…what are your thoughts? Let me know by leaving a comment.

If you want to get rid of the frustration of constantly guessing as to how to acoustically treat your studio, join “Understanding Your Room.”
You’ll get the exact training you need to confidently tackle the acoustical issues in your room. Grab your copy here.

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Yesterday we discussed the pros and cons of mixing on headphones. If you haven’t chimed in on the discussion, head over there. Lots of interesting comments.

I’m not here to say that mixing on headphones is better than mixing on monitors. However, it has been my experience that you can get a good mix on headphones, even though there are a lot of people who claim you can’t.

The moral of the story isn’t that you can always get a good mix on headphones. No matter what your mixing/monitoring environment is, it’s your job to learn how to get good mixes out of the equipment you have.

That said, any pro engineer will tell you that while they CAN get a good sound with cheap equipment, using high-end gear oftentimes makes it much easier.

With that in mind, I’d like to tell you about my favorite set of headphones, the Sennheiser HD650′s.* (As you can see in the picture, they’re Owen’s favorite headphones, too.)

The Design

In my Intro to Headphones video, I explained the 3 different types of headphones: closed, semi-open, and open.

Closed headphones are designed to keep the sound from leaking out of the headphones. Think Sennheiser HD280pro’s* or Sony MDR-7506′s.* These are great for tracking. The musician can record without any bleed from the headphones getting picked up by the microphones.

Open headphones don’t prevent the sound from escaping the headphones. Rather than enclosing the drivers, the back of these headphones are open to the air. These tend to be more accurate and are better for mixing than closed headphones, but they’re not good for tracking, since everything bleeds out of the headphones.

Semi-open headphones are a blend of the two.

The Sennheiser HD-650′s are open headphones. If you look at the outside of the cup, it has a bunch of little holes, rather than being solid plastic.

I’m not smart enough to know the physics behind open headphones, but in general open headphones have clearer highs and deeper lows. With closed headphones, the sound is bouncing around inside an enclosed area, which leads to a less-than-flat frequency response. Open headphones allow the sound to “breathe,” so to speak.

Think about it this way. Recording an acoustic guitar in a tiny closet might seem like a good idea, but with the sound bouncing around that tiny room, you’ll likely end up with a boomy, uneven sound.

Place the guitarist in a larger room, and suddenly the sound tends to “even out.”

It’s the same with headphones.

The problem with a lot of closed-back headphones is that they simply can’t effectively reproduce bass frequencies very well. Anything below 100 Hz is still there, but it’s not as loud as the mids and highs. If you’re using closed headphones for mixing, it’s tempting to crank up the bass in your mix, so that you can hear it.

While this is understandable, and may even sound good, you’ll find that as soon as you play your mixes on monitors or in your car, you’ll find that there’s WAY too much bass. You boosted the bass to make it sound good in the headphones, but it turns out your headphones were lacking in bottom-end…and you over-compensated.

I’ve been there. Boy, have I been there.

The HD650′s are a different story. The first time I listened to them, I was literally shocked by how much bass they had. To be completely honest, I thought they had too much bass at first. But after spending a lot of time with them, I realized that they were simply reproducing the bass frequencies that were actually there in the recordings I was listening to.

All my life I had listened to music on headphones that rolled off the low bass frequencies. With the HD650′s, I could, for the first time, hear the entire frequency spectrum through a set of headphones.

It took me a while to really articulate what I was hearing. Essentially these headphones extended both the low and high frequency response of what I was accustomed to hearing through headphones. I could hear the highs more clearly, with more detail, and obviously I could hear the low end, too. It sounded like someone removed a high-pass and low-pass filter from the signal, extended the frequency response both ways.

With regards to the bass, the sound I get from these headphones reminds me of what it’s like to listen to a mix on big studio monitors. The bass is present, not hidden. It comes through clearly, even at lower volumes (which helps tremendously with ear fatigue).

These headphones let me hear everything, whether I like it or not.

Comfort

These are probably the most comfortable headphones I’ve ever worn. They fit completely around my ears. Some headphones tend to rest on the ear, which leads to soreness over time. Since these hardly touch my ears, I can wear them for hours with very little fatigue.

Value

As I write this, the HD650′s sell for $450-500 USD.

You may see that price and think that’s a ridiculous amount of money to spend on headphones. I get it. But think about it this way.

What would you spend on a decent, entry-level pair of studio monitors? $300-500, right? Then if you wanted to upgrade to something more professional, you’d spend anything from $1,000 to well over $2,000 for a pair of high-end studio monitors.

While I’m not saying the HD650′s are as good as a high-end pair of Genelecs or Adams, they are very good.

Considering you’ll need a really well-treated room to accommodate those high-end studio-monitors, you can get a high-end set of headphones (which require no acoustic treatment) for much less than you’d pay for a high-end set of monitors. (And don’t forget, acoustic treatment can get expensive, too.)

When you think about it this way, suddenly that price tag doesn’t seem like a big deal at all.

The Specs

Straight from Sennheiser’s website:

• Cable length: 3m
• Frequency response: 10 Hz – 39,500 Hz
• Jack plug: 6.3/3.5mm stereo (It comes with a 1/4″ plug and a 1/4″ to 1/8″ adapter)
• Nominal impedance: 300 Ω
• Sound pressure level (SPL): 103 dB
• Total harmonic distortion (THD): 0.05 %

One thing to note, the impedance on these headphones is considerably higher than normal headphones. This means you have to drive them a little harder to get the same volume out of them. If you’ve got a cheap interface, you may want to consider getting a standalone headphone amp (like the Presonus HP4*).

Also, this wasn’t listed above, but the headphones use a “Y cable” to connect to the headphones. The cable splits and connects to the left and right side separately. The connectors aren’t hardwired to the headphones. You can remove them by just pulling them out, so they can be easily replaced.

The Verdict

I bought these headphones myself…and I could not be happier. I’ve used them for both mixing and mastering projects, and I’m getting very consistent results. Am I going to throw away my studio monitors? Not at all. I use them all the time, but the Sennheiser HD650′s are my go-to piece of gear when I really need to hear something accurately.

The Sennheiser HD650 headphones* get a big thumbs up from Joe Gilder and Home Studio Corner.

What do you think? Do you have them? Do you want them? Leave a comment below.

*Amazon affiliate links

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One of the best upgrades you can make to your studio is to get a nice outboard preamp. But it can be hard to bite the bullet. After all, you’ve got preamps built into your audio interface, right? They sound fine, so why would you upgrade them?

Well, for one thing, you don’t know what you’re missing. Imagine that you grew up without access to computers, and someone showed you a 20-year-old IBM PC running DOS, you’d think it was amazing, right? You’d have no reason to think there could be anything better, but that doesn’t mean that better computers don’t exist. (Now imagine yourself fainting at the site of an iPad.)

The point is this – just because you’re happy with the stock preamps on your interface doesn’t mean your sound can’t be dramatically improved by investing in an outboard preamp.

I must preface this review with two things:

1. Don’t succumb to Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Buying gear for the sake of gear is no bueno. However, if you’re in a position where you’re ready to upgrade, read on.
2. The good folks at Presonus sent me this Eureka for free in exchange for a review. That said, I only do this with items I truly believe in. (I’ve turned down similar offers from other manufacturers.)

The Presonus Eureka

The Eureka is a sweet little channel strip. I used one several years ago (before I ever started HSC), and I LOVED it. Here’s why:

• Transformer Coupled Preamp
• On-board Compressor & EQ
• Impedance Selector
• Saturation Knob
• VU Meter
• Master Volume
• The Price

Transformer Coupled Preamp

Rather than go into the technical jargon of why this is cool, I’ll just give you the brief version.

There are basically three types of preamps: tube preamps, transformer preamps, and preamps with fully discrete circuits (no transformer or tube). Typically the fully discrete preamps have a very clean sound, while transformer and tube preamps add some “color” to the audio.

The Eureka has a transformer in it. At $500 (at the time of writing this), that’s awesome. Even if there were no other features on this unit, it would still be worth the money. Having that transformer simply takes the audio to another level.

It doesn’t sound like a cheap preamp. It has a very open sound. When I compare it to the preamps on my 003, I notice that the signal simply sounds more professional. It has more depth to it. The frequency response goes higher and deeper, and there’s much more detail.

You can thank Mr. Transformer Coupled Preamp for that.

On-Board Compressor and EQ

While the preamp sounds amazing by itself, the onboard compressor and EQ sound great, too. If I had to choose one word to describe them, it would be clean. There’s nothing over-the-top about the two.

The compressor gives you plenty of control over the sound without adding a lot of coloration. It has controls for Threshold, Ratio, Gain, Attack, Release, and Side-Chain High-Pass Filter. There’s also a selector for “Soft” compression (meaning a softer knee setting).

I’ve used this compressor on vocals and bass a lot, and it clamps down on them nicely. Since it’s so transparent, I can compress a signal by 10 dB and it doesn’t sound obvious at all. Great-sounding compressor.

If you’re wanting a really aggressive compressor that adds all sorts of harmonic distortion (like a Distressor), this isn’t going to make you happy. But if you want something subtle and clean, you’re in good shape.

The 3-band EQ is equally cool. It’s a legitimate 3-band EQ, meaning it gives you Frequency, Gain, and Q (width) controls for each band. You can also switch the high and low bands from shelving filters to normal bell curves. Very versatile.

The EQ, like the compressor, sounds very clean and subtle. If you’re wanting something agressive and obvious, you won’t get it here. But if you want to cut a few annoying frequencies while tracking, and have everything sound natural, this will do it wonderfully.

Also, the Eureka allows you to select which comes first, the compressor or the EQ, which is very useful. (I usually like to have the EQ first, FYI.)

Impedance Selector

Most microphone preamps have a set impedance, meaning a set electrical resistance to the incoming signal. For condenser mics, this usually isn’t much of an issue, but when you start using dynamic or ribbon mics with low-level outputs, being able to change the preamp’s impedance can be a life-saver.

By adjusting the preamp’s impedance, you’re essentially adjusting how “hot” the mic is. This allows you to have plenty of gain without needing to max out the pre (which is never a great option).

I won’t go into the details of what an impedance selector does. Suffice it to say you can make your microphone sound very different depending on where you set the impedance…a nice way to get more sounds out of your existing mic collection.

Saturation Knob

Want a dirtier sound? Want the pre to sound less clean and more like a tube preamp? Reach for the saturation knob. This essentially adds harmonic distortion to the signal. While nothing can make a solid-state preamp sound just like a tube preamp, the saturation knob can give you an extra level of tone for your recordings.

For example, sometimes my vocal recordings sound a bit too bright through the Eureka. I simply increase the saturation a bit, and it “warms things up” without making them sound muddy or indistinct.

VU Meter

No studio is complete without at least one VU meter. The one on the Eureka is FANTASTIC. It’s very bright, and it’s actually usable. (Some preamps have VU meters, but they’re not really helpful.)

You have the option to monitor the output gain or the amount of gain reduction at the compressor.

Master Volume

Gain-staging on a channel strip can be difficult at times. You spend 10 minutes dialing in the perfect EQ and compressor settings, then you realize that you’re clipping your input into Pro Tools.

If you turn the preamp down, then you’re changing how much signal is hitting the compressor, which changes how much compression is occurring, thereby changing the actual tone of the audio. The Eureka gives you a master volume knob that acts a lot like a fader in Pro Tools. It’s a final gain stage, so you can trim up or down the signal without having to re-tweak the preamp, compressor, and EQ.

The Eureka gives you a whopping 74 dB of gain (54 dB at the preamp, 10 dB at the compressor, and 10 dB at the master volume), which is perfect for any type of microphone you can throw at it. (No more maxing out the pre on your interface when you’re trying to use a dynamic mic.)

The Price

This bears repeating. As I’m writing this article, the Eureka is selling for $499.95 over at Sweetwater. It’s one of those no-brainer preamp deals. I’ve heard several engineers tell me that they like the Eureka as much as preamps that cost two to four times as much money.

The Cons

No review is complete without looking at both the good and the bad. Here are a few things that I don’t like about the Eureka:

• Rear Power Switch – The power switch for the unit is on the back, so if you’re using an equipment rack like I am, it’s not easy to turn it off. I like to have that option with my preamps.
• Input Gain – The only readout you have on your input gain is a 3-stage LED. It would be nice to have the option of seeing the input gain on the VU meter, but you can’t.
• Fairly Bright - The first time I used the Eureka, I thought it sounded a bit bright. I think it was because my previous preamp didn’t capture the high frequencies as well. Either way, sometimes the vocals I’ve recorded can be a bit harsh. The more I worked with it, the more I was able to dial in a good tone, but that’s something to keep in mind.
• No Saturation on Line Inputs – It would be nice to be able to run a line-level signal through the saturation section to see what that sounds like, but the saturation is only applied to microphone and guitar inputs.

Summary

All in all I think the Eureka is a fantastic piece of equipment. If you were to only buy one preamp, this would be an excellent option. It gives you a large variety of tones without sacrificing quality. Plus it can be extremely beneficial in helping you learn how to use EQ and compression properly.

For more information, head over to the Presonus Website.

What do you think? Leave a comment and let us know!

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You guys and gals have been asking for a review of Toontrack’s EZDrummer for quite a while now. Here it is. Enjoy!! (And also leave a comment…)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFCc58t1YzM

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2. Line 6 JM4 Looper Review (with Video)
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Have I mentioned lately that I love the Line 6 JM4 Looper?

I’ve been a musician for years, and I mainly play acoustic shows. You know, singer-songwriter kind of stuff. While a bare-bones guitar/vocal performance can be quite entertaining, the recording engineer in me wants to add more to it.

Enter the JM4.

I’ve always been absolutely fascinated with looper pedals. Any time an artist uses one in a performance, I’m spellbound.

As soon as you introduce a looper pedal into your setup, suddenly all the rules change.

You’re no longer a solo performer, you’re an entire ensemble. It’s like you brought a recording studio right on stage with you, and now you’re doing an overdub session for all of us to see.

Fascinating.

Needless to say, I’ve wanted a looper pedal for years. Thanks to the good folks at Line 6, now I have one!*

What I love about the JM4 is that it’s not JUST a looper. It’s an entire guitar workstation. It has both amp modeling and three different selectable effects.

Amp Modeling

The folks over at Line 6 are probably best known for their amp modeling technology. If you’ve ever used a Pod or any of their amps (Spider, Flextone, Vetta, etc.), then you’ve experienced the Line 6 modeling technology.

There’s a lot of debate as to whether the digital amp modeling sounds as good as a “real” amp, but I’m not getting into that today. What I can tell you is that there are a LOT of guitarists in the world who swear by Line 6.

The amp models on the JM4 cover a wide range of amps. You can choose from Clean, Twang, Blues, Crunch, Metal, and Insane.

In addition to amp models, you have knobs for Drive, Bass, Mid, Treble, and Channel Volume.

While there are a handful of good clean tones in the JM4, Line 6 tends to cater towards the heavier, over-driven tones.

The presets alone on the JM4 will keep you entertained for hours. The presets are categorized by time period, artist, genre…you name it. And, of course, you can create your own presets as well.

Effects

When I play out with my electric guitar, my entire rig consists of a pedalboard with a Boss tuner, a Tech 21 SansAmp Character Series Blonde pedal, and the JM4. I prefer the tone I get from the Tech21, so I use the JM4 as an effects unit. It’s GREAT for this.

With three selectable effects, you can dial in all sorts of tones. The first knob allows you to choose from Chorus/Flange, Phaser, and Tremolo. The second knob is for time-based effects: Delay, Tape Echo, and Sweep Echo. And the third knob is dedicated to Reverb.

The way I set up my JM4 is in “Guitar Preset Mode,” with three or four presets -- one for just reverb, one for tremolo, one for delay, and one dry. All I have to do is step on the “next” footswitch and cycle between them.

There’s also an “Amp/FX Mode,” where you can manually dial in the effects and then toggle them on and off by pressing the corresponding footswitch.

Looper

And now on to the main event, the looping feature of the JM4. The very first thing that caught my eye with the JM4 was the fact that it loops not only guitar, but also vocals! Not only that, it has a standard XLR mic input. Other looper pedals in this price range give you a 1/4″ mic input. (Who uses 1/4″ mic inputs anyway?)

In addition to allowing you to loop both your vocal and your guitar, the JM4 also allows you to output the guitar and vocal signal separately. This is GREAT for your sound guy, because he can still have full, separate control of the guitar and vocal levels.

The rest is pretty straight forward. Here’s how it works:

1. Select your input source (whatever input you want to loop first). You can choose from the mic or guitar inputs, and even a stereo aux input (for using an mp3 player or something similar).
2. Press the “Record” footswitch.
3. Play/sing the part, then press the Record footswitch again to begin looping. The JM4 will loop what you just played/sang. Now, simply press the Record button to “overdub” as many parts as you want. You can switch between sources on the fly, using the footswitch.
4. Press the “Play” footswitch to stop/start playback.

If you make a mistake, simply press the “Undo” footswitch. Once your song is finished, you can save it to an SD card, or simply delete it and move on to the next song.

Just like with any instrument, it takes a while to learn how to use the JM4 well, but once you master it, it can add so much to your next show. I played my first show with the JM4 a few weeks ago. I was nervous coming into it, since I hadn’t used the looper live before. I’m glad I used it, though. The crowd really seemed to enjoy it. Heck, I know I love to listen to somebody play with a looper!

Since no review is complete without a list of pros and cons…

Pros

• Price -- As of today, the JM4 sells for $329.99. It’s a great value for everything you get with it.
• Amp Modeling
• 3 Selectable Effects
• Easy-to-use Looping Feature -- Other loopers I’ve tried have left me very frustrated. The JM4 is straight-forward.

Cons

• Squeaky buttons - The footswitch buttons tend to let out a metal-on-metal squeak if you don’t press them down just right. I’m sure a little lubricant would fix that, but it can be annoying when that squeak gets picked up by the microphone while recording a loop!
• Occasional Gritty Recording -- I tend to go overboard with my loops sometimes. Occasionally, if I add a lot of passes, the sound quality will begin to get “gritty.” It hasn’t done this at a show. It mainly happens when I’m goofing around doing 20 passes of some silly part.
• No tap tempo in Amp/FX mode -- This is the main reason I don’t use Amp/FX mode for my electric rig. It allows you to turn on and off the delay using a footswitch, but to tap in the tempo you have to reach down and press a button with your hands. In Guitar Amp Preset Mode, one of the footswitches becomes your tap tempo button. This is nice, but it means you have to go in and set up presets for whatever effects you want.
• No input select footswitch when looping -- This is along the same lines as the previous con. When in loop mode, you have to kneel down and press a button to change input sources (from guitar to microphone, for example). The only way around this is to cycle through to a different mode that allows you to change the input with a footswitch, and then cycle back to the looping mode. The other mode is mainly for recording, not looping, so I’m not even sure why it’s there.

Conclusion

All in all, I really like the JM4. If you’re in the market for a looper pedal, I highly recommend it. And now, I leave you with a video of the JM4 in action:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZA0Hepzp54

*[Disclaimer - Line 6 did give me the JM4 to review. However, the views expressed in this article are my own. Had I not liked the JM4, I would have sent it back and refused to review it.]

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Many of you know that for the last three years I have been a Sales Engineer at Sweetwater Sound. However, last Thursday was my final day at Sweetwater. (My wife and I have moved back down to Tennessee. I left the company on great terms. I’m actually pursuing a cool new opportunity…more on that to come in future posts.)

It has been a great three years. Sweetwater is a stellar company, and I feel that it is only appropriate that I post my thoughts on Sweetwater right here on Home Studio Corner.

My opinion of Sweetwater is obviously a biased one. However, being on the inside for three years has given me a very good look at the makeup of this company. If I didn’t like the company, I certainly wouldn’t post a review of it.

What makes Sweetwater different?

Anybody can sell music equipment, right? What makes Sweetwater any different from Musicians’ Friend or Zzounds? Aren’t they all just big box stores?

The folks at Sweetwater talk a lot about the “Sweetwater Difference.” Now it’s a bit of a cheesy phrase, but it makes a point — Sweetwater is different.

Don’t take my word for it. If you’ve never talked to a guy at Sweetwater, call ‘em up and ask to speak to any sales engineer, then ask him why you should buy from Sweetwater. (The number is 1-800-222-4700. It is permanently ingrained in my brain.)

So, what’s different?

Every company on the planet will tell you that they are extremely “customer-focused.” Very few do more than just say that. Sweetwater has put some amazing systems in place, all with the goal of taking care of customers.

Personal Sales Engineer

This is probably the biggest difference. Have you ever bought a car from a salesman, and you kinda wished you bought more cars, because he was so pleasant to work with? Do you ever go to a restaurant and request a specific waiter, because he has taken such good care of you in the past?

That’s kinda what it’s like to shop at Sweetwater. If you place an order online, you’ll get a call from an actual person. Not only that, you’ll work one-on-one with that person, making all of your future orders with the same person.

Your sales engineer isn’t some random dude working in a call center. All Sweetwater Sales Engineers go through three months of intense training before they can even start selling gear. It feels kinda like an accelerated masters program in audio.

Most people don’t really get why this is so cool, until something happens. FedEx damages your package. Your microphone dies, and you need one for a session tomorrow. In situations like these, you tend to freak out a little bit, because you just know it’s going to take hours and hours of your time to get these things handled, because the big corporate online retailer isn’t going to be much help.

This was probably one of my most favorite parts about working at Sweetwater. When something bad or unusual happened, I just took care of it for the customer. The customer made one phone call, told me what had happened, and I handled it from there. Sweetwater has these amazing systems in place that allow them to handle just about anything.

On top of having someone there day in and day out to handle any problems you may have with your order, it’s really nice to buy from the same guy every time. I had lots of customers who put together their entire studio one order at a time, and I was able to help them pick out all the right pieces.

On top of that, I was familiar with their setup and their goals. I would regularly talk customers out of buying something they didn’t really need, or would show them a less expensive option. I was interested in helping them put together a complete system, not just making a quick sale.

Tech Support

Okay. You hear the words “tech support,” and you immediately assume that you’re going to be talking to someone in India who barely speaks English, right?

Well, that’s not the case with Sweetwater. They have a dedicated tech support staff on site. These guys are phenomenal. They handle any and all technical issues you may have with your order.

Why is this important? I can think of no other dealer that offers free tech support. Normally that’s the job of the manufacturer. Sweetwater, however, takes it upon themselves to handle every aspect of the customer’s buying experience. That means spending a ton of money to hire in a group of really sharp guys to deal with tech support issues.

Sure, manufacturers offer tech support, but sometimes you’ll call Company A and tell them that you can’t get their software to work with Company B’s audio interface. They’ll tell you it’s Company B’s fault and to call them. You call Company B, and they say it’s Company A’s fault.

Not to dog on manufactures’ tech support (some of them are REALLY good), but the folks at Sweetwater don’t have to defend their specific products. They support the entire system. Having issues getting your M-Audio interface and Novation controller working with Logic on a Mac? If you buy it all from Sweetwater, you just make one phone call to their tech support guys, and you’ll be up and running in no time.

Shipping

Free shipping is pretty much the norm for most online dealers. Sweetwater goes a step further. Most places make you order a certain dollar-amount before you qualify for free shipping. Sweetwater will sell you a single set of strings and ship them for free.

It’s a small thing, but it’s pretty cool!

Website

I’m sure you’ve seen Sweetwater’s website, but have you really checked out all they have on there? If you get nothing else from this article, at least do yourself a favor and check out Sweetwater.com.

Sure, there’s a lot of information on buying equipment, but they have pages upon pages of really good, free content — like their PC Optimization Guide or the Pro Tools Resource Center. They even have a comprehensive audio glossary!

You can never spend a penny at Sweetwater and still get a TON of value out of their website. (I don’t know about you, but if a company invests this much in providing me with free content, I’m much more likely to buy from them out of gratitude.)

Cons

A good review needs to be balanced, so I’ve prepared a few cons for Sweetwater to go along with the overwhelming number of pros.

• They’re not local. If you need something today, and you don’t live near Fort Wayne, Indiana, Sweetwater won’t be able to help you. If you need it tomorrow, they’ll be able to take care of you. However, they are limited by the fact that they need to ship the items to you.
• If you don’t like interacting with people, you may not like working with Sweetwater. Everything at Sweetwater is centered around having a relationship with customers. That means you’ll get a courtesy phone call with your order. It also means your sales engineer will call you a few weeks later to make sure you’re happy with everything. To me, that’s really cool. Some people don’t think so.
• If you don’t value service, advice, and support, you may not like working with Sweetwater. While their prices are very similar to everyone else in the industry, you can always find a stupid deal somewhere else. I guarantee you that a Guitar Center employee will match or beat any price you get from Sweetwater. That’s because all they can offer is price. You won’t get the same level of advice, service, free tech support, or professionalism from any other retailer. They’ll slash their prices because they have nothing else to offer you. If that’s appealing to you, great! If you’d rather buy from a company who cares about you and will take amazingly good care of you, buy from Sweetwater. You may pay a few extra bucks here and there, but I will gladly pay more for good service. After all, every time you spend money with a company, you’re casting a vote for that company. You’re saying that you approve of the way they do business. If a company has shown me respect, courtesy, and great service, I’ll buy from them even if they are a bit more expensive. It’s my way of showing support for their efforts.

In Closing

I could go on and on about plenty of other cool things at Sweetwater, but I’ll just mention them in a few bullet points:

• LEED Certified – Did you know that the new Sweetwater campus is completely green?
• Privately-Owned – Sweetwater is owned by president and founder Chuck Surack. There’s one location in Fort Wayne, Indiana. They’re not some huge corporation with hundreds of locations. They rock the music industry…all from one warehouse.
• Award-Winning – Sweetwater wins all sorts of awards not only for sales, service, and support, but also for its involvement within the community of Fort Wayne. Chuck is a very generous man, and the Fort Wayne Community has benefited greatly from him and Sweetwater

I’m obviously quite fond of Sweetwater. And no, they haven’t paid me to post this review. I simply think it is fitting that I spread the word as I move on to something else.

If you’ve never given them a shot in the past, call them up next time you need something. I promise you’ll be impressed.

Thanks Chuck and the rest of the folks at Sweetwater for three great years.

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We’ve all been there. You’re working on a song, and you wanna send it to a buddy to critique. What do you do? You email it, of course!

Ugh…Thirty emails later, and you’ve successfully taken up 150 MB of space on your email server. Not to mention the fact that if you ever want to send that song to another friend (I’m assuming you all have more than one friend ), you have to either re-upload the mp3 and email it, or you have to hunt it down in your Sent Mail folder and forward it.

There’s nothing wrong with using email for this, but it sure isn’t ideal. I always hate being on the receiving end of an email with one (or heaven forbid multiple) mp3′s attached to it. It bogs down my poor little DSL modem, and I cry a little bit each time.

Enter Dropbox

I had heard about this fabled getdropbox.com a time or two, but I didn’t give it a second thought, until I tried it. This is seriously cool! You get 2 GB of storage that you can access from anywhere. Seriously. Anywhere. Mac? Yep. PC? Yep. Web browser? Yep. iPhone? Yep!

Go Public

First of all, there’s the Public folder. If you want to share files with other folks via email, the public folder is your new best friend. Simply upload your files to this folder, then click on the little drop-down arrow next to the file, select “Copy public link” to copy your link. Now all you have to do is paste that sucker into an email, and you’re home free!

Your recipients simply click on the link from their email, and they can play the file straight from their browser. Or if they’re super cool, they can right-click on the link and save the file on their computer.

This alone is worth the price of admission. (By the way, did I mention it’s free?)

Keep it Private

So perhaps you’re worried that that hit album you’re working on will get leaked to the public if you start throwing out email links all willy-nilly. Fair enough. Dropbox offers you the option of creating private shared folders, which you can share with whomever you choose. For example, my brother-in-law Joel is working on an album (soon to be released on Loud Crow Records). I’m singing on one of the tracks, and since we live a bajillion miles away from each other, we have to send tracks back and forth.

How do we do it? I thought you’d ask. We both created Dropbox accounts, then I created a folder named “Joel.” Next, I simply entered Joel’s email address and invited him to be a part of the awesome folder that was named after him.

Now, if either of us have a new mix, we simply upload it to the Joel folder then email the other guy to check it out. (It usually goes something like this: “Hey dummy. Check Dropbox. Love, Joe(l).”)

Drag & Drop, Baby!

It just keeps getting better. Remember how I said Dropbox works anywhere? ‘Twasn’t a lie. If you install the Dropbox application on your computer (Mac or PC), you can simply drag and drop files to and from your Dropbox account without ever setting foot inside a web browser. Pretty cool, right?

Not only that, but Dropbox automatically updates your folder on your local machine if any files are added or altered on any other machine (or by any other user of a shared folder). It even notifies you via a cute little pop-up window. It would be easier to show you this in action, so check out the video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEHWMsv8sq0

Plays Well with iPhone

If you’re an iPhone user, you can access the iPhone version of the Dropbox site to check out your files. You can even email links to your Public files directly from your iPhone! Just click on the little envelope icon to the right of the filename.

Musician’s note: This is a great option for sharing your tunes on-the-go. Simply upload any files you want to have access to to your public folder, and when that A&R rep from a major label says, “Send me some of your recordings,” you can whip out your iPhone and say, “Done!”

In Closing

Needless to say, this is cool. I can’t think of another free system out there that gives you this much functionality. And if you ever need more room, you can buy a paid upgrade:

One final cool feature. Being the smart folks that they are over at Dropbox, not only is the 2 GB version free, but you can earn up to 3 GB of total space by simply referring other people. I’ve referred I think one person so far, so if you like what you’ve read and want to try it out, click here. (That’s my referral link.) Either way, you should certainly check it out. I have a feeling you’ll be glad you did.

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You may remember a shoot-out I did between the Shure SM58 and its big brother the SM7B. It was interesting to hear some of the similarities between the mics, especially since one costs almost three times more than the other.

Ever since then, I’ve wanted to compare the 58 to a microphone I use quite a bit both in my studio and when I play out live – the AKG D5.

I’ve loved the sounds I’ve been able to get out of the D5, but I’ve never compared it directly to the SM58, which dominates the live sound market.

The D5 is a pretty stylish mic, with its black grill and body and nice big AKG logo. It’s also a super-cardioid microphone, as opposed to the standard cardioid pattern on the SM58.

Aside from these differences, the microphones are fairly similar. They’re both dynamic mics, and they both sell for right at $100.

So…does one sound better than the other? Let’s hear.

Shure SM58

[See post to listen to audio]

AKG D5

[See post to listen to audio]

If you’re having trouble playing these, you can download them here: SM58 and D5. (Right-click and save.)

How It Was Recorded

Here’s a quick run-down of how I recorded these. I left the grill on both, and simply stood about four inches from the front of the grill. I recorded directly through a Focusrite preamp into my 003, and I didn’t use any processing on either take.

My Thoughts

Both mics sound good, but I think the D5 has a good bit more high-end content to it. It doesn’t seem hyped to me necessarily. It just seems like the highs aren’t as rolled off as with the SM58.

Also, the bass of the D5 seems to reach a little bit lower. Sadly, this is only really heard when the mic “pops” from my breath, but still, it was something I noticed. This may make the D5 a better choice for bass amps, for example.

All in all, while it definitely depends on how well each microphone sits in the mix, I’m pretty impressed with my D5. It gives some of the benefits of a dynamic microphone, in that it doesn’t pick up as much room noise and is a bit “aggressive,” but it doesn’t sound as much like a dynamic as the Shure SM58 did, particularly in the high frequencies.

What do you think? Which do you like better?

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Last weekend I was recording acoustic guitar for a friend. He was having trouble getting a good recording of his guitar, so he asked me to give it a shot.

It was a beautiful Langejans guitar. I had never heard of the brand, but this was a gorgeous guitar with rosewood back and sides. The guitar had a huge bottom end, but was also surprisingly bright as well. I loved the sound of it.

I decided to stereo-mic the guitar. However, rather than use a spaced pair of microphones – one up by the neck, one down around the bridge – I decided to place the mics closer together.

Then I remembered getting a stereo mic bar months ago. I had actually never used it. After some digging around, I finally found it and put it to work.

What is a stereo mic bar?

A stereo mic bar is a simple device designed to allow two microphones to be mounted to a single mic stand. It has various threaded points along the onto which you can mount the microphones’ threaded shockmounts or mic clips.

To be completely honest, one of the main reasons I chose the stereo mic bar is that I didn’t want to spend a lot of time setting up two microphones with separate mic stands. Adjusting each stand, picking the right height for the microphone, determining the best position for each microphone, all these things take time.

Secondly, because the stereo mic bar keeps the microphones fairly close to each other (as opposed to a spaced pair of mics), I didn’t have to worry as much about phase issues.

As you can see from the picture, the microphones are roughly 3-4 inches away from each other, each angled outward. When recording the guitar, I pointed the center of the stereo mic bar at the guitar’s sound hole, aiming each mic to the left and right of it.

In addition to avoiding some of the phase issues of a spaced pair, I found that the sound of the recording seemed a bit more balanced. Rather than one microphone picking up primarily low frequency material and the other picking up mostly the high frequency information, each mic in the stereo mic bar configuration captured a more balanced recording.

This allows me to pan the mics fairly wide to the left and right in the mix without one side becoming bass-heavy.

I’m pretty impressed.

I have to say I was very pleased with how the recording turned out. Not only that, my lazy side is pretty happy to have a new technique in my arsenal that requires very little effort to set up!

Here are a few audio examples for you to check out. I’m posting them as-is, with no EQ or processing of any kind. Typically I would roll off some of the lows and do a cut around 250 Hz to smooth out the boominess.

In first sample, the microphones are about a foot away from the guitar. In the second sample, the microphones are roughly six inches from the guitar.

• [See post to listen to audio]
• [See post to listen to audio]

You can download the mp3 files here and here.

As you can hear, there is a bit of bottom end, but with a little EQ these tracks sound great! Here’s an example of a stereo mic bar, if you’re still unsure as to what they look like. What do you think? Leave a comment!

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• 3 Reasons to Stereo-Mic Acoustic Guitar
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