Shure Sm57

The Shure SM57 is possibly the most popular dynamic instrument mic ever. It's used a lot and it's also recommend to people routinely. In fact it gets recommended a lot on the GMC forums to people lookong for their first mic for recording. So for those interested you can find a summary of the mic and more details here:

The Shure SM 57

Releasing Cds

The EBU and the Music Producers Guild have just announced a new agreed standard for embedding ISRCs in to digital wav files. This should ensure that ISRCs will in future be embedded in to all commerical CD releases. It will help ensure that artists receive appropriate performance and IP rights payments and also that credits are properly databased.

As professional mastering engineer we embed ISRCs where they are available and it's even one of the first questions I ask clients, 'What are your ISRCs'. Many project studios and mixing engineers however do not.

http://www.mpg.org.uk/news_stories/398

Jan 2013 Studio Photos

We were asked by a website if we could provide some photos of the mastering studio for publicity purposes. The ones we've sent them are hi-res but these are a few low res vrsions.

***Warning - you can see me in the photos so those of a nervous disposition and women, children and small animals may want to look away now ***








In this one you can see both of our hardware mastering EQs. The one I'm adjusting is our Great River MAQ 2NV and next to it is our Gyratek Gyraf XIV parallel passive EQ. You can also see our Tranzport which is great for scrubbing through mixes quickly.



This is the obligortory head and shoulders shot of me leaning on our ATC SCM pro monitors. They're 3 way so bass, mid and treble each has its own dedicated speaker.



Another adjusting the controls' type photo. This one focuses more on the compressors in the rack. The one I'm adjusting is an API2500 VCA comp. Below it is our Maselec optical compressor and above is a parallel high frequency shelf. On top of the rack is a Prism Orpheus ADC and a Lavry Black D11 DAC.


Final shot that hopefully gives some idea of how the the monitors are positioned away from the walls and with nothing between them and the listening position to form an equilateral triangle. (The listening position is actually in front of the desk with all the equipment turned around 180. This was reversed for the photos as the photographer thought it was more 'studio like'.)

Christmas Is Coming

We haven't seen any choral music come in for mastering for months and months and then this week, a bit like buses, three arrive within hours of each other.
Producers are gearing up to get things out ready for the XMas market .

Two More From Prism

Prism sound seem to have been busy this week. Apart from the 64 bit version of their professional daw they've just announced a couple of new additions.

The first are cut down versions of sadie aimed at project/home studios here. This comes in two flavours, a 'Lite' version which starts at £500 and a 'Professional' version. There's a link to a comparison chart of the features of these two versions and also those of the pro end daw.

The other product launched this week was their new AD/DA interface 'Lyra' here
This again comes in two flavours, Lyra 1 aimed at project studios and costs about £1500 and Lyra 2 (@£2000). Both look to me to be based on the bigger and more expensive Orpheus.