Do we have to make money from our music?

One of the problems with the nature of a capitalist dominated world, is that we often forget that money is not the only measure of value and success. The pleasure of being creative for purely personal reasons is rarely promoted, but we can all derive huge pleasure from making private creative breakthroughs in our music.

Music composition and recording can be an essential part of our lives without needing to generate income. There is nothing quite like the feeling of creating a great chord progression and melody, writing the perfect lyric, or achieving the perfect snare drum sound.

These can be solitary experiences and need not be shared at all. If we follow our creative impulses without considering what others might think (have you ever done this?), chances are that you will produce something that pleases you but which contains elements that you would be self-conscious about sharing, never mind trying to sell.

So even if we don't intend to monetize our music we may be constantly considering what other might think of it as we create it. This is understandable but inhibits our natural creative urges. We're touching on issues of psychology and what we seek to gain by sharing our music with others here, but the practical question if we intend to distribute our music is should we charge for it?

If you are a professional, and make your money from your music the answer is clear, and most professionals are firmly against the idea of giving anything away for free.

Leaving aside the difficult questions of the relationship between art and commerce for the moment, if you are not a professional, why not create and freely share your music with others? Some might say that unless a listener pays for your music they won't value it. But is that really true? Value isn't just about money, its about your music affecting someone in a positive way. Making them happy. Does it matter if you never know, and never get paid for it?

If you make music in your own personal studio for the pure pleasure of it, why not consider giving it away for free. If people like it, some of them will let you know, and you will have contributed a little more happiness to the planet.

What do you think?

Thanks for watching and reading
FairFax

So what exactly is "vintage" studio gear?

If you're like us you probably spend several minutes each day browsing used gear on eBay. You may even have saved searches and notifications turned on (though in our experience the iPad version is very buggy!).

In recent months two new trend's have emerged.

Firstly few items are offered as genuine low start price auctions with most sellers setting silly reserve prices and even sillier Buy Now prices. If you watch these items, few sell immediately and some never. eBay used to be the place for genuine auctions but as far as studio gear goes those days seem to be largely gone.

The other trend involves sellers describing almost any gear more than 10 years old as "vintage". Some of the items described thus are laughable and clearly just an attempt to hoodwink uninformed buyers. Many are early budget digital devices which whilst having a "unique" sound (eg poor!), were never universally  praised in their day!

For example, are any of these "vintage" to you? ..

Yamaha SPX90 effects
Yamaha DX7 synthesiser
Roland DEP5 effects
DBX 160XT compressor
Lexicon LXP5 effects
EMU ESI-32 sampler
Akai S1000 sampler
Korg DDD5 drum machine
Roland D50 synthesiser

Is the (1999) Akai S6000 "vintage"?

But it got us thinking. Just what exactly is "vintage"? If it means gear more than a fixed number of years old (eg 30), then "vintage" will mean different things to different people.

For the older folks here at PSHB vintage means having all or most of these attributes ..

still highly regarded for its sonic qualities
manufactured at least 30-40 years ago
produces a sound hard to achieve with modern equivalents
has value which is likely to increase with time
age and wear and tear has improved its sonic character

So we would regard these as vintage ..

Neumann U47 microphone
Moog MiniMoog
1950's Fender Stratocaster
Early Lexicon 224
Original Teletronix LA2A limiter

.. and all except the Moog and Lexicon were relatively affordable in their day.

Is the early 1980s Roland SH101 "vintage"?

And what about "rare"? Well vintage gear may be rare but it doesn't have to be, and just because a device is hard to come by doesn't mean it was ever any good or even desirable. It may be rare because owners value them and don't want to resell, or it may be because it was unsuccessful, not many were made or few working or repairable units are available anymore.

Is the 1987 Oberheim M6R "vintage"?

So, what do you regard as "vintage"? And more importantly, how much are you willing to pay for it?

Thanks for watching and reading
Fairfax

How to make a simple audio cable hook device

All studio owners dream of a future in which their studio audio connections can be streamed wirelessly, and leads and cables are a thing of the past. But this is unlikely to ever happen. Imagine the different frequencies required to transmit the multiple signals that regularly flow between devices, to say nothing of the expensive of all those converters, transmitters and receivers.

So for now we must stick with our cables. To be fair, for the most part analogue and digital audio leads and cables work extremely well and as they say, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Our problem is where and how to store all those leads that are used temporarily such as ..

patch bay cords
mic leads
headphone leads
guitar leads
mains leads
computer interconnects

For some leads we favour a mobile kitchen drawer unit. We coil, attach a cable tie and lie them flat. This works well for some cables but for others the drawer just ends up a mess.

If space permits, a better solution is to hang some of them, which of course requires hooks. A traditional solution is to attach hooks to a length of wood and the wood to a wall. But this requires drilling into a wall, and in our studio that's impossible because the walls have stud work to accommodate layers of sound proofing materials.

Recently we came up with a simple device which hangs off the tops of our rack cabinets.

To make one all you need is ..

1. 18mm MDF- approx 8cm wide and as long as is appropriate for what you're going to hang it on. Ours upright section is 72cm long. You should get the MDF pre-cut at your timber yard. You will need an additional piece to make the top section from which the upright will hang, so add another 10cm which you can cut off with a hand saw later. If you plan to secure the top section to the cabinet with a screw, your top section need only be 6cm, as in this picture ..

2. 15mm (diameter) round dowling (also called moulding) - these will function as the hooks
3. Fixing screws

The tools you will need are ..

1. Electric screwdriver / drill
2. Saw - to cut off a length of MDF to create the top section
3. Drill bit - size 14mm to cut the holes for the dowling
4. Drill bit to drill holes for your fixing screws (slightly narrower than the screws)
5. Counter-sink drill bit - to finish off your fixing screw holes
6. Light sandpaper

Here's how to construct it ..

1. Cut your MDF so you have the upright and top sections.
2. Lightly mark the locations of the hook holes on your upright with a pencil. We spaced ours apart by 5cm.

3. Using the 14mm drill bit, drill out the hook holes. You can drill all the way through. You may want to drill half way through from one side and half way on the other to achieve a smoother finish. Although the drill bit is 1mm narrower than the dowling hooks it should create a hole that is just tight enough to accept the hooks.
4. Drill 2 holes into the top section so you can secure it to the upright piece with your fixing screws.

5. It is essential that you pre-drill the holes in the upright section to accept the screws or the MDF will split. Adjust your drill so the you are drilling exactly the length of your screws.
6. Place the top section on the upright section (you may want to use a vice or clamps), and drill down through the holes you have just drilled and into the upright section.
7. Use your counter-sink drill bit to finish the screws holes in the top section.
8. If you are plan to secure the complete device to your cabinet with a shorter top section, drill and countersink a third hole now.
9. Cut your dowling into lengths of approx 12cm.
10. Sand everything by hand.
11. Screw the top section to the upright.
12. You're done!

Thanks for reading and watching
FairFax

Why do phase, flange and chorus plug-ins sound thin?

If you own a hardware delay line effects device you will already know how rich and thick they can sound and how easy it is to set them up to create classic short delay time-domain effects such as phasing, flanging and chorus.

Although you can use almost any delay line device, manufacturers, especially of guitar pedals, have long produced devices devoted to one type of effect with controls devoted to creating variations of that effect. Such devices include ..

Roland Dimension D chorus
Boss CH1 chorus
Boss PH3 phaser
MXR Flanger
DOD phaser 201
Shin-ei Uni-Vibe phaser
Electro-Harmonix Small Clone chorus
etc

Of course you don't need any of these devices to create great effects, almost any simple analogue or digital delay line with modulation will do. The essential parameters you will need to adjust are ..

1. Delay time (between 0 and 30ms)
2. Feedback (adjustable)
3. Hi-cut (adjustable low pass filter)
4. Modulation frequency control
5. Modulation width control

Many delay lines offer additional parameters to try and differentiate themselves but you don't need more than the essential 5.

Popular devices include ..

Korg SDD 1200
Korg SDD 1000
Korg SDD 3000
Yamaha E1005
Yamaha D1030
Roland SDE-1000

The great news is that because so many people are moving to music production entirely in the box, plenty of these devices are available second hand at low prices.

Using plug-ins has many advantages including convenience, the ability to use many instances, and additional parameters, but somehow they fail to produce the dramatic and rich effects that hardware outboard is capable of.

There may be many reasons for this, perhaps the primary ones are ..

1. the algorithms are too precise
2. unnecessary additional parameters make it harder to create what are essentially simple effects
3. editing with a mouse is a chore
4. lazy users rely too much on presets which are designed to demonstrate a plug-ins capabilities rather than be genuinely useful in a mix

The truth is that if you take the time to understand tape delay and what the parameters are really doing to the sound wave, it's easy to take control and produce exactly the effects you are after.

And of course that is exactly what we are attempting to do with our current time domain effects video playlist .. http://www.projectstudiohandbook.com/videos/playlists/time-domain-effects/introduction-what-are-time-domain-effects/introduction-what-are-time-domain-effects-video.php

Thanks for reading
FairFax