Podcast: Episode 4

Introduction

Hey there light audio recordists!

What is going on? I hope you’re well and that you had a wonderful Christmas, whatever you do about the matter. This is Ronan Fitzgerald from light audio recording dot com and it’s Thursday December twenty seventh, twenty eighteen.

This is episode four of the light audio recording podcast. Thank you so much for checking out this five-minute round-up of news from the past month in the world of light audio recording.

In exactly one month, winter NAMM will be taking place in Anaheim in California. So this month, we’ll mostly be looking at that.

Item one

Previously on our light audio recording podcast, we mentioned that Gibson was in the midst of a shake-up to avoid going out of business, including a new CEO, James Curleigh.

Perhaps as a follow up to that, or even as a response to raised eyebrows at not attending NAMM last year, Gibson have confirmed their presence at NAMM 2019.

Gibson have already announced their 2019 line up. According to Digital Music news dot com, it’s a slimmer line up, with what looks like greater effort to offer more affordable models. Although, there are a couple of token overpriced Les Pauls.

Gibson will share their stand with other names from the brand family, including Epiphone, Kramer, and Steinberger.

We’ll see if this marks the start of a return to glory for Gibson. Make no mistake: there’s life in this old dog yet. You can be sure we’ll be keeping an eye here at Light Audio Recording.

Item two

If you’re an unsigned musician, and you’re lucky enough to be attending NAMM, you might want to look out for Dynaudio outside the event center.

According to Music Radar, the loudspeaker brand have converted a couple of shipping containers into recording studios. Unsigned musicians can win one of twelve recording sessions with award-winning producer, Ashley Shepherd on Dynaudio’s website.

Because this is about publicity, one side of the shipping container studio is glass, so everybody can see your pretty face. The audio is also piped outside, so no bad takes, OK?

It’s an awesome opportunity to get a professionally produced recording. But, as always with things that sound great, there’s a little catch. In this case, it’s that you only get an hour of studio time.

For the cost of going to NAMM, you and your band can buy a full light audio recording setup, and record as much as you want and need.

Item three

Rapidly rising stars of the pro audio world, Aston Microphones have revealed a very cool new mic that they’ll be showcasing at NAMM.

Believe me, if this is well-priced, it could be such a great part of light audio recording.

The Aston Stealth has three key features that make it super versatile.

Firstly, it has four switchable modes, depending on what you’re recording. You can choose between male vocals, female vocals, guitars, or one for a vintage, ribbon mic feel.

Its second cool feature is that it has an automatic phantom mode detector. It works with or without phantom power, but if it detects it, it’ll switch over to it’s third cool feature.

And said third cool feature is an onboard Class A mic preamp. This preamp will amplify both halves of the wave from capsule to output, which should deliver a better signal-to-noise performance.

Item four

And finally, if you’re going to NAMM, and you’d like to extend your knowledge of recording music beyond the realm of light audio recording, you’ll be well looked after.

The folks at the Audio Engineering Society will be running their Pro Sound Symposium, aimed at teaching you how to improve your live and studio sound engineering skills.

They’ll be running sessions with top industry professional, in a mix of talks and hands-on tutorials. Unfortunately, because this is their actual job that they rely on to feed their families, it costs a bunch of money on top of your admission to NAMM itself, and even further costs for the hands-on training.

And you can guarantee that the gear they’ll be using will cost a pretty penny more than what it costs to start in light audio recording.

Wrap up

That is all for this month. I’ll be back towards the end of January with a round up of the latest light audio recording news. Maybe there’ll a couple of surprises from NAMM to talk about?

Have a great weekend recording your music, and I hope you have a happy, wonderful – and musical – New Year.

If you haven’t already, please subscribe to the light audio recording blog at light audio recording dot com, where you can follow my exploration of recording music in an affordable and compact way.

You can also find light audio recording on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

I’m Ronan Fitzgerald, you’ve been listening to episode four. I’ll catch you next time.