Podcast: Episode 9

Introduction

Hey light audio recordists, what is up?

Are you well? Because you’re looking well. You’re listening to Ronan Fitzgerald, from light audio recording dot com and today is Thursday June twenty seventh, twenty nineteen. You’re listening to episode 9 of the light audio recording podcast.

How’re’ya?

In this episode, we discuss – probably pretty obviously – Gibson getting all defensive of their brand, and look at some of the launches that are happening at Summer NAMM.

Hopefully, all of this will inspire you to plug in and make some music this weekend.

Item one

If you follow light audio recording for a while, you’ll see that both Gibson and Dean guitars are pretty frequently used.

Which is funny, because Gibson recently launched legal proceedings against Dean’s parent company, based largely of trademark infringement.

Gibson’s financial woes over recent years have been well-documented. And, it was just under a year ago that they had a well-publicized restructure of their C-suite, with plenty of fresh blood.

It seems said new C-suite’s solution to said financial woes is to sue companies whose guitars have a resemblance to Gibson, even if said resemblance has been going on for forty years.

It started with a video on Gibson’s YouTube, being very adamant that they would be protecting the brand. Apparently, the video was so tragic, it received enough backlash for Gibson to remove it.

Next up, came news that Gibson was suing Dean’s parent company, Armadillo Enterprises, because of alleged trademark infringements on Dean and Luna models.

And now, just a couple of days ago, Gibson have set up a form on their website, encouraging musicians to rat out counterfeits.

Amidst all the attacks on other makers, Gibson don’t appear to have done a single damn thing to make their current slew of models more appealing to more players.

Item two

Now, Summer NAMM takes place in Nashville next month, from July eighteenth until the twentieth. Although not anywhere near as big, there are a few bits worth noting.

Unfortunately, none of these bits are exclusively in the interest of light audio recording.

The Verve were a massive part of what was going on when I was getting seriously interested in music as a spotty youth, and the sound of guitarist, Nick McCabe, was integral to that.

UK brand, Lucem Guitars, designed their Paradox model in conjunction with McCabe, and it was originally available as a limited run.

Now, according to premier guitar dot com, they’re releasing a fancy pants new deluxe version of the instrument, to be launched at summer NAMM.

The guitar comes with five pots, through which you can make up to twenty one different sounds. The guitar is made from maple, with a through-neck, which gives further sonic qualities. And, you can choose an ebony or rosewood fingerboard.

While this is interesting, it’s not quite within the affordability that we look for in light audio recording: prices start at four thousand, four hundred and sixty US dollars.

Item three

Moving onto a more-tech-oriented launch at summer NAMM, we’re going to talk about a wearable.

Anyway, the website, guitar girl mag dot com, highlight the forthcoming wearable for musicians from a company called Soundbrenner.

They’re launching a product called The Core. It’s a watch-type wearable, and built into it is a vibrating metronome, a tuner, a decibel meter, and last, but by no means least, and actual watch that tells the time. It has other standard smart watch functions like date, push notifications, and stopwatch and timer.

It’s currently available on order from IndieGogo, with prices starting at one hundred and seventy nine US dollars. Again, I’m not sure a light audio recordist will be running to get one of these. For example, all its functions are nice, but not essential in a watch,. That cost covers a mic, stand, audio interface, and cables.

Item four

And finally, Summer NAMM 2019 sees the launch of a thing called Software dot NAMM.

This is possibly the most relevant bit to light audio recordists.

The format and specifics aren’t one hundred percent clear. But from what I can make out, it’s a dedicated section of the event to the less tangible parts of music creation: the software.

It makes sense, and, if anything, it feels a little bit late. Think about all the software we use just in light audio recording. For example, we use BandLab via Chrome, we use apps for multitracking and for working out drums.

It’s great to see NAMM show progress like this, and it’ll be interesting to see how it goes.

Wrap up

And that, my dear friends, is that. The next time you hear from me will be the end of June twenty nineteen.

If you haven’t already, please subscribe to the light audio recording blog at light audio recording dot com, where you can follow the 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 nine. Have a great weekend recording your music, and I’ll catch you next time.