Podcast: Episode 13

Introduction

Hi, I’m Ronan Fitzgerald, from light audio recording dot com, the only dedicated resource for compact and affordable audio recording solutions. This is episode 13, of the light audio recording podcast. It’s October thirty first – woooOOOOooo – twenty nineteen.

How’re’ya?

It’s still fairly quiet in the music gear industry, as companies quietly get ready for Black Friday, followed by Christmas, followed by NAMM. But there’s news from Gibson guitars and the law, an interesting update from BandLab, and a few other things relevant to compact and affordable audio recording.

Hopefully, this inspires you to plug in and make some music this weekend.

Item one

This year, Gibson are going just wild in what feels like any courtroom they can find.

In June, the European Union Intellectual Property Office ruled that Gibson couldn’t demonstrate that the flying v shape was distinctly associated with the company.

And on October eleventh, they ruled the same thing for the Firebird guitar shape.

According to gearnews dot com, the main case the office had was that a regular, non-guitar enthusiast person wouldn’t be able to identify the shape as a Gibson.

Further, they didn’t care too much for the length of time it took Gibson to make any claim on the shape. The guitar was launched in nineteen sixty three. Therefore Gibson had fifty six years to get the finger out. But they did not.

I haven’t seen any updates on Gibson’s Stateside legal challenges, but it’ll be interesting to see if this episode sets a precedent.

Item two

On October twenty fifth, BandLab published a new blog post, outlining a new feature that should supplement what artists are already doing on it.

I’m going to pronounce this as Band Link, but it’s stylized as B-N-D dot link.

So, what Band Link is, is essentially a super lightweight website – we love lightweight stuff right here – where BandLab artists share all their other digital spaces in one place.

So on this Band Link page, they can list their website, as well as social medias like Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. Or updates like revisions to your current BandLab project or upcoming shows.

It’s an interesting idea, and certainly helpful for finding out more about artists you happen upon on BandLab. Apparently you can list up to one hundred links.

Of course, I’ve been playing with, so feel free to visit B-N-D dot link, forward slash light audio recording.

Item three

On October seventeenth, Electro-Harmonix announced a compact and affordable new amp on their blog.

The five millimeter, is the latest pedal sized power amp from the company. This follows the forty four watt magnum forty four, and the twenty two watt magnum twenty two.

The five millimeter has a two point five watt output, and good for eight or sixteen ohm connections. I’m not sure how it would fly connected directly to an audio interface.

The five millimeter is out now, priced at sixty three US dollars and eighty cents. And, it ships with its own power supply.

Although these power amps tend to be aimed at guitarists as a lightweight gigging solution, between its low output, compact size, and low cost, it seems like a viable light audio recording solution too.

Used in line with a preamp of some kind to give it some warmth and character, it could make for quite a tidy setup.

Item four

And finally, if you follow the light audio recording website, you know my Beyerdynamic DT two forty PROs are my headphones of choice.

Obviously, Beyerdynamic’s range of headphones can get as expensive as you like, with the one hundred and seventy nine US dollar DT seven seventy PROs their standard premium ones.

For those of us not in a position to spend the guts of two hundred dollars on headphones, budget brand Behringer released a cheaper version of the DT seven seventy, called the BH seven seventy.

Very subtle and clever indeed.

But, visually, it’s actually laughable how much of a clone they are.

In terms of the actual differences though, in terms of performance, the only real distinction is a slight difference in frequency response.

Unfortunately, none of the technical data on their product pages are comparable.

But hey, if you’re looking for cheap studio headphones, check them out.

Wrap up

And that is all I have for you. I’ll be back on Thursday, November twenty eighth with episode fourteen.

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, Facebook, Pinterest, Linkedin, and Spotify.

I’m Ronan Fitzgerald, this was episode 13. Have a great weekend recording your music, and I’ll catch you next time.