RECW

Focusrite has upped the game at the high end of their interfaces. The Red 4Pre has dual Thunderbolt 2, dual Pro Tools HD DigiLink, and Dante connectivity… that covers a LOT of options for now and into the future.

Four premium preamps are part of the package, and these are remote-controllable with regards to gain, stereo linking, polarity and phantom power.

Not really “magic”, but monitoring your mixing through a “boom box” can be very helpful in getting killer mixes.

Monster Mix Engineer Chris Lord-Alge (Green Day, Shinedown, My Chemical Romance, Muse, Rise Against, Slipknot, Breaking Benjamin, Cage the Elephant) spends about a third of his mixing time monitoring through a 90’s vintage Sony ZS-M1.

His famed usage has driven up the price on this particular box (about $300 if you can find), but there are many similar items you can get for $50 or less.

LA Reid got a big “thank you” from Meghan Trainor at the Grammys a few nights ago, and Recording Workshop has a bit of a “thank you” for him too. Some trivia from the early days of Recording Workshop made it into LA Reid’s new book “Sing To Me”, and this also lead to uncovering an interesting story about the journey a music sample can take.

Back in 1976, LA Reid was the drummer in a Cincinnati band called Pure Essence. The song “Third Rock” was one of a few songs ever recorded by this young and funky group, and it was done in Recording Workshop’s Studio C. This recording showcased an immense talent and helped launch great things ahead, but the small run of 45’s that existed made the record itself a bit of a rarity.

Years later, some copies of “Third Rock” turned up in Southern California and became inspiration for a new breed of underground hip hop artists. Samples of the drums and bass became the foundation for the song “Clean Living” by RJD2 in 2004.

Fast forward to now, and the game NBA 2K16 has included “Clean Living” in it’s soundtrack. So those LA Reid drum tracks recorded way back in 1976 in our Studio C groove on as players fight it out on the virtual basketball courts of their PlayStations and Xbox’s.

The Grammys are one week away and RECW grad Jacquire King is once again part of the limelight. Jacquire produced “Chaos and the Calm” for singer/songwriter James Bay, and it’s been nominated as “Best Rock Album”. Further acclaim for this project is the song “Hold Back the River” getting a nom as “Best Rock Song”. James Bay gets even more breakout attention with a nomination as “Best New Artist”.

Jacquire’s Grammy wins so far include engineering and mixing “Mule Variations” for Tom Waits, engineering “Blues Singer” for Buddy Guy, and co-producing, engineering and mixing the single “Use Somebody” which won “Record of the Year” for Kings of Leon.

Ethereal Music Production for 2016? Yes! Some of the new gear that is emerging greatly expands the role of CAT5 connectivity.

DiGiGrid is joint effort of Waves and DiGiCo, two companies that certainly know a LOT about digital audio technologies. Their products so far have been on the higher end of studio installations, but at the NAMM event a few weeks ago, they showed a system designed for smaller setups.

One thing that is intriguing about this system is that it utilizes Power-over-Ethernet (PoE). This will eliminate the need to run separate power supply connections to the interfaces at each musician's “station”. Further simplifying the setup is the integration of both mic/guitar inputs and headphone/cue outputs in one box. No need to have separate cabling for the ins & outs. One ethernet cable to each musician can do it all!