Audio: The cables aren't made of gold anyway!

I always hear people talking about cables and tone, whether they are guitarists or Hi-fi enthusiasts, and I think there is quite a lot of dodgy folk-lore about what is actually going on with regard to the design decisions made on using certain metals, like gold, nickel and copper, in their construction. I have a certain amount of experience in this field and would like to put a few things straight.

Film: Making Movies

I've been out and about with a few film students; this time helping, to some degree, with their grad films. The first one I was essentially renting a Compact Flash card to them as they were only supplied with a total of 20GB of recording space for their 5D mkII. The second I was doing boom work using inadequate sound gear in awful weather conditions. The third was a another one I did sound on, but a couple of month later. Anyway, while I wasn't busy I got the chance to take some production stills during the shoots. Enjoy.

Images after the jump.

Audio: Learning Mastering

I've decided that it would be worth my while learning how to master music. So I thought I'd share my experiences on here as it happens. I'm not really following any guides. Maybe the odd pointer here or there, but mainly just working from my own experience and instinctually feeling my way through the process. Given that it is said of the process said "the better the source material, the better then end product" I thought I'd have a bash at some of the worst (audio quality wise) source material I've ever recorded!

Last week I tried my hand at re-mastering a piece of music I recorded with my 'band' at Uni.

The piece was painstakingly arranged in an entire day after my friend, and guitarist, James, walked the length of the corridor and said "I've just come up with this awesome acoustic thing... We have to work out how to make a song around it!" or something to that effect. So I called my friend Chaz, also a guitarist, who owned a bass and told him to come over for a jam. It's pretty heavily influenced by a couple of Coldplay tracks which were into at the time. (I still stand by my opinion that the Blue Room EP is pretty magical)