Gear Review: Sennheiser HD 26 Pro Heaphones

     Once again I return to my search for the perfect set of headphones for everything I do. Something that can have me covered for location sound recording, studio recording & mixing, general music listening, gaming and travel headphones. It's a tale fraught with many obstacles, but represents a real challenge for any set of headphones.
     Today I'm taking a look into the Sennheiser HD 26 Pro on ear headphones. It promises to be a different sort of beast to anything I might have used before and has a price tag to suggest I could be on to a winner.

Gear Review: Audio Technica ATH M50x Headphones

   Audio Technica's ATH M50x headphones are the latest revision to their very popular ATH M50 cans. They represent a professional solution for people using the headphones in a wide variety of scenarios. They are the same great headphones, with those great full sounding drivers, but with a very useful collection of detachable cables. You get standard length curly and straight cables, as well as a long straight one, for those occasional long runs you get. So lets take a closer look.

Studio: Now Finished!

I have just completed work on my own studio!!!

Here's a quick video run-down of it:




For a full kit list, hit the Studio tab on my website (http://charliehurst.co.uk)

Twitter: @chazhurst

New Audio Stuff: iZotope Ozone 5 and RX2

   I took the plunge a few days ago and decided to actually spend some money on the activity I like to call my profession. Based on a wide selection of reviews and from speaking to fellow "sound guys" I bought iZotopes Ozone 5 mastering suite and RX 2 noise reduction software. I decided that I couldn't afford the Advanced versions but the lower priced standard editions are still incredibly powerful tools.

Go to the iZotope website for more information on them and their advanced bretheren:

Ozone 5
RX2

   My initial impressions are extremely positive. Even though I'm no expert at operating them, the various presets are actually very good and work as excellent starting positions for most work you'd care to do in them.

Gear Review: AKG K271 MKII studio headphones

     The AKG K271 mkII headphones are the, closed-back, bigger brother to AKG's own K240 mkII headphones. They feature very similar design aspects, but have a few little tweaks to make them much more suitable in use as your go-to set of professional cans. Keen readers will know that I reviewed the K240 mkII's last year, and that I liked them quite a lot; but they weren't without their flaws (not least their open backed-ness).

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)