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)

Photography: Adobe Lightroom 3: Presets

Adobe Lightroom is awesome software, but the built in presets are a bit uninspired. Mainly designed for JPG work-flow, they don't use the controls available enough to really pull the best out of RAW images from DSLRs and high end digital compacts. A RAW image file has a lot more dynamic range to play with; so much so, they can often look a little flat to begin with, but by applying a few tweaks and touches you can make average images look a little more special and special ones really pop out of the screen or page.

I often find myself looking at images which require similar settings to that which I've used before. So I created presets from the settings on images I liked. By selecting the right settings to save I found myself with presets I could apply to any image I'd already tweaked and get close to the result I was looking for. 

The two in the zip file, downloadable from below, are the two that I use as a starting point for most pictures.

- One is a Black and White process with a customised colour curve that I find works very well on people portraits. Some images need a bit of extra exposure dialled in after this has been applied, but like I've said these are a great starting point for an image.

- The other is a colour cross process, which I have dubbed  "Film" Look. It gives images a gold/orange highlight combined with a teal shadow. It also dials in a saturation cut and a black level boost, for a high contrast image. Some images need that Black boost to be pulled back down and the saturation boosted to compensate.

It's worth mentioning that I use a Sony a300, with Minolta, Sony and Tamron glass. Any other system might get different results.

Download (from SkyDrive)

Disclaimer: I provide any files for you to download in the knowledge that they contain no viruses or the like. By downloading and using this file you accept that I am not responsible for any harm that may come to you or your computer as a direct result of doing so.

Audio: Handy Free VST plugins

A list of free to download VST plugins that I've been finding very useful over the course of the last year, with some links to where you can get your hands on them.

The Kjaerhus Classic series - available here - The Classic Master Limiter is very useful as a quick loudness tool.

VacuumSound RIAA - vacuumsound plugins - The RIAA plugin allows you to use a line level input as an input for a raw turntable signal

SSL X-ISM - SSL free plug-in - A handy metering tool to make sure you aren't making too loud or over-compressing on the master buss.

Studio Devil BVC - StudioDevil BVC - A single amp model from their main guitar modelling plug-in. A very decent vintage sound.

Arturia Analogue Factory Demo - Arturia downloads - VST synth. 137 presets from the full version of analogue factory. Saving of presets disabled and two of the synth models have been disabled. The rest is fully functional and unlimited use.


Native Instruments Kore 2 Player - NI Kore Player - A large collection of synth modules and effects from the full version of Native Instruments Kore 2. There are also further collections available, normally when NI release a new version of any of their synth engines.

Hopefully that's a good place for most people to start their collections. If you know any excellent free plug-ins feel free to leave a comment and I'll check them out!