We’re back, I’m in black for another FAQ Friday!
It’s 9 or 10 pm on Thursday and before we get into today’s featured question, I want to go over this brand new plugin from Waves!
I’ve been in London since Tuesday which was rather wonderful, and just flew back a couple of hours ago. We went to Abbey Road Studio 3 where they most famously recorded Revolver by The Beatles. – It’s become a very famous mixing room.
We went there to for the launch and to try out the new Waves NX and I will say I’m very impressed. What I love about this plugin is it’s an Idea that I had a while ago and they went ahead and did it.
As you know I like using headphones, sometimes I’m forced to use headphones and sometimes it’s a choice but the reality with headphones as I’m sure you know, is you get a full center sound because your only hearing left and right.
You do not get that Idea of the center you get from speakers where you get a little of the left speaker in your right ear and the right speaker in your left.
You also don’t get the depth from front to back like you would with speakers.
So what the brilliant people at Waves did is they spent a considerable amount of time in Abbey Road’s Studio 3 emulating that room’s near, mid and far set of speakers.
I was sitting with one of the guys at waves and I had the headphones on and we were clicking through the plugin. On the nears, it felt as real as if we were listening to a pair of small-medium size speakers sitting on a console.
I by-passed it and suddenly it was super in my ears straight forward headphones sound.
Then on the mids and It really felt like I was sitting a little back I had a bit more sound. Then while we were still talking he hit the far speakers and gods honest truth I thought that some speakers had been turned on in the room.
I took off my headphones wondering where the sounds came from cause the speakers sounded like they’re about 12 feet away. it’s unbelievable how realistic it sounds.
This is a really good idea because you can trust your ears now, you can trust the results you’re going to get. The headphones have an emulation that fit them and if you have any of the 10-12 headphones they have emulations for right now (they are adding more to it) you will basically get the sound of being in Abbey Road’s Studio 3.
I can guarantee it because I did it, I went and sat in the studio 3, listened to the same samples of music in the same position and then went to the other room at the laptop and listened.
It is remarkable, It feels like you are sitting in one of the most famous, world-class studios in the world mixing. – It’s a really really smart idea.
It comes with a head tracker what goes onto the top of your headphones that tracks your head movements.
There is so much more to talk about with this, so this is just a peripheral look at Waves new NX plugin and I’ll get more into it in my full review.
Now let’s get into FAQ Friday!
Today’s featured question is “How and where do you obtain insurance for your studio and its gear? Is there a specialist company that you use?”
I don’t use a specialist company because I use my home insurance. About 6 months ago we went and did some inventory and It took a while and we have a lot of gear.
We had to list everything and then make sure it was on the insurance.
I do know from personal experience that there are some great insurance companies. I would love it if people could give us some names of companies that they use in the YouTube comments.
I do also know that musicians union does have insurance available for gear as well. If there is a musicians union in your area I might try them first.
However, if there are any particular insurance companies that people want to recommend I am all ears.
I know I have my solution and I know a ton of musicians, ones that musicians union but please let us know, this is the wonderful thing about this community, we’re all here to help each other.
We cover the following questions during this episode of FAQ Friday!
• How and where do you obtain insurance for your studio and its gear? Is there a specialist company that you use? (4:50)
• What Monitors would you choose for mixing and mastering? Focal SM9, Focal Trio 11, Genelec 8351 or… ?(5:53)
• Should I print the raw tracks before applying EQ and other Effects to the Tracks? I Always apply all the effects to the raw mono tracks am I wrong? (10:32)
• Do you always render MIDI virtual instruments from MIDI files to audio WAV files when mixing? (13:54)