The concept of magnetic recording to a moving tape was invented by the German-Austrian engineer Fritz Pfleumer and received a patent back in 1928. The basic idea was to translate the voltage from the audio signal straight into magnetic energy, which then induces magnetic particles on a tape (moving along the inductor at constant speed). These particles manage to store the audio information. The whole process goes the other way around for recall.
the mobile setup
As shown in the pics, this was my mobile setup I’ve used recently during my Barcelona trip: Read More »
Density mk II
A short compendium on digital audio compression techniques.
Basic compressor configurations
Compression vs. limiting
Technically speaking the same principles are used in audio signal limiting and compression processors but just the transfer curves and envelope follower settings are different. Ultra fast attack rates and high ratio amounts are used for limiting purposes which causes just very few peaks to pass on a certain threshold.
In digital implementations limiting processors can be more strict due to look-ahead and clever gain prediction functions which guarantees that no peak information passes the threshold. That is called brickwall limiting then.
Some time ago I’ve become part of a music project which is heading more towards the dancefloor compatible side of electronica. We are currently testing Ableton Live and thinking about switching over to use it as the main production tool. I’m undecided yet. What do you think about Live – is this really the ultimate solution for electronic based music production? What are the known drawbacks?
TesslaPRO, a transient aware signal saturator, is released by now as a VST audio plug-in for PC/Win compatible systems. Read More »
Transients and so on
This article could have been an esoteric one but then it would probably be titled as “the magic is where the change happens” or something like that. Don’t worry, this is just about some findings and myth on audio transient processing and it’s, errm, reincarnation in the upcoming TesslaPRO VST audio plug-in. Read More »
The TesslaPRO audio processor is aimed to take the critically acclaimed TesslaSE signal saturator on to the next level.
TesslaPRO
TesslaPRO will feature some really exciting new and unique approach on signal saturation modeling. Read More »
transfer curves
Beside the envelope design for the control signal the compressors transfer curve is the most influencing part speaking in terms of the resulting sound impression. If we ignore any time dependend behaviour of the compressor for the moment then it basically works like this: Signals at a level below a certain threshold are passing through the device unaltered. Reaching the threshold level the input signal gets lowered by a certain ratio. The result is a so called “hard-knee” transfer curve. Read More »
I’ve missed to visit Muskimesse this year (again) and therefore still looking for some interesting news on the web. Nothing spectacular found so far, no UAD Fatso announcement, nothing new about the Waldorf Largo, …
What’s your highlights from the Messe this year?
View more by category: Audio FX Plug-Ins (41), development (16), Chitchat (32), Sound Design (3), Music Production (6), gear (4), sampling (1), recording (1), Uncategorized (1), Virtual Instruments (1). Or by month: November 2009. Or visit the Complete Archive.
