Ronan C Murphy

What are your favorite speakers for checking mixes and masters? I use big three ways for most of my mastering work, but always fine tune on tiny speakers. I have some utility speakers from a company called Wohler that I have been using. I will also sometimes route audio to the speakers in my computer monitor.

It changes from project, but when I am recording acoustic drums/percussion, I spend a lot of time making sure the drums sound like I want them to sound before I put up the mics. Most of the time I should be able to put up 3-4 mics and have something pretty close to the sound I am going for. i will almost always do quite a few spot mics, but they are use for emphasis or or creativity.

I am doing some re-wiring at the studio, and one of my interfaces is USB. I am trying to figure out the longest length of USB cable I could get away with and still have robust data transfer. Anyone have expertise with this?

I am always bouncing around to several. I use: SPL Hawkeye, MeterPlugs Dynameter, Brainworx bx_meter and the meter on the Slate FG-X. The funny thing is that I still lean on the Slate FG-X quite a bit. I rarely use the limiter part of it and the meter is not super refined, but it is big, scalable and I know really well. I know how what I see on that meter will translate.

Satriani is great, and a good guy. I got to work on the G3 tour for a while. Welcome to the world of recording. There is a lot to figure out , but it is fun. My advice is going to be to keep things a simple as possible. What you are looking for at this point is a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) set up, which is essentially recording software. When people ask what software they should get I always tell them to get whatever most of their friends are using, because that will get you the most free tech support. That said, since you already have a presonus interface, you might want to take a look at the presonus recording software called "studio one". Lots of my talented friends like using it and the entry level version is about $70. Studio One will probably have most of the plugins you need to get up and running making music. If you want expanded options for a drum program EZdrummer sounds great and is fairly easy to use. Also, add a Shure SM57 to your mic set up. Every studio needs an SM57 Most important is to get a few tools and start making music and mastering those few tools. If you buy lots of new software at the beginning it will get overwhelming. I have been doing digital audio for decades and I even get overwhelmed if I get excited and buy too many new plugins on black friday.

I recently started mixing a project for a great producer, and the recording is well done, but the 24bit tracks are all full of really hot levels clipping or just on the verge of clipping. I can not for the life of me understand why anyone would record voices or instruments at 24bit bit with hot levels. I can understand it in a 16bit environment, but I see no upside to it in higher bit depth. I have never heard a good reason to do it, but I am open to ideas if anyone has any reason why one would ever want to do that.

When I did a live album for Chucho Valdesn y Groupo Irakere I put surface mount mics taped to the inside of the lid and kept the lid closed all the way (only real option because of the insane levels of their monitors). The results where actually really good. I am actually not sure if I used Crown PZMs or C-Ducers.

I am definitely curious to check it out, but I am always apprehensive to drive into a new primary DAW. I can sit down in front of Pro Tools and work fast, and that outweighs potential positives about other DAWs for me.