A ‘must watch’ for aspiring engineers

Nate — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:32:10 +0000

To begin: While skimming through posts on Twitter the other day, I found one that really excited me from Dave Rat of Rat Sound. Dave’s work was brought to my attention when I did a two day trip to Hartford, CT and Columbia, Maryland to see Blink 182’s summer 2009 reunion tour. At both shows I was in complete awe over the band’s sound. Travis Barker, being the technical drummer he is, had a kick drum that sounded more like a doomsday cannon and the clarity of the entire performance was evident even through the lower end of the audio spectrum. Fortunately, through my ability to follow people on Twitter, I tracked down the man responsible for exposing my ears to a live sound I have never witnessed before. To my luck, Dave documents his work well online. After discovering his blog following Blink’s summer tour, I spent almost an entire day reading through his technical details. While the majority of it is out of my league, Dave has become a great influence towards my aspirations.

And now to the next: While researching room acoustics, I was introduce to the company RealTraps based right here in New Milford, Connecticut. I first heard of RealTraps while reading through Mastering Audio by Bob Katz (Big thanks to Tom MacLean for providing me with a copy of this book). RealTraps came to my attention again several weeks ago as I began a more in depth look at the art of treating rooms for better acoustic accuracy. The owner of RealTraps, Ethan Winer, has proved himself to be a seemingly endless amount of knowledge to any level of recording engineer or audiophile. Ethan Winer tops my list of the ‘most helpful’ and I look forward to meeting him one day (fingers crossed).

Onto the connection: As I stated, I was stumbling through Twitter posts and came across Dave Rat’s latest. It was a YouTube link to a ‘must watch’ video for anyone in the industry. I fixed myself a delicious bowl of mac n cheese and prepared myself for what would most likely be some great new insight. To my surprise, the owner of the video was none other than Ethan Winer. I gave myself a pat on the back for looking up to both of these greats and dove right into the video.

To get to the point: Ethan’s video is from an Audio Myths workshop lead by himself, James Johnston and Poppy Crum that took place at AES 2009. Like many before me said, this video is a ‘must watch’ and I couldn’t agree more. Here it is:

Gear List

Nate — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 01:51:13 +0000

Although I love browsing over gear that professionals use, I’m still a firm believer of “it’s how you use it.” None the less, here’s my current list.

Drums:
SJC Custom Drums – flat white
Zildjian A Custom Medium crash cymbals
Zildjian Mastersound hi-hats, Zil Bel
DW Hardware

Studio:
Digital Interface
iMac OS X Snow Leopard
Logic Studio 9
Reason 4
Apogee Ensemble 24bit/192kHz

Monitoring
KRK RP 8 Active Monitors
KRK RP 10s Subwoofer
Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro-80 Headphones

Outboard
JLM Audio TMP-8 Mic pre
SPL Transient Designer
Aphex 204 Aural Exciter
POD XT Bass Pro
Palmer PDI-03 DI
Rocktron Guitar Silencer

Microphones
Audio-Technica AT2020
Shure SM58
Shure SM57
Shure Beta 52a
Shure SM81 (2)
Sennheiser MD421 (2)
BLUE Baby Bottle
Neumann KM184 (2)

Other
sE Reflexion Filter
PACS Audio Cables
Monster Pro Power Conditioners

Amps & Instruments
Yamaha Arius Digital Piano
M-Audio Oxygen 49 USB MIDI Controller
Fender Telecaster
Mark Hoppus Signature Fender Jazz Bass
Ampeg SVT-3 Pro Bass Head
SJC Custom flat white drumset
LP Shaker
Cabasa

Nate Faulkenberry » Audio Engineering

A ‘must watch’ for aspiring engineers

Gear List