Building a stand for K+H O 300 monitors

Horizontal active monitors present a challenge solved with K+H bracket and The Stand from Blue Sky

Blue Sky's The Stand with K+H O 300 mounting bracket (Figure 1)

The heavy and horizontal Klein + Hummel O 300 monitors need a sturdy monitor stand. At 30 lbs each and costing $5,000 a pair, you don’t want them dropping to the floor from 3 feet up.

This article is the second in a two part about speaker stands and the K+H O 300. The first part provides details on Blue Sky’s The Stand.

When I got the monitors in 2009, Studio Economik suggested the Sound Anchors STUDADJR for monitor stands at $800 a pair.

I didn’t get a cheaper solution than Sound Anchors but I did get one that looks better and has more flexibility in speaker location.  Continue reading

Blue Sky The Stand review

A classy studio monitor stand that can carry the weight

Blue Sky The Stand (illustration BSI and NJN)

Studio monitor stands seem to come in two types – low cost and shaky or high cost and ugly except for the elegant Blue Sky International The Stand.

The Stand is a premium priced stand that combines good looks with steady support and adjustability.

The Stand, generically named, can hold near field monitors up to 80 lbs each. I’m not sure if I’d go put them to that test, although they are very stable at 30 lbs.  Continue reading

Little Labs VOG the essential bass tool

Universal Audio plug-in delivers Little Labs bass processing you’ll want to have

UAD has just released the $149 plug-in modeled on Little Labs 500-series lunchbox module. It makes mixing the low end of your recordings a breeze at a small price.
Continue reading

Can you resist the tempation of Black Friday

Thanksgiving Sales have started at Newegg, Tiger Direct and NCIX


Since the day after Halloween I have been getting sales flyers in my email for Black Friday.

The deals are too good to resist with cool computer parts up to 60% off. I’m already getting the custom build bug.

Since I was a child, I’ve been building things. Log cabins, Mechano sets, plastic and wooden models. Continue reading

Happy 70th Birthday Bob Dylan

Make You Feel My Love

Make You Feel My Love

Today, May 24th, 2011 is Bob Dylan’s 70th Birthday.

Two weeks ago I challenged readers to do something special for his birthday, considering the lifetime gift of his music.

Last Monday I decided to record a song, Make You Feel My Love, for his birthday.

Happy Birthday Mr. Dylan. Enjoy.  Song follows the break. Continue reading

How to manage cables on the cheap

Low cost PVC pipe cable management behind computer recording workstation (starting from top, left to right: near field monitors with LCD monitors (center), power supply, preamp, monitor switch, AD/DA converter, power supply, vocal channel preamp.

 

PVC drainage pipe can make a handy cable management system

After living with a spaghetti jungle of wires behind my computer recording workstation I found a great, low-cost solution using Google. Total cost outlay was less than $20 at Home Depot.

There are hundreds of suggestions for managing those cables but none seemed as sensible or low cost as 4″ drainage pipe cut in half.  Continue reading

Time to get back to the studio

Recording desk with monitor bridge, a work in progress

One day to finish wiring studio monitor bridge before recording Dylan’s Birthday song

I’m under the gun to finish re-wiring the studio today if I want to get a song recorded for Bob Dylan’s 70th Birthday on May 24, 2011.

Last week I tore down my home recording studio to renovate.  After a week of small projects, this body is protesting “too much work.” Continue reading

Sonar X1b now ready for prime time

Sonar X1b Skylight interface (click for larger image)

Cakewalk finally has a stable version of its new Sonar digital audio workstation

After an abortive release of Sonar X1 in December 2010, Cakewalk has re-released the program as Sonar X1b.  Continue reading

Software dongles on Antiques Roadshow

iLok dongle

Companies live in fear spending their time looking for pirates. Write good software, price it reasonably and you will sell enough to make a profit.

The last niche of the software market that hasn’t grown up is the music business. The business practices are twenty years old.

Many companies in audio and recording require a dongle to use their software. Dongles disappeared from the face of the earth in the rest of the computer business around 1990.  Continue reading

Noisy Nvidia GTX 460 video card makes computer quieter

Lowering noise in recording studio happened accidentally when a GTX 460 video is added to already loud audio recording computer

eVGA GTX 460 video card, quieter than fanless video card

My home studio workstation got remarkably quieter when I added a new video card that should have made it worse.

The Nvidia GTX 460 card, last year’s fast card, has an average sound profile of 50 dB but reduced the computer’s noise level by 7 dB to 34 dB.

That was the quieter than the computer with a fanless ATI 4350 card. It doesn’t make sense but the results were stunning.

This astounded me and the folks at silentpcreview who review computers and components for audio recording.

It’s been a two year project to build the ultimate home recording workstation or DAW (digital audio workstation).

After selecting everything from the hard drives, fans and video cards for their low sound output, I still couldn’t get the noise threshold below 41 dB.  Continue reading

Cakewalk Sonar X1 audio recording software not ready for prime time

Despite the glowing reports in the audio and recording trade press, Cakewalk Sonar X1 is not ready for use in production recording of music

Sonar X1 Skylight interface (photo gearwire)

Cakewalk’s Sonar X1 digital audio recording software (DAW) was released in December to initial enthusiasm amongst Cakewalk’s customers and then bitter disappointment as the program literally would not work as advertised.

Cakewalk Sonar X1 has the potential to be one of the best DAWs with technical features second to none, great midi and editing tools, an array of free 64-bit VST plugins, samples and included software like Dimension Pro.

Update – Sonar X1b now ready for prime time

As a long time Sonar user, I hope they get it right sooner than later.

Sonar X1 sports a new and improved interface along with several excellent new features like ProChannel. All of that is tarnished by the inadequate testing before the public release.  Continue reading