Free plugin selection for your holidays: Arturia, IK Multimedia, Native Instruments et TSE Audio

Hi there!
I hope you're doing well.
I'd like to wish you a Happy New Year with a little selection of free plugin.
Take a look at the deadline, offers ending soon!

A Good Old 1176 Compressor by IK Multimedia

A super cool Plate Reverb by the respectable Arturia

A brand new Creative Reverb by Native Instruments

A plugin version of the guitar pedal RAT by TSE Audio 

When a nerd site such as Recording Revolution turns into a sweet Spotify Playlist

This is a special playlist. One of the uncountable audio-musician nerds site I opted in member, had the idea.
It means, you will not find radio-hits, but a lot of pretty indie home made and hand crafted tracks by people still searching, learning and trying, instead.
Some are pretty cool. I love the attitude.
I've just added some 3 songs I mixed: The Leading Guy​, Magnetica Leoni​ and Betzy​.

Save 280$ in studio software. iZotope Elements mastering suite and Vacuum Pro Synth for FREE!

For all those asking me how do I have so many plug-ins, you just have to jump in when it's time to jump in!
Plugin Boutique is giving Ozone Elements by iZotope for free when buying a 1$ plugin.
Don't wait, go and buy the Vacuum Pro synth for 1$ (150$ value, developed by Air, the stock Pro Tools synth) and get Ozone Elements for free.
It's a 280€ deal for just 1$
Do it!
Even if you're not planning to use Ozone at the moment, and maybe you cannot tweak the Elements version enough, well, save your serial number for the next Black Friday offer to upgrade, if any.
I cannot assure there will be an upgrade offer but you know what?
For the price of 1/2 coffee, I bet on it.

Magnetica Leoni plays "I Am The Fly" by punk - new wave band Wire

I recently mixed this one for the cloud-based collective Magnetica Leoni.
Be sure to join the journey on our Facebook Page and to Add us on your Spotify.

How to write your first song // You're not too young to write a song! Tu n'es pas trop jeune pour écrire une chanson!

"My Students" Episode 1

Alberto is 10 years old, and he attends my guitar class in Brussels. He came out with that song.
I helped him here and there in the creative process and with the arrangement, but he wrote and performed it.
I just programmed the drums with some Native Instruments plugins, recorded and mixed.
Thanks to my other pupils Auriane and Ida-Marie, aged 13 and 12 for the acoustic guitars and the backing vocals.

I did a very small amount of editing and fixing. The goal is not having a perfect fake radio-ready pop song but teaching my students how to arrange and record a song, and work it out with headphones, metronome and layering parts and instruments.

So, what are waiting for? Write your first song!

More to come, stay tuned and spread the word :-)

Magnetica Leoni - New song on Spotify!

Thanks to our label Lady Lovely we're on Spotify!
Add it to your playlist!

Magnetica Leoni - Delirium (from LCD Soundsystem to !!! - Chk Chk Chk)

I produced that song for Magnetica Leoni.
All production and mixing stage has been done ITB in Studio One 3.
I used most of all the Slate Digital Everything Bundle.
The mastering stage of the good friend of mine Mauro Andreolli was crucial.

Turn up the volume and enjoy!!

Magnetica Leoni - Vintage Synths, Drum Machines, Modern Production & Mix - Between Kraftwerk and New Order

I just ended this mix. Magnetica Leoni is a vintage-electro collective and this is its very first public track. Started as a contest from a modular synth track by Marco Petracca.

Magnetica Leoni - nearly out

I'm mixing the vintage-electro project Magnetica Leoni

Spring reverb non mi fai paura! I'm totally in love with the amazing quality of new plug-ins. Mais qu'est ce que on s'amuse avec la table! 🤤 #mixing @magnetica_leoni #vintage #recordingstudio #musicproducer #musicismylife #soundcraft 600 #dub #electro #eighties #codfishstudio #bruxelles

Un post condiviso da Ru Catania (@ru_catania) in data: 6 Mag 2017 alle ore 11:08 PDT

Go and get that Mesa Boogie sound for 9 bucks! Plugin Alliance Brainworx Black Friday

Hi everyone!
If you're a guitar player or a producer, I have a tip for you.
I'm no more into the Gear Acquisition Syndrome, but I'm still obsessed by the offers that many companies run during Black Friday and all that crap. Some are just scam, some others are absolutely stunning and totally worth the price.
Even if I'm not a big fan of the well known Mesa Boogie sound.
Even if  I am a happy Native Instruments Guitar Rig user.
Even If a own a top class chain to record the real thing and I love it (yes, I'm 40 I was born with the real thing).
Well, I had the chance to buy the Plugin-Alliance / Brainworx  bx_Megasingle for 29 bucks some months ago.
No bullshit and no fancy, just a guitar amp.
It lacks of reverb, it lacks of tuner and the included delay is just meaningless to me.
Some people say it has some bugs too, and that it can crash the system, but everything seems to work fine for me.
That said.
The sound is just amazing.
You can buy it until tomorrow for 9 bucks (instead of 149)
No, seriously. 9 bucks. 8 €.
So, if you're a guitar player or into production, act now, go and grab that fucking Mesa amp direct into your bedroom, your home studio or professional studio.
Please do it.
You won't be disappointed.
It simply blow away all the rock/metal amp you have with sophisticated guitar suites such as Guitar Rig and Amplitube for 1/20 of the price.
Do it!
You will have fun, I promise.
And if don't like it, ok guys, it's the price of 5 picks, let's say I'll pay you a beer if we meet around.

Pellegrino - Carl Sagan live set : Ableton, Novation Launchpad and AKAI MPD 32

OK, OK, this post is not guitar-related.
But maybe you know I run and indie label with some friends of mine, and this guy called Pellegrino has just joined our roster.

This video is a preview of how his live-set will look like.
Minimal.

An Ableton Live Session with some controllers like the well known Novation Launchpad and the AKAI MPD32.
Images, animations and light show will be part of the performance.

Straight from the Lady Lovely website:

"Carl Sagan" is a tribute to the well known astronomer (born in Brooklyn on the 9th of November 1934), who wrote "Reflections on a grain of Dust" which inspired the musician Marco Pellegrino's work. The description of the last photograph of the Earth taken in 1990 from the spacecraft Voyager 1 from a distance of six billion miles from Earth is the starting point a journey into darkness, floating in outer space. Pellegrino is a musician and video maker. He tells the story of Sagan using an eclectic, coded message which is Intense and dreamlike using images, sound and light and shade. Marco Pellegrino was born in Novara, Italy and now lives in Rome. 

Recording new album with Romano Nervoso: guitar rig, miking and preamp

After many attempts, we decided for the VHT Pittbull combo.
The sound is thinner than the Hiwatt head. But most of the time you will cut a lot of low frequencies during the mix, so why don't do it from the beginning?

The option to record both amps was nice, but we don't want to have 6 recorded tracks for every guitar lane, 'cause it will results in more than 20 tracks just for guitars in each session, and it doesn't correspond to our idea of punk-rock production.

About miking, nothing too sexy: a dynamic Shure SM57, best workhorse ever, and a condenser Audio-Technica AT4040.

A DI will assure a clean line track recorded,  just in case we need to reamp for some reason with another amp.
Look at the cables: The guitar is going straight to the DI without any pedal or effect.
The balanced output goes straight to the Control Room, the unbalanced output is connected to the amp, and the link is used to send the guitar sound to the tuner without add a step to the signal chain.

Both line and mics go in Drawmer 160 tube preamp and compressor units.
No EQ at all while tracking. It's all about find the sweet spot with the mic position.
But again, nothing fancy: straight to the very middle of the speaker.
Don't overthink before trying the easy way!
From here, a patch bay brings the sound into a Pro Tools system.

Follow Romano Nervoso on Facebook

Mixing advice for Home Studios and Indie Labels - Upload your mix to SoundCloud and play it thru different systems before the Digital Distribution submission

I mixed this song some months ago, and now it's finally out.
In my experience, one of the most difficult things nowadays, talking about the mixing process, is to obtain a sound that fits in every situation.
Just at my place I have so many different speakers and headphones that I find really hard to reach the final mix. What works for the first setup, doesn't work for another and vice versa.
I know the mastering stage should play the game (a part of), but what about minor productions, for which you have both to mix and to finalize your song?
If you run an indie label as I do, let me say sometimes you will send the stereo mix to a mastering engineer, some other you won't. Sad but true.
So you have to work it out.
My main reference monitors are Tannoy System 800, not bad at all.
But even if I am not a mastering engineer, I am stunned about the different perception of a mix coming out from Pro Tools straight to my monitor system, and the mix uploaded to SoundCloud or Youtube and streamed thru everything you want: Hi-Fi, home-theater, Headphones, iPhone, whatever...
Obviously the mix remains the same, but the perception is so different that I need to fix the mix at least a couple of time after a "web-check" on laptops and smartphones, from internal speakers and with cheap headphones.
It's totally nonsense nowadays let your expensive and super flat speakers being the final judge, since the 90% of the people will listen to your song thru all kinds of crap during their spinning workout or what.
10 years ago you had a "car test" and you were done. Now it's a mess.

What I'm trying to say is, I think I'm not looking for the perfect mix anymore.
Mixing stage nowadays is not about perfection, is about compatibility.
Or maybe it has been this way since the beginning, and I'm realizing it right now at the age of 40.
Mixing is not the art of Perfection, mixing is the art of Compromise.

Think about it during your next mixing session, before wasting 2 hours on the high frequencies damp of your reverb on the woodblock track (as I do).

Buy it off iTunes

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