"This Is What They Call Rock'n'Roll" by guitar player and producer Ruggero Catania available on Bandcamp

I always wanted to be able to write a song shorter than 1'30". 
This song has been sleeping in my hard drive for years.

But today the weather is hot and so am I. Enjoy

   

BIAS FX 2 LE Giveaway - How to save money buying original plug-in

Hi there, maybe you know I'm a huge fan of grabbing offers when I can.

In particular, free LE editions giveaways (or for a very small fee, or coming as a bundle with your hardware/software) allow you to save big money in the future, upgrading from LE version to full version even years later, when the Black Friday madness (or what else) comes.
There are several offers throughout the year, just subscribe to the mailing list of the products you're waiting for to be sure not to miss the offer. And be patient.
That's the way I collected plugins and software for many thousands of dollars value, at a fraction of the cost, from 1/4 up to 1/10 (yes, a tenth!) of the retail price.

Also, LE versions could be all that you need if you're not "a professional doing it for living".
Even if you can't go deep into programming details, there is often enough room to have some fun end record pretty decent stuff.

This one is a perfect example

Hurry up!

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 

Need pro guitar tracks for your music? Hire Ruggero Catania on SoundBetter!

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 - The Good One - Available on YouTube, iTunes and Spotify

That's true, this is supposed to be a guitar-oriented Blog. But that new vintage-electro European collective is called Magnetica Leoni, and I am part of it. To be more precise, I produced it and mixed it. 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. 

How to play Metallica "Hardwired" at the guitar - #1 - Advanced level Tutorial (+ Presonus Studio One Click trick)

If you're just looking for chords and riffs you can find it everywhere on the web.

This is a slightly different kind of tutorial, focusing on the sound, the position you should use, how to practice, how to make your riffs sound as close as possible to the original version, and how to put all together in the easiest way possible, since the main goal during a live show is Don't stop the flow!

I had a great time yesterday playing this one!
There are a lot of different parts to learn.
The positions on the freatboard are not difficult, but it's a challenge for the right hand, instead!
Also it was not so obvious for me to learn the arrangement (even if I know Metallica wrote much more complicated songs) and keep focusing on each single part with the same power and timing!
Don't try to detect the right tempo in Pro Tools or what since there is not a single tempo start to finish, the tempo flows and it is on "on grid" unless you warp the whole song, and please don't do it!
Or you should write an automation lane on the master tempo track, and I don't think it worth the effort, I just add a 2 bars count-in click to start at the right point.
Here the "rendering" click option in Presonus Studio One 3 made my day, since I wrote down the audio click on a track just between loops marker. Just select 2 bars before the song, render the click, disable the real click and you're done!
About timing and playing, since it is a fast tempo and since it is played "live" and not "on grid", I really need a pair of headphones to match the song and playing along the song with a good amount of glue. Listening to it just from speakers is a little bit confusing, specially during the fastest parts, where your ears tend to identify the snare beat with the downbeat, while it's still the upbeat, and it is not so obvious to catch the perfect sync.
Headphones helps to be more "in the song" and play with the band.

Thank you all, see you next time!

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).

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