Category: Audio/Music

Jul 16

How Good Are the BOSS Waza Craft Pedals From Roland

boss Waza Craft PedalBoss Waza Craft Pedals From Roland is it any Good?

 

If you’ve been playing around with your guitar for awhile or you’ve got your own synth setup going on, then there’s a good chance that you’ve got some Waza pedals sitting around somewhere. Roland has a pretty good setup with them, but the new Waza craft pedals that are coming out this Summer are going to kick your sounds up to another notch! Roland has retooled the overdrive, delay and the blues driver to make the sounds clear, concise, and solid.

What Makes the Waza Craft So Good?

 

The BOSS pedals are so good because they still utilize digital and analog components in the construction of the unit. The analog circuits are discreetly woven into the pedals in such a way that the average person isn’t going to know that they’re there… but it’s there. In some ways, this is the epitome of what Waza means. Referring to the technique of art, these pedals are going to add another level of depth to the sounds that you can produce.

 

It begins with the stomp that’s on the blues driver. It adds a nice level of grit to the sound that you’re creating and really captures the lower frequencies to bring them out. The pedal is able to pick up the subtleties of a bass that’s being picked, yet has the speed to work with a synth setup without lagging behind on a fast sequence. The standard sound mode is nice and it’ll even pick up on volume changes fairly well.

And Yes… Roland Has Brought Back the Delay!

There’s a good chance we’ve encountered each other at some point along the way in the quest to get the old DM-2 delay pedal because it’s so good, but this new Waza delay is even better. It nails the sounds perfectly and you get up to a 300ms delay on the standard mode. The custom mode is A LOT better, however, because the delay reaches up to 600ms and it has an old school analog tone that gets put into the sounds from the guitar or synth.

 

As for the overdrive pedal, the final product is falls in-between a British clean type of sound with an infusion of American crunch. The sounds are captured with an increased range of tones and the gain isn’t so overpowering that you’ll end up hearing more feedback than music. It’s definitely a premium stomp if you love the overdrive sound and tone and the analog amplifier adds just a bit of extra depth to the final sounds.

 

If you’re looking for new pedals this year to influence your live sets or your compositions, then the Waza Craft  series from Roland will help to develop the frequencies of your sounds so your tones are pure, solid, and true. They’re highly responsive, work well with the rest of your pedal board, and will help you create a customized sound that will become your trademark.

 

These pedals are definitely going to change the way you think about music.

 

.

Permanent link to this article: https://teckbay.com/how-good-are-the-boss-waza-craft-pedals-from-roland/

Jul 06

What You Need To Know About Audio Mastering


What You Need To Know About Audio Mastering – Time to Improve your skills

Whether you’re recording at home for a podcast or you’re developing your own album in your home studio, audio mastering is a skill that you’re going to need. Although the average computer studio with electronic tools isn’t going to match up with a professional audio mastering suite, you can get a pretty good replication of the process that will work for most sound applications that you have. There’s no one tool that you can use to make magic happen – you’ve got to know these specific points when it comes to the mastering process.

It all begins with compression. Whether you are using a compression mic, have your equipment hooked up through a limiter, or you’re using compression settings through your DAW, so your sound can be equalized and enhanced as necessary. It should always be the first step to compress the sound because in many instances, that may be the only step necessary.

#1: Don’t Over-process

Most audio mastering mistakes come from too much software manipulation, not too little. In the quest for a well-rounded sound that includes most frequencies, too much is either added or subtracted from the home process and these additions/subtractions influence the initial sound way too much. Mastering is about perfection, but sometimes music or audio is already perfect in its natural state.

#2: Incorporate a Fade

Vocals and instruments all have a natural decay to them that makes an immediate cut-off difficult at best during the audio mastering process. Work with your music software to add in a natural fade so that you can reduce the track’s overall audio levels to 0 at the end before creating the final ending. This is especially important for the podcast because interruptions, though brief and hardly noticed, make people uncomfortable on an unconscious level.

#3. Different Times Mean Different Sounds

Even if you’re using the same home studio, your recording session will pick up different audio energy levels on different sessions. This is why on a podcast, for example, voices sometimes seem stronger or weaker in different segments – they were recorded at different times. You’ll need to equalize tracks to create consistency and the most common area that is overlooked here are bass sounds that are 40Hz or less.

#4. Use Limited For Added Boost

Spiking a track is really easy to do from a home studio. When you see your sound gauges getting dangerously close to the red, it’s time to take a different approach. Try putting on a limiter, even a DAW based limiter, and you’ll be able to increase the levels of that specific track by 4-6 decibels before most ears will pick up the added processing. Add a vitalizer if it seems like there isn’t a lot of definition in there too.

#5. Have References

It’s really handy to have other audio sources on hand for you to compare your final product. Listen to the quality of a podcast to make your voice match up with it. Have music tracks close by on CD so you can hear them from across the room. In the end, let your ears be the judge, not your eyes or your head.

Permanent link to this article: https://teckbay.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-audio-mastering/

Jun 16

Top 10 Best Tablet DAWs Available Right Now

Top 10 Best Tablet DAWs Available Right Now on Your IPhone, Galaxy, IPad And Tablets

music mixer

music mixer

 

Recording music is a passion that is becoming much easier to fulfill thanks to the advancement of mobile devices. The world has transitioned from needing a full recording studio to needing a tablet with a fairly fast processor and a decent chunk of memory to be successful. With the right tablet digital audio workstation, or DAW, a musician can literally record an entire album on their mobile device.

 

Here are the best mobile DAWs you can get right now.

 

NanoStudio

If your preference is to create music on your iPhone, then this mobile DAW is the way to go. This app is designed to work best on the iPhone 5, but it works really well on later generations of the iPad as well. You can add multiple layers of sound to your synth tracks with this app and adjust the wave envelopes with one-touch ease thanks to the dials that let you work the attack, decay, sustain, and release right up front. The glide is realistic and you can change the bend range with a simple +/- command. You’re also going to love the pad interface.

 

Cubasis

The best part about using this DAW is the sequencer, which is streamlined to run on an iPad so that it mimics your typical laptop/desktop type of platform. You can mix the sounds you record easily and editing is a pretty simple task as well. There are over 70 virtual instruments that are loaded into the program and there some good audio effects, like their overdrive, that will help you tailor the sound. Your projects can even be opened in Cubase! It’s the piano keys integration I enjoy the most, however, because with a simple slide of the finger, the octave can get changed so chords are easy to create.

 

FL Studio

With over 100 instruments and access to over 220 more with in-app purchases, you can quickly import/export files with this mobile DAW. Although the piano roll is easy to use, the most useful part of this program is the drum sequencer that will let you quickly tap out a custom beat. For added fun, you can then transfer the beat into your desktop FL Studio or play it through your internal sound to record on another DAW for a custom sound.

 

Auria

For the beginning mobile musician who is looking for the classic Garageband/Logic type of experience, this is the tablet DAW for you to use. Sync up multiple tracks into one audio file, quickly master the audio with a full digital board, and create a professional result. Up to 48 tracks can be played simultaneously and it even works on the 1st generation of the iPad, although with 24 tracks. A floating point mixing engine and full MIDI support allow all of your custom tunes to be quickly recorded.

 

TouchDAW

For Android platforms, TouchDAW has the ability to get a lot of your recording needs met. It’s the mixing that you can do with this program that sets it apart because you can make those minor sound adjustments to all of the track’s parameters like you would with a traditional DAW. There’s also good MIDI controllers with this program and best of all, the files you create on this platform will work in both Windows and iOS.

wpid-screenshot_2014-06-16-01-03-50.png

Garageband

The mobile DAW version isn’t as useful as the Mac version, but it still has some highlights to it. You’ll be able to put some customization into your drums, record using custom software instruments directly in the app, and with the right USB/MIDI interface you can use your home synth or keyboard to record in the app with the Camera Connection Kit for the iPad. It directly uploads to Soundcloud or you can upload to the iCloud to finish working on the file.

 

Sunvox

This mobile DAW works on any O/S and offers full support of .wav files up to 32 bit. It’s got over 100 drum sounds and a few synths and effects, but the vocal recording abilities of this app is where it stands out. You can filter your voice with a number of options that will make most vocals sound natural even when using your phone or tablet’s microphone as the input. You can shape the waves of almost any audio file with a professional-style audio mastering option, but an easier to use interface would be helpful to make the most out of this DAW.

 

Korg Gadget

If synth is your thing and you want to start making tracks, then this app is one of the best to combine the two together. A helpful start-up guide will have you recording in just minutes, while the pro musician will like the fact that you can record 16 bars at a time instead of the standard 8. The sequencer is similar to what you’d find on Korg instruments too, which is nice because you can adjust multiple notes at the same time without having to change their overall pitch.

 

Lemur

If sequencing is your strength, then this mobile DAW is what you’re going to want to use. With StepSlider, StepSwitch, and StepNote, you can quickly create custom sounds that sound like you spent hours tightening up. It’s also the closest mobile DAW app to its original desktop version, so transitioning to it is really easy. In many ways, this app feels like you’re using Ableton because you can easily change the parameters of the sounds you’ve created and plug in effects, like the Quick Chorus, to develop sounds that cover the entire Hz range instead of having to record multiple tracks like other DAW apps require.

 

Oscilab

This is a newer DAW to the market and it is a good app for those who like to make loops. You’ve 28 wave shapers that let you control the digital oscillations of your sound and 6 pads to help you further customize the sound. The drum machine has 15 sounds and there are 36 digital instruments within the app that will let you directly upload to Soundcloud or your preferred file transfer app.

 

Did your favorite mobile DAW get missed? Please feel free to share with us the apps you love to use to create music and a link to your

Permanent link to this article: https://teckbay.com/top-10-best-tablet-daws-available-right-now/