‘Creative tools’ plug-in list

OK, I admit it, I’m moving towards becoming a ‘plug-in list junkie’. Despite my efforts of reducing my plug-in count and simplifying things I can’t help but think of new setups. Fortunately for me, I’m not only a plug-in list junkie, I’m also a music and recording junkie with more projects going at a time than a crossbreed of Frank Zappa and Samuel L Jackson. This abnormality opens up a new dimension to things.
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Reset: mixing

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One of the big mistakes I’ve made lately is doing what’s so hip today and EQ the crap out of instruments. Unlike other people who’re stuck in one period of music I don’t see this as a necessary evil, but on the other hand I don’t feel that it’s a good thing for the kind of music I like either as it takes away the shitty feel, makes things too separated and surgical, and even kills of some of the ‘organic feel’. Actually, I don’t intend to do any proper mixing at all besides some automating of the levels, some 1-band EQing, maybe a little ’shit processing’ and using two or three ‘room busses’ perhaps.
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Reset: tracking

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In the second part of this series we’ll examine the next step in the chain after the sound sources. My idea is now - and this will sound juvenile- to not really mix anything. Screw that. Screw all the options. Let’s do some bloody committing people! I’m gonna make this home recording thing the new garage.
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Reset: sound sources

nes1.jpg

I feel that I’ve strayed too far from my path of musical destiny. Not only have my recordings become too large, the mixes are too detailed as well. So for my next step in gear minimalism I’m planning on hitting “the reset button” and reconsider what I need, want to do and what the best way is to achieve this.
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Stiff upper lip 2/6-08: Oh baby, you annoy me

Sometimes I can get really annoyed with Pro Tools and DAWs in general. Unfortunately, sometimes it boils over and my feelings get much uglier than just regular annoyance.
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Stiff upper lip 20/4-08: To bash or not to bash

I talked to Mister G. at German ProTooler a few days ago and told him that I really needed to review some crappy stuff. I mean stinking up your sessions stuff! The reason: I don’t want to be your typical audio magazine.
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Stiff upper lip 4/4-08: Minimalism revisited

In a previous column (if you can call “Stiff upper lip” that) I talked a little about how I’ve got rid of a lot of my plug-ins for a better and quicker workflow. That was two months ago. How has it turned out?
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Video diary from Musikmesse ‘08 part 3

Here’s the third and final part of my video diary. Hope you enjoyed it, despite my nonsense ramblings ;)

Video diary from Musikmesse ‘08 part 2

Here’s the second part of the video diary. It was taped the third day, but since I missed the first day, it was actually the day after my first day (did you get that?).

Video diary from Musikmesse ‘08 part 1

While in Frankfurt I decided that I should keep a video diary. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to publish the parts at the day I taped them because I didn’t have any video editing capabilities. This is the first part, it was taped at the second day of the exhibition, before I had been there at all.

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