Apogee’s next expert is Andrea Pejrolo, the Assistant Chair of the Contemporary Writing and Production department at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Andrea will answer your questions for the next two weeks on a wide range of topics such as hybrid productions (how to make the most out of acoustic and electronic-based productions), home/project studio planning and setup (how to organize your production setup efficiently and productively), contemporary orchestration for the DAW, and multi-computer studio setup for the contemporary producer.
Andrea is a composer, producer, audio engineer and bassist. He is the author of Creative Sequencing Techniques for Music Production (1st edition 2005, and 2nd edition 2011) and Acoustic and MIDI Orchestration for the Contemporary Composer (2007), and has written several articles for music magazines, including Sound On Sound, Bass World Magazine (USA), Muralann and Boheme Press (Canada), and Il Capitello Publisher (Italy). Andrea has extensive and active professional experience as a sound designer, audio engineer/producer, MIDI programmer and composer for film, TV, theater and multimedia. Some of his recent collaborations and projects include iAcoustica Studio drum library, iDrum Rock Edition for iPhone/iPad in collaboration with Izotope, arrangements and recording with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, Kevin Bacon’s “Lover Boy”, Harry Davis’ “MVP”, Don Sebesky, ABC, CBS, Cy Coleman, Burning Petals Music Production (U.K.), the Broadway Show “Swing” (St. James Theater, NY), and the Grand Canyon Music Festival.
Andrea holds a Ph.D. in jazz composition/performance from New York University, a Master in Composition for Film, TV, Theater and Multimedia from the University of Bristol (U.K.) and a Music Diploma in Jazz Performance from Manhattan School of Music in New York City.
To learn more, visit Andrea’s website at: www.apejrolo.com.
Want to ask Andrea your question? Follow these steps:
1) Log in to Transport (Or subscribe if you haven’t yet done so)
2) Use the comments field to ask your questions
3) Prof. Andrea will address those questions between May 2-16, 2011
Hello! I’m an electric bass player (Fender jazz fretted and fretless) and I am going to be working on a project with a guitar player who is at a distance. He has Logic 9, ensemble and more of a recording studio. I have a MacBook Pro and GarageBand 11. I could certainly get Logic if I need to go that way for compatibility. I want to keep the sound quality high and clean. I was looking at the GIO for ease of use, but I could also mic my rig as well. What would you suggest would be the best setup? Thanks so much! Anne
Hi Anne,
Thank you for your question and for using “Ask the Expertes” at Apogee. The GIO is a great tool and in your case it would serve you well, but I would probably recommend something else for few reasons. I would use the GIO mainly for a combination of live and recording projects, but especially for live situation where you want to bring just your laptop and the GIO. This would give you great control for the effects but it would also work in a recording situation. The GIO is great in the studio too but since it accepts only one instrument level input, you might find it limiting if you want to record the direct line and micing the amp at the same time. In fact you would be able to connect directly a condenser microphone. Especially for bass I believe that you wouldn’t fully utilize all the nice features of the GIO, which I think they really appeal to guitarists. Since it seems that your main concern is the long distance collaboration with the guitarist I would recommend the Duet2. It has Mic and instruments input (2), a higher sampling frequency for higher quality recordings and it is extremely portable, you can basically fit it inside the bag of your bass and with your laptop you can record anywhere. I think for the future you might want to look at Logic Express (or Pro) for full compatibility with your long distance collaborators.
I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any more questions.
Happy recordings!
Andrea
Dear Mr. Pejrolo,
My name is Kevin Halter, a producer who uses large orchestral sample libraries via Native Instruments Kontakt 4. I recently purchased an Apogee System and the issue at hand pertains to a low spread of multi-core usage in Logic 9 via 3rd party audio units such as Kontakt 4. For example, when using Kontakt 4, only one core displays usage in my CPU meter window. I understand that creating AUX busses can help spread the core usage, however I am curious as to whether or not V-Bus would be of assistance to me with Kontakt 4. If so, can you provide me with the proper steps to route plugins to Logic 9 via V-Bus, as well as, a list of the available 3rd party plugins that are supported by V-Bus.
Thank you for your time.
Kevin Halter
GEAR
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Hardware
- Mac Pro 12 Core (2 x 2.66 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon Processors, 16 GB Memory)
- Apogee Symphony I/O (8 Analog I/O – 8 Optical I/O, Version 1.2.17)
- Apogee Symphony 64 (Driver Version 1.2.9)
Software
- Mac OSX Version 10.6.7
- Apogee Maestro 2.1.26
- Logic Pro 9.1.3, 64-Bit
- Native Instruments Kontakt 4.1.3
- Audiobro LASS, Project Sam Symphobia, Cinesamples…etc
- Toontrack Superior Drummer 2.2.3
- Addictive Drums 1.5.2
- Spectrasonics Omnisphere 1.5
- Waves Plugins
Dear Kevin,
Thank you for visiting the Apogee “Ask the experts” forum.
There are several levels of answer to your great question.
First I am not sure why you would need to use Kontakt 4 not inside Logic. Kontakt 4 runs natively as 64 bit now and therefore you could use it in Logic running in 64 bit mode. This would the option that I would recommend in order to maximize workflow and productivity. This way you don’t have to run Kontakt in server mode as stand alone and you don’t need to use the v-bus system.
Now if you need to run the v-bus system though, for example for other soft Synths that don’t run in 64 bit mode the main idea to understand is that v-bus is simply a bunch of “soft” patch cords that can be used between audio apps running at the same time on the same computer. I believe that in your setup you should see 32 channel of v-bus I/Os that can be used to connect your soft Synths running in stand alone and Logic inputs. Here’s a quick video tutorial that can help you to shed some light. The first part cove the S-bus but the second part shows how the v-bust system works.
http://video.apogeedigital.com/2008/08/sbus-vbus-tutorial/
I hope this helps. Please if you have more specific questions do not hesitate to contact me.
Take care and happy productions!
Andrea
Hi Mr.Pejrolo! A month ago I was in one respected studio of our City. Engineer made for me the A/B test . A: He send sound from DAW to Audient Summing mixer and recorded it back to DAW . B: He just bounced track without any external processing. I felt how much clarity and depth was added after summing mixer process. So please allow me to ask two question .
1. Can my final mix sound better if will send Main outs from my DAW to line ins in my audio interface and just record signal back without bouncing or export.
2. Because standalone summing mixer is pretty expensive can I use good analog mixer for summing. If yes which analog mixer could you advice me (under 2ooo$)
Hi Ustoz,
Thank you for you questions. They are in deed very interesting topics. Summing is a technique that became more and more popular in the last few years. It can definitely improve the overall texture, clarity and separation of a mix. To answer your questions:
1) It depends on the Audio Interface but in general I would say no. See, the advantage of using a summing mixer is that the mixing (and therefore the summing of the audio channels) happens in the analog/electric domani and not in the digital domain. When you send the signal out of your audio interface it is an analog signal that was translated from the digital realm of the DAW. As soon as you re-send it inside the audio interface it is re-sampled and therefore it is converted back in the digital domain. In most audio interfaces the summing happens after the conversion, basically eliminating the advantage of having the summing happening in the analog domain.
2) My advice is that if you decide to go for analog summing go with a good summing mixer. spending $2000 on a pretty good mixer that doesn’t have class-A channels is not worth it since you are trying to improve the sound of your productions to the next level. There summing mixers out there that are between $3000 and $4000 that I would check out instead than a regular mixing board. You need something with Class-A inputs in order to really go to the next level.
I hope this helps.
Take care,
Andrea