Recording

There are now many different ways to record electric guitars, from miked-up valve amps to physical modelling preamps. So how do you decide which to use?

Nashville is still a place of legend when it comes to music. Although overall sales of the city's flagship genre, country music, have dipped somewhat from their mid-'90s peak, Nashville still has a recording legacy matched by few cities in the world.

Should I buy a second-hand tape recorder or cheap digital multitracker? How can I stop my speakers from 'booming'? Should the earth pin in an XLR plug be soldered to the shell? How reliable is the word clock on Yamaha's SW1000XG? Can you advise me about connecting a classic Leslie to a VK8?

How can I use my external effects units with my Akai DPS16 hard disk recorder? How can I convert my mono recordings into stereo? Are there any cheap multi-band compression plug-ins? How can I reverse the effects of performing Windows XP tweaks?

The SOS team answer a reader's cry for help, and assist him to improve his recordings of guitar and vocals.

How can I produce aggressive female vocals? Mac Or Windows? How do I eliminate flanging MIDI notes? Can I use Virtual Guitarist with Logic on a Mac? Should I record at a 24-bit resolution?

Direct Injection (DI) boxes can be real problem-solvers in the studio, but you have to choose the right one for the job.

You can achieve a lot with just a computer and a soundcard, but when you want to accommodate external sound sources or record with high-quality microphones then you really need to add a hardware mixer to your setup. Here's how to hook it all together for maximum flexibility.

Do hit songs have a hidden ingredient that makes them successful by appealing directly to our emotions? It's a question that musicians and scientists have sought the answer to for many decades. Acoustic researcher Ernest Cholakis has a new take on the theory...

We all want to improve the quality of our recordings, but there's often no need to rush out and buy new equipment. You just have to take a close look at the way you're using what you already have.

Why can't I run Cubase 5.1 on Windows 95? Is there a software package that acts purely as a virtual tape recorder? What is panning law? How can I get equal monitoring levels? Do multi-client soundcards still exist? Which hard disk format is best for PC audio?

There are now lots of different ways to make a stereo master recording of your final mix, so how do you work out which one is best for you?

Why is phase important? What orchestral sample libraries are available for HALion? Where can I get Windows-based ASIO drivers for an Audiomedia III card? Are there really reverb and synth plug-ins supplied with Mac OS X? How can I isolate the vocals from a stereo mix?

Find out how to get the highest-quality audio into your computer music system.

Recording a large orchestra can be fairly tricky, even in the most well-equipped of studios, but trying to get a great sound on location, using only the gear you can fit into your car, adds challenges all of its own.