Today November 27, is giving Tuesday where we are supposed to stop grabbing stuff for ourselves an try to help out others. So we are doing a giving Tuesday Special

Anyone that signs up today for any of our December classes at Recording Boot Camp, or the 2-day Boot Camp in January, we will donate 100% of your tuition to the music recording program at Phoenix House teen drug rehabilitation center in California.

If you sign up for the 6 day boot camp in January, we will donate 25% of that tuition to Phoenix House.

If you are not interested in our classes you can always donate directly

We are doing Cyber Monday Specials Again!!

2 for 1 Phone or Skype consulting.

Purchase any amount of phone-Skype consulting and get credit for double the amount you purchase. Purchase your time using our PayPal link on Monday November 26, and we will double your purchase. May be combined into one session or split into two sessions.

Mastering Boot Camp & DIY Acoustics combo special in December.

December 11 & 12 we are offering Mastering Boot Camp and DIY Acoustics classes at our Santa Monica location. Anyone that signs up for one of the classes on Cyber Monday may attend the other free of charge. Offer only applies to the December classes, and limited space is available. Just sign up for either class and send us an email (on Monday) to let us know you would like to attend both classes.

Mastering Boot Camp in Los Angeles
December 11, 2012 7:15 – 10:30 Details »

DIY Acoustics Class in Los Angeles
December 12, 2012 7:15 – 10:30 Details »

One last thing: This is not an RBC event, but my good friend, performance and vocal coach Steven Memel (Adam Levine, Sara Bareilles, Jesse McCartney, Justin Long, Drew Barrymore) is doing a free teleseminar this evening at 5pm PST on business tips and techniques for DIY musicians. Get more info here

A quick note to anyone attending the Taxi Road Rally in Los Angeles this weekend (November 8-11).

Taxi has invited me to speak at the conference again this year. I will be teaching two workshops and various mentoring opportunities.

Friday, Nov. 9th 11:00am-12:30pm –
Driver’s Ed Class – Mastering Guitar Recording on Any Budget
National Room, 2nd floor

Saturday Nov 10th 2:30-4:30pm
Driver’s Ed Class – Production Tricks For Major Impact
in Kennedy room

Friday Nov 9  3:00pm – 5:30pm  I will be doing 1-to-1 Mentor Sessions which are free to conference attendees on a first come first serve basis. For those that do not get into the 1-1 mentoring, I will have a few windows of time available for private consulting at a special Road Rally discount.

Recording Boot Camp will also have a table available in the book sellers from Come by and say hello.

If you are not going to be at the Rally you can get a sneak peak at out upcoming classes

Thanks
Ronan

We had a great group at our 6-day Recording Boot Camp in LA last week. It looks like one of the students got hired by a VERY major mixer the following week. Of course we take no real credit for that, but it’s great to see good things happen for our alumni. We have just put the next 6-day Recording Boot Camp on the books.

December 3-8, 2012

This will be our last 6-day workshop this year, so sign up early if you want to guarantee a spot. Speaking of 6-day workshops, we are looking at the possibility of doing one in North Italy in January or February. If you think you might like to attend, send me a direct email to get first priority. http://recordingbootcamp.com/courses/recording-boot-camps/

SHELVING EQ TIP

Shelving EQs do more than you might think. The simple explanation of “Shelving EQ” is that a low shelf cuts or boosts frequencies below the EQ frequency point, and a high shelf cuts or boosts above the selected EQ frequency point. While this is more or less correct, one thing that many people overlook is that Shelving EQs will affect frequencies above the frequency point of a low shelf and below that of a high shelf; with certain EQ “slopes” this can be quite dramatic.

Check out the image below of the EQ plug-in. It shows an 8dB boost on a low shelf at 100Hz. While it’s true that it’s boosting everything below 100Hz, notice how with this particular shelf slope, it is boosting frequencies all the way up to around 1k (1000Hz)!!! Even with a steeper slope this boost would still be boosting frequencies upwards to 500Hz or so.

The reason this is so important is that when you are using a shelving EQ to alter one end of the spectrum you are also affecting frequencies closer to the mid-range. This really came to light last week when I was mastering a Big Band jazz album. I was using the the low shelf boost on an A Designs EM-EQ to push a little more power into the acoustic bass, but the client and I were both amazed how much my 60Hz boost was affecting the tone of the horns. The good news is that on most of the songs it actually helped the horns, but on a few tunes, because of the range the horns were playing in, it started to muddy them up a little so we had to choose a lower frequency, and in one song actually switch to another EQ all together for the low boost.

Even on individual tracks shelving EQs can affect the sound in ways beyond what you were planning for.  Once you start to get a feel for this, it will make EQ an even more powerful tool for your mixes.

A big thanks to Home Recording Weekly for having me as their guest this week. We did a pretty extensive interview diving into recording approaches and theories . Definitely worth checking this web site out.

www.homerecordingweekly.com/2012/07/14/episode-4-interview-with-ronan-chris-murphy-of-veneto-west-ronans-recording-show-and-recording-boot-camp/

Here is a brief video explain our Mastering Boot Camp course.

In this course we dive into translation of a mix across multiple playback systems, The loudness war, compression, brick wall limiting, digital vs analog processing options and more.

Our next Mastering Boot Camp is July 31. Get details and sign up here

Last night I was invited to the release party for Slate Digital’s new Virtual Tape Machine plug-ins.  It was a great time with lots of good food and drink. I did not get a chance to hear the plug in so I cannot report on that, but I thought my fellow audio geeks would enjoy a few pics of the insanely beautiful NRG studios in North Hollywood. (taken with my phone)

One of the main reasons for our recent relocation to Santa Monica was to facilitate a significant expansion in the range of courses we can offer at Recording Boot Camp. We have expanded the teaching facilities, number of classes and range of instructors. In addition to the main 6-day Recording Boot Camp that we have been doing since 2004, we are now offering new 1-day and evening classes, ranging from basic courses for absolute beginners to advanced courses focused on specific topics. The new courses will cover everything from intros to Home Recording and DIY acoustic treatment to advanced audio editing, and technical spec for film and video game music.

We have already introduced 8 new courses and will be scheduling them over the next month (we have two of the new courses on the schedule already). Our list of instructors is growing, and we have already lined up some fantastic talent from the worlds of album, video game and film music:

Ronan Chris Murphy (King Crimson, Terry Bozzio, Steve Morse, Nels Cline, Tay Zonday, Tony Levin, Jamie Walters, Ulver)

Dave Lawrence (The Spiderwick Chronicles, The Express, Project X, Avatar – the extended re-releases, Mass Effect 3, Red Orchestra 2, Assassin’s Creed Revelations)

John Rodd (The Lincoln Lawyer, World of Warcraft, The Matrix (trilogy), Star Wars Kinect, Mass Effect 3, Pirates of the Caribbean)

Thomas Hornig (producer, mixer, artist and Cubase/Nuendo/Audio Restoration expert and computer programming)

Check out more detailed bios.

To see the full list of our new courses visit RecordingBootCamp.com and click on the courses tab.

Recording Boot Camp courses are not directly affiliated with any product companies. Even classes focused on specific software (such as Pro Tools or Cubase training) are not affiliated with the manufacturers, allowing us to provide the best possible unbiased training and advice without any kind of sales agenda.

Thanks!
Ronan

A few weeks ago we launched our “Audio Recording Boot Camp™” series of products. These include a book (available as paperback, PDF, Nook, Kindle) and several videos that are posted on Youtube.

The eBook is available for a little as 99¢ and 95% of our net proceeds from the book and videos will be donated to the recording programs at Phoenix House, a program that uses music recording as a tool to help teens recovering from drug addiction.

Get all the details on Audio Recording Boot Camp page

More photos are on the way, but lots of people have been asking for photos of the new facility. We finally have the place together enough to start showing off some pics. I am currently working on an album in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but will try to put together a whole studio tour when I get back to LA. -Ronan