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First Echo2 review

Sound On Sound "A high-quality, easy-to-operate device with
a novel user interface. Good build quality and design with user-friendly touch control.
Pristine preamps and converters."

Free audio software programs for Windows, Mac and Linux

1. Recording and editing software

Audacity:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Traverso:

http://traverso-daw.org/download.html

Frinika:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/frinika/

2. Audio processing software

Supercollider:

http://supercollider.sourceforge.net/

3. Music notation and score editor

MuseScore:

http://musescore.org/en/download

Canorus:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/canorus/

4. Web based Music creation

Soundation Studio:

http://www.soundation.com/

RiffWorld:

http://www.riffworld.com/

Echo Digital Audio introduces the Echo 2 USB audio interface

Echo Digital Audio introduces the Echo 2, a combined personal mixer and USB audio interface. Featuring innovative touch panel controls and premium microphone preamps, the Echo 2 is ideal for live performance and for recording. The Echo 2 is compact enough to mount on a microphone stand, providing the performer with immediate control. It can work as a capable standalone mixer, as a professional grade computer audio interface, or both simultaneously.

The Echo 2 is a versatile creative tool, with audio quality comparable to interfaces costing hundreds more.

FEATURES:

DAW plug-ins a blessing or a curse?

Today with the ever growing number of plug-ins available for our DAW, we are faced with multiple options. This can be very confusing. There may be so many, in fact, that it could distract us from the original intentions for our project.

It would seem that we spend too much time searching for the perfect effect for all the diverse instruments in the mix. That does not even take into account the time we spend learning the mechanics of some pretty sophisticated and graphically attractive plug-ins - rather then sticking with the basics like EQ, Compression, Reverb, and Delay.

Some of us are curious and anxious to try anything and everything hoping to get inspired. On the other hand, some of us may get frustrated too quickly and perhaps miss out on a plug-in that might actually benefit our project.

Headphones, speaker monitors or both?

What is the best way to mix your recording project? Should you mix with headphones, speaker monitors or both? After all, most people listen to their iPods with headphones. A good pair of headphones sounds great, but what about the stereo image? What if you want to mix your project with a good pair of speaker monitors but your home recording studio space is not sound proofed well enough? You want to listen to your mix at a high decibel level so you can hear everything. To be safe, you should really listen to your project mono, stereo and at different volume settings. What about a good pair of near field speaker monitors positioned relatively close to your computer and equi-distance between you and the monitor speakers themselves? You will still have some stereo image - with the correct speaker positioning - and you'll be close enough to your speakers so that you can pump up the volume without driving your neighbors crazy.

Latency Tips

Whatever DAW you are using, you will suffer the effects of latency.

Latency is dependent on your computer performance, recording software, audio interface and will vary somewhat from system to system. Latency is usually most affected by the buffer size setting for your audio interface driver within your recording software program. The lower the buffer size the lower the latency. But remember, that if your buffer size is too low, it may cause pops and clicks. If the buffer size is too high, then you will have too much latency and this will reduce your overall performance. The trick is finding the happy medium.

The more tracks and plug-ins involved in your project the more processing power is required – and this will result in more latency. Although, you won't be able to eliminate latency completely, there are a few things you can do to improve the performance of your DAW.

1. Always make sure that you have the latest updates and drivers for your Hardware and DAW

2. Where possible, run the fastest hard drive (internal or external) and install the largest allowable amount of ram

3.Turn off all wireless devices, cameras and unnecessary third party USB, FireWire, and other devices

Once you have started your project, you can keep your latency down by “Bouncing” plug-in heavy tracks whenever possible so that you can “de-activate” them ( safe approach) or delete them altogether.

This way, you won't have to increase the buffer size and you can avoid CPU overload.

 Here is a link of a free utility to help you optimize your system: 

http://www.thesycon.com/deu/latency_check.shtml

Home Recording and “Fixing it in the Mix”

DAWs are so powerful these days that we tend to forget a very essential rule: the primacy of a quality audio recording. The quality of the source is a crucial factor for the overall quality of any body of work. Low input signal and/or distortion can considerably reduce the quality of your work regardless of the quality of your audio interface, recording software and selected bit rate and sample rate.

Spontaneity and productivity are very important, but should they come before the audio recording quality? Are you spending too much time “fixing things in the mix” rather than putting in the extra time needed to get a quality audio recording? Are you spending hours EQing, compressing and editing tracks before you finally realize that whatever you do you are unable to rectify your original source recording?

It all comes down to the source. Spending time setting up and testing is a long and tedious process, but in the end, you'll save yourself hours of re-recording sessions or mixing craziness.

Do not be afraid to spend the extra time needed to position your microphone(s) to find the sweet spot or move your recording location - to the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, closet – whatever helps! And, make sure you carefully monitor your input levels – not too weak and not too hot. Remember that most digital audio interfaces have a little bit of headroom on their digital virtual mixer, so even if your digital meters are on the red, it doesn't mean that you are necessarily recording distortion. You should always shoot for the highest possible input signal without distortion.

You should also monitor your audio takes at low and high volume, through headphones and through your speaker monitors. In the end, you'll be glad you did.

Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) Workflow and Organization Tips