Do you play a mean air guitar? Well now not only can you look stupid playing air guitar, but you can sound stupid too with the help of the Virtual Air Guitar.

The Helsinki University of Technology has created a Virtual Air Guitar that adds genuine electric guitar sounds to the passionately played air guitar. The system uses a Linux computer with a Webcam to monitor the hand movements of a "player", the system adds riffs and licks to match frantic mid-air finger work.  read more »

Brandon over at Recording Review wrote an interesting article on How to reduce the noise of a computer when recording in a home studio.

"Everyone who records with a computer has probably asked "How can I reduce the noise of my computer?".

Let's get to it.  I'm not an expert, so I'd like as much feedback as possible.  read more »

Mel Lambert over at EQ Magazine online did a nice little article about building a project studio. It covers the basic things to consider when building your home studio.

From EQ Magazine:

"1. Good soundproofing is pretty simple: If you can keep your sounds inside the space, there’s a good chance that outside noise won’t find its way to your mics.

2. If you can, avoid parallel walls: Flutter echoes and other anomalies are a bitch to eliminate!  read more »

Have you ever wanted a karoake version of a song? Have you ever wanted to isolate a vocal part and use it somewhere else? Elevayta Extra Boy is a VST plugin that will do this for you. Awesome!

According to Elevayta's website:  read more »

Ever wonder what happens to rock stars after their heyday? Currently residing in the "where are they now" files.

I found a really interesting site. This site focuses on rock stars who have been spotted in regular jobs. Lots of really interesting stuff, go ahead and give it look. Not really home studio related but lots of good time wasting here.

Digidesign has just announced a new addition to their DigiRack plugins called Dynamics III. The new plugins are completely free and include a Compressor/Limiter, Expander/Gate, and De-Esser. Dynamics III requires a Digidesign-qualified Pro Tools system running Pro Tools 6.7 or higher software.

From Digidesign:  read more »

When you are recording in your home studio, it is very important that you have privacy. It can be extremely frustrating when you're cutting the track of your life and someone barges in and says "Phone!"

I have made it clear to everyone in my house that when I'm in the studio, no yelling, no knocking on the door, and most of all, no phone calls. My friends even get the picture when they call, they'll say "Are you in the basement?" I do like to spend time in the studio, but not every waking second...there's blogging to do.  read more »

A plugin is like a software version of a rackmount effect processor.  A plugin is a software effect processor that can be accessed by your software in it's effect loops.

There are many different types of software plugins, Direct X, VST, RTAS, AudioSuite, etc. Some types will only work with certain pieces of software. For instance, you want to make sure your software will support VST before spending money on VST plugins.  read more »

What is the worst album cover ever? I'm not sure, but I just found some stiff competition. Hopefully, when you finish your CD in your home studio, you'll come up with a better CD cover than these?

I know this really has nothing to do with home studio recording, but I had to share this with you. I found this site today. I must've spent the last hour or so laughing my *ss off.  read more »

I am by no means an expert at songwriting, but I thought I'd share with you some of the processes that work for me when I sit down to work on new songs. Since this is such a huge topic, I'm going to break this up into several posts.

For me, songs come in groups. I can go six months without writing a single thing, then suddenly I'll have 5 or 6 ideas. I'm not sure why this is? I know at times, I feel more creative and inspired than others. But again, I'm not sure why this is. I just know that I HAVE to write songs. I don't have a choice.  read more »

The Yamaha AW1600 Audio Workstation is a 16-track recorder with 8-channel simultaneous record, 8 XLR/TRS combo inputs with preamps, 2 effects processors, 24-bit/44.1kHz A/D/A conversion, USB 2.0 output, Pitch Fix, CDRW drive, 40GB hard drive, 36-channel mixer, and 4-band EQ and compression on all channels.

This is a pretty cool looking unit. It runs for around $1000. Musician's Friend did a nice review of the Yamaha AW1600.  read more »

Over at Guitar Geek, they have a cool site that shows you different guitarists amp and pedal setup. You can look and see what Jimi Hendrix or Robert Fripp use for pedals, strings, setup, etc. It's really cool. Each artist has a nice graphic showing each piece of equipment in the chain.

Now the only problem is coming up with all of the money to buy the equipment that Jimi Hendrix or Robert Fripp use. The chaining part is easy thanks to Guitar Geek.

The AKG C 3000 B is a large-diaphragm cardioid condenser microphone that was designed for universal use and is an awesome deal for the price. I have a pair of the AKG C 1000 S microphones and love them. So I tried out the C 3000 B for vocals, and I was happy.

The AKG C 3000 B ships with an AKG H100 spider suspension mount. Which works well for eliminating low-frequency vibrations and handling noise.  read more »

The M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96 is a handheld 24-Bit, 96 KHz two-channel digital audio recorder that records WAV and MP3 files to CompactFlash or microdrives. The MicroTrack records using balanced line inputs or built-in high-fidelity microphone preamps complete with phantom power.  read more »

My band used to play a lot of parties. One of the songs we used to do was a cover of the Theme from Shaft by Isaac Hayes. We did a fun little punk rock rendition of it, it was quite a crowd pleaser and really fun to play.

Anyway, my old wah wah pedal had expired. So in a pinch I ended up picking up a Vox Wah Wah model V847. It seemed a little pricey, $99 for a wah wah that I'll use on one song.  But I was in a pinch, and I had to get something. Shaft without wah wah is like cake without frosting.  read more »