Thanks for participating the survey. I am a fan of this show, and sometimes in the public I hear some good and bad opinions about American Idol. It is why I come up with the idea of gathering public opinions with the objective of knowing how exactly does the general public reacts to this show.

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Photo of the Tuner:

photo courtesy of Lemarchanddesons.com

I will assess this tuner in the following 6 categories:

a. Accuracy of Tuning

b. Speed of Tuning

c. Flexibility

d. Versatility

e. Price

f. Manual and Operation

Ok lets start….

Accuracy of Tuning

I don’t have sophisticated tools to measure how accurate the tuning of SR-1060. I will just based it on the results it produced. Frankly to say that I am very satisfied with the accuracy of the tuner. It can detect very small changes in pitch even from ± 1 to 5 cents in pitch change. This means if your guitar is producing inconsistent pitch of notes from 1st fret to another frets, this tuner will help you tune in before you record any critical performances like doing any sound recording in the studio. Also it can be tune chromatically such as tuning D# note, E flat , or others.

Photo courtesy of Artaxerxes

Accuracy is even more important if you are tuning two or more guitars. If the tuner is not accurate enough, it will increases chances of tuning errors as you tune several guitars.

Speed of Tuning

Since this tuner is digitally based and you can look at the tuner screen in real time to see the status of the tuning, you can tune the guitars very quickly. Unlike the analog based tuner which is using dials with real time swinging back and forth around the center notes without locking (takes to long to get the correct pitch). This digital based tuner (dealing with numerical locking figures) is even more faster compared to other types of tuners I used before.

Also the default settings is very handy, once the tuner is on, you can tune right away without needing more settings.

Flexibility

This tuner will be very flexible for rugged use, it is because with proper battery level, it can be used to tune guitars without needing a cable connected to it. This tuner has a built in microphone which can be used to pickup the guitar sound in the closed room, particularly in the recording studio. Also the microphone sensitivity seems strong as it can pickup guitar sound signals at a distance.

To maximize the flexibility offered by this tuner, I recommend you will only play one strings at a time and no other guitars playing, so that the tuner can pickup and processed the right signal.

Price

This tuner is in the high end range of guitar/bass tuner prices. This means a bit expensive (around 1000 pesos in Philippines), but a lot of advantages compared to other tuners I used. I recommend this for home studio usage.

Versatility

This tuner can tuned any string instruments particularly guitar and bass guitar. I believe it can be used to tune other string instruments as well like ukelele and piano. So this versatility at that price seems to be reasonable.

Manual and Operation

I have found a serious weakness in this category, the tuner is extremely very difficult to use at start. With a lot of features, I do not even know how to use this instrument in details (for 3 months now) and only use this for automatic tuning. But at least, it meets my expectations and this is still a great product.

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A short background on this artist, he is basically based on US but currently do some visits to Asia like Thailand. His genre is primarily electronica rock, more focused on instrumental sounds, a highly unique form of music.

About influences, he likes to dig Neil Young, Pink Floyd, Nirvana music. I can see it from his current music where influences can play a lot in the formation of artist sound. Neil Young is known for creating unique country sound, as well as Pink Floyd , a highly experimental rock artist in the 70’s. Pink Floyd popularizes hits such as “Another break on the wall”.

Combining this with Seattle sound, Nirvana, you can imagine how Arc Rev one music evolves.

I have only met a very few artist doing this type of sound..It is a highly specialized music, meant only to few listeners. This is not a mainstream sound we used to hear in radio and TV. But this is some form of creative experimental music for those wanting to hear more than just mainstream.

Enough of the introduction, let’s go to his music:

1. “Circus Parade”

The intro starts with a weirdy cool intro, and now I just can’t believe the level of guitar effects adjustment. If I will be recreating this sound in my own studio, I will use electric guitar, switch the guitar distortion to max, set treble to low, apply some phraser, to create those “buzz” effect. I can remember the vocals sound like Beck, one of my favorite 90’s artist , that is responsible for the widely acclaimed hit, “Loser”.

The production is complete, I can hear some keyboards, drums..

2. “Alien Love Spacecraft”

Whoa!! I love the song title, Arc Rev One creativity is cool. This is some sort of keyboard attack, a cool background to any Alien invader Hollywood movies. A short track but those notes definitely pays off.

3. “Funk n it Up”

This is the finest piece of Arc Rev One music. I like the wah wah guitar work, those splendid “qeh wenk” “qeh wenk”..it just captivating.
The bass work is solid and melodic. This piece of music is highly recommended for those needing funky music background.

Summary: Arc Rev One songwriting expertise on this music is acknowledge. More details can be found on his MySpace:

Notes: Credits to Arc Rev One for these pictures (follow the link to his myspace)

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As an overview of the specs I have known so far are the ones below:

Type: Dynamic
XRL input during purchase? No
Compatible with PC high end speakers? Yes

Basically for those that does not know more about microphones, there are two types: condenser/ceramic microphones and dynamic microphones. For high end studio applications, condenser microphones are preferable because they have extremely wide dynamic and frequency range in addition to its extreme sensitivity. Even a small breathing or minor sneeze in the back can be annoying if you use condenser microphones because of its extreme sensitivity.

Below is the picture of Shure C606:

Now C606 will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
a. Price
b. Quality
c. Flexibility
d. Distortion tolerance

Price

Lets start with price. SM 58 , the Shure legendary microphone is priced at around $130 in Philippines. Shure C606 cost around $35, now that is a big price difference! No other Shure microphones are priced below $30 in Philippines.

At 1500 pesos, this could be a good price. But we will see the quality.

Quality

During the testing for quality, we record vocal samples in a tight controlled room and feed the recorded vocals in high end mixers and digital audio software. Through, I do not audio samples for demonstration but the sound quality between expensive condenser microphone and C606 is almost unnoticeable.

I also check the dynamic range , it was so balance. I can hear the crisp / throat section of the vocals that feed the high frequencies. The bass section of the vocals is very noticeable. I can say that even with no vocal effects (flat), the recorded vocals is superb!

Flexibility

One of the major downside of this microphone is that it is supplied with 1/4 inch jack microphone input instead of XLR. I do not know why because SM 58 can be used with XLR inputs. I love to see XLR inputs for C606 as included in the package.

Below is the picture of XLR pairs:

Distortion Tolerance

I say that this microphone cannot handle very well at distortion levels unlike the legendary SM58 Shure microphones. Of course, SM 58 is a more expensive one , it is why it is suited in more live performances when vocal range is susceptible at a loud levels causing distortion.

For this mic, the good thing is that it wont distort as much as cheaper microphones.

Overall: If you building a home studio and planning to record vocals. IF you need low cost with extreme quality: Shure C606 is highly recommended!

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The image of this flash player is below:

The code to be embed in your blog post (set it to plain html editor mode):

It will appear on your page as:

The advantage of using this player:

a. Easy to cut and paste to your blog (if there is a problem with copy and paste procedures, replace all quotes and question mark on the pasted code on your blog with exact quotation mark ” from your keyboard.
b. The [mp3 file address] above can easily be replaced with exact URL of your mp3 say: “valid_sample_rate=true&external_url=http://thisisatest.com/test.mp3″
c. It is free and can be used anywhere.
d. It can streamed out really fast especially if the bit rate is low.

The disadvantage of this player:

a. It is sad to note but the color of this sometimes can be annoying. The only color available is pink, I hope that color can be customized.
b. The player will distort at times when resize smaller, I suggest to keep the player visible so that the visitors can easily spot the play button.

Overall: If you want a safe and fast player, this is a recommended one. This supports adobe flash/shockwave plugins that most browsers can support.

Additional helpful tips:

a. If you need a free audio hosting and reliable solution that can be made publicly available, you can try at Windows Skydrive.
Basically this is much more like an online hard drive where you can save anything important including your mp3 songs.

b. Use 128kbps maximum MP3. This is the maximum standard that can be streamed safely without user related problems. The quality of this streamed audio is nearer to CD audio quality.

c. Use standard mp3 encoding bit rate, such as 198, 96 khz and others, you can find some important information here: Mp3 Encoding format standards

d. Do not ever use this with WAV files. This makes streaming almost impossible.

e. This will not be used for video streaming, instead use Youtube for this.

f. You cannot download the code and hosted it in your server.

If you have any problems, please comment on this article! Thank you.

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a. License quote generator
b. License calculator.

In the world of music publishing, there is a term “license” which means that before anyone can use the song, they must pay for license. This is the business aspect of music which every songwriter needs to know. In fact, buying a CD means that, I pay for the CD price in exchange of the use for the song personally (like using it only in your home or car stereo). The cash you paid in purchasing those CD or downloading a song online constitutes a “license”. The terms and conditions is that: you can only use the song for non-commercial purposes.

What about if you are planning to use a song from certain songwriter X as part of your film project which you are planning to release? This needs another type of music licensing. Of course the licensing cost is not the same as simply buying a CD and ripping off that song for your other commercial purposes.

This where music license tool is very helpful. It can be used to calculate the licensing fees automatically by setting the terms and conditions of the song usage. See example below.

Lets illustrate how much does it cost to license a song “X” if:

a. I will use it for my film/movie project and the song is a theme song.
b. I would like the movie to be viewable also in the web, aside from cinemas/theatres.
c. The song will be featured also in the out of context trailers.
d. My budget for my film project is less than $40 million.
e. The movie will be released worldwide.

Using the calculator, it gives around $16,186.46 one time fee which I will give to the music publisher in exchange for the film synchronization license.

The only short coming of this calculator is that it does not give whether it will be an “exclusive” or “non-exclusive” form of license. These two affects so much the licensing cost and I have no idea why they have not incorporated this feature. And I think, the tool assumes a “non-exclusive” license since it is the most common form. “Exclusive license” means that if I grant this form of license to customer “X”, I cannot grant a license to another customer except term of usage for customer “X” expires.

It makes sense that non-exclusive licensing cost should be higher because you cannot get income other potential customers during that certain of time as stated in the license. Lets have another example, say I am a recording producer planning to release a major album and would like one song from a certain music publisher to be performed by my artist. Below are the terms of usage for the license:

a. Song title: X
b. License type: “Composition and Sound recordings”
c. License terms: “Life of Copyright”
d. Number of copies: 100,000
e. Commercial- media production
f. Song use: Composition only.
g. Song use duration: Entire Song
h. Territory: The universe (all galaxies)

Using the calculator it gives around : $13,950.00 licensing cost. Also another shortcoming of the tool is that it does not have a feature whether the song is already popular or not. This tool assumes the lowest price and that the song is not a popular one at all.

If you are a music publisher you can try this tool using the shortcut above.

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a. Price
b. Features/Functionality
c. Sound and Compatibility

OK here we go, the mixer is made by Behringer and the Xenyx series has actually several types of mixer classified according to the number of inputs and features. There are Xenyx 802, Xenyx 1002 and other big mixer in the Xenyx Series. More info on other types of Behringer Xenyx Class Mixers

Price

- I buy Xenyx 502 for around 3500 pesos only in the Philippines, this is equivalent to around $78. I shop today and it is priced at around $45! I know I buy it a higher price but in January 2008, I really do not have other choice such as buying online and shopping other stores. Shops that sell high quality mixers such as Behringer is rare in this country, so I could expect a bit higher. So at this price I could say it is affordable even to a music student.

Features and Functionality:

Xenyx 502 Number of Inputs

This mixer has around 5 mono inputs, so a recording of 5 mono inputs can be done simultaneously which is more than enough for any songwriter recording demo at home. Almost all of the recordings will be done in multi-track, and it will be very rare to record 5 mono inputs at the same time. There is a line input and microphone input (with XLR input also), but I am using line input most of the time to record instruments such as guitar and keyboards.

The volume control for line inputs is wired parallel so this means that for Line input 2 (left) and Line input 3 (right) it can be controlled by only one level control knob designated as “Level 2/3″.

Xenyx 502 Number of Outputs

There is one main stereo output which can be connected to the sound card input. The output level is controlled by main mix control knob, which can set from low to high while taking account the clip level indicators to make sure the volume that is being delivered to the sound card is not clipped.

One of the main disadvantage is the difficulty to utilize the mixer as output to the monitors. While it is very easy to utilize the mixer to provide output to the sound card input, but using this at the same will be result to a feedback and poor sound. I really like to utilize this one with a lots of output that will be free to each other and will not cause feedback.

But if you have decent speakers with powerful amplifiers within, there is no need to use the mixer to boost the speaker volume. Typical affordable speakers such as ATP 3 Altec Lansing can do this job decently.

Mixer Pre-amplification

This is a great feature which I really like so much. Before my recording method is so crude and I connect the guitars directly to the sound card (yeah it happen to me once), the recording signal is very poor. After using this mixer, the signals are amplified and cleaned, the result is superb sound recording. The pre-amp is very powerful and it can even do a decent job in amplifying a very weak passive bass guitar sound.

Sound and Compatibility

Noise Reduction

I can say that the noise reduction ability of Behringer Xenyx 502 mixer is great. Before when I record without this mixer, the noise level occupies around 20% to 40% of the signal wave like doing a bass guitar recording. Now the noise is significantly reduced, and the sound is cleaner than before.

Frequency Response

Before I use a mixer, the bass response is thin. Now, with the mixer, it can now pickup a wide frequency response. I read their manual and they do have wide response.

Overall: If you are a songwriter needing a mixer for your home studio. This is a great option to consider in terms of cost and performance.

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I can say that this speaker is versatile, in my home I use it in gaming, streaming’s, watching video and recording. It exceeds my expectations from the 1st time I set my plans in purchasing this speaker. One of the greatest advantages of this speaker aside from it’s versatility is superb sound quality. I have tested other type of speakers more expensive than this, and it just sounds the same. However, there were so much difference in quality for speakers lower the price of this one.

Here in Philippines, in 2004 I bought ATP 3 for around 4000 pesos and it is cheap already. Right now, it’s went down a little because of so many Altec Lansing speakers being released. I know the more expensive the better is the sound quality, maybe in the future I will purchase another Altec Lansing speaker ( a more modern one) but I will still kept my ATP 3 speaker.

One of the greatest advantages of this speaker is the slim design of the twin satellite speakers. This enable it to be placed in such crowded computer desk. As a rule of thumb, the sub-woofer should be placed within the room corners for best boost. Also, the higher the quality of your sound card, the better will be the resulting sound. Sound cards helps so much in audio processing, and pairing it with a high quality speaker gives a much better result.

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Below is the overall positive features of Altec Lansing ATP3:

1.) Wide frequency response: 45 – 18000 Hz
2.) 2.1 type speaker, one sub-woofer and 2 satellite speakers.
3.) Small and twin satellite speakers.
4.) Contains built-in amplifier – this is advantageous because it will make the sound louder.
5.) Has self on-off switch.
6.) Has treble and bass control.
7.) Standardized Color coded wiring for easy wiring between the speaker and the CPU.
8.) Has strong sub-woofer- this will be helpful if you are mixing music.
9.) The wires provided are long enough so that speakers can be placed in such remote location.
10.) Low cost speaker but quality is good.

Below are what I seen as negative features of this speaker:

1.) Do not have a perfect flat frequency response- only professional audio speakers have this. ATP 3 is not perfectly flat, it is why you should have good audio reference when you are doing mixing or else you might be mislead.
2.) It will create distortion in such very high volume- again mixing studio designed speakers won’t distort unless the signal itself is already distorted.

As you can see, there are more advantages compared to disadvantages of using this speaker. It is highly recommended for home studio use, however based on this review, do not purchase this speaker for professional recording studio use.

I am not sure if this type of speaker is still available in the market, I think it is.I have seen online stores still selling this type of speaker. If you are looking for a speaker for variety of purposes including your songwriting recordings, this one is recommended.

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I will now give my detailed review on this sound card even though I am not an expert reviewer. I will divide my reviews into three parts: hardware installation, software installation, playback quality, recording quality, interface, compatibility/customer service and price. This is based on my experience.

Hardware installation:

It is very easy to install this on windows based computer. Since it is a PCI card, it can be easily inserted to any PCI slot making this card easy to be installed. Although Sound blaster did provide additional metals for installation, but it is useless when i installed my card. I think it belongs to other types of PC cases. So you have to check the manual or PC casing instructions.

I remember there are warnings in the manual before installation, this says that we should remove all the existing audio hardware/ card in the PC. Now this looks a bit tricky, Sound blaster should disseminate this information carefully (some users will install PCI card without reading manual) or else lot of mistake will happen during hardware and software installation.I suggest they should put this warning on the product boxes for better visibility.

But as a summary, hardware installation is straight forward, except those warnings to remove existing hardware. Removing existing hardware will be easy if it is PCI card, onboard sound cards are not straightforward, and since it cannot be removed, it can be disabled in the Motherboard Bios. Again, Creative do not have specific instructions in the manual pertaining to removing on board based sound card. I think they should specified this clearly in the manual or in their product boxes.

Software installation:

After the hardware installation, boot the PC and installation wizard will prompt to install software. The software installation is straightforward and the only problem is the massive downloading of files from their server. I believe it is an update. The file is just massive and not suitable for slower internet connection. There are just too many files to download, I hope Creative will work on prioritizing only a small set of files in the future.

The best thing with this software it that the control panel of the sound card is very easy to use. It is almost the same my soundmax onboard sound card before except that it contains many advanced features.

Playback Quality:

The playback quality is excellent! I am not a gear freak, but I can say I am contented with the sound. When I do watch movies using altec lansing ATP 3. The sound is massive and theater like. I do not even adjust too much on the sound card control panel. Every time I play audio CD’s, it sounds like listening in controlled studio. Although this depends on what type of environment you are listening.

Recording quality

I observed massive differences when recording with this sound card compared with the on board sound card I have before. First the noise is very low and the most noticeable feature is the excellent frequency response that the card provides.

Interface

Very easy to interface with a real external audio mixer. Also, the line inputs and microphone inputs servers very well for recording process. Although depending on mixer that is used, careful not to overload input or some feedback. THe feedback is very annoying especially when used together with a audio mixer.

The green one should be used for speaker (this is a standard color for all PC based audio devices). The orange are for line inputs/microphone.

Photo courtesy by: http://www.diycomputers.com.au

Compatibility and Customer Service

It is very compatible with Windows XP system although there are problems when used together with other audio devices. For example, a web-cam with audio devices installed such as Logitech webcam. To resolve the problem is to temporarily turn-off one device when the other is used.

The customer service of Creative supporting this sound card is very poor. Honestly, one time I have a problem with the diagnostic test results. It is showing there are problems with Direct X. I correct all possible causes and still the problem exist. Although the error does not produce any form of audible errors. I have consulted creative audigy value customer support, send all the diagnostic test results. But I get no reply until now.

Price

The price is very affordable and I get the sound quality I want at the price I can afford.

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(Photo above: Multi-track session view)

Basically, this software offers three major features:
a. Audio wave editing (Single audio wave recording)
b. Multi-track session recording
c. CD project session

I used only Audio wave editing and multi-track session recording features. The CD project session will be used only for special audio track burning purposes such as burning your final CD.

I will give my positive review on the above features one by one:

a. Audio wave editing view – of all the recording softwares I used, this is the only software that gives the best editing features. One of the editing features I really is the Noise reduction feature. This noise reduction feature enables the engineer to clean out the tracks such as removing background noise from the recording. Plus I find it very user friendly to use. Other important audio editing features are complete such as amplification of signal , compression, effects. One of the great features of this software is the batch editing feature, it means you have a single command for all audio editing work and have it done automatically.
This is particularly important when converting a lot of wav files into MP3. It can be used to convert many stereo channel songs to a mono songs. This makes the audio editing work very easy.
Although as I write this review, there are already Adobe Audition 2.0 released in the market. I can say that I am satisfied with the audio editing features of Adobe Audition 1.5.
The audio editing features is very useful in the mastering process. Mastering process deals with a single wave. Unlike in the mixing process where there can be several waves to work it. Mastering process works with a single wave. The main process of mastering can be easily done in Adobe audition 1.5. Major important steps such as noise reduction , amplification, compression, EQ can be easily executed.
One of great advantage of this software is the ability to work with high quality plug-ins. One of the most useful plug-ins that I used, the Sony FX plug-in from Sounforge can be easily integrated into this audio software. Other great plug-ins such as sonic maximizer and Wave plug-ins can work also with no hassle.

b. Multi-track session recording view

The most important is the multi-track recording feature. This works very well and ideal for low budget quality recordings. Adobe audition can work with Soundblaster Audigy Soundcard which is a good, cheap but a very decent soundcard. I do not have an exact figure of how many tracks it can support. But as I checked before, it can support up to 64 tracks. And I think this 64 tracks is enough.
The multi-track feature enables you to work with plug-ins and all features that can be found in audio editing feature. The most satisfying feature is the “lock down”. This is where you can locked tracks with heavy effects to speed up the multi-track play back and recording. Locking tracks improves the performance of your work. There is a need to lock down tracks if during play back it will slow down the computer processing.
It is very easy to work with multi-tracks and to record the track one by one. Also there are friendly “help” features which is very clearly explained how to do the process.

c. CD project view – I used this burn high quality CD audio. It is very easy to load tracks and I find this burning process very efficient and produces great quality.

Other great advantages:
1. This software uses a little amount of RAM and CPU usage typically for very modern computers. It is because this software was designed to work efficiently with slow version of Pentium computers before. But today with fast computers, this is a very memory and processor efficient software.

2. Affordable with lots of features.

Downside:

1. If you like to video with audio or deals with video, this is not a recommended software. Instead go for a more advanced ones like Pro tools and others.
2. If you like to work with MIDI, this is also not a recommended one as this type of softwares gives a very limited features to work with MIDI.

Overall, this is a great audio recording software and have been a standard like the Pro Tools in modern recording industry.

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