AES-Nashville Reference/Test CD (1 CD with booklet) $12

Grade: A-

I wish to thank Barry Rudolph and the AES Nashville Committee for a nice summation of the CD below. After reviewing this CD, I believe any MEIEA school with a sound engineering program should have this CD on file in their library. Mike Poston at AES Nashville also told me that they will also sell boxes (30 CDs) for a discounted rate to programs if they wish to sell directly to their engineering students.

The Nashville Section of the Audio Engineering Society and contributing recording engineer/producer professionals have produced a new reference test CD that's only $12 and available online. This reference disc is a potpourri of precision signals recorded over 71 tracks on an enhanced CD. Test signals ranging from level calibration tones, noise signals, third octave tones, polarity and digital meter calibration pulses, band passed noise and swept sine waves are all included.

Additional tracks include dry recorded kick and snare drums, acoustic guitar and piano along with spoken word and a cappella male and female vocals. These additional tracks are considered good sources to compare in quality to your own recordings or the effect of outboard processors and reverb units.

The all-important booklet explains each CD track's content and how to apply and use it. There are instructions for setup and alignment of equipment such as A/D and D/A converters as well as analog tape decks. Important studio procedures for measuring your monitor speaker system's frequency response, left and right channel level matching, phase coherency, and dynamic range are given.

The enhanced CD has a data area that has BPM charts; Excel based calculators and loads of bonus material. You'll find the NARAS Master Recording Delivery Recommendations document, a time code calculator, volt/dB charts, tempo conversions, analog tape deck alignment procedure, and even a link to Barry Rudolph’s large collection of Studio Equipment Recall Sheets.

To purchase the AES CD, contact Mike Poston at studentCDsales@aesnashville.org

-Reviewed by Dave Tough, Belmont University

Secrets of the Pros was founded in 2004 by Audio Industry veteran Ken Walden. Mr. Walden serves as both the owner of the company and lead instructor in this DVD set.

The SOTP website states that the goal of the series is to “enable audio content creators to master the technical aspects of their work via clear, easy to understand, well-researched, and affordable information.” You will notice from all the customer testimonials that they seem to be achieving their goal.

Walden noticed several common working styles of the world class producers and engineers he worked with in the past and he now desires to share this information with burgeoning engineers through his instructional DVDs.

Each DVD starts with an entertaining disclaimer which sets a lighthearted tone for the learner to get comfortable with Walden. Walden is a down to earth instructor who has engineered for such names as Santana, Metallica, John Lee Hooker, Booker T. Jones, and Sammy Hagar,in the San Francisco area. He also worked for as a product representative and tech at Digidesign for nine years.

Modern Recording and Mixing (2 DVD set) $39.95

Grade: B-

Walden states the purpose of this 3 + hour DVD set is to show industry standards for recording and mixing. This DVD set covers Mixing, Acoustics and how to set up a studio, Preamps, Signal Routing, Loops, MIDI and other general recording techniques.

The highlights of this DVD were the studio setup section and the room acoustics section (taught by a guest speaker). These two topic areas are lacking from about any other recording tutorial DVD you can purchase today. The section on recording individual instruments is a good overview with good basic microphone recommendations. There is not a lot of detail with regards to microphones and preamps, however and one could probably get more from Tom Lubin’s Microphone DVD, Allen Sides’ Microphone Cabinet or the Bruce Swedien Microphone DVD.

To teach concepts such as mixing and signal flow, Walden jumps into the digital audio workstation right away and focuses his lectures around Protools. These function may be native to a Digidesign guru, but I perhaps Walden should have explained signal flow basics outside of the box, i.e. showing how inserts and sends work on a simple console such as a Mackie (see “Teaching with Protools? Proceed With Caution! The Development of Mental Models for Recording Engineering Instruction” by Barry R. Hill, MEIEA Journal Vo. 6, No. 1).

When Walden speaks to the concept of MIDI, he again relates MIDI concepts strictly to Protools. This is good for the Protools user but what about the other guy?? Once again, Rothstein’s MIDI video may better better suited to teaching what MIDI can do.

Purchasing this DVD set may be beneficial to students but my recommendation is that the Tom Lubin videos, although dated and peculiar, may be better for teaching recording basics with regards to signal flow, microphones and effects.

Protools: Volume I (2 DVD set) $39.95

Grade: B+

The goal for this 4 hour DVD set is to relay the “relevant and crucial” aspects of Protools. Walden hopes to teach the learner a short list of basics intended on speeding up the learning curve. This set covers basic topics in Protools such as Recording, Editing, Mixing, Beat Detective, System setup, MIDI and a Software and Hardware overview.

The DVD set includes a wonderful section on system setup and hardware and software options. You can easily see how Walden has put his Digidesign Product representative experience to work. From the beginning Mbox user to the advanced TDM owner, everyone can learn something about their system in these sections.

Walden is forgiving to both sides of the fence covering both MAC and PC versions in detail. Another thing I like is that he address musicality, which most technical DVDs fail to cover. Walden relates, “great players practice more than they edit” Yeah!

This DVD set is somewhat dated in regards to covering Protools TDM and version 6.7 software. Walden also moves a little fast, perhaps too fast for students following along on a computer (perhaps during lab time). An instructor would need to pause the DVD several times for students to assimilate the information and take notes.

An overall complaint I have for all of Walden’s Protools sets is that his screenshots are a little blurry, which may pose a problem for the older student.

Walden jumps from basic information to advanced information in this DVD (being Vol I shouldn't it only cover Protools Basics?). For example he introduces auxillary sends and groups early on in the DVD when the student may not conceptually understand them yet. It might have been better if he covered a simple recording and editing session first (such a producing a radio spot) so that the student could get involved and enjoy the product before tackling big conceptual issues. When Walden does cover basic mixing he does not mention automation, output levels on the Master Fader or the Mastering process.

Speaking to conceptual issues, another place where this DVD lacks is overall recording theory. Walden however, does cover some of this in his Modern Recording and Mixing set. If a student picked up this DVD without referencing the other they may be lost.

With that said, this DVD is probably the most instructional and significant DVD of the SOTP catalogue.

Advanced Pro Tools DVD: Volume II

Grade: B+

Advanced Pro Tools DVD: Volume III

Grade: B

Both of these titles are a presented as single DVD and cost $24.95 each.

Advanced Pro Tools DVD: Volume II covers Advanced Mixing, Advanced Editing, and Overview of 7.x software and MIDI, Buffer settings and Latency, Navigation, and File Management.

The sections that stood out on this DVD were those on Navigation and File Management. In my opinion, intermediate Protools students could really benefit from both of these sections, especially the one on file organization and management. Walden covers several different ways to move around in the navigation section so that each student can figure out which method they will personally adopt.

Advanced Pro Tools DVD: Volume III covers Mixing, Plug – Ins, Automation and Control Surfaces. This DVD is the icing on the cake for many Protools users and my favorite topic was Control surfaces since

Conclusions - Secrets of the Pros

Overall, Walden’s DVDs are good learning tools, especially for those students focused on learning Protools quickly. Walden is one of the pioneers to explain the many options of Protools in an understandable way. There may be other DVDs or instructional methods out there that are better for teaching recording basics, however.

Every school that teaches digital recording should own a copy of Protools: Volume I for students to check out for home tutorial or for an audio instructor to show at select times during a digital recording course covering Protools. The other DVDs could follow if students benefit from the Volume I set (and Walden offers discounts for buying more than one DVD). To read more about these DVDs go to http://www.secretsofthepros.com/, then purchase and enjoy!

-Reviewed by Dave Tough, Belmont University

 Return to Vol. 4 No. 2 Contents