Mark Peskett
Guitarist, Sound Engineer, Nerd, Awesome
Plug-in Baby
Aug 2nd
In my dissertation I’m talking a bit about plug-in technology, which is at the core of these ‘New Wave’ prog-metal releases. There just so happened to be an article in this month’s Sound on Sound magazine all about plug-in modelling – the art of emulating analogue gear in DSP code. I knew most of the general process that goes into making these plug-ins, but the most enlightening thing was a quote from one manufacturer which stated that in the not-so-distant future, processors will be efficient enough to emulate analogue equipment exactly. More >
Metallurgy
Jul 30th
is the title of my dissertation. I’m writing about how digital audio production software has resulted in new, innovative methods of Extreme Metal production, and why it is now a crucial tool for entrepreneurial (had to check the spelling of that) self-produced artists. I find it fascinating how a lot of the bands in the ‘New Wave of Progressive Metal’ are making their music almost entirely in-the-box (all inside software). Of course, you gotta use the right microphone, preamp and decent converters for the vocals at least, but other than that, you can use software for the guitars, bass and even the drums. Some people are doing that, and a lot of it sounds absolutely amazing. Some of the bands emerging right now whose music was produced in this way (in varying degrees) include TesseracT (my favourite band of the moment), Periphery, Chimp Spanner, Red Seas Fire and plenty more. More >
Another attempt at a blog
Jul 23rd
So I’d thought it would be a good idea to attempt blogging (again). The last time I tried was because I felt very inspired and had a lot to write about. However, inspiration as a definition is a generally momentary thing, so when the inspiration is gone, interest in writing a blog wanes because the onus is to keep up with what you’ve done before. Right now, I’m not inspired, and I think that’s good, because it means I won’t end up writing something really long (tl;dr) and can just be more relaxed about it. I guess that also runs the risk of it being terribly boring, but because boredom is directly correlated with reading time, short and sweet articles will likely be the way to go. I imagine they’ll be mostly personal interspersed with musings on pro audio topics, which is my vocation. How quite that will work is uncertain, but here goes… More >