Posted By Hans on May 2, 2013

Testing the THR10′s recording possibilities has been great fun. It’s so easy to dial in a certain tone for a project.  Using this desktop amplifier as the sound generator for both the guitar sound as well as the source music, you will have all the editing options in post-processing because you are given left & right dry signals along with the affected, dialed-in sound.
I demonstrate this in the video below. I keep switching to my DAW’s sound, using captions to indicate when you hear the THR10′s dialed-in sound and when switching to a re-amped signal that sports the DAW’s visual guitar amp.

All in all, the THR10 makes guitar recording very comfortable and it provides a high-quality, dry signal. And this goes also for bass direct in as well as acoustic guitar direct in. On the latter, the THR10′s gain knob becomes the ‘mic modeling’ knob – with amazing results.

Category: Product Videos
Tags: amp, amplifiers, amps, desktop amp, Guitar Amp, modeling amp, modeling amplifier, recording interface, studio, THR10, yamaha

Posted By jeff on March 22, 2013

Yamaha’s new MX series keyboards combine great sounds with portability, containing over 1000 sounds directly from the Motif XS series in a portable package. Yamaha packed this keyboard with a ton of great features including 128 note polyphony, one-touch split and layer, and audio/MIDI over USB. The 49 key version (4 octaves) is especially convenient for smaller studios and as a powerful second tier for your gigging setups! Check out the video below to hear a few of the sounds and come down to Easy Music Center to try it out!

Category: News
Tags: 49, 61, 88, arranger, digital, key, keyboard, keyboards, keys, mm, MX, MX-49, MX-61, MX49, MX61, organ, piano, stack, studio, tier, workstation, yamaha

Posted By Jericho on February 26, 2013

Come down to our Honolulu location at 5:00PM to hear some fresh beats from local producers.

Since 2005, the Lightsleepers, spearheaded by Kavet the catalyst, have been organizing The BeatRoot producer battles. This is the only known battle in Hawaii that pits producer vs. producer and beat vs. beat! Each battle consists of 8 producers that use production equipment ranging from AKAI MPCs to laptops. Each round is 1 – 2 minute beat each. The first round winners move on to the semi-final round, and the losers of the first round have to battle again to claim the wild card 4th spot. In the Semi-final round, the remaining producers battle to clinch a spot in the Finals! The finals consist of 2 rounds with each producer playing 2 – 2 minute beats. The winner of the battle claims a spot at the BeatRoot finals! BeatRoot brings a cool twist to the producers and beat makers in Hawaii and is a showcase for all of Hawaii’s producers!

If you would ever like to participate in the BeatRoot competition as a contestant or as an exhibitor, please email Kavet: lightsleepers@gmail.com

Check out this video about Lightsleepers history.

Category: Events
Tags: beat production, beatroot, beats, lightsleepers, Maschine, mpc, performance, studio

Posted By Jericho on January 10, 2013

Come down to our Honolulu location at 5:00PM to hear some fresh beats from local producers.

Since 2005, the Lightsleepers, spearheaded by Kavet the catalyst, have been organizing The BeatRoot producer battles. This is the only known battle in Hawaii that pits producer vs. producer and beat vs. beat! Each battle consists of 8 producers that use production equipment ranging from AKAI MPCs to laptops. Each round is 1 – 2 minute beat each. The first round winners move on to the semi-final round, and the losers of the first round have to battle again to claim the wild card 4th spot. In the Semi-final round, the remaining producers battle to clinch a spot in the Finals! The finals consist of 2 rounds with each producer playing 2 – 2 minute beats. The winner of the battle claims a spot at the BeatRoot finals! BeatRoot brings a cool twist to the producers and beat makers in Hawaii and is a showcase for all of Hawaii’s producers!

If you would ever like to participate in the BeatRoot competition as a contestant or as an exhibitor, please email Kavet: lightsleepers@gmail.com

Check out this video about Lightsleepers history.

Category: Events
Tags: beat production, beatroot, beats, lightsleepers, Maschine, mpc, performance, studio

Posted By Bryan on January 9, 2013

Hey EMC studio fanatics! Here’s a quick demo to give you an idea of how the Pre73 preamp sounds on an acoustic guitar. This is a wonderful preamp and after giving a try, I bought one for  myself! I’ve used it on many sources from vocals to  acoustic guitars, guitar cabs,  keyboards, piano, percussion, drums, as a bass DI, and as an acoustic DI. This is a great all around preamp. Run anything through it and it will give your recordings new life! Stay tuned for more videos from the Pre73 on other sources…

Category: News
Tags: acoustic guitar recording, breedlove, Golden age project, neumann, pre-73, pre73, preamp, recording, studio, tlm-103, tlm103

Posted By Ka'imi on December 30, 2012

Avantone makes great mics!  Here is an overview of three different models.  All three have different characteristics.  The CK-7 is a well rounded mic.  It has more of a mid range sound compared to the CK-1 and the CR-14.  I would use the CK-7 for more vocal applications.  The CK-1 is a brighter sounding mic.  This mic is more directional and is used mostly for over head drum mics or acoustic instruments.  My favorite is the CR-14 ribbon mic.  It is a darker sounding mic, but if you did not know already, ribbon mics are closer to the true sound of what your ears hear.  If you use this mic, you will need to apply more equalization to get the desired sound you are looking for.  I could use the ribbon mic in almost any application.  Check out this video I made.  It shuffles through the CK-1, CK-7, and the CR-14.  Hope this help out your decision.

Category: Featured Products, News, Product Videos
Tags: avantone, ck-1, ck-7, condenser, CR-14, demo, microphone, microphones, recording, ribbon, studio

Posted By jeff on December 24, 2012

The MOX6  by Yamaha is an excellent multi-use keyboard that combines several different features making it great for both stage and studio! The Yamaha MOX series keyboards are a subset of the MOTIF series drawing much of their internal architecture from the MOTIF XS series keyboards.  The MOX keyboards have the same great selection of voices as the MOTIF XS and still get up to 64 notes of polyphony.  Coming in at a very portable 15.4 lbs this keyboard has all the sounds you’ll need for stage performance as well as studio production!

Check out the video below to hear a demo of just some of the great sounds included straight out of the box!

Category: Featured Products, News
Tags: key, keyboard, keyboards, keys, motif, motif xf, motif xs, motifxf, MOTIFXS, mox, MOX6, MOX8, Patch, Patches, piano, production, stage, studio, voice, Voices, workstation, yamaha

Posted By Hans on November 22, 2012

Check out the video also for the included shock-mount and deluxe case!

Category: Product Videos
Tags: avantone, CR-14, CR14, microphone, microphones, recording, ribbon microphone, studio

Posted By Paul on November 12, 2012

Earlier this year I started a project using the PodHD300 to do my guitar tracks for a song I am working on. I thought the effects and clean patches were awesome and kept those. I just couldn’t seem to dial in a good sounding distortion.  I figured I’d give the Blackstar HT-1HR a shot to see how it compared. So I lined my guitar into our Presonus interface from the emulated output on the head and after playing around for 5 minutes I was blown away! Who knew a 1 watt valve head could sound so fat! It’s a very tiny, portable head and is completely capable of operating without having to be plugged into a cab! And the best part is it’s super affordable. Check out this new song I’ve been working on and hear for yourself!

Category: Product Videos
Tags: accessories, amp, amps, emulated, guitar, head, Headphone, interface, mp3, music, pa, presonus, Protools, recording, reverb, studio, watt

Posted By Peter on October 25, 2012

Ableton’s ability to chop goes far beyond my wildest dreams. I chopped this up in about two minutes. The beat is coming from the Maschine. Cool thing about Ableton chops is you can setup a lot of bars too work at the same tempo.  All the chops work seamlessly even if some of the bars were slightly off in BPM. This solves so many problems I’ve had in the past.  I also love having the Maschine involved too.  Yea.  It works great as a standalone beat production sampler, but I find that integrating it as a VST in Ableton works  better.  I mostly use it as an awesome drum module.  I much prefer sequencing in Ableton and find it to be easier to use than the Maschine’s sequencer and far more accurate.  Also, the cool thing about the Maschine is you can be working in Ableton and use the hardware surface of the Maschine to adjust the VST without having to continually keep bringing up the VST visual in Ableton.  This gives you that hands on hardware control with the flexibility of a VST.  It is the ultimate setup.  In the pic above you can see that I’ve also incorporated three other midi controllers.  I use the MPK mini to do simple bass lines, but I also have two MPD18 controllers.  I like to chop  a part of the sample in 1/4 notes and put that one one  MPD18, and I like to chop up the same part in 1/8th notes and put it on the other MPD18.  Sometimes I just chop up different sections of the song so I have more access to more chops to try with others.  With the three banks on the MPD18, I can have 48 chops on quick hand at any given time.  I chose two of the MPD18 because they are so reasonably priced, and I needed quantity more than the features offered on something like a higher series MPD.  The routing for midi controllers in Ableton couldn’t be easier to setup.  The program makes sampling, chopping, midi automation, and sequencing duck soup.  I’ve never had so much fun making beats before.  Oh yea, then when you bring in the APC40 for the final recording, you can easily add in live effects and make the whole song feel less staged, more natural, and less sequenced.  I’ve gotten much closer to achieving my wildest beat fantasies.  The short clip below is a simple example of how fun it can be to work with chops.  The sound is from a  Japanese children’s record I got from the crates at Jelly’s last week.  I got if for a $1!  That’s my dog resting by my Adams Sub, making sure my beats sound just right! - The Kamuela Kid

Category: News
Tags: ableton, ableton 8, ableton maschine, Adam, adam ax5, adam sub7, adams, akai, akai apc40, akai mpd18, akai mpk mini, apc40, ax5, chopshop, hip-hop, Kamuela Kid, Maschine, mpd18, mpkmini, Native Instruments, studio, sub7