New DVD Teaches Creative Recording

The path from song idea to polished master recording is long and complex, so it's good to see more companies producing tutorial DVDs. Keyfax NewMedia has been in the business for a long time, driven by founder Julian Colbeck's wit and music-technology expertise. (One of Keyfax's first DVDs, for the Yamaha Motif keyboard, actually outsold the Motif itself.)

I've known Colbeck since the mid-'90s, when I snagged him to write several entertaining features for Music & Computers magazine, so I'm always interested to see what Keyfax comes up with. The latest endeavor is a DVD collaboration with Universal Audio called UA Studio Onscreen, Vol. 1.

The disc is designed to take you inside the entire recording process from pre-production to mastering, and is targeted to beginning to intermediate audio engineers. Universal Audio gear such as mic preamps and the UAD-1 DSP card have starring roles, but Colbeck assured me the overall goal was to give "a ton of practical advice."

"Obviously the techniques shown do relate to specific UA kit," he said, "but this is going to be invaluable to general recording people to see what compressors, limiters, EQ, reverbs, digital recording, mixes, and mastering are all about and how they're used in real-life settings. The sections on mixing and mastering are really excellent because you get to sit in on a mix and a mastering session, and really see—and of course hear—what's going on. Even having made 30 albums myself I learned a bunch of stuff."

I grabbed these screenshots from an excerpt of the video on the Keyfax site. The preview reveals little and promises a lot, but I'm confident the rest of the disc will live up to Keyfax and UA's engaging attitude and high standards.