Well, I’m off with my family to take in a few days of snowboarding before Christmas.

Should be filled with lots of snow and fun. It’s been a wild year with many ups and downs. I sincerely hope that everyone has had a fantastic year full of adventure and new discoveries.

I’m hoping to get one more post in before New Year’s, but if I don’t, here’s wishing everyone a year of happiness, peace and wonderful recordings.

Now, onto this past week’s list of posts that caught my attention:

• When I was going through my music degree, if you didn’t play an orchestral instrument, you were required to be a part of one of the faculty choirs. Every ensemble always has its’ prima donna member(s) who receives the brunt of jokes and such … usually because of their ego and sensitivity. It was always the sopranos who got the jabs. This thought resurfaced after reading Kim Lajoie‘s recent blog post: “Are singers more sensitive than other instrumentalists?” – some interesting perspectives on what to keep in mind when dealing with vocalists.
• Jeff Tolbert over at Film Scoring.info posted a link to Film and Game Composers that is probably of interest to a lot of established and budding composers: “Finding Scoring Jobs Online“
• Audio Issues hit me with a double-whammy this week. Björgvin Benediktsson posted some advice on “How to Use a Reference Track to Improve your Mixing” and then went on to drop some more opinions on a topic that a lot of us ask: “Is Second Hand Audio Recording Equipment Just As Good?“
• Not to get topped by anyone, Bobby Owsinski posted a funny, you-know-you’d-get-one-if-money-wasn’t-an-issue product: “The 10,000 Watt iPhone Dock“. He also dropped a top-10 list to add to everyone’s Gear-Acquisition-Syndrome priorities: “10 Holiday Gifts for Musicians and Engineers.“
• Matt Mcglynn over at Recording Hacks posted a timely (for me) blog entry that’d be of interest to anyone building a studio, or just wanting to get better sound in their room: “Mounting Acoustic Panels with a Variable Air Gap“
• Jon Tidey posted some details and examples over at Audio Geek Zine from the segment he did on the Home Recording Show concerning “Time Adjusting a Multi-mic Performance“. Lots of interesting theory and opinions to chew on!
• Just wanted to leave you with a post that came through today that gave me whip-lash doing a second-(what-did-he-say?)-take. Ian Shepherd published a post on his blog, Production Advice, entitled “How to Master a Song Loud“. He hasn’t abandoned the crusade against loud mixes, but rather, advocating some techniques to produce decent loud mixes. If you’ve gotta do it, then you may as well learn how to do it properly…

Until next week, Happy Recording!