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Joel Falconer

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Joel Falconer is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and frontman. While Joel's first love is writing and performing songs that touch on important and personal issues, programming, engineering and producing music in the studio are also strong passions.
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8 Stifling Myths About Studio Recording

Joel Falconer on Jun 10th 2011 with 26 comments

Twice a month we revisit some of our reader favorite posts from throughout the history of Audiotuts+. This tutorial was first published in August 2008.

For the neophyte, the studio can be a place of myth and legend. It’s complicated and takes many years of learning and hands-on experience to become a talented studio engineer or producer. It’s not at all helped by the amount of misinformation that has been distributed about studio recording, unfortunately; let’s clear up a few of these myths.

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How to Add Interest to Your Chord Progression

Joel Falconer on Mar 18th 2011 with 24 comments

Twice a month we revisit some of our reader favorite posts from throughout the history of Audiotuts+. This tutorial was first published in August 2008.

Sometimes we spend hours, days, even months, struggling to find the perfect chord progression to suit the lyrics we’ve written. And then we find it, only to get bored sick of the same chords being repeated over, and over, and over again.

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How to Process and Improve Home Recorded Vocals

Joel Falconer on Mar 11th 2011 with 43 comments

Twice a month we revisit some of our reader favorite posts from throughout the history of Audiotuts+. This tutorial was first published in July 2008.

So, you’ve recorded a vocal, and now you want to mix it and process it so it sounds great in your mix. We’re not going to look at tracking vocals in this tutorial. Instead, we’re going to focus on how to process vocals once you’ve recorded them. Depending on your room, your mic and placements, your pre-amps and inputs and, above all, your skill-level, the quality of your recorded vocal sound is going vary.

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How to Write & Record a Song in One Hour or Less – Audio Premium
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How to Write & Record a Song in One Hour or Less – Audio Premium

Joel Falconer on Feb 18th 2011 with 4 comments

Has perfectionism ever robbed you of creative energy? Joel Falconer used to regularly write and record songs in an hour of less. Yes, that’s starting with a blank sheet and ending with a finished recording in less than an hour! In this week’s Premium tutorial he tells us in detail how that practice got him out of a creative rut, and helped him optimize his creative process.

To learn more about what you get as part of Audio Premium, read this. To take a peek inside this tutorial, hit the jump!

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This entry is part 15 of 18 in the Creative Session: Productivity for Music Producers Session

Saving Time with Logic Pro 9: Keyboard Shortcuts

Joel Falconer on Jan 27th 2011 with 27 comments

Twice a month we revisit some of our reader favorite posts from throughout the history of Audiotuts+. This tutorial was first published in December 2009.

Imagine the precious seconds you lose every time you take a simple action via a menu option or clicking a button on the screen. Once you memorize a set of keyboard shortcuts and make new shortcuts for tasks you find yourself doing frequently, you begin to save a lot of time. You’d be surprised how quickly those seconds add up into minutes and hours. Here’s a cheat sheet of common keyboard shortcuts you should memorize, along with a quick primer on using the Keyboard Commands manager.

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Your Portable Studio: iPhone Apps for Musicians

Your Portable Studio: iPhone Apps for Musicians

Joel Falconer on May 15th 2010 with 15 comments

The iPhone really does have some great offerings for musicians that you should know about, and I think it’s a platform with huge potential for musicians, especially on the move. We’ve all experienced the frustration of coming up with a great melody and having no way to get it down, and subsequently forgetting it. Or lost a guitar tuner or forgotten the correct fingering for a chord.

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This entry is part 1 of 8 in the Creative Session: All About Mobile Audio Session
8 Free, Cross-Platform Apps for Musicians

8 Free, Cross-Platform Apps for Musicians

Joel Falconer on Apr 10th 2010 with 17 comments

Like most of us when we’re in the studio, it’s hard to get me to work with anything other than the industry standards; Pro Tools, Reason, Logic (which sort of falls into that category), and so on. But given the rising prices of just about everything under the sun, not to mention the chronic emptiness of the musician’s wallet, it’s worth taking a look at the alternatives out there that can be had for free.

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6 Apps & Websites to Get Your Ear in Shape

6 Apps & Websites to Get Your Ear in Shape

Joel Falconer on Apr 2nd 2010 with 3 comments

If you followed along with us a few weeks ago, you know how much interval ear training can help you as a musician and how to get started with training itself. If you haven’t read it, head on over to Boot Camp for Your Ear.

This time, we’re going to look at a bunch of applications and websites that will help you with regular ear training sessions. Most of these go beyond intervals, of course.

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How to Create Unusual Effects with Logic Pro 9′s Pedalboard Routing

How to Create Unusual Effects with Logic Pro 9′s Pedalboard Routing

Joel Falconer on Mar 27th 2010 with 3 comments

Logic Pro 9 introduced the Pedalboard, a plugin that emulates not just the myriad of effects pedals available for guitarists, but the way in which they are chained together by both live and studio musicians to create a pedalboard. Here’s how to use Pedalboard to create something a bit more unusual with the help of effect unit routing.

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How to Create Rhythmic Synthesizers with Reason 4′s Vocoder

How to Create Rhythmic Synthesizers with Reason 4′s Vocoder

Joel Falconer on Mar 20th 2010 with 4 comments

We often think of the vocoder as a device for effecting voices, but it’s a device that’s regularly used for a myriad of other purposes. In this tutorial, we teach you to use Reason’s BV512 Vocoder to create a rhythmic synthesizer.

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This entry is part 9 of 12 in the Creative Session: All About Synths Session
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