Extra Stuff The retired blog
Artist sessions, articles and video tutorials. An inactive but precious archive of ideas, experiments and lessons from 2019–2020, preserved in their original words.
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Once again back at Sounds from the Apartment! Hello everyone! How To Become A Better Sound Engineer comes back with simple advice and tips about the world of sound and music! We are back with #09 and another tip that might sound simple and straightforward but… it’s not! The series “Become a Better Sound Engineer” […]
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Hi everyone! Have you ever wondered how easy it would be to record a Philharmonic Orchestra if you had been asked to do so, literally, last minute? Well this is what we are going to explore on this week’s article! Every year, I am acting as the Head of Sound for the Loutraki Festival in […]
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Hello everyone! Another week starts at Sounds From The Apartment! This time we will be discussing about something that is there but we cannot see it. You all have heard of Phantom Power, haven’t you? This article will be another part of the “What is an Audio Interface” series, so get ready and let’s find […]
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Hi audio geeks! Welcome back for another week back at Sounds from the Apartment! This week we return to our longest series of videos, How To Become A Better Sound Engineer! Number 08 talks about equipment… AGAIN! But this time about how you can experiment with it. You have the pieces of equipment you love, […]
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Hello and welcome back to the Sounds From The Apartment blog! This week we are getting back to the “What is an Audio Interface” series discussing about the Preamps! Many people seem to not know a lot about (or even not understand at all) Preamps! As we briefly mentioned on the Input Section article of […]
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Hello everyone! Welcome back for another week! I am officially back from holidays and I can’t wait to kick start another year with Sounds From The Apartment! By now, you should have watched all the videos around the Stenberg AXR4 interface and see why it is one of the greatest interfaces out there! If you […]
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Hey everyone and welcome back! “Finally” you will say… Sounds From The Apartment released the final Steinberg’s AXR4 video from that massive review! 4 out of 4 then, here we are! The AXR4 has so much potential and since we decided to go in-depth about its capabilities and functionality, we kicked off talking about The […]
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Being on holiday and writing articles for Sounds From The Apartment is so exhilarating and relaxing! This time, we will be discussing for something that is a kind of a continuation of the “Analogue Inputs” article of the “What is an Audio Interface” series! As we have already discussed the sound flows into the interface […]
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Hey audio geeks! This week we are moving away from the ordinary! This week you are behind the driving wheel for the journey to the content we will be making in these series! “Ask My Anything” will be the series where you ask me about things you might want to see explained in a simple, […]
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Hey everyone! Welcome back to Sounds From The Apartment! I hope you enjoyed our last article about the DSP features and SILK emulation the AXR4 has to offer! I do think this is a good article to run with the “What Is An Audio Interface” series because it will give you a good idea of […]
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Hey guys! Another week is about to start with another article from Sounds From The Apartment, this time getting back to the Steinberg’s AXR4 review with the 3rd Part! Part 1 that describes the hardware of the interface can be found here and Part 2 which is about the Integration with Cubase, can be found […]
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Hello everyone and welcome back to the Sounds From The Apartment blog for another week! We have our GIVEAWAY running right now but that does not mean we are stopping in creating new articles for you! So make sure you enter for a chance to win a FREE MIX & MASTER for one of your […]
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Audio geeks! Hello and welcome back! I hope you had a fantastic week and that you enjoyed the video we made for AXR4 and it Cubase integration! What? You haven’t watched it yet? Let me make things easy for you! Here’s the link to Is AXR4 Steinberg’s Best Audio interface?: Integration with Cubase Back on […]
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Hey audio geeks! Another week, another video! Welcome back to Sounds From The Apartment to the 2nd part of this massive review about Steinberg’s AXR4! If you have missed the first video where we talk about the hardware of the interface and what it can offer us, you can find it here! Like I mentioned […]
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Welcome to the Sounds From The Apartment blog once again! Today, we’ll discuss about the Analogue Inputs on an audio interface as part of our series “What is an Audio Interface“ Although an audio interface might have a lot of buttons and lights (or not) on it, and you can find a summary of what […]
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Hello everybody!How’s your week been? It felt as it went super quick for me if I am honest! as we are about to welcome another week of this crazy year, we return to the “How to become a better sound engineer” series, and you’ll notice there is consistency issue here with my hair being short […]
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Hey everyone Welcome back for another week of audio talks, this time playing around a with a great audio interface so we can review it! This is probably the best timing for these videos considering we just started on discussing audio interfaces last week with our article “What is an Audio Interfaces: Understanding an audio […]
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Welcome back audio geeks! Our Sounds From The Apartment blog introduces a new article series! What is an Audio Interface Consequently, finishing the Microphone Characteristics Series with the Summary article, and having made a good reference on the Basics of the Audio Cables, we would move to the next logical step on the recording chain, […]
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Hey everyone!Another weekend post with another tip on how to become a better sound engineer! Welcome back to our apartment! The series “Become a Better Sound Engineer” talk about handy little tips that, although sound like common sense, they will help you in the job more than you can imagine! The previous video of the […]
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Hey audio geeks! Hope you are doing fantastic for another week! Thank you for your patience, I know this article has been a long due (amongst a few other things) but although in lockdown, I have still managed to maintain my workload in crazy high levels! So what’s best rather than some pre-COVID-19 live sound […]
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Hey guys!Here we are on our usual weekend post! Welcome back! This week another video from the series “Become a Better Sound Engineer” series is out! Handy little tips that, although sound like common sense, they will help you in the job more than you can imagine! If you missed the first video of the […]
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Hello audio folks and welcome back to Sounds From The Apartment! This week we have another different type of article! It’s an interview combined with a product review! I am very pleased to introduce you to Yorgos Bechlivanoglou, the inventor of the MOOV – Travel guitar! Nikos: Hi Yorgos, thanks for agreeing to do this […]
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Hello there and welcome once again to the Sounds From The Apartment blog and the closing article for these series! As promised, here’s a summary of all the articles that discuss Microphone Characteristics in the order they were published! This should give you a nice “map” on which order you can read the articles, allow […]
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COVID-19 was not quick enough to shut sayseamake out of the Artist Sessions! We had only finished the session with sayseamake as the COVID-19 lockdown measures were announced! We live in unprecedented times but music is one of the weapons we can use to get out of this stronger, together! sayseamake is a trio based […]
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Hello everyone! Welcome back this week, I hope you are all doing well and you are keeping yourselves and your loved ones safe! This week we will be starting on a new video series, the first one on this blog that will include tips about becoming a better sound engineer and professional! In these new […]
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My favourite audio geeks, I hope you are staying safe up to now and still exploring the magical world of sound engineering! Today, I will be sharing with you the last article in these long series, Microphone Characteristics! We are going to sum up everything in the following article, but for today we will be […]
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Hey fellow audio geeks! Apologies for the mid-week silence! Not exactly an article this week! COVID-19 has all of us isolated in lockdown! It’s an unbelievable situation! Everyday we wake up from the comfort of our beds, it makes us wonder if it’s just a bad dream and it will be gone when we open […]
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Hello fellow geeks, This week, we will talk about Microphone Impedance! Before we start, we need to understand the difference between two types of impedance. Output and Load impedance. Output Impedance You should know by now that a microphone is converting acoustic pressure to electric voltage. The Output Impedance is the resistance that voltage will […]
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Hello audio geeks! We are getting closer to the end when it comes to the Microphone Characteristics series! There are still a few articles to go out there, I know these might seem boring information for a lot of you, but, I can guarantee you, they information here is invaluable! Let’s dive in! Let’s talk […]
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Hello and welcome to another week’s article! As you might be able to remember, very recently we discussed about the Maximum SPL and Signal to Noise Ratio / Self Noise. The Dynamic Range is a characteristic that relates to both of these previous discussions we had. The Dynamic Range of a microphone represents the range […]
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First Artist Showcase for 2020 with Dominiki and Kimonas! This year’s Artist Showcases begin with a great duo by Dominiki and Kimonas! They decided to go with a cover of “All Night” by Beyoncé, and frankly, they couldn’t have made a better choice! Dominiki has been a performer and vocal coach for a few years […]
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Hey you! Welcome back to the Microphone Characteristics articles! This week we will be looking at what Maximum SPL means for a microphone and how can we use it to our benefit! What is the definition of Maximum SPL? Very simply Maximum SPL indicates the highest sound pressure level a microphone’s circuit can handle without […]
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And here we go! Signal to Noise! Quick interesting fact before we dive into this discussion. I didn’t know this was an actual term when I first heard of it. It was just music to my ears… Literally! Signal to Noise is one of my favourite Peter Gabriel’s songs and I got introduced to it […]
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Hello my geek friends! I hope you have enjoyed the Microphone Characteristics articles up to now! I know some of them might have been a bit detailed and long, but today we are going to have a short and quick one! What does Top/Side Address means? Essentially we are talking about 2 setups here, which […]
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Article main picture is by Clearway Media So, here’s a different post for you this time. I am quite active in the live sound space, but I hadn’t toured for a while. In December, Call Me Amour asked me to go on their first UK tour, supporting Dinosaur Pile-Up. The opening act was Big Spring. […]
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Hey there! Moving further in Microphone Characteristics, after Polar Patterns and Proximity Effect, we will discuss about the most well known characteristic of any microphone. Frequency Response. Before we start diving into what the Frequency response is of a microphone, I’d mention that I own Aston‘s Spirit condenser microphone and I am super happy about […]
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Hey everyone! This week, there’s something different for you on the blog! I can finally share with you what we’ve been preparing a few months ago! I had the pleasure to be invited to Baltic Studios in London by Dom Sigalas. The idea was to use the studio facilities so we could demonstrate how the […]
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Hello there! Coming back from the previous Microphone Characteristics article where we discussed about Polar Patterns, we had a few mentions of the Proximity Effect there, and this is what we are going to be discussing in this article. Get set, ready, go! What is the Proximity Effect then? The proximity effect occurs under certain […]
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Happy new year everyone! A couple of weeks ago, back in 2019, we discussed about which microphone would be best for specific purposes and we mentioned some of their characteristics without explaining too much what they exactly mean. Now, if you researched in between then and now about these characteristics, good for you, because that […]
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Broomhead on a Christmas Special! Broomhead and Claire Jordan decided to drop by last week (and I super thank them for that), here at the Apartment, to record live their original single “Broke My Heart”. Dave and Mike are the core of Broomhead, and are joined by the wonderful Claire Jordan on this track. All […]
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As we discussed in previous week’s article, there are not good or bad microphones. There are… just microphones! But that makes even move difficult the choice to pick one. So how do we do it? We weill get into microphone characteristics in depth in future articles, but in this week’s short article I would like […]
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Have you ever had to decide what microphone you are getting next and asked for advice from a more experienced friend or colleague so you could get an good opinion? If you asked them about your potential microphone candidates, I am sure you get a response like this: “Microphone A is probably too chear and […]
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Here’s a good question for you! The Analogue vs Digital wars have been ongoing for quite sometime. There are frightening stories on both sides and usually, after midnight, engineers gather around a campfire in the dark and discuss, argue and getting scared from the horror behind these stories! But you do not need to be […]
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Have you ever considered to record at a higher sample rate than you normally do? Have you actually done it? If not, I am going to give you a bunch of reasons why you should! Let’s go! What is “Sampling Rate”? Digital audio carries samples of an analogue electrical signal which have been converted to […]
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I am pretty sure you have heard a number of things about audio cables. Certainly, by now, you should know we are using them to connect the rest of our equipment, transfer audio signals (most of the time) and route them accordingly so we can either process them further or listen to them on our […]
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Novustory recorded live in the Apartment! I am super proud to have Novustory in the Apartment, performing on of their original songs, Edible! Novustory are a power fronted rock band Novustory create stadium worth rock music from a glorified shed in Manchester. Comprising out of Imogen on vocals, Ben on guitars, Chris on bass (but […]
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The other day I was looking to find a guide for general tips for the home studio. Ideas on improving the workflow, connectivity, processes, sound, etc. Oddly enough, apart from some very specific articles, I could not find anything that would fit into the home studio needs. So I created one for all of us! […]
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*Digital Audio Workstation There are so many DAW’s out there nowadays. Some are free, some are not. Some are more convenient than others, some not so much but have unique features. How does one make a choice about the DAW they use in the end? In this article, we will explore how we can choose […]
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It’s ok to fail sometimes. It’s more than ok actually! There are numerous occasions where we all find ourselves in difficult situations not knowing what to do. Sometimes we pull it off, but sometimes we don’t. We might be under pressure to make a decision or we might have all the time in the world […]
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Let’s start from the beginning! How many times have you heard someone talking very proudly about a home producer and their work nowadays? I would think not many. Yet, home producers are everywhere, in every city, no matter how big or small, in every country, every continent, every little corner of this world (well… maybe […]
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Eirianna comes back for a second time! We decided to make a second cover with Eirianna, a vocal one this time, covering “Trophy Hunter” by Within Temptation! Within Temptation came back this year with the release of Resist, their 7th studio album , and we couldn’t be more hyped! Enjoy the video, and please, follow […]
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Every studio, no matter how big or small they are, respect their equipment and promote proper use. Especially if you are running this as a home sound producer, you appreciate your equipment even more as it requires so much hard work to get to a point where you can confidently say that you have built […]
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Here’s to our first artist showcase! Kicking off with an Acoustic Session, Eirianna and Benjie covered “Say A Little Prayer” previously performed live by Lianne La Havas! I hope you enjoy the video, and please, follow and support Eirianna and Benjie on their social media channels! Let us know what you think and if you […]
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There’s no blog without an intro video! Heya! Here’s a very short video of the apartment’s studio and the current equipment we’ve got in place! More is on its way in! Music composition by Nikos Pavlou Recording, programming, editing, mixing, mastering by Nikos Pavlou Filming and Post Production by Nikos Pavlou Remember to subscribe to […]
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Welcome to Sounds from the Apartment! My name is Nikos and I am a sound (mostly sound, we’ll come to that in a bit!) professional with more than 12 years of experience in studio and live sound. I decided to start this, Sounds from the Apartment, page to share my experience and stories when it […]
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