You will of course be aware of the global health crisis that is the COVID-19 virus, and the various travel restrictions, lockdowns and social isolation measures that have been put in place across the world to mitigate it. These are absolutely vital in helping health services worldwide cope with this hugely contagious and deadly new disease, but they are also having a profound effect on every industry, including our own.
While that means gigs, recording sessions and band rehearsals are off the cards, there’s still a lot you can do to satisfy your creative urges while staying at home to minimise the spread of the disease. To help you with this, we’ve put together an article about how to record yourself, including tips on setting up remote DAW control, and how to assess and work with your own recordings. It's available for all to read now at www.soundonsound.com/techniques/how-record-yourself-and-make-it-sound-good and in our forthcoming May 2020 editions. We'll also soon be publishing an article explaining how to use free tools to set up remotely engineered sessions, with talkback and real-time file management.
Another way you can keep yourself busy is by exploring new software. Most of it these days can be installed and licensed online, so there’s zero risk to yourself or delivery drivers, and better still, a huge number of software companies are offering discounts or even free software to help musicians during this lonely time. Check out Native Instruments, Moog, Korg, Plugin Alliance, Cherry Audio, Mix With The Masters and 8Dio, to name just a few.
As far as SOS is concerned, at the time of writing both our UK and North America printers have assured us that they’ll continue to print this magazine for the foreseeable future. Both have taken strong measures to enforce strict hygiene standards and social distancing among staff (including home-working wherever possible), and the printing process itself is also completely automated.
Of course, the most convenient way to read SOS at this time is to take out our Digital Subscription, or use the iOS/Android app, or buy the monthly Full Issue PDF or single article PDF downloads. These are available at https://sosm.ag/subscribe and https://sosm.ag/pdf.
Stay safe!
