Russ, Mike, James and Julian chat through issues from the week's news as well as the usual tips, tricks and questions answered.

Groove 3 What has grabbed our attention this week
Groove3 are featuring Toontrack just now and as Toontrack are offering a free, fully functional 10-day demo version of EZdrummer 2, Groove3 are offering 50% off on the entire library of Groove3 Toontrack tutorials!  The sale price has already been adjusted on the website, so just add the downloads you want and save 50%! 

Competitions

• Sample Diggers In The Field Volume 1
• The Cargo Cult Slapper ST
• EXCLUSIVE - Win The Waves Abbey Road Reverb Plates Plugin

Talking Points Kindly Sponsored By Universal Audio

Purchase and register any new UAD-2 OCTO PCIe Card or UAD-2 Satellite Thunderbolt OCTO Unit (Core, Custom, or Ultimate) from an authorised UA retailer between January 1st and March 31st, 2016, and get the API Vision Channel Strip, Studer A800 Tape Recorder, and Manley Variable Mu Compressor plug-ins free at product registration. No coupons or redemption codes are necessary. The plug-ins will be automatically added to your account once you register your new UAD-2 OCTO DSP Accelerator hardware.

• Delay - What We Use And How We Use It - With 2 stories on delay New iZotope DDLY Dynamic Delay Plugin - Free Until March 10th.  Julian shares his experience of trying it and then we discuss how we would use it in a song. Following Dan Cooper's Top 5 Delay Plug-ins we share our favourite delay plug-ins and we talk about delay v reverb
• To Carve Out Or Not To Carve Out - That Is The Question - Russ had an interesting discussion with a music producer about Carving Out Space In Music Mixes - Master Stroke Or Myth?  We discuss our views on this thorny issue.

Community Feedback Kindly Sponsored by RSPE Audio Solutions

• We have an upcoming interview with mix master Mike Gazauski and his experiences of his Avid S6. Mick’s relocation to Los Angeles meant saying goodbye to his trusty Sony Oxford console and hello to a new Avid S6 M40 modular console/control surface.
• Timothy Niswander asks if we could review the Zoom UAC-8 USB3 interface, but we are concerned it might not work with Pro Tools, where as the UAC-2 does work with Pro Tools. We also recommend the Tascam US-2020, and the Presonus Studio 192. 
• Kyle Whittaker asks if we had thought about producing Pro Tools Expert merchandising.
• Ryan Hansen shared about the voice characters in the new Jungle Book and comparing it with Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance as Smaug in the Hobbit films. If you need convincing then watch this video on YouTube. 

Questions From The Community Sponsored By Create Pro

Now it could be said that we on PTE are not what you might call EDM focused.  Quite frankly James finds it hard to tell me D&B from my R&B. If you fall into this bracket of music makers then take a look at the Create Pro Q&A’s page with top “Dance” guys like Roni Size and Steve Mac. 

• Randy C wants to update this Pro Tools rig from v9 to v12 and wants our views on the best Mac fro Pro Tools 12.

Team Find Of The Week Sponsored Eastwood Sound & Vision

Aston Microphones are creating a bit of a storm in the microphone market and picking up some rave reviews, including the one from James Ivey here. This week Eastwood Sound & Vision are pleased to be able to offer a FREE Waves Tune LT plugin with every purchase of either an Origin or Spirit Aston mic worth over £75.

• Russ - Drawmer S73
• Mike - 5 Pro Tips For Using Reverb In A Scoring Context by British composer - Tom Player on the Exponential Audio site 
• James - I have 2….. well 1 ish. The perfect 500 series kick drum channel. API 512C Pre (not new to me I already had this) into an API 527 Compressor into an API 550A EQ. Lovely. See my review Processing To "Tape" With API 500 Series Modules
• Julian -  Avid BBD Delay

Listen on to the Pro Tools Expert Podcast on iTunes