As every producer and engineer knows, a pair of monitors you can trust are essential when recording, mixing and mastering. Here's some things to bear in mind when choosing your next studio monitors.
Recording, mixing or mastering? Want to highlight the vocals or get your instruments to pop through the mix? An aural exciter like the Aphex Exciter might be what you need. Joe Albano checks it out.
In an ideal world we'd send mixes to be professionally mastered. If you're looking to master, or pre-master, in Ableton Live this FREE audio effects rack from Manmade Mastering is a must-download.
29Palms have come up with an ingenious plugin. Levels is designed to analyse what's wrong with your mix and help you fix it in a very visually attractive way. Joshua Casper puts it to the test.
The advice from most is to not have any effects on your master channel when mixing. However, Rich Tozzoli breaks away from convention to explore how a mastering chain can help your mixes.
If you use a compressor plug-in you're already manipulating the dynamics of a sound or the mix. In this enlightening long-read tutorial, Joe Albano explains exactly what dynamics is and more.
After AES Paris, it was clear that immersive audio is the next big thing in the music industry. And producing 3D audio, even on headphones, is now possible for everyone thanks to MNTN.
With all the attention lavished on both the technical and creative uses for compression in the studio, we sometimes forget about the other kind of dynamics processor'"the Gate/Expander. Here's 4 tips.
Now here's an interesting collaboration. Waves Audio, top audio plug-ins and technologies and Infected Mushroom, famous electronic duo. The result? An innovative plug-in for mixing and mastering..
This 10-Band Equalizer from BAE Audio features Balanced Input and Output and Hi/Low-Pass Filters they tell us is the ultimate hands-on sound shaping tool for tracking, mixing, or mastering.
If you use dynamics processors for corrective or functional purposes only you might be missing out on their creative use to control transients. Joe Albano is show you how to tame those dynamics now.
Lurssen Mastering Console for iPad from IK Multimedia is pretty darn good. Make no doubt about that. So we think many producers will be pleased to know it's now available for iPhone too.
We all want out mixes to sound good no matter the device our audience listens to it on. MixChecker simulates a variety of devices (Hi-Fi, smartphone, TV, headphones) so it will sound great everywhere.
In this 5 minute video tutorial, Joe Albano explains how narrow monitor placement can result in tracks being bunched and can detract from your mixes. Â
If the the song you are mixing is going round and round your head and ruining your mix session there's help to be found. G.W. Childs shares his advice to stop the repetition. stop the repetition.
It's common these days for the same person to mix and master the same track. There are plenty of potential problems for engineers to take this approach though. Joe Albano explains one pitfall here.
Admit it, you've been using your eyes as much as you ears when producing music recently. It's hard not to with the tools we have. Ian Graham shares tips to help music making become more ear-based.
Your room can have a huge impact on how your mix sounds, which is why we often acoustically treat our rooms and set up monitors etc to compensate. Here are 5 ways to measure your room's acoustics.
Producer Russ Russell shares his metal and other genre production workflows in this engaging video interview. No matter the genre of music you produce there's useful recording & production tips here.
How high should audio engineers go? (We're talking about high-resolution audio of course!) Joe Albano explores one of the digital theory behind a divisive topic amongst music and audio professionals.