Getting your vocals to sit right on top at the front of your mix is desirable for any vocal focused song. Lackluster vocal production is like a glowing neon sign that says, “home studio recording!” This tutorial covers a simple mix recipe for getting your vocals right out there in [...] Read more »
Mix Recipes: Heavy guitar Haas and EQ
There are many approaches to mixing heavy guitar tracks. Striking a balance between clarity and thickness is a constant struggle. There is a general tendency in the recording of heavy music to layer many guitar tracks, but how do you maintain that razor’s edge clarity of a single track? Here [...] Read more »
Book Review: The Business of Audio Engineering
The Business of Audio Engineering price check Recommended for you if you are starting out in or considering a career in the audio industry. Alternate title: War Stories – How NOT to get caught in the crossfire. Length: 205 pages split into 15 bite sized chapters and an appendix Share [...] Read more »
Mix Recipes: Tom EQ and compression
A great drum track is at the core of most modern popular music. Other mix recipes have covered the snare drum and kick drum, and now it is time to talk about toms. The toms can be used to add texture to particular drum fills and section transitions or they [...] Read more »
Home recording studio on a budget
Computers have made building an advanced home recording studio a reality for many of us. It has also caused a flooding of the market by dozens of products (and more) that all basically do the same thing. The sea of marketing created in this environment has left quite a few [...] Read more »
FX Tips – Delay: Extra wide stereo
Here is another stereo mixing trick to go along with the Haas, cross, and panned delay tricks. This technique creates a stereo sound that fills the room and appears to come from all sides of the listener’s head at the same time. The basic idea is to start with a [...] Read more »
Analogue versus Digital: Can YOU tell the difference?
As digital gear becomes more prevalent I see the same question asked over and over again, “Should I record using the analogue outs or use the USB (or S/PDIF) outputs?” The popular answer is, “keep it digital or you’ll lose sound quality!” Is there any merit to this claim that [...] Read more »
REAPER: tempo mapping
You may have seen my tutorials on creating grooves with EZDrummer and creating custom drum tracks with Jamstix 2. These are great when creating a song recording from scratch, but what if you have an existing recording to add drums for? What about taking any existing recording and adding some [...] Read more »
Miking drums
Miking drums is a subject that seems to be surrounded by a lot of voodoo in the home recording studio. I know it was certainly something I had a lot of agony over for years. Truth be told, there are really no hard and fast rules when it comes to [...] Read more »
FREE model packs with TonePort UX8 OVER
No new purchases will qualify. The Line 6 TonePort series are great audio interfaces. The TonePort UX8 is the flagship of the series. It has eight great mic preamps with phantom power, inputs for instruments, and the ability to put Line 6′s awesome amp modeling on your tracks. For a [...] Read more »