Category Archives for "Production"
- in Production by Bobby Owsinski
The Class D Amplifier Module That Literally Changed The World
Over the past 15 years or so, power amplifiers have gotten increasingly more powerful and lighter thanks to the now widespread use of what’s known as Class D design. What most people don’t know is that it was all due to a single engineer at Philips who created the first inexpensive class D amplifier module […]
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New Music Gear Monday: Slate Digital Submerge Auto Sidechain Compression Plugin
Whenever someone asks me about sidechaining I usually describe it as a bandaid for when you need track separation but nothing else works, the idea that good mixing fundamentals will overcome the need to use it. That may be true for some types of music, but in genres like hip-hop and EDM, the sidechain is […]
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Make The 3 P’s Part Of Your Next Vocal Recording
My good buddy and fantastic engineer/producer Ed Seay has a saying that I’ve used in a number of books about the 3 P’s or “Pitch, Passion and Pocket.” That refers to the 3 things that every great vocal must have, although you can apply it to other musical performances as well. Ed is not only one of […]
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New Music Gear Monday: Roland Space Echo RE-201 Plugin
Those of us who grew up with the original tape echo machines know how deeply their sound is imprinted on your brain. It’s a sound that you always tried to duplicate with modern hardware and plugin delays but could never quite get there. One of the reasons is that most try to improve on the […]
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The Legendary Record Plant Hollywood To Close
We live in pretty sad times when there’s not enough work to sustain the major recording studios that helped supply the sound of hits for generations, but that’s where we are. Last year it was the famed United Studios in Hollywood and before that it was Capitol Studios (although some say it may be reopened […]
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11 Things To Think About When Recording Background Vocals
Recording background vocals is a distinctly different process from recording solo vocals because of how they will eventually fit in the mix. That requires a different technique for both recording and production in order to get the best result. Here are 11 background vocal-related points lifted from the 5th edition of my Recording Engineer’s Handbook […]
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New Music Gear Monday: HoRNet HarmoniQ Inharmonic Equalizer Plugin
We all have tons of equalizer plugins, most of which never get much use. That’s because most EQs work using an analog model, which isn’t bad since it’s worked well for engineers for about 70 years now, but in essence they’re all pretty much the same thing. Now we’re finally seeing a new generation of […]
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The Eventide H910 Harmonizer And Why It Was Such A Groundbreaking Effect
Unless you were around back in the mid-70s when the first harmonizer was introduced (the Eventide H910), you can’t appreciate what an impact it had on mixing. This was a device that did something that couldn’t be done before. It was hard to explain exactly what that was, but you knew it instantly when you […]
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New Music Gear Monday: Harrision 32Classic Channel Strip Plugin
Harrison consoles were a big part of the sound of the 70s and 80s, helping shape the sound of everyone from Michael Jackson to ABBA to Kenny Rodgers and so many more music legends. The company’s most popular console back then was the 32C, which was renowned for it sound and musical EQ section. SSL, […]
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Studio Etiquette Tips For When The Session Ends
I’ve covered studio etiquette rules here in the past, but they were primarily for when a session was in progress. When the session, or your part in it, is completed, the etiquette doesn’t stop though, as this excerpt from The Studio Musician’s Handbook (written with ace studio bass player Paul ILL) illustrates. It’s perfectly natural […]
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New Music Gear Monday: Antares Auto-Tune Vocal De-Esser Plugin
Sibilance is the bane of any mixer since many times it’s so hard to correct. While modern de-esser plugins work admirably, they usually only hit one frequency band, while most sibilance occurs at two frequencies or more. Enter the Antares Auto-Tune Vocal De-Esser that not only affects multiple frequency bands, but also uses artificial intelligence […]
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New Music Gear Monday: Universal Audio LA-6176 Channel Strip Plugin
We all love channel strips, whether they be real hardware or a virtual plugin version – and what’s not there to like? For one thing you usually get the saturation and control of the original preamp, a modeled EQ, and a compressor/limiter/gate, at the very least. The whole trick is to base it on a […]
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New Music Gear Monday: United Studio Technologies Replay Box
I’ve found that it’s always a good practice to record a direct signal as well as the amp/simulator signal when recording guitar. That way you have the ability to change the sound later if you need to, and the clean waveform makes it so much easier to edit distorted guitars. Even if you have a […]
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Big Mono And How To Avoid It
I get a lot of questions about panning, especially about hard panning and the resultant “Big Mono,” so I thought I’d provide an excerpt from The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook to address them. This applies only to the stereo soundfield as most musicians haven’t entered the immersive world yet. “One of the most overlooked or taken […]
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New Music Gear Monday: Kit Plugins BB Chamber A Reverb
There’s nothing better than a real reverb chamber as anyone who’s ever used one can attest to. The problem is that they all sound different since it all comes down to acoustic design and some construction luck. Many rate the chamber in Studio A of Blackbird Studios in Nashville as one of the best, and […]
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