New Music Gear Monday: Shure Nexadyne 8C/S Microphone

If you’re in the music business, you’ve almost certainly encountered a Shure SM57 or 58 somewhere along the way. The 58 has been the go-to microphone for sound reinforcement for almost 60 years, while the 57 has been a staple in recording studios for almost that long. Although many manufacturers have attempted to create a […]

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My Interview With Steve Albini On His Recording Techniques

Steve Albini, who unfortunately passed last week, gained his considerable experience and reputation working primarily with underground and alternative bands. While his most famous credit remains Nirvana’s In Utero, Steve worked with a diverse lineup of artists such as PJ Harvey, The Pixies, The Stooges, Cheap Trick, Silkworm, Jesus Lizard, Bush, and even the mainstream […]

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Immersive Mixing Team Matt Wallace And Will Kennedy On My Latest Podcast Episode

On my latest podcast episode, my guests this week are Matt Wallace and Will Kennedy, the Grammy-winning immersive mixing team that has done spatial mixes for Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, The B-52s, Kid Rock, Selena Gomez and many more. Before entering into the spatial mixing world, Matt’s work as a producer includes hits for Maroon […]

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New Music Gear Monday: Relab Sonsig ACE Dimensional Expander Plugin

Musicians, engineers and producers love the chorus effect. Ever since Roland introduced it in the early 1980s, we can’t seem to get enough of it. But most chorus plugins offer only a couple of variations and sometimes that’s not enough. Enter the Sonsig ACE Dimensional Expander by Relab Development, a powerful new tool designed to […]

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The Armonica: Ben Franklin’s Music Invention That Became “The World’s Deadliest Instrument”

We all know the legendary Ben Franklin as not only one of the founding fathers of the United States, but a scientist, politician, writer and philosopher. Many know him as the inventor of the lightning rod, bifocals, swim fins and the Franklin Stove, but few know that he also invented a fascinating musical instrument called […]

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New Music Gear Monday: PSP Flare Compressor Plugin

We all have our favorite compressors, and while just about all of them do a good job this days, one of the general problems is that when it comes to really leveling out a part, when have to use a lot of compression that we end up hearing. That’s just a side effect of the […]

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Sam Ash To Close All Remaining Stores

If we were to go way back to when 48th Street in New York City was the center of the music retail business, one of the stalwarts on Music Row was Sam Ash Music. Founded in 1924, the company eventually expanded to 44 stores across the country and remained family owned the entire time. Now […]

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New Music Gear Monday: Radial Engineering Nuance Monitor Controller

While most audio computer interfaces now have some means of controller your studio monitor speakers and headphones, often the sound or features are lacking. At the very least we want to be able to control a couple of pairs of monitors and headphone feeds and that’s what you’ll find and more in Radial Engineering’s new […]

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Here’s What The Speed Of Light Looks Like

I like to keep this blog pretty focused on music and audio, but sometimes there’s something outside that category that’s so cool that I have to share it. In this case, it’s an ultra-slow-motion video of the actual speed of light. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second, which, as far as we currently know, […]

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New Music Gear Monday: Fuse Audio Lab VCE-118 Dynamic Range Enhancer Plugin

It’s well-know that the dbx 160 compressor is one of the most revered analog devices, not only because of its simplicity, but because of its sound. It’s been my go-to on kick and snare compressor for years, going from the real analog hardware version to a plugin emulation version. I’ve tried other more modern compressors, […]

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Stems And Tracks – Don’t Mix These Up

I don’t know about you, but I get frustrated whenever I hear a young artist, producer or engineer say something like, “I important all the stems then started to mix” and you see a picture of 40+ tracks, but no stems. I don’t know where it started, but many people today think that the terms […]

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New Music Gear Monday: Pulsar Modular P455 Sidecar/450 EQ API Emulation Bundle

Anyone who’s ever spent time on an API console knows that it’s the sound of American Classic Rock. Many plugin emulations that have attempted to simulate the sound have come close but have always been missing something, but the P455 MDN Sidecar and P450 MDN EQ plugins from Pulsar Modular strives to bring the depth, […]

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The Tempo Police May Be Coming For You Soon

People, and governments, get upset at the strangest things. With AI music and deep fakes raging, Chechnya has taken silliness to a new level by placing limits on musical tempo. Yes, there really will be a tempo police making sure that songs are at just the right speed for the country. From now on, “all […]

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New Music Gear Monday: Waves Stream Collaboration Tool

Ever since the music business shifted to home studios as the primary place for music creation, musicians, artists and producers have lamented the fact that you infrequently had collaborators in the room together. This fact was especially hammered home during the pandemic, when people didn’t want to be in the same room even if they […]

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Every Music Professional Exhibits These 10 Traits

This post is about how to be a professional, but it could just as easily been about how to be a diplomat, be a compromiser, or even be a nice guy. What it’s really all about is how to be in a band or a session with other people who might or might not want […]

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