New Music Gear Monday: Cloudlifter X Mic Activator

There are so many microphones that we love that have a low output gain, which means it’s time to crank up the preamp to get the level to where it needs to be. Sounds good in theory, but what that often means is adding noise that’s just unacceptable in quiet recording situations. The original Cloudlifter […]

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To Click Or Not To Click, That Is The Question

I can remember when I first started to work in the studio how much musicians resisted using a click track. “It’s unnatural. Speeding up and slowing down gives the music a better feel,” was what you heard all the time. The thing is, they were not wrong, but the world has gone to a click […]

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New Music Gear Monday: Acustica Audio Magic Flow Multi-Processor Plugin

If you typically use a lot of plugins, you know that it becomes pretty time consuming adding and tweaking them all, even if you use a template. Channel strips help but they usually don’t have all the features that modern mixers need. Award-winning mixer Josh Gudwin (check out Inner Circle Podcast #138) wanted an all-in-one […]

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Let’s Solve Your Mixing Problems In Mix Lab 2023

Over my 30 years of teaching mixing I’ve heard a lot of the same problems over and over in mixes I get to critique, usually having something to do with mix balance or EQ. The good news is that they’re all fixable! That’s what we’re going to cover during my upcoming FREE three day Mix […]

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New Music Gear Monday: Waves Magma Tube Channel Strip Plugin

One of the things we like about vintage gear is that even though most pieces don’t have a lot of parameters or versatility, there’s a sound that’s undeniably good. In fact, the lack of versatility can often work in your favor as it keeps you out of trouble. I think Waves new Magma Tube Channel […]

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The Top 10 Mixing and Mastering Engineers According To Jaxsta

I don’t know if I ever thought who the top 10 mixing and mastering engineers were. You usually get an idea of who’s hot by watching the charts to see if the same names come up over and over, but that’s pretty unscientific. We do live in an age of data though, so finding out […]

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New Music Gear Monday: FireSonic FireMaximizer Plugin

We have a lot of tools that do a great job of increasing the mix level, giving it some extra harmonics, and controlling clipping, but that usually means that your mix buss can be filled with plugins. Software developer FireSonic has now put four popular buss plugins into a single plugin called FireMaximizer to provide […]

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Physicists Have Unraveled The Secret To Swing

“It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing,” as the song goes, and that can certainly apply to a lot of music made by real players and not computers. Although musicians know it when they hear or feel it, it’s been really hard to explain swing scientifically. But never underestimate science, especially […]

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New Music Gear Monday: Yamaha AG08 Live Streaming Mixer

Most people use their home studios for far more than just creating music these days. Whether its hosting a podcast, giving lessons, gaming, ASMR, or collaborating with other players or songwriters, we expect our gear to extremely versatile anymore. That usually means there’s a lot of extra single function gear around your studio that you […]

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A Deep Look Inside Abbey Road’s Reverb Chamber

A while back we took a glance around Abbey Road’s reverb chamber when the excellent Waves plugin version was announced. Here’s a much more intimate look. This time it’s an actual tour inside the chamber itself provided by Mirek Styles, the head of audio products at Abbey Road. While many of the good sounding live […]

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New Music Gear Monday: Freqport FT-1 Freqtube True Analog Processing Plugin

Almost everyone loves the sound of analog (especially tubes), but getting that sound in your DAW has always been somewhat problematic, leading most to us to believe that it’s not worth the extra effort for setup and recall. That’s no longer a problem thanks to the FT-1 Freqtube by Freqport, a hardware device that provides […]

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Apple’s M2-Powered Computers Are Here, And What That Means For Music

Apple released it’s newly updated M2-powered laptops and Mac Mini’s yesterday, and while that excites a small portion of the music community, it’s more or less ho-hum for the rest. More power with no new features doesn’t exactly peak that much interest these days. What Is This M2 You Speak Of? Apple’s M2 is a […]

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New Music Gear Monday: Wavesfactory Trackspacer Plugin

Probably the most difficult operation for an beginning engineer is to carve out space in the mix for each mix element. For 50 years this was based on the experience and the ears of the mixer, and it took some time to learn the skill. Today there are many tools that can make this process […]

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The Producer’s Guide To Project Management

Project management is the one element that usually slips beneath the radar of most budding producers, but it can easily break you if you don’t pay attention to it. Project management consists of the planning, organizing, and managing of the resources necessary to the complete the project, be it just one song, a cue or […]

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The Ultimate Drum Recording Checklist

Like the foundation of a house, the drums are the foundation of a recording. With a strong foundation, you can build almost anything on it that you or your clients can imagine. A little effort and time spent miking the drums and getting the sound just right can result in a recording that sounds better […]

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