Category Archives for "Production"
The jury is still out on the legality of AI-generated songs or artist deep-fakes. Musicians, artists and songwriters generally feel threatened by the prospect, as well they should, since we’re seeing some Spotify charts already dominated by artificial artists and songs. But what if you taught a neural network to mimic your own voice? Is […]
Continue readingWhile most musicians want high-profile gigs that keep them from working day jobs, even those that are successful have a dream of getting into film scoring. Many musicians with lucrative gigs playing with superstars, and even superstars themselves, will quit everything for that one shot of touching Hollywood and scoring a film. There’s a glitter […]
Continue readingWhenever I do song critiques or hit song analysis for my Hit Makers Club members, I can always bet I’ll get the same two comments, “How did you know to listen for that?” and “I’ve listened to this song dozens of times but I’ve never heard that before!” That’s because we’ve grown up hearing, but […]
Continue readingSibilance is something that every mixer has to deal with when it comes to vocal tracks. De-essers, the main processor used to defeat the problem, have been around since the early hardware days, but most are limited in what they are able to do in many situations because they only work on one frequency at […]
Continue readingMany musicians, especially ones that are more educated, tend to look down on music creation apps and plugins that automatically play chord patterns and rhythms. While it’s nice to have massive chops, most players don’t have that level of ability. Not only that, not everyone has keyboard skills, and even if you do, it’s easy […]
Continue readingUsing the equalizer can be one of the most confounding mixing operations when you’re first starting out. It’s helpful to know that even experienced engineers can struggle with the process sometimes, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less frustrating when you can’t seem to dial in the right sound. With that in mind, here are […]
Continue readingModern mixes have different demands from mixes of the past, and compression across the various mix elements is almost a given. Today’s mixes also require a new level of dynamics sophistication that goes beyond compression, and advanced plugin development has given rise to increased capabilities from some frequently overlooked plugins – transient shapers, clippers and […]
Continue readingMeta, the parent company of Facebook, has just posted about its research into new spatial audio tools that it hopes to incorporate into the upcoming Metaverse, the virtual space that’s a combination of VR and AR. While interesting, I can’t say that I’m too impressed so far (watch the video from Meta below to see […]
Continue readingI often get asked what plugins I regularly use, so a few years ago I decided to share my plugin thoughts with a personal Top 10 list. Here’s my latest edition for 2022, which isn’t all that different from previous years except that it has fewer compressors, since I’ve found myself using less and less […]
Continue readingMany thanks to Matt Boudreau for having me on his Episode #387 of his long-running Working Class Audio podcast. Matt is a a great engineer and an insightful interviewer, so we had a lot of fun talking about a wide range of subjects. It was fun to be on the other side of the mic […]
Continue readingThere are a lot of immersive audio formats, and it’s easy to get confused in where they all fit in. In the latest 5th edition of my Mixing Engineer’s Handbook, I’ve made the distinctions between them more obvious by placing the various formats into one of 3 historical generations, as you’ll see in this excerpt. […]
Continue readingIt’s always such a treat to get to hear isolated tracks from big hits no matter how far back they go. We can always learn something from them, and often there are surprises that are covered up by the entire mix. That’s the case here as we can listen to the Paul McCartney’s isolated bass […]
Continue readingAn interesting mixing method that can be used for quick rough mixes or as a balance starting point for a mix is by using pink noise. Since the frequency response of pink noise is similar to that of the human ear, it can be used as a reference point against a mix. As you’ll read […]
Continue readingI’m really pleased to announce that the The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook 5th edition is now available, and at a special introductory price. Mixing continues to evolve and this latest version reflects all the recent changes in our technology and studio operating methods. What’s New Some of the brand new topics include: Three new mix build […]
Continue readingIt seems like every day there’s a new music plagiarism lawsuit that pops up. From “Stairway To Heaven” to “Blurred Lines” to the latest round of lawsuits against Dua Lipa’s “Levitating,” it just goes to show how difficult it is to write a song that isn’t subject to a plagiarism action these days. Considering that […]
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