Category Archives for "Production"
Most of us don’t record in stereo much, and when we do we have rounds of frustration and exhilaration. The exhilaration comes from hearing how wide and realistic the recording has become. The frustration comes from the many imperfections that stereo recording can suffer from. These can include a hole in the middle of the […]
Continue readingA question that I’ve been getting over and over through the years from engineers who are just starting out is, “How can I get more isolation between my tracks?” Now that’s normally not much of a problem for older engineers who’ve learned to make leakage work for them, but today’s modern recording requires another order […]
Continue readingWelcome to the 5th anniversary of the podcast on this week’s episode. Thank you all for your support over these last 257 shows! Recently I had a conversation with engineer Bill Smith about the late great Geoff Emerick and realized that there was a lot that we didn’t know about this audio giant even though he […]
Continue readingRecording 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 4th edition of my Recording Engineer’s Handbook […]
Continue readingWhen Greg Mackie started the desktop mixer trend in 1991 with his ground-breaking CR-1604, it became quickly apparent that there was a real need for a high-quality, yet inexpensive small mixer. Unfortunately, the 1604 might have been the high-water mark for fidelity in the category way back then, as subsequent products have grown smaller, cheaper […]
Continue readingMy guest on the podcast today is surf rock legend Bob Berryhill. Bob is a founding member of The Surfaris, and every guitar player since 1963 has learned to play the band’s big hit “Wipeout” sometime early in their career. The song, which Bob recorded when he was 15, sold over a million copies and rose to […]
Continue readingThanks to a book that I wrote and video of a presentation that I did up at Nimbus Recording School in Vancouver, I get a lot of questions about studio building. While I’m not a studio designer and would never claim to be, I understand the basic principles of how isolation and acoustic treatment work […]
Continue readingIt’s happened to us all. We get a mix that’s just rocking out of our main monitors, yet when we play it on some tiny computer or phone speakers the bass instrument completely disappears. Here are some steps to take to ensure that the bass on your next mix will speak on just about any […]
Continue readingWhen it comes to plugins, we often go for emulations of hardware processors from the past. After all, what better example of how how a processor should work than what’s been successfully used for decades already. Sometimes it’s cool to have a plugin that resembles the past in look and feel, but doesn’t actually emulate […]
Continue readingThere are about as many ways to mike an electric guitar amp cabinet as there are opinions on which music is the best, but there’s one that’s always been my favorite. The reason is that it provides a lot of versatility in sounds, something that we’re always looking for especially when guitars tracks are stacked. […]
Continue readingWe’ve all been blessed with plentiful and cheap storage these last few years, and those of us who have suffered through the bad old days of Jazz drives, Bernoulli discs, and even CDs and DVDs are supremely thankful. That said, we’re entering into a whole new golden age of small but powerful memory, and leading […]
Continue readingHopefully if you’re in the music business you’re not tone deaf. That said, I’ve worked with clients in the past that made me wonder. Harvard University wants to test you though, has opened a new lab designed to study the science of music. They’ve created a series of online tests that measure how the general […]
Continue readingIn an excerpt from his autobiography Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust (which I was lucky enough to co-write), legendary producer/engineer Ken Scott describes what it was like to work at the famous Trident Studios in London with former Beatles John Lennon and George Harrison. “Trident Studios was located at 17 St. Anne’s Court, just off […]
Continue readingIn the past I’ve posted about audio creation from natural sources other than traditional instruments, like space and the weather. Now we have the sound of the Internet, which is just as unusual and interesting as you’d think. Here’s something from Russian multimedia artist Dmitry Morosov, aka ::vtol::, who’s created an interactive sound installation that […]
Continue readingThere’s so much more that goes into recording an electric guitar that goes beyond just slamming a 57 up against the grill cloth of the speaker cabinet. Here are 10 points culled from the 4th edition of my Recording Engineer’s Handbook that you might want to consider before your next guitar recording session. 1. An […]
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