New Music Gear Monday: Sonnox Oxford Drum Gate Plugin

Ahhh, gates. We love them and we hate them. They always almost seem to do the job, but never quite 100%, especially on drums. Chatter, mis-detection, choked and lost ghost notes are more the norm than not. But that was before the Sonnox Oxford Drum Gate, which takes gating to a whole new level when […]

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CD Baby And TuneCore Enter China, Digital Patchbays, And Producer-Engineer Yoad Nevo On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast

My guest on the podcast this week is Yoad Nevo, who’s credits include over thirty #1 singles, more than fifty Top 10 albums and over sixty Top 10 singles worldwide as a producer, mixer and mastering engineer. Among the artists he’s worked with include Sia, Bryan Adams, Pet Shop boys, Sugababies, The Dandy Warhols, Moby, Morcheeba and many […]

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The Power Of Sound In Our Everyday Lives

We’re inundated with sound everywhere we go, but especially when we go shopping. It may seem like simple background music (and sometimes it is), but when you enter a large national retailer sound becomes weaponized to help move you towards a purchase. In this video Julian Treasure explains how sound affects us physiologically (even down […]

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Words Of Wisdom From Uber-Mixer Dave Pensado

Over the last two decades Dave Pensado has taken mixing to a new level of artistry, having mixed huge hits for superstars like Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson, Pink, Black Eyed Peas, Beyonce, Shakira, and Michael Jackson, among many others. Well known in the business way before his popular Pensado’s Place web series, Dave […]

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Maybe 10,000 Hours To Become An Expert Isn’t A Rule After All

Ever since Malcolm Gladwell introduced the 10,000 hours concept in his 2008 book Outliers, the number has become a standard for the work you must put it in order to become an expert in the skill that you’re pursuing. That can be pretty daunting for anyone just starting out playing an instrument or working in […]

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New Music Gear Monday: Apogee Clearmountain’s Domain FX Signal Chain Plugin

Bob Clearmountain is one of the most celebrated, yet under the radar, mixers in the world today. His work on the classic hits by everyone from Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, Bryan Adams, David Bowie, Roxy Music and about a hundred more has stood the test of time in that we still listen to and […]

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Spotify Losing Market Value, Producers Working For Free, And Agent Bruce Houghton On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast

My guest on the podcast this week is Bruce Houghton, who started his boutique Skyline Artists Agency more than 25 year ago. The agency now grown to offices in Los Angeles, Nashville, New England, Virginia, Florida and St.Louis, and serves 60 diverse artists that include Roger McGuinn, Poco, Atlanta Rhythm Section, The Motels, Freddie McGregor Zoe Keating, Darlingside, […]

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New iLok Manager Released With A Cloud Mode

If you’re like most other DAW owners on the planet, you most likely run a software app or plugin that requires an iLok. Yes, we all hate the copy protection, but the fact of the matter is that software developers deserve to make some money for all the time they put in and this is […]

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DAW And Audio App Owners – Beware macOS Catalina

You’ve probably heard of the latest Mac operating system update that’s just been released called Catalina (OS 10.15). There are a lot of great features like the ability to use an iPad as a second screen, new entertainment apps, and much increased privacy and protection, that will make it a viable update for everyone at […]

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How A Fender Strat Is Made

Even if you’re not a guitar player you still know what a Fender Strat is and are aware of its iconic status among electric guitars. I’d venture to say that most serious guitar players own at least one, and many musicians spend their musical lives attached to one. But even if you have an intimate […]

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New Music Gear Monday: Wavesfactory SK10 Subkick Simulator Plugin

It seems like every engineer uses a subkick mic when recording kick drum these days. Whether you buy one (there are now a number of them on the market to choose from) or build one yourself, they will enable you to add some girth to the kick drum that you almost can’t get any other […]

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Online Content Getting Shorter, New SSDs, and L-Acoustics Scott Sugden On My Latest Podcast

My guest on the podcast this week is Scott Sugden, who started as a live systems engineer for bands like Van Halen and The Steve Miller Band to theater productions like Spamalot and The Producers before specializing in large format sound system design for festivals. He initially came to L-Acoustics as application support and education engineer, which led into a product role […]

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The 6 Track Editing Tips Every Mix Engineer Should Know

Mix engineers are called upon to do so much more than ever before. Individual track editing used to be done by the producer way before the mixing stage, but mixers now find that it’s part of the job they’re expected to do as part of the mix. Here are some tips for tweaking track timing […]

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Dolby Atmos Finally Goes Mainstream

I posted this on my Music 3.0 blog last week but it’s a significant enough development that I thought I’d post it here as well. We finally know where all that immersive audio content that Dolby has been collecting from Universal Music Group is going to end up. The company announced its partnership with Amazon […]

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New Music Gear Monday: Baby Audio I Heart NY Parallel Compression Plugin

I do love it whenever I ready about someone using the New York City compression trick. The reason why is that I coined the phrase in the first edition of my Mixing Engineer’s Handbook way back in 1999. I noticed that, at the time, most engineers that resided in New York used a lot of […]

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