Are We On The Cusp Of A Sound Isolation Breakthrough?

Thanks 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 […]

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The Reason Why You Can’t Hear Your Bass On Small Speakers

It’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 […]

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New Music Gear Monday: PSP Twin-L Limiter Plugin

When 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 […]

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My Favorite Guitar Amp Miking Technique

There 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. […]

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MicroSD Express Cards May Be The Storage Of The Future

We’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 […]

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Are YouWilling To Take This Test To See If You’re Tone Deaf?

Hopefully 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 […]

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Ken Scott On Working At Trident With John Lennon And George Harrison

In 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 […]

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The Sound Of The Internet

In 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 […]

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10 Points To Consider Before Recording Electric Guitar

There’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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Audio For The Grammy Broadcast Is HUGE!

Regardless of whether you dig the Grammy broadcast or not, what goes on behind the scenes is truly a massive feat of audio strength. How big? Take the largest audio setup you ever heard of and multiply it by at least another order of magnitude, as you’ll soon see. Dani Deahl wrote a great piece […]

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Producer Bill Reynolds, Spotify Hacked, And Apple’s New Processors On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast

My guest on my latest podcast episode is Bill Reynolds, who’s a Grammy-nominated producer, engineer, mixer, songwriter and former bass player with Band of Horses. Bill’s credits include the Avett Brothers, Band of Horses, Truth and Salvage Co, Tim Chaisson, Lissie, among others, and his songs have appeared on TV shows like House, Justified and Army Wives. He currently works out of his […]

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A Look At The Amazing Feat Of Super Bowl Halftime Show Audio

Whether you like football or not, you have to admit that the Super Bowl has risen almost to the level of a national holiday. While most of us tune in for the game itself, the halftime show is also the music event of the year to many. With an audience of around 100 million, what […]

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MIDI 2.0 Is Almost Here

MIDI changed music creation in so many ways when it was introduced, but you hear less about it these days thanks to virtual instruments and so much music making in the box. That said, it’s still a very important tool, especially if you want your DAW to talk to outside instruments. Even though MIDI might […]

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New Music Gear Monday: Maag Audio Magnum-K Dual Compressor Plugin

The cynical engineer looks at compression these days and says, “It’s all already been done. The world doesn’t need another classic compression emulation.” While the second part of that statement may well be true, the fact of the matter is that there are still new ideas in compressors being released and one of the them […]

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Room Mics And Phase Tricks With Vance Powell

There are two parts to recording that many engineers are either super concerned with or completely oblivious to and that’s placement of the room mics when tracking and phase. In my experience, phase is something that you have to be aware of, but sometimes spending gobs of time on trying to get things just right […]

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