Over the years many mixers often went to the long out-of-production dbx 118 dynamic range expander to add a little more snap to their drum tracks using its expansion mode. While we’re all used to using compression, expansion a process frequently ignored, but is equally as useful once you get the hang of it. The […]
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Depending upon how much of a purist you are, pitch correction is either the worst thing to ever happen or a godsend. Regardless of how you come down on the issue, it’s at the very least a necessary evil in today’s music. Here are 5 tips from the 5th edition of my Mixing Engineer’s Handbook that […]
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In this week’s podcast episode, my guest is music marketing strategist, speaker, author, and the founder of Cyber PR, Ariel Hyatt. Known for her bold ideas and practical strategies, Ariel has helped thousands of independent musicians and creative entrepreneurs craft sustainable careers over the course of two decades. Ariel has always been at the forefront […]
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The other day I played some isolated tracks from The Beatles “Something” that featured the unique Abbey Road RS124 compressor, a modification of Altec’s 436C vari-mu compressor. There were only 25 of these hand-built units ever made so it’s rare to find one. However, Heritage Audio has brought a version of the unit back with […]
Continue readingI haven’t posted an isolated track in a good long while so it’s time to bring one back. This time it’s all the isolated tracks from one of The Beatles most beautiful songs “Something,” from their Abbey Road album. In it you’ll hear the isolated drums, bass, guitars, vocals and keyboards/strings (thanks to JP Isolated […]
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Go on, take a guess. What’s the loudest sound in history? Maybe liftoff of the great Saturn V booster helping an Apollo mission to the moon. Or maybe a Deep Purple or Metallica concert. The detonation of a nuclear device? Good guesses, but not even close. According to scientists, the the eruption of Krakatoa, a […]
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In this week’s podcast episode, my guest is Danny Garcia, co-founder and CEO of the music promotion and discovery site Songtools. Songtools makes it easy to promote your music across Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, and reach out to over 150,000 curated Spotify playlists. It also helps playlisters discover new music, and vets both artists and […]
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AI mastering tools get a lot of mediocre reviews, but the fact of the matter is that you need to load in a reference track in order to get the best results. That’s a multi-step process in that you have to download a desired track, then upload it to the tool and have it learn […]
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Let me start by saying that I don’t know how I feel about this. It’s either something that’s so far ahead that it’s tough to grasp it, or it’s a huge heaping piece of crap, but you’ll get a chance to judge for yourself later down the page. What I’m referring to is a newly […]
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In this week’s podcast episode, my guest is Lon Neumann, the president of Neumann Technologies, a company that’s focused on designing and commissioning production facilities for immersive audio. Lon has a long history with Sony, and is especially keen on their 360VME virtual mix environment system, which he discussed at length during the podcast. He […]
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If you’ve been mixing for a while you know that a vocal or piece of dialog with sibilance could mean a struggle, often resulting in trying a few different de-esser plugins to find the one that works. Even then, it was never perfect, and you still ended up dialing in some automation to take care […]
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I know you just read the title and thought, “I know about white and pink noise, but what the heck is brown and blue noise?” Well, they’re a real thing and used more often than you think. But the differences between white, pink, blue and brown? It all comes down to frequency and amplitude. What […]
Continue readingIn this week’s podcast episode, I bring back my popular music and audio industry news segment with a full episode dedicated to stories that matter—but often fly under the radar. In this episode, I dive into a wide range of timely and thought-provoking topics, including: Tune in to hear surprising insights, smart commentary, and the […]
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Microphones are like guitars – they all sound different, and that makes us want to collect them. Just like guitars, that can get expensive, but luckily the virtual microphone comes to the rescue, where you can select from a wide variety of popular mic emulations for a fraction of the cost of purchasing an entire […]
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You’ve probably heard the term “peak oil” where the maximum rate of production has been reached and it only decreases from that point on. We’ve also seen “peak television” and “peak music,” and there’s probably a whole lot more “peaks” that I can’t think of right now. But when it comes to audio creation and […]
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