The Effect Pedal Bass Players Need For Their Solos Dear fellow bass players, I’m going to speak a bit on the topic that increases our blood pressure. But we must face it, and we must find a way overcome it. It’s the topic of when we take the bass solo, the audience of non musicians don’t […]
Which Wireless Microphone’s Have The Longest Range? We know what you want, you want to jump in the audience as you crowd surf through out the entire Festival as you sing in to your wireless mic. Or maybe, that has absolutely nothing to do with the reason you want a long range wireless microphone. For […]
By Tony Hossri Performwireless.com John Pagano Band What Makes a Good Wireless Guitar System? Here it is, the million dollar question………..more like $500 or so. What makes a good wireless guitar system? When you google this question, what typically pops up are a bunch of payed ads of wireless guitar systems. Yet, never give you […]
Plugins I’ve Been Using That I Recommend Brandon S Hire The Noise Floor It’s not the tool, it’s the user. But as a blogger and content creator, I get to play with a lot of cool tools. Here’s a few of them that I highly recommend checking out. 1. The Plugins From My Walkthroughs. Obviously […]
In the current world of Digital Recording, analog is still the holy grail. Everyone wants that warm sound that analog gear gives you, so why would I pull my analog mixer from my studio? Now, before you start screaming about how you will dump your mixer when they pry your cold dead fingers from it, […]
You wouldn’t think of a direct box as having a certain character, unless you’ve worked in a facility that has really good character DI’s. After all, in the age of Multi-I/O converters with DI inputs, it’s easy to forget the role that a quality DI box plays. High end DI boxes were used to help […]
Common advice is to “gain stage” your tracks by calibrating them to -18. People often leave out whether they mean -18 dBFS or -18 dBVU, both of which would yield vastly different levels depending on the source material. But why choose a calibration point to begin with? Here’s Matthew Weiss from The Pro Audio Files describing […]
4 Handy Guitar Pedal Hacks that You Probably Don’t Know While owning and using a guitar pedal can be a great way to bring new life into your performances, these awesome little devices don’t come without their fair share of problems. From connectivity issues and power problems to residue and faulty dials, there are plenty […]
As many of you may have noticed, the long awaited Paul Reed Smith amp models from Waves were released. From the moment I downloaded and plugged in a guitar (In this instance a cherry red 1998 Godin LGxT) I was completely hooked. Finally the holy grail of smooth satisfying clean tone was available at my fingertips, and […]
Do we REALLY need another EQ? We have stock eq’s, free eq’s, hardware eq’s, dynamic eq’s, analog modeled eq’s, digital eq’s that can do a zillion cool things… I find it hard to get excited about another eq these days, unless there’s something truly new and unique it brings to the table. More developers should […]
Reference tracks can be a valuable tool for keeping an objective viewpoint while mixing. When you listen to a reference track, you get a chance to reset your ears. If you’ve been listening to your mix for hours, your ears are getting used to the frequencies you’re hearing. Problem areas or frequency imbalances may not jump out […]
Mixing with headphones can be a challenge, and for a long time was generally accepted as something that should only be done if no other option were available. You had to contend with a skewed stereo perception, a skewed depth perception with reverbs, and a skewed frequency spectrum due to the natural low end rolloff […]
I see a lot of questions on various discussion groups asking how to best mic specific instruments. Many of the answers will be a mixed bag of various techniques, all of which are valid and should be absorbed into your bag of tricks. But they are all quite different from one another, and will yield […]
SONAR relaunches as ‘Cakewalk by BandLab’: Iconic DAW now free to download for everyone World-leading DAW SONAR, with the entire SONAR Platinum feature set, is relaunching as Cakewalk by BandLab Full authentication and unlimited feature-access will be available free Early access to Cakewalk by BandLab is available now on Windows SINGAPORE, 4 APRIL 2018 — Today, […]
Many audio textbooks, audio schools, and audio engineers will advise you that it’s always best to attenuate rather than gain an EQ control. This has traditionally been considered best practice in the industry for two main reasons. With most EQs, especially analog EQs, adding gain to a band causes an audible phase shift in the […]
This is a question that comes up time and again in audio groups. “How hot should my final mix down be before sending off to mastering?” It depends on the format you’re mixing on. If you’re using analog tape, this is an important question to think about. Analog formats have limited headroom, and analog equipment […]
The above video is a quick demonstration of how your signal-to-noise ratio impacts the level of noise your analog modeled plugins will deliver. You may have seen this video floating around Facebook, which is where it was exclusively hosted until now. I thought it was high time to add it to the blog to make […]
HISTORY In the Early days of recording, music was cut directly to a disk from a single microphone. In the studio, the art of mixing fell to the music “Conductor” whose job it was to move the musicians who were recording either closer or further back from the microphone. By the 1930’s the radio broadcasting […]
Easy Steps to Getting Better Mixes Sometimes you just have to live with the room that you have, especially in small home studios. The large commercial studios spend thousands of dollars on acoustic treatments, special construction and special tuning of their control rooms so they become a critical listening environment. You on the other hand […]
Time to Start your Project So, you raised some money, and now you are ready to take your project into the studio. There are so many things to consider before you start writing those checks. Let’s face it, recording a CD can be a very expensive project. So, lets see what we can do to […]
Gibson has decided to discontinue all development of Cakewalk products, which includes the very popular DAW(Digital Audio Workstation) SONAR, which has for 30 years been the flagship of the Cakewalk line. The apparent explanation is “they want to focus on consumer audio electronics” Gibson Brands announced today that it is ceasing active development and production […]
When you are looking to get into the music business on your own, there is a lot of preparation that goes into marketing your sound and your brand. Your fans won’t have anything to grasp onto if you aren’t generating songs, making it all the more crucial for musicians to have a studio at home […]
Top 5 Audio Assault Plugins Brandon Shire We all have our favorites, and in this post I want to share my top 5 from Audio Assault! Let’s countdown, starting from number 5. FREAKQ 305 5. FreakQ 305 It’s hard to see what’s so special about FreakQ 305 on the surface, because it looks like a typical […]
Top 5 IK Multimedia Plugins Brandon Shire We all have our favorites, and in this post I want to share my top 5 from IK Multimedia! Let’s countdown, starting from number 5. MASTER EQ 432 5. Master EQ 432 The right amount of the right eq on the master bus can really bring your mix […]
Top 5 Waves Plugins! Brandon Shire We all have our favorites, and in this post I want to share my top 5 from Waves Audio! Let’s countdown, starting from number 5. MY DEFAULT HLS SETTINGS 5. Kramer HLS Channel This thing is just meaty. I use it as a low end enhancer more than anything, […]
In the sea of plugins available to home recording musicians, it is not very often that I run across one that actually becomes part of my “Must Have” Toolbox. The Waves “Abby Road – ADT” (Artificial Double Track) is just that plugin. Since day one, I have found that the ADT to be an essential […]
Amp sims, like their real world counterparts, are non-linear processes. As you increase the input level, they saturate and distort more. As you decrease the input signal, they clean up more. It’s important to remember this characteristic, as you can drastically change the response of the amp sim by adjusting the input level. Let’s start […]
A four part series on creating realistic strings with MIDI ..
Why you shouldn’t sleep on Nomad Factory Brandon Shire [I realize this entire post reads like a giant advertisement, but I assure you that it’s my honest opinion about a product line that I am personally passionate about. Nomad Factory have never given me a plugin to review, I have no NFR’s from them, and […]
Recently Boz Digital Labs released Transgressor, which is a transient designer that allows you to eq the transient and the sustain separately. This plugin seems like it was created with my workflow in mind, so when I got the chance to get a review copy I was stoked! Let me explain. I tend to […]
MELDAPRODUCTION MMULTIANALYZER NOISE FLOOR ANALYSIS WITH EXPANDER ENGAGED In the first picture, you’ll see 4 colored bands on the analyzer. The red band is the noise floor of my interface, and it’s reading down around -110dbfs. The dark orange band at the very bottom is where the expander is pushing that noise floor to, down […]
Gain Staging: What to know, & why you shouldn’t stress too much about it! By Brandon S Hire Noise Floor (This is a script to a video that will be included in an upcoming series on post production. I decided to make the script its own post because of the amount of confusion there is […]
3 Reasons Why Pre-Production Is Essential Steve Perrino of Compass Audio Most musicians agree that there is a huge difference between your live show and your recordings. There is a lot of energy in a live performance due to volume and visuals, but there are certain things that you need to do in a recording […]
Understanding Drum Sample Libraries From bedroom producers, to the top brass mixing engineers with multiple grammies, there are a lot of people who use drum samples in their mixes. Joey Sturgis is famous for using Kick 10 from Steven Slate Drums in many of his productions (although now Joey Sturgis has his own sample library […]
To Subscribe Or Not To Subscribe Whether you’re an aspiring artist or seasoned industry vet, you undoubtedly have noticed the subscription trend getting picked up by more and more software developers. On December 12th 2016, Softube announced their new subscription model for their plugin collection and it very closely mimics The Everything Bundle promotion that […]
Drum triggers. What they are, and how they work. A drum trigger is a microphone. Nothing more. It picks up the sound of the drum and sends the audio to the source. The source usually is an audio to midi converter either in the box or outside of the box, but that doesn’t have to […]
Plugin manufacturers are on a never ending quest to develop the holy grail of plugins…the perfect digital model of a classic analog piece that everyone in the industry embraces as the most accurate, bar none. This is admirable in that it pushes the technology further and further, and now we have top tier mix engineers […]
Back in the day, we had hardware. Since then, we started using software. Over the years, we’ve become better and better at developing this software so that it fools the trained ear into thinking it’s hardware. We make it move, overload, have noise, and try to recreate the exact sonic imprint of the hardware. We’ve […]
I have been working sound for the last 30 years or more, both as a Live Sound engineer and in the recording studio. I have had the opportunity to work on a variety of mixing desks over the years. From the large venue installed systems to small touring systems. Some great desks, some not so […]
If you are a touring musician and you put any time on the road, this is the app for you. WAZE by Google is one of the world’s largest FREE community-based traffic and navigation apps. You are Joined by drivers in your area who share real-time traffic & road info to save time, gas money, […]
EQ Made Easy One of the most mis-understood and mis-used effect in recording and mixing has to be Equalization. Using EQ in recording and mixing is more than a simple Treble/Bass adjustment. If not used properly you can easily take a really good recording and turn it into sonic mush in just a few knob […]
The home recording revolution that started in the 80’s with inexpensive 8 and 16 track recorders has evolved into an industry of recording software, hardware modeling and audio interfaces. The tools that are available to the home recording studio today would be the envy of professional studios of only 20 years ago. The problem is […]
Sonar X3 Lets face it, once you find a DAW that you like and you have gone through the learning curve it’s pretty hard to change. But, if you are looking to get your first full DAW or you feel your DAW is not giving you what you want, you might want to consider Cakewalks […]
Studio Quick Tip! So you have a studio and you want to record a live band complete with Drums, Guitar and Bass. One of the problems you will encounter is finding ways to create shielding between the instruments. When it comes to drums, besides a dedicated drum booth, most commercial drum shields work great. But […]
Build your Studio Speaker Stands One of the most important aspects of your control room is your monitors. As obvious as it may seem, most small home studio operators don’t realize that speakers not only transmit sound through the air. But they also vibrate whatever they are on, which transmits those vibrations to the […]
