Studio Recording
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How to Achieve Low Audio Latency While Recording
Let's say you're an accomplished guitarist who has been playing live for nearly a decade, ripping improvised solos alongside your band mates in your city's most celebrated cover band. You realize you don't want to pretend to be a member of Talking Heads for the rest of your life, so you bring it up to your crew and they all confess the same. But rather […]
Gain Staging - Levels are Everything for High-Resolution Recordings
It's hard to blame musicians for not having a perfect gain stage... Most have never even heard of this aspect of signal processing. Ignorance won't save you though. It's either done right or you've compromised your ability to have the highest quality song at the end of the day. Your gain matters at every step, from the preamplifier, equalizer, compressor, converters, and even when printing […]
Instrument Miking Techniques & Tips to Capture Your Best Sound
There's a danger to studio recording and mixing the results. We all fall prey to using our eyes instead of our ears. It's simply a part of how our brains are wired and how we survived all this time. But the beasts of the recording jungle, your clients and audience, will eat you alive if you listen with your eyes instead of your ears. It's […]
How to Use a Patchbay
So you finally got sick of climbing behind your desk or wiggling under your rack to change your audio signals' path through your now giant recording gear collection. I don't blame you. The dust, the spiders, the cat hair, and other surprises aren't worth the trouble, especially when there's an affordable and genius solution on the market. Take into account that most of us end […]
Open Back vs Closed Back Headphones: There's a Clear Winner
There's so much more to the story when it comes to choosing a set of headphones. If you score even a higher tier of consumer level headphones then that's about all you'll need. They'll have a 1/8th inch headphone jack and probably a 1/4 inch adaptor. You can plug them into your smart phone or MP3 player and you're rocking and rolling. But what about […]
Condenser vs Dynamic Mics: 10 Myths Busted!
Some of these issues are flat out mythology and categorically false, while others are true in some applications and false in other scenarios. No wonder there's a lot of contradiction to be found on message boards and websites. Couple that with people pretending to be more knowledgeable than they are and others simply parroting bad advice and you can quickly see how the confusion continues […]
What is a Headphone Amplifier? Do I Need One?
Even beyond that, many headphones that could benefit from an amplifier can still be used without one at low volumes and you'd never know the difference. But eventually in the professional music industry you run into a headphone amp… Just what is it and why do we need them? Even once a person discovers headphone amps, they usually first encounter the snake oil audiophile type […]
7 Home Studio Must-Haves for Comfort & Productivity
As you continually visit the same room day in and day out and start accumulating years of your life spent in it, you begin to get hyper-sensitive. Little things can become giant distractions. Minor annoyances can cause you to flip out out of frustration. The big things can make you throw your hands up and be ready to quit forever. There are moments when you […]
13 More Vocal Recording Tips
The difference between solid production and perfect production all boils down to which recording engineer is willing to go the extra mile to take advantage of those last diminishing returns. Most of the time, the temptation is to grab your best mic that's probably already plugged in and on a mic stand, stick it in front of the vocalist, and press record. The reality is […]
Close Miking in Recording: Why, When, & How?
Everyone has heard of this term. It's so common that people who have zero clue what they're talking about will offer up the solution: "Just close mic it!" But what does this really mean? Why was the technique developed? What does it offer over other techniques such as distance miking? How do we use it and when should we use it? There are other microphone […]
Recording Studio Cables: All You Need to Know
"No, no! Not the Cat-5, bring me the XLR. No, that's the TRS to TS! No, not the optical... Nevermind, I'll get it myself." It's easy to get frustrated and have zero tolerance for audio cable confusion, but that was all of us at one time or another. You have to start at the beginning, but that doesn't mean you can't take the accelerated course […]
What is a Studio Compressor? What Does It Do?
An audio compressor is one of those pieces of gear that everyone tries to get by without for some odd reason. Guitar players, for instance, feel they should be able to achieve the effect with their fingers. Vocalists try to do the job of the compressor by moving closer and further away from the mic. Some mixing engineers will even automate the volume or literally […]
What is a Preamplifier? Why Do We Need Them?
It goes like this: If you're recording with a microphone then you need to use a preamplifier, no questions asked. It is 100% possible to record without one and you have the same percentage of a chance to get horrible results. The reason I'm so adamant about this is that I recorded my first 30 songs or so without one because I had no clue […]
Headroom in Audio Recording: What, Why, & How
What in the world is headroom in audio? Why should we care? Even if we did care, how the heck do we use it? These are the three most common questions surrounding this mysterious topic. Most people who are trying to record a song aren't interested in perfection, so they just hit the 'record' button and go. Even those who do care about quality find […]
Microphone Pickup Patterns: Understanding & Using Directionality
Imagine this scenario: you have a bluegrass band that has four members and they want to record live with all four members. So you make them stand at the four points of a square facing each other so they can jive off each other's energy. You go for close miking on each band member to isolate each sound the best you can for mixing purposes. […]
How to Get Rid of Sibilance & Plosives in Your Vocals
You're about to learn how to keep those sounds from sneaking into your recording takes and how to deal with the few that still make it in, so save that perfect take! It might still be salvageable by the end of this tutorial… "How come every time I say word that features a 'B' or 'P' syllable, it sounds like I'm hitting a kick drum […]
The Microphone Proximity Effect: A Great Tool For More Bass
For studio engineers involved in tracking and mixing, the eternal war wages on. We want our final results nice and warm in the low and mid-range of the frequency spectrum, but it's always easy to venture off too far and end up with muddy results that lack clarity and punch. A phrase you'll often hear is "we'll fix it in the mix." No, just no. […]
How to Setup a Home Recording Studio
Go ahead and freak out if you want to, but it's totally unnecessary. This easy guide will have you becoming a studio tech wizard in ten minutes flat. No longer will you look at a piece of gear and experience your brain slowly shutting down under the sheer anxiety of wondering what you're going to break. Learning how to setup a home recording studio at […]
The Acoustic Treatment Guide for Panels & Foam
The reason every major studio has these "boxes" hanging on the walls, or the walls themselves are made of cloth covering "something firm but soft," is the same reason why their recordings and mixes come out pristine and beautiful, while amateur works sound like they were recorded in a small closet or a bathroom (most of the time they are!). The reason is that they […]
Recording Vocals at Home: Clean & Clear
No matter your goal... whether you're a rapper, producer, singer, podcast creator, video game designer, etc., you need a quality vocal chain set up and ready to rock at home. Recording vocals at home used to be a dream, and now it's a no-brainer. Money is no longer the barrier to entry. The know-how is what gets in the way because you have to know […]
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