You’ve got a decent vocal take, a compressor across it, and the ratio and threshold roughly where they should be. The gain reduction meter is moving. But the vocal still doesn’t sit right. It either sounds flat and choked, or it pumps and breathes in a way that pulls your ear. You spend 20 minutes … Read more
You’ve got a rap verse on the screen, the punch-ins are level-matched, and the vocal still doesn’t sit on the beat the way the reference track does. You pull a compressor in, set it to 4:1, drag the threshold down, and now the vocal sounds clamped but somehow still loose. Twenty minutes later, you’re considering … Read more
You’ve got a vocal up on the screen, the compressor’s open, and the only thing you know for sure is that “it depends on the genre.” That’s true. It’s also useless when you’re three hours into a mix and you need a starting point. The settings that make a Drake vocal sound like a Drake … Read more
Welcome to Audio Spectra, in today’s tutorial we’ll be talking about mastering your music with waves audio plugins.The most important thing that I want you to pick up is that there are a lot of misconceptions about mastering.Beginner engineers are often fooled into thinking that mastering is some magical process that will make your songs … Read more
You’ve spent forty minutes on a lead vocal. The verses sit fine. The chorus pokes through every time the singer leans in. You pull the threshold down, the chorus tames, the verses disappear under the bed. You pull it up, the chorus is back to peaking. The compressor isn’t broken. You’re using one tool to … Read more
Your mix sounds great in your room, then you bounce it, play it in the car, and the low end is boomy. On your phone it sounds thin. In earbuds the vocal is harsh. So you reach for an EQ on the master and start making the kind of moves you would in a mix, … Read more
Using reference tracks when mixing or making music is something that I wish I knew in the early days of my music career.Reference songs can help you improve the quality of your music at a much faster rate.When you are more advanced you’ll be able to get quality songs that will sound amazing on all … Read more
Your mix sounds flat. Everything is loud, everything is upfront, and it hits the listener as one wall of sound with no space behind it. You panned parts left and right, but it still feels two-dimensional, like a photo instead of a room. The records you love sound three-dimensional, with some elements right in your … Read more
You pull up the overheads, and they are either a harsh wash of cymbals slicing your ears off, or a muddy blanket of kick and snare bleed with no shimmer at all. So you high-pass and boost the highs for sparkle, the harshness gets worse, and the kit somehow loses its weight. The overheads are … Read more
You open the session, and the vocal is a mess before you have touched a single fader. Eight takes scattered across eight tracks. Clicks between phrases. One line that drifts flat. A breath right before the hook that is louder than half the words around it. So you spend 20 minutes cleaning instead of mixing, … Read more