You record a clean acoustic guitar take. The performance feels great in the room, but back at the desk the strums are jumping out 8 dB louder than the picked verses. You spend twenty minutes nudging the threshold, watching the gain reduction meter wiggle, and second-guessing whether you are crushing the body of the instrument … Read more
One harsh “s” can pull a listener right out of an otherwise beautiful vocal. You have EQ’d it, compressed it, added air, and now the sibilance is sharper than ever, hissing on every chorus. A good de-esser fixes that in seconds, but a bad one leaves the singer sounding like they have a lisp. The … Read more
You bring the hats up. They are too loud. You pull them back. Now you can barely hear them. You add 3 dB at 8 kHz to get the shimmer back. Now they are harsh. You cut 2 dB at 5 kHz. Now they are dull. The hats refuse to sit right, and you have … Read more
Get ready to take your mixes to the next level with the power of stereo. In this blog post, we’ll dive into the exciting world of mixing in stereo and uncover the secrets to creating a wide, immersive soundstage. What Mixing in Stereo Actually Means Mixing in stereo means using the full left-right space of … Read more
You open the session. The drummer rushed the fill in bar 16. The kick is drifting behind the click in the chorus. The snare top and bottom mics are fighting each other. There is a 4 dB hiss under every silent bar. You load a compressor and try to mix your way out of it. … Read more
Mixing drums is an art, and mastering reverb is the secret ingredient that can elevate your mixes from good to mind-blowing.Imagine your snare drum taking on a three-dimensional quality, filling the sonic space with depth, impact, and sheer power.In this blog post, we’re about to embark on an exhilarating journey through the world of snare … Read more
You hit a tom fill in the second chorus and it disappears. The transient is there, you can see the waveform spike, but the body doesn’t land. The drummer played it hard. The mic was placed right. The raw track sounds great in solo. So why does the fill feel small the moment everything else … Read more
Your acoustic sounds warm and rich on its own. Then you drop it in the mix, and it turns boomy, boxy, and cluttered, with a harsh pick attack and a low end that fights the bass. So you boost the highs for sparkle, and the harshness gets worse, or you cut the lows, and the … Read more
You finally got the vocal sounding bright and present, and then you hear it: every “s” jumps out like a hiss, sharp enough to make you wince on headphones. So you pull the high end down with an EQ, and now the whole vocal sounds dull. Leave it up, and the esses slice your ears. … Read more
There’s something magical about the sound of a well-mixed acoustic guitar. It’s warm and intimate, and it has a way of drawing you into the music.But getting that sound just right can be a challenge, especially if you’re working with less-than-ideal recording conditions.In this post, I’m going to share some of my favorite techniques for … Read more