Your vocal sounds great on the verse. Then the singer leans into the chorus and 4 kHz turns to ice picks. So you reach for a regular EQ and pull that band down. Now the whole song sounds dull, because you just killed a frequency that was only a problem for two seconds at a … Read more
You’ve got a rhythm guitar tracked, doubled, and panned hard left and right, and the verses sound great. The chorus arrives, and the guitars suddenly feel small. The vocal pokes out, the drums punch through, and the wall of guitar you imagined sounds more like a fence. You pull a compressor in, set 4:1, drag … Read more
You loaded up the Waves CLA bundle, and now you are staring at three compressors that all promise the same Chris Lord-Alge magic. CLA-2A, CLA-3A, CLA-76. They look similar, they are named almost identically, and nothing on the interface tells you which one belongs on your vocal versus your drum bus. So you pick one … Read more
Your toms sound massive on the solo’d hits and then turn into a boomy, ringing mess the moment the full kit plays. The fills are muddy, the low toms clash with the kick, and the open tom mics are pumping kick and snare bleed into everything. So you boost the attack to cut through, the … Read more
If you’re an audio engineer or music producer, you know how important it is to have a reliable monitoring system.While studio monitors are the traditional choice, headphones are becoming an increasingly popular option due to their convenience and portability.In this blog post, we’ll share 9 pro tips for mastering your tracks with headphones to achieve … Read more
Your drums sound fine soloed, then you drop them in the mix, and the kick is boomy, the snare is boxy, and the cymbals are slicing your ears off. You know EQ fixes it, but you are sweeping around blind on every track, burning an hour on a kit that should take ten minutes to … Read more
You wanted a bigger low end, so you grabbed a clean digital EQ and boosted 80 Hz. The bass got louder, sure, but it also got muddy and boomy, and now it is fighting the kick for the same blurry space at the bottom of the mix. You try cutting some mud back out, and … Read more
The complete guide to the 1176 compressor — covering its history, the blackface vs blue-stripe difference, gain staging, and exactly how to use it on vocals, bass, snare, guitars, and more.
Everything you need to know about mono and stereo — what they are, when to record in each, how to mix using both, and how to make sure your mixes translate everywhere.
Your bass sounds full and warm when you solo it. Then you play the whole mix, and it either disappears on your laptop speakers or turns the low end into a boomy, muddy mess that swallows the kick. So you boost the lows, and it gets boomier. You turn it up, and it clashes with … Read more