Archive for January, 2008
Noise Reduction: Less is More
January 21, 2008 UncategorizedThis post focuses on the process of removing noise that has made its way into your content using digital processing. While it’s always best to avoid noise in ther first place by recording in a quiet environment, using well grounded equipment, and using balanced cables, it’s sometimes unavoidable that some noise will have crept its [...]
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Stereo Image Placement = Much Better Mixing
January 20, 2008 UncategorizedThis post focuses on the placement of sounds in the stereo image during the mix process. Proper use of stereo imaging in a mix is probably almost as important (or even more important in sparse mixes) as equalization, yet it is largely overlooked as an area for improvement in engineers and producers of beginner and [...]
Read More »Labeling Your Tracks: Ground Zero for Organization
January 19, 2008 UncategorizedThis post is focused on the simple, neglected, and powerful practice of labeling tracks in a session. This post may seem like something entirely obvious that should remain unspoken… but it isn’t. You would be surprised how often I have seen session tracks titled “New Track” and audio files named “Untitled1.wav”. The first step to [...]
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Stereo Microphone Techniques & Placement
January 18, 2008 UncategorizedThis post focuses on the various ‘standard’ ways to get a stereo image with microphones. A class-A stereo image is one of the holy grails of audio engineering. It’s easy to get a decent image, but to achieve a stereo image that condenses down to mono, sounds rich, and evenly captures the entire performance is [...]
Read More »SysEx and MIDI Automation: Don’t Forget That Preset
January 17, 2008 UncategorizedThe focus of this post is on capturing SysEx information from external MIDI devices in order to have a record of your presets right in your session or automate the settings throughout the track. It happens to producers time and time again: you’ve created an awesome synth sound or guitar tone, you’ve recorded the midi [...]
Read More »Stems & Alternate Versions
January 16, 2008 UncategorizedThis post focuses on creating individual mixes of elements called stems, and also on creating alternate mixes. It’s pretty common in music production to, during the mixing process, print many different versions of the track to tape. Some examples might be: just the brass section (for performing the song live), a vocal +1 or -1 [...]
Read More »Properly Wrapping Cables: The Roadie Wrap (Video)
January 15, 2008 UncategorizedThis post focuses on wrapping cables so that they unravel easily without knots or annoying insulator memory. Roadie wrap! It’s way easier just to demonstrate with a video…
Read More »Register Your Music Production Business!
January 14, 2008 UncategorizedThis post focuses on registering your music business with Uncle Sam to avoid liability, tax issues, and better business structuring. I know, I know… registering a business is about as fun as a broken fretboard, but it’s a good idea when you start out. There are a lot of reasons why registering (and registering as [...]
Read More »Multiamping Guitars: Getting the Sound Now or Later
January 13, 2008 UncategorizedThis post focuses on capturing multiple guitar sounds, including unamplified, during tracking for more tonal flexibility during the mix. A unique guitar tone is one of those things that people are always willing to great lengths to achieve. Some of the most coveted tones have actually been blends of multiple amplifiers, certainly of multiple microphones. [...]
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Sample Rate and Bitrate: The Guts of Digital Audio
January 12, 2008 UncategorizedThis post focuses on the basics of digital audio: sample rate, bitrate, and how analog signals are represented digitally. We use digital audio all the time, but I am surprised on a fairly regular basis how many people are unclear about how digital audio works. Digital audio has two primary qualities that compose the way [...]
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