Hi, I'm Björgvin Benediktsson. I'm a musician, audio engineer and best-selling author. I help musicians and producers make a greater impact with their music by teaching them how to produce and engineer themselves. I've taught thousands of up and coming home studio producers such as yourself how to make an impact with their music through Audio Issues since 2011.
A reader writes in with a question about getting a warmer, smoother vocal sound. “I am limited to an SM57 for a vocal mic. I’m a strong (somewhat edgy) tenor. I would like to know how to EQ my vocals to get a warmer, smoother sound.” The Sm57 has a somewhat “harsh” frequency response because...
My favorite part about running Facebook ads for Audio Issues are all the trolls that can’t stand that I have an opinion on EQ. Newsflash: I have a 25,000-word opinion on EQ called EQ Strategies – Your Ultimate Guide to EQ. Supreme Court Justices ain’t got nothin’ on my EQ opinion! Trolls get outraged because...
For a two-year-old, Step By Step Mixing has taken down some heavy hitters in the industry. Like Bobby Owsinski’s Mixing Engineer’s Handbook, which we pushed down to fourth place sometime last year. Or Mike Senior’s Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio, a personal favorite mixing book of mine. We jostle around the top spot very regularly. Step By...
Although it was 730 days ago today, I remember the day like it was yesterday. February 6th, 2017, Step By Step Mixing was released. I know this because I keep track of all of my release dates in a special “Success Calendar,” where I mark every product launch, song release or major professional event in...
Ever since I started using this compressor, it’s been permanently on my mixing template. It’s so simple that it’s impossible to screw it up. There simply aren’t enough controls on the compressor to really do anything other than “make your vocals sound good.” What compressor am I talking about? The RVox from Waves of course....
I wanted to share one of my favorite vocal mixing techniques to get super WIDE vocals. It’s an excerpt from the full Expert Home Vocals course. If you like the following article, make sure to grab the full course. I have three go-to busses for vocal processing that usually give me everything I need. Here’s...
One of my least favorite Superman villains is Bizarro. He’s exhausting to understand and he’s not motivated by anything you can relate to. That said…I did dress up as Bizarro Clark Kent one year for Halloween… Overall Bizarro’s pretty lame…but his opposite-ness to Superman made me remember my Reverse-EQ method, which I’ll be calling the...
There are five stages to a professional sounding vocal. It’s not all about the microphone or your gear. Or even your acoustic treatment. It’s not even only about your singer. Unfortunately, even a bad singer can be…*gulp*…”fixed.” But there’s no autotune for a poor vocal melody or arrangement. There’s no Auto-Make-My-Songwriting-Better plug-in. Five Stage Vocal...
Mornin’ mon frére, Yesterday, Audio Issues contributor Ed Elefterion talked about writing memorable melodies as the starting point of crafting a catchy song. Today, I wanted to jump ahead and start thinking about all the best strategies for making sure that melody transforms into a production that blows people away. The vocals are the most...
We talk a lot about how to start a mix, or how to get a rough mix going, but we don’t share as much about how you know when your mix is finished. Let’s talk about how you can be confident about finishing your mixes so you can be proud to release your music to...