I’m Björgvin Benediktsson. I’m the author of the #1 Amazon best-seller, Step By Step Mixing: How to Create Great Mixes Using Only 5 Plug-ins, the creator of the Audio Issues EQ plug-in, and the founder of Audio Issues. I’m also a venture advisor for the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship at the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona.
I’m an audio engineer turned writer, and I’m on a mission to help musicians overcome their imposter syndrome, create great-sounding music, and release their work.
I’ve worked as a live sound engineer, a broadcast recording engineer, a professional touring musician, a freelance mixing and mastering engineer, and an audio educator in both Iceland and the United States.
Since 2009, I’ve been helping people like you turn your rough recordings into finished records you can be proud to release. If you want to create radio-ready and release-worthy music that jumps from the speakers, you’re in the right place. My dream is for you to email me out of the blue one day and tell me you won an award for your music because I helped you make it sound successful.
Thousands of home studio producers like yourself have learned from my training, and my work has been featured in publications such as MusicTech magazine, Audiotuts+, The Pro Audio Files, and Recording Revolution, to name a few.
A reader hits the nail on the head with a comment: I still do not get results which I expect. The problem is – as I believe – the lack of knowledge about how to mix different instruments and how to work with equalizers. Exactly! You have no idea how glad I am to hear somebody say that....
Way back in the day my band was recording a demo. I wanted my lead guitar part to sound really weird, like a plunky, glass-brittle’esque sound. That’s a weird description I know but I couldn’t figure out how to make my electric guitar sound like that. I even went so far as to put the...
It’s funny how easy it is to screw up something simple like mic placement. I can understand the frustration of moving the mic around without really knowing what you’re looking for. It’s hard to look for the perfect balanced sound if you’re not 100% sure what that should sound like. And it’s even harder if...
Compression, along with EQ, is one of the most basic and useful tools you have in your arsenal for mixing. Compression makes things punchy. Compression makes things loud and clear. Compression makes your tracks more consistent throughout the song. But compression also makes things sound choked. Compression makes drums sound muffled and dull. Compression makes your listening experience tiring...
The trick about recording vocals is that it has nothing to do with the gear and everything to do with the performance. So who better to ask about the performance part of the vocal recording session than a seasoned recording artist? This week we finish up our series of interviews from the Potluck Audio Conference...
This week’s interview session will be with producer/engineer Powell: Jeff Powell has been recording, mixing, and producing records for 24 years. He was a staff assistant engineer, then engineer/mixer and finally producer at Ardent Studios from ’89-’97. He has been independent since then, but still calls Ardent home. Jeff has worked on multiple gold and platinum...
We’re back this week with another Potluck Audio Conference interview, this time with Dusty Wakeman of Mojave Audio and Mad Dog Studios. “In his forty years in the music business, Dusty Wakeman has worn a lot of hats: producer, engineer, musician, and owner/manager of Los Angeles based Mad Dog Studios. His work with Dwight Yoakam,...
Don’t you just hate when your tracks sounds like they’re inside a cardboard box? I do. Whether it’s a bass drum, your voice or a piano chord, everything seems to be living inside a box. I don’t especially enjoy the sounds cardboard boxes make, especially when they’re interfering with my 26” kick drum sound, and...
A “newbie” (his words, not mine) writes in with a question about groups. I’m still struggling with HOW and WHEN to group and subgroup. I understand WHAT to group/subgroup, I think!! You know, backing vocals, percussion, drums. BTW, when do you include, say, the kick in the drum group since you’re not likely to add...
It’s time for another backstage interview with the panelists from the Potluck Audio Conference. This time I interviewed Alex Maiolo and Rob Christensen. Alex Maiolo Alex Maiolo owns Chapel Hill, N.C.’s, Seriously Adequate Studio, which is another way of saying “he took over half of the garage, and filled it with the gear he’s amassed...