I’ll never forget one thing my professor told me at audio school. If it’s not there, you can’t EQ it in. Ain’t that the truth. No matter how much low-end you boost in your EQs, if it’s not there to be boosted, you won’t add any low-end. As magical as EQ can be in every...
If your drum-kit were a band, the snare drum would be the frontman. It’s the driving force of the drum-kit. If the drum-kit were The Avengers, the snare would be Iron Man. The snare is the colorful and strong Superman to the thick and dark kick-drum’s Batman. And because the snare sound is such an...
I got an email from Graham Cochrane the other day. He was talking about his experience with NAMM and how he heard Tony Maserati say he uses presets all the time! But the thing is, he goes through the preset banks, finds something that’s close to what he’s looking for, tweaks to done and moves...
Every year I go to NAMM. My favorite parts are the panels. Especially the engineer and mixing panel featuring four great veterans of the recording industry: Niko Bolas, Rafa Sardina, Matt Wallace and Eddie Kramer. I couldn’t type fast enough as the quotes just came flying out of their mouths every time they were asked...
Just heard a great story from a friend of mine last Friday. He’s kind of goofy and does random things for no reason, but this one thing was particularly funny. So he was walking around downtown and was feeling especially bored. He’s studying for the bar exam to be a lawyer but last week he...
Muddy vocals are a constant struggle when you’re mixing music. Since the vocal sound is such an important part of the mix, no wonder it keeps you up at night. You want just the perfect-sounding EQ curve. Thickness and clarity without muddiness. So here are 5 steps for dealing with muddy vocals when you’re mixing your...
In this Audio Issues interview we hear from Pete Weiss. Pete Weiss is a New England-based producer/engineer/mixer/musician. Through his innovative, organic work with artists site. During the interview we discuss, among other things: How he got into recording and production. How vocal production sometimes just comes down to the mood and atmosphere. Simple electric guitar...
Being sick for a week gave me a different perspective on mixing music. Specifically when it comes to EQ. Isn’t EQ’ing a mix kind of like healing something that’s sick? You can look at it like surgery. Your mix is brought in with a case of boxy drums or nasally vocals and you take out...
In Iceland, we have 13 Santa Clauses. They’re called Yule Lads and they’re all brothers. They all have weird names and do quirky stuff. Hit the link above and check them out. It’ll be a strange read 😉 Last year I wrote a short eBook about their distant cousins, the 10 Yule-Tide Tricksters of Audio....
A reader writes in with a question: I’m playing in an amateur Blues-band, consisting of an normal 5 piece band and a 7 piece hornsection. On one of our rehearsal-evenings we also did some recording all together. Each individual instrument had their own mics and the drums also had separate mics. But of course since all...