There’s a cool thing you should do called a Success Calendar. It’s where you put all of your accomplishments and things that you are proud of. That way, whenever you’re having a bad day, you can check your Success Calendar to remember all the awesome things you’ve accomplished to make you feel better. And wouldn’t...
There are a lot of songwriters who create their own musical arrangements. I am one of them. But 85 percent of the songwriters I know don’t. They only write songs. And if they end up recording one, they leave the arrangement to someone else, such as another musician with a studio or an online remote...
As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been fascinated by how records were made. Listening to well-produced records as a child was a completely different experience, being completely ignorant to the importance of good mixing and recording. As a child, tracks sounded larger than life itself, and the mystery of it all made...
If you produce your own songs, you probably do most of the work in your home studio. All you need is a computer, a 2-channel interface, a microphone, and headphones and you’re ready to lay down any instrument. Almost any that is… live drums are the big exception. Drums can annoy your neighbors pretty fast...
I get it, what on earth does breast milk have to do with getting better drum mixes?!? Here’s the story: My wife and I are slowly adjusting to the new normal as parents but it doesn’t come without its hiccups… No, I don’t mean the constant hiccups from our daughter, but rather the fact that…we...
Today we’re on part two of our mastering session and the final part in our free 10-part step-by-step mixing hip hop series. I’m stretching the definition of “mastering” pretty thin here because I’m honestly just finalizing the mix on the master bus with master bus processing, and fixing any mix issues as I’m mastering. This...
Making a great-sounding recording or mix is a lot like making great food, it all starts with good ingredients. If your vocal sounds muffled and boomy already in the recording stage, or your kick sounds thin in the production stage, EQs and compressors will many times be of little help in the mixing stage. So...
After countless nights finding the right lyrics, recording numerous voice memos on your phone, and testing different melodies for verses, you finally have a finished song and you’re ready to begin the recording process. Odds are you have an Apple computer and maybe you’ve dabbled with Logic Pro X or its little brother, Garage Band....
We’re onto mastering in our step by step mixing hip hop tutorial, and this week we’ll be adding our mastering chain to make things loud, punchy and powerful. We’ll be using: Linear phase EQ in mid/side mode to tighten up the low end Multi-band compression to squeeze the dynamics and glue the mix together Mid/Side...
C7(b9)(b13)!!!! What’s this and why are you screaming jazz at me? The answer to that question, my friend, is simple. Advanced harmony and complex chords are not as mystifying as you might think and we producers and audio engineers who are getting a little stuck writing music have the tools to understand what’s going on....