The word stupidity comes from the Latin word “stupere” which means to be numb or astounded. In Icelandic, the word for stupidity is “heimska.” It’s derived from the word “heim,” meaning “home.” It’s originally from Old Norse, “heimskr.” In Old Norse, “heimskr” meant that you were foolish and silly because you had never sailed away...
Yesterday somebody left a review for Step By Step Mixing that summarizes precisely why I keep writing for you guys. Here’s the review from Tino: “I LOVE THIS BOOK. I’m a singer, songwriter, producer and now after reading this I’d finally call myself a mix engineer as well. Before reading this I felt like I...
There’s a movie you need to watch. The documentary on The Eagles. It’s inspiring on so many levels when it comes to creativity. One of the clips that stood out was when the late Glenn Frey talked about Jackson Browne’s work ethic as a songwriter. Unfortunately, you can’t find that particular clip on Youtube anymore. Somebody...
I asked my Facebook followers about how they make their mixes translate and they all had some great ideas. All the home studio musicians had their different approaches. They mixed in mono on a mixcube. They used visual metering to help gauge their frequency balance. And they all tried to check their mixes on different speaker...
One of my first guitar teachers taught me a valuable lesson about practicing that I will never forget. His name is KK, and he’s one of Iceland’s most celebrated singer/songwriters. Even if you’ve never heard his music, you might’ve seen him play Riley Blue’s Icelandic father in the Netflix show Sense 8. I adore this...
I’ve been talking with a lot of you inside the Facebook community lately and we’ve been riffing on some nerdy audio puns to put on a t-shirt. Currently, the phrase people liked the most is: “I don’t always mic the hi-hat, but when I do, I mute it in the mix.” I thought that was...
Knowing how to get gigs when you’re just starting out in your music career can be a complex subject. If you don’t have a band to play live with, you’re going to need to find some band members. Then you need to rehearse a good set so you can start contacting venues to finally get...
I played a practical joke at our Olympics Opening Ceremonies party we held last weekend. My wife is fanatically obsessed with the Olympics so we always try to throw an Opening Ceremonies party for our friends. At one point that evening the conversation turned to Mortal Kombat for some reason. It’s not important why. However,...
“What is a limiter and how do you use one?” That’s a question we often get asked so I went straight to the expert for answers. Basically, a limiter is just a very aggressive compressor that tames the audio peaks and raises the overall level of your home studio mixes. However, I wanted a more...
I’ve been working on a mix for a client this past week that has a lot of drums and percussion. Most predominantly, it has a lot of cymbal samples, and if there’s one thing this mix has reminded me, it’s that you can have too much of a good thing when you’re boosting high frequencies...