A reader asked me how to take pop sounds out of vocal sounds. I assume they’re referring to the ‘p’ sounds, formally known as plosives, that they’re hearing in their audio after the recording. Unfortunately, it’s much more difficult to take the plosives out of a recording during the mixing phase than just making sure...
If you’ve followed any of my drum mixing advice inside the Drum Mix Toolkit, you know that I tend to bus and group my drum tracks to simplify my processing. Here’s a quick excerpt from the course that talks about the different ways of bussing your drums: “All drums together – Simple and easy. Makes for an easy mixing job on the drum bus but doesn’t have...
Today I’m going to give you the most critical lesson in mixing. It might not be the most glorious. It certainly won’t be the most technical. It’s not even COMPLICATED! But it is incredibly important. It’s what everyone does at the start of the mix, but because they’re so eager to rush into EQ’ing, compressing, and...
We got a great comment from Joao Bem, member, about saturation on the kick drum: Kick: After setting the right volume, before inserting a compressor, try using first saturation, and then work with the compressor. Most of the time, if you first try saturation, it can give an already nice definition/separation in the overall mix!...
I got into an argument with this asshole at a bar recently. Now, I’m a lot more civil than I used to be during my whiskey-drinking days, but I had an unusually long day, so the fuse was a little short. I walked in and was going to stand at the bar and wait for...
Heard a really great quote on a podcast this morning while I was on my run: It was: “Every master starts as a disaster.” Now, the podcaster was talking about creating videos online, but the same can be said of anybody who wants to become better at audio. Luke didn’t start off as Luke Skywalker the...
I asked the Audio Issues Facebook followers recently: What’s been a fun mixing trick you’ve been using lately? And boy did they not disappoint. Here are some of my favorites from the thread: This last trick is actually a favorite of mine. If you can make your drums hit hard and sound great at low...
In Iceland, we have some really weird sayings. Every culture has its strange idioms and phrasings, and Iceland is no exception. Like this one: No one becomes a bishop without a beating Now, I’m not entirely sure why it was necessary to add violence to becoming a bishop, but we used to be Vikings so...
When you mix for too long, you’ll risk ruining the mix you started out with. Not just because you like tweaking things here and there, but because after a while your ears are shot. That happened to me yesterday as I was finishing up a long day of mixing. As I usually do, I took...
There was a question about de-essing going inside one of the Facebook communities I’m a member of a few days ago. A good friend of mine, Sigurdór Guðmundsson, master audio engineer and awesome musician, had some great thoughts on de-essing that I thought I’d share with you. The question was: “As far as de-essers go, where would...