A reader writes in with a question about getting a warmer, smoother vocal sound. “I am limited to an SM57 for a vocal mic. I’m a strong (somewhat edgy) tenor. I would like to know how to EQ my vocals to get a warmer, smoother sound.” The Sm57 has a somewhat “harsh” frequency response because...
My favorite part about running Facebook ads for Audio Issues are all the trolls that can’t stand that I have an opinion on EQ. Newsflash: I have a 25,000-word opinion on EQ called EQ Strategies – Your Ultimate Guide to EQ. Supreme Court Justices ain’t got nothin’ on my EQ opinion! Trolls get outraged because...
For a two-year-old, Step By Step Mixing has taken down some heavy hitters in the industry. Like Bobby Owsinski’s Mixing Engineer’s Handbook, which we pushed down to fourth place sometime last year. Or Mike Senior’s Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio, a personal favorite mixing book of mine. We jostle around the top spot very regularly. Step By...
Although it was 730 days ago today, I remember the day like it was yesterday. February 6th, 2017, Step By Step Mixing was released. I know this because I keep track of all of my release dates in a special “Success Calendar,” where I mark every product launch, song release or major professional event in...
Ever since I started using this compressor, it’s been permanently on my mixing template. It’s so simple that it’s impossible to screw it up. There simply aren’t enough controls on the compressor to really do anything other than “make your vocals sound good.” What compressor am I talking about? The RVox from Waves of course....
I wanted to share one of my favorite vocal mixing techniques to get super WIDE vocals. It’s an excerpt from the full Expert Home Vocals course. If you like the following article, make sure to grab the full course. I have three go-to busses for vocal processing that usually give me everything I need. Here’s...
One of my least favorite Superman villains is Bizarro. He’s exhausting to understand and he’s not motivated by anything you can relate to. That said…I did dress up as Bizarro Clark Kent one year for Halloween… Overall Bizarro’s pretty lame…but his opposite-ness to Superman made me remember my Reverse-EQ method, which I’ll be calling the...
We talk a lot about how to start a mix, or how to get a rough mix going, but we don’t share as much about how you know when your mix is finished. Let’s talk about how you can be confident about finishing your mixes so you can be proud to release your music to...
Got this email from Ben, about mix bus processing. “Hello ever since I bought Step By Step Mixing…and EQ Strategies my mixes have dramatically changed to better, but I have a question, which is concerning the mixbus and master channel. I use EQ, compression and saturation on my mix bus before mixing as I learnt...
I think my dog Buckley knows my mix workflow better than myself. Especially when I’m finishing up a mix. He’ll be lying on the rug in the back of the studio as I’m doing my rough mix on the mix cube. I’ll be mixing the tracks like I show you inside Mixing With 5 Plug-ins,...