Biggest Ever Audio Mixing Contest is ON!
It was late at night, at a live-in-concert recording session in Germany. As several thousand fans waited anxiously, the vocalist walked onstage, and picked up a set of headphones. I saw him plug them into the mixer, and figured he was going to make one final check of his vocal sound before the band kicked in. He then turned the preamp gain contr...
Ever play the perfect solo or riff except that one note was just a little bit early, or a little bit late? If you never have, then stop reading this article immediately, move to Los Angeles, New York, or Nashville, and start doing session work. Otherwise, keep reading.
If a pop/rock/dance track doesn't have a great drum sound, you're in trouble. Big trouble. The Drum Replacement 101 solution is to have a drummer come along and play with the original track, then erase the old drums. But this doesn't always work, and if you try to add drums after the fact to a track that doesn't have them, the process becomes ev...
There's nothing like the sound of real reverb, such as what you hear in a cathedral or symphonic hall. That's because reverb is made up of a virtually infinite number of waves bouncing around within a space, with ever-changing decay times and frequency responses. For a digital reverb to synthesize this level of complexity is a daunting task, but...
Computers can be pretty smart, but when it comes to sound, they need a translator that can convert sound waves into the digital language of ones and zeroes. Audio interfaces provide this translation.
Mixing is not only an art, it’s the crucial step that turns a collection of tracks into a finished piece of music. A good mix can bring out the best in your music—it spotlights a composition’s most important elements, adds a few surprises to excite the listener, and sounds good on anything from a transistor radio to an audiophile’s dream setup.
The article title alone is enough to cause some professional mastering engineers to run to various forums and start complaining. "That's what's wrong with this industry, these kids don't know how to master, you gotta have a professional do it, blah blah blah."
One of the main functions of mastering is to make a mix transportable: In other words, it should sound good over any playback system
Is noise really a problem? After all, analog tape hiss is almost extinct. We have 24-bit converters with signal-to-noise ratios that far exceed that of the CD. Low-level hum? Today's signals have plenty of level to overcome what the cables might pick up, and besides, cables are better shielded too. Yes, it's a beautiful, noise-free world...
If you think that "sample accurate" has something to do with random drug tests, you're probably browsing the wrong web site. But if you've heard the term applied to digital transfers, loop timings, edits, and more, you're in the right place. Our mission here is to get to the bottom of sample accuracy, and explain how it affects our world of reco...
