Biggest Ever Audio Mixing Contest is ON!
When amplifying an acoustic guitar, the use of a microphone can lead to concerns about feedback as well as being able to adequately amplify the instrument. With electric guitars, there are also concerns about the microphone adequately and accurately picking up the sound from the guitar amp, and in many cases, there’s also a desire for a quieter...
The critics are right: pitch correction can suck all the life out of vocals. I proved this to myself accidentally when working on some background vocals.
Layering vocals is a common technique to thicken a vocal part, whether applied to a solo voice or to a massed group of backing vocals. However, there are certain considerations with layered vocals that don’t apply to single vocals, as layered vocals need to have a coherent, solid vibe.
Mixing with Headphones can be a viable option to achieving great mixes. Although it’s always recommended to use high quality monitor speakers, sometimes they aren’t a viable option. It may be late at night, you may be tweaking a mix in the car, or on a train, or late at night in your quiet neighborhood. In some aspects they are better than conve...
There are a few different reasons why a musician might wish to use multiple amplifiers as part of their rig.
Toms are an interesting part of the kit that often add flare and excitement to a drum track, just look at the intro to Enter Sandman by Metallica, or the fill before the chorus of Africa by Toto. They are probably also the area of the drum kit that will give you the most grief. Lets dive straight in and take a look at some useful ways to get tho...
Next to the Kick Drum, the Snare Drum is the most important component of the Drum Kit. So its paramount that we get it to sound as good as its potential.
In most Genre’s the Kick Drum will be the Low End foundation of the song. So really we should treat it with respect and try and get the best out of it while mixing. If you have recorded the Kick Drum well then you have a much easier time ahead, but we still want to give it the old “Spit ‘n’ Polish”.
For recording guitarists, one benefit of a head-and-stack configuration over a combo is that you can separate the amplifier from the speaker cabinet and run a long cable between the two.
One of the questions that I get asked fairly often by neophyte recording enthusiasts is "how hot should I record?" The amount of signal you record per track can have an effect on not only the sound of that individual track, but on the overall mix of all tracks as well. There are definitely some misconceptions floating around out there in terms o...
