Computer Music guides & articles

One of the best known and most successful producer/engineers in the business, Grammy-winner Jack Joseph Puig has worked with heavyweights like U2, Green Day, Stone Temple Pilots, John Mayer, Fergie, …

Besides guaranteeing "virtual headroom" and an optimal level to process each track with any plug-in or outboard gear, the "gain staging" method described in the last installment also allows you to ma…

If you’re one of those performing musicians who needs to bring charts and lyric sheets to the gig or rehearsal, you might want to consider getting rid of all that paper and your music stand, and conv…

In this installment, we will examine the first practical task of your mix, which also happens to be the last purely technical one. Once you've done it, you will finally be able to confront your visio…

From what we've seen up to now, we could deduce the following: Mixing can be assimilated to assembling pieces of a 4D puzzle according to a given tempo to form a sonic moving picture. But what can we…

As eloquent as it may be, the puzzle analogy for mixing conceals a major aspect of music ─ in the end, the puzzle represents only a static image, yet music is essentially dynamic. So it's only natura…

Celemony Melodyne Editor 2 is a powerful plug-in and standalone editor that can do a great deal of impressive DSP, involving both pitch and time. In addition to corrective work, it can also be used c…

Sometimes the best way to make people really grasp an idea is to resort to a fitting metaphor. That's why, today, I'll show you a way to visualize a mix that ought to allow you to understand the whol…

Before getting into the heart of the matter, I deem it necessary to deal with a subject that isn't only limited to computer music, namely backups.

Eventide’s UltraReverb is an algorithmic reverb plug-in that offers impressive sound quality, sonic control and flexibility, making it a potent contender in the reverb plug-in wars. Not only does it …

When you hear the name Vernon Reid, your first thought is probably of his work with Living Colour, featuring his speedy and inventive guitar playing. But Reid is also an accomplished composer, scorin…

The simple act of clearing certain technical and practical tasks in the earliest stages of the production of a song can have miraculous effects, not only in terms of efficiency, but also from a creat…

We recently visited Native Instruments' Los Angeles office, an impressive place where you can see the famous “Hollywood” sign when you look out the window. Though the view was dramatic, we were more …

Apogee just released the newly redesigned Ensemble audio interface for Mac, a 30x34 unit featuring Thunderbolt 2 connectivity. We visited Apogee HQ in Los Angeles on the day it was released to video …

We'll devote this second installment of our mixing article series to a bit of advice that is worth its weight in gold: Whenever possible, let someone else mix your songs and/or recordings

There’s no such thing as magic, but after using some of today’s amazingly powerful DSP software, it sometimes seems like there is. One product that definitely has the magic touch is iZotope RX, an au…

More and more audio interfaces are hitting the market that are capable of connecting directly to an iOS device or a computer. PreSonus recently released two such units, the AudioBox iTwo and AudioBox…

With the right apps and accessories, an iPhone, an iPod touch and especially an iPad can be a real boon to your live performance setup. Your iDevice can function as a sound source, effects processo…

If you're a recording musician who doesn't play bass, creating realistic MIDI bass guitar parts can be a challenge. The tips and techniques offered in this article will help you put together authenti…

Referencing your mix against an existing recording via the process known as “A/B-ing,” is a great way to check the quality of your work and help you overcome inaccurate studio acoustics. Here in part…

This penultimate article in our series dedicated to mastering at home is surely the one you've all been waiting for. Indeed, today we will talk about a couple of tricks to get a really HUGE sound. Bu…

UltraChannel is more than just your average channel strip. It also features Eventide's signature delay and modulation effects, and is almost like an entire effects collection in a single plug-in. Rea…

In this antepenultimate installment, we'll discuss several points that you need to bear in mind to get an optimal final result, depending on how your music will be distributed.

Modeled amps and effects can be found in many applications, including outboard modeling processors, DAWs, dedicated computer plug-ins, and, now more than ever, iOS apps. Your iPad, iPhone or iPod tou…

To finish with the helping tools for mastering, in this installment we'll talk about the oscilloscope — very often underestimated by home studio owners — and a utilitarian plug-in, which, even if not…