A Survey of Kick Drum Microphones - The Mighty Kick Drum Microphone: Part 2
LearningOur survey of kick drum microphones through the years continues....
A Love Affair With Channel One - The Mighty Kick Drum Microphone: Part 1
LearningThough there are other conventions, it is generally agreed that the kick drum goes into the first channel of the console, and for time immemorial, inordinate efforts have gone into tediously adjustin…
How to Acoustically Treat Your Home Studio - Acoustic Treatment for Small Studios
LearningWhether you’re a self-recording hobbyist or a professional mixing engineer, studio work is about making decisions. If the room you’re making decisions in isn’t a reliable listening environment, then …
The Fundamentals of Different Synthesis Methods - Understanding the Basics of Sound Synthesis
LearningMany of those who use synthesizers in the modern technological world are not well versed in the basics of different kinds of synthesis. With the ease of computer-based synthesis, any synthesis progra…
Basic Concepts in Electronic Music Production - EDM: Where Producing and Mixing Collide
LearningIf you’re reading this article you might already know that EDM stands for Electronic Dance Music. The styles range over a wide gammet of musics, from House to Dubstep, Drum-n-Bass, and IDM (Intellige…
Interview with Mastering Engineer Chris Athens - Exclusive Interview with Chris Athens
Interview / PodcastChris Athens is a senior mastering engineer at Sterling Sound, one of the world’s premier mastering facilities. Chris has mastered albums for Rick Ross, Wiz Khalifa, Nas & Damien Marley, Ciara, Pitbu…
How to Control Vocal Sibilance - Tips for Controlling Vocal Sibilance
LearningVocal sibilance is an unpleasant tonal harshness that can happen during consonant syllables (like S, T, and Z), caused by disproportionate audio dynamics in upper midrange frequencies.
How to Mix Guitar - 4 Steps for Effective Guitar Mixing
LearningThe world may not revolve around guitar music anymore, but there is still a lot of it out there. Whether you’re working on face melting hardcore or a gentle country ballad, the presentation of the gu…
How to Build a Computer for Music Making - Optimize Your DAW Computer for Your Home Studio
LearningThis is how you can easily build and maintain a professionally equipped music computer to power the digital audio workstation for your home recording studio.
Best 5 headphones between $350-$500 - The Great Studio Headphone Comparison Test
Learning3 men, 5 studio headphones, 6 ears and one single question posed to each of them: which headphone would you buy in the price range of $350 to $500 ?
How to Listen to and Care for Your Amp When It’s Sick - Diagnosing and Fixing a Tube Amp
LearningGuitar amps are, no matter how you cut it, black boxes. You may think you have control over them, but when it gets down to it, you can’t really see inside the black box, and even if you could, there …
Exclusive Interview with George Massenburg - Parametric Music with George Massenburg
Interview / PodcastIt’s always a great and an unusual experience to meet a personality who has contributed some much to the evolution of the way we work. In addition to the videos previously released on Audiofanzine, w…
The Top 5 Products of Summer NAMM 2012 - Best of Summer NAMM 2012: The Top 5
LearningAs the sun sets down on Summer NAMM 2012 in Nashville we decided to take a closer look at a short list of products that made some noise.
Understanding Those Magic Boxes of Doom - Distortion… Clean and Simple
LearningSo the bad news is, it’s virtually impossible to tell what the distortion pedal sounds like without auditioning it personally.
Use digital delay to produce many more effects than jus… - The Many Uses for Digital Delay
LearningThe two most important effects in a guitarist’s signal chain are distortion and delay. And if you derive your tone strictly from the amp—whether it’s squeaky clean or buzzsaw nasty—then the digital d…
You Can't Make Magic Without the Basics - Top 10 Things That Can Never Be Taught Often Enough In Audio
Learning10. Musicians feel most comfortable and play best when they hear what they need to hear on the stage. Of course, the experienced monitor guys and recording guys already know this. But it’s something…
Of Polepieces and Magnetic Fields - How to Adjust Your Guitar Pickups for Best Sound
LearningIt occurred to me that for all the tweaking guitarists do with their tone — rolling tone controls up and down on both their guitars and amps — very few ever touch the pickups. Most guitarists I know …
Sidechained Processors Can Give a Variety of Special Ef… - How to Get the Pumping Drums Effect with Sidechain Compression
LearningSidechaining has been around for years; this is the process of using one signal to control another. A couple classic examples are using a kick drum to gate a bass part, or doing de-essing - isolating…
How low can you go? Use an octave divider, and find out! - Using Octave Dividers with Bass
LearningOctave dividers aren’t just for guitar players: They also rock for bass, whether you’re getting mega-low sounds from the lower strings, or playing high up on the neck for very cool 8-string bass effe…
Identify and remove obstacles that get in the way of gr… - Avoid Common Recording Mistakes
LearningWhy is it so hard to get tracks that kill? Mixes that scream with emotional impact--music that holds up to the work of the masters of our craft?
How to Choose A Hardware Keyboard - Making Sense of Synths
LearningBy now, everyone was going to be loading soft synths into their laptops, and taking them to the gig instead of keyboards. Oh, and we were also supposed to travel around with personal jet packs and of…
Tips for Mixing Rap Vocals: Compression - Mixing Rap Vocals - Part 3: Compression
LearningTime for the third installment of the Mixing Rap Vocals series: Compression.
Audience Mic Techniques to Enhance Recordings - Capturing The Energy Of Live Shows
LearningWhat makes a live recording sound live? The audience, of course. A live recording is all about the energy of the event, and that energy comes from the crowd, so some real thought has to be given as …
Setting Up the Lead Vocal Mic for The Red Hot Chili Pep… - Details, Details: Setting Up Snake Channel 24
LearningThe attention to detail that takes place in preparing a rock show can be mind boggling. For example, I listed out the factors we account for in setting up the lead vocal mic for the Red Hot Chili Pe…
Tips for Mixing Toward Loudness - Mixing Toward Loudness
LearningSome people want their music really loud, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If loudness is part of their aesthetic and the audience likes it, then I say let’s go for it. In order to deliver the mo…
