What to listen for when making your comparison
LearningIn part 1 we looked at different ways to setup your gear for an A/B comparison. This time, we’ll offer some suggestions for specific aspects to focus on during your referencing session.
How to adapt your electric guitar to your tuning
LearningFans of alternate tunings (especially metalheads) will often find themselves with overcooked noodles instead of strings, compromising their sound. Here are a couple of recipes to make sure your strin…
Strategically planning your set can make all the difference
LearningA well thought out setlist is critical to the success of your gig. Whether for a band or a solo singer, the order in which you play your songs could mean the difference between a good show and a grea…
Volume in mastering
LearningThis 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…
Finding the tempo and writing the music
LearningHere in the final part of this 3-part article, I’ll finish scoring the hypothetical commercial, working with variables like tempo, start time, and meter, while never losing sight of the original assi…
Rendering a master
LearningIn 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.
Audio norms in mastering
LearningToday we'll talk about a delicate — but very useful — subject, namely the firewalls that can help you avoid being yet another victim of the loudness war.
The oscilloscope in mastering
LearningTo 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…
Levels in mastering
LearningIn this installment we'll talk about plug-ins that allow you to visualize levels correctly — after all, whether you like it or not, mastering has become synonymous with volume, so it's a good idea to…
Setting up your session for a scoring job
LearningHere in part 2, we’ll begin a hypothetical scoring job for a 15-second TV commercial. In this installment, we’ll look at how to set up the DAW session for it.
How to solder the jack of an electric guitar
LearningThe musical instrument industry has chosen the best method for the internal cabling of electric instruments, namely soldering. But, as we will see in a moment, this way of connecting two conductors r…
The stereo image in mastering
LearningFollowing up on our series of articles dedicated to useful tools for mastering at home, this time we will focus on plug-ins that allow you to analyze the stereo image.
Using the spectrum analyzer in mastering
LearningThe time has come to explore the territory of analyzers of all sorts, which will prove to be very helpful within the context of mastering at home. This week we will deal with the spectrum analyzer, a…
What you need to know when composing music for video
LearningWriting music to fit with the visual elements in a video, the process known as "scoring to picture," requires additional skills beyond just being able to compose music. In this series we'll show you …
Using headphones in mastering
LearningNow that we have covered the entire mastering chain, let's move on to different tools that are useful in the context of DIY — like headphones.
