(This article is not discussing how audio levels impact plugins, or what happens at an output leading to a d/a converter. This article is discussing the linear behavior of audio passing between channels within our DAW.) What you’re seeing in the picture: Going Up Taking a test tone, calibrated to -18dbfs Boosting that test tone to +762db of gain above … Read More
Reference Tools, Compared
Reference tracks can be a valuable tool for keeping an objective viewpoint while mixing. When you listen to a reference track, you get a chance to reset your ears. If you’ve been listening to your mix for hours, your ears are getting used to the frequencies you’re hearing. Problem areas or frequency imbalances may not jump out at you as … Read More
Understanding Drum Sample Libraries.
From bedroom producers, to the top brass mixing engineers with multiple grammies, there are a lot of people who use drum samples in their mixes. Joey Sturgis is famous for using Kick 10 from Steven Slate Drums in many of his productions (although now Joey Sturgis has his own sample library on the market called Drumforge), and Randy Staub used … Read More
Why I use Expanders on DI’s.
Picture 1. In the first picture, you’ll see 4 colored bands on the analyzer. The red band is the noise floor of my interface, and it’s reading down around -110dbfs. The dark orange band at the very bottom is where the expander is pushing that noise floor to, down around -170dbfs. I usually use HoRNet Track Utility to bring the … Read More
Multiband Metal Bass: Creating Custom Multiband Chains
In this video, I demonstrate how to create a custom multiband chain using a 3 band crossover. In this specific example, I’ll be splitting a bass into 3 bands, and processing each of those bands with a combination of Bass Rider, saturation, eq, and dynamic ducking around the drums. The song in this video is “Dead Enemies” by “Dark Ride”, … Read More
Mix Breakdown: “Blue” by Patric Talbot
Today, I decided to push into new territory and mix a bluesy jazzy number. This was done purely for mix practice, not for a client. The song was “Blue” by Patrick Talbot, which you can download and mix yourself from the Cambridge Site. In this post, I wanna walk through my process on this mix. We’ll start with mix prep. … Read More