Why some find plugin subscriptions ANNOYING.

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There’s a lot of debate about this topic in various forums, and I honestly see both sides of the debate as clear as day. Some stick exclusively to subscription bundles, while others are annoyed at the push toward subscriptions in general. Both have pros and cons. I covered the pros in the last article. In this one, I’ll cover some … Read More

What Happens At The -18 “Sweet Spot”?

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Common advice is to “gain stage” your tracks by calibrating them to -18. People often leave out whether they mean -18 dBFS or -18 dBVU, both of which would yield vastly different levels depending on the source material. But why choose a calibration point to begin with? Here’s Matthew Weiss from The Pro Audio Files describing the differences between VU … Read More

Task Automation

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This post discusses workflow strategies that are very ADHD friendly, devised from my own research into managing my adult ADHD. If you don’t have ADHD, you should stick around and read anyway. It can be said that the non-linear thinking of the ADHD brain is well suited at enhancing workflow due to the structures and systems we tend to put … Read More

Understanding Drum Sample Libraries.

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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

Do we really need more 1176 plugin models?

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Back in the day, we had hardware. Since then, we started using software. Over the years, we’ve become better and better at developing this software so that it fools the trained ear into thinking it’s hardware. We make it move, overload, have noise, and try to recreate the exact sonic imprint of the hardware. We’ve put a ton of time … Read More

Multiband Metal Bass: Creating Custom Multiband Chains

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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

Dancing Angels – From idea to finished mix!

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One of my latest mixes, which you may have heard by now, is “Danging Angels” from Project DIVIDE! It’s not been officially released yet on iTunes, but you can check it out on our youtube page here. This one was fun as hell! I wrote the music on my iPhone using NanoStudio one day while waiting outside of a doctors … Read More

Looking back at my progress, My Advice To Newer Engineers:

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Recently, my band Project DIVIDE recorded the song that I’m thus far the proudest of in our career. It represents a new milestone for us as songwriters, and the production represents a new milestone for me as a producer and engineer. But I’m sure in 2 years I’ll totally hate it. Two years ago, we set yet another such milestone, … Read More

Mix Breakdown: “Blue” by Patric Talbot

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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

Why I’m moving on without my Analog Console.

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Last summer, after a year of VCC use, I got my first analog console. I got it on a trade, an Audio Technica AT4050 for this killer Panasonic Ramsa. I figured it’d be something I could expand into, because I didn’t have the I/O for more than 6 channels. Closing ones studio to be a caregiver, and moving into a … Read More