Recording Rock Royalty – Rush, Aerosmith & More (Interview with Richard Chycki)
Richard Chycki is a multi-platinum mixer and engineer who has worked with rock royalty including Rush, Aerosmith, Dream Theater, Skillet, Mick Jagger, Alice Cooper, Pink, and many more. Chycki began his career as a guitar player, and worked in studios…
The Best Old School Reverb Trick?
Today, we are going to be taking one stereo reverb and using it across every instrument in our track! We are going to be using a track that was recorded at Sunset Sound, and is completely live. Everything on this…
How do you avoid using too many tracks?
Today's featured FAQ Friday question is: How do you avoid using too many tracks in a song? Led Zeppelin and Yes all recorded on 8 tracks. Yes, those bands did record on 8 tracks early on, eventually getting up to…
My favorite reverb settings: Marc Daniel Nelson (Free Presets Included)
Marc Daniel Nelson, a Grammy-nominated music producer, is joining us again to bring you another tutorial. Today, he will be talking about reverbs. Over the course of his career, Marc has worked with many amazing artists, including Jason Mraz, Colbie…
The Singular Sound of the Police and “Message in a Bottle”
Written by Caitlin Vaughn Carlos The end of the seventies marked a changing of the guard for music in many ways. Post-disco and post-punk, New Wave offered promises of the future with a seemingly infinite vision of possibilities for what…
“Ace of Spades” and the Legacy of Motörhead, 40 Years Later
Written by Caitlin Vaughn Carlos On October 27, 1980, Motörhead released their latest single, “Ace of Spades” in anticipation of their fourth studio album of the same name. At its release, Gary Bushnell wrote for Sounds magazine: “The new single…
Do plugins suck? Or is it how we use them?
I have opened a lot of different sessions from lots of different people to mix over the years, and there are tons and tons of plugins all over it. Having access to tons of plugins can be a good thing,…
Susanna Hoffs and the Joy of Making Music
Written by Caitlin Vaughn Carlos In 1982, when The Bangles were still known as The Bangs and playing at Al’s Bar in Los Angeles, Music Connection concluded: “There is no question that all the elements are here to make the…
How the Pretenders Became Real: “Brass in Pocket” and the Hit That Almost Wasn’t
By Caitlin Vaughn Carlos “This goes out over my dead body,” Chrissie Hynde told producer Chris Thomas in the fall of 1979. The Pretenders had just recorded their newest track “Brass in Pocket” at Wessex Studios in London and the…
What kind of contract should you offer an artist?
Today’s featured FAQ Friday Question is: “Hi I’m an artist and I’ve been offered a production contract. I don’t have the money for a lawyer, can you tell me what the difference is between a production contract and a producers…
FREE MIXING COURSE with Grammy-Nominee Marc Daniel Nelson
Marc Daniel Nelson, the Grammy-nominated music producer, and PMA winner has joined us at Produce Like A Pro to give you guys a complete tutorial on how to mix a song from the artist Jerimiah Jones called Tick My Lonely.…
Siouxsie and the Banshees – Hong Kong Garden: Songs That Changed Music
By: Caitlin Vaughn Carlos In July of 1978, New Music Express’s Nick Kent found the punk attitude alive and well with a Siouxsie and the Banshees performance at the Roundhouse. Kent pressed: “If Punks are currently being brushed off by…
How I got my start in the music industry- Marc Daniel Nelson
Marc Daniel Nelson is a Grammy-nominated music producer, audio mixing engineer, 4-time PMA nominee, and 1-time PMA winner. Marc has had a successful career producing, mixing, and managing multiple artists for almost 20 years. As a protege of the music…
Best USB Interface under $200? – Audient Evo 8
Our good friends over at Audient have a brand new product! It is called the Evo 8! It is a 4 input/4output USB interface that costs about $200 and it has the auto-gain function! This is the first one in…
My experiences with Eddie Van Halen were always unbelievable- RIP Maestro
This week has been a rough week for the music industry. There are only a handful of people that we can call true pioneers of the music industry. There have been legendary guitar heroes throughout the years, but the one…
The Best Plate Reverb?
Today, we have the opportunity to try out the Perfect Plate from Denise Audio! The goal of the Perfect Plate reverb is to easily manipulate your tracks in supernatural ways with supernatural sound quality. We are very excited to try…
Top 10 Metal Amps with Kristian Kohle!
We have our good friend Kristian Kohle here with us today, and he is going to talk about his Top 10 Metal Amps! Kristian is a very successful German metal producer, and I would consider him to be an expert…
Rupert Neve Designs Master Bus Converter
We are very excited get an exclusive first look at a brand new product from Rupert Neve Designs today! The Rupert Neve Designs Master Bus Converter Dual-path A/D Converter & Limiter is a 2-bus converter with a fully functioning limiter…
Hit the Road Music: A Travelling Recording Studio
Traveling the world, recording artists on the road with a 4 wheel home studio in the desert? This sounds almost utopian but I never believed in limitations and realised my dream and share with you today a deep insight how…
Rock’s Greatest Eruption: How Eddie Van Halen Revolutionized the Guitar
Written by Caitlin Vaughn Carlos “Ed Van Halen is going to change a lot of lives around the world in the next 12 months” - Kim Fowly predicted in Phonograph Record in 1977. Van Halen had only recently been signed…
Top Vocal Recording Tips from a PRO Vocalist!
Our good friend Chris Liepe is back with us, and today we are going to be sharing our Top 5 Vocal Recording Tips! This will be a conversation with too different perspectives: mine as a producer and engineer, and Chris's…
iZotope Neoverb: The Smartest Reverb Plugin?
We have a brand new plugin today share with you today: the iZotope Neoverb! iZotope has some very clever plugins, so I am very excited to see what they have done with their latest release! Before we go any further…
Sonic Epitaphs: Behind the Music of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart”
By Caitlin Vaughn Carlos If you visit Macclesfield Cemetery just outside of the English town in the county of Cheshire, you will find a small, plain gravestone with the inscription “love will tear us apart” - a bittersweet epitaph to…
Our Top 10 Rock Singers of ALL TIME!
We are here today with our good friend, Chris Liepe! Chris has his own successful YouTube channel on vocal coaching, ear training, recording tips, and more. He is very talented, and we are so excited to have him here with…
“Show Me, Show Me, Show Me How You Do That:” Finding the Edge of Indie and Pop in the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven”
Written by Caitlin Carlos By the time The Cure had found their first significant American hit in 1987, the band had been playing together for over a decade, seemingly used to the ebb and flow of mainstream attention that had…
The Legendary ODR-1 Overdrive Pedal is NOW A PLUGIN!
If you have been watching any of our videos over the last few years, you may have noticed that we use the Nobels ODR-1 Overdrive Pedal a lot! This is an incredible, boutique-sounding pedal, at an affordable, non-boutique price. RELATED:…
Rock and Roll on the Dance Floor: Behind the Music of “Let’s Dance”
Written by Caitlin Carlos From his early beginnings as Davy Jones, to his alien persona of Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie had spent much of the sixties and seventies, inventing and reinventing himself. The decade’s end culminated with the critically acclaimed…
6 Reverb Mistakes We All Make
Today, we are sharing some common reverb mistakes! These are mistakes that we are all guilty of, but once we are aware of them, we can correct them and take all our mixes to the next level! These tips are…
How to Prepare for Your First Professional Recording Session
This week's featured FAQ Friday question is: I am going to be recording a band in a professional studio, using thousands of dollars of mics and hardware. It will be a live session with all of the musicians playing at…
Best Classic Modulations in ONE PLUGIN? | Waves Kaleidoscopes
Waves has another exciting new plugin that we get to try out today! The Waves Kaleidoscopes plugin is exciting because it could be exactly what I have been asking for the last few years, which is a plugin that has…
6 Free Mixing Tricks (that don’t cost anything!)
In today’s video, we’re going to talk about 6 free mixing tips that won’t cost you anything! As you know, we love reviewing equipment! We love talking about microphones, mic-pres, compressors, plugins and all kinds of other incredible hardware &…
Should you always de-noise your audio recordings?
Today's featured FAQ Friday question is: Should one always de-noise their audio recordings to make it sound professional? Is it worth it or that big of a difference? For those of us that have heard or have access to classic…
The Ultimate Audio Repair Tool? | iZotope RX 8
Today, we get to try out the brand new iZotope RX 8! We have been using the RX 7 since it came out, and are very excited to try out the new features they have added to the latest update!…
Top Secret Snare Mixing Trick?
Today, our good friend Jordan Valeriote is going share his snare mixing trick! This is one of his secret weapons for mixing snare for heavy rock and metal. It is a technique that he discovered that helps him to get…
Mixing Modern Metal with Jordan Valeriote
Jordan Valeriote is a Canadian producer/mixer/engineer and the founder of Hardcore Music Studio. He has worked with bands like Silverstein, Neck Deep, Forevermore, Intervals, Counterparts, Nick Johnston, Auras, and many more. Jordan first got started in music by learning how to play…
Automate Your Analog Equipment! | Tegeler Crème RC
Today, we are trying out the new Crème RC from Tegeler! We have used the Crème before, and just like almost everyone else who tested it out, found that it was one of the most affordable SSL compressor and Pultec…
Best Microphone Under $300? | Lewitt LCT 440 Pure
SEE ALSO: The 5 Best LEWITT Microphones for Your Studio
Is it Your Job to Educate Clients?
Today's featured FAQ Friday question is: What if my clients are not professional, and they're always late sending you missing audio files every week. I start having my first new clients, but the level of experience using DAWs is a…
How To Create Synth Sounds For A Living – Interview with Rob Jevons
Warren Huart: Hi, everybody. Hope you’re doing marvelously well. I am sitting here… well, not literally, sort of transatlantically, with Rob Jevons. How are you? Rob Jevons: Not bad, thank you. How are you? Warren Huart: I’m good. I’m good.…
7 Pieces of Equipment I Use Every Day!
I often get asked what gear I use most frequently, so today I am going to share with you 7 pieces of equipment that I use in recording and mixing every single day. These 7 pieces are a combination of…
The Best Way to Get Wider Acoustic Guitars? | Gullfoss by Soundtheory
A little ago, we tried out the Gullfoss plugin by Soundtheory. This plugin is an easy-to-use tool that contains a set of basic parameters that can be adjusted to improve the clarity, detail, spatiality, and balance of a mix or…
A.I. Powered Custom Reverbs! | Sonible smart:reverb
Today we have the wonderful opportunity to try out a brand new plugin, the smart:reverb from Sonible! I am very excited about this plugin because Sonible's plugins tend to be very intuitive and produce great results. So we are going…
How to go from Intern to Grammy Winner
Today’s featured question is: “I’m going to be beginning an internship at a studio near me this fall, what skills, technical or not, do you believe are most important for an intern to have?” This is a fantastic question! I…
Your First Recording Adventure: Mac or PC, Desktop or Laptop
Your First Recording Adventure: Mac or PC, Desktop or Laptop More people than ever before are looking for ways to occupy their extra time indoors. Let’s face it – there are only so many puzzles you can do or reruns…
Baby Audio: Parallel Aggressor Plugin | Demo & Giveaway
In this video we’re taking a look at Baby Audio’s brand new plugin, which comes out today! We’re big fans of Baby Audio because they do really simple and really good sounding plugins! I’m really excited about this plugin because…
Ariel Chobaz’s Top 5 Plugins
Ariel Chobaz is a Grammy nominated engineer who has worked on countless platinum-selling and chart-topping records. He has worked with major artists including Nicki Minaj, Drake, Eminem, Rihanna, NAS, Snoop Dogg, Boyz II Men, Pharrell, Lil Wayne, Mary J. Blige,…
Recording a Song with ONE MIC! | Soyuz Bomblet Demo & Giveaway
Today, we get to try out the Soyuz Bomblet microphone! Soyuz makes wonderful microphones, and we are so excited to get to try this one out as well! We are also lucky enough to get to give one away! Enter…
The Secret to Writing Great Songs?
Today's featured FAQ Friday question is: What’s the best song structure for the music industry at the moment? This is a huge question! Song structure is a very broad term. This question made me think of all the knee-jerk reactions.…
How do mixing and mastering engineers get productions so loud?
Today's featured FAQ Friday question is: How do mixing and mastering engineers get productions so loud? When I first started mixing I felt the exact same way! I didn't know how people got their productions to sound loud without them…
Studio One Version 5 – What’s New
Since its inception in 2011, PreSonus Studio One has quickly become a go-to Digital Audio Workstation for beginners and pro’s alike. Combining the best parts of each DAW, Studio One offers a Customizable Workflow, incorporating everything you need in one…