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Mixing a WORLD-CLASS Live Performance – FREE Multitracks included!
10X Grammy Winner Darrell Thorp – Top 5 Plugins for Mixing
Mixing tracks recorded by LEGENDARY engineer Geoff Emerick
Mixing With A Limiter ON? FAQ Friday With Warren Huart
Music Producer Vs Mixing Engineer? A Conversation with Mike Pepe & Lurssen Mastering
How to Use Auto-Tune for Vocal Tuning
The really interesting thing about Antares Auto-Tune is that just about everyone has an idea of what it is. For engineers, it’s a very useful tool and effect; but the fact that it’s recognized by almost everybody, beyond studio pros,…
How To De-Ess Vocals | Settings for a Pro Mix
Sibilance is what we call the hissing noise made by ‘ess’ and ‘shh’ sounds in the voice. We don’t notice it in conversation, but it can get really harsh on a recorded vocal. A de-esser can take care of excess…
The 20 Best Filter Plugin VSTs in 2023 [Free & Paid]
Filter plugins are one of the easiest effects to use that can have a huge impact on how something sounds. As a form of EQ, filters help you shape the frequency content of an instrument. In the simplest terms, they…
The 15 Best UAD Plugins for Vocals [2023 Guide]
Over 20 years ago, Universal Audio ushered in a new standard for plugins and interfaces. UAD’s plugin catalog is a huge collection of some of the best analog emulations out there. Most importantly, the software runs on dedicated DSP supplied by…
The Loudness Penalty by Streaming Services
Streaming services like Spotify and others normalize the volume of all the material on their platform. This is so you’re not constantly turning the level up or down from song to song. However, tracks you’ve mixed may not play back…
Parallel Compression Explained
Parallel compression was developed as a means to an end. The vast majority of compressors are “downward” in action. This means that they work by reducing the peaks in source material. Parallel compression, on the other hand, was designed to…
How to Use Youlean Loudness Meter (Tutorial)
One of the ways mixers and mastering engineers optimize their levels is by referencing detailed loudness meters. Whether you’re mixing for film, TV, or digital streaming services, there are different standards you can aim for to make sure your mix…
Cytomic The Glue: Best SSL Bus Compressors?
Cytomic The Glue is an affordable SSL-style bus compressor plugin. The plugins gets its name from the SSL hardware’s famous ability to ‘glue’ mixes together. Even though there are tons of SSL bus compression plugins on the market, Cytomic makes…
What is Plate Reverb and How is It Used?
If you’ve spent any time playing around with reverb in-the-box, you’ve probably observed the common types that exist. Chamber, hall, and room are easy enough to imagine, but what about plate reverb? We most easily associate “echo” with real-world spaces,…
The 7 Best Delay VST Plugins 2023 [FREE & PAID]
Delay plugins are essential to every mixer’s toolbox! It’s one of the most common effects we use all the time to give instruments dimension and energy. The great thing about delay is that it can be subtle for a little…
How to EQ Bass Guitar: Simple Steps for a Better Low End
Nailing the low end content in a mix is an important step for better-sounding material. Too much bottom can make a mix muddy and inarticulate; too little can make a track appear thin and lifeless. Learning how to EQ bass…
The 20 Best Reverb Plugins in 2023 [Free & Paid]
Reverb is one of the most commonly used effects in mixing. It’s part of a broader category of processors we sometimes call “time-based effects,” which also includes delay. Before digital, reverb was recorded using actual rooms called echo chambers. A…
Vocal EQ Tips for Beginning Mixers
Vocal EQ is one of the ways we get a recorded performance from “dry” to “radio-ready.” It has a huge influence on the overall quality of a vocal, and even just simple moves like filtering can change the sound completely.…
How to Use a Compressor (Easy Beginner’s Guide)
Learning how to use a compressor is one of the most important mixing skills you can acquire. Compression is quite literally all over mixes, even becoming the sound we associate with loud, modern pop mixing. If there’s anything you want to…
EQ Cheat Sheet: Simple Guidelines for Effective Equalization
Understanding equalization–probably the most widely used signal processor available to engineers–is essential to making records sound their absolute best. Sometimes it’s as simple as high-passing an instrument in the proper spot, while other cases require a bit more attention and…
The 10 Best Mixing Plugins in 2023 (Free & Paid)
Mixing is one of the most satisfying parts of music production. It’s so much fun polishing raw recordings, adding creative effects, and putting the finishing touches on a song for listeners. There are literally thousands of plugins out there that…
25 Best Waves Plugins for Mixing in 2023
Waves plugins have been around since 1992 when the company first introduced its Q10 Paragraphic EQ. The Q10 broke new technological ground as the first audio plugin ever, with sound quality comparable to, or better than, its hardware equivalents. Over…
Secrets to Mixing Rap Vocals
It’s easy to underestimate the trickiness of mixing rap vocals. Some engineers will write the genre off thinking that it’s just a 2-track and a vocal, so it must be simple. But the intricacy lies in having leads, stacks of…
How to Sidechain in Ableton (Beginner’s Guide)
Sidechain compression in Ableton is a useful mixing technique that allows you to do things like separate the bass from the kick. For Ableton users working in EDM/hip-hop/pop, where there’s lots of competing low-end information, sidechain compression is indispensable! What…
Peter Gabriel: Artists Who Changed Music
5 Powerful Tips For Mixing Hip-hop Vocals
How to Mix Background Vocals
We tend to mix background vocals differently than leads. Depending on the arrangement, they’re usually underneath the lead for support so they don’t steal the show. In some cases, background vocals will actually overtake the leads, such as in a…
The Trooper – Iron Maiden: Songs That Changed Music
Factory Tour: Making Speakers From Start To Finish with Bowers & Wilkins
7 Best Reamp Boxes in 2023
Reamping takes place in two stages during both the recording and mixing phases. A reamp box is a specially designed device that allows you to send a clean guitar signal from your DAW to an amplifier, letting you tweak tones…
Budget vs Expensive Microphones: A Chat With With Rob Mayzes & Adam Steel at NAMM 2023
Let’s talk about Thrash Metal
Should I Be Using Sidechain Compression?
Sidechain compression is a common “advanced” mixing technique. If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Should I use sidechain compression here?,” the answer is “Give it a shot!” It uses are somewhat particular, but sidechaining generally creates more separation, more rhythm, or more…
Budget vs Expensive Microphones: A Chat With With Rob Mayzes & Adam Steel at NAMM 2023
10 Best Limiter Plugins in 2023 [FREE & PAID]
Limiters are awesome plugins for catching a signal’s highest peaks in a way that doesn’t ruin the overall tonality and balance of an instrument, group, or mix. Here is a modest sample of 10 of the best limiter plugins out…
Exploring Tim O’Sullivan LA Studio: Fun guitars & Affordable Consoles
How to Do Reverse Reverb in 3 Easy Steps
Reverse reverb, sometimes called reverse echo or reverse regeneration, simply takes the reverb tail of any instrument and reverses it. Creating it is a matter of printing the wet signal of a reversed audio track. Reverse reverb is typically accompanied…
David Bottrill Interview Part 2: Talking Silverchair, Mudvayne, Muse, Placebo & More
Top 3 MIDI Keyboard Controllers with Sanjay C
The Rob Kinelski Interview: Pushing Pop Music Production Boundaries
Mixing Progressive Metal – Animals As Leaders’ Red Miso in Dolby Atmos
Haas Effect: What It Is and How It’s Used
The Haas effect is a psychoacoustic phenomenon discovered by Dr. Helmut Haas in 1949. Also known as the “precedence effect,” the law states that when one sound is followed by another with a delay time of approximately 40 ms or…
3 STEPS to get your Bass & Drums Sitting Better Together with Marc Daniel Nelson
Free Multitracks to Hone Your Mixing Skills
It goes without saying that the only way to get better at something is to do it a lot. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an athlete or a carpenter, a musician or a painter; practicing your craft is essential to developing what…
Bass Compression: The Foundation of Any Mix
Bass compression is easily one of the most important parts of a mix. Bass gives music that energy which is often felt more than heard. Low-end energy is critical because it has the power to produce a defined groove and an intelligible…
5 Vocal Reverb Tips That Will Level Up Your Mixes!
Let’s get down to it..a dry vocal sounds pretty weird! Even what we’d consider “dry” overall mixes have at least a little bit of dimension, probably from the room where things are recorded, with a little extra help from hardware…
13 Best Vocal Plugins For Home Studios in 2023
When it’s time to mix a singer, you should be armed with some of the best vocal plugins you can get your hands on! We’ll be looking at a variety of compressors, EQs, and other plugins that really shine on…
9 Best Stereo Imaging Plugins Available [FREE & PAID]
Stereo imaging is a pivotal part of any mix. It mostly has to do with with the spatial locations of each sound source, both side-to-side and front-to-back. A well-mixed stereo image means listeners can easily identify where sounds are coming…