Recording acoustic guitar is all about the performance! The number one most important factor in recording acoustic guitar is the player him or herself. A solid performance executed with great left and right hand technique on a quality instrument is key!…
The Best Amp Simulator Hardware and Plugins
There are a lot of benefits to going the amp simulator route as a guitarist. Cost and versatility are both huge advantages over real amps, because modelers can give you access to hundreds of different heads, cabinet, and effects sims…
The Best Drum VSTs for Any Budget
The best drum VSTs we’ve gathered run the gamut between $89 all the way up to $700! Thankfully, this means there’s a variety of choices to suit any budget. Of course, there are free options as well so you can…
3 Guitar Amp Micing Techniques
This episode we’re going to go over recording guitar! I have a carl Martin BandMate 15 Roadie, which is a fairly clean amp but you can drive it with a gain pedal. In this instance, I’m going to keep it…
Guitar Recording for Beginners
There are a ton of variables at play when it comes to at-home guitar recording. The whole process is a combination of many elements before ever pressing record in your DAW. Fundamentally, a great guitar recording requires the right tone—and…
The Best Mastering Plugins
When it comes to mastering in-the-box, you’ll want a great compressor, a limiter, an EQ, and most of the stuff you’re already familiar with for mixing. Many of the best mastering plugins combine the parameters you’ll need into a single…
The Best DAWs for Windows Operating Systems
Most of today’s DAWs are cross-platform, making it easy to choose if you’re running PC. Some titles are Mac-only, like Apple’s own Logic Pro, but for the most part options won’t be limited if you’ve chosen Windows as your primary…
Song Mastering: Preparing Your Tracks to Master
Song mastering is the final step in getting your tracks ready to release. What a mastering engineer does differently than a mixer is make final, sometimes very subtle, tweaks to make something sound polished and “commercial.” You can learn how…
Some of the Best Drum VSTs for Programmed Drums
Drum VSTs are one of the quickest and easiest means to lock down your song’s backbone. As a matter of fact, the software has gotten so good that it isn’t uncommon for solo artists to release finished albums with entirely…
From Lyrics to Mixdown: How to Record a Song
As producers, engineers, and songwriters, we sometimes struggle to transpose the sounds and ideas in our heads to “tape.” We may have all the tools at our disposal to make great music—quality instruments, microphones, all the fixings of a home…