The world of music is constantly evolving with new inventions and instruments thanks to the innovative minds of people like my guest on my latest podcast episode, Alexandra Fierra. Her creation, the Demon Box, is almost indescribable. The device utilizes electromagnetic fields (EMF) to create and manipulate sounds from everyday electronic devices. She found inspiration […]
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Every musician needs a portable digital recorder for recording gigs, rehearsals, and capturing ideas, but in most cases the ones available have more features than than are needed most of the time. Let’s face it, having the ability to record more than stereo and having microphones leads to a large device, when all you might […]
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The voice is just as much of an instrument as any other in the band. That means that it must be looked after the same way before and during a session to ensure that the singer provides their best vocal performance. While vocalists that have lots of studio experience know this already, they often concentrate […]
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My guest on my latest podcast episode is drummer Ray LeVier, who’s extensive career spans live performances, teaching, and composing for top TV networks like TLC, Discovery, FOX Sports and others. In addition to his performance career, Ray is a dedicated teacher and clinician for manufacturers like Yamaha, Paiste, and Evans. Despite a devastating fire […]
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Over the last couple of years we’ve seen the introduction of a wide range of mastering plugins that, for the most part, take one of three approaches. Some have emulated famous mastering engineer setups, some have duplicated noted mastering hardware, and some have featured completely outside the box thinking. Softube’s Flow mastering plugin falls in […]
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What is difficult? Is a piece of music difficult because it’s hard to play or because of its conceptual virtuosity? Bassist Adam Neely took on the challenge to try to define what is “the most difficult piece of music,” and tries to explain what it means, and provide some examples. It turns out it all […]
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My guest on my latest podcast episode is producer, musician and remixer Danny Saber. Danny’s worked with musical legends like David Bowie, Sheryl Crow, Marilyn Manson, U2, The Rolling Stones, Public Enemy, Willie Nelson, Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, and Madonna, among many others. He’s also contributed to television commercials for McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Coors, and […]
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One of the main engineering tasks during mixing is making sure that you can hear every track element clearly. There are mixing techniques to overcome when one track masks another, but they can be tedious and take up a lot of time. What if there was a plugin that could do the de-masking for you? […]
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Over the past 15 years or so, power amplifiers have gotten increasingly more powerful and lighter thanks to the now widespread use of what’s known as Class D design. What most people don’t know is that it was all due to a single engineer at Philips who created the first inexpensive class D amplifier module […]
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My guest on my latest podcast episode is Morgan Hayduk, who’s the co-founder and co-CEO of Beatdapp, a company that helps artists, labels, performance rights organizations, and streaming platforms detect fraudulent streams. Morgan started his career in music as a lobbyist for the Canadian music industry in the area of copyright protection before starting Beatdapp, […]
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Whenever someone asks me about sidechaining I usually describe it as a bandaid for when you need track separation but nothing else works, the idea that good mixing fundamentals will overcome the need to use it. That may be true for some types of music, but in genres like hip-hop and EDM, the sidechain is […]
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My good buddy and fantastic engineer/producer Ed Seay has a saying that I’ve used in a number of books about the 3 P’s or “Pitch, Passion and Pocket.” That refers to the 3 things that every great vocal must have, although you can apply it to other musical performances as well. Ed is not only one of […]
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My guest on my latest podcast episode is mastering engineer Maor Appelbaum, who’s worked with the likes of Faith No More, Yes, Meatloaf, Eric Gales, Walter Trout, Dream Theater, Sepultura, Halford, and many more. Maor has written presets and collaborated with various plugin companies such as Waves, Brainworx/Plugin Alliance, Softube, Arturia, Leapwing Audio, Pulsar Audio and others. […]
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Those of us who grew up with the original tape echo machines know how deeply their sound is imprinted on your brain. It’s a sound that you always tried to duplicate with modern hardware and plugin delays but could never quite get there. One of the reasons is that most try to improve on the […]
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We live in pretty sad times when there’s not enough work to sustain the major recording studios that helped supply the sound of hits for generations, but that’s where we are. Last year it was the famed United Studios in Hollywood and before that it was Capitol Studios (although some say it may be reopened […]
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