Music mixing tips

Mixing is where it all comes together whether you are a band or electronic musician it is an important stage. As a band you you might mix during a separate session with some other band members or as an electronic musician you may well mix as you produce a track. In any event some useful tips follow for getting an improved mix down.

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The top 5 reasons your band should record binaurally

Binaural recordings are reproductions of sound the way human ears hear it – it’s the purest, most natural way to record and listen to music.

Binaural recording is perfectly suited to indie, pop and rock music – and here’s why you should be planning to take advantage of it on your next record.

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Kill Your Plug-ins and Up Your Music Production Skills

I love the fact that my sample library is enormous, the presets are wide, varied and bountiful, like Harrods at Christmas time. I can press just one key and a whole world of beautiful sound comes pouring out of my monitors, and every time I use it I always think; ‘wow, I could do something really interesting with this’. And then I don’t. I might spend a few hours mucking around with Omnisphere, but when it comes to working and finishing my projects, I don’t use it. And that’s nothing to do with Omnisphere itself, there’s nothing wrong with it, I genuinely think it’s the best software synth yet devised. But it’s vast; I haven’t had the time to get to know it well at all.I find I always return to the instruments I know well to get the job done.

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Recording: Getting it Right at the Source

How many times have you heard this saying? It’s almost gotten to be a cliche around the recording blog world these days. It’s something, however, that I believe needs repeating. And it’s one that I am constantly reminding myself of in the studio. It’s amazing how many questions I’ve received from friends and colleagues about what kind of mics I’m using. Of course, the recommendations follow: “Oh man, you should try the enter mic of choice here on your kick drum – best mic money can buy.” Or how about, “Hey man, what’s the BEST microphone for recording vocals?” Have you fallen into this trap? I know I have.

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Browser Audio Recording Gives the Web a Voice

Mozilla, which makes the FireFox browser you might be reading this with, has a way to let regular webpages record audio and video and play them back with only a few lines of simple code rather than the more complicated Flash technology usually required for in-browser recording today.

This might sound like a wonky technical detail, but ultimately, it has big implications for people in general and music fans in particular.

Once web browsers can literally hear what you’re listening to (and see you, assuming you’ve given them permission, of course), they’ll be able to identify music playing in other programs or in the cafe where you’re sitting; record karaoke or more advanced audio projects directly onto the web; let you hear what your favorite artists are recording; and other fun stuff developers have yet to dream up.

For now, we must surrender the fantasy of ranting, finally, with our own actual voices, into the comments sections of columns with which we disagree — if only due to the early stage of this technology. Mozilla released an early, Mac-only, FireFox 3.5-only version of the Add-On on Thursday, which it’s calling Rainbow on Thursday, apparently so-named because it pairs so nicely with the term “cloud computing.”

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