Articles

This series is a rough guide on how to go about mixing a pop record from scratch. Many people don't seem to know where to start, so hopefully this series of articles will give some guidance.

This tutorials series will show any new drummers how to set up their kit, how and what to practice, as well as guiding them into playing rhythms and loops in different musical styles.

The popularity of file sharing demonstrates the popularity of media on demand, with which a subscription model would be the best fit for monetising this market. However, the DRM restrictions on current subscription models such as Napster prevent both CD burning and even syncing with various mp3 players making them less attractive to consumers.

This article should go some way into explaining the birth and collapse of file sharing companies, the effect of record company pressure, and the huge growth of file sharing since Napster. (updated 26/12/2006)

Most effects processors are fairly simple to use; plug in an equaliser (for example), twiddle the controls, and listen to the output, and you pretty much know what you're doing, and all you need is some experience behind you. Compressors don't fall into this category. Plug them in and listen. What's it doing? Unless someone has told you, then you probably won't know. Play with the controls. What do they do? Don't know either. What do the indicators mean? Difficult to tell. It's all a bit frustrating really...

Often people ask questions like "What level should I record tracks at?" or "What level should I record my mixes at?". The standard answer that comes back is: "Always record so that your maximum level is just below digital "zero" at the top of the meter." This well meaning advice is - unfortunately - completely wrong. Why? Well, that's the subject of this short article

The following is a discussion that started between me and a friend in a pub in January 2000. It follows on from some very pertinent discussion on the Internet about how "Digital Level Meters" tend to take responsibility away from peoples ears - with disastrous results, and how in the early days of Digital Audio, many of us embraced the early technology because we were "told" it was better. But deep in the back of our minds, we had our suspicions...

A quick, basic rough and ready guide to recording studio theory by a professional sound studio engineer

Every mix engineer is familiar with the problem of individual parts of a mix suddenly "leaping out" on certain notes and "taking over" a mix. Modern mixing consoles provide automation to cope with this. But is this really the solution? If you've had much experience of this at all, then you will recognise that it is usually similar "sections" of the song, and similar note-ranges, that cause the problem repeatedly.

I love this technique! - but yet I've never seen it documented!!

This is really something that came out of the "Tamla Motown" mixing scene, when people first realised that EQ was just as much a creative tool as a technical one.

I'm not a big fan of this, even though I know that other people use it a lot.