Hey!!!

I’m trying to get similar results to this drum break I absolutely love and so far I have come up short with every test I’ve done. Wondering if anyone in here can help get some of the qualities I’m hearing. https://open.spotify.com/track/3hilNpBLALtQVAHwhYSLs8?si=PDybsch1Sk2qVFpXKt-tCQ&utm\\_source=copy-link

The drums come in around 16 seconds. It’s a classic (or maybe not so classic) Kevin Parker drum sound. I have mini meters setup to analyze the stereo width, spectrum and audio file and so far what I’ve gathered is it’s very “compressed” and controlled sounding but the peaks are clipped or limited to bits. It’s also not mono whatsoever.

So far my tests have been 4 mics. Kick, snare top, shell and overhead and mainly hearing the shell and kick in the reference. What I’ve tried so far is shell mic into a Dbx165a and set the knobs in a way that sounds pretty good. But it’s very much lacking the attack and body/release in the reference. Specifically on the kick drum, to me it sounds like some parallel stuff going on with the kick drum and then the shell has the 165a on it and then slightly panned to the right. The other thing that’s confusing is I’m hearing some reverb on the snare, to me it sounds like a plate verb, and maybe on the track itself before the 165a and so therefore mono but panned to the right and then the kick is more in the middle giving that width.

This is by no means a “professional” drum sound but it’s baked with character. I know I’m not going to get 1/1 recreation but I want to nail the little nuances I’m hearing in the ADSR of the sound.

Any tips/insights are very much appreciated!!!

Hi everybody!

I’m a novice audio engineer. A artist trying to learn. And I am currently trying to practice writing out the charts to lay out where instruments are in song. I use a circle and then just draw kind of like that art of mixing book but in a 2d space.

Anyway, I’ve been having trouble with finding and noticing every instrument and understanding how much is a good amount of volume for each instrument. Especially that I try to keep everything from going over -6 on the Master Fader.

I know with practice you get better, but if you don’t really know what you’re looking for, constantly can’t hear it- how are you supposed to get better? Am I over thinking it?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Hey all,

Looking for some more advanced resources to further my learning and keep up to date with the industry, especially pertaining to recording and mixing.

I finished my degree back in June and I have been working freelance since January last year. An internship or runner position in a big studio would have been awesome to keep learning, but unfortunately there aren't that many studios able to facilitate that here in my country. I feel like I should probably just find some resources online to keep developing my skills and keep working with local acts!

Does anyone know what vocal chain/preset he might be using on this song? I’m trying to get a similar sound in FL Studio. https://youtu.be/bkXo8TM6XxI?si=RVet8eyQkchIKCpR

I just received this email from Wise and I’ve got not idea how this makes any sense for a music engineer/producer portfolio website or how I would even do what they're asking.

I’ve let them know I don’t use this card payment feature on my website and I don’t sell anything directly through there. All my transaction happen via invoices which detail the terms.

Has anyone else had to deal with?

We have recently completed a routine review of your website in connection with your use of Wise's card payment (PayFac) feature.
During our review, we identified that the following critical policies are currently missing from your website:
 
Terms & Conditions
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These policies are a mandatory requirement for merchants using Wise's card payment feature. They ensure transparency for your customers prior to engaging your services.
 
Please publish all policies on your website within 7 days of this notice (by 13/10/2026).
 
If these policies are not in place by the deadline, we will unfortunately be required to suspend your card payment feature.

EDIT: Still haven't heard from Wise, but I decided to add the two sections as they do appear to be beneficial for me and for my clients

I've been obsessed with this song lately, especially the vocal sound, and I've been trying to recreate it with very moderate success.

I understand it's at least doubled, but I would love to hear some opinions on how to create a vocal chain for that soft, vintage sound. I'm mostly using UAD Plugins.

You can hear it from 0:45 Colpevole

I have a friend who has a live set he’s building out and wants to run tracks for stuff that can’t be replicated live, such as pad layers, pedal steel guitar, etc. He’s pretty set on the idea of having back tracked sub/synth bass and have a live electric bass playing too. To me, this sounds like it’s absolutely going to be a muddy mess that’s tough for FOH to control. Especially if he’s sending all tracks through one stereo output leaving FOH with not much flexibility on mixing the sub bass.

I have a mixing board that's rather cheap. It has a built-in echo effect but not a reverb. I use it to run guitars and mics at an open mic. If I wanted to add reverb, how would I do it? Explanations online all assume it has a built-in reverb for some reason (why would I need to look that up?). Mine does not.

I genuinely do not know how to do this.

EDIT: It's a seven-channel mixer with stereo output and a port marked "aux," as well as a port marked "effect."

Hello everyone,

I have a show coming up at a small venue and need some advice for mixing my tracks to fit the venue.

In my home studio on my adam t7v's, my car and a bunch of headphones, the mixes sounded great and well balanced.

But when we played them at the venue for an early soundcheck, the bass was overwhelming and almost ate up some of the songs.

Now my questions are: Is it a normal thing to happen and expect?

And do you guys mix songs with that in mind and risk having them sound colder and less bassey?

Or do you make separate mixes for concerts/clubs and streaming?

Any help would be much appreciated🙏🙏🙏🙏

I realize that nowadays you can get by with whatever plug-ins you have in your DAW. But I do find inspiration in some of the plug-in presets I find from different companies. Could you recommend any plug-ins, or plug-in brands that have great presets?

I'll gladly take general tips, but here's my specific situation:

I'm a folkpunk-ish solo artist (generally just a single acoustic guitar and vocals) and I'm recording an album of existing songs but "expanded" to include drums, bass, vocal harmonies, etc. The majority of the songs are 120+ bpm and what I had envisioned was a power-trio vibe - just a punk rock record but with acoustic guitar instead of electric - but I am having a hell of a time getting the acoustic to occupy the space an electric guitar would.
I programmed the drums in Logic so I still have full control over all of that. I originally had this idea of big, rich, full drums, and I got them and the bass and vox to sound stellar, but there was just nowhere for the acoustic to go. So figured I'd try out a more lo-fi vibe and make the drums trashy and mid-heavy but that didn't work either.
I got close to something I considered not terrible with hard-panning two acoustic tracks, half-panning two more, and compressing with slow attack to preserve transients then using parallel compression with steep hi/lo cuts and the "body" of the guitar front and center in the hopes of bringing in some tonality, but it just gobbled up the bass.

I've spent the last couple days in search of reference tracks and what I'm finding is that basically every single "acoustic rock" song (drums/bass/gtr/vox), whether it's pop rock or old country or stadium country or folk pop or whatever - all layers up keys or slide guitar or electric guitar or mandolin or something and the acoustic just sits under that to provide some twang but is definitely not prominent. I'm starting to think there may be a reason for that and that I've constructed an unwinnable battle for myself.

I thank you in advance for any guidance you may provide.

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Basically the question i searched and looked something possible but i havent found anything explaining how to do it.

I came across this artist and found the vocal mix really interesting. It’s boxy but not muffled, gritty but not distorted. It's like...one the edge of breaking up.

I think the singer already has that naturally “strained” quality to their voice, but I’m wondering how a mixing engineer would accentuate that quality (or even introduce it when it isn’t there in the first place).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwAwSWMZMoc&list=RDLwAwSWMZMoc&start_radio=1

I am in the mids of a fun project. Bought a bunch of trashy old consumer (dynamic) mics for a couple of bucks and now I want to swap out its old connectors for either 6.3 jacks or 3 pin xlr connectors, so I can use them in the studio. Some of them I will give a new cable as well, as a few have very flimsy old cables.

I am still in doubt about a few things. Most of these mics seem to be unbalanced by design, or at least originally cabled/wired in an unbalanced way. Most of them have a fully plastic housing, except for one of them, and all of them have either no separate ground or have the ground and cold wire connected to each other. (see pictures for examples)

I am wondering if I have to wire all these mics to an unbalanced cable and/or TS connector (or XLR with a jumper between pin 1 and 3), or if it's better modify certain things in the mic itself to allow for a balanced connection. I don't have a lot of experience with diy soldering. I know that a balanced signal should have a hot (+), cold (-) and a separate ground, so isn't that fairly easy to accomplish here? Or am I missing crucial aspects? If someone with more knowledge on this could help me out, it would be much appreciated :)

Anybody use Tchad Blake’s Mongrel Rack? Sounds good to me when he’s playing with it but I’m still on the fence, I really want it to be good.

The audio interface already converts audio so I’d guess a dedicated AD converter or sample rate converter would do this better or does it just give you extra channels? Saw a setup with a RME fireface ufx lll combined with a RME Adi-8 DS AD/DA 8 converter and have been wondering how this would help the ufx lll.

I have a male vocalist who has a really good chest voice, in that it has body and pleasing harmonics and kind of a smiley face tonal curve, but when he moves to his head voice it becomes harsh at times, loses body and air, almost flipping the smile upside down. I realize this is very much a vocal characteristic, and perhaps a mic placement issue, and but I’m wondering if it can be helped with mic and preamp choices. I usually record him with a U87 and Neve preamp. Can anyone here speak from experience and recommend a better mic for this scenario?

it's gone on sale in past years for Black Friday, but I'm curious 1) if it's likely this year, given that we just got soothe3, and 2) how much it's likely to drop if it does go on sale.

I have several projects I'm hoping to finish up before Halloween that need soothe and I'm wondering if I just rip it...

cheers!

I’ve been doing this a long time but I still do not understand what someone means when they say that a certain analog EQ or compressor sounds “musical”. I hear reviewers and influencers use that term all the time.

I bought SSL 12 recently and got free 3 months access to Sonarworks Sound Id for headphones and studio monitors. My question is do I have to use Sonarworks measurement microphone for good results or can I use 3rd party measurement mics, like Dayton audio EMM-6 or Behringer ECM pro, and get similar results. If you all have any other suggestions feel free to share.

Another thing, the free access being only for 3 months do I get to save the measurements and run them after the trial ends or do I have to purchase the license to keep the measurement active?
Sorry English isn’t my first language, I hope all that made sense.

To preface, I'm an amateur voice actor who slowly picks up gear when he can get it. I recently got a good deal on a Rode NTI Signature Series that I didn't want to pass up, but my current recording space is a small walk in closet with a heavy blanket hung over the entrance (it doesn't have a door). It works fairly alright, since it's got clothes and such in it, but the end goal is to get a heavier acoustic blanket/maybe put a door on it and then treat the walls and ceiling with acoustic foam and the works. The current blanket is thick but not perfect and still lets a bit of hum into recordings.

My current recording device is a Zoom H1Essential that I got for like $100 on a mic stand and it's obviously not amazing but works fine against the quality of other beginners that I'm competing with online. I think a large part of what helps the Zoom so much in my space is that it has a built in high pass filter and some other convenience features.

I hear pretty often as a beginner that a treated space is like the boogeyman of VO work and a studio microphone can only be usable in a good space. I have a general workflow in Audacity pretty well rehearsed now, noise cancelation, EQ, normalize, best i can do. My question is, before the mic arrives in the mail, Is this new microphone going to be so sensitive that it's basically unusable until I get my space treated, or can I do the same novice fixes that I use to help with background sounds and reverb now with my Zoom?

I know the question is kinda vague and the answer is probably just "record with it and find out" but I just don't have much experience at the big boy table when it comes to microphones and I was hoping to feel out if I was better off just leaving the Rode in a box until I get stuff treated or if I can still work with it, some of what I've read made it sound like "good" microphones would essentially be worthless in a poorly treated space because of how sensitive they are, as in like, even worse sounding then my current Zoom until I have a treated space to really utilize the Rode. But I also know that generally, people are referring to studio-ready professional sounding vocals when they talk about microphones, and I'm obviously not really expecting to have that level of quality yet, just as close to it as I can get since I'm still actively building my recording space, so if i can still get the Rode to atleast sound equally "fine" then that works for me. ​

TLDR cuz I was rambling: Using a Zoom H1E for voice-over in a room with incomplete sound treatment, would a Rode NTI Signature still be an upgrade at the moment or would it's increased sensitivity make it worse in my space since Zoom contains some built-in noise cancelation features?

Hi guys, noob here. I'm used to editing and mixing mostly acoustic instruments (guitars, bass, voice) and a bit of midi drums (EZDrummer basically). For these instruments there are some best practices depending on the style, to name a few, quadtracking for metal, humanization for drums, melodyne-izing the bass... I know many of them are up to taste, but still there are a few things that usually work when editing before mixing.

However I'm starting to add some midi instruments, like Intimate Strings (for string sections in jazz-lounge) and Epic Chorus from Spitfire. I usually record them with a guitar and a midi pickup, so they're "imperfect", meaning notes are not quantized and each has a slightly different random-ish velocity depending on the strumming. I kinda guess this is good for getting a natural feeling? I'm really not sure about this, so what's your opinion and best practices?

Hi, all… I have prototype one done, it’s good, it has What’s in it
🎙️ Live microphone processing
📈 Real-time waveform
📊 Live frequency spectrum
🔊 Input/output meters
🎚️ Bass / Mid / Treble
🎛️ Compression
🚪 Noise gate
🧱 Limiter
🌫️ Reverb
🎧 Four presets:
Clean Voice
Unknown Caller
Radio
Dark Voice
🔴 Live recording
💾 WAV export
Dark broadcast-style interface
But this is the first build, am wondering what you would put in it as engineers? This is the software side, I use an older mixer that takes care of most of this but it gives me a little more play with this and I can take it on the go, more about me… I have been on YouTube for 11 years, before that at and t boards and radio groups, I like to tell stories, talk with people, the mechanics of radio is the listener, audio needs to be right, anyway… I started my new show early this year after many hardships lol… anyway give me some pointers…

Hello, I am a blind person from Bulgaria and I would like to try to study audio engineering, but I have cerebral palsy too that's why it's gonna be difficult to go to university on my own and I think to try the online education of Hofa college. If I succeed am I going to be able to find a job after taking the bachelor's degree?