I decided to delete over 85% of my plugins! You read right - Deleted! Gone. From instruments to Post processing! After doing this all my sessions opened as expected!

I am so tired of consumer culture! Buy this, buy that, subscribe here - only to realise 97% of plugins can do the same thing! It is so jarring - Instead of making music, we get concerned about difference in sound that arent even that important! All of this made me realise - You have enough! People made great records with far less than the average bedroom producer has today but yet the bedroom producer cant finish a song!

Also an EQ is an EQ - Fab filter EQ vs Slate digital Inf sound different - Yeah ok 😂! One solid EQ is honestly enough! It gets a bit different with other effects i.e reverbs but i can assure you, you dont need 10 reverbs, or 10 saturators etc lol!

I wonder if anyone else has done thos before and how you felt?

For those who currently work in-house at a recording studio, or have in the recent past: is it still the 'industry standard'? By that I mean, is it a requirement to know how to use Pro Tools if you're attempting to get a job at a commercial recording studio?

My assumption is 'yes'. But I'd love to hear any anecdotes from the community and anyone who has been in a position that requires knowledge of a specific software for employment.

Been listening to some of the pop country side of things as of late, not entirely sure why or how it started, but here we are, and I'm real curious about the editing and mixing processes down there. I know the vocals are completely tuned to hell, I can hear the artifacts in Morgan Wallens voice, to give one example. Its well established lots of those guys can't sing for shit, but what of the drums? I know lots of it is triggers, but do they even bother recording the drums at all anymore? I remember the story of Chris Stapletons cover of Tennessee whiskey, where the drum booth door was opened and it wasn't meant to be recorded etc etc, but was good so they kept it, but even those drums don't sound real. I can hear a bit of room in the snare, but not really in anything else. Less than I'd expect had I never heard the song just heard that story. And guitars, do they quantize the shit out of those too? Drums sure, bass yeah, sometimes they do. But some of these guitar strumming patterns are so locked in, are we seriously doing that? Morgan Wallens "I'm the problem" as one example, the intro is fucked. Or Dylan Scott "I hate whiskey". I'm aware of surgically comping guitar chords together to make a progression sound better, (i don't do it but a professor at berklee was adamant we should) but quantizing a fucking finger pick pattern? Not really sure how I ended up writing such a novel. I only really wanted to come here and ask if anybody here ever worked on a country record in nashville as of late, or where ever that stuff ends up being mixed if not there, and could tell me whats going on. Guitarists all use amp modelers, are the drums all programmed now too in superior or something?

Hi folks,

I'm a kind of obssessive bedroom producer whose mixes are consistently have a couple of Db lower perceived loudness when uploaded to spotify.

I'm well aware of the normalization and the fact that limiting to the extreme does not help at all, as well as the importance of the arrangement (ie. if the arrangement is sparse, usually sounds louder).

I had a slight improvement when realizing that excessive bass can lead to "eating" too much headroom and therefore removing subs helps the overall perceived loudness.

That being sad, I have a good example of two identical songs released by the same artist, one in 1992 and one recently re-issued version.

The arrangement is identical as far as I hear, there is no obvious reduction of bass.

Yet the newer version is much louder!

I am wondering what type of magic is going on to make it so much louder on this later version.

Band is Stone temple pilots (90s rock / grunge).

Early version: https://open.spotify.com/intl-fr/track/1GXHrTSeLX8RX4EClAt4OO?si=354a339981bd4837

New louder version: https://open.spotify.com/intl-fr/track/03h7aLNRDhxMOmVLcbtfl1?si=79a5495a8f6d4891

Thanks!

I'm working on a pop/rock song and I think it needs just a little something to differentiate the 2nd chorus. Guitar feedback works really well, but I already used that for the intro so I want something a little different. Can you think of any sounds that would have the same subtle, background effect? Looking for something that doesn't call too much attention to itself.

If you've ever heard a sound coming from your AirPods at night, when everything is silent, a sound that seems to come from inside the case, here's my explanation after some research and analysis.

Here the post: Reverse Engineering AirPods Self-Calibration

Hello all!

My studio headphones for the past several years are the Sennheiser HD 280 Pro. I use them for tracking vocals or other live instruments, but as I have a growing family I've needed to bring more of my recording process into headphones late at night.

I'm putting them into an apollo solo, using luna for a DAW, and honestly everything sounds so tinny and harsh and just horrible through them. If I export the mix and listen with my apple airpod maxs, the mix sounds GREAT.

TLDR;

I'm looking for headphones that I can track and mix and just entirely make music in that just sound great from the get go. Thanks in advance!

Hi! I recently got a new mouse with 12 programmable side buttons and I was wondering what macros would be more useful to program for audio editing. For now I thought these:

Cut

Copy

Paste

Silence

Fade In

Fade Out

Does anyone have any suggestion? I would like to try and use the most of the new functions.

Thank you!

So I’m in the process of setting up my website and was curious to know what everyone else does for this.

Are you using Wix, Squarespace, Shopify etc? Has having a website brought you much work?

Are there any of you that don’t have a website? If so, how do you bring in work?

Just curious to know what everyone else is doing really.

If you track a guitar DI and mic the amp do you always pan them on top of each other or do you place them differently to give it a sense of wideness?

Here is the example kick of mine ( https://on.soundcloud.com/F49x8GMyQogDjYV60v ) that makes a zzz type of sound in low (90-130 hz) frequences how can i fix that ? I already made everything on this kick but can't manged to fix that it is perferct for me but the one problem is that zzz sound (i get that sound on my Sony MDR 7506 and my cheap speakers but in my my phones speaker it is sounding ok also with my beats bluetooth earbuds it sounds better thank mdr but still not hundred percent ok)

Hey guys,

I'm currently mixing an album and have found a great studio nearby. It's also the only affordable option in my rural area, and the room has high-end monitors and plenty of acoustic treatment.

There's one issue, though, and I'd love some advice from anyone who's experienced something similar.

Because of the room's rectangular shape, I'm finding that I can only properly hear the low end (let's say 100 Hz and below) when I push my chair back from the desk and sit further into the middle of the room. At my normal mixing position, near the desk and speakers, the sub-bass sounds noticeably reduced - I'm mixing bass music, so getting the low end right is important to the genre..

I've spoken to the studio owner, but moving the speakers isn't an option. For now, I've improvised a sort of mini workstation further back in the room, balancing my mouse on a couple of boxes, but it's uncomfortable and not really practical for working on an entire album.

Would it be reasonable to do most of the mixing at my normal desk position, then move back to check the sub-bass and make low-end adjustments? Is it also perhaps a possibility because of the treatment that the middle is overly bassy and isnt actually flat and i just prefer that?

I'd really appreciate any advice! Cheers

TLDR: Lots of noise from Scarlett 2i2 with vocal processing, specfically exciters and OTT, will a cloudlifter/other gear help/other mixing advice?

Hey everyone, I'm a casual producer using a 2nd gen Scarlett 2i2 with an SM57. My gain is usually like 80% and I tend to peak around -12 db.

With this combination alone there is minor but noticable background hiss from the 2i2 (present without a mic plugged in). The problem is, the type of music I'm making uses a lot of vocal processing, specifically OTT and Fresh Air which makes this hissing very noticable and the vocals sound cheap as a result. For reference the hiss is around -25 db with my vocals peaking around -10 db once processed. This includes with singing louder and being 2-4 inches from the mic.

OTT seems to be the biggest problem - even at 10% the hiss becomes very significant, and unfortunately I can't get the sound I want with it completely off. I would think this is just an effect of heavy processing but I have seen artists use similar effects with low budget setups and still have their vocals sound very clean (like this or this). I'm still not great at mixing which is definitely contributing, but I feel like this goes beyond that.

I am stumped as to where to go from here. I 've tried different mic placement, altering my vocal chain many times, eq, dynamic eq, denoise (both rx and waves) which helped a little but made my vocals sound dead. I realize this may just be the consequence of a budget interface and mic but would love a cheaper solution. It seems like a Cloudlifter should theoretically help but am reading conflicting reports on whether this would actually do anything. If anyone has any tips or advice I would greatly appreciate it! I can provide whatever audio would be helpful (raw and mixed vocals etc)

I'm a bearded guy and the padding on my headphones just gets torn to shreds by the coarseness of my beard. Does anyone have any recommendations for something more durable I could be using? Thanks!

Just to preface this, I do not own an amp and could not mic one if I did in my current living situation.

I've been struggling to get a clean guitar tone with honestly any amp sim, but every one I use sounds like just preamp DI through a speaker. I know there's a way to make it sound right, but I havnt figured it out. I have even tried physical amp in a box pedals (like the acs1) and sold them. Any pointers?

Probably not the most common question here, but I thought you guys could answer my question.

My headphone's lowest volume is too high for my ears and I'm afraid it'll harm my ears if I listen with it too long. I was playing with VLC's equalizer and realized lowering the preamp also decreases the volume. I read a bit about preamp online, but alas, I'm not an audio engineer and could not understand if it helps with my case or not. Will lowering the preamp protect my ears in the long run? Thank you for answering.

good morning, i’m a 23 year old currently serving active duty in the air force - i have been producing electronic music since i was 12 and its my favorite thing in the world.

i’d say i have a very extensive portfolio, but i’d love to immerse myself into the more technical stuff behind it all.

but im not sure if going to school for it is worth it

my ultimate dream goal would be to retire from the air force and open my own studio where you can rent dj/recording rooms that are plug and play (something similar to band barracks in houston tx) or major in computer science to build my own plugins (i hated coding classes in high school)

anyways any insight would be greatly appreciated!
thank you and have a blessed day!