Hello! New to the group. I just very recently acquired a 70s TrackTech (allegedly, pre Harrison) console in Belgium I'm in the process of restoring. Anyone in here have some additional light they could shed? Or just anyone with experience with one of these? Thanks!

As a hobby producer, knowing how to prioritize what I want to learn is pretty overwhelming. It's hard to gauge what technical elements are the most important. I understand that I will never be mastering, really...I just like composing and you can continue learning mastering for a lifetime it seems. I consider basic mixing to be part of making songs.

But reading threads about songs from a couple decades ago, it's pretty clear that conventional opinions about how songs were mixed and mastered have changed a lot. With that hindsight, how much of the conventional wisdom will hold up a couple decades from now?

When I think about mixing and mastering, there is a lot of accepted current wisdom. But then I try to think of it through the perspective of the listener who knows nothing. How much of mixing and mastering is done to follow the current conventions vs what truly matters in terms of how a casual listener will enjoy a song?

I'm looking for a manual pitch correction software, one where I can drag notes individually on a piano roll. I failed to find a free one so I looked at Melodyne, but it's way too expensive for me expensive so I've looked at Waves Tune, it's $35 right now.

What is everyone's thoughts? I know Waves doesn't have the best reputation.

I have a few panels of Rockwool (6 x 3 x 1 ft) and I want to use it to soundproof the walls of a bedroom as well as I can with minimal teardown. I know I won't get it perfectly soundproof but how can I go about doing this?

Hey Reddit Family,

So a week or so ago, someone on here started the discussion about tracking without headphones for the artist.

The original poster had an issue where they could not record their vocals with headphones on...but of course could not control the headphone bleed as a result. I've had a lot of artists complain about headphones before, especially singers, so I felt this would be a cool experiment to try.

I also feel as recording engineers, a huge part of our job is being able to put the artists in the best position to succeed which sometimes means putting ourselves in compromising positions, purely from the perspective of maintaining the quality of the audio. So I felt it would be important to know what options there are if I ever do have an artist who requests to track without headphones.

I decided to try out a couple of options on how to do this with the least a mount of damaging bleed. I'll post the link below, but I'm interested to hear what the community thinks of this. Has anyone else ever tried any other methods tracking instruments without headphones? I'm interested to keep the conversation going.

Thank you everyone! Happy Monday!

https://youtu.be/Rkt6tdLil_M

https://youtu.be/ekr2nIex040?si=kAn2YbdyOc2yldlH

Here’s what i know:

1. The song gives credit to the creators of “Hey Micky”
2. However, i dont think the drums are actually SAMPLED from “Hey Micky” - they are interpolated (i.e took inspiration from, but recreated)
3. Yes, Bruno Mars plays drums, but that doesnt necessarily mean he actually recorded real drums for the session.
4. (Opinion) I imagine in the modern era for a track like this, tracking real drums live would add an unnecessary headache when you can just use some VST in the box and save a tonne of hassle, money and time

What do you think

Hey there!

So I created a really simple Comb Filter by mixing a signal 50/50 with a delayed Version of itself (e.g. 4.5 MS). Now I want to create a Comb Filter that is the exact opposite (so everywhere where Filter 1 hast peaks, it hast troughs).

Whats the simplest way to do that?

The Filters should cancel each other out completely when Mixed in parallel

Thank you!!

This is my first time working on a project so big. The track consist of:

-Kick, Snare top and bot, tom 1,2, hihat, OH -Clarinet -Synthisizer -Violin -Accordion -3x tambourines

• Guitar DI

-Acoustic guitar -Bass guitar -Vocal

I mixed it, mastered it, and I cant help but feel like its SO DAMN MUDDY. I have never worked with these instruments or this type of music. It sounds okayish on the DT770s and kinda okay on the phone, but sounds HORRIBLE on my digicell earphones that I bought for 10€ (they are the ultimate test)

Does anyone have any idea where am I supposed to even pan these instruments? Like where do I fit 3 tambourines and an acoustic guitar?

Can someone explain how I get a stereo/double tracked sound out of this plugin? i can only get a mono sound, thanks!

Hello,

Yesterday I was making a wave track in ableton (a subgenre of trap) and one thing that is very important to make this genre is using a soft clipper on the master channel. It glues the song well together, it gives to the kicks a very good percussive sound when pushed in the soft clipper, and the kick "ducks" the other elements in the mix which gives a really good sound. So we can say that putting a soft clipper on the master channel is an artistic effect which is part of "the sound" I seek when making this genre.

Now my question is that I've always heard that you should never use your mastering chain while making and mixing a track. But what if what is on the mastering chain like a softclipper is part of the artistic elements needed to make a certain genre? So it is part of composition and mixing?

I prefer to compose my songs and mix my songs with the soft clipper on because it allows me to make composing and mixing decisions in the context of using a soft clipper. If I make and mix my track without the soft clipper I am not tailoring the composition and mixing to the use of the soft clipper so when in the end I will add the soft clipper I will get not optimal results.

What is your take on this?

Thanks!

I cannot seem to find any high quality children's voices. I’m looking to make videos using a TTS voiceover of a child. I would really appreciate any recommendations. Thank you.

Tl:dr; cats keep ripping up my acoustic panels and I dont want loose fibers floating around, so I'm looking at options. I need to protect the insulation core with either something thick (1 in foam) or something that cant be scratched (wood?). Would adding 1 in of acoustic foam on top of the rockwool be detrimental to the absorption properties of the rockwool? As far as I can tell it should be complementary (foam shouldnt reflect lfe) but I just want to make sure before going out and doing it

Listened to some rock n roll stuff And would be interested in what such a mix looked like. They were really limited I guess. Would be cool to see, cause I think it might change my perspective on mixing with all the modern possibilities vs old mixing.

No low/high cuts, sidechaining, pulling out resonances, minimal eq, minimal Compressor settings?

I Over the last year or so I picked up the lite versions of these plugins for free, but I never got a chance to test them out.

There's currently an upgrade sale of each for $19 (plus a free plugin at PluginBoutique) -- is it worth the splurge to get one or both of them?

Is anyone using either of these plugins? How do you like them? What are their closest competition?

I'm hoping to get some advice from other people here because I've been having trouble with peaking signals during the mixing phase. When I start balancing everything, I think my songs sound good, but when I add effects, EQ, and compression, sometimes things go wrong and I get distortion or clipped peaks on select tracks or the master bus.

t seems like I'm either losing impact or still fighting peaks in the mix even though I try to keep my levels conservative and leave considerable headroom, aiming for peaks around -6 dB on the master bus. I often use a limiter to specific tracks as well, but I'm concerned that I may be depending too much on it to correct issues.

Do you use any particular methods to control peaks during mixing without sacrificing dynamics? How do you balance the levels of individual tracks with the mix as a whole or go about gain staging? Any plugins or advice on how to better track peaks?

I'd be interested in knowing how you solve this!

Intentionally vague, but I’m interested in programming an array of microphones to be able to detect a single particular sound in generally noisy environments. I genuinely have no idea where to begin, and would assume an audio engineer would be the logical jumping off point. Just looking for confirmation or a point in the right direction if you have one. Please be gentle, I’m in unfamiliar territory. TIA

Ever since I got my new Atmos monitoring system finally configured I have missed having easy access to my old trusty Dynaudio BM15a nearfields. I have stands for them that I would drag into position and set the Dynaudios up on them when I wanted a different perspective from my mains. But the nearfields are directly in the way of the mains. I couldn't switch between the two easily, and have not even used the Dynaudios in over a year. After thinking about it for months, the opportunity finally presented itself today. I found a pair of dual-motor sit/ stand desk legs on FB Marketplace for $50. I flipped them upside down and attached the rails that would normally support the desk top as the base. I bolted some old, rusty platforms I had in storage to the other end of the motorized legs, and now in about 15 seconds I can put up my nearfields or duck them out of the way without ever leaving the sweet spot. Best $50 I have spent in a long, long time!

I do plan to sand and paint the platforms and make new bases for them that both look and function better, but this is still a 1000% improvement. Woo Hoo!!

https://imgur.com/a/SbkiAYP

Hi, this is my third and final post before recording an ensemble in a few days.

Firstly, thanks for all the help thus far. It has been a wonderful learning experience hearing from the community here.

I had a last thought about how to record this ensemble (piano, cello, clarinet, and 3 singers) to be less obtrusive to the camera frame:

• (2) MK4 in ORTF aimed center of the group 3-5ft back

• wide spaced AB MK4 or MK5 set, one pointed at center of cello, clarinet, piano and the other at the 3 stingers 2-3ft back

Would something like this give me phase issues?

My original and current plan for recording this is to do spots of each performer + stereo ORTF. In post I’d mix in spots if some of the performers need more presence.

Curious to hear if a more minimal dual stereo pair approach could work to reduce microphone clutter.

Thanks again

Go easy on me, I'm a bit of a noob with regards to recording.

How to record two (somewhat) isolated vocal tracks separately during band practice?

Every now and then, I like to make a live recording of a few songs. I usually just use a few portable mics (zoom h2n) placed around the room and to be honest I have had decent results. But the thing that bugs me is not being able to edit the vocals (pitch correction, EQing, panning etc).

So here's what I want to do...but have never tried it so have no idea if it'll work. I want to record the band as I always did before. But have the vocal mics go direct into a Zoom r16 multi track recorder. I know the vocal mics will still pick up noise from the rest of the band, but I'm ok with that. We're not trying to make a professional recording. However, the R16 is not my unit and I have never even laid my hands on it before (it belongs or our bass player who bought it about a decade ago and never once took it out the box lol).

So this is the question, does the R16 have direct monitoring? I've looked at pictures of it, and it seems to have 1 phones out, and 2 outputs. I assume they can be used for immediate direct monitoring? I.E when the singers sing, they can hear themselves like they would normally, but through phones?

Second question, there's only 1 phones out. So would I need to use a little splitter in order to plug two headphones into the phones out? Or could I simply plug two phones into the two outs? This kind of depends on the answer to the first question, I guess.

My mother is a pastor at a local church and is searching for a specific type of microphone headset for her sabbaths, she has a lot of hair and a bigger head and had used something she says looked like the Sennheiser XSW 1 ME3, but had a rigid plastic head band instead, she says the head band was thick like the one that comes with the Sennheiser and she liked that for the comfort and because it wouldn't get tangled in her hair, but believes it was a different brand. Any idea, or something similar?

I got the Core with Sonoma and Zuma included a few months back and love it. I am trying to decide if it is worth it to get Platinum or just the cream of the crop.

I definitely want the cellphone and Mike Dean pack. Any thoughts are appreciated!

So here’s my situation: a year and a half ago I moved to LA and wanted to become an engineer. My dream is to be able to sustain myself through only mixing work but that’s very unrealistic so obviously I’m doing some recording/editing work too. At the end of this summer I decided the life was too unstable and unpredictable for me so I moved back to Europe. In the last few weeks I’ve been getting loads of requests from people I’ve worked with asking me to come back to LA to work on their projects or whatever, but I know that when I was there those people didn’t necessarily need me as there’s so many engineers.

The only way I would consider moving back is if I’m able to get a job there (full time I assume would make it impossible to work enough on music, but part time jobs are generally shit work and not anything I’m interested in) and work on audio stuff on the side or whenever I’m needed.

So I’m looking for any advice from anyone who’s been in a similar situation, any part time or full time job suggestions, is it even possible or should I just let it go, and anything else!

the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1n-0jiw9yY

working on Logic specifically. any good plugin tips to get close?

I have noise-induced tinnitus in one of my ears. I recently invested into ACS pro26 custom molded plugs. They fit really nice, it feels like I’m wearing nothing at all, no irritation, no anything. I went to a concert with them for the first time tonight and damn it was still really loud! All I’ve used before were snr30 foam plugs which made me feel isolated but "safer". The music sounded super nice and clear, but there were moments where I was anxious whether it’s not too loud still, and after the show I feel a bit overwhelmed with noise but nothing is muffled. Do they fit good? Is it supposed to be this good while being safe?

Just got an ad of them comparing one of their microphone models to an SM7B and it sounded a bit clearer, more pushed in the mids. Not too bad I suppose, but who knows what marketing says right? Maybe a bit more distorted but could be nice?

Does any of you have some experience with their products? This ad was about the LCT 440.

Btw I'm not affiliated with them and obviously I don't have their mic. Just wondering if any of u have used it.

Just saying. Sounds killer! It helps that the band is tighter than a rusted nut.

I got a chance to mix the movie it will be played in theaters but I wonder if the entire movie is mix in Stereo will the subwoofer active because my understanding is that if the sound is in Stereo it will only play through the top left-right speakers. Thank You

Hello everyone!

This Friday finally the UMIK-1 mic and the miniDSP DDRC-24 arrived in my mail, so it was time to spend the weekend to measure my newly purchased hi-fi system.

My speakers are a pair of Q Acoustics 5040, placed in this listening area. I did a couple measurements without Dirac, and this is the result.

Later on, I did play with Dirac, at first equalising the whole frequency range. The sound became very neutral and dry (is that normal?) and is something I did not particularly like, so I decided only to equalise the range from 20 to 320Hz. This is the result with the Dirac processing.

Finally, these are the measurements for the RT60.

Is it something that you would be happy with if it was your system?

I know that reflections can be better treated and that's on the list, but what about the frequency response? There's a big dip in the 47Hz area for the right speaker that even Dirac wasn't able to handle. Could it be because the right speaker is pointing towards an area which hasn't a closed wall in front of it as shown here?

Any suggestions are welcome and I would like to thank you all for reading this far 🫡

Im currently using 2 mics in my set up im using two AKG p170s and i think they sound alright together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKHPXlnTwSw&ab_channel=VelvetMidnight . Im looking for any general advice on how to make good sounding mixes using just this simple set up. Maybe with less bleeding? thanks for any advice.

I’ve been using a lot of outboard gear at studios lately: LA2A’s, distressors, 1176’s etc… and I like the UAudio emulations of them. But instead of buying a bunch of emulation plugins I’ve been wondering how an all around plugin would compare to it? What’s your go-to compressor plugin and is there one that rivals outboard gear?

EDIT: thanks for all the responses!