Mastering music is a part of the music production that is concealed in mystery. Moreover, it is the final stage in the music production process. Unfortunately, a lot of musicians fail to recognize how integral proper mastering is. These days, there are mastering plugins and online tools that claim to automatically master music. However, it…… See More
Quantizing In Logic: The Essentials
Quantization automatically corrects the timing of notes in a performance by moving notes that are played a little out of time—referenced to the note values of the musical grid—to the nearest gridline. Quantization can be applied both to MIDI, and also to audio on tracks that have Flex activated. The user chooses the gridline value…… See More
Double Tracking Vocals: 9 Tricks From Recording to Mixing | Sundown Sessions Studio
What is double tracking vocals? It is making your vocalist sing the exact same part of a song on a second track. It is then blended with the main vocal track to elevate its sound. However, this process is both underrated and overrated in the music recording world. Sad to say, there are some who…… See More
Parallel Compression Made Easy
What is Parallel Compression? Well it helps to know what regular compression is first. We’ve written several posts about that here on Home Brew Audio: See Improve Or Ruin Your Audio With an Effect Called Compression, Should You Use Compression In Audio Recording? and Vocal Compression Using Reaper’s ReaComp Effect Plugin. Those last two have videos to help…… See More
5 Tips for Increasing Loudness in a Mix
In mixing and mastering, playback loudness is a constant issue. Commercially released music are notably very loud especially when the EDM scene entered the mainstream market in the late 2000s. Since then, everyone wants their music loud as can be. However, there is a limitation on the playback level. The loudness does not equate with…… See More
In The Studio: Timing The Reverb Delay To The Track
Reverb is added to create width and depth to the track as well as elevate an otherwise boring sound. But just like with the other facets of mixing, it is often overlooked or misunderstood. To effectively apply it, you must know how much to use and how to adjust its various parameters. What are the…… See More
Double Tracking Vocals: Different Approaches for a Richer Mix | Waves
Let’s look into the number of ways you can attain that rich vocal sound in your mix. Layering your lead vocal with doubles can put on thickness, color and lift to the most important element of any song; the lyrics and melody. What is doubling vocals? It is the process of creating additional versions of…… See More
The Standard LUFS Standards Levels Every Mixer Should Know
Mixing requirements used to be so easy during the analog days. You aimed for 0 on the VU meter and didn’t worry too much if it bounced over. Nowadays, there are a lot of distinct meter reference calibrations available and choosing one that suits you consumes a lot of your time. In any circumstance, there’s…… See More
Review: Amadeus Symphonic Orchestra
Would you be interested in a complete sampled orchestra which includes solo instruments, ensemble instruments, ensemble orchestral sections, and a playable full “Symphony” patch for only $149? All of these only take up 10 GB of hard drive space and run in the free Kontakt player that works in any DAW. There are a number…… See More
Sennheiser 416 Shotgun Microphone Review
[This review of the Sennheiser 416 shotgun mic originally appeared here in 2013. But I thought I would update it a bit in the wake of all the microphone reviews I’ve been doing in 2019. I still want one of these, BTW:). But I ended up buying an Electro-Voice RE20 (another one I was reviewing…… See More