Archives for March 2019

The 6 dB of Headroom for Mastering Myth Explained

March 6, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

It’s my belief that the suggestion of having your peaks at -3 dB or -6 dB dates back to the early days of digital audio when mixes were captured on a digital audio tape or on an Alesis MasterLink two-track recorder, for example. You had to be careful not to clip the input which could easily sound bad.

Digital audio has advanced by leaps and bounds since those days so putting too much thought and effort into peaking at -6 dB or -3 dB in your DAW is more or less of a waste of time. It’s essentially all the same.

Recording electric guitar – In practice

March 5, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

This week we retake the recording of electric guitar with the installment you’ve all been waiting for: the recording itself! I will show you a nifty trick I learned during an apprenticeship.

First of all, you need to imagine the sound you want to get for the guitar part your about to record. Think about its texture, its color, and its dynamic character. None of these elements has any scientific basis whatsoever, but having these details in mind when looking for the ideal spot to put a mic will prove incredibly useful, trust me!

Gear of the Year 2018: Product of the Year (Hardware/Software)

March 4, 2019 by Jake Weston Leave a Comment

Universal Audio used to only create products that were geared to successful producers, leaving amateur producers feeling like their products were completely out of reach. This all changes with the Universal Audio Arrow. The Universal Audio Arrow comes equipped with a fast-interfacing system, as well as two different unison mic preamps. It is compatible with the Arrow plugins that provide a signal chain that overpower any other audio system is able to create for production purposes.

Key Takeaways:

Universal Audio Arrow was picked as the best hardware for the year because literally every successful producer was talking about it.
But with the Arrow range of products, one does not need to be a successful producer to use it because it is more simplified.
One can get an exceptional signal chain with Arrow due to the fact that it has onboard about 11 plugins.

“We pick the best hardware and software instruments that came out of 2018.”

A Music Producer's Guide To Quantizing MIDI

March 4, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

It’s a topic that tends to be shoved under the mat a lot. Nobody usually wants to talk about quantizing, as it technically is computer-assisted music. But if you understand how it works, you can save yourself a lot of time getting that track tight and those drums bumping.

If you’ve worked with any DAW for any length of time, you’ll probably note that the grid is very important not only for arrangement but also for timing. In apps like Ableton, grid deviations are usually pretty easy to see. You’ll see beats slightly behind a grid line, or slightly ahead of one.

Podcasters On New TV Show Using Yeti Mic Wrong

March 3, 2019 by Ken 2 Comments

In the new Fox show, Proven Innocent, they frequently show a podcaster speaking into her microphone. That mic is a Blue Yeti.

The Yeti is a good quality USB microphone. So it’s popular with podcasters and other people recording voiceover audio who don’t have a large budget for gear. USB mics don’t require separate interface units like standard large diaphragm condenser mics. So the price is quite low for the quality you get.

The Yeti is also a large diaphragm condenser (LDC) mic. And that type of microphone almost always means you speak into the SIDE of the mic, not the end of it. See the picture below with a standard large diaphragm condenser.

The Yeti Is Not A Standard Shape

I’m confident that the reason for the people on the TV show using the mic wrong is that the Yeti looks a bit different from your typical LDC. As in the picture above, there is at least usually an obvious front and back. that makes it confusing enough. See our video “A VERY Common Voice Recording Mistake – Are You Doing This?“

But the top of the Yeti has an almost spherical shape, so it’s even more confusing. You really need to know already that the Yeti is a “side-address” microphone and NOT an end-address mic to begin with. Once you know that, you can use the fact that the company logo is on one side of the mic and the control knobs are on the other “side.” So yeah, it’s pretty confusing already.

But if you DON’T already know you’re supposed to speak into the side, rather than the end of the Yeti, it would be totally understandable for someone to think the end of the mic was where the sound is supposed to go in. The problem is that is incorrect.

See the pic below from the TV show.

The Blue Yeti website even has a graphic of a Yeti (what else?) with a right and wrong way to talk into this mic. Check that out here: https://www.bluedesigns.com/yeti-support/

What Should It Look Like?

The picture below shows how you are supposed to talk into a Yeti mic

So if you plan on using a Yeti microphone, or plan to start, make sure you speak into the SIDE of it and not the end.