Music Recording

5 Great LA-2A Compressor Plugins

May 16, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

Being one of the most popular compressors ever created, the LA-2A has been a favorite amongst engineers for over 50 years. It is highly regarded for its rich, warm tone and smooth, musical compression characteristics. Here, we’ll list down some of the most popular LA-2A emulations to help you choose the best one for you.

The LA-2A was the first compressor to use a tube-driven optical attenuator to achieve gain reduction. Due to the largely automatic nature of the LA-2A, it features very simple controls: Peak-Reduction knob, Gain Control for make-up gain, and a Limit/Compress switch to adjust the compression ratio.

Read more about this here: https://theproaudiofiles.com/la-2a-plugins/

How streaming is changing the way music is produced, and what you can do about it

May 14, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

For the past years, CD sales and digital downloads are going on a downward slope. People mostly listen to songs on streaming platforms. This affects the way musicians produce music hence influences the entire music industry.

Streaming services like Spotify, use an algorithm to determine how far your song goes. With the huge amount of songs uploaded each day, one needs to know how songs are being written, structured, and produced. One tip would be to make your songs shorter. The average length of a song on the Billboard Hot 100 dropped from over four minutes in 2000 to under three minutes and thirty seconds in 2008.

Review: RØDECaster Pro

May 5, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

The RØDECaster Pro is a fully integrated podcast solution that’s versatile, voice-focused, tactile, self-contained and convenient.

If you’ve ever tried to conduct interviews or record multi-host podcast shows, it can be a nightmare to use a standard mixer to route and record it all so that you can mix it all properly.

This device was designed for podcasters, but I can see a clear use case for anyone who conducts multi-person interviews through audio or video.

The back has four XLR inputs in the back for microphones. It also has a USB input/output for your computer, a minijack for a phone, and a screw-lockable power cord.

There’s also a wireless Bluetooth input. For output, there are two 1/4” L/R jacks and four separate labeled 1/4” headphone jacks, each with a separate volume knob. There’s also an unlabeled minijack at the front which can be controlled with the #1 volume knob.

AskAudio did a review of the RØDECaster Pro in more detail here: https://ask.audio/articles/review-rdecaster-pro

5 Great Microphones for Recording Vocals on a Budget

April 25, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

One of the keys of a good vocal performance is making sure your singer is singing into the right microphone. You want a microphone that’ll flatter your vocalist without picking up outside noises or adding unwanted distortion.

When it comes to recording vocals, it’s hard to go wrong with a large diaphragm condenser mic. They typically feature an extended frequency response and promise a really clear and accurate capture of a vocal performance. However, LDCs can also be prohibitively expensive. The Audio-Technica AT2020 cardioid condenser keeps costs low by not packing as many of the frills that more expensive offerings of this type of microphone have.

4 Tips for EQ’ing Acoustic Guitar in a Mix

April 24, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

Methods like Auto-Tune and/or sample replacement aren’t as effective on acoustic guitar as they are when used in other contexts, I find equalization to be a nearly indispensable tool when mixing acoustic guitar.

I’ve mixed plenty of tracks in which the acoustic guitar is intended to be in a place of sonic prominence. In these cases, I’ll try to preserve as much of the frequency spectrum as possible. Alternately, if it’s meant to be a subtle flavor used sparingly, I’ll apply a liberal amount of subtractive EQ or filtering to allow the other elements to command the listener’s attention.

Read more about this here: https://theproaudiofiles.com/eq-acoustic-guitar/