Recording Tips and Techniques

Say Hello To Ableton Session Controller

April 21, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

It’s not every day you come across a hardware controller for Ableton Live that can do things no other controller can handle well. That’s what we’ve discovered with the rather cool, wooden Ableton Session Controller created by Sté Thunus.

The Ableton Session Controller focuses on the selected channel in Live and follows it, ensuring an efficient workflow as no mapping or bank-shifting is needed. It targets mixing/mastering and editing. The EQ and Dynamic Units also follow the mouse to recognize and auto-map their 52 parameters to stock, VST and Audio Unit plug-ins.

5 Tips to Save on Recording Costs for Your Band

April 16, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

Getting high-quality recordings can easily get expensive. With studio production, studio time, mixing, mastering, and other expenses involved in the process, things can easily push your costs into the high thousands if you aren’t careful about how you use your time.

First is to program your drums. Depending on the sound you want for your drums, programming them in advance with tools like EZ Drummer or Superior Drummer can easily save hours of time in the studio over recording live drums. Not only that, but it can also save time on the mixing and mastering end.

How to use automation in Cubase

April 15, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

Automation is one of the features that make DAWs such powerful music-making tools, with much more creative potential than basic mixer control. Automation can be added to a number of different track types: audio, MIDI, instrument, group, effect, sampler, and VCA.

Deciding when, where, and how to apply automation isn’t always easy. Also, when working with tracks that already contain automation, it becomes too easy to get muddled over which parameters are being automated. An automation curve is tied to its track and the timeline, not to the parts on the track, and this can create problems.

Avoid the ‘Loudness Penalty’ with MeterPlugs’ latest plug-in

April 14, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

MeterPlugs has released a plug-in version of its Loudness Penalty web tool, offering a more convenient way to optimize music shared online. The plug-in, when accessed from your DAW, lets you know how much your track will be reduced by the likes of YouTube, Spotify, Tidal, Pandora and Apple’s Sound Check.

If your track is mastered at too high a level, online streaming services will reduce the playback level so the listener does not experience marked changes in loudness from track to track. This reduction is termed by MeterPlugs as a “Loudness Penalty”, and varies between streaming services.

Mixing Music 101: The 8 Steps to a Radio-Ready Sound

April 11, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

Irritated that the songs you’re cooking up in your home studio just aren’t sounding that good? You need to learn the art of mixing. And you don’t need an expensive studio to do it.

To make your song ready for the radio, you need to learn how to mix it. Mixing is the process of using tools like volume faders, compressors, EQs, and reverbs to make the individual tracks of a song sound balanced and emotional. In other words, mixing is the process of making your recordings sound like a song instead of a collection of raw tracks.

Read more about this here: https://www.musicianonamission.com/mixing-music/