In my job as a producer, recording/mixing/mastering engineer and “teacher of all things music production,” I get to hear a lot of recordings made by other people. Many of them are recordings made for commercial use, as either artist/band releases, or for film and TV...
There has been a lot of talk in our society lately about gender equality and the roles of women and men. As a music producer and engineer, is has been a fascinating experience watching those roles evolve in my industry over the past 35 years. Way Back When When I...
“Hello, what do you do…?” One of the things I find interesting about what I call “self-recording musicians” is how they do (and don’t) introduce themselves and talk about what they do. Most refer to themselves as some combination of songwriter,...
Mastering your homegrown tracks for film and TV use is a different process from mastering them for other purposes like publisher pitching, artist release for CD or streaming, or radio airplay. When mastering (whether doing it yourself, or hiring a professional...
On my weekly live group Q&A call with my Mixing Mastery students last night, we got into a discussion about “what’s the most important thing in a mix.” There were various answers, like getting the balance of all the parts right, or making...
One of the things I notice about amateur vs. pro mixes is that often, the amateur ones sound like they were done seat-of-the-pants, without much cohesiveness. They lack focus and continuity, and things just seem to be arbitrarily placed, rather than having...
