How-To Guides 5
Victory Countess + Gibson Les Paul: A New Take on Classic British Tone
If you’re a guitarist, you know how important it is to pair the right amp with the right guitar, and the time it takes to find the right combination. While there are many guitar/amp pairings that are legendary in many ways, for rock guitarists, there’s one iconic pairing that has stood above many, if not all […]
A Bass DI Might Save Your Mix: Here’s How
In today’s world of recording, there are a million-and-one options for tracking your bass guitar. From “direct-in,” (DI) to amp simulation software, or even traditional miking of a bass cabinet, you’ve got options. Each option has its own pros and cons, so why not limit the cons list and combine two of these techniques into […]
DJ Controllers vs. Standalone DJ Systems
We are going to tackle, in my opinion, one of DJing’s toughest questions: When I upgrade, should I use a standalone unit or a DJ controller? I’m writing this particularly for DJs that are new to the craft or are a couple of years in, and before we start, I’d like to address one thing. […]
Dynamic, Ribbon, and Condenser Microphones
Similar to how an artist’s choice in brushes can widely affect the textures in a painting, different microphone types have the ability to also affect the textures of your recordings in various ways. While there are countless brands and models of microphones, I’d like to focus on three main types used to record music: dynamic, […]
Down to Two Mic Inputs? Use This Technique to Record Your Drums!
Your drum kit is a complicated beast. High and low frequencies collide during every hit, and it’s hard to capture all that complexity when you’re limited by the amount of microphones you can use. Maybe it’s your interface — something like the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 or the Presonus AudioBox iTwo only provides two XLR inputs […]
Creating DJ Edits With Serato Studio
Good news for DJs: Serato Studio has been released and it is an awesome production tool! For this post, rather than go deep into the production side, we will take a closer look at some functional advantages Serato Studio provides. Recently, I’ve been using Serato Studio to make DJ edits/rework, intro edits, and a capella […]
Review: Shure MV7 XLR/USB Hybrid Microphone
When you think of broadcasting and podcasting, one of the first brands to come to mind is Shure. The company was founded in 1925 and is well known for many microphones, such as the Beta 58A, the SM57, and the legendary SM7B. As most of you know, the SM7B is regarded as one of the […]
No Excuses: Four Ways to Record Drums with One Microphone
You’re down to your final input on the audio interface after miking guitar, vocals and bass, but there’s an entire acoustic drum kit you still need to mic. Or maybe your interface only has a single input and you’ve got drum tracks to record, what do you do? That’s easy, you use one microphone. Though […]
Monophonic vs. Polyphonic vs. Paraphonic Synths
Monophonic, polyphonic, paraphonic, what do these confusing and occasionally overlapping terms really mean? There’s no need to be scared of all the jargon — we’re here to give you the lowdown on all that noise! The components inside synthesizers that generate sound are called oscillators. Synths assign oscillators to different notes depending on what keys […]
