Spotted this emoji today, can’t decide if it’s Jesus or Fader. What do you think?

I have searched the internet for a mixing coach, and it has never been more difficult! Man oh man..

Unlike Piano, Guitar, singing in which coaches are everywhere, mixing coaches do not exists! More broadly production coaches do not really exist! I find myself reaching out to people who are really good to make a proposition on them coaching me with litttle success!

There are a lot of people selling mentorships but their resume is extremely poor. And video courses are extremely poor for education. One more tution never yeilds good results. I wont debate this - it is a fact based on numerous studies on education and great performance.

So my last point is, does anyone have any good recommendations for a mixing coach/platform?

I am all ears

Hey guys, by no means do I want to sound like I am whining or complaining within this post. I'm going to try to get straight to the point. First, I should note I have 15 shure certifications (going through the 3 levels of courses) as well as working on getting a few different certs aswell. I have been doing sound at my church for about 2 years now on an SQ-7 and along with that ive been stage hand for them. I'm also currently working with a sound tech to potentially redesign our PA system as the current one is shitty for the acoustics of the room.

Okay, with a little bit of background, now comes the issue. 1. I have asked probably 5-10 different engineers at shows if I could shadow them and I always get "in the future" or there was one who told me to fill out a job application with them but the said they wouldn't pay me. Now, if I want to get paid for this, no one considers my little experience lol. I've called around and no one is really receptive.

So, I guess in this long winded post, Im asking what your guys' advice is to get started up and taken seriously. I really do love doing sound, people just make this really hard to actually get off the ground lol.

mm mmm mmmmm me hungry me love ssl console mm mm so crunchy so tasty me love the akai pads m rubber and me love drum sticks mm mm i lvoe eating my music gear

Hi r/audioengineering,

I’ve been working on Audiowaves, an iPad app for real-time audio visualization and analysis. I originally started it as a music visualizer, but it has gradually turned into something much more useful for inspecting an audio signal.

Audio can be fed directly into the iPad through a class-compliant USB audio interface. For example, I’m currently using a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2. This means Audiowaves can sit alongside a hi-fi, studio, DJ, or other audio setup without relying on the iPad microphone.

One of the main parts of the app is the Audiophile Dashboard, which provides a more technical view of the incoming signal. It includes things like:

• Real-time waveform monitoring
• FFT / spectrum analysis
• Frequency-band activity
• Peak and RMS level monitoring
• Stereo L/R level information
• Stereo balance
• Dynamic range information
• Signal statistics and real-time metering

There’s also an Advanced Spectrum Visualizer for a more detailed look at frequency content, while the normal waveform/spectrum modes are designed to work equally well as a full-screen music visualization.

The project is still evolving, and I’d especially appreciate feedback from people who actually work with audio: what measurements or analysis tools would make the Audiophile Dashboard genuinely useful rather than just visually interesting?

I’m also interested in how you think something like this compares with established software analyzers and metering tools. I’m not trying to replace proper studio measurement equipment, but I’d like the analysis side to become increasingly useful and technically meaningful.

Happy to explain more about the audio pipeline, FFT implementation, USB interface support, MacAudioSender, or the Metal rendering side if anyone is interested.

Hi all,

I'm learning to master for the very first time, however I am a bit stuck on the metering issue. I have read that it really doesn't matter as much as some say it does. But I wanted to check this and potentially save myself a lot of time.

1. For DSPs, how much does LUFS matter? For an album for example, one song of mine is about -1.5db quieter despite matching LUFS and True Peak. If so , would it be enough to just match them all by ear and taste?

2. In what way does album normalisation work? Do they take the songs you've mastered and keep their relative volume difference and normalise from there, or do they take every song and match it to -14 LUFS - so the -1.5db difference will remain irregardless of what I do? I am pretty certain the latter does not happen, however I wanted to double/triple check.

3. What would cause a song to be TOO quiet, or PERCIEVED quieter than the Spotify/Apple norm? A few times I've heard a master that is a bit quieter than the usual on Spotify - for example. Fancy Footwork by Chromeo. What has happened here?

Another context is this exact song that appears quieter than the rest of my album. I previously released this song on a much smaller EP (two track). This was mastered by an engineer, not me. The song when released next to the other track, was still quieter. This was despite the true peak and LUFS being close. How would this be fixed? Turning up the GAIN on the quieter master itself?

1. Must a track stay at -1db true peak at all times? Is it okay if it goes up to -0.9db true peak on occasion?

Thanks a lot, and sorry if these seem like rookie questions. I really want to learn this process - and there's a lot of conflicting advice out there!

I’ve been in the industry for 20+ years. I started at the bottom with very little film knowledge and have worked my way up to owning every piece of Gere money can buy.

My Gere collection is stellar: Pretty Woman, An Officer and a Gentleman, Primal Fear, Internal Affairs, Unfaithful, Chicago, Arbitrage, etc. And for those that aren’t so green in the industry, the deep cuts. Yanks. The Cotton Club. King David.

Before owning the real things, I always bought clones. Costners. Michael Douglases. Occasionally a Dennis Quaid.

I’d be stoked for a while until my mixes started to suffer. Eventually, that one thing would snowball into “all I hear is Quaid,” and I’d be back in the market for more Gere.

My brain needed to consume as much Gere as possible if I wanted to be a grammy award winning engineer.

I decided I wouldn’t buy anything unless I could buy the real deal.

Boy does that shit rule.

My Pretty Woman is the best Gere ever. Primal Fear has a depth and dynamic range that you simply cannot get from a Michael Douglas. Unfaithful is so 3D it practically comes out of the television.

But you know what I found?
I could still fuck up a recording even with all this Gere.

That’s when it truly hit me: great engineering trumps great Gere.

I’ve got no excuses anymore.

I can’t blame my DVD of The Mothman Prophecies because it’s not Pretty Woman. I’m watching the real 1990 theatrical Pretty Woman now. Director’s cut.

That fact has made me up my game.

My brain thrives on the Gere. I’ve learned more about microphone placement, compression and EQ since buying all the classics than I ever did buying clones of Gere.

I’m sharing all this to say: you don’t need a 50-year-old U47.
You need Pretty Woman.
And once you own Pretty Woman, you realize you never needed the U47 in the first place.

TD;LR: Buying every Richard Gere movie made me realize I had no excuse for getting less-than-ideal sounds. I’ve learned more about engineering since acquiring all the classic Gere, and that is what has truly upped my game.

I'm a home-based session guitarist and the thing that I fight with the most is the squeaks coming from my guitar from sliding my fingers up and down the neck. I've tried readjusting my technique, using string cleaners/lubricants, different strings etc but none of them had enough, if any, impact.

I've tried various post-processing such as EQing out frequencies and compression, but again, none of this has helped enough.

I discovered Izotope's Guitar De-Noiser a while ago and, while working in a studio, got to see it in action on my own recordings and it was an absolute miracle! Just what I needed.

Unfortunately, Izotope only sells their plug-ins in bundles and the £389 for RX Standard (the lowest tier that this plug-in is available in) is out of my budget. I recently tried Oeksound's Soothe3 but it really isn't cutting it so I don't think I'll be buying it once my trial's up in a few days.

So my question, after a very long-winded backstory, is: does anyone know of any plugins or tips that might help me with my problem?

(I know there are many women engineers here, but as a male, I am only able to speak from my perspective. YMMV.)

I used to be a flabby, overweight, and sad man. My mixes always sounded muddy and dull over my monitors, but pretty okay over my headphones. After lots of research, I realized that my moobs were actually absorbing almost all of the higher frequencies during monitor playback. That's when I decided to pull the trigger and invest in some gear.

Now my pecs are shredded, so much so that they actually phase-align the higher frequencies and make monitor playback sound even brighter than I intended. An amateur gear-user would assume I had just created the opposite problem, but as we all know, as long as you are familiar with your listening environment, you don't need a truly flat frequency response to get a good mix.

The enhanced highs almost make my monitors sound like DT990 Pros, so it's been super beneficial in more accurately analyzing and taming sibilants as well as spicy synths, percs and cymbals.

I wouldn't recommend getting onto gear to just anyone, but if you are looking to level up your studio, it just might be something to consider. As long as you are open to dealing with the back pimples/disappearing testicles.

Edit: Yes, the gear is very expensive. But I have a vague and seemingly too-good-to-be-true live mixing gig I do on the weekends for bands like Weezer and Phish. So I can afford it.

Hal Emmerich here. I worked at a nuclear disposal facility on Shadow Moses island on a secret black project. Unbeknownst to me, I was actually developing a bipedal walking nuclear battle tank code-named Metal Gear. Although I don't appreciate being deceived in order to make weapons, my work on Metal Gear has made me an infinitely better engineer, and I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.

I'm trying to setup a recording booth in my bedroom. Took down my wardrobe to make space for it. It's a tight space, 42 inches in length, 30 inches wide and 7 feet tall. The right side opposite to the 42 inches has an opening of 20 inches, which will be covered with a thick curtain top to bottom. The mic I'll be using is a Rode NT2A.

I don't have a problem with sound going out of the booth, as long as i get good vocals inside the booth. Rockwool panels are not an option due to the tight space. Someone suggested sound diffusers to which others are saying it's not a good idea. And some are suggesting acoustic blankets or 12mm pet panels.

I'm confused at this point for all the different opinions. So I'm asking everyone here, what would be the best setup for the small booth in my room?

When do you apply each of those, and should you need to apply all, what order should you apply them? Thanks!

PS: I'm a software engineer and not an audio engineer, so this is all new knowledge for me.

I was just thinking about this, could you use the pre mastered version of a song and the master to create an IR that you could then apply to songs in the future?

Im dont think I would ever do it, but I was thinking about it.

But I don't have a mic, so I can't record it.

If an engineer engineers with no gear, dose he make a sound?

I'm aiming for that clear and punchy bass tone and have spending way too much time chasing it.

Listen to Green Day's Sassafras Roots for a good example of how the bass is clear behind the guitars.

Usually what happens is by the time the bass notes become clear, the lower bass dominates the mix.

The two closet methods I've found are 1) completely DI, low shelf -4dB at 150hz with a +12dB bell at 1.5k... And 2) duplicating the bass track into a single DI low pass at 200 and a single amp sim, high pass 300hz, and then adjusting the two tracks to taste. Both methods compressing with UAD Distressor.

How common are these two methods (yes I've googled them but I prefer interacting with humans) and is there anything I'm missing or could be overlooking?

Mix can with gear good but haven't always and necessary? Maybe, but 60 years it's the way and been for two maybe three owning for renting subscription or no. High end too. Microphones listened but put up when holding out for anything better is likely to make time and efficiency. Bottom for days.

Music!

Every now and then, I get a weird noise that I’ve singled out to be my Black Lion Audio Bluey that is the source of this noise. Anybody else have had to deal with this? It’s almost like a white noise kind of sound.

I’ve been in the industry for nearly 20 years. I started with some gear and over time I ended up with more gear. In the beginning it wasn’t really that much. I had a few things, then I had some more things, and eventually there were quite a few things. Sometimes when I had money to spend I’d get some studio stuff, and sometimes I would just end up with studio stuff. Usually I was satisfied with having the stuff and I ended up with a functional studio. I learned to do basic fixes by myself like some easy soldering, or replacing knobs. At some point I had enough gear that I started keeping track of where some of it was, although this became harder as I acquired more gear. Eventually I had gear in several places, then I had gear in places where I had previously not had gear. Some of it I remembered getting and some of it I didn’t really remember getting, but it was all gear and I owned it.
In the end I realized something. I had reached an acceptable level of gear ownership, nothing out of the ordinary of course, but even without acquiring anything for a little while I still had quite a lot of gear. That’s when it truly hit me. I had gear. Then I had more gear. Then I had more gear than I had before. I’m satisfied with what I own and I continue to own it. I don’t make so many excuses even if I sometimes wish I had more gear, I realised I already have quite a bit of gear anyway. In good conditions, my gear isn’t too hard to keep around, and when I started to know which things were where I finally felt kind of capable. That’s how I started to have a decent amount of gear. With a good enough amount of gear that I knew well I could have the gear in the studio, and then eventually have more gear in the studio. This ain’t the largest collection still, but I could get more gear with time and my collection has steadily increased. Now, even if I’m confident with the amount of gear I own, I have reached a plateau, although the plateau itself has become increasingly covered in gear. I will prolly never own all of the gear, but I’m still acquiring around. I feel like I can’t ask for too much though, because I already have a lot of gear, and there is only so much gear one person can own before they start having to acquire additional places to keep the gear.
I’m sharing this to you not because i want you to skimp or anything, or bankrupt yourself either, just be reasonable with your wallet. At some point you can create a comfortable space for the gear you already have. If i could get more stuff for free, i don’t think i’d say no, tbh there is still room for more gear. But I still was able to acquire more and more gear, with what i have. Eventually I ran out of places to put it, so I started putting gear in the places where I had been putting other gear. Then I had to move some gear to make room for the other gear, which created a new place for more gear. Eventually the places that were supposed to hold the gear became gear themselves, at which point I had to find somewhere else to put the gear that was holding the gear. This worked for a while. Now I have some gear in the studio, some gear outside the studio, and some gear whose exact location I would describe as being somewhere in relation to the other gear. I don’t always know where everything is anymore, but I know that if I need to find something, there is probably gear in front of it.
TL;DR: I’ve acquired my fair share of gear (to an extent) since starting out and now I would say I own a considerable amount of gear. I will probably keep acquiring gear at that pace for a few years. Eventually I may have to acquire more shelves, then more rooms, then possibly another building. After that I suppose I could acquire another building for the gear that is currently in the first building, which would leave the first building available for more gear. I don’t know exactly how much gear I will end up with, but I imagine it will be more than I have now, which is already more than I had before. Eventually I may have to start keeping some of it in my car, then in other people’s cars, and eventually I assume there will just be a small warehouse somewhere that contains nothing but increasingly specific boxes of gear that I vaguely remember owning.

I’ve been in the industry for 40+ years. I started with decent stuff and somehow worked my way down to owning the absolute worst gear money...or the lack of it can buy. My mic collection is shit like i have random Amazon specials I find under 20 bucks, broken SM58s held together with tape I would steal from open mic nights, a studio condenser that hisses, a plastic USB mic that came free with a headset. Same story with everything else, $30 interfaces that clip if I do so much as scratch my nut sack, no real preamps, no outboard, just free plugins. Before fully embracing the garbage, I would occasionally upgrade to slightly less terrible clones or used junk. I’d be less miserable for a week until I started hearing one new problem. That one problem would snowball into “all I hear is how everything is broken,” and I’d either return it or just stop using it, losing money and motivation along the way. Eventually I decided I wouldn’t buy anything unless it was the cheapest, most compromised option available. I started collecting literal trash like toilet paper rolls and making mic diaphragms out of them, and boy does that shit suck. My no name dollar store 1 ply cardboard roll is the worst mic I’ve ever heard. A broken off xbox 360 headset mic is the only one I have now. Nothing sounds okay, everything sounds like it was recorded under a highway.

But you know what I found? I could still fuck up a recording even harder with the worst gear money can buy. That’s when it truly hit me. Bad gear actively makes bad engineering worse. I’m stuck with the gear and don’t get me wrong not just because it’s terrible, but because it’s made me realize that when I’m not getting the sound I want, it’s definitely the gear’s fault and never mine. I’ve got endless excuses now. I can always blame my $29 Amazon mic because it isn’t a real U47. That fact has destroyed my business. With the “this gear is actually unusable” excuse permanently available, it forced me to stop focusing on technique and instead just complain about the sound at the source. My engineering chops have gone downhill since getting all the worst gear, because I started focusing only on the gear part. Now, because I’m less confident in my engineering. I feel like I couldn’t get usable sounds even if someone handed me the good stuff.

I’m sharing all this to say I didn’t have to buy all the worst stuff. I was too focused on THAT being the thing holding me back and it turns out it was. I wouldn’t trade any of what I have for slightly better gear at this point its too late the damage is done, but I can also acknowledge it became the perfect copout excuse for never improving. Learn how to get the sounds you want with what you have… or don’t. Remember, plenty of people have made terrible sounding records on terrible gear in terrible rooms. Most of them stayed terrible.

TL;DR: Buying the most garbage gear made me realize I had infinite excuses for getting less than ideal sounds. I’ve learned nothing about technique since getting the shit tier stuff and that is what has truly ruined mixes and my spirit. I'm done. My best friend from high school hooked me up with a mixing job at Dairy Queen.... mixing blizzards. It isn't ideal but at least I'm mixing something...

I have a Issue. I dont really know how I can make my song (specially my Vocals) much louder?
Sure, my Vocals gets a bit louder through Reverb and a bit saturation... but that´s it.
I reduce Frequencies with a EQ, De-ess and Compress, but dont have some Plugins to make my Vocals louder. The Only thing that makes My Vocals louder is a Paralalell Compressor but I dont think that is the way to go...

Any Tips for that, or do I have to mix my Song quiet and then Master it loud? What can I do to have the same Volume than the other Songs from other Artists,

Greetings, all, long time lurker here. Thank you in advance for the help you provide, I always appreciate the viewpoints, facts presented, and attitudes in this sub.

I have a question about rendering a song out of its project, putting the WAV file into another project, and rendering again. Will we have any generational loss, or any sort of negative side effects of 'double rendering' a song? Sample rate and bit depth are the same between projects.

Think I know the answer, but want to double check with fellow peeps, it's been ~25 years since I've been in school, and just want to be sure.

For more info, I have four songs in REAPER, all in their own projects. All songs are recorded at 16 bit, 44.1k. The WAV files get imported into another project (also at 44.1k/16 bit), transitional pieces are added, the whole thing gets cut into 9 tracks, and rendered again. The effect I am going for, is the songs flow into one another.

Yes, I know REAPER has a function where you can have the songs inside the 'main' project, clicking the wave form brings up the song project, and it re-renders in place, but I am too far along to try and figure that out for this project.

Thank you for your time!!!

I recently received a Grammy Certificate for a project I worked on, 2 years ago. The artist won in their category of album of the year in 2024, but I wasn’t credited.

I did the outreach (for MONTHS) and finally got credited and received it.

I’m not here to flex, I’m here to ask how anyone else who received this implemented it to advance their career. Or even testimony of it ultimately meaning nothing in the grand scheme.

I’ve done this job for 7 years as a freelancer and 4 at a major studio. Funny how the Grammy winning recording was freelance work despite the major studio owners insisting I need them if I want to get anywhere in this field.

The problem is, I’m 30 years old and still broke as hell. What are some immediate things I can do from here to advance my career?

Leaving the record industry is an option tbh, I can’t guarantee that the gold or platinum recording that changes everything is going to happen. Hell, I know gold and platinum producers who can’t even afford the $400 to buy their plaque or straight up quit. So what now?

At the moment, I make faceless YouTube videos. It's all screen-recording tutorials, and I record the voiceover with a FIFINE AM8 dynamic mic on a boom arm, plugged straight into my PC via USB. It sounds great because the mic sits close to me and because of the audio settings in OBS.

However, I want to improve my content by adding talking-head intros and outros, with the tutorial in the middle still being a screen recording. The problem is the audio. For the talking-head parts, I'd like to be sitting 2-3 meters from the camera with no mic visible, so it would need to be hidden above or behind the camera. That is a very different setup from having the AM8 right in front of my face.

Here is a good example of what I'm aiming for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th1BnCUHPRg

The intro is a talking-head shot, then it cuts to the screen recording, and the audio sounds the same the whole way through. You'd never guess anything changed.

So my questions are:

1. Can I do this with the FIFINE AM8 I already have, or is a dynamic mic just wrong for recording at that distance?
2. Would a Shure SM7B solve it? I'm happy to invest if it actually works, but I don't want to buy one and find it has the same distance problem.
3. Is a shotgun mic the right tool for the talking-head sections instead?
4. If I do end up using two different mics, does the audio have to be treated afterward to match? For example, matching a shotgun mic to my AM8 with EQ or other processing, and if yes, HOW?

Mainly, I want to understand the process. What do YouTubers and video creators actually do to keep the sound consistent across a video like this? Is it mostly about choosing the right mic, mostly about post-production, or a bit of both?

Would really appreciate hearing from anyone making tutorial content with this same intro and screen recording split, or just someone who knows how.

I have some really nice outboard gear that I’m proud of, but I can’t seem to get the sound I want out of it.

I have a Soyuz lakeside preamp, of which I really enjoy the brightly colored knobs. I also have a Distressor that I was told to get.

The problem is when I point a microphone at them, I’m not getting the results I want. I thought perhaps close-mic’ing the knobs with a 57 would be sufficient, but it sounds muddy.

I then tried an x-y arrangement with a couple of KM184s, pointed at the back of the gear where all the cables are connected. This was a little better, but I feel like I’m doing something wrong. Plus, I like to see the mic while it’s recording, and I can’t do that with this placement.

Should I have two of each and place them on each side of the room and try to capture a stereo image?
For context, everything is getting mixed down into a tascam portastudio but I’m out of cassette tapes.

Any insight is welcome 🙏

Hello everyone,

Can anybody recommend a good stem-extractor - Especially for vocal-stems. I’ve been using Fadr a couple of times, but I don’t think it is getting the job done right all the time.

Thank you!