You’re Doing Too Much: Common Mix Mistakes
You’re Doing Too Much: Common Mix Mistakes We are currently in the middle of two weeks of advanced mixing techniques in our most advanced class here at Beat Lab, and it’s amazing how the more we learn about the process the more we keep coming back to the basics. The simplicity of the concepts of proper EQ, compression, and balance can make these tasks appear to be easy and we often feel we have grasped their importance before we really have. We have all been there and every part of this process of creating records from songwriting, to production, to mixing, and mastering is all it’s own endless rabbit hole so don’t be discouraged. If you feel your mixes still aren’t where you want them to be it’s possible all that is missing is the strongest possible foundation. From there there is often little work left to do. More advanced concepts will definitely …
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TC Electronic’s Incredible Mixing and Mastering Tool
TC Electronic’s Incredible Mixing and Mastering Tool A common theme in music production is “ultimately, use your ears”. You’ve probably read that in more than a few of our blog posts, on everything from mixing to recording to sound design. However, as technology keeps advancing at an exponential rate it would be foolish not to use the tools available to our advantage. We recently came across TC Electronic’s Clarity M, a desktop mix and master audio meter with serious precision. From everything we’ve seen so far this piece of hardware is a great complimentary decision maker to your ears, and could save you time in those long sessions when you’ve heard a mix so much you really have no idea exactly what you’re listening to anymore. Out of the gate, the Clarity M comes with stereo and 5.1 audio metering for mixing, mastering, and post production in music …
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Reverb Solo – Add Space to your mix (Free Download)
Reverb Solo- Add Space to Your Mix (Free Download) Reverb Solo is a wonderful sounding free single knob reverb plugin developed by Acon Digital for Reverb.com. It has an incredibly simple design, a single knob and a wet/dry fader. Despite its simplicity it is a great tool for quickly adding some space to your tracks. Reverb.com’s design philosophy was to make a simple reverb plugin that will either make a sound seem close to listener or very far away depending how you adjust the knob.The tone and size are preset but the knob allows you to go from a small bright reverb with a short tail to a large dark reverb with a long tail. The developer. Acon Digital is know for their other high end commercial plugins like Verberate, which combines algorithmic and convolution reverb for a unique sound. Reverb Solo is based on the same algorithm used …
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Free Self Adaptive Limiter from D16 Group – Frontier
Free Self Adaptive Limiter from D16 Group – Frontier Easy, Multi-Purpose and Free Frontier is a new Self Adaptive Limiter from D16 group. It’s a very simple plugin with the same familiar design all D16 plugins share. It is offered as a free download if you have a D16 account (also free). divider style=”clear” A few words from the develeper Multitude of applications “Quality and performance makes Frontier a perfect tool for almost any studio situation. Its simple and clear interface in combination with excellent sound quality will surely be appreciated by any engineer looking for efficient way of controlling dynamics of a channel, bus or even master output. Frontier can be used as very transparent mixing / mastering limiter (at certain settings) with just licking the loudest amplitude peaks, or can be utilized more creatively, as sound shaper, when more extreme settings are at stake.” Self-adaptive “Algorithm for automatic …
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Sterling – Crystal Clear MX Monitors
Sterling – Crystal Clear MX Monitors Daddy Kev, (founder of Low End Theory,) explained at a Beat Lab workshop, that monitor speakers are the greatest and most important tool in mixing and mastering. Sterling recently released a new line of monitor speakers that can greatly enhance your mixes, coming in three different versions, the MX8, MX5, or the MX3, representing the inches of the speakers. Each are equipped with cutting edge technology providing you with crisp and clear sound, offered at very affordable prices. Sterlings advanced dual-axis WaveGuidanceVH™ technology creates an incredibly wide “sweet spot,” giving you a clear, articulate and centered sound even when listening off-axis — horizontally and vertically. A proprietary low-frequency cone design offers superior damping, which minimize sonic artifacts and unnatural resonance, while the 1” silk dome tweeter with neodymium magnet provides a smooth and natural high-frequency response. And MX’s custom, 4-layer voice coil delivers greater motor force for …
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Tokyo Dawn Labs TDR Nova – Free Multi-Function Equalizer
Tokyo Dawn Labs TDR Nova – Free Multi-Function Equalizer Tokyo Dawn Labs has released a free parallel dynamic equalizer called the TDR Nova. Supposedly loosely based of the Nova-67P, (the bedroomproducersblog.com No. 1 freeware plugin pick,) the TDR packs as much of a punch with a cleaner interface. The Nova is capable of extremely precise refining and makes for powerful dynamic processing and is found with preset manager, undo/redo, A/B, detailed documentation, copy & paste, which wasn’t found in previous TDR equalizers. The TDR is in the form of a user friendly drag and drop view which runs alongside knob controls which gives the user clean access to a wide range of parameters allowing for maximum processing control. The TDR Nova covers a range of capabilities from parametric equalization, dynamic equalization, frequency selective compression, to multi-band compression and wide band compression. A PDF manual is available for download for those who aren’t all that …
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