Older, slower computers are still useful as virtual-instrument hosts, file servers, CD burners, and office machines. Electronic Musician takes a look at those tasks as well as how to time-synchronize, network, and remote control multiple computers in your studio. ...
Steinberg’s Cubase SX 2.0 is loaded with features. This Electronic Musician Master Class explores the nooks and crannies of Cubase’s feature set for tips to facilitate your music production....
Electronic Musician’s interview with Neal Pogue, the Grammy-winning mix engineer behind OutKast’s mega-hit "Hey Ya" talks about his mixing methods and philosophies....
The 26 DSP plug-ins in the Waves Platinum bundle offer much more than EQ, compression, and reverb. Here’s how to go beyond the basics and get a handle on some of Waves’ more esoteric processors....
Eliminate the tools you don’t use, learn the ones you do, and schedule regular studio maintenance sessions. A studio pro offers tips for simplifying your studio and preparing for work in order to maximize your musical creativity....
Practical advice for recording drum kits. It breaks the process down into four component parts—the drummer, the drums, the recording room, and the recording gear—and shows you how to maximize each of them to improve your overall results....
In recent years, people have used images of electronic and digital signals to examine their music. This column will give an overview of some of the "microscopes" that are commonly used for looking at music today....
Turn your tracks into cash with music and sample libraries. Music libraries and sample libraries are always looking for new material. You can easily write and produce tracks for these libraries in your project studio....
In this Electronic Musician feature, three pro engineer-producer-musicians who’ve recorded artists ranging from Tower of Power to Dwight Yoakam to Santana, give you the lowdown on getting great electric bass sounds. They’ll talk about the gear they like to use, how they like to set it, and the specific signal chains they employ when tracking bass. ...
Editing has been a part of music production for 50 years, but the advent of ubiquitous non-linear hard-disc editing has changed the face of music, for better and for worse. Systems like Nuendo, Pro Tools, SAW, and every other DAW give us unprecedented speed, accuracy, and flexibility in editing audio. We can fix mistakes, adjust timing, clean up recording flaws, experiment with rearranging the sections of our songs, and generally fly things around and chop them up in unexpected ways. In this article, we’ll examine a host of editing techniques that you can use to change and improve your music production....
EM looks at karaoke disc production, a fast-growing and potentially profitable business for small recording studios. Besides creating vocal backing tracks, making a karaoke disc requires specialized hardware for burning the CD+G format to disc and software for syncing music, text, and graphics files....
Choosing a digital audio workstation requires careful preparation. Electronic Musician walks you step-by-step through the process of choosing the right computer and software. ...
Tips and strategies from Electronic Musician for getting the most from your drum tracks in the mix. Covers subjects like planning for the mix, 3-D mixing techniques, panning strategies, equalization and compression, and more....
When studio clients cancel sessions at the last minute, the personal studio owner is the one who is cheated out of the money to be made at the session. Clients that don’t pay their bills likewise negatively affect the personal studio owner’s cash flow. Learn how to set up booking policies and billing policies, including deposits on sessions, that let your clients know the rules up front and protect you from losing valuable session time and money....
In this Electronic Musician cover story, three top engineers—Dave Pensado, Roger Nichols, and Tim Palmer—share their advice and philosophies on the subject of mixing. Topics covered include how to get a mix started, how much to take rough mixes into account, how to avoid over-correcting a mix, how best to monitor a mix, how you know when the mix is finished and much more....
If you’ve never used the MIDI features of your multitrack recorder, you’ve come to the right place. In this column we’ll explore how a computer (or a standalone workstation) records and plays MIDI data. We’ll also discuss the main ways in which you can edit the data to clean up and personalize your recordings....
Recording dialog for multimedia, video games, documentaries, and local filmmakers is a terrific way to get some paying work into your project studio. You don't need large amounts of great gear, just a few choice pieces and a decent-sounding recording space. EM delves into the how-tos of capturing the spoken word....
This column from Electronic Musician explains a number of unconventional, but effective methods for recording acoustic guitar, including using dynamic mics, mini-condensers, magnetic pickups, pickup and mic combinations, and more....
Electronic Musician’s interview with Grammy Award-winning producer and engineer Frank Filipetti covers a wide range of subjects including miking drum kits, the difference between “good” and “bad” leakage, using polar patterns to your advantage, and much more....
The most famous talking computer of all time, the HAL 9000 from Arthur C. Clark and Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, spoke perfect English....
