Mix & Master Blog

I'm a sucker for all in one mixing and mastering plugins. So when the Brainworx Masterdesk came out, I was one of the first to download the trial. This plugin is an all in one Mastering chain. I think its geared towards the home studio owner who needs to polish off a...

Working in the music business can bring its fair share of ups and downs. I need more than one hand to count the times I wanted to give up. However, the love of music has always won out.  If your going through one of those periods or wanting to give up, here are 25...

Mixing your song can be an overwhelming challenge. It's hard to know where to start. Should you mix the drums first or start with the vocals? What effects should you put on?? Ugh! I think it's best to try a minimalist approach. The less plugin and...

Plugins. Plugins, Plugins.... So many to choose from these days, I can't even keep track! However, I seem to always come back to a few workhorses over and over again. The Fab Filter ProQ is an all-time favorite, as well as the UAD 1176. ( Or any 1176 plug for that...

As many of you know, I am a big fan of Acustica Audio's Plugins. So, of course, I had to review the Water plugin. The Water plugin is an emulation of the German WSW (Wiener Schwachstrom Werke) equalizer and compressor. It was the Austrian branch of Siemens Audio. It's...

Have you heard about the vocal barbeque? We need it brighter, more air! Those vocals need to cut through!! Deep fry those vox tracks!! Nowadays in popular music, the vocals are bright, trebly, and the most in dominating part of the song. But how do we get such a...

Acustica Audio's Ruby is an emulation of the D.W. Fearn VT-5. According to their website, the equalizer uses passive LC circuitry with class-A triode vacuum tube stages for the input and output. I found this EQ to be super musical and loved the...

The Trinnov ST2 Pro and Sonarworks are both room correction equalizers. The Trinnov ST2 comes as a piece of hardware whereas Sonarworks works on your host computer. They both are great products but the Trinnov costs about $5000 more than the...

We all know that I am a super fan of Presonus Studio One. ( You can see the reason I switched from Pro Toos to Studio One Here.) So when they released Studio One 4, I was like a kid waiting for Christmas. But after it was released, I felt like the kid who didn't get...

The Pultec EQP-1A is quite possibly one of the most used EQ's in history and for good reason. The Pultec EQP-1A has a character and a touch of class that will leave your source material sounding super expensive and well...better than before. I use the Pultec plugin...

Making a mono instrument stereo can help add new dimensions to any song. It can be guitars, keyboards or even percussion instruments. In mastering a common technique is to widen the side information to make the overall mix sound bigger and larger than life. Two of my...

Acustica Audio Cream is an amazing plugin. It gives the classic console sound that was made famous at studios such as Abby Road's back in the 1960's and 1970's. This is a great plugin to use for both mixing and mastering. The plugins divided into 3 sections: The...

Mastering Parallel Compression in Studio One: A Professional's Guide Introduction Hello, I'm Matty, a professional mixing and mastering engineer with years of experience in the music industry. Today, I want to share with you an essential technique that can transform...

Sometimes adding a bit of distortion can really help your drums pop out of a mix. I like to use Soundtoys Decapitator quite a bit. It can be a game changer on the snare drum. I also like to use it on parallel compression chain. I will send the kick and snare to a bus...

Everyone always thinks that louder is better. It's not always the case but you do need to have your song loud enough to compete with songs on the radio. Most people use a limiter. But using a limiter alone can make your song sound squashed. I use the technique of...

Switching from Pro Tools to Studio One can be a big change. Make it a little easier on yourself with the tips in the video below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1o4fR6PRDM&feature=youtu.be

Digital delay is one of my most favorite effects. You can do so much with it! From light slaps to huge distorted delays that can change the energy of a song. In this post, I show you my 3 favorite delays. The Manny Marroquin Delay, the Relayer and the Echoboy. All...

I love learning about music, and I find all kinds of great info from different sites around the world. I thought it might be useful to share some, so here is the great list! http://www.pensadosplace.tv/ -This is the show created by world famous mixing engineer Dave...

Summing is something that is highly debated in most pro audio circles. I personally like it and choose to use the SSL Sigma. To me, it adds a little more width and a high-end extension that makes the music sound a little more "expensive".  In this tutorial, I will go...

I was recently at the AES convention in NYC and I got to see all the new plugins and gear that is coming out. I saw a ton of amazing stuff, but the new plugins from IK Multimedia really sparked my interest. They have some great new mastering plugins that I found super...

Most of us know Antares for their Auto-tune plugin. However, they also make a bunch of other really useful and creative plugs! One of them being the Harmony Engine. You can hear the effect on many of Travis Scott and Kanye's songs, but it's also used subtly in many...

This is the first video in a series of mixing fundamentals. We will be going over some basic concepts to help you get your mixes better. The first one is on Loading and labeling files. We are using Studio One but you can apply it to and DAW. Check it out!...

  Times have changed, and many of us are now creating music from home. We all have the opportunity to tinker with the song as we create it. For example, you can add reverb to your snare drum with a click of a button. So as the song evolves more and more "mixing"...

The next installment in our mixing fundamentals series is gain staging. Gain staging is simple. When done correctly it will give you more headroom to work with when mixing and mastering. Our session is loaded up and ready. All sounds are in there place, labeled, color...

I must say that Jaycen Joshua is one of my favorite mixing engineers. I have learned a lot from listening to his mixes as well as watching him on Pensado's Place. In his current interview on Pendsado's Place, he talked about the vocal chain he used on The Weeknd for...