Making a Scene Presents How Compressors Work The best way to learn how to use a compressor is to start by learning how they work. This article is setup to bring you step by step through how a compressor works. I have included some video tutorials along the way that I found to help you […]
Common advice is to “gain stage” your tracks by calibrating them to -18. People often leave out whether they mean -18 dBFS or -18 dBVU, both of which would yield vastly different levels depending on the source material. But why choose a calibration point to begin with? Here’s Matthew Weiss from The Pro Audio Files describing […]
The above video is a quick demonstration of how your signal-to-noise ratio impacts the level of noise your analog modeled plugins will deliver. You may have seen this video floating around Facebook, which is where it was exclusively hosted until now. I thought it was high time to add it to the blog to make […]
HISTORY In the Early days of recording, music was cut directly to a disk from a single microphone. In the studio, the art of mixing fell to the music “Conductor” whose job it was to move the musicians who were recording either closer or further back from the microphone. By the 1930’s the radio broadcasting […]
Top 5 IK Multimedia Plugins Brandon Shire We all have our favorites, and in this post I want to share my top 5 from IK Multimedia! Let’s countdown, starting from number 5. MASTER EQ 432 5. Master EQ 432 The right amount of the right eq on the master bus can really bring your mix […]
Top 5 Waves Plugins! Brandon Shire We all have our favorites, and in this post I want to share my top 5 from Waves Audio! Let’s countdown, starting from number 5. MY DEFAULT HLS SETTINGS 5. Kramer HLS Channel This thing is just meaty. I use it as a low end enhancer more than anything, […]
In the sea of plugins available to home recording musicians, it is not very often that I run across one that actually becomes part of my “Must Have” Toolbox. The Waves “Abby Road – ADT” (Artificial Double Track) is just that plugin. Since day one, I have found that the ADT to be an essential […]
Recently Boz Digital Labs released Transgressor, which is a transient designer that allows you to eq the transient and the sustain separately. This plugin seems like it was created with my workflow in mind, so when I got the chance to get a review copy I was stoked! Let me explain. I tend to […]
Gain Staging: What to know, & why you shouldn’t stress too much about it! By Brandon S Hire Noise Floor (This is a script to a video that will be included in an upcoming series on post production. I decided to make the script its own post because of the amount of confusion there is […]
Back in the day, we had hardware. Since then, we started using software. Over the years, we’ve become better and better at developing this software so that it fools the trained ear into thinking it’s hardware. We make it move, overload, have noise, and try to recreate the exact sonic imprint of the hardware. We’ve […]
That’s Right! Making a Scene is now 2 years old! And what a great 2 years it has been. I am so excited about all that we have accomplished over the course of the last 2 years. Let me give you a rundown of how successful we have been since our launch in May of […]
EQ Made Easy One of the most mis-understood and mis-used effect in recording and mixing has to be Equalization. Using EQ in recording and mixing is more than a simple Treble/Bass adjustment. If not used properly you can easily take a really good recording and turn it into sonic mush in just a few knob […]
The home recording revolution that started in the 80’s with inexpensive 8 and 16 track recorders has evolved into an industry of recording software, hardware modeling and audio interfaces. The tools that are available to the home recording studio today would be the envy of professional studios of only 20 years ago. The problem is […]
Studio Quick Tip! So you have a studio and you want to record a live band complete with Drums, Guitar and Bass. One of the problems you will encounter is finding ways to create shielding between the instruments. When it comes to drums, besides a dedicated drum booth, most commercial drum shields work great. But […]
Build your Studio Speaker Stands One of the most important aspects of your control room is your monitors. As obvious as it may seem, most small home studio operators don’t realize that speakers not only transmit sound through the air. But they also vibrate whatever they are on, which transmits those vibrations to the […]
