If you’ve ever wondered what crest factor, PSR and PLR mean and what they’re used for, this article is for you. We’ll see how crest factor and PSR are related, how they can be used to measure dynamics and what levels to shoot for.
Read more >>
With the 2016 Grammy Awards recently being announced, I took a look at the dynamics of the “Song of the Year”: Adele’s “Hello.” The song was mixed by Tom Elmhirst, who also mixed the title track of David Bowie’s Blackstar, which won “Best Engineered Album,” among other awards.
Read more >>
Having a consistent, calibrated listening environment can help you make consistent mixing and mastering decisions from project to project. But is there an ideal listening level for sound studios? And how do you go about calibrating your monitors?
Let’s see what the EBU recommends for broadcast and then follow that up with some advice from Bob Katz…
Read more >>
Logic X recently introduced a new feature: 64-bit summing. It’s not the first DAW to support 64-bit summing - Pro Tools HDX had it back in 2013. But how does it work and does it make a difference in practice?
Read more >>
Have you ever recorded a track at a low level and captured a lot of background noise, or fed outboard gear with a signal that was too “hot” and had it distort? In both cases, the problem boils down to sub-optimal signal levels: levels that are too high or too low. Gain staging is the process of managing signal levels throughout the signal chain, to strike a balance between noise levels and distortion. But how far do you need to go down this rabbit hole? When does gain staging matter and when doesn’t it?
Read more >>
