Category: Tips & Tricks

This is the third video on the mix bus processing series. In this video, I will share my thoughts about EQ on the mix bus.

EQ manipulates the frequency content of your recordings. It will adjust audio volume so that certain frequencies are emphasized over others and all of the elements of your production work together sonically.  In this video, I  share my opinion on using EQ while mixing on your master bus. I have also shared how I got a lot better mixes while mixing without EQ on the master bus. Let’s discuss it in detail.

Continue reading “Should You Use Mix Bus EQ?”

Have you ever asked yourself, should you use compression on the mix bus or is mix bus compression necessary? Then this video is for you.

This is the second video in the mix bus processing series. Last week we discussed using a limiter on your master bus while you’re producing your music. In this video, I will talk about mix bus compression that people usually put right before the limiter on the mix bus. A lot of times, people will slap on a master chain that they use all the time on every song. I don’t think that’s the right way. I like to master with intent. I take each song, album or track on the album on a case-by-case basis. I have also shared the concept behind using compression and what it really does in my opinion. Let’s find out.

Continue reading “Should You Use Compression on the Mix Bus?”

Are you a music producer that uses a limiter on your master bus? In this video, I will share why I personally don’t use a limiter on my master bus when producing music. People ask, should I put a limiter on my mix? Some say that this is very necessary. They call it top-down mixing. I used to do this myself when I was just a young producer. I was wrong. Putting a limiter on the master bus gives you the false impression that you’re listening to your music, while you’re producing it, as it may come out mastered or as it’s much louder. It can create changes in the music once you turn that limiter off that was unexpected.

Let’s discuss why you shouldn’t use a limiter on the master buss and why I take every song when I’m mastering, or every album and each track individually on a case-by-case basis and that’s how you should approach it too.

Continue reading “Mix Bus Limiter: Stop Using It (NOW)”

We are back with part two of the series on six creative ways that you can use reverb in your music productions. This week I share tricks including the automated reverb, or automating a note or hit with reverb. Finally, we finish it off with the classic 80’s gated reverb trick. 

Automated Reverb
Another great way that you can use reverb is, you can automate the reverb. For example, I want it to gradually swell up as it goes on. You could also start it dry and automate some of the reverb parameters. Let’s say, you wanted to turn on the space or the decay time and you wanted to turn that up. This way you get that nice reverb build-up. Watch the video to see how you can use automated reverb to level up your music production.

Automated Reverb Up Note or Hit
You can also automate a drum hit or a hit or a tone in your music production. It’s really handy if you’re transitioning to a breakdown or you want to create some space and you drop the kick drum or drop some drums.

Gated Reverb
It is also known as the gated snare trick. It was made famous in the 80’s one of the most popular songs that made this famous was Phil Collins “In The Air” but a lot of 80’s songs use this. If you’re trying to go for that 80’s feel or that disco boogie feel, the gated snare or the gated reverb trick is a great way to accomplish that. Watch the complete video for a step-by-step tutorial.

Continue reading “6 Creative Reverb Tricks YOU Need to Know | Part 2”

We have a two-part series on six creative ways that you can use reverb in your music productions. In part one, we discuss a classic reverb swell, reverb early reflections, and an octave shimmer-up trick. Are you familiar with some of these tricks? Level up your music productions with reverb tricks and stay tuned for part two next week.

Classic Reverb Swell
Also known as the reverse reverb swell. This trick is very common and very famous. Once you know what to listen for, you’ll hear the reverse reverb effect all over popular music.

But some people may not know how to do it. The real trick to doing this is you have to use the reverse tail you create.
Watch the complete video to learn how to do reverse reverb swell step by step.

This is a cool trick I use all the time. It doesn’t have to just be used with vocals. You can use this with synths, you can use it with drums, you can use it with drum hits. You can make your own transition effects with tricks like this. If you’re not using this trick you’re missing out.

Reverb Early Reflections
You can use this if you don’t want a big reverb tail but you just want to get some nice room tones or plate tones. This is a cool trick to try. It’s just grabbing those early reflections of the reverb and using it differently.
Check out how I did it step by step in the video.

Shimmer Octave Up
The third trick for creative ways to use reverb is to shimmer up one octave. This introduces the enhanced harmonics of the input signal.

Continue reading “6 Creative Reverb Tricks YOU Need to Know | Part 1”

Part 3 in the series on making your vinyl samples better go over our last two topics and tricks you can use to enhance your vinyl samples. First I talk about using vinyl emulation to basically make the sample sound “older” per-say. You can get some cool sounds out of vinyl emulation plug-ins. 

Another method I share is masking and layering. I layer a few samples over the main sample I’m trying to enhance to give it more depth and another element that might enhance it in some way. The possibilities are endless and you really need to play around.

Continue reading “How To Make Your Samples Sound Better – Enhancing Your Vinyl Samples – Part 3”

Part 2 in our series on making your vinyl samples better we get more in-depth about tricks you can use. Starting off with basic EQ you can do a whole lot to a sample. EQ is one of the main tools. I get into using Restoriation Tools as well, which can also be a handy tactic if you are looking to try to do some cleanup. I share ways you can do this as well as give examples.

Lastly, I discuss how saturation can help with samples. Stay tuned next week for part 3.

Continue reading “How To Make Your Samples Sound Better – Enhancing Your Vinyl Samples – Part 2”

Requested by a client of mine, I go in-depth about how to make your samples sound better and enhance vinyl samples for your music productions. Are you sampling records? This might help you make those samples a bit better. You can even use these tricks for sample packs and loops you may purchase or download from sites like Splice, Loopmaster, and more.

This is part one in a three-part series that discusses ways to get the vinyl clean, how you can use gain staging to your advantage, and how you can look at panning to isolate elements.

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Are you using cracked software and plugins? Be careful, I’m going to give you some reasons why you should be wary of doing this. I had a bad experience when I was young using cracked software. 

Audio plugins can get costly so I understand why you might try but in my experience, things run much smoother if you stay clean. Let’s discuss this scenario! 

Continue reading “Should You Use Cracked Software?”

Are you familiar with auxiliary send and returns? If you’re from the old-school analog mixing console days you will be. If not you might want to learn how these can benefit you. I see a lot of producers just throwing effects directly on their track and controlling things with the dry / wet knob. That’s fine and can work but you could be missing out on some key tricks that you can do with auxiliary send and returns. 

Continue reading “What Is An Auxiliary Send – How To Use FX Send On Mixer”