WARNING: Long-ish philosophical post ahead. I've been watching interviews with famous mixers over the holidays and got to thinking about how much recording has changed since I started in the 80s on analog gear. The hardware (or lack thereof) forced you to work in a more organic way than we do today. Musicians AND engineers had to have more of a "performance" mindset. You, on both sides of the glass, had to deliver the goods when the red light went on. I'm not sure that the current, almost limitless, power of modern DAWs is a always a good thing for the music. Are we (musicians and engineers) using the power of our DAWs as a crutch? Is the chase for perfection sucking the soul out of the music? Let's consider life in the (good?) old days of mid-level analog studios: Analog tape decks provided either 16 or 24 mono tracks. I started with an 8 track. You needed to plan how to fit the arrangement on the the available tracks and the order they needed to be recorded. There wasn't room for every mic to have its own track so you had to commit to a live sub-mix (drums, backing vocals, multiple mics on a guitar cab, etc). Punch-ins required a small gap on either end of the bit you were fixing. Screw up the punch and you have to fix the track you stepped on (cue unhappy client) as there is no "undo". Printing effects and processing to an open track of tape freed up the hardware resource for other tracks. No dragging parts onto the grid to fix timing. No vocal tuning. No comping. Your analog console had no automation, so doing a mix required memorizing a carefully orchestrated sequence of moves (fader, pan, EQ, FX, mute, etc.). It was not unusual for a track to have multiple instruments on it in different sections of the song (leave no tape unused!). To do a mix you played the console live like an instrument. I can think of several mix sessions with half the band learning mix moves, and who had to physically move where during the mix as we danced around each other at the board. You had limited amounts of rack gear (compressors, effect units, etc.) to patch into console. Plus, you had to commit to the mix before the next session because the board and your outboard gear didn't have any way to save/recall the settings. You could try to document every setting as a backup, but that was a huge amount of work (no taking photos with your phone). At best, I would finish a mix at night, leave everything running overnight, then check it with fresh ears the next morning.

After a few questionable gear decisions, I now own a Sennheiser E965, Rode NT1-A, and AKG C3000, and I’m overthinking which one to use for vocal recording. Which mic will actually make my recorded vocals sound great instead of exposing all my bad habits? What are the key sound differences between them? Or take a vote which one I should use 😊

Hey everyone, I've been deep diving into stereo imaging after being humbled on my first pop/rock mix, and I've been through countless threads and articles to understand some feedback I received about panning guitars specifically lol. If anyone else wants to learn and improve on this concept, Mastering the Mix wrote an article on it that seems simple enough here https://www.masteringthemix.com/blogs/learn/guide-to-panning-and-stereo-width?srsltid=AfmBOopDMELahxJnH4PPdhcNhCeL2bIjUqrhqpmf72GIL4X1IcMYGYlV They'll sell you on their plugins in the middle but if you have a basic understanding of width, depth, and height, you can sculpt accordingly with what you already have. I remember someone awhile back made a poll about if you should mix a genre you don't produce and I still stick by my answer, which essentially was hell yea, why not. However, mixing what you produce obviously provides a better understanding of the elements at play versus being an avid listener. The most humbling, slap to the forehead experience for me lately was when my rock buddy told me about panning the layers of guitars L/R along with production stuff beyond my control. And my first reaction was like dude, what the fuck...they're panned L/R.....hahaha. Turns out....nah lol, total misunderstanding and I didn't create separation between layers. Anyway, I learned long ago, about panning according to sound stage which was so revolutionary to me at the time, it really helped me visualize and supported how I panned drums, and this became my approach in general which is probably why I made the mistake with the guitar layers. I hope everyone is learning, growing and choosing to persevere on their journey to better mixes!

Hey everyone! Is this common that you have to renew and pay for plug ins you have purchased from different providers? I’ve attached a photo of the Paz Analyser that we bought as part of Prod 101.

what clipper do you all recommend? I been searching but cant really decide