One of the most popular questions that beginning recording enthusiasts ask is "What microphone should I use to record _blank_?", where blank is an instrument or voice or whatever it is they want to record.  In this series of articles, I'll cover some of the more common or "standard" microphone choices that you'll find in professional studios that […]

Neumann TLM-103 Microphone After finding out that the Studio Projects C1 microphone was sometimes too bright and somewhat harsh with certain vocalists, I set out to find another "vocal" microphone to add to my collection. One of the companies I had bought several items from was blowing out their stock of Neumann microphones, since they […]

Choosing the right vocal microphone for your home studio can be a difficult task. What sounds great on one voice might sound horrible on another. Also, you may also need different microphones for different styles of music and singing, even if you are doing all the singing yourself. In this "review" I'll discuss some of […]

Recently I had an artist ask me why the mixes he does in his home studio sound so much softer than the commercially released music he buys. I thought that everyone already knew about the whole "loudness wars" craze that has been going on since the late 1990s, but apparently there are still many people […]

The Shure SM57-LC Microphone has been around for a long time, and can be found in pretty much every major studio in the world. And, it cost less than $100! Here's why every studio should have at least one! It doesn't matter if you are just setting up your home studio for the first time, […]

One of the problems with recording technology today is that you can have pretty much unlimited audio and MIDI tracks. Today's computers and hard drives are more than fast enough to easily handle 100 audio tracks or more, and virtually unlimited MIDI tracks, all at the same time. The problem with that is that many […]

So, you've put a lot of time and energy into recording and mixing you latest and greatest song. You've finally got it to the point where it sounds great in your own studio and you can't wait to play it for your friends! But, when you play it for your friends for the first time […]

This was a reply to a personal e-mail to me from someone (who didn't wish for their e-mail to appear on the site) who wanted to become a songwriter. One of their non music-business friends thought that in order to become a songwriter, they also needed to be a full fledged producer, singer, and recording […]

Recently, someone was thinking about buying a digital recording system and was wondering if he really could get major label quality results from a low budget home studio system.  He was specifically concerned about whether or not he would be able to obtain the "warmth" he was used to from analog recordings with a computer […]

Here is a reply of mine to a person who asked "how do you become a professional producer?". First of all, realize that there is a difference between a "producer" and an "engineer". The producer is pretty much the creative director. He usually doesn't operate the equipment or anything like that. He's the one who […]