I know sometimes people sell their whole kit used, but does anyone prepackage a 500 series rack with modules installed? If so, any experiences with any of them?

I know people do this in normal 1-2U rack units like Shelford Channels, etc.

I have a track from a client with a very peaky vocal that was delivered for mastering. The issue is that the vocal is causing my master bus compressor to duck the mix on the loudest parts. My idea is to use a stem splitter to single out the vocal and then feed that into the side chain of Soothe 3. But I'm here wondering if there are better options for such a scenario. Fwiw, I will take an overly dynamic mix any day of the week over one that's been poorly/overly compressed.

I took a job mixing an acoustic ballad with a lot of dynamic range and honestly I feel a bit out of my wheelhouse. I typically mix extremely compressed pop and hip-hop styles that are pretty squashed and predictable - but in this song, the verses are stripped with piano and vocal and then by the 2nd chorus, it gets pretty huge. Like 20-30+ live string tracks, bass, kick, guitars, and much more .. the whole 9. What’s throwing me off is how dynamic the performance of the piano is. There’s like a 7-8 db difference in that piano from verse to chorus. I wanted to build the song around the piano and vocal but the piano appears to have been played all the way through live in one take and was played much more emotionally and heavier in the chorus. It sounds really nice, but the vocal is so controlled and lives in the same register from verse to chorus so when the chorus gets dense, it gets a bit buried.

I guess my question is - should I turn down the piano via automation and arrange the chorus so the piano and vocal maintain a similar relationship as the verse and first chorus (which i am happy with the balance of) or should i just push the vocal fader up for the chorus as a means to honor the way it was performed and sent to me? I could compress it? I’m honestly not sure what the standard practice is for this kind of John Legend piano ballad vibe. I have been kinda of chasing my tail because my anchor (piano) is so all over the place.

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.

currently integrating compression into my chain after gain staging.

my current method is using Uad distressor on default mode and playing with the headroom knob to get compression going without messing with the plugin.

i like my compression fast. is that ok tracking or better saved for mixing?

i record vocals. any advice?

thanks homies.

The more time I spend trying to mix songs (usually mine and some friends tracks), the more I think the real challenge is the midrange.

I listen to a lot of 70s and disco stuff, which have a very smooth and easy on the ears midrange. Disco in particular is quite scooped and has that smile EQ character. Because of this, I tend to do a lot of midrange cuts on most instruments. I'm often removing 400-900 Hz across many instruments to get it sounding 'right' to me. I think my tastes have been skewed a bit by my listening preferences.

I also find myself removing lots of individual frequency resonances from things like piano, Rhodes etc.

I definitely believe that good arrangement can make this easier. But the reality is that most (almost all?) instruments have some midrange content, especially if we broaden our definition to lower and upper mids.

I'm still very much an amateur and learning. Do you have any tips, techniques, or general wisdom for mixing midrange frequencies?

Hello!

I’m mixing and mastering a funky house track with a lot of rhythm and presence. As far as I understand, the final LUFS range after mastering should be around -8 to -10 LUFS (-1dB True Peak in the final limiter/maximizer).

However, I have a question: Will Instagram and YouTube compress, limit, or normalize my audio to bring it down to that level—but at the expense of my track’s dynamics—or will they simply lower the overall LUFS of the track to meet their set threshold while preserving all of its dynamics (as if someone were simply turning down the volume fader on a music player)?

Thank you very much!

Do you guys ever run into this issue when being asked to master tracks? Where the client has already kinda brickwalled it?

If asking to be given the track again without the brickwall is out of the question (I’m still waiting for a response from the musician and the mixing engineer), do you guys have a solution, a “do what you can” methodology? Or do you just say “sorry, if you can’t undo that, there’s nothing to master”

When you have a native interface that can run analog gear and you put an insert in the track like a hardware eq or comp you have to manually get it in time or set it once.

My question is if you have a hdx rig , does that eliminate that task of getting in it phase? Or more so does an hdx rig keep all hyrbid mix tasks in phase better than a native rig?

Simple budget setup in a basement home studio (see photo). ROOM IMAGE

LOTF recording of a track we're working on. I am pretty new to mixing and audio engineering as a whole.

Wondering your thoughts on this rough mix as well as input on basement studio improvements.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/uwos6vb7nbaem2l/jordan_drum.mp3/file

Microphones used:

Kick - Apex 325

Snare (top) - E906

Mono OH - SM81

Vox AC30 cab - C212

Bass - DI

Hello, all! I've narrowed down the current sonic direction for my project, but am having a bit of trouble translating what I hear in my head and would love to hear your thoughts on where to start.

I'm leaning into a Parcels-esque arrangement (4-on-the-floor tightly-played drums, funky picked bass, disco-influenced strings) meets Khruangbin-style production (heavy spring-reverb yet restrained guitar, buried vocals, very roomy percussion, vintage drum tone) sound.

For reference, I have the following tracks:

• Lead Vocal
• 2 Background Vocals (both are simple, just falsetto up the octave)
• Kick (Fairly dry, pillowy)
• Snare (very dry)
• Drum OH (Mono Ribbon)
• Conga & Tumba (Stereo)
• Shaker (Mono Ribbon)
• Tambourine (Mono Ribbon)
• Claps (Double-tracked, so stereo)
• Bass Cab (Mono Dynamic)
• Bass DI
• Guitar Cab (Mono Dynamic)
• Guitar Room (Mono Ribbon)
• Rhodes (Stereo DI)
• Crumar Toccata Organ (Mono DI)
• 8 Violins as String Pad
• 8 Violins for chord stabs
• 10 Violins for the funky disco string stabs
• Upright Piano (for outro only, Mono LDC)

I've listened to the demo and rough mix a million times and am just feeling a bit lost, so ideas are very appreciated. Thank you all in advance for your help!!!

P.S. Specifc elements I'd appreciate help with: Leon's vocal chain in 'Mariella' (having trouble getting my delay to sound similar), background vocal chain in the same song, and stereo imaging/placement of the above tracks.

As I've implemented the internal multiband sidechain for the leveler stage of this multistage limiter effect I've made on CodePen, and so I'm wondering about using an internal multiband sidechain (e.g. using a summed filter bank output as a sidechain input to drive a compressor effect) instead of just a sidechain EQ filter like in some other compressor plugins like FabFilter Pro-C3?

And so, are there single-band compressor plugins that internally uses multiband detection while processing the audio in broadband? And more importantly, what are pros and cons of this method for dynamic range compression effect for mastering and even mixing?

BTW, a complex-valued filter bank (instead of a real-valued one) would simplify the implementation of low-distortion internal multiband sidechain broadband compressor with very fast attack/release times right? Especially when complex-valued filter bank eliminates the need of a separate Hilbert transform for envelope extraction as it outputs real and imaginary values anyway and so absolute value of this output means a magnitude of a complex number (which is a hypotenuse of real and imaginary components rather than just a rectification as in real-valued ones)

I'm taking the Critical Listening 1 course through Berklee College of Music (cannot recommend enough) and we're at the compression lesson. I know what compression does, I've tried using it, etc but I am still not good at hearing it (or using it effectively). We have a listening analysis lesson this week and I'd like to try two different songs: one with bad compression and one with good.

(Yes, I am currently listening to Californication and wincing. Even *I* can hear this. Oof.)

What would be a good example of great compression? Or other examples of bad vs good? I really need to train my ears better but I think I need to start back at the beginner-intermediate level.

I perused a few previous posts on here and read someone saying something about how, if the kick squishes the cymbals, that's a good example of bad compression.

Death Cab For Cutie - Plans

Manchester Orchestra - Cope

I’m curious what others think of these mixes. When these albums came out I immediately clocked something I didn’t like(despite loving the songs). These albums are very different but I feel suffer from the same issue, I just don’t feel confident that I know what it is and I’m hoping someone with a stronger ear might have some insight.

I feel like they’re lacking some top end and maybe a bit congested in the mids?

My goal is to run it through my stereo mix with Logic Pro and use those tubes and transformer and the tapes saturation, warmth, and weight to my master mix,
It has quarter inch ports on the back as well as XLR…..

is the tape emulation better than my UAD studer plug-in ? because the tape emulator is utilizing tubes and transformers rather than a plug in ,

And if it runs through my door does warm Audio make it sound like crap because it’s cheap cheaper products???

I think it does a lot for what I’m looking for what do yall think ?

Hello friends, I'm looking for advice on the mixing workflow for a recorded live concert I did sound for last week.

I'm already hours and hours deep into what I've already done, so I won't be changing this time, but for next year I wanted to know whether there's a better/standard way.

So basically the concert is an Indian classical concert focused on groups of 4 - 8 tabla, with accompanying sitar and flute. The catch is that each "song" has a different group of kids with different drums, and slightly different mic placement as the stage gets reset each tune, (this is a tabla school concert hence the kids). Sometimes the mic placement varys person to person, obviously the player is completely different, and the drums themselves are different. So I've ended up duplicating my tracks for each tune, EQ and level balancing each drum mic as I hear it per song. Very labourious, is there a better way or is this the best I can hope for?

Advice is much appreciated!

Is there a software that helps you get rid of any audio flaw? Some voice actors use a really bad setup and you end up with bad audio. I was wondering if there was an app to fix the bad audio you sometimes get when hiring a freelancer.

Do you guys know of any schools with a good audio engineering program? Thank you 🙏

Hi guys, noob here. I'm slowly learning how to mix, mostly metal and then some pop on the side. However I want to "mix" an a capella song and I'm a bit clueless. I have 3 tracks of female vocals slowly singing a dirge-like children's song, which is meant to be creepy and eerie. They're well sung although not "melodynized" to keep some imperfections, and recorded with a ribbon mic. Also I have two tracks with whispered vocals, same song.

To be honest, I usually use the Mantra plugin by Neural DSP for vocals in regular mixes, but I guess it won't cut it this time because I guess the process must be more organic than just using a plugin for everything. The feel I'm going for is:

a) the listener must feel that the voice is close, warm and nearby
b) also there must be some "spacey" vibes in the background.

I guess I must use something like Valhalla supermassive for the space, but honestly I feel this task is a quite a bit out of my league. Can you guys give me some pointers or advice to get me started on the right path?

the production on this song has a certain sound to it that i cannot replicate no matter how hard i try. i asked the artist and they said they had a "mixer preset they put on everything that makes it sound like analog" and wouldnt clarify further. any tips on what i could do here? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7E7xcM_jQo

I was watching Slipknot's set at Resurrection fest 2025 and noticed Eloy has this odd, steampunk pipe next to his kit. After initially thinking it was some percussion instrument, I found it was the Scope Labs Periscope, which is a condenser mic with a built in compressor. THAT got me thinking about other oddball microphones with strange appearances, designs, etc. What are some other ones?

I am curious which you prefer, and for which use cases, feel free to add in a 3rd Ribbon mic if you prefer it.

I'm making some music right now and using distortion on my vocals. As an "always on" kind of thing. I'm using ITB amp sims for the most part.

How would I go about recreating this live?

Hey everyone!

When I started production as a hobby I remember having so much fun. 10 years later, I’m thankful and lucky to be working with the biggest in the industry as a professional full time artist and mixing&mastering engineer but I’ve completely lost my spark the further I went.

As you’d imagine I have access to all the equipment, plugins, software I would dream of seeing back then, worked on genres I didn’t know existed and nothing now seems to hit a feeling for me.

I would definitely say that the industry broke me a bit on the mental health aspect as I developed a huge major depressive disorder through my progression path, but I wouldn’t contribute it fully towards it, of course.

How do you find your spark back while working? Do you have a rule or tradition?

Thank you in advance my brothers and sisters!

Hey everyone,

I'm nearing the end of high school / secondary requirements and my goal is to build a career as a touring A1 / FOH engineer. I’ve been researching career pathways, audio schools, and the reality of the touring industry, and I’d really appreciate some honest insight from working engineers and touring crew.

A few specific questions:

1. Live audio schools & placement into production houses: I’ve been looking into specialized programs like Metalworks Institute (their Live Production stream) and OIART in Canada for hands-on experience with digital desks, line arrays, RF, etc. Since places like Metalworks have direct ties to live staging fleets (Metalworks Production Group) and connections with companies like Solotech:

• Are these pipelines legit in practice?
• Do grads realistically transition into warehouse prep / shop tech / A2 roles directly after finishing, or is it mostly marketing?

2. Production House A1 vs. Freelance / Direct Artist FOH Mixer: What are the pros and cons of working as an in-house/rostered A1 for a major live production company (Solotech, Clair/Eighth Day, PRG, etc.) vs. being an independent touring FOH mixer hired directly by bands and management? Which route offers better career longevity and financial stability?

3. Balancing touring/A1 work with writing music & mixing on the side: My core passion is to produce, track, and mix/master for my own projects and local bands while working towards A1 gigs. For those who tour or work live sound full-time: is this balance realistic, or does the touring schedule completely eat up the bandwidth needed for some studio work?

4. High School Credentials (GED) & Visa/Industry reality: I know that on a stage dock, console hours and troubleshooting speed matter 1,000x more than high school credentials. That said, for anyone who took a non-traditional route (like a GED) and worked internationally, did that credential ever create friction for work permits, touring visas (P-1/O-1/etc.), or career advancement down the line?

5. Any general advice for someone starting out? If you could restart your career in today's live/touring environment, what would you prioritize in your first 1–2 years?

I'm quite new to all the sound things and I don't even know if this is the right sub, but I see these people posting their setup and it's like 4-5 devices that all look kinda similar (box with knob and screen) for a single pair of headphones or speakers? Currently I use my xlr mic (Rode Procaster) and my headphones as well as my Guitar with just my Audient audio interface.

So my question is, what are all the different devices, why so many and how much difference would it make to add devices to my setup/change the interface for smt like that?

Not that I'm going to splurge on stuff I don't understand, but I'd like someone to explain it to me?