Gain Staging — Does It Matter In The Box With Plugins? | Production Expert

Gain Staging — Does It Matter In The Box With Plugins? | Production Expert

You can easily do the same thing with plug-ins. Open an oscilloscope or frequency display in your DAW, set the plug-in’s input level (and output, if it has one) to unity gain, and send a sine wave through the device. Watch the output as you gradually raise the send level.

I can set up a test rig using MeldaProductions MOscillator and MOcilliscope.

MOscillator tone — MOscilliscope — insert plug-in — MOscilliscope

Always good to measure.

MOscillator | MeldaProduction

MOscillator is an anti-aliased tone generator plugin with adjustable oscillator shape. It can be used as a testing generator for analyses or, thanks to the versatile modulators, for more advanced effects such as sub-bass enhancement.

MOscilloscope | MeldaProduction

MOscilloscope is a powerful oscilloscope equipped with a pitch detector, which saves your time, because it just works…

Stems In Music Production — Everything You Need To Know | Production Expert

I need to get back to this page to watch the video about creating stems…

Stems In Music Production — Everything You Need To Know | Production Expert

Stems are submixes of a larger mix, that when played together at equal volume will exactly recreate the full mix.

Typically, this will mean dividing larger ensembles, whether recorded naturally or artificially, into smaller subsections. An orchestral mix might be stemmed into strings, brass, woodwind and percussion, or a rock band into drums, guitars, keys and vocals. Crucially, stems are groups of elements that make up the final mix, not the individual elements themselves.

Tom Bullen | Production Expert — Author Bios

Tom Bullen is an audio engineer and editor based in London, working in both music and spoken word. He mainly uses Pro Tools and specialises in working to picture, having worked on hundreds of film and television scores in various capacities as engineer, assistant engineer and music editor. He has also recorded countless hours of radio drama and voice over. Having worked in professional studios for over a decade, Tom went freelance in 2020.

We Tempo Map In Pro Tools, Logic Pro And Studio One — See How They Do It | Production Expert

We Tempo Map In Pro Tools, Logic Pro And Studio One — See How They Do It | Production Expert

For the first challenge we wanted to see how Pro Tools, Logic Pro and Studio One handled tempo mapping an acoustic guitar not recorded to a click track. This scenario is something than can happen in the real world, especially if you are a songwriter or have an artist in the studio who hates working to click tracks.

I knew that I had it easy in Logic. Studio One isn’t too bad. Pro Tools? sheesh. Simply comparing the explanation times is valuable. Pro Tools? 10 minutes. Studio One? 3 minutes. Logic? 2 minutes.

Are You Using Too Many Plugins? | Production Expert

Are You Using Too Many Plugins? | Production Expert

In this article Julian asks whether the seemingly limitless options available to us in software encourages an over-use of processing and indeed whether that matters if the music still sounds good?

I don’t, typically, use too many plug-ins. I own too many plug-ins. I have started the weeding out process.

I own too many DAWs as well. I have made a decision about that as well. I will have two to work with — Logic and MixBus32c.

Tricky bit is finding un-installers…

Are We Being Conned By Mixing Tricks? We Look At The Most Popular Ones | Production Expert

Are We Being Conned By Mixing Tricks? We Look At The Most Popular Ones | Production Expert

Some people refer to “mixing tricks” but are they really tricks? When is a technique just a technique? Julian looks at some common examples and decides.

I put an EQ as the first insert on my reverb AUX channels. When I insert reverbs I try to make sure that I adjust the filters that are built in to most of my reverbs. I think it’s better to be able to “see” the filter on the AUX channels.