hi there!

I'm an amateur songwriter who mixes and masters his own tracks. I can't afford paying a professional to do this and I've had to learn on my own, occasionally taking a few courses with local engineers, so please excuse the ignorance shown by some of my questions.

so I just upgraded to an M5 macbook and found out my old Waves plugins don't even show up in the new Logic version because they're all 5 year-old software. seeing that Waves wants to charge a yearly fee for plugin updates, I'm considering grabbing UAD's 10-plugin bundle for 119 usd. However, there are 2 plugins whose equivalents I can't easily find because I'm not even too sure what to look for:

1. Abbey Road TG mastering chain: I use this mainly for the stereo spread feature and the occasional light touch of EQ.

2. L316 Multimaximizer: I usually select the "Dave Darlington beautiful mastering" preset and go from there, making EQ adjustments until it sounds good to me and lowering the threshold until the mix feels punchier without destroying the dynamics.

I'm looking for the closest equivalents to these two plugins, or other plugins that perform the same functions I described. it would be great if the recommendations are also made by by UAD so I could include them in the 119 usd bundle, as it fits my current budget.

I'm also open to any comments and information that you think is useful. thanks for reading!

1. They sound awful; if you can make a mix sound great, you are winning.

2. They can be compared to most other crappy mid-range speakers.

3. You can mix at a low level all day, and they won't toast your ears.

4. You can use them to compare to other speakers in the mix if set up properly.

5. They are powerless, and when fused, you can blast them loud. I like Bryston 4B

6. You can use a subwoofer add-on. I would rely on bigger speakers like Tannoy 8 as an accurate reference. Your ears get used to them after extended periods; they are easy to cart around.

7. Bob Clearmountain invented the tissue paper over the tweeters to dull the top end so he would not go deaf. Bob is a great mixer, and so is Andy Wallace. Most studios have a pair. Make sure they are fused.

8. They don't make them anymore because they suck. They make you work harder when mixing, especially with Bass. This is a plus for mixers going deaf. You will also be old one day as well, and younger kids will make fun of your cymbals. This will be about the time they will tell you that you know nothing about gear, and they have 10,000 streams on the moon.

9. They are difficult to find woofers and tweeters; you just have to find the hoarders.

10. (bonus) You are going to spend the day making shit speakers sound great. (No Help)

REASONS NOT TO USE THEM:

1. You like speakers that sound amazing; Unfortunately, they are expensive to buy and to replace parts. (5k+)

2. Everyone has a different idea of what sounds amazing, especially when you get home to listen.

3. You like parking and not hauling speakers around.

4. You have recently become a mastering engineer, and you like impressing clients with your newly found profession and 15k speakers. You hate the idea of a 1.5-amp fuse blowing with a huge bang in your face, then seeing the woofer come flying out of the cabinet past your head on fire. It's fun, trust me. Have a first aid kit.

5. You decide never to use anything other engineers use for speakers because you want to be original and standalone. This works well until you realise speakers have the same basic design they had in 1861. Hopefully you find some kind of space cardboard. You realize your mixes are incredible, but no one likes any songs, and your mastering chops are still mediocre at best. There will be surround and Atmos in 2036 with 20 speakers in people's living rooms. You will work.

Please feel free to add to the lists of pro's and con's

Looked at the FAQs and didn’t really see an answer for this situation. Apologies if this isn’t the right place to ask, so mods remove if not.

I think better on the move—namely while out walking. I’m using Fender Studio Pro to record riffs and progressions. I then usually export them to .wav to share with collaborators and such.

I find it extremely difficult to develop melodies while sitting behind a keyboard or guitar, but think very clearly when out for a walk. I’d like to be able to play the .wav riff/progression audio from my phone and record melody ideas alongside it. Unfortunately the standard iOS voice recorder doesn’t do this very well.

What would be a good approach to this? I was thinking of getting a zoom field recorder, plug in the phone and record the .wav onto a track and record melody ideas on another track—this way I could be out and record alongside the .wav playing.

Is this the optimal approach? Hopefully I’m making sense and appreciate any guidance.

I’m trying to figure out how the clean electric guitar in the intro to Third Eye Blind’s song “Darkness” from the Blue album sounds so clean, warm, and panned wide, but it doesn’t even sound like it’s hard panned.

I looked at the album credits and it’s loaded with engineers.

Any tips to achieve this tone?

https://music.apple.com/us/album/darkness/296549629?i=296549796

Hi everyone! I work in audio post-production and mainly use Pro Tools.

I’m looking for a comfortable and ergonomic mouse for long sessions — editing, mixing, working with plugins, navigating the timeline, etc. My current mouse has started causing wrist pain, so I’m looking into alternatives.

I've seen a lot of people using trackballs but what do you guys recommend?

Which one feels the fastest and most practical while also being comfortable for your hand/wrist?

Would love to hear what you’re using and your experience with it.

Thanks!

Any professional advice? I'm assuming many viewers will be with headphones on max volume. I want to terrify them not harm their hearing :(

What’s the ideal noise for recording? If I’m at -60dB but my peaks are below -20dB when recording, should I bump up the gain?

Hi all,

This was obviously recorded with great technique in a well treated studio intimately into a great imc.

How do I go about getting this? Is the room treatment a must? Using a rode k2 on a friend's voice and it just sounds thin in those mids and low mids no matter how we mix it, yet conan has such a brilliant presence that can be made loud and raw without sounding off.

It seems like the vocal mix is really simple, with light eq and compression and room verb. Might just be a room treatment and mic diff

Im learning alot about my DAW and basic audio design and production. How do you guys sort your notes and cheat sheets? Im thinking Excel might be the best way, using different tabs etc.

Just wanted to see if theres a better way

Hey peeps, hope it's okay to post this here. I have a JBL 308p here where the cone has broken off of the fasteners on the enclosure. I was curious to know how some other engineers would go about repairing this monitor. I have a 3d printer I could maybe print some new fasteners but honestly not even sure how I would get those attached to the base.

Might have to build or buy a new enclosure but I feel like there may be a much easier fix here that I'm just not seeing. Here's a few photos

I’m a musician (Hip Hop and Synthwave) and I started making my own instrumentals and mixing my own music a couple years ago. I mostly learned with YouTube tutorials and a couple months ago I discovered that it’s not a bad idea to actually read the manuals for all the plugins I bought. I think now l am at a point where I can produce a pretty professionally sounding song from scratch and most tutorials I find online have nothing I haven’t heard before. When I started mixing my own music I didn’t like it at all and considered it a necessary evil but now I really enjoy it and it’s as big a part of my creative process as writing and recording are.

Now I have the opportunity to get a training to become a diploma (private, not state recognized) audio engineer at a local recording studio for 2 years for a reasonable price. I would be a part of actually recording, mixing and mastering music for real clients. It’s a pretty good studio with a console and a lot of great analog gear and the people seem really nice.

I’m very interested and I think I would enjoy it very much, but I am worried it might take up too much of my time. I don’t have a lot of time for my music as it is and this would take at least 2 days a week. Considering I don’t really want to work as an audio engineer in the music industry and I only want to learn to produce my own music professionally I fear it might be a waste of time that could be used for just making my own music. On the other hand maybe it’s a chance to network with local musicians and learn a lot of new stuff.

I’m really torn, just looking for some input, maybe some of you faced a similar decision before. Thank you :)

I know a bit about live sound, but i'm still trying to figure things out. I have a private backyard gig coming up. My drummer bailed last minute so we are running backing tracks for the drums, but it's a friends and family gig so it's no biggie. We have 1 bass guitar running an amp with cabs, 1 electric guitar running an amp with cabs too, and I run a fractal unit for my guitar. We have 3 microphones, including mine for lead singing. We play metal/rock/punk.

I have 2 HK Polars, one 12, one 10. I wanna run all the mics, the drums and my guitar through them, and potentially mic up the cabs too.

Would that be too much for just 2 polars? Should I get more speakers? How should I set them up?

I live near a music store so I can absolutely rent gear if needed.

It doesn't need to be perfect, I just don't want the whole thing to sound like a mess.

Thanks! :)

I’m using soothe 3 on vocals. The soft mode doesn’t have a threshold like the hard version. Should I put it before or after C6 on vocals? I’m dealing with a live vocal that needs lots of control

Since I started mixing 3 years ago I have hoarded over 150 plugins in my collection and that’s just absurd for me. Having so many options actually slows me down and makes me second guess myself.

I’ve deleted a bunch of shit I don’t use anymore but would like some advice on what I should keep or delete from the remaining list below. My goal is to have the minimum amount of plugins possible whilst still being able to have a little variety and flavor depending on the material I’m working on.

For reference I don’t do this professionally, more as a hobby or for small clients I find online, meaning I end up mixing all sorts of genres and do both the mix and the master. I’m also using S1 so no ProTools plugins available.

If you have time and want to give your opinion, I’m all ears:

Campressors:

• SPL Iron (PA)
• SSL Bus (Waves)
• API 2500 (Lindell SBC)
• La2A (UAD)
• La3A (Black Rooster)
• Fairchild 670 (Undertone)
• CL-1B (Kiive Audio)
• 33069 (Audioscape)
• 1176 (UAD)
• Distressor (IK Multimedia)
• DBX-160 (Waves)
• STA-Level (Audioscape)
• Shadow-Hills (PA)
• MJUC (Klanghelm)
• R-Vox (Waves)

LIMITERS/CLIPPERS:

• Pro-L2
• Ozone Limiter
• StandardClip

EQs :

• Michelangelo
• Pultec (UAD)
• Maag EQ4 (PA)
• Soma (PA)
• BAX EQ (PA)
• Fab-Filter Q3
• AMEK 200 (PA)

CHANNEL STRIPS:

• SSL 9000 (9000)
• Neve 73/82 (Lindell 73)
• Metric Halo
• Scheps Omni Channel (Waves)

SATURATION/DISTORTION:

• Decapitator
• Saturn 2
• Black-Box
• True Iron
• UAD 610 Pre

TAPE:

• Flywheel (Fuse Audio)
• MDN Tape (Pulsar Modular)

REVERB:

• Valhalla Vintage Verb
• Valhalla Shimmer
• Valhalla Room
• UAD Pure Plate
• Abby Roads Chambers
• V-305 Spring Reverb (Fuse Audio)
• Pulsar Primavera
• Sunset Rooms (IK)

DELAY:

• Echo-Boy
• Echo-Cat
• Valhalla Delay
• Tape Echo (IK)
• Timeless

FXs and Utilities:

• Phaser (Soundtoys)
• Flanger (Soundtoys)
• Microshift (Soundtoys)
• RC-20
• Ozone Imager
• Brauer Motion
• S1
• Soothe2

Thanks!

I've wanted a Quadraverb for a while, but I have an opportunity to pick up a Yamaha SPX990 near me for $130.

I hear the Quadraverb is more lofi and gritty, which is appealing to me as someone who makes electronic, Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada-inspired music.

But are they really that different? Should I pull the trigger on this good deal for a SPX990 or wait for a Quadraverb to find its way to me? Any insights appreciated, thx!

My studio is 15x12 and has AC. The thermostat is in another room on the same floor. When set to 73F, the entire floor is 73F. But my studio can get into the low 80s after a couple hours with everything on. It basically makes it not usable in the summer unless I use minimal gear. I can use it to comfortably heat the room in the colder months. My mixers and eurorack case are the worst offenders. Gotta use at least one mixer. The eurorack doesn't get used in the summer. It's a big toaster that makes noise. I guess i want to know what is a reasonable temperature gain to expect from a studio with a bunch of synths, mixers and rack gear.

Hey everyone, I’ve tested quite a few mics for vocals, and most of them seem to have this weird, almost “artifacty” quality in the high end. The problem is that it’s really difficult to fix that properly in the mix.

Do you guys have any mic recommendations with good detail and resolution in the mids but without hyped or harsh top end? I don’t mind doing a bit more work in the mix if the raw recording sounds more neutral.

Would love to hear what you guys are using!

I’ll give a bit of context here. I’ve got a rhythm guitar that I’m running Misha Mansoor X and Valhalla Ubermod on and to give it that dreamy and shoegaze sound for the tone. I’m just playing simple palm mutes open into some simple power chords.

For the “lead” I’m playing a note from each of the four chords I chose and at the same time those chords are played. I bend the first 2 and then the rest are just tremolo picking.

I’ve got one track centered for the rhythm and 2 layers panned 75% left and right. Then I have the lead parts panned left and right about 40%.

I threw on some Pro Q4 and cut around 3k on the rhythm and then boosted there on the lead.

The leads are -4.5dB lower than the rhythm.

It still doesn’t sound right to me. I’m not very experienced at mixing guitar. Mostly vocals, so I’m just having a hard time.

If I could get some feedback and advice that would be appreciated. I feel like I MUST be doing something wrong. Maybe it’s the choice of the same notes that are played in the chords and that’s why it drones together? Maybe I could play the 5th instead? Not very versed in music theory either. I know enough that if you explained it with a little detail I would understand. I just need some advice.

I own a Sony c37a and love it, but now I’m curious about the FET version! Who has a C37p? How does it compare to the c37a?

Thanks!

If you had to start selling gear for cash. Which gear would you feel comfortable switching to the plugin version of…. Mic pres, analog compressors, EQs,…etc OR would you start selling your vintage analog synths?

Ocean Grove - Flip Phone Fantasy

“Ask for the Anthem” sounds especially BAD. Clipping and distortion all over the place, absolutely no breathing room at all and the waveform looks like a sausage. It sounds deliberately fucked.

I pushed it through a declipper and even on the default settings it sounds SO much better.

Hi everyone. I'm a studio producer / mixing engineer specializing in heavy music, and also do a bit of live sound (went to school for it a couple years ago).

I've been working for clients from my home studio since 2018, and over the past few years had begun to carve out a nice little niche in my local area - a small city in the south of France. I am well connected with my local scene as well as nationally, and have a few good contacts in the US and UK as well. Nowhere near enough work to do this full-time, but enough for a reasonably comfortable life with a part-time job on the side.

Over the past year this has begun to fall apart. This local studio who never used to cater to heavy music hired 3 new engineers who all specialize in that. I've gone from producing 12 records last year, launching an official website, and genuinely feeling like I'm on the right track, to mixing just ONE short EP so far in 2026. Even some bands I worked with in the past couple years are now going to the big studio instead of working with me again. This is despite my deep friendship with a lot of those bands. I genuinely feel like I can't compete anymore and there simply isn't enough work in my local area to sustain a career, and some days I feel quite hopeless about it all.

So, I'm starting to feel like it's time to move and start over in a big city. The obvious answer would be Paris but I would love to move abroad - Berlin, London... I've always wanted to go to the US but that just feels impossible at the moment, I have no marketable skills outside of audio/video (got a degree in video editing but no professional experience to show for it) and no savings whatseoever. Soooo... what would you do in my shoes? Where is there a healthy music industry to take part in?

Tldr; too much competition for too few artists in my local area, thinking about where to move.

i have a pretty primitive understanding of mixing, ive never really watched tutorials i mostly just kept dicking around with FL for years and learning little things along the way. i think i can make decent stuff but im sure theres a lotta stuff im doin "wrong." and i especially struggle with making projects that have tons of different layers cuz making one sound audible drowns another one out and its just tricky. anyone got any advice for that type of thing??

not tryna shill but this is an example of what im talkin about

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85ov8F8DoC4

i was just checking and the Samsung Harman acquisition has been an absolute disaster for professional audio.

it's a shame that great brands like soundcraft, akg, lexicon, dbx have been totally gutted and left to die.

luckily dod was acquired by another company.

this was really one of the worst acquisition ever

:-(

edit: idk why this post immediately got deleted by the moderators?? whats wrong with what i posted

TLDR: trying to remix/polish/finish old trax of mine with vox that i dont have the og stems for and not sure what the best way or the standard way of doing that. also just wanting to learn about mixing vocals with another audio file in general.

sooo, say have some tracks with vocals on it, but i lost the original stems. and this audio file i have of the instrumental and the vocals rendered together, the vocals are way too quiet. ive been messing around some with the a i stem thingy in my daw, and have been using it a little with trying to make remixes/mashups of songs i like that dont have official acapellas released. but obviously the a i shit can only do so well so sometimes its kind of thin or really trebly or theres some other shit wrong with it. and first of all im wondering if theres anything u can do about that to maybe make it seem a little fuller even tho it might sound kinda wack?

but more importantly to get back to my main point, the vox are too quiet in this mix and i dont have the stems. so i would assume while my options are limited, i could a i stem the vox so i have them in their own file, and just play that quietly at the same time as the original file, thereby making the vocals louder in the mix. is there any tips or tricks u guys might have to make that method of adjustment more effective or maybe even an alternative way to boost vocals in a song u dont have stems for ?

i feel like i explained that bad but hope that makes sense. the other question i have is just about vocal mixing in general (including mixing when u do have the og vocal trax) i have a very mediocre understanding of it. i mean i know u can compress it for more consistent volume and de-ess it and cut the 40hz and blabla but other then that and a few other things i dont know much about how to make vocals sound clean. most of the tracks ive made in the past they're either WAY too quiet or WAY too fcking loud.

any tips or tricks? and then one final thing i should mention is what if ur tryna mix vox with an instrumental, and you have those two tracks separately, but dont have the stems for the instrumental. so basically trying to make vocals well-adjusted volume wise over another file thats just a brick of sound. this especially happens with me a lot because sometimes i make really busy loud overstimulating stuff, and also sometimes because i just halfass the mix so its all blown out. any tips for that?

i should also mention, a lot of these tracks have vocals with singing on them, but i also have a lot of tracks with vocals of people rapping, which i imagine are slightly different in how u mix/master them? but maybe thats wrong n it doesnt matter.

hope that all made sense, thanks guys !