I see this question a lot, and today I’d like to set the record straight. If you’re like me, and you’ve been recording for a long time, you hear “mono” and “stereo” and you understand the differences and when to use each.
However, if you’re just starting out, all these audio terms are being thrown at you — EQ, mixing, compression, reverb, effects, tracks, cardioid, dither, condenser, plug-in, bus — and it can get very confusing VERY quickly.
The good news? You don’t have to memorize Sweetwater’s glossary to be able to make great-sounding recordings. You’ll learn the terminology as you go.
One of the first things you should get a handle on is the concept of mono and stereo.
Do you own good headphones? Are you thinking about getting some but you’re not sure which ones you need? What about closed vs. semi-open vs. open?
There’s a lot to consider. Headphones are a crucial part of any home studio. You’ll be spending a LOT of hours wearing them, so you want to make the right choice.
This video should help. Enjoy! (Also, leave a comment below and tell us what headphones YOU use.)
Last week I posted a video called Intro to Microphones. This week, let’s follow the signal past the microphone and into the microphone preamp.
A preamp is one of those necessary items for your studio. Either your audio interface will have built-in preamps, or you’ll use external preamps. Enjoy!
Ah, microphones. They can be so much fun to use and collect, but if you’re just starting out, you may not really know what different types of microphones exist out there. Hope this helps!
A lot of people get that “glazed-over” look when they try to explain or figure out buses and IO settings in their DAW. In this video, I give you a simple explanation of buses and IO. I’ll be showing it to you in Pro Tools, but these principles apply to any DAW.
What is your favorite thing to use buses for? I need 10 comments before I’ll post tomorrow’s post.
Do you ever use a gate or expander plug-in? Do you know what they do? Do you know how COOL they are?
I use them mainly for voiceover. They can help take a fairly noisy environment and make it seem much quieter than it actually is. I use them on the HSC Podcast, for example. In this video I actually use a snippet of audio from the latest podcast to show you how a gate/expander works.
How do you use gates? Leave a comment! I’ll need 10 comments before the next post.
De-essers. They’re so cool, but a lot of people aren’t sure exactly when or where or why to use them. Here’s a long overdue video where I explain just that. Enjoy! (And be sure to leave a comment.)
@iamjosephkim on Twitter was asking me today if I have a video on dither. I should probably do a full-on video tutorial on it at some point. But for today, let me give you the “quick and dirty” run-down on dither.
All you high-end, super smarty-pants, you are welcome to go in-depth in the comments section, but I’m gonna keep this brief and simple.
What is dither?
Dither is simply noise that you add to your mix. Every DAW I’ve ever used comes with a dither plug-in. This normally goes on your master fader.
I see this question a lot, and today I’d like to set the record straight. If you’re like me, and you’ve been recording for a long time, you hear “mono” and “stereo” and you understand the differences and when to use each.
