Is 44.1 kHz the right sample rate for my music? What about 48 kHz? Why doesn’t everyone use 192 kHz for everything if it houses the most data? These are questions that gentle folk embarking on an audio production journey invariably come across, and this article is designed to answer these questions and more! Firstly, it should be known that 44.1 kHz and 48 kHz are widely recognized as the industry standard sample rates for recording and mixing. But why did we settle for, what are usually, the lowest options available on most DAWs? Surely technology and computation power has…
Author: David Lauritsen
So, you want to get into sound design for film, television, animation, games or any other media? One of the key techniques is not only understanding your signal chain but having a chain that works for you and can deliver a range of various sounds. This is a technique that I’ve slowly developed over the years to the point where I have saved Pro Tools track templates for these settings. Most sessions I work on will have some of these effects auxiliaries in the SFX section ready to go for some enhancement and ‘weight.’ In this video, I show you…
If you make beats or mix music professionally or as a hobby, chances are the hardware and software you have will be sufficient for film audio mixing and sound design. The aim of this article is to somewhat demystify the tools for mixing audio for film and television, perhaps giving you confidence knowing that the tools required for film mixing are within reach! Digital Audio Workstation Firstly, the DAW. Pro Tools has long been the industry standard (I bet you’re tired of hearing that, eh?) for film and television post audio. There are lots of reasons for this, but it…
The combination of the two polar patterns in phase-aligned microphones can produce a third polar pattern. This can be very handy as a mixing and postproduction technique as you can spend less time experimenting and trialling different set ups while the artist is waiting and more time tracking vocals or letting the magic unfold.Using two switchable pattern microphones, like these AKG C414 microphones pictured, one of them can be set to cardioid and the other can be set to omnidirectional. This works well because while recording you can be monitoring and sending the cardioid microphone’s signal to the artist’s headphones,…
Putting a key change into a song is an incredible tool that can yield a multitude of results. It can give a song a dramatic lift or it can create a sense of mystery and surprise. It is also something that I know a lot of people struggle with! This article will give you a method with which to experiment with different key changes. The method is quite formulaic in nature, so it is important to experiment with different iterations found from the method! https://youtu.be/S-rB0pHI9fU (Even the Beatles couldn’t help but try out a cheeky key change. And it’s so…
Producing backing vocals for a track is one of my favourite things to do. There are so many different ways to approach this, but the result is always the same: it breathes life into a track and gives it that extra 10% that you were looking for. The following tips can help to produce better backing vocals, although keep in mind that not every track necessarily requires these approaches. Every song is different and thus every treatment of backing vocals is going to be different. 1. Delete T’s and S’s from the ends of the sentence For backing vocals that…
Music for games isn’t too different from music in other media, although the difference lies in the possibilities that the medium presents to us.
Double tracking is a technique whereby one would record the exact same part twice. Double-tracking does not refer to recording an alternate line or a harmony part; it is the same part recorded for the second time. Why would you do that? A double-tracked part can give incredible thickness and richness to a part. It works particularly well with distorted electric riffs. Believe me, I’ve experimented with double-tracking everything; some things work better than others! The aim is for the average listener not to notice that there are two recordings of the same part. The doubled part needs to be…
