Inserts vs Effects Sends – Which to use for what

Many young engineers, and home recording enthusiasts, have never worked with an analog console before, and they only mixer they have ever used is that built into their DAW software of choice. They may have had no formal training, and thus may be unfamiliar with the way channel inserts and effects sends, or aux sends, are traditionally used, especially in the big studios with big analog consoles. While there is no right or wrong way to do anything, and modern DAW software and computers have enough power to do almost anything you want, there are reasons why the more traditional methods of using inserts and sends were established.

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Microphone choices for Acoustic Guitars

Carrying on with the theme of popular microphone choices that many pros use for various instruments, this article will focus on various microphones commonly used to record acoustic guitars. The choice of microphones and placement for recording acoustic guitars can vary quite a bit depending on the style of the

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Common microphone choices for drums

One of the most popular questions that beginning recording enthusiasts ask is “What microphone should I use to record _blank_?”, where blank is an instrument or voice or whatever it is they want to record.  In this series of articles, I’ll cover some of the more common or “standard” microphone choices that you’ll

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The Ultimate Vocal Microphone? – Part 2

Neumann TLM-103 Microphone After finding out that the Studio Projects C1 microphone was sometimes too bright and somewhat harsh with certain vocalists, I set out to find another “vocal” microphone to add to my collection. One of the companies I had bought several items from was blowing out their stock

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Pre- or post-fader?

I use Cubase SX 3.  I have a question regarding where one would use an effect like Ozone in the stereo bus chain.  Should it be used pre-fader or post-fader.  In Cubase there are eight slots on the stereo output bus.  Six of the eight are pre-fader and the last

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Guitar Recording Question

so far I only recorded voice in my studio with my Amek recording pre-amp/eq (9098) and a Neuman U87 microphone. today I set up my fender amp in my studio and miked it with the Neuman running through the Amek recording pre-amp, but I ran into the following problem which

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Effects Order

I have a question regarding order of effects on the stereo output channel. I have Ozone 3 which is a “mastering” plug in. It contains a graphic EQ, some compressors, reverb, etc. I also have a separate compressor which I like to use to add a little kick to the

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Phasing and phase correction

Doctor:I’ve recently become aware of phasing and attempts to correct it.  It’s a bit tricky.  An out of phase track or instrument really disappears when you listen to the final product.First of all, is it good to have some amount of phase differential in a song.  It seems like phasing

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New to recording – MIDI vs Audio

I’m new to recording so please bare with me. I’m attempting to use my keyboard to record MIDI into my Mbox. However it wont record loops from the keyboard. Also, if I change settings after I record one thing whatever I previously recorded takes on the new sound I switched

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