Category: Blog

SICK OF BANDS COMING TO RECORD UNPREPARED? WE’VE GOT YOUR SOLUTION.

– By Joey Sturgis

Nothing makes a session suck worse than when you’re planning on producing great material with a band that’s just not ready to record in any way, shape or form. They book enough time for a 10 song album, but arrive with 1 song and 5 riffs written… and they can barely play those 5 riffs!

There are plenty of reasons for this disconnect:

• Inexperience
• Lack of practice
• Too many distractions
• Laziness
• Lack of discipline
• The list goes on and on…

Band members run into enough stress in their careers between label demands and touring, or day jobs and family life. Many see the studio as a getaway from the day-to-day.

So what can you do as an engineer/producer to keep the session moving in the right direction?

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Be Malleable in Your Process

You need to be flexible with your workflow above all else. No two bands are the same. It stands to reason that no two recording sessions will be the same either. Even if a band fits a certain style, you’re going to take different approaches in tracking that coax the best performance out of the musician.

Here are a few of my favorite ways to switch things up:

Record Vocals on Day 1

Too often vocals are saved for last. When a vocalist walks into the vocal booth after weeks of tracking other instruments, it can be overwhelming. You might be throwing your vocalist’s performance under the bus by not including him sooner.

Whether or not you choose to keep the Day 1 vocals at the end of tracking is up to you. These vocals aren’t necessarily made for the final mix. They’re captured for the sake of inspiration.

Your singer will feel more included in the overall process by being included from the get-go. The rest of the band will have, at minimum, a reference vocal to help them dial in the groove of a song. Hard drive space is cheap. Capture everything and you might be pleasantly surprised when those Day 1 vocals were exactly what your mix needs.

No Demos? Make Them

You’re going to make me say it twice: Hard drive space is cheap.

If the band doesn’t have a demo or rough track when they’re walking into the studio, make one. It can be a microphone or two in a room with the band. It doesn’t have to sound amazing, and the performance doesn’t have to be perfect.

The point is to capture a “rough draft” of what the song should sound like. Without one, you don’t have anything to fall back on when the bassist suddenly forgets his transition leading into the bridge. Throughout recording, things can change. Parts get added and cut to make the song work. The demo provides a starting point, a reference for where the song originated.

Speaking of changing parts…

Record The Drums Last

If the band hasn’t finalized a song down to the last note, you’ve got little to lose by trying this approach. The benefit to recording drums last is that the band has a chance to iron out any in-studio changes beforehand.

Feel free to start off with a scratch drum track when trying this approach. Some musicians just can’t find the groove with a click track but can do wonders with a basic drum pattern. Have the drummer leave space for the others to find their sound.

Then, once everyone’s happy with their parts, have the drummer play through. They’ll benefit from having full instrumentation in their headphones, and they’ll be able to confidently play fills/complex sections with less fluctuation between takes because of it.

Best Practices for Tracking an Unprepared Band

Maybe you’re not ready to mess with your workflow to try out the techniques we’ve talked about so far. Don’t worry, every single engineer (and band) can take advantage of these last two helpful techniques:

Record with a DI Whenever Possible

We preach this approach whenever possible, but it’s because it works! Live amps are noisy, inconsistent, and often compressed/overdriven to the point where editing in your DAW after tracking can be a monumental nightmare.

Don’t rely on a band’s gear when it comes to the quality of your session. A band just starting out may not have the best equipment to begin with. Couple that with the limitations mentioned above, and you’ll quickly see how the guitarist’s tone issues become your issues.

Instead, invest in a good DI so that you can track the clean signal of guitars & basses. Having that DI signal provides you with a quick way to punch in and out without having to worry about cutting off the sustain and room tone of a miced up amplifier.

You can run your amp alongside the DI, or reamp later. You could also use an amp simulator if the guitarist is cool with trying out some new sounds (heads up, they usually are – we’re all dirty gear sluts at heart). The point is to have that clean signal as the least common denominator, giving you a fallback to use later if the performance was good but the sound needs adjusting.

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Practice Between Sessions

This rule is the absolute easiest way to get an unprepared band up to snuff without having to overhaul your workflow.

Give your bands homework. Be crystal clear with them – this is your job. You take it seriously. Their job is to know their part. Make sure they feel a sense of pride in what they’re doing and they’ll practice when you tell them to. Better yet, they’ll want to do it.

This step is just as much about psychology as it is about the need for rehearsal. By having band members take ownership of their part, they become the biggest advocate for its success. The more you get into the habit of having this conversation with clients, the easier it becomes to have.

At it’s most basic level, you need to ask the question: “Do you feel confident enough in your playing on this song that no one else could play your part better?” If there are any doubts, the seed has been planted and you can bet they’ll find time to practice.

Time to Get Prepared

Feel ready to give some of these a try? Excellent.

Remember, even the most unprepared band can be turned into a successful session if you find the obstacle they’re facing and remove it. Once you find a transparent and honest way to communicate with your artists, creativity will soar (taking your end product’s quality with it).

Have a story to share where you were able (or unable) to turn an unprepared band’s session around? Add it to the comments section below!

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For more awesome tips on becoming a better producer, head on over to the URM Academy blog and subscribe to our podcast or [clickfunnels_clickpop exit=”true” id=”5j5usoiqwzl4doja” subdomain=”unstoppablerecordingmachine”]join our mailing list[/clickfunnels_clickpop].

Nail The Mix is our online mixing school that gives you REAL multi-tracks from REAL bands, plus a mixing class from the producer who recorded it. Past guests include Periphery, Chelsea Grin, Machine Head and State Champs. Join now for instant access!

How To Stop Kidding Yourself And Eliminate Self-Delusion | By Joel Wanasek

To be successful at anything you’ve got to eliminate self-delusion.

… and it’s one of the hardest things you’ll ever do, because self-delusion is a very natural part of the human condition. 

However just because it’s natural, doesn’t mean it’s good.

Self-delusion is a cancer of the mind and must be stamped out before you can achieve the clarity of vision needed to turn yourself into an achievement machine.

• Jealousy
• Anger
• Contempt
• Excuses

Those are all poisons you can choose to feed the cancer of self-delusion.

For instance, when you see someone that’s more successful than you do you immediately try to tear them down, or do you analyze why they’re successful and apply it for yourself?

Which path do you think will bring you closer to your goals?

And let’s be real for a second, we all have goals.

• Want to make a living recording bands?
• Become an A list mixer?
• Or maybe you just want to record your own music better.

Let me tell you a little story…

One of the biggest delusions I’ve ever had is the belief that getting really good at guitar and developing super sick chops would be enough to sustain my career.

I completely disregarded market timing.

In the 1980’s guitar shredding paid massive dividends, but in the early 2000s? Not so much.

Even though we were all great players, my band paid no attention to image, market trends, market timing, and song writing. We just played hard and thought it would lead us to victory.

Wrong!

It only took me 8 years to finally figure this out, and change my life’s path.

8 FREAKING YEARS!

Take that in for a second…

In my heart I knew I was lying to myself, but blind hope and self-delusion shaped my action, and kept me going in the wrong direction for a long time.

Before I could experience any of the success I have today, I had to fail.

And in order to fail, I had to admit to myself that I had failed.

Let’s apply this to audio now:  

The first delusion we need to break is thinking this path will be easy. We need to realize that this stuff is hard work. And to get good, you need to put in the time. Too many young kids I meet just want the fast track or the preset to everything.

There is no fast track or easy mode in audio!

Let me repeat it so it sinks into your head.

THERE IS NO FAST TRACK OR EASY MODE IN AUDIO!

Another common delusion is the “how good am I actually” question. Ego always tells us that we are better than we are. It’s easy to make a massive amount of progress and think that you are starting to become hot stuff.

Let me share a secret with you…

I know a lot of very famous producers. Not a single one of them on the A or B list thinks that they’re amazing. They don’t take shortcuts or pump up their own egos. They’re all trying to get better, every day.

The only way to be truly great at something is to commit to being great and then be strict enough in your discipline to actually follow through.

Every. Single. Day.

A final, and very common delusion people have, is that the only way to make serious money in this business is to work with signed bands.

Budgets from unsigned bands alone have helped me purchase over 100k worth of gear while paying my living expenses, insurance, food bills, and supporting my children.

You can actually make out really well not working with signed bands.

Labels have politics, money and inter-office ego battles. These things often clash and sometimes can result in weird situations where you don’t get paid for long periods of time.

Nearly every producer I know that works on signed bands has had at least 1 dispute with a label over money.

While working with signed artists is cool for your cred, it’s a lot easier to get paid recording unsigned acts because they show up, give you money, and go home.

Now it’s your turn to take control of your audio career.

Answer the following questions:

1. What self delusions do you have? Trust your gut feeling, you know what they are. Admit them to yourself.
2. What are you going to do right NOW to change that mindset?
3. What is holding you back from achieving massive success in your career and life?
4. Do you look at successful people and feel resentment? Ask yourself why? As the great Chase Jarvis says, “don’t hate, congratulate!”

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For more awesome tips on becoming a better producer, head on over to the URM Academy blog and subscribe to our podcast.

Nail The Mix is our online mixing school that gives you REAL multi-tracks from REAL bands, plus a mixing class from the producer who recorded it. Past guests include Periphery, Chelsea Grin, Machine Head and State Champs. Join now for instant access!

Making Sure You’re Getting Your Inspiration Nourished Properly – By Jesse Cannon

While I recognize I am about to talk about nutrition to a bunch of energy drink swilling, Taco­Bell ingesting people whose idea of exercise is cranking a snare drum to tune it, understanding how to nurture your mind to make great music is crucial to making great records.

There’s a famous saying that gets tossed around a lot that you’re the product of the five people you hang out with the most. In finance they say you’re as rich as the five people you talk to the most. Well, this also goes for musical influence. The five things you listen to the most will largely shape what you create. With years of music listening this can be diminished down to what you listened to over the course of your life. However, for beginners, this is especially crucial since you don’t have years of accumulating influence, standards, and a palette to draw from.

After establishing that inspiration is research, we need to recognize that you should be conscious of the inspiration you’re taking in as if it were a diet. When I’m trying to get inspired for a record, I try to consider my inspiration diet. I then nurture myself for what I’ll need to make sure I’m inspired for a project.

Here are considerations I often take in when trying to make sure I’m going to be on the best diet to be inspired on a project:

Favorites Vs. Fresh­ 

It can be easy to get lost in your favorite records. Getting to know them as best you can is some of the most important listening you can do to figure out what you love about them. Plus it feels great to listen to them! But you also need to be taking in new records to gain new and fresh ideas. Even if these records aren’t music made in recent years, you need to continue to get inspired by new source material. The inverse can also be true. You can be too focused on new records versus exploring your favorites and figuring out what makes them tick. If I give a concentrated listen to many of my favorite records even decades later, I can still find new details from them to get inspired by, but there’s nothing like fresh new ideas to get you inspired.

The Greats Vs. The Local Trash ­

Everyone has a favorite local band that’s doing amazing music that the world may never hear. There are also the other ten bands in your local scene who aren’t that special and far too often, musicians put too much time into listening to them. I’ve seen many musicians get lost in listening to their friend’s music that’s poorly done versions of great bands. This drives their standards down. It will make them think subpar ideas are great, instead of getting used to the high standards they need to achieve the greatness of the greats. 

Bells & Whistles Vs. Solid Songs ­

On some records, an artist can be filled with inspiration for song structures and hooks, but when it comes to how to do some crazy soundscapes they may be coming up blank. I’ll often go on an inspiration diet depending on what a band needs for this. If a band needs help coming up with soundscapes, I may end up listening to Mars Volta, Brian Eno, Clinic, The Talking Heads and Chrome to get ideas of what we could do. But if the band has a mind for those bells and whistles, I may try to get into the mind of their favorite songwriters and make sure we stay focused on solid songs. Consider where you feel deficient inspiration wise and consciously take in inspiration that’ll help nurture what you need on a project.

Inspiration opens our brains to the possibility of what can be done in music. The more we are reminded of this possibility the greater connections we can make to do great things in music. Making sure you get the right inspiration is far more important than another hour spent, no matter what your job in music is.

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Jesse Cannon is a Brooklyn based record producer, mixer and mastering engineer. He is co-founder of Noise Creators a service that connects musicians to the best producers in music today. He is the author of Get More Fans: The DIY Guide To The New Music Business and the upcoming Processing Creativity.

Click here and listen to Jesse’s guest URM Podcast episode where we discuss strategies upcoming audio engineers can use to promote themselves, and lots of juicy mastering tips.

Click here to read Jesse’s previous URM blog entry, “Band Practice Is Toxic To Your Creativity.”

Nail The Mix is our online mixing school that gives you REAL multi-tracks from REAL bands, plus a mixing class from the producer who recorded it. Past guests include Periphery, Chelsea Grin, Machine Head and State Champs. Join now for instant access!

Death To Sibilance: A Simple Guide To De-essing Vocals – By Thomas Brett

Over-sibilance is a problem with most recorded vocal tracks. Sibilance is the common name for some of the harsh sounds in the human voice such as “s,t,ch,th”. If not dealt with correctly, these sounds will cut through a mix in a very painful way. In other words, they make your mixes hard to listen to. 

“De-Essing” is the process of reducing the level of these sibilant sounds in order to make the vocal sound more pleasant. I’m going to share some of my favorite de-essing tricks which can be used both during the mixing, and recording stages. 

Tackling Sibilance in the Recording Stage:

The age old recording cliche says “get it right at the source.” I can’t argue with that. One of the best ways to reduce sibilance in your vocal tracks is to capture less sibilance in the first place.

                                             Vocalist singing around two fists (8 inches) away from a condenser microphone.

Don’t place the microphone too close to the singer’s mouth:

On condensers, try to keep the distance between the singer’s mouth and the capsule of the microphone at around 8 inches. Anything closer than this and the sibilance and plosive (bursts of air from P,B sounds) sounds in the vocal will be exaggerated.  

The vocalist will often need to be closer than 8 inches on dynamic microphones like an SM7B. In cases like these try a combination of the methods outlined below.                                                                                                                                            

(BONUS TIP: A good way to make sure the singer stays at the correct distance from the microphone is to tell them to sing at around two fists away. One fist between the mic and the pop filter, and one fist between the singer and the pop filter.)                                                                                                                                                        

Angle the microphone:

High frequency sounds are very directional. By angling the microphone so that it’s not in a direct line with the singer’s mouth you can reduce the amount of sibilance hitting the microphone directly. Plus, there’s the added benefit of reducing plosives (bursts of air from P,B sounds).

Microphone aimed at the singers mouth at a 45 degree angle while the singer aims toward the pop filter.

Try the Pencil Trick:

This is a rather unconventional trick that I hadn’t heard about until Eyal Levi mentioned it while discussing this article. After doing some research and trying it myself, I must admit that it works surprisingly well! While this trick is primarily aimed at stopping plosives, it can sometimes help reduce sibilance as well. 

This technique uses a pencil to block/reduce the amount of air hitting the diaphragm of the microphone, and in return reduce the high-end harshness in the sibilance.

The Pencil Trick on an AKG c414

How to do the Pencil Trick:

1. Find yourself a regular wooden pencil and a rubber band (a hair-band will also do the trick).
2. Attach the pencil to the grill of the microphone so that it’s facing straight down over the center of the membrane.
3. Experiment using this technique with and without a pop-filter. Depending on the severity of the sibilance,  if you’re not careful, you might end up over-dulling the vocal in certain cases.

Tackling Sibilance in the Mixing Stage:

Don’t worry If a vocal hasn’t been recorded properly, or if the vocalist just happens to be extremely sibilant. Handling sibilance in a mix is relatively easy. 

De-Esser Plugins:

The easiest and most popular method to De-Ess a vocal would be to use a De-Esser plugin.

Here’s a list of my favorite De-Esser plugins available on the market today:

• Fabfilter Pro-DS – My personal favorite. Offers the best customization and the most options.
• Waves R De-Esser
• Plugin Alliance SPL De-esser

What is a De-Esser?

A De-Esser is basically a compressor which is side-chained to the high-mid frequencies. When set correctly, a De-esser will only act upon the harsh and sibilant sounds within a vocal. Most De-Essers give you the ability to fine-tune which frequencies are being affected. By using these parameters you can determine where the problem areas are, and how the plugin reacts to them.

De-Essers usually offer two separate ways of reducing sibilance:

1 – Split-Band De-Essing:

A Split-Band De-Esser is a multi-band compressor which has been optimized for sibilant sounds. This setting will only affect the high frequencies of the sibilance (which the user can determine). 

SPL De-Esser in Split-Band Mode

By using this setting you can effectively “dull” the sibilance, and in return cause less irritation to the listener’s ears.

2 – Wide-Band De-Essing:

Unlike Split-Band De-Essing, a wide-band De-esser will compress (turn down) the whole vocal track whenever a sibilant sound crosses the threshold parameter.

Waves R De-Esser in Wide-Band mode.

I personally prefer using De-Essers in the wide-band setting, as the esses are left intact frequency-wise and only reduced in volume instead.

How to use a De-Esser:

1. Instantiate a De-Esser plugin as an insert on your vocal channel. The most common places to insert a De-Esser are usually at the very end, or beginning of your signal chain (or both).
2. Loop a section of the vocal which has a lot of sibilance. 
3. Choose either wide-band or split-band mode depending on what’s available. Both of these settings work well, I personally prefer using the wide-band mode. It sounds more natural to me.
4. Set the side-chain frequency of the De-Esser at somewhere between 5kHz to 10kHz. Some De-Essers only give you the option to center the side-chain around a certain frequency area. Others give you multiple frequency sliders in order to set the range between two frequencies.
5. Set the range of the De-Esser. The range control determines the maximum amount of reduction which will be applied to the sibilance. I usually find that somewhere between 5 to 10 dB of reduction works well. Please note – this is very dependent on the amount of sibilance in any particular vocal track.
6. Set the threshold parameter so that you are getting the desired amount of reduction.

Manual Volume Automation De-Essing:

De-Essing vocals manually is much more time-consuming compared to using a plugin. However, this method allows for much more control and fine-tuning on a per sibilant basis:

Reducing the volume of a single sibilant using automation.

When viewed in an editor, sibilant sounds within the waveform/vocal will appear like very dense blobs (due to mainly being made up of high frequency information). For this reason it’s very easy to quickly identify the sibilant sounds within a vocal.

Once you’ve spotted the sibilance, the next step is to add a volume envelope to each one and reduce them in volume by anywhere from 5-10dB.

This is basically the same as using a wide-band De-Esser, but with the added control of adjusting the volume for each sibilant separately. Although doing this by-hand is super accurate, the biggest downside is the fact that it takes much longer than just using a plugin.

Split Track De-Essing:

This method of De-Essing is not for the faint-hearted. It comprises of manually cutting each individual sibilant sound out of the vocal track one by one and moving them on to a second channel.

Splitting the sibilance on to a separate track and reducing the volume with the channel fader.

This process is the most tedious and labor intensive method of doing the job, but in return gives you full control over the amount of sibilance in your vocal, as well as the option to process the sibilance differently.

In Conclusion:

Using any of these techniques can lead to great results. It’s important to remember that there isn’t really a “correct” way to de-ess a vocal. I find that choosing which method to use really depends on your workflow, and how long you’re willing to spend on the de-essing process.

Try out these techniques in your own projects and make sure to experiment with using multiple techniques on a single vocal. Remember that splitting a process between multiple stages instead of relying on a single plugin or technique can sometimes be the key to more natural sounding results.

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Thomas Brett is a producer, mixing engineer and songwriter at Brett Brothers recording studio in the UK. Check out the Brett Brothers studio website for more information and articles on all things mixing www.brettbrothersstudio.com

Nail The Mix is our online mixing school that gives you REAL multi-tracks from REAL bands, plus a mixing class from the producer who recorded it. Past guests include Periphery, Chelsea Grin, Machine Head and State Champs. Join now for instant access!

5 Reasons You Suck As A Producer – By Joey Sturgis

Have you ever stopped and wondered why getting clients is so hard? What about getting bands to keep working with you for consecutive albums, or even consecutive songs? Unfortunately, the root of your problems might be you…  Luckily, it’s not too late to fix that.

Stop shooting yourself in the foot! Here we go:

1. You Complain About Your Clients

This should seem simple to most of us, and it’s summed up best with the saying, “You don’t bite the hand that feeds.” Simply put – quit bitching about the artist and refocus on the art.

As a producer, you’re paid to do a job. Whether that income is upfront payment from an artist or a royalties cut on the backend, your livelihood comes from your ability to curate your clients’ music. They don’t need to be your friend, and there’s certainly plenty of competition out there for the role of producer these days.

(RELATED – Kurt Ballou (Converge, Champion, Have Heart) does a great job explaining how he treat his clients right and keeps them coming back.)

Have you ever worked a shitty job in retail or food service? Well as much as you probably don’t want to hear it – some of those skills should be applied to your role as producer.

The music industry is just as much as a service industry as any other. Your ability to provide good customer service and get the end result right for your client directly translates to how successful you will be.

2. You’re Inconsistent

I’m not talking about the quality of the songs you’re recording… I’m talking about YOU.

You need to develop good habits in your production. Turning things in late, putting off projects, and not showing up on time shows a lack of respect for your artist’s time & work.

How likely would you be to continue working with someone who you can’t rely on?

On a personal level, you should strive to make deadlines and stick to them. Timeliness forms successful habits. Before you know it, you’ll find your workflow benefiting from this behavior too. Instead of living in a world of “what if’s” you’ll be able to commit to a decision with rock solid consistency.

Being consistent will make or break your career in this industry.

(RELATED – Check out our podcast with Josh Newell (Linkin Park, Cynic, Celine Dion), whose admirable work ethic in the LA production scene has allowed him to work with heavy hitters in both metal & pop.)

3. Your Communication Sucks

This doesn’t have anything to do with scheduling your appointments or ignoring text/phone calls. Your communication in the studio has to be crystal clear if you’re planning on succeeding.

Think about what musicians are telling you. Ask for clarification when an artist has a concern. Too often, you’re brushing off their input since you’re supposed to be the expert in the room, but you should be trying to get to the root of the problem.

You need to read between the lines.

Your artists may not know the technical terms that you do, and at times they may not know what they even want. It’s your job to become a musical translator, just like we covered in Episode 2 of the URM Podcast.

The simplest issue for this is when a singer lacks confidence in their vocal ability. They may tell you their voice is too soft or they just can’t nail a verse down. Instead of writing them off as an idiot and tracking again and again until you get something mediocre “that will work”, seek alternate solutions.

It may be something as simple as muting some instrumentation so the vocalist can hear themselves in the mix better. Maybe they’re feeling uncomfortable with a dry vocal and just need a bit of reverb added on.

Learn the psychology behind common concerns in the studio, and translate them into a solution.

4. You Don’t Have a Vision

Stop spending so much time on a single piece of the puzzle. Too often, you can’t see the forest for the trees… and it’s killing your productivity. If you spend too much time working on an element, regardless of if it’s cleaning noise out of tracks, tuning a vocal, or dialing in a tone too long, you’re going to hate your work.

Instead, take a step back to examine the entire project, and how what you’re working on fits into it. You don’t need to ignore that piece altogether, but it does help to ask yourself, “Do I really need to commit all of this effort?”

If the answer is no, get it to an acceptable point and center your energy around something that’s going to make or break the song. By working with the big picture in mind, you’re able to create something cohesive and meaningful without overanalyzing or wasting your time.

(RELATED – Finn McKenty does an excellent job explaining how to find your vision in his post, “Want a career in music? You need a point of view.”)

5. You Try to Do Everything Yourself

Slow down, Superman.

Early on in your career, it’s common to try and do it all yourself. Who needs sleep when you’ve got so much great music to work on? The problem is you burn out. You realize that you can’t do it all. You don’t have to… There’s a reason the big guys all have assistants – there’s not enough time in the day.

As much as you love your work, there are other hobbies and people you should spend time with. You might be great at everything you do from drum editing to tuning vocals and dialing in the perfect guitar tone, but you should learn when to let some of that go.

You need to develop trust with those around you, and the easiest way to do that is to remember that you’re all sharing the same goal – to make great music. Find the things in projects that you don’t like doing, and find someone to do it better.

There are guys out there that build their careers off of working on the parts you don’t want to. Just look at John Douglass, who went from bedroom producing to working with the biggest artists in pop and metal by becoming an expert at drum editing.

He found his niche, have you found yours?

Delegating your work is a freeing experience. It not only gives you more time to focus on what you love, but it also keeps your mind sharp and creative.

Putting This All Into Practice

While you may not be affected by all 5 of the above, there isn’t a producer on the planet that couldn’t improve on at least one. Sure, it can feel overwhelming. But you’re off to the right start by taking an honest look at your faults and working toward a solution.

Take a quick look over the list again and choose whichever one you feel applies to you the most. If you feel pretty confident in your skills already & are seeing a steady workload, maybe it’s time to find someone to help (see #5).  

The point is – we can all stand to improve somewhere & we’re here to help you any way we can.

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For more awesome tips on becoming a better producer, head on over to the URM Academy blog and subscribe to our podcast.

Nail The Mix is our online mixing school that gives you REAL multi-tracks from REAL bands, plus a mixing class from the producer who recorded it. Past guests include Periphery, Chelsea Grin, Machine Head and State Champs. Join now for instant access!