Studio & Recording

Compressors, equalizers, reverb effects, delays… for the weekend-producer as well as the serious home-studio owner, kitting yourself out with some real hardware units can prove pretty costly. The big question is whether or not the virtual audio plugins designed to emulate real hardware and that you can use from the comfort of your DAW, do just as professional a job. So how good are current plugins at modelling hardware and how does it actually work?

Welcome to the world of music production, where time is of utmost importance. In this fast-paced environment, being efficient is crucial, and Studio One provides a variety of tools to help you optimize your productivity. Follow guest blogger Mike Rosa as he reveals ten time-saving methods that will take your music production workflow to the next level.

While it isn’t the most obvious, live editing is actually one of the best ways to create music using Ableton Live, especially when it comes to genres where quick-switching is the name of the game, like drum-and-bass and other glitchy styles. Guest-blogger Hens Zimmerman is back to show you how to remix in real time via seven simple steps.

If you’ve already read my other blog on FM synthesis, then you’re ready for part two: an extensive tutorial on how to design sounds using FM synthesis. To give ambitious beginners a helping hand, I’ll be covering terms like operator, carrier, modulator, envelope, scaling and feedback, giving you all the basic knowledge you need to use either FM-based hardware such as real synthesizers, or FM-based software such as the Native Instruments FM8 virtual synth (included with Komplete) to sculpt your own sounds.

Given the infinite list of plug-ins you can add to your DAW these days, it’s easy to forget that, back in the day, every single effect was a separate bit of kit that needed to be hooked up. Not only that, parts could break and spilling a cup of tea was a serious job hazard. That being said, hardware-based effects are still made to this very day.

Ever wondered what MPE, or MIDI Polyphonic Expression can do for your Ableton Live productions? Guest-blogger Hens Zimmerman is here to explain the potential of this ground-breaking MIDI feature and show you how MPE can be used to shape super-expressive sounds.

Discover 10 time-saving techniques in FL Studio with Workflow Hacks. As a music producer, efficiency and innovation are crucial in the studio. Guestblogger Mike Rosa used these hacks, tips, and tricks to save time and avoid headaches. Whether you’re a seasoned user or just starting out, these insights will help take your music  production to the next level.

The venerable experts of Bax Music could offer up a thousand-and-one fascinating facts about the microphone, but since no one has time for that, we’ve hand-picked just five!

One of the most common mistakes that creators make when producing videos is not paying proper attention to the audio. No matter how expensive your camera and film lights are, if the sound isn’t up to par, your viewers will probably feel like your videos are missing something. Want to know how to record dialogue more professionally? Then read on!

Playing guitar with a tube amplifier at max power without the neighbours complaining – is it even possible? Well, yes. The only problem with playing through a tube amp is that it needs to be hooked up to a speaker cabinet before you flip it on. If you don’t, you risk doing irreparable damage to your amp. That’s because tube amps require a ‘load’, and that’s exactly where the loadbox comes in to replace your loud cab. Read on to learn how to use one and what it can do.

Dance music relies on rhythm, contrast and… tension. If your listener is just hearing the same thing again and again, they can quickly drift off, so any good EDM producer wants to keep things interesting and keep the tension building. The break is a great opportunity to build tension, since it gives your listener a chance to catch their breath before you shift things up a gear with the build-up and smack them with the inevitable drop. Here, Guestblogger and DJ/producer Rutger Steenbergen offers up seven tips for building up to the ultimate drop.

Guestblogger, Sander is a professional voiceover artist. Every working day, you’ll find him sitting behind his microphone in his booth at home, recording voice overs for everything from web videos to commercials – including Bax Music ads. In fact, Sander has been the ‘voice’ of Bax Music for ten years already. In this blog, he shares his trade secrets when it comes to recording the perfect voiceover.