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Mix Live Blog: Pluses and Minuses
Mix columnist Steve La Cerra writes in from Blue Oyster Cult's FOH console and reports he's not the only one a little rusty from...
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Peek Inside Billionaire Paul Allen’s Home Studio
The Beverly Hills estate of late billionaire Paul Allen is on the market for $55.5 million, including its massive home studio, Neptune Valley.
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Mix Blog Live: Rental Gouge
Ever on the road, live sound pro Steve La Cerra recounts a wretched rental counter encounter—and considers how other touring acts will be affected...
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Authenticity and the Art of Performance
"Yes, anything goes, and that’s what this column is about. Expect opinions, praise, complaints, controversy, and of course, occasional moments of blinding stupidity."
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Peek Inside Pete Townshend’s Home Studio
The Who's Pete Townshend is selling The Wick, his circa 1775 London mansion that's home to the studio where The Rolling Stones wrote "It's...
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Mix Blog Live: At Home, On Tour
The Boss reopened on Broadway a few days ago and has announced plans for a 2022 tour, though the two types of performances are...
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Mix Blog Studio: Skewed Critical Focus
The ease with which people can offer opinions online and then call themselves a music critic means that ... well, there are a lot...
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Mix Blog Live: Ready, Set, Go
With Foo Fighters playing next week at a sold-out, full-capacity, vaccination-required Madison Square Garden, the concert touring industry is seeing its first signs of...
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Mix Blog Studio: Be Ready to Record—Wherever and Whenever
You never know when a song idea or a guitar riff is going to pop into your head, so it helps if you have...
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Mix Blog Live: Two Gigs in One Weekend!
Steve La Cerra is getting back into the rhythm of the road after setting up travel, backline and the FOH mix for two shows...
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Mix Blog Studio: Track Organization Quiz
There are as many ways to approach mix as there are engineers, ranging from the hyper-methodical, 'must-color-code-now' to the free-wheeling, 'I'll-figure-out-what-I-did-later." Which one are...
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Mix Blog Live: Get That Chip Off Your Shoulder
The ongoing, worldwide shortage in ICs is delaying product manufacturing across nearly every industry, and pro audio, it appears, will be taking a back...
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Mix Blog Studio: Cassettes? Really?
Mike Levine, who was there for the emergence of the Portastudio back in the day, is mystified by the resurgence in popularity of the...
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Editor’s Note: Influence and Inspiration
There’s a scene in the movie School of Rock where the Jack Black character, the temp music teacher at a private school, is walking...
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Mix Blog Live: Ten-Foot Kick
We like loud, we like clarity and we like dynamics. That's what we do in live performance. But now is not the time to...
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Mix Blog Studio: 500 Series As a Gateway to Analog
After years of mixing in-the-box, Mike Levine discovered a range of 500 Series units; he now employs a hybrid approach to his mixes that...
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Mix Blog Live: Spring Training
Steve La Cerra was back at FOH last weekend, and that proved to be the easy part following a 17-hour journey from New York...
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Mix Blog Studio: Tear It Down and Build It Up
Mike Levine can't get to his third-floor studio for a few more weeks, so he moved some of it downstairs, all the time thinking...
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No Need to Go It Alone
If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past year of isolation, there’s no need to go it alone.
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Mix Blog Live: Muscle Memory
After a long hiatus, Steve La Cerra settled in at FOH for his first gig of 2021 and, for a brief moment, found that...
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Mix Blog Studio: Loops By Subscription
The software subscription model has made its way into pro audio, and Mike Levine finds that the new wave of loop sites provide great...
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Mix Blog Live: Vegas Reopens at 50 Percent
While not a long-term solution, the move in Las Vegas to open venues at up to 50 percent capacity (or 250 people, whichever is...
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This One’s a Reader
I entered the graduate journalism program at Indiana University in 1986, about seven or eight lifetimes ago in technology years. In the summer of...
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Mix Blog Studio: iZotope and NI—One Plus One Equals…?
A new alliance between two powerhouses in pro audio and music production has some intriguing possibilities for creators, including the incorporation of AI into...
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Mix Blog Live: GRAMMY Time
Grammy Week and Music's Biggest Night will look a lot different this time around, but as Steve La Cerra points out, the performers are...
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Mix Blog Studio: Console Yourself
Mike Levine is beginning to rethink his mix workflow by looking at console emulation plug-ins rather than mix-and-match dynamics and processing.
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Well, It’s Been a Year Now…
My daughters like to tease me that I use a few too many ellipses in my texts and emails. “Oh yeah, dad, he’s king...
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Mix Blog Live: Well, At Least Someone Cares
While the public cheered recent announcements of limited-capacity venue reopenings, Steve La Cerra looks at the economics and calls it a non-starter; meanwhile, he...
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Mix Blog Studio: Real Drums Change Everything
While producing an instrumental track for one of his bands, Mike Levine suddenly found that he had access to a live, remote drummer—a good...
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Mix Blog Live: RTFM
In teaching a lesson to a student about following the proper steps for a project, Steve La Cerra ends up following his own advice...
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Mix Blog Studio: Hardware Shines at NAMM
Mike Levine ended up spending time with the revival in hardware products at the recent virtual NAMM show, reminding him a bit of a...
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Mix Blog Live: Virtually NAMM
Steve La Cerra really wanted to go to Anaheim this year to find new products and catch up with some colleagues, but mostly he...
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Editor’s Note: Welcome 2021, We’ve Been Waiting for You
It’s been a long, long year. Same number of seconds, minutes and hours, yes, but I think we can all agree that it sure...
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Mix Blog Studio: Happy Feet
Mike Levine checks in virtually for NAMM Believe in Music Week and sets out to sate his appetite for new products and expert panel...
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Mix Blog Live: It Ain’t The Gig, It’s the Commute
Steve La Cerra just had his second gig since the Covid outbreak, and while it went better in the house, the same could not...
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Mix Blog Studio: Pro Tools 2020.11 Boosts Performance, Adds Features
Mike Levine is loving the host of new features and the reduced strain on his CPU load in the latest Pro Tools update.
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Mix Blog Live: Sending Out an SOS
Steve La Cerra reports in on the latest from Congress in Covid relief to help venue operators and those involved in live sound and...
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Mix Blog Studio: The Good Kind of Drama
Injecting some storytelling drama into a song can take place anywhere along the way, from songwriting through the mix, and Mike Levine considers it...
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Mix Blog Live: My First Indoor Gig, Front to Back
In his first indoor gig of the Covid era, Steve La Cerra finds that while the crew and backstage areas followed protocol, it was...
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Mix Blog Studio: A Place for Everything
Mike Levine admits his own messy tendencies when it comes to studio odds and ends, which is why he reminds us of a few...