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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 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 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 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 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...
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Mix Blog Studio: Analog Emulation—How Much Is Too Much?
Mike Levine likes adding some analog flavor to his mixes, often through modeling and emulation plug-ins. Still, he wonders if he sometimes goes too...
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Mix Blog Studio: AI and Presets
While presets are designed to help you "get close," they carry a certain stigma among pros who want to dial in their own taste;...
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Mix Blog Studio: Virtually There
The 2020 virtual AES Show begins this week and runs through the month of October; Mike Levine took a peek inside to see what...
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Mix Blog Studio: The No-Flow Zone
Athletes and creatives call it "being in the zone," while to neuroscientists it is known as "being in the flow." It's that state where...
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Mix Blog Studio: Authoritarians and Music Don’t Mix
Censorship of the arts can take many forms, and as Mike Levine found out with a little research, it is by no means a...
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Mix Blog Studio: A Nice Surprise in Subscription Support
While Mike Levine has pointed out his own drawbacks to adopting subscription software plans, Plugin Alliance has introduced a model where your plug-ins are...
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Mix Blog Studio: 4U Recording Helps Uplift Memphis Music
Songwriter/producer David Porter has been quietly leading an effort to re-energize the Memphis music industry through the organization MIME and the capabilities of a...
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Mix Blog Studio: Practice Safe Session
Recording sessions, with musicians, producers and engineers in a room, will happen again. The question is when, and how.
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Mix Blog Studio: Must the Show Go On?
January 2021 is only six months away, and NAMM, as of today, is planning on a January show in Anaheim. Mike Levine asks, Is...
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Mix Blog Studio: Give Yourself a Break
Frustration has a way of creeping in when you go back into a track to make a small "improvement," only to find yourself hours...
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Mix Blog Studio: My Review Process
When a reviewer sits down to evaluate a new piece of technology, where does the process begin, and how does one give an objective...
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Mix Blog Studio: Balancing Act
Ever wonder what your mix "looks like," across the frequency spectrum, compared to similar songs or similar styles? Ever wonder if you're slightly off...
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Mix Blog Studio: Headphone Helpers
With the whole family at home—all day, every day—Mike Levine has found himself putting on headphones more often as part of his mixing work.
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Mix Blog Studio: The Spigot Turns Off
The pandemic and the adoption of social distancing measures has hit the music industry hard, and the uncertainties about when, how and even if...
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Mix Blog Studio: Getting the Band Back Together (Sort of)
Live streaming a performance from home is one thing, but recording a song for digital release while each band member in his or her...
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Mix Blog Studio: Live-Streaming Music—A Case Study
With everyone at home, touring has been postponed and staples such as record-release parties either canceled or delayed. So Mike Levine's daughter-in-law and his...
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Mix Blog Studio: Time on Your Hands? Record!
Now that he has plenty of enforced time at home, Mike Levine is coping by heading into his studio more often, taking care of...
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Mix Blog Studio: Write It Down!
There's a simple feature in every DAW that just might the most useful one in the whole set... as long as you take the...
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Mix Blog Studio: The 7 Phases of Gear Lust
Do you suffer from gear lust? Many recording musicians do. I happen to have a particularly severe case. For example, I have lately found...
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Mix Blog Studio: Together or Separately?
With two simultaneous recording projects in the works, Mike Levine finds himself working in two very different manners, both of which work just fine...
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Mix Blog Studio: What’s With Avid Updates?
Updating a DAW's software, and hardware, is a big deal, and Mike Levine is not a fan of the perceived push to move users...
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Mix Blog Studio: Finding Beauty in the Dirt
Thoughts on parallel compression got Mike Levine thinking about applying parallel saturation to dirty up his guitar tracks in a mix.
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Mix Blog Studio: The Benefits of Actually Being There
It wasn’t that long ago, maybe 10 years or so, when there was talk bout trade shows being on their way out. People speculated...
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Mix Blog Studio: When Bad Sounds Good, and Vice Versa
There’s a certain irony to the fact that we put so much time and energy into getting the best fidelity possible in our recordings,...
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Mix Blog Studio: Before You Press That Upgrade Button…
In October, Apple will release Mac OS X 10.15 Catalina, and when it does, my Mac will start bugging me to upgrade—and it can...
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Mix Blog Studio: Get Smart
Over the weekend, I read a fascinating op-ed in the New York Times called “How to Build Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust.” Its basic...
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Mix Blog Studio: Of Moods and Mixing
Here’s a thought exercise. Imagine you had to mix the same song twice, in different studios with different monitors (I know that sounds like...
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Mix Blog Studio: Something Is Rotten in Copyright Land
A couple of weeks ago, Katy Perry and some members of her production team were hit with a $2.8 million copyright-infringement verdict, which stated...
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Mix Blog Studio: Separation Anxiety
I have a modular music system in my house that has speakers in three different rooms. It’s super-convenient, allowing me to listen to the...
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Mix Blog Studio: Master of Some
Back in the analog era, it was easier to fully master the gear in your studio because, unless you were working in a large...
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Mix Blog Studio: Chatty Plug-ins
Do your plug-ins have a good working relationship with your DAW? Sounds like a silly question, right? After all, plug-ins by their nature are...
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Mix Blog Studio: Audio—A Second-Class Citizen
This week, I’m going to deviate from the usual studio-related subject matter to talk about a more general issue. Have you noticed how in...
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Mix Blog Studio: Rent-to-Own Gathers Steam
More than ever, you have options for acquiring music software. You can buy it, subscribe to it and, in a more recent development, rent-to-own...
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Mix Blog Studio: Learning By Doing
Did you know that daisy-chaining AC power strips is considered to be dangerous? Neither did I, but when doing some research for my recent...
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Mix Blog Studio: Tear It Down and Start Over
I’ve had my home studio in its current location for about six years, and what started out as a relatively organized setup, has gotten...
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Mix Blog Studio: Son of a Glitch
I was at lunch recently with a bunch of veteran musician/composer/producer colleagues, and I posed this question to them: What is the thing that...
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Mix Blog Studio: The Soul of a Machine?
With the continuing development of artificial intelligence, there’s been plenty of talk lately about robots replacing humans in the workplace. If you’re a musician,...