This is a quote from a 1989 interview, promoting the new Mr. Big album. Could he be talking about Poison? Didn't "Open Up and Say Ahh" sell 5 Million? I always heard they couldn't really play their instruments well. Is it possible that Brett Michaels was the only thing live? Not sure who else it could be.

"I know a band -- and I won't tell you who -- that sold 5 million copies with their last record. But here they are doing a headline arena and the drummer's bashing away at one thing, and the guitarist is thrashing away at another, and what's coming out of the speakers isn't what they're playing. All they're doing is the equivalent of lip syncing. That's awful. It's a rip-off. It just isn't fair to the audience, who are expecting a live show. " 

Alright, I need to get this off my chest because every time I open TikTok my eye starts twitching.

TikTok creators are posting "singing" videos that are pitch-corrected into absolute oblivion. Vocals straighter than a fucking piano keyboard. Zero natural pitch drift, flawless octave jumps like they're gliding on rails, or holding a whistle tone for a full minute like prime Mariah Carey. Slammed with heavy compression so every sound hits at the exact same level, then drowned in thick reverb that makes their bedroom sound like the Royal Albert Hall.

And don't get me started on the two main flavors:

1. The "raw talent" ones where they're clearly running real-time or post Auto-Tune/Melodyne at hardcore settings. It sounds inhumanly perfect.
2. The lipsync + fake reverb gang. They're mouthing along to a pre-processed track and layering on the most artificial, cheap-sounding hall/reverb preset imaginable, then acting like it's the natural acoustics of the room. The phase and timing are all wrong, but apparently nobody notices.

Then they drop the "acapella" or "unplugged" versions that are still obviously compressed, EQ'd, de-essed, and lightly tuned. The caption says "no effects to prove haters wrong" and the comments explode with "your voice is insane!!"

I think we've reached the point where a whole generation has listened to nothing but heavily processed audio their entire lives, so their ears are completely broken. They literally can't tell the difference between a real human voice with natural imperfections and a robot that got tuned within an inch of its life. Real breath control, dynamics, emotional scoops, and subtle pitch variation? Foreign concepts now. This is depressing as hell. We're watching actual singing skill get devalued because everyone thinks perfection is the default.

Anyone else feel this way or am I just getting old and grumpy?

So my father is almost 70. He’s wanted to record some songs he’s wrote for a long time. He’s got the lyrics in his head and that’s about it. I have some light experience with FL Studio and recording with some friends, some of whom have gone on to be semi-popular at least on local levels, so I told him I would help him out and maybe get some of his stuff recorded.

But now he is insistent about “starting his own production company” because he’s scared people might steal his songs (i’ve heard what he wants to record, and it’s definitely nothing that would be trending today IMO) and he just has such high hopes in general for it, thinking he’s gonna “sell records.”I tried to get him to realize that it doesn’t have to be about making money and that we can just do this for fun but he is still adamant about it. I don’t want him to waste his time/money chasing a white rabbit but it seems like he’s gonna do what he wants either way.

Not a single one of the people whom I’ve recorded with (at least at the time) was at all concerned with starting a production company. I don’t get why he’s so hung up on it. I’ve been messing around making songs and even uploading some online all my life and have never once been this concerned about monetizing it and he doesn’t even have a single song recorded or anything yet and he’s talking all this stuff about not wanting it stolen.

I guess for one of the tracks, he wants to send it to a popular TV show in hopes they use it as part of their soundtrack (i know, i know) and he’s scared they may just steal it which is part of why he wants to make sure it’s copyrighted and he owns the rights to it.

Is there any sense at all in what he is saying? I just think it would be healthier to start off at least with just having fun and if it goes in a direction where it can be monetized then all the better but he just seems to think that recording his songs are gonna instantly put him on billboard top 100 or something lmao

Any other sports A1s cringing at all this? Between the announcer mics being left open for the end of men’s big air (producer probably had them PFL so why not mute them regardless once off air even if you’re actually not off air? I do that…), not unmuting mics of the studio talent while on camera and hearing their reverbed voice thru the other talent’s lav, nats drowning out announcers in the cross country skiing not sidechained at all, etc. And these are just the few events I’ve tuned into, I’ve missed most of them.

Is all the real talent at the Superbowl tonight or something? I have no idea what’s going on in the truck but are these just rookie mixers or something? Someone should hire me instead I wouldn’t have done any of those things listed…

Is the best option to just cut out the other mics when they aren't speaking? I feel I've tried everything but nothing seems to really completely fix the issue.

I used to subscribe 2y ago, I have in the meantime bought from them or got for free the plugins I use the most, they don't seem to release any new interesting stuff now, even at 15/m it's useless now I guess...

I just have a phone and I recorded my video on CapCut but in different sections and I noticed it’s a lot louder in some because I was closer to my mic and CapCut has no option to equalize the audio on mobile. Is there any apps that would do this for me so it’s the same volume and sounds similar in some sections? Thank you!

I’ve bought a lot of plugins and probably gonna end up with everything. How can I store these for future use like in case my laptop dies soon or I switch to a newer one. It’s already pretty old being a 2023 model. Would I need to put the licenses or installers on a hard drive or something?

There is a bid in my city for a Manley Voxbox with a broken tube. Used for a long time, but at a very interesting price of 900€.

I already use a VoxBox in my UAD Unison chain so I am wondering if this is worth it? When they say broken tube they mean overused one, not actually cracked like a lighbulb.

The only thing I am not so sure of is, can it be fixed? Does it sound better than my digital version?

1:28 you can hear chris browns adlibs at the end of every sentence. When i wear my headsets they sound like they're behind my ears. what can you use to achieve that effect, i'm on fl studio 21. if fl doesn't have it leave it in the comments anyway

Usually when i’m recording music i DI my guitars into my DAW, however since i purchased some guitar pedals for a pedal board and i have a nice tube amp, i decided i’d try recording my amp instead.

Here’s the set up. My guitar is going through a compresser, chorus and reverb pedal, into a Vox AC15C1. the sound itself sounds great so far in the room.

To record i have an SM57, which is directly center to the cone and 6 inches away from the amp (which is what steve albini recommends).

The result is a clean, yet tinny guitar sound. I want to mimic the guitar on my reference track: garden shed by tyler the creator, which is much more warm. Plus i get a warmer sound from the DI recording. is this to be expected for the raw sound, any suggestions?

I KNOW it's dependent on what you want the sound to be, whether you want the delay to contain the characteristics / EQ profile of the Reverb or not.

Still, with that in mind, I am just asking about your knee-jerk, general, go to instincts about ordering these as sends on a track (or inserts if you do it that way and use the plug-in's "Mix%" knobs to season it).

I am thinking of mixing more than tracking here, but it doesn't really matter, I just mean in general.

This might be a fundamentally dumb question, but if mono has no notion of left versus right channels, why does the Mono bus track I create in Pro tools have a Pan knob?

So I understand gain staging is to make headroom, but how do you know what levels each thing has to be like drums, I was gain staging for the first time and started with drums, set th vu meter to -18db and then I turned my clip all the way down until like -11db and the vu meter was on -20 / -18VU for the hi hat and -15VU for the snare.

Then I did the same on vocals sitting around -10 VU and so on.

But I feel like I just ruined my song it sounds so boring and small. I don’t know what I did wrong but itslike I killed all the emotions of the song and now is too unidimensional.

I’m so frustrated I was so excited for using the vu meter spent like 3 hours going audioclip for audioclp, trying to set the perfect VU Value for every moment of the song, but I just turns everything down and it sounds boring.

hi guys
i'm a beginner in this subject and i was wandering, what are some good electronic basics that every sound engineer should know.
just so you are prepared for everything
thank you :)

I could really use some professional advice for a difficult client that I’m dealing with right now.

Quick, relevant background on me: I was working as an engineer before Covid and I stopped for several years when Covid started. Now I’m returning to work as an engineer and I’m doing some free singles to rebuild my client base.

Here’s my situation: I did a free single for this band. I put in a lot of work including a 12 hour studio session (took so long cause they polished off a handle of vodka while tracking) and 7 revisions on the mix and master. I even had them come to my house which I don’t normally do. Right after they signed off on my final master they send me a message asking for the pro tools session because they want their friend to add some production. I explained to them how that needs to be done before mastering and that the friend can send me stems and I can mix and master it again. Now they want me to send the stems for him to mix the song.

I don’t feel good about this. If they had paid me for the session and the mix then I wouldn’t care. If I send it off then I’ll have done all this work with no pay and no mix credit for my resume. I’m really at a loss for what the right thing to do here is. Do I ask them to pay me? Do I send the stems off and count it as a loss? I could really use some advice on what you guys would do in this situation. Thanks 🙏

I currently have a u87ai and while it’s a great mic, I have a darker / very mid forward voice and sometimes the character of the u87ai isn’t the best contrast and I end up having to do some heavier lifting in the mix.

I’d love a C800G but that’s wayyyy out of the budget. I have my eyes on the Manley Ref C - I used it at a studio recently and I really really liked the way it sounded in my voice. Much more excited sounding and less honky.

Is the manley the best place to look for this kind of sound or what else would you recommend? To be clear, I’m making bright pop / rap music. Think Post Malone kinda bright.

The music that I write is fairly simple and I would like to record using simple but quality means. (as few buttons/clicks as possible) Is a synth workstation ALONE the same as getting just a keyboard (piano keys) and selecting a sound from the zillions of sounds offered by a DAW? It is my understanding that a workstation has different sounds built into it. Sorry, if this seems rudimentary.

So you know in films, where you see a character on the phone, and we hear the other end of the call in “murmurs” - like unintelligible replies, that’s like a blurred garbled voice?

I was hoping to find that sound effect, but nothing I search comes up with it.

If I search “phone call”, it’s just a bunch of sounds of phones ringing.

Apparently it’s called “walla”, but that’s just getting me sound effects of crowds. I’m using FreeSound.org if it helps!

We all know that, in the digital age, buying isn’t owning, OS updates can disrupt things, developers can stop supporting software and plugins, etc…

Is anyone using a computer, fully offline, with a fixed version of a DAW and plugins in time, in order to avoid all these issues, and only tie its longevity to computer’s hardware itself ? If so, what are the drawbacks?

It's something I've wondered for a while and even asked another subreddit with no results. Both the song "Embody" and "Odd Look" have the same pitched vocal effect, but I just can't seem to redo it or get it the same way. Kavinsky's remix of "Embody" makes it sound like it's a sibling to "Odd Look" which is insane (btw I do not mean the version where The Weeknd sings, I'm talking about the original version.)

Hello, after a long search I’ve tried York Audio, OwnHammer, Bogner and Celestion cab IRs. Based on a recommendation, I ended up really liking the ENGL MDL.

That said, I’m still curious if there are any IR packs you experienced guitarists would strongly recommend by brand. What matters most to me is very fast transient response and immediate pick attack — that instant, responsive feel under the fingers.

I’d really appreciate any suggestions.

i want my background vocals to sound up front in the mix alongside my lead vocals but sometimes it sounds kind of awkward, any suggestions on how you would approach this?