It's been some months since my last blog post. I've missed you guys. I got married. I did some traveling. I moved from one apartment to another, which is always an ordeal with my studio setup. And I've been working.

One of my jobs is writing for a magazine covering the hardware and software of pro audio and high-end consumer audio. And it's been a learning experience writing under an editor; discovering what it means to adapt my writing style to another's publication.

The Parable

This past month, I've…

Introduction

You're ready to publish your music and you can't afford a mastering engineer. You're familiarized with what a mastering engineer does, and you're ready to tackle this yourself. But one problem: you don't know where to begin. What's the best way to approach mastering when you've never done it before? Fortunately, that's what we're covering today.

Preparing Your Files

Before you begin, you need to gather all the files: whether you're mastering an 18 song album or a 3 song EP, you need to…

Introduction

I love listening to dynamic music. There's just no replacement for those clear sounds and clean, punchy drums that make the mix sound powerful. With many of the songs I critique, loudness is one of the biggest issues, and when the producer or engineer just backs off of the limiter by 3-6 dB, everything sounds cleaner and more professional.

In a previous post, we explored the context for measuring loudness in decibels, how to read LUFS meters, and how to arrive at the perfect loudness for your…

Introduction

You're wrapping up production on a song and getting into the mix. Things are sounding pretty good, but when you demo your song on another set of speakers, the volumes all seem wrong. The vocals are too quiet, the snare is too loud, and you didn't realize how much a backing instrument was popping out of the mix. It doesn't just make your mix sound a little off. It makes your mix sound weak.

All of us want our mixes to translate. We want our mixes to be solid, and well-represented on every…

My production blog took a little hiatus as I sorted out and launched my podcast and YouTube training series. Both are live now, and you can listen to the Golden Wok Studios Podcast on SoundCloud or your podcast app of choice.

Blog posts will resume tomorrow, and will repeat every other Monday. And I worked out the podcast's schedule as well, which will be repeating every Monday.

So: check for new content at the beginning of every week. =]

Thanks to each and every one of my readers. You make this…

Thanks for hanging in there during this break of content.

My first podcast is now live on YouTube and SoundCloud! With many more to follow, thanks to you, my followers.

Unfortunately, it seems that it can take up to a week for podcasts to propagate out to the various service providers. But you'll be able to find my in your favorite podcast app soon enough.

My YouTube teaching channel will allow me to give demonstrations of how I use plugins, how I go about composing, what effects helped me achieve this or…

I'm putting a temporary halt on my blog as I'm prepping for my upcoming podcast and YouTube training series. I can't wait to share this content with you.

Once the audio and video are flowing, I'll return to writing as I have been.

Thanks to all of my readers!

P.S. My first release as a solo artist is coming out on 6/15.

Introduction 

Maybe your DAW comes with a dithering plugin, or maybe you've seen dither as an option in your limiter, or in the export settings of your DAW. You have the vague idea that it's used for mastering, and you can't remember if you're supposed to always use it or never use it. 

What is dither? Why do you want to use it? And when is it appropriate? 

For the sake of this post, I'm going to assume you have a rudimentary understanding of sample rate and bit depth. If this isn't the case, we'll cover…

Introduction

You make music because you're passionate about it. You wouldn't be reading this otherwise. But for many, making music can be a lonely road. And it takes a mountain of passion to carry the heavy load of learning music theory, composition, production, arrangement, lyric writing, instrument performance, mixing, mastering, and the myriad of other aspects that need to be handled in order to make great music that finds an audience.

This is where collaborators come in. It may be unrealistic to try…

The Problem

You have huge dreams for your music. You love music. You want it to be your career. And if you're being honest, you're pretty good at it.

But some days, it's just so hard to work! Each day, you start with the ambition of making an amazing song, or some other momentous achievement for your music career. And each day, the time somehow slips away. What happened?

It's okay, you're just human.* You are subject to the productivity traps that threaten all of us. But fortunately, there are things you…