Mixing / Production

Howard Jones burst onto the scene in the early 1980s with a collection of era‑defining synth‑pop hits such as ‘What Is Love’, ‘No One Is To Blame’ and ‘Things Can Only Get Better’. Asked to select a favourite sound, he circles back to the first of these.

‘Set Fire To The Rain’ was Adele’s third consecutive US number one, confirming her status as a superstar. In our exclusive...

Canadian Davey Badiuk is a composer, producer, mixing engineer and remixer, known for his unique ability to modernise organic music.

Ricky Damian is that rarest of things: a young engineer trained in all‑analogue recording. His experience stood him in good stead with Jorja Smith.

Mixing gets so much easier when your processing chains are configured to deliver the same results in response to the same levels!

Record producer/mix engineer Luke Smith details how he got his favourite sound on ‘Spanish Sahara’ from Foals...

David Wrench’s goal as mix engineer was to make Blur sound like themselves!

PJ Harvey and her fearless collaborators have navigated three decades and six albums without repeating themselves, and her new album is another masterclass in innovative production.

Asked to pick a favourite sound to dissect, American mix master Michael Brauer chooses the vocal sound on Elle King’s ‘Ex’s & Oh’s’.

Working on Trippie Redd’s mixtape A Love Letter To You 5 at Miami’s Criteria Studios gave mixer Koen Heldens the rare chance to mix a rap album to half‑inch tape.

Mixing in software needn’t mean that the results lack character, colour and warmth.

Most DAWs give you the power to control the volume of recorded audio on a per‑clip level — and with this power comes immense creative potential!

The technical dimension to vocal production is important, but the human dimension is even more so.

Eddie Bazil dives into some of his favourite plug-ins and delivers a series of examples on how to use these tools creatively.

Stephen Street has worked with the Smiths, Blur, the Cranberries, the Pretenders, Babyshambles and Kaiser Chiefs, and here he details his favourite sound from Blur's 'Song 2'.

These audio files accompany the Better MIDI Pianos article in SOS August 2023 edition.

A few tweaks to your MIDI data can make software piano parts much more realistic — and much easier to mix.

Drum mics can occupy a lot of channels in your DAW, and they can quickly multiply as you experiment with different processing — so it pays to impose some discipline!

With Angels & Queens, LA’s Gabriels have produced one of the most adventurous albums of the year.

The success of Noel Gallagher’s Council Skies owes much to his resident engineer Callum Marinho, who not only tracked but mixed the album.

These audio files accompany the Faking A String Section In Your DAW workshop in SOS July 2023 issue.