Mixing / Production

With the death of producer Sam Phillips, the music industry has lost one of its greatest pioneers. In an interview given towards the end of his life, he looked back on his work with greats like Elvis Presley, Howlin' Wolf, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash, most of whom were unknowns before they signed to his Sun Records label.

A new generation of vocal processors, and a new generation of engineers, confront the possibilities and ethics of digital vocal manipulation.

Liam Watson went against the grain to build a studio with the retro sound he loved. And now that sound is back in fashion, he's had a number one album with the White Stripes.

There's a drum & bass revival going on, and London Elektricity are taking the genre in new directions — including live stages across Europe.

Depending on your point of view, prog-rock survivors Marillion are the least cool band in the world — or the best-kept secret in the music industry. They've certainly found a different way of doing music for a living...

Norbert Putnam was part of the original Muscle Shoals rhythm section, and as a million-selling producer, helped to bring pop music to the country capital of the world.

SOS reviewers often mention their test or reference CDs — compilations of what they feel to be well-mixed, well-recorded audio, which they use to evaluate converters, monitors, and so on. But how do you go about making one yourself? We reveal all...

I regularly make stereo location recordings of orchestras, using Cool Edit Pro for editing and mastering. If I simply...

What's the difference between optical compressors and other types of compressor, such as VCA, FET and valve compressors?

Is there any real difference between morphing from one sound to another and crossfading? In many cases, the two sound very similar...

"When we originally mixed Avalon in stereo, I was thinking that it should be in surround,"says Bob Clearmountain. Twenty-one years on, he and producer Rhett Davies describe how they first made Roxy Music's classic album and how they finally got the chance to mix it in 5.1.

When Steely Dan ended a 20-year hiatus with 2000's Two Against Nature, they took full advantage of today's digital recording tools. For their new album Everything Must Go, however, they've returned to analogue tape and live band recording. Paul Tingen reports...

Many record producers are content to remain out of the public eye, but Mickie Most was a household name. In a unique interview before he passed away in May, Britain's most successful hitmaker looked back over his extraordinary career.

Blur's latest album has taken the band 18 months to make, commuting between London, Devon and Morocco. Somehow, producer Ben Hillier also found the time to produce new records by Elbow and Tom McRae...

Kieran Hebden of Four Tet is a producer who puts the intelligence into Intelligent Dance Music.

It seems that almost everyone who's heard Goldfrapp's debut album Felt Mountain has fallen under their spell. Now the duo have returned with a second, Black Cherry, and a harder, synth-based sound.

The success of soul legend Solomon Burke's comeback album is a testament to the virtues of keeping things simple in the studio.

A gaggle of famous MCs, a star of the extreme sports world, and a laptop recording setup in a hotel bedroom: could the MuskaBeatz project show the way ahead for rap music?

Dozens of your recording questions receive poignant answers from SOS's editorial experts.

Although delay can be one of the most simple studio effects, software delay plug-ins often provide a bewildering array of options. So we take a look at what all the sliders and switches do, and provide advice on how best to use them.

Production music's sub-standard image means that many composers and producers ignore it, despite its commercial potential. Extreme Music are a London-based company who are trying to change the perception of library music.