Mixing / Production

In 1996, the Fugees came like a breath of fresh air into a world of hip-hop that was becoming stale around the edges. Now Wyclef Jean is a star in his own right, and has deployed his production talents for artists ranging from urban legends like Funkmaster Flex and Cypress Hill to Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson and even Tom Jones.

Beat-slicing can radically expand the creative potential in your loop library — you can match tempos and key signatures, rearrange loop events, and delve into inspirational sound design. SOS looks at the leading beat-slicing software and shows you how to get the best from this powerful technique within your sequencer.

There's some amazing music being made in bedrooms these days. And bringing it to the wider public is the job of the Tigerbeat6 label, whose stars include label founder Kid 606 and Rjyan Kidwell, aka Cex.

Cardigans producer Tore Johansson was thrown into unfamiliar musical territory when asked to produce the debut album by Scottish guitar band Franz Ferdinand, but the result was a commercial and artistic triumph.

If I record the DI'd signal from a guitar so I can put it through a guitar amp later, what are the concerns, if any? Will the line-level signal coming out of my mixer be too high or otherwise inappropriate for the amp?

I understand that mixes from DAWs can be improved significantly if, instead of using the digital mix buss within the computer, individual tracks are converted to analogue and then summed/mixed externally. Could you explain whether this approach really does offer significant benefits?

Comic actor, has been recording and editing his own radio series for years — and now he's putting his engineering skills centre stage.

With an emphasis on cut-and-paste sound collages and bizarre field recordings, San Franciscan duo Matmos have created some unique and often disturbing electronic music.

For many years, German designer Stefan Moeller has been on a quest to perfectly emulate Brian May's guitar amp sound. Now, with TC's new TC Thirty plug-in for Powercore, he believes he's cracked it...

As a musician, engineer, producer and multimedia artist, Todd Rundgren has been a pioneering figure in rock music since the late 1960s. His first album of new material for 10 years was, like many of its groundbreaking predecessors, almost entirely played, produced and recorded by Rundgren alone.

In producing their complex, abstract electronica, Autechre have taken the idea of the studio as an instrument to new extremes...

Bob Rock has been responsible for some of the biggest rock and metal albums of the last 20 years, including nearly all of Metallica's output since 1991. Last year's St. Anger saw band and producer reinventing the genre with a savage, thrash-oriented sound that has divided fans and critics.

In 1983, New Order sold over three million copies of their 12-inch single 'Blue Monday' and it has remained a classic. SOS spoke to producer, musician and New Order fan Roger Lyons, to find out how he helped the band bring the track back to life.

Groundbreaking Southern rap duo Outkast head into 2004 with a fistful of Grammy nominations and a chart-topping double LP to their name. Their principal engineer and studio manager John Frye pulls back the curtain on one of the year's best records.

From hit solo albums to film soundtracks and remixes, Nitin Sawhney has turned his hand to almost every aspect of music production -- and his music is equally diverse, blending Indian and Western classical styles with rock, hip-hop and dance.

A heady blend of world music, dance and Irish folk, Afro Celts' music has been heard on film soundtracks and festival stages across the globe. Their latest album Seed was the first to be produced in their own studio, built in the Britannia Row premises that were once the home of Pink Floyd.

When label boss David Geffen teamed respected engineer 'Bones' Howe with an unknown and very strange songwriter called Tom Waits, he set in motion one of the great artist-producer partnerships.

Although many of the most famous music mixing engineers have been in the business for decades, we find out how a new generation of up-and-coming stars are combining traditional and cutting-edge recording techniques to make their mark on modern production.

I've recently started using the Antares Auto-Tune plug-in (version 3), and I need help! Even when using the plug-in's Automatic mode, I can't get a good sound out of it — the corrected voice sounds 'warbly' and fake. Can you offer any advice?

I produce electronic dance music. Much of the time I work with headphones on, to help me focus on detailed sounds in repetitive loops. However, I often notice that when I switch to listening on speakers (to check the actual mix and so on) the track seems a bit faster. What could be the cause?

Teenager Dylan Mills (aka Dizzee Rascal) captured the headlines in 2003 by winning the UK's Mercury Music Prize with one of the most uncompromising albums of recent times. Dizzee and engineer/manager Cage describe how they made Boy In Da Corner.