Recording

Yamaha no longer make their Subkick drum mic, so I was thinking of making my own from an old loudspeaker. Does it have to be...

Epic in every sense of the word — unning to 21 songs, involving more than 120 musicians and taking almost two years to complete — Stevie Wonder's Songs In The Key Of Life was in many ways the high-point of an already illustrious career. This is the story of how it was created.

I use MIDI-sequenced sound modules for backing, so I am considering the option of sync'ing my sequencer with my AW4416 and running the modules in time with the recorded material. Or is it more sensible for me to record the module outputs to the hard drive?

Celebrities from around the world were keen to contribute to a fund-raising single for victims of the Asian tsunami, and converting all of this goodwill into a finished record required innovative use of broadband Internet to collect together their performances.

Recently, I bought a digital recorder and have been re-recording some of my old compositions from scratch in digital but, to my great disappointment, I am finding that my mixes are sounding harsh and cluttered. I thought digital recording would give me more clarity in the mix because of its higher fidelity. Where am I going wrong and what can I do about it?

I was told by a sound engineer that, when mixing, it is not a good practice to have all the channel volume faders way up and to have the master fader down, and that this applies both to analogue and digital consoles. Is this true?

As with any recording system, the first goal of recording on a PC is to preserve as faithful a copy of the source sound as possible. Achieving this, however can be a complicated business. Martin Walker goes back to basics.

The answers to some of the more basic questions we receive at SOS might seem obvious, but they are, in fact, more complex that they appear. Mike Senior sets about answering the unanswerable...

When is the professional signal level no longer standard? When you want to connect to digital equipment! Hugh Robjohns explains the mysteries of exchanging signals between analogue and digital domains.

Christina Aguilera's debut single was a worldwide smash hit last year, thanks in no small measure to the distinctive work of producer and co‑writer David Frank. Mike Senior finds out how he did it.

CD-R may be the fastest growing mastering format, but its complicated zip codes and impenetrable protocols have made it anything but user friendly. As prices tumble and software evolves, however, it's an increasingly accessible medium. Mike Collins explains how he's mastered mastering on his Mac...