Mixing / Production

This month we beef up drums and bass, polish guitars and vocals, and give choruses a lift, as the Belgian band Leaf get the Mix Rescue treatment.

Martin Rushent managed the rare double feat of working at the artistic cutting edge and having colossal success — until disaster struck.

This month we beef up drums and bass, polish guitars and vocals, and give choruses a lift, as the Belgian band Leaf get the Mix Rescue treatment.

Mix engineers have a huge role to play in modern record production; but what does it take to turn a collection of raw tracks into a chart-topping single? In a major new SOS series, specialist mixers will be showing us exactly how they use the tricks of their trade.

Rescuing and reinforcing a weak-sounding cello are amongst this month's remedies...

Mixing on 'cans' is often frowned upon, but if you know what you're doing, you can get good results with only occasional checks on your monitor speakers.

Rescuing and reinforcing a weak-sounding cello are amongst this month's remedies...

If you're after bigger-sounding tracks, read on, as we discover plug-ins that manipulate stereo information to play tricks with your mix...

Will Holland is one of the most prolific producers in the UK's alternative dance scene, and rather than sampling old records, he prefers to track down the musicians who made them.

Their combination of Southern soul and hip-hop gave Gnarls Barkley one of the biggest hits of the year, thanks in part to the mixing wizardry of Ben Allen.

No, it's not the Naked Chef, just Sound On Sound getting busy in the kitchen to salvage some old tape recordings... Note: there are no audio files accompanying this article

Is there a preferred method of using normalisation?

Tired of the same old vocal sound? Time to get creative with your plug-ins, FX pedals and anything else you have!

This month we help reader Simon Fitzpatrick to bind his synthesized, programmed, and acoustic sounds together into a cohesive mix.

The Scissor Sisters' first album, recorded in a Manhattan apartment, sold 3.5 million copies worldwide. The follow-up, Ta-Dah, sees them expanding their horizons, while keeping their DIY ethos very much intact.

With the powerful automation available in modern DAWs, it is easy to overlook their side-chaining features. But what value does this technique have in the modern project studio?

After 17 years mixing almost everything that came out of Jam & Lewis's Flyte Tyme Studios, there's very little Steve Hodge doesn't know about making R&B records work.

This month we help reader Simon Fitzpatrick to bind his synthesized, programmed, and acoustic sounds together into a cohesive mix.

This month we overhaul rock band No Logo's mix in pursuit of a bigger and more commercial sound. Listen to Audio examples

This month we overhaul rock band No Logo's mix in pursuit of a bigger and more commercial sound.

Podcasting is a powerful new communications medium that could help you get your music out to the masses — and it's accessible to pretty much anyone with a home studio and a broadband Internet connection.