Theory / Technical

Windows‑based musicians have long been asking for better support at the operating system level — and it seems to be very much on its way, with native low‑latency ASIO drivers and full support for MIDI 2.0. We reached out to Microsoft to find out more.

We’ve updated our set of free audio test files!

A Cat5/Cat6 stagebox is a much cheaper option than a Dante stagebox — but does this really work, at least for fairly short runs, at mic level?

Why is it that for the first few minutes of listening to an AM radio station after switching from an FM station, it sounds very different?

A signal gate is really just a fancy on/off swich — and an inspiring creative tool for modifying existing sequences and creating new ones.

Paul White and Hugh Robjohns discuss the best practices for avoiding and eliminating electrical noise interference in your home studio.

I have two different mics, made by the same legacy German manufacturer, that I’m ‘shooting out’ to compare them as vocal mics, and generally to make sure they’re working properly...

After 85 years of active service, the humble VU meter remains as useful as ever in today’s digital studios — despite BBC engineers nicknaming it ‘virtually useless’!

We conclude our four-part series with a look at how specifications can accommodate the foibles of human hearing.

In the first of this two-part series, David Mellor gives us an introduction to mic polar patterns.

A valuable test for recording engineers, David Mellor gives examples of different mic types to emphasise the importance of knowing your mic collection in detail.

Most audio interface designs are based around technology from British innovators XMOS. What makes the xcore platform so ubiquitous, and what does it mean for musicians?

Low distortion is often a marker of quality in audio equipment. We explain how to make sense of standard distortion specifications.

USB is at the heart of most PC‑based studios. But what do you do when it goes wrong?

Noise performance is important, but to fairly compare different products, you need to understand how noise specs are calculated.

Specifications can be a useful guide when choosing equipment. Our new series, in association with Audio Precision, explains how to understand and compare the specs of competing products.

We explain why aliasing in plug‑ins isn’t always a problem — and why oversampling isn’t always the solution.

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