The title sums it up. Musically it's great and all, but man those first three tracks are incredibly loud. Loaded "Disease" into Ableton and took a look with Youlean Loudness Meter, came out on a whopping -2 LUFS Integrated. I'm pretty new to the game, so I can't say this is untread ground or anything, but for comparison "Luther" by Kendrick Lamar sits around -7 LUFS Integrated. That's a big difference. Hats off to Serbhan Ghenea and Randy Merrill, they did a great job IMO.

I "left" the entertainment industry about ten years ago. I was mostly touring as FOH, A2, and/or stage manager, and I also worked some studio projects with close friends as a producer/engineer. I went to school for production and had aspirations of becoming a sound designer. However, the allure of a stable career with benefits led me away from audio production. Now, having been firmly out of the loop for the better part of a decade, I'm looking to dust off my chops and try to get some scratch money on the side.

I know it's a bit of a broad topic, but I'm curious to know what avenues for opportunity are particularly common right now. How many podcasters and streamers need expert help producing or editing their content? Is mastering still outsourced by musicians?

I've read the FAQs and I'm firmly aware of the competitive nature of finding work in this field and the time it takes to get involved on a project and see it through. I'm looking to put my knowledge and passion to good use, and to put a number on it, maybe earn an extra $100-200 a month at some point later this year.

What's the pessimist's point of view, and what's the optimist's point of view on working audio production as a side gig in 2025?

Hey guys, i have an online test that is part of my dissertation at uni testing the perceived quality when detuning harmonics in a saw wave. if anyone has a few spare minutes to complete would be very much appreciated although you do need a laptop unfortunately. http://s1046244098.websitehome.co.uk/

How are we feeling so far? I’ve been tracking prices for the last few months and things are finally starting to go up. I’ve been tracking basic items, like KRK Rokit 5s are now $399 for a pair up from $319. BAE raised prices on all their products by about $100 each no matter what it is. Anyone else notice anything else go up substantially? Think the used gear market will catch up while it still lags behind?

Does anyone know of any (fairly reputable) companies/studios/hire houses that do degree apprenticeships in sound engineering? My main goal is to do theatre, technical theatre, and in specific, lighting, but I'm going to keep my formal education broader to keep my future options open!

UK based, but possibly willing to study abroad.

Does anyone know why my microphone occasionally does this? Anyone know WHAT it's actually doing, or how i can toggle for some trolling?

https://medal.tv/games/league-of-legends/clips/jmGL2PogyBMitlNnO?invite=cr-MSxJN1gsMTc4NTY3NTY

I started making a plugin a year ago with the goal of making it easy to do a real-time slowdown & speedup effect, and easy to know the new tempo and key after time stretching. I did it, and I get emails saying how it's fantastic and how I should make more plug-ins, but they have no idea how far gone I am. I have spent close to 800 hours, nearly every weekend and evening this past winter finishing the plugin. I have lost relationships with once close friends and now I am bleeding money.

Google Search Ads are bleeding my savings with no conversions, and hardly anyone has purchased the plugin. I reached out to Plugin Boutique and Splice a while back but I am still waiting to hear back from them. I paid an influencer on instagram to make a video, and it did not result in a single sale.

What drives me crazy is I KNOW the plugin is great because the one's who have bought it are in love with it, but not WHY nobody else wants to buy it.

Has anyone been able to develop a plugin and successfully start a company selling it? Steve Duda and Serum is the anyone-can-make-it story of making plugins, but I'm scared to admit I may have thrown away a year of my life.

The plugin is called SpeedShift Speedup by Sottovoce DSP

Has anyone compared the sound of Sonarworks built in eq VS using the DSP based EQ withing RME Totalmix Room Eq.

I've read reveiws saying that UAD's Implementation of Sonarworks uses UAD eq's that improve the quality of the sound VS sonarworks built in eq's.

Would love some insight on the quality of the RME eq's VS the sonarworks eq's

Also, If you have the UAD Fairchild 660 is that actually equivalent to having a Fairchild 660?

I just got one and it's really decent for the price. I've seen people here saying 160 VU or 161 are the only ones worth anything, and maybe a 166xt, but I don't know, I think the 163 is pretty nice for bass. Maybe I have crappy ears.

Its a very unique sound that doesnt get heard much anymore. (Justin Bieber, Shakira, Brittney Spears, Rihanna, Lady Gaga. I want to learn and replicate this sound. I havent found any resources or yt videos tho

I just realized people that hate on digital audio most likely reference this sound but they are stuck in the past. I was born in 2002 so can someone explain why so many songs sounded digital/tinny in that era?

The singer sang into it for any distorted vocal parts, and I've never seen anything like it before. Any idea?

https://imgur.com/a/RtQrIF3

I can't recall why and when it's done. I'm sorry to ask such a simple question here, but for some reason, I can't find the answer on Google. The only thing I remember is to dither, but that's it

Thank you in advance

At the end of Feb I received an email from Supertone about a revision to their Privacy Policy.

"Purpose of Revision: Addition of processed personal information in relation to the launch of a new service (Voice Cloning) and updates regarding overseas platform companies, establishment of a new company, and change in company name"

Does anyone know what they're really up to? My fear is that audio I'm applying Clear to, often my own voice in professional VO projects, will be uploaded to their servers for use in training their AI voices, or be used to clone my own voice.

I'm not sure how much of this is due to my singing abilities and how much is due to the mix. I think I'm a pretty good singer, I've had a vocal coach for over two years, I post some covers and original songs on instagram and YouTube here and there and I get compliments on my voice. However, my engineer put on a fair bit of autotune. I can accept needing to use some autotune (everyone does), and maybe some more than I would've expected (gotta take the ego down a notch) but now the vocals just completely lack character and dynamics. It doesn't sound like me at all. I brought up during recording that the vocals felt too digital, and also during one section I wanted to sing softer and gradually build up, but we ended up recording that section at basically just one volume. We also did the autotune real-time since we were doing multiple layers, and I think he said we can't go back and adjust it after the fact. Is there anything that can be done to change the vocals aside from re-recording them all? Am I just a shitty singer? I was really looking forward to recording my first song but honestly now I'm just feeling disappointed and discouraged.

EDIT: pre-session mix is ass haha but the vocals are much more natural. its also an old version so my performance has improved a fair bit since then

pre-session https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YCgia_gulbwfvijFa4oysWPaSAWwL7Vd/view?usp=sharing

post-session https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KEoc_JEpXbYoHErlGeiPfw5nHi7Kkuie/view?usp=sharing

So recently, I ran into an interesting situation where logic quit before the plugins even loaded. Of course I got one of those giant logic errors where it creates a small book for Apple to take a look at, but have you ever wondered what those things actually said? Have you wondered what that crap actually means but you don’t speak python, C # or whatever the hell language they’re using? You can find out really quickly. I’ve been using the crap out of AI lately for work as I do web development. It’s the career that I chose after leaving the music industry. So I went ahead and copied the entire logic error and pasted it inside ChatGPT. The damn thing actually gave me an answer. The answer was way different than I planned on. It was an issue with metal. That’s a visual function so that weirded me out a little bit and made me realize that it wasn’t the new plug-ins that I installed that I thought was messing with me because that’s what I’ve just done. I had installed the new arturia Instruments. It made me realize, though that I had to actually uninstall logic and reinstall it. Luckily the short one where you just delete the app and download it again, but nevertheless, it got me to my answer fast. So next time you have a problem with logic or any of the doors, go ahead and copy the error if you can get to it. You can paste anything in the ChatGPT and it’ll explain it to you. I know back in the day we used to just delete the DAE preferences for ProTools, but things are different now with different DAW’s. Try it out and let me know if it helps you.

Hey guys, this is just a funny weird one. I’ve heard mixed things about this from people saying that theirs does this too and others that I’ve seen that are actually a lot closer to accurate but at this point, I’m lost to say if it’s something that I’m doing or if it’s an issue with the device.

On my M905. I typically read out close to 20 dB higher than most SPL meters that I use. I’ve also tested this against other SPL meters including the iPhone dB Meter app. Sometimes it shows that I’m pushing 115 dBC even when I’m playing at really low volumes. I’m only using 5 inch monitors so I would never wanna push such small things that loud anyways or lose my hearing in my on space.

Has anyone else experienced this? Has anyone found a solution or is this something that I need to send in for repair?

It won’t actually let me attach any photo to the post, so I’ll see if I can do it in the comments. If not, I’ll comment a link to the photo.

I've been recording my farts for over 5 years. I have approximately 300 fart mp3's. They're all trimmed to between 1-8 seconds but still contain background noise like brushing up against my clothes or body, fan noise, wind noise, etc.

I need to find software that will bulk edit all of these files to both trim them down to only the fart and to reduce the background noise.

The trimming is most important because of the file is all fart, you can't really hear any background noise.

Does anyone know what I can use to accomplish this? It can be Windows, Linux, Android, or iOS.

Example: https://jumpshare.com/s/fU38sRYJvEsWRArnXa2V

If you're wondering why, it's to share and sell. There's a small market for real farts. I've shared on platforms like free sound and received tips. I also did this like 25 years ago and made money from that iteration of mp3.com. I also use them in my own content on YouTube and tiktok.

Thank you for your time.

Hello all,

I recently was given a copy of the Golden Ears Collection, and was wondering if anyone has tried it and gotten good results from it? I tried listening to the first lesson and it seemed a bit boring, but I’d love to know if this will really level up my ears. If anyone has gotten good results from this resource I will dive in!

TIA!

I'm heavily invested in AVB, so this is really good news for me. I was worried that AVB was dying a slow death, but this suggests there is still some good life there. And hopefully more coming.

https://motu.com/en-us/products/16a/

I'm trying to record a simple guitar part—basic strummed open cowboy chords—on my big trusty EJ-200. In general, I love the tone (had most of the hardware upgraded a while back), but on the mic I'm still getting a lot of droney overtones and unwanted harmonics.

I understand that the most important thing is to use my ears, and to keep the mic off the sound hole. But are there any other tricks or techniques that could help with this particular body style?

Hi all,

I've almost no experience beyond playing with the EQ bands, but I have been trying to learn. I'm using a Shure SM7B in a small, moderately treated room (rug on wooden floor, curtains pulled, thin AudioSilk panels with approx. one inch added between the panel and wall, and a small isolation shield that sits directly behind the mic).

Recorded using the default Shure settings because the bass rolloff switch felt as though it was gutting the sound.

I've added a small bass rolloff on the EQ, a small lift on the higher frequencies, and a small reduction in the 1K-2K range to get rid of the boxiness.

It sounds fine (to my ear) on a phone and PC, but when I listen to it on a TV, it sounds like a muddied mess. I find myself constantly adjusting the volume. There is no clarity. I presume it has something to do with the bass in my voice or another frequency. Or maybe it's a levels issue.

Is there anything I can I do to make it stand out from the background music?

Edit: Link removed. It must be the speakers on my TV.

Edit #2: It was actually the way in which I was streaming the video to my TV. Played it directly from a USB and it solved multiple sound and video issues. Apologies all.

been meaning to get into music production, and i'm just getting everything into order before i actually START doing anything (also gathering funds for a better pc jejjj) and i'm just wondering if there's any programs that can accurately emulate the compression/effect that certain digitized recordings from the 70's & 60's have. [example to what i'm yapping about]

(should've clarified that i'm not specifically looking for compression, but rather just things that produce the silly little quirks that old recordings in general have. i look like an even bigger newb then i actually am lul)

Basically title. A friend of mine had to very suddenly, and mysteriously, leave the country. It's a long story which I couldn't even begin to tell, partially because I don't even know what's going on.

Regardless, he had a music studio filled with gear that he split between me and some friends. I'm keeping watch over this thing which looks like it came out of a tank.

For context I produce dub techno and do some ambient/sound design stuff. Think Basic Channel, Rhythm & Sound, Aphex Twin and lots of other acts who have no sonic relation to each other. I know a bit about production, but *all* of my mixing and mastering happens in Ableton. I simply run my Digitakt and a handful of hardware synths in to it and use plugins to mix and master (I have a pretty good selection of compressors, effects, saturation tools etc). I also have a real tape machine that I use from time to time.

Anyways I'm not really sure what to do with this, or even what a "stereo channel strip" even is. Am I correct in thinking it's basically an EQ, compressor and filter all in one? Is this something I would want to run my instruments directly in to? Or should I run it through my sound card and put it at the end of my mix as a kind of mastering compressor/glue device? I suppose I could do that and just turn off my compression and limiting plugins. What would you do?