Send us a text Since the advent of multitrack recording, the goal of most engineers has been to keep the sound of every instrument totally isolated from all the others. That makes our job much easier, since we can adjust the mix of every track as needed, and apply effects like equalization and compression to each sound individually as needed. But does that make the best recording? For some types of music, the answer is yes. But having all the players in the same room where they can see and hear ...
Jul 30, 2025•26 min•Season 1Ep. 107
Send us a text I live and work in the woods, surrounded by wildlife. There are many species of birds and in the spring their songs are pretty amazing. Over the years, I have thought about recording those birds, but the background noise level was a problem. Although very quiet by most people’s standards, there is still a lot of man-made noise -- too much noise to make recording the birds feasible. But an opportunity arose in May of 2020 during the Covid pandemic when there was very little travel....
Jun 22, 2025•30 min•Season 1Ep. 106
Send us a text Virtually all digital recording uses a format called PCM. But there is another digital format that works in an entirely different way. It’s called DSD, for Direct Stream Digital, and you might find that it sounds better than PCM. In this episode, I explain what DSD is, mostly from a practical, user, viewpoint. If it sounds better, why don’t we use it? Well, DSD comes with some serious limitations. I explain those limitations and the techniques used to get around them in the world ...
May 31, 2025•36 min•Season 1Ep. 105
Send us a text Does audio quality really matter? Our society in general has seen a major loss in quality of goods and services. Music recording has not escaped this trend. In this short episode, I give some examples, some possible explanations, and a bit of guidance on how recordists can do a better job. It benefits the listener, even if they can’t even describe the difference between a good recording and a mediocre one. email: dwfearn@dwfearn.com www.youtube.com/c/DWFearn https://dwfearn.com/...
Apr 29, 2025•18 min•Season 1Ep. 104
Send us a text Most recording occurs in a studio, and the design of that facility has a major effect on the quality of the recordings made there. In this episode, I discuss some of the things that I think are most important for a successful studio. I don’t get into room design, soundproofing and sound conditioning, or even much of the infrastructure of studios and control rooms. I’ve covered a lot of that in previous episodes. Instead, I focus on the real-world, practical, aspects of what it tak...
Mar 28, 2025•34 min•Season 1Ep. 103
Send us a text Monitor speakers are a necessity for most of our recording. But I have always had a problem with the sound of speakers, and I explain why in this episode. Speakers always exist in a space with boundaries, even outside. Our control rooms tend to be small, and making a small room sound good for performing or listening is a challenge. The monitor speakers and the control room form a system. The acoustics of the room have a big impact on the sound. I also compare the sound of headphon...
Feb 20, 2025•32 min•Season 1Ep. 102
Send us a text Vinyl record sales have been increasing every year for a while now. Today, vinyl outsells CDs. Fans like vinyl for its unique sound, and the large format of the jacket. Record pressing plants are busy! Most are backlogged for months. The process of converting your digital mix to a vinyl record is complicated. The entire system of phonograph records is plagued by many deficiencies, which makes cutting the master lacquer disc a challenging art. How we record and mix has impact on ho...
Jan 21, 2025•36 min•Season 1Ep. 101
Send us a text If you are working as a recording engineer, how did you learn your craft? A formal recording program? As an intern with an accomplished engineer? Or maybe you figured it out on your own. All are valid ways to get started. Many successful engineers used more than one approach. In this episode, I look at the various approaches, their pros and cons, and suggest ways that you might further your own education. Learning the art of recording requires time and effort -- and some innate ta...
Dec 28, 2024•29 min•Season 1Ep. 100
Send us a text Using a single microphone, or one stereo mic, to record a musical performance all at once without any overdubbing can result in a recording that is very compelling to the listener. When everyone is performing in the same space at the same time, usually without headphones, there is a musical interaction that occurs that we often lose in the typical session using lots of mics, extreme isolation, and many overdubs. It’s not for every song or composition. Some music benefits from the ...
Dec 02, 2024•28 min•Season 1Ep. 99
Send us a text When you are just starting out in recording music, you are likely to need microphones. And if you have been recording for a while, you may feel the need to add to you microphone collection. But how do you make those choices? In this episode, I look at the criteria that I think are important in picking mics to add to your studio. Simply choosing a mic that is what other people use, or was on a hit record, is not always the best way to go about this. I provide a logical approach to ...
Nov 05, 2024•31 min
Send us a text Joseph Arnold is a talented violinist that has played on a variety of projects I have produced. He is also an excellent writer, who just published his first book, titled, “Soul Force: How to discover your artistic purpose, create more freely, and make art that matters.” In this conversation, Joseph talks about his career path, his pursuit of art, and how his concepts of Soul Force guided him in his journey. We discuss his book, and its value to anyone who wants to create, well, an...
Oct 10, 2024•45 min•Season 1Ep. 97
Send us a text In this last of three episodes on the art of producing, I talk about my process for mixing. It is all part of the concept of a song from the beginning. Mixing is where everything comes together to create the version of the song that the artist and I have had. As an over-simplification, my approach is to turn up the things I like and turn down, or mute, the things I don’t like. But the details are much more complex than that and I explain what I do and why. I combine the mastering ...
Sep 22, 2024•46 min•Season 1Ep. 96
Send us a text This is the second of three episodes on the Art of Producing. In this one, I talk about the mics and equipment I use in my studio, and the reasons why. The example used for this series features an album project for singer-songwriter Corrie Lynn Green. It is an acoustic-based project, although there are some electric guitars and bass on some songs. I explain why I make certain decisions for this project, and how a recording with a different artist or genre would require a different...
Aug 31, 2024•30 min•Season 1Ep. 95
Send us a text The art of producing a record requires knowledge of music, mastering the technical aspects of the recording process, and an ability to work with people. This is the first of a three-part series about producing. In this episode, I talk about the role of the producer, using a typical album project for Corrie Lynn Green as an example. Not all productions will follow this example, since there are many different styles of music, different artists and musicians, that you may encounter. ...
Aug 11, 2024•32 min•Season 1Ep. 94
Send us a text Our perception of frequency balance varies with loudness, a fact documented by Harvey Fletcher and Wilden A. Munson, two scientists at Bell Laboratories. In 1933, they published a paper called, “Loudness, its definition, measurement and calculation.” It was groundbreaking science in the field of human hearing, and has implications today for how we perceive music. This is especially important when we are mixing. In this episode, I explain the basics of the Fletcher-Munson Curves an...
Jul 08, 2024•20 min•Season 1Ep. 93
Send us a text Almost all pop music features someone singing. Getting the best vocal performance is crucial, since most listeners respond to the words of a song and need to be able to hear them. In this episode, I first discuss the human factors involved in getting a great performance from singers, mostly from a producer’s viewpoint. And then I focus on the technical requirements of capturing that performance using microphones, mic preamps, processing, effects, and mixing. Often there are proble...
May 28, 2024•38 min•Season 1Ep. 92
Send us a text There are many things that are important to create the proper studio environment for creative success. Most of these things are pretty mundane, but they do make a difference. Examples I cover in this episode include microphone stands and accessories, music stands and instrument stands, chairs, headphones, studio lighting and climate control, and mic and other cables. It’s not the most exciting equipment we deal with, but it is still important to get it right. After 50+ years of do...
Apr 29, 2024•41 min•Season 1Ep. 91
Send us a text Ever since its announcement, I have been interested in learning more about Dolby Atmos. I was skeptical at first, primarily because of my experience with “Quad” back in the 1970s. That 4-channel concept never gain any popularity with either the listening public nor in the recording community. I presumed that Atmos would be similar, just more speakers. The early demo sessions I attended left me convinced that this was going to be another dead end, like Quad. The early mixes I heard...
Mar 14, 2024•57 min•Season 1Ep. 90
Send us a text Compression and limiting are tools we use to modify the dynamic range of the music we record. In this episode, I present a brief history of where this technique came from, how it evolved over the years since the 1930s. I discuss the various ways that compression circuits work, from the variable-mu vacuum tube, to the optical compressor, the FET, the VCA, the PWM, and the digital limiters. I explain how these different approaches affect the sound in different ways. There are often ...
Mar 01, 2024•42 min•Season 1Ep. 89
Send us a text This is part 2 of the Audiophiles Guide to Music Recording. You can listen to part 1 at https://www.buzzsprout.com/942952/14335456 Or you can access part 1 wherever you listen to podcasts. My Take on Music Recording is primarily aimed at people in the professional recording world, but there are a significant number of listeners who are music lovers and audiophiles. This episode provides an overview of the recording process for them. However, I think even people in our profession m...
Feb 01, 2024•42 min•Season 1Ep. 88
Send us a text My Take on Music Recording is primarily aimed at people in the professional recording world, but there are a significant number of listeners who are music lovers and audiophiles. This episode provides an overview of the recording process for them. However, I think even people in our profession might enjoy how I attempt to explain the recording studio process in layman’s terms. This reflects my experience and how I work as a producer and engineer. I tend to carry over the tools and...
Jan 18, 2024•45 min•Season 1Ep. 87
Send us a text Music is meant to be heard in an appropriate acoustical environment. But many times, we have to record in a space that does not have the right sound to it. Artificial reverb is often the solution. In this episode, I talk about good room sound in a studio, and the earliest methods of creating a reverberation sound. That started with spring reverb, then acoustic echo chambers, tape delay, plate reverbs, and finally the digital reverbs that are used today on most recordings. I discus...
Dec 19, 2023•38 min•Season 1Ep. 86
Send us a text In this episode, I talk about software plug-ins vs hardware. It is a question that I get frequently from listeners. It is relatively short. Can a plug-in perfectly emulate a hardware device? What are the tradeoffs a plug-in designer needs to consider? What about a plug-in that has no hardware antecedent, but it something out of the mind of the designer? These are some of the topics considered. Thanks for listening, subscribing, and commenting. You can reach me with your questions ...
Nov 22, 2023•18 min•Season 1Ep. 85
Send us a text Every recording is made is some sort of space. It might be a room, and studio, a church, a concert hall, or even outside. The space where the music is performed, and where the microphones pick up the music always influences the sound of the recording. You might think that close-mic’ing in a dead room eliminates the contribution of the room, but it is still there, for better or worse. The room influences our perception of the performance. Our brain draws conclusions about the space...
Oct 31, 2023•40 min•Season 1Ep. 84
Send us a text How do we make our recordings better? I have thought about this for over 50 years and in this episode, I have tried to distill what I learned into a dozen general rules. The best way to make great recordings is to start with great performers. But even if you aren’t recording the best talent in the world, there are still ways to improve what you get. email: dwfearn@dwfearn.com www.youtube.com/c/DWFearn https://dwfearn.com/...
Oct 08, 2023•19 min•Season 1Ep. 83
Send us a text What if you were suddenly confronted with recording an instrument you had never had in the studio before? Or one you never heard before? Or one you never knew existed? How do you figure out how to capture its sound? Where do you place a microphone? What microphone will you use? In this episode I suggest various ways to evaluate an unfamiliar instrument or sound, using some examples from my own experience, and a few rules of thumb to get started. This topic was suggested by a liste...
Sep 16, 2023•28 min•Season 1Ep. 82
Send us a text After three and a half years of producing the “My Take on Music Recording” podcast, I thought it would be useful to review the 80+ episodes and point out some of the interesting topics you might have overlooked. You might have missed some of the earlier episodes, or skipped over them because they did not interest you at the time. The most popular episode of all is the very first one, from March 2020, called “Your Hearing is Amazing.” Everything we do depends on our hearing and in ...
Aug 16, 2023•19 min•Season 1Ep. 81
Send us a text My conversation with musician, producer, mixer, and mastering engineer Justin Gray continues, in this second of two parts. In this episode, Justin discusses how to provide optimum tracks for an immersive mix. He also talks about the minimum immersive monitoring system needed and why it will improve your tracks for remix into Atmos or another format. We explore loudness and how it affects an immersive mix. You can learn more about Justin Gray at his web sites: www.SynthesisSound.co...
Jul 19, 2023•51 min•Season 1Ep. 81
Send us a text Justin Gray is a musician, producer, mixer, and mastering engineer based in Toronto. His credits include many major artists. He was fascinated by immersive formats long before they became mainstream. In this first part of a two-part series, we talk about the various immersive formats, of which Dolby Atmos is best known. Justin explains how they differ and what they have in common. He talks about how immersive audio can enhance the listener experience, and provide the artist with a...
Jun 19, 2023•50 min•Season 1Ep. 80
Send us a text Most people have time conflicts between what they do for a living and the rest of their lives. That includes time for family and friends, hobbies, obligations, and exploring new directions. Musicians also must confront these same issues. It is often more difficult for a creative person because music and any art not generally lucrative, especially for those starting out. In this episode, I talk with singer-songwriter Corrie Lynn Green about how she manages her obligations with her ...
May 09, 2023•47 min•Season 1Ep. 79
