sound engineering

RT60 is a standard measurement used to specify the time it takes for a reverb sound to decay by 60 dB. In general here is a common reference for RT60 times: Space Time Generic room 0.8 seconds (or 800 ms) Generic medium hall 1.2 seconds (or 1200 ms) Generic large hall 2.5 seconds (or...

What are best EQ and compression settings to use as frequency starting points based on the Fibonacci sequence (by Leonardo Pisano Bigollo)?

What are good mixing settings when using either a high-pass filter or a low-pass filter on Zimdancehall vocals?

Professional audio speakers sold as midfield monitors are different from nearfield monitors, in the sense that they are designed to be used in situations where you are at least 1.5 meters (or approx. 5 feet) to about 3 meters (or approx. 10 feet) away from the speaker. Being too close to a...

What would y'all recommend as the best free DAW that has an easy learning curve?

The amount of headroom you should reserve before mastering music after audio mixing is subjective. What matters the most is to avoid hard clipping i.e. making sure you are not going over 0 dBFS on the master fader. However, some sound engineers may recommend having your final mix peaking at -6...

A reverb's room size parameter simulates the dimensions of the desired space in the context of whether it's either a small space or a large environment. Large spaces typically have a longer decay time and wide stereo image whilst small rooms correspond to shorter decay time and also a narrow...

One of the most important parameters of any reverberation plugin is pre-delay which slightly sets back in time the dry input signal and the wet output sound. Reverb pre-delay gives us a clue about the size of the room we are working with depending on the duration of the aforementioned...

The parameter "Reverb density" usually controls the "thickness" of the reverb tails. A high-density setting will result in a much smoother effect due to thickness of the reverb. On the other hand, a low-density setting makes the reverb tail to sound thin and grainy. Although with low settings...

The main reason why software brickwall audio mastering limiters sound different is because of the proprietary algorithms used by the developer. You can think of algorithms as different styles of approach which are meant to process audio with the motive of handling different program material...

In sound engineering LCR panning is a technique of placing individual instruments in a mix dead center or far wide. That is, either panning audio tracks 100% on the left channel or 100% on the right channel. Hence, LCR panning is short for "Left-Center-Right." Moving forward, some music...

Before you understand how foldback distortion works you may need to have a basic knowledge of audio distortion in general. Of course, there are several types of distortion but in this case, let's focus on hard-clipping distortion to keep things simple. Okay, so in the digital domain...

Reverb diffusion (sometimes referred to as early reflections diffusion) is a common parameter that you will come across on almost any reverberation plugin. What reverb diffusion does is control the density of the reflections bouncing off the walls. We can also put that across as the rate at...

What type of audio formats are supported by Soundcloud music streaming service?

What's the underlying reason music sounds different when uploaded to Soundcloud online music streaming platform?

The technique of mixing kick and bass is often a common struggle that beginners are prone to deal with on a constant basis. This is mainly because noobs fail to understand that for particular genres of music the listener is not used to hearing so much bass in the song. Instead, they do the...

In music production software, dBFS (i.e., decibels relative to full scale or full code) and dBTP (i.e., decibels relative to true peak) are both units of audio measurements used in the digital domain but the two aren't quite interchangeable. dBTP is essentially a way to gauge extra volume above...

To understand what is meant by the terms 2-pole filter and 4-pole filter, you first need to know that the word "pole" in the context of filters refers to a 6 dB per octave roll-off. Well, a 2-pole filter = 12 dB/octave slope, and that's because 6 dB x 2 = 12 dB. Furthermore, a 4-pole filter =...

For the most part, there's no difference between audio software plug-ins referred to as maximizers and those marketed as brickwall mastering plug-ins. The contrast is that some developers simply decide to name their digital audio processors as maximizers whilst some may settle for the term...

Digital audio software linear-phase equalizers do not alter the phase of the input signal. And in contrast to linear-phase equalizers you've minimum-phase parametric EQs that act by introducing phase shift whilst processing. What's important to remember here is that if you need an ultra-clean...