VU Meters: “Virtually Useless” or Very Useful?
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’!
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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’!
The drum machine has progressed massively since the days of the home organ player. Here Oli Freke takes us through a brief history, with lots of audio examples.
We conclude our four-part series with a look at how specifications can accommodate the foibles of human hearing.
I’m wondering if it makes sense to flip my patchbays upside down in my rack, to put my mixer inputs on the top row and signal outputs on the bottom?
How do I make my ears more sensitive to inconsistencies in the vocal frequency spectrum?
I’ll soon record a sludge‑metal band and I need some advice. Any techniques for making the guitars sound sufficiently wide in the mix?
USB is at the heart of most PC‑based studios. But what do you do when it goes wrong?
Low distortion is often a marker of quality in audio equipment. We explain how to make sense of standard distortion specifications.
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.
On paper, Linux has many advantages over macOS and Windows. How easy is it to get started, and how far will it take you?
At what point in the mixdown process do you think it’s best to engage the master‑bus compressor?
I’m restoring an old Soundcraft 600 mixer and discovered it doesn't use dedicated line amps and pads the mic amp signal.
Noise performance is important, but to fairly compare different products, you need to understand how noise specs are calculated.
We condense nearly 50 years’ worth of producing and engineering experience into 36 indispensable tips!
I want to record some vinyl into my DAW, could a turntable simply be plugged into any audio interface and the EQ applied after amplification?
I’d like to purchase an in‑line gain booster and would appreciate your recommendation.
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.
What are the typical tolerances (say, in milliseconds) for acceptable differences between a pair of drum overheads?
There were some strange pin assignments on Eventides in the old days — could that be the problem?