Create Better Music, One Plugin at a Time
Sonarworks SoundID Reference for Headphones Review: Is It Worth It? Mixing on headphones is convenient, affordable, and sometimes unavoidable. But there’s one major problem: your headphones have their own sound. Some models exaggerate the bass. Others push the upper mids or treble. And even expensive studio headphones aren’t necessarily perfectly neutral. That means you can … Read more
Baby Audio Crystalline Review: Is This Modern Reverb Worth It? Reverb is one of those effects that can completely transform a mix—but it can also destroy one surprisingly quickly. Too much reverb can push vocals into the background, muddy melodies, soften drums, and make an otherwise clean production sound washed out. The challenge is creating … Read more
How to Mix Hip Hop & R&B with SSL Native X-ValveComp Getting a Hip Hop or R&B mix to sound polished isn’t simply about making everything louder. The drums need punch. The 808 needs consistency. The vocals need to stay upfront. Keys and samples need character without crowding the mix. Compression plays a major role … Read more
SSL Native X-ValveComp Review: Is This SSL Compressor Worth It? Compression is one of the most important tools in mixing, but sometimes controlling dynamics isn’t enough. You may also want a compressor that can add weight, warmth, harmonic character, and attitude to the sound. That’s where SSL Native X-ValveComp gets interesting. Developed by Solid State … Read more
How to Make ’90s Hip Hop & R&B Beats with Roland JV-1080 There’s something unmistakable about the sound of ’90s Hip Hop and R&B. Warm keys. Digital bells. Lush strings. Smooth basslines. Atmospheric pads. Punchy drums. Chopped samples. And chord progressions that could carry an entire record before the vocals even entered. The Roland JV-1080 … Read more
Long before producers had thousands of virtual instruments sitting inside their laptops, hardware rack modules were one of the easiest ways to expand a studio’s sound library. And few rack modules became as iconic as the Roland JV-1080. Originally released in 1994, the JV-1080 became a fixture in professional studios throughout the ’90s. Its massive … Read more
How to Make Hip Hop & R&B Beats in Pro Tools Artist Pro Tools may be best known for recording, vocal editing, and mixing, but it can also be a surprisingly capable DAW for making complete Hip Hop and R&B beats. With MIDI sequencing, virtual instruments, drum programming, audio editing, automation, Elastic Audio, and a … Read more
When you’re making Hip Hop and R&B regularly, one of the biggest challenges isn’t finding more sounds. It’s finding sounds that make your beats feel different. You can only start so many beats with the same piano, electric piano, bell, guitar, or analog synth before your productions begin traveling down familiar roads. That’s where Excite … Read more
Pro Tools Artist Perpetual License Review: Is It Worth It? Pro Tools has been one of the biggest names in professional audio production for decades. Walk into a commercial recording studio, mixing facility, or post-production house and there’s a good chance you’ll find Pro Tools somewhere in the workflow. But you no longer need the … Read more
Modern music production gives us incredibly clean instruments, samples, and recordings. However, that digital perfection can sometimes leave a beat sounding sterile, flat, or disconnected from the vintage records that inspired it. XLN Audio’s RC-20 Retro Color was designed to solve that problem. RC-20 combines noise, pitch instability, saturation, bit reduction, reverb, and volume fluctuations … Read more