The gig is over, and the room is full of distractions. Cases need packing, friends want to say hello, and everyone is thinking about the drive home.
The Real Problem Is a Missing Process Most groups that struggle to talk in rehearsal with earplugs in blame the earplugs.
Carvin Audio is celebrating its 80th anniversary in 2026. The company was founded in 1946 by Lowell Kiesel and spent eight decades designing and building gear for players and sound professionals.
A cover is your own new recording of a song someone else wrote. Releasing one is a good way to reach listeners who haven't heard you yet, and it keeps your catalog active in the gaps between your original material.
If your songs are streaming, you may be leaving money uncollected. The payments from your distributor are only part of what those plays can earn.
The Music People (TMP), a division of JAM Industries, has added four account managers to its sales organization.
A role-by-role packing checklist for a small-venue show with a house PA, so you bring the cables, spares, and backups you need and skip the gear that stays in its case.
Apple's latest macOS left a lot of perfectly good FireWire interfaces without a way to connect.
Late November through New Year's Day is a great time to put out music. Listeners are looking for seasonal songs, and fans are in a good mood.
When your slot gets shortened, saving as many songs as possible is the wrong goal.
Everyone has heard the joke about the file called "Final." The moment you label something final, the revision requests start arriving, and soon you're sending "Mix Final Final v4.
Spotify Wrapped is the yearly recap that shows each listener their favorite artists, tracks, genres, and more, packaged in graphics made for sharing.
Spotify tracks a number called monthly active listeners. It counts the people who deliberately played your music at least once in the last 28 days.
"Give me more lead vocal" sounds like a clear request. Over a full set, it stops being useful.
Learn the live sound terms engineers use, from clipping to monitors, so you can set up faster, ask for what you need clearly, and get a better mix on stage.
Every mix starts the same way. A client sends a folder of audio, and before you hear a note of the song you're renaming files, sorting them into groups, pulling levels down, and dragging everything onto your usual tracks.
You're halfway through a chorus and one ear drops out. Your part keeps moving, a transition is coming up, and you have no idea what just failed.
Other World Computing (OWC) has refreshed its ThunderBay 4, a four-bay RAID storage unit.
Learn how your signal travels from instrument to speakers so you can request the right monitor mix, catch problems before soundcheck stalls, and speak the engineer's language.
Pliant Technologies has started shipping its CrewCom Flex intercom line to customers in the United States.
Most tape plugins aim to copy a real tape machine as faithfully as possible. Pulsar Audio's new DigiTape goes the other way.
Loudspeaker maker RCF has announced a new set of favorable legal outcomes in China.
Plain-English definitions of the recording terms you'll hear most in your first sessions, from bleed to gain, so you can follow tutorials and troubleshoot problems.
Compare live tracking with overdubbing for feel, fixing mistakes, and the space and gear you need, so you can pick the approach that suits your band.
RF Venue has announced a free online webinar on Thursday, November 19, starting at 12:30 pm U.
A one-song pressure test is a short mock performance. You pick a single piece and play it as though the real event were happening right now.
September brought updates from four platforms most independent musicians already use: Apple Music, Instagram, TikTok, and Spotify.
Use this week-by-week checklist to confirm load-in times, send your input list and stage plot, and pack gear so no dead battery or missing cable derails the night.
Richie Owens, a singer-songwriter based in Nashville, recently took his blend of country, rock and punk across the UK for eight shows.
Learn how to prep an input list and stage plot, run an efficient line check, and set stage monitor levels so your band sounds clear from the first song.
Learn how to give rehearsals a clear structure, from setup and warm-ups to focused song work, so your band improves each week instead of just running its favorites.
In a vocal session the engineer and producer roles blur easily. O'Neil's advice is to know which job you're actually there to do.
Nothing else on this list works until your songs are available. Releasing through CD Baby puts your music on more than 150 platforms worldwide.
What the production did The 2026 staging of Grease at Thunerseespiele, a lakeside festival in Switzerland, played to a 3,000-seat outdoor venue.
Toontrack has released Neon Void, a new EKX (the company's name for an expansion library) for its EZkeys 2 songwriting instrument.
Learn how to position your mic, set input gain to avoid distortion, and organize recording sessions so you can capture better vocal takes in an untreated room.
Mastering is the last pass a piece of music gets before release. You start with a finished mix and refine it: balance the overall levels, widen the stereo image where it helps, and listen for clicks, pops, or anything el.
Picture a band that already rehearses with a click (the metronome track that keeps everyone at the same tempo) and gives each player a personal monitor mix.
Learn how to order your songs so a room stays engaged, from choosing an opener with the right energy to building high points, pacing breathers, and a finish that feels earned.
Most Listeners Aren't Hearing Your Studio Mixing in Dolby Atmos (a format that treats sounds as "objects" you can place anywhere in a 3D space, rather than assigning them to fixed speakers) is a thrill in a well-built ro.
Vienna Symphonic Library (VSL) has released Vienna Performer, a plugin that takes the MIDI you've written and renders it as a performance by real players.
Find out what venues already provide before buying gear, and learn the right questions to ask when booking a gig.
Tune your heads, silence loose hardware, and position your mics before hitting record — these steps fix the drum sounds no plugin can rescue.
Run through this pre-recording checklist—cables, interface, headphones, DAW settings—so buzzing gear and clipped vocals don't ruin a great take.
Send the venue your input list, stage plot, and load-in time before the show so the sound engineer knows your setup before you walk in the door.
Learn the power-down rule, local vs. global signal tracing, and step-by-step fixes to solve common live sound problems without damaging gear or killing the show.
Record a band demo at home using an audio interface, a few mics, and a DAW — and learn exactly what venue bookers and producers need to hear from it.
Learn when to use DI, a mic'd amp, or both for bass—so your low end stays clean, tight, and mix-ready from the first take.
Learn why you can't hear yourself on stage and how monitors and aux sends let each performer dial in a custom mix of the band.
A short scheme: who leads rehearsals, who handles sound and the schedule, and how to cover for anyone who drops out.
