The piano is one of the most popular musical instruments in the world. In this article, we discuss its history, inventor(s), most important parts, tuning and playing techniques, as well as the differences between acoustic and digital pianos.

Producing properly balanced mixes can be a real struggle. Fortunately, guest-blogger and home studio coach, Ben van Essen is here to explain why the secret to better mixes doesn’t lie in using more plug-ins, but in simply mixing in mono.

When using any wireless system, whether it’s for wireless microphones, a wireless in-ear monitoring system or a cable-free instrument system, then you’ll have to work with radio frequencies. These are inherent to the way these wireless systems work, since wireless systems convert audio into code before sending it through the air in the form of a digital packet, so it can be picked up by a receiver where the information is decoded and converted back into audio.

Sometimes, you might wonder how some tracks sound like the band is standing in your living room. The singer is right in front of you, the bassist and drummer seem to be set up just behind them and the guitar and synthesizer seem to be coming at you from the sides. How does a mixing engineer manage to create so much depth via just two speakers? In this blog, we explain how you can make your own stereo mixes feel more three-dimensional using nothing more than the tools that came with your DAW, including panning, a chorus, doubler, reverb and some EQ. In other words, you can learn to pack your mixes with the illusion of space.

You can definitely plug a set of headphones into your electric guitar or bass, but not much will happen. Luckily, there are plenty of other compact and less-compact solutions if you want to hone your playing technique while wrapped in the privacy of a set of headphones. Read on to find out how it’s done!

While I write this, I’m browsing Spotify for different drum sounds. Take the new Lamb of God album, You Got Me from The Roots and Get Lucky by Daft Punk. All of them feature incredible drum mixes and all of them have a completely different sound. This alone makes it pretty clear that this blog could never provide a one-size-fits-all manual to mixing drums. What it can do is offer a few tips and techniques to help you lay down a good and solid drum sound that can work as a foundation for your unique mix.

Performing out in the open can be challenging when it’s windy. Not only can wind literally carry the sound of the band in the wrong direction and make it harder to hear, but a light gust can easily send your sheet music flying. Luckily, there are a few simple solutions to tackle the latter, no matter what kind of music stand you use.

Put simply, the dynamics refer to the volume range of any given piece of music, so the difference between the loudest and softest parts along with everything in between. Songs, albums and even entire shows can greatly benefit from enhanced dynamics, yet many bands and artists sadly pass up on the opportunity. Since they’re definitely missing out, here are eight tips that can help enhance the dynamics of your music.

The shorter the distance between the source and the microphone, the more low frequencies are registered at the cost of high frequencies. This is what’s known as the proximity effect, and it applies to a lot of microphones. In practice, this usually means that the closer you close-mike your voice or instrument, the fuller it’ll sound. Read on and learn how to take advantage of it.

It’s a classic issue in the life of drummers. You hit the smallest, highest pitched tom and your snare makes a buzzing sound in response. Even when you try to dampen the snare with a bit of tape, a slip of paper or card, or even a tea towel, the snare wires still vibrate when you don’t want them to. So, how does this even happen and how can it be solved?

Mixing is a lot like baking. Just throwing stuff into a bowl and hoping for the best will never give you the best results. In this blog, we seek to explain what a mix bus actually is and how you can best prepare your instrument groups before sending them all through the master bus of your mixer or DAW. In other words: we explain how to bring structure to audio mixing.

While removing cables from the setup gives you freedom to move around the stage, life isn’t made easy for wireless microphone users. With mobile internet and other wireless traffic only getting busier and busier, there’s little room left in the ether for wireless microphones. To solve this issue, Shure has developed an impressive, all-new system: the Shure GLX-D+ Dual Band Series.