Tips & Techniques

Here at Roll Your Own Productions, we love knowledge. We don't care if it's given or received as long as it has merit. So, with that in mind, this page will be used to build a modest database of knowledge for recording musicians and up and coming producers. Please remember that you can ask any questions by contacting Queries@RYOP and add to this knowledge by e-mailing Feedback@RYOP or do either by visiting the Forum.

Tips

A good first tip for 'newbies' is to be disciplined about your approach to learning new things. Try to master one thing at a time, whether it be how compressors work, or the parameters of your latest soft synth or whatever. It might seem like the...

ADAT is an acronym that originally stood for Alesis Digital Audio Tape. The original ADAT machines were record/playback devices that recorded audio to a digital medium (the tapes looked like VHS video tapes) and therefore required...

Compressors are used at some stage in just about every modern production. However, beginners are often guilty of using compressors because they think they have to instead of where and when they feel the need to use them. For example, ...

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Techniques

Compression

Compressors work on the amplitude (gain) of a signal. A compressor or limiter 'turns down' any part of the signal that goes above the threshold. How much compression (gain reduction) is applied is determined by the ratio. The attack and...

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Digital Distortion and Mix Clarity

Analogue tape (magnetic tape) has a property that causes it to saturate when overloaded. This is a form of distortion, however, it tends to sound 'pleasant' to the human ear/brain. Digital distortion, on the other hand, never sounds...

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Input Levels

It is generally accepted among professionals that the ideal recording input level is 0dBu and therefore, when recording a source one wants one's meters to average around that level. The problem for most beginners is that they believe (and it's a...

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Mixers

In principle, all mixers do much the same thing - take input signals (e.g. microphones, synths, etc.), route them through various modifiers (e.g. amplifiers, EQs, etc.) and output the modified signal to the appropriate destination(s) (e.g. multi...

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