The team from UK console and interface manufacturer Audient recently visited the musically amazing Graham Coxon (of Blur fame) to find out how he wrote and recorded the soundtrack for the hit Channel 4 and Netflix series 'The End Of The F***ing World'. Graham talks through how he recorded the song 'Walking All Day' at his home studio in London.

Our friends at Nugen Audio have released SigMod, a modular, customisable signal modification plug-in which allows users to freely simple processes in to complex combinations, allowing the user to quickly correct, tweak or convert an audio signal for a wide variety of purposes. We have an exclusive video review.

In this podcast Matt, Saxon and James try their best to cut through the jargon of AoIP to help any of you out there who are confused about the term AoIP with some the basics when it comes to equipment and knowledge to assist you making informed choices when it comes to considering an AoIP option for your studio or audio workplace. 

We rely heavily on studio monitors to make critical tracking and mix decisions, so it is important we use monitors that we can trust. We also punish monitors day in day out in, so we need to be able to trust their reliability, but we also need to be able to know in our hearts that we have invested in a set of monitors that provide a good return on investment.

Sculpting and shaping sounds on the way in and "printing" those sounds is how nearly every landmark album was made. Pushing a preamp, radical EQ textures, creative mic placement, each sound becoming a building block for the final mix, each sound informing the next. In a sense, a kind of mixing process embedded in the recording process itself. 

REDDI (pronounced ‘ready’) is the latest offering to arise from the partnership between A-­Designs Digital and Kush Audio. A plug-in emulation of the respected REDDI tube DO from A-Designs.

The team at Universal Audio are very pleased to announce a new product, the UAD-2 Live Rack.
UAD-2 Live Rack is a road ready 16-channel MADI effects processor in a single 19" 1U rack that gives live sound engineers the ability to craft studio quality mixes using real-time UAD-2 plug-ins. You even get Antares Auto-Tune Realtime in the package.

For owners of UAD Apollo and Arrow interfaces, UAD has bundled a free version of the Brainworx Ampeg SVT-VR bass amp plug-in, the SVT-VR Classic, with the latest version of the UAD software  - v9.5.2. Simply download the update to receive your free plug-in.

In April 2018, in collaboration with our friends at Wave Alchemy we ran a competition to win one of five copies of Wave Alchemy's excellent Evolution Drum Instrument. The five copies have been won by the following lucky people:

Our friends at Aspen Media have highlighted some of the products from brands they look after that were showing at NAB 2018 and we felt that some of these were appropriate to share with the Production Expert community.

Tom Knowles, Broadcast systems product manager at SSL knows networking and with kind permission from SSL we reproduce a part of his excellent white paper "Professional AoIP for Broadcast - The Way Forward".

Our friends at iZotope have just announced a new version of their popular vocal production plug-in VocalSynth is on the horizon along with a new plug-in bundle called Creative Suite. iZotope say VocalSynth 2 will feature major improvements and include a new module, new and improved effects, deeper control and customisation, and inter-plugin communication capabilities that we've seen in other iZotope products.

In this video James starts by showing you around his mix session and explains his initial routing choices such as the addition of a drum buss and two reverb sends. James then takes you through the processing he used on his tracks. Watch the video to hear each stage throughout his mixing process.

Thursday the 3rd of May 2018 saw the latest Miloco Studios Pro Audio Showcase held at their South London studio facility. This was not only a chance to mingle with fellow audio professionals and students but also a chance to see demonstrations of some of the latest and greatest in the field of pro audio. 

Watch the video to hear us test Softube's Weiss DS1-MK3 limiter performance and de-essing capabilities on a full band mix that's ready for mastering but has some sibilance issues that need attention.

In this video, Mike speaks to Jan Lykke from DAD at BVE 2018. Jan gives us a walkthrough of the capabilities of the MOM monitor controller with an AX32 as a monitor controller and demonstrates setting up a custom configuration in DADman.

While iZotope RX is well known for cleaning up spoiled audio and removing unwanted sounds, what is not so well known is that it can also a great tool for enhancing specific elements in the material that might be a little quiet or buried in the mix. In this free video tutorial, from the team at iZotope, they show how to increase the loudness of a flute melody in the music for a documentary.

I can't recall the last client who asked me to explain how a compressor worked or if I dithered the mix. Knowing the answer to both those questions matters to me but not to my clients.

While not all of these mics would be an obvious first choice for this application, it was an interesting exercise. The response to sibilant sounds was particularly interesting to me. Which would you choose of these four and if you could include another mic in this test what would it be?   

Over the last few years, more and more plug-ins have emerged that promise great mastering capabilities making "self-mastering" easier than ever before whilst also providing tools that help us to deliver music to a range of loudness specs.

Our friends at Waves have finally released the PRS SuperModels guitar amp simulator plug-in that we first heard news about at NAMM 2018. Waves are currently offering a very generous time the limited introductory purchase price of $49 for PRS SuperModels (regular pricing $129). 

In a recent article Russ spoke of the need for those making the stuff we use to make music to take into account the importance of workflow when designing new products. Loopcloud 2 by Loopmasters with its DAW integrated audition plug-in ticks all the workflow boxes.

The team at Universal Audio have just announced that they are now shipping the Thunderbolt 3 Option Card for Apollo rackmount interfaces worldwide. The card, that was first announced at Winter NAMM 2018, is compatible with the new Intel Thunderbolt 3 technology on the latest Mac and Windows computers.

Phase rotation isn’t as well understood as some of the other fundamentals of audio. In this post, Production Expert team member Julian Rodgers illustrates the effect of phase rotation and the difference between phase rotation, delay and polarity inversion using the UAD IBP plug-in and introduces the possibility of using phase rotation to minimise cancellation in mixes using SoundRadix’s Pi.

In this article from Universal Audio, James Rotondi asks three of the worlds top audio recording, mixing and production professionals about how they choose the mics pres for recording and what matters to them when it comes to sonic quality, usability and tonal balance. 

In this video review for Production Expert, Technical Editor James Ivey takes a look at the new Delta II and Sigma II handmade ribbon microphones by British microphone manufacturer Sontronics.

In this double header video review for Production Expert, Dan & James thoroughly test a couple of Focusrite's new USB Clarett audio interfaces. In this review, we test the Clarett 2Pre and 8Pre. Watch the video to discover what we think about these interfaces and to hear both interfaces in action in a short full band recording session.

Post-Production Specialist Alan Sallabank, reviews the Signum Audio Bute Loudness Suite - a new collection of intuitive loudness management tools.

In this video review for Production Expert, Technical Editor James Ivey takes a look and listen to the new 3 Preamps you Will Actually Use by Arturia.

Post Production Specialist Alan Sallabank reviews Weaponiser Fully Loaded, an incredibly powerful Weapon Sound Design Tool and Custom Sound Effects Library by Krotos Audio.

In this Production Expert review, Pro Tools Expert Technical Editor James Ivey takes a look at two new preamp emulations from Universal Audio. In this video James tests the new Neve Pre and the Helios Type 69 on a track. Watch the video to hear the effects of both preamp emulations in a mix.

Windows and Post-Production Specialist Alan Sallabank takes a look at the Dell Inspiron 15 7577 Windows Thunderbolt 3 Gaming Laptop to replace his MacBook Pro 2011 and sees how it performs for Post Production.

In this video review for Production Expert, Pro Tools Expert, Technical Editor James Ivey takes a look at the new ML-32D from Tascam. A 32 channel Line Level I/O to Dante converter.  James shows you around the unit, explains the connectivity and how he is using the ML-32D in his studio set up and then goes on to let you hear the unit in a short track featuring full drum kit, bass and lead guitar. 

T-Racks 5 is the latest version of IK Multimedia's popular plug-in suite. It features a wealth of great sounding EQs, dynamics and effects. The latest version of T-Racks 5 debuted a new standalone mastering application along with four new modules. We take a look at Master Match, which automatically matches the sound of the songs you are mastering with up to three source tracks used as reference tracks, it's very good.

In this video review, Pro Tools Expert team member Kevin Becka puts the Wavesfactory SPECTRE plug-in through its paces. This unique processor introduces sophisticated harmonic content to your tracks ranging from chocolatey tones to outright bit-crushing anarchy.

In this video review for Production Expert, Pro Tools Expert Technical Editor James Ivey takes a look at the new Neve 1073DPX two-channel mic preamp with EQ. 

In this video review Production Expert team member Julian Rodgers reviews Solid from UJAM, a virtual drum instrument which bucks the trend by embracing simplicity over comprehensive control and prove that this approach can set us free to get on the what's really important - creating music, without compromising the results.

In this brief overview/video review we show you around UK Pop EZX within EZ Drummer 2. Watch the video to hear how a small selection of the drums featured in this library sound and to hear a quick example of the beginnings of a Royal Blood style track using UK Pop EZX.

It was a little under 2 years ago, back in April 2016 that James first reviewed the Focusrite Red 4Pre and to say he was impressed and loved it would be an understatement.  Little did he know then that the Red range would grow to include the Red 8Pre, reviewed in May 2017 and now the new Red 16Line the latest in the Focusrite Pro Red range. 

In this review Julian Rodgers takes a look at the RZ062 equaliser plug-in. A model of a vintage European valve equaliser which is particularly well suited to use of busses and for mastering.

In this Production Expert video review, we take a look at the VTRC Vari Tube Recording Channel by Tegeler Audio Manufaktur. 

The new Softube MM-1 plug-in is based on the Weiss DS1-MK3, a very popular digital dynamics unit that can be found in many mastering studios across the world

The MM-1 plug-in is a "slimmed down" version of the original DS1-MK3 hardware that Softube claims features exactly the same algorithms from within the original hardware.

In this video review, Production Expert team member Julian Rodgers looks at the new bx_delay 2500 plug-in from Brainworx, a comprehensively equipped delay plug-in.

In this video review for Production Expert, Technical Editor James Ivey takes a look at the new Chroma 500 series mic pre/line preamp. The Chroma offers the same A & N modes of mojo mic pre circuit found on its big brother the Silver Bullet but adds the ability to add your own flavour of tone shaping with a "Colour" module.

In this review for Production Expert, Technical Editor, James Ivey takes a look at another of the new plug-in in the Universal Audio  UAD 9.5 software release, the A/DA Flanger by Brainworx.

In this video review for Production Expert, Technical Editor, James Ivey takes at the new Buxom Betty guitar amp simulation for the Universal Audio Apollo interfaces and the  UAD-2 platform by Brainworx.

Boom - Our friends at UVI have just released a new rise & impact sound effects library for both UVI Workstation and Falcon instrument platforms called Meteor. Production Expert was given early access to Meteror in order to provide The Production Expert Communities with an exclusive video review.

In this video review for Production Expert, Pro Tools Expert Technical Editor James Ivey takes a look at the new Convert AD+ from Dangerous Music.

In this review Julian Rodgers takes a look at the newly announced DW Drum Enhancer from Audified. This plugin, developed in collaboration with the highly respected drum manufacturers at Drum Workshop, is a channel strip type plug-in which is tightly focussed on drum processing.

Pro Tools Expert post-production specialist, Alan Sallabank takes a look at using 2 PreSonus Quantum interfaces together with Pro Tools HD Standalone software on a Windows Pro Tools computer. See how he got on...

In this premium video tutorial, Pro Tools Expert team member Julian Rodgers demonstrates three useful features of Pro Tools which become important when clips overlap on the timeline and several other related options:

In this week's Friday Free Plug-in, we are featuring ProjectTime, a time-tracking plug-in to make the process of tracking (and charging for) the time you spend on a project.

In this free video tutorial, community member Paul Maunder takes a look at the process of loop recording ADR in Pro Tools and the associated track comping features. Playlists and a number of keyboard shortcuts essential to the ADR workflow are also covered.

The Pro Tools Expert 15 Minute Mix Challenge video series returns, this time we mix a song using a selection of IK Multimedia's T-RackS plug-ins found in IK Multimedia's Total Studio MAX 2 Bundle:

In part 10 of our Getting To Grips With Pro Tools series, we are going to take a look at how to use Clip Groups. formerly known as Region Groups, in Pro Tools.