Author: Leopoldo Lopes

On the first post, “Mastering Your Own Songs – Yes You Can Do It, But…” I talk about the general considerations of the mastering process, different mastering approaches you should have in mind while mixing and mastering, and a 20-year mastering engineer’s true and honest opinion about why you shouldn’t master your own songs.
In this post, I will address the same subject but talk in a more detailed way about the mastering process you should apply to your own mastering at home.

Many home studio enthusiasts hope to finish their productions by doing their own mastering. However, few seem to achieve the classy results they’re after.
So how much can you realistically achieve by doing the mastering process on your own, and what techniques will give the highest-quality results?

In this first of two posts, I will talk about what mastering is and roughly the mastering process you should apply to your future songs if you choose to master your own songs. In the second post, expect a more detailed explanation of how to master your songs and even the vinyl approach!
So, let’s talk about all this then…

Do you want to get media attention and blog coverage for your music? Then you need to create an awesome press release. But what should you write, feature, and link to in your press release to give yourself the best chance of getting picked up by TV and radio media, journals, and bloggers?

I often say that there are no rules on mixing, but time has taught me that there are, and some are very important to have a proper commercial song to sound “commercial”. There are some basic elementary rules crucial to having the right mindset when you start a mix, and others when developing that mix up to the end.

Today I’m not going to approach this subject but talk about some of the most important dos and don’ts when you mix your own songs or someone else’s!

Yes, some are basic tips, but I know that sometimes it’s easy to forget those simple “rules” (remember: there are no rules since you make your own rules on your workflow and proper mindset)!

Sibilance is natural for almost every vocalist and is needed to understand speech.
Also, these vocal sounds contain a large proportion of high frequencies (thousands of Hertz). They originate in the mouth and by air passing around the teeth.

The relative proportions of these frequencies within a vocal recording are determined by many factors including the vocal style, the loudness of the performance, the frequency response of the microphone, the relative position of the microphone, and what type and amount of compression you’re dealing with.

Over the years I learned how to avoid excessive sibilance while recording vocals and even then sometimes is impossible to bypass this issue. Some vocalists have more sibilance than others and if you know them, you know how to respond the right way to his/her sibilance.

Here are some of my tools of the trade on how to avoid sibilance when recording vocals.

Nowadays is more often to get vocal tracks and stems to mix in our studio produced and recorded in home studios. For the past two years, the world pandemic due to COVID-19 has raised the difficulties and chances for artists to visit our studio and properly record their vocals in one of the most beautiful and acoustic-treated live rooms in the world, which is ours.

I know that getting vocals to sound right in a home studio environment will always be a challenge. To avoid falling into the same traps that many beginner producers do, I’ve put together 12 common mistakes in-home studio vocal production along with tips to resolve them.