Cameron, Author at Sound Accelerator

The Static Mix: The First Step To Achieving A Great Mix

Cameron on May 13, 2022

Mixing is a very broad topic, and with it comes countless strategies, methods, and effects to choose from when it comes to mixing your songs.

While there is a time and a place to use most mixing techniques, some are more useful than others.

Above all, the static mix is the simplest, easiest, and often the most underrated part of the mixing process.

In this video, you’ll learn how to apply the static mix to your songs to achieve a perfect mix balance and get your mixes 85% the way done with one simple step.

Choosing The Best Studio Headphones For You (2022)

Cameron on May 10, 2022

To produce great music, you have to be able to hear what you’re doing as accurately as possible.

A simple, cost-effective way to do that is with a pair of studio headphones.

Studio headphones are an incredible asset to have in your home studio. They’re useful for recording, mixing, and every other aspect of music production.

In this video, you’ll learn how to choose the perfect pair of studio headphones for you.

7 Keys To Panning Your Instruments And Nailing The Stereo Mix

Cameron on May 6, 2022

If you want to make great mixes, then panning your instruments to get a big, wide, and powerful stereo balance is a must.

There are countless ways to pan your tracks. You can use LCR mixing, stereo imaging plugins, panning charts, and much more. The list goes on and on.

To simplify the process of panning your mix as much as possible, here are seven key principles for getting the most out of the stereo field in your mixes.

Mix Translation: Why Your Mixes Sound Bad In Your Car, On Your Phone, And Everywhere Else Outside Your Home Studio

Cameron on April 29, 2022

Has this ever happened to you?

You’ve been working hard on your latest mix, and you’ve gotten to the point where it sounds PERFECT in your studio.

You think the mix is finished, so you bounce the song, and go to play it in your car, on your phone, or somewhere else outside of your studio.

You press play, and you hear a completely different song! Maybe the bass is too quiet, or the highs are really harsh, or you’re having a hard time hearing the vocals, or certain instruments completely disappear.

What happened? Your song suddenly sounds completely different than it did in your studio, and the differences are typically not good.

Sound familiar?

What you’re experiencing is a mix translation problem, and it’s an issue that I used to have all the time.

So how do you solve it?

In this video, you’ll learn the simple solution to make your mixes sound great in your studio, in your car, on your phone, and anywhere else you play them.

Five Steps To Record High-Quality Vocals In Your Home Studio

Cameron on April 22, 2022

For most musical genres, one of the most important parts of producing high-quality, professional-sounding music is the vocals.

Great vocals can take an average song and turn it into a great song, but on the other hand, subpar vocals can just as easily ruin your song.

So how do you get vocals that help your song instead of hurting it?

It may feel like there are a million variables involved with getting good vocal recordings, but it’s actually simpler than you think.

In this video, I’m going to teach you the five steps that you can take to record high-quality vocals in your home studio.

Delay: Better Than Reverb For Mixing Vocals?

Cameron on April 15, 2022

When mixing vocals, reverb is an extremely popular method for creating atmosphere, depth, and intrigue.

Reverb can make your vocals sound great, but it can also make them sound bad if you’re not careful.

Sometimes, this happens because of the way the reverb was implemented, but in other cases, it’s because reverb simply isn’t the right tool for the job.

In many cases, it’s best to throw your reverb plugins to the side and use delay!

How To Make Your Music LOUDER (Without Ruining The Quality!)

Cameron on April 12, 2022

We all want our songs to be loud and impactful, just like the music we listen to on Spotify, YouTube, and other streaming sites.

Loudness is a critical ingredient in making high quality, competitive music, but it can be difficult to get our songs to be loud enough without making them distort or sound flat-out BAD.

You can go online and find all sorts of tactics and advice out there, but it’s not uncommon to try everything, only to find that your song isn’t any louder than it was before!

So how do you get your songs to be loud enough to compete within your genre?

Producing a commercially loud song isn’t just about slapping a limiter onto your master bus and hoping it does the job.

The secret to getting a loud song starts much earlier in the music production process.

Get Big, Explosive Drums In Your Home Studio With Reverb

Cameron on April 1, 2022

When you think of professionally recorded and mixed drums, what do you think of?

For many genres, this means drums that sound lively, punchy, and explosive.

Often times, drums like these were recorded in professional studios with the right kit, the right drummer, the right microphones, and the right room.

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t achieve a similar sound in your home studio.

Reverb is a great tool for spicing up your mixes and taking them from an amateur level to a professional level, and it’s particularly useful for transforming your drums.

With reverb, you can take any set of drums, whether they come from sample packs or were recorded in a tiny room, and achieve that same professional studio sound with nothing but your DAW and its stock plugins.

Why You Don’t Need Gain Staging To Get Great Mixes

Cameron on March 29, 2022

If you’ve spend more than a few minutes online learning about music production, you’ve probably heard about gain staging at least once.

Often time’s it’s made out to be a CRITICAL part of the process that you MUST DO.

However, that’s simply not true.

In reality, gain staging isn’t always that important, and in some cases, you can completely ignore it without any repercussions.

Let me tell you why.

Struggling With Compression? Try These Three Tips

Cameron on March 25, 2022

If you struggle with compression, you’re not alone.

There’s a lot to wrap your head around, including all of the compressor settings, all the ways to use compression, and the challenge of hearing the compression and knowing if it’s helping your mixes or hurting them.

If you approach compression the wrong way, it can be really overwhelming.

If you approach compression the right way, you’ll find that compression is a lot simpler than it appears to be.

In this video, I’ll go over my top three tips for making compression one of the simplest and most powerful effects in your mixing arsenal.