Author: Yasmin Umwali-Barnett

Modern music listeners have shortened attention spans , possibly due to the overconsumption and easy access of music. Contrast is a key took for sustaining the audiences’ engagement as it creates a freshness. By intentionally manipulating dynamics, effects and timbral textures , mixes can guide attention, build anticipation and refresh the ear without overwhelming the…

Manny Marroquin is a Guatemalan 5 time Grammy award winning mixing engineer known for his modern and polished sound across the pop and hip-hop genres. He has worked with big artists such as Kanye West, Post Malone, Rihanna and Bruno Mars. His mixes consist of clean and balanced tracks with a strong emotional impact and…

In recent years, there has been a significant rise in immersive listening experiences, driven by the growing popularity of surround sound technologies. These systems create a three-dimensional audio environment that places the listener inside the music, enhancing emotional engagement and spatial awareness. This effect is particularly powerful in live albums, cinematic scores, and virtual concert…

A flanger is an audio effect that creates a swirling, swooshing, or jet-like sound by mixing a signal with a slightly delayed copy of itself. The delay time is constantly changing, which creates a distinctive comb-filtering effect as certain frequencies cancel out and reinforce each other. This processor is used to create movement and texture,…

Mastering is the final step in producing a track after the recording and mixing, the song is ‘polished’ and prepared for releasing. It consists of balancing sounds and ensuring the sound quality is good across all playback systems; headphones, speakers, etc.  Mastering has changed as a result of the Loudness wars, where artists prioritised loudness…

The loudness wars refers to a trend of artists increasing the volume of their songs in order to stand out on radio and streaming services. This was done through aggressive dynamic range compression, limiting, etc. The Loudness wars impacted the quality of audios as heavily compressing tracks meant that the difference between the soft and…

Equalisation is the adjusting of specific frequencies to achieve a balanced mix. EQ began in the Telephone and radio broadcasting industry where EQ-like filters were used to balance frequencies and improve clarity. EQ in this era was mainly used for technical correction and simple adjusting such as removing hums unlike in today’s mixes. With the…

Stereo sound was first explored in 1931 by Alan Blumlein, a british engineer, who came up with the idea to use two microphones to recreate the sense of spatial depth. Blumlein worked for film and is often established as the ‘Father of Stereo’. It took sometime before anymore developments were made in the 1950s where…

Imaging is when our minds imagine sound to be in a place it is physically not. This can be applied by our minds imagining sound between speakers whereas the sound is moving through the move. It is how our minds perceive and fill in the gaps of sound. This process of visual representing i believe…

Reference Mixing is a method used by producers in order to keep the track that they’re mixing fresh and on a forward path. Mixing a track with no breaks can lead our ears to become deaf to certain things we otherwise should’ve heard at first listen. So in order to ‘freshen’ the mix using a…