Home Recording Studio Basics
Synthesizers
Choosing A Mini Synthesizer – Your Questions Answered
Should I get an analog or digital synth? What’s the difference between a sequencer and an arpeggiator, and what’s the purpose of each? You deserve answers — let’s dig in.
Microphones
9 BEST ON-CAMERA MICROPHONE ATTACHMENTS FOR VIDEOGRAPHERS
Looking for the best on-camera microphone attachment to take the sound of your videos to the next video? Improving your audio quality is one of the best ways to make your videography stand out, so we’ve done the research to find the nine best on-camera mic attachments you’ll find in 2023
Guitar Effects
CHOOSING THE BEST DITTO LOOPER PEDAL — WHICH TC ELECTRONIC DITTO LOOPER IS RIGHT FOR YOU?
Whether you’re looking to play over your own chord progressions for fun, exploring new songwriting ideas, or performing live looping on stage, we’ve put together this list to help you find the best Ditto looper pedal for you.
Guitar Effects
10 LOOPER PEDALS COMPARED — WHICH ONE IS THE BEST LOOPER GUITAR PEDAL FOR YOUR PEDALBOARD?
Looper guitar pedals are more popular than ever, and offer big creative potential for electric and acoustic guitarists alike. With such a wide range of loop pedals for guitar available in 2023, we want to take a look at 10 of the best looper pedals currently on the market.
Guitars
Enhancing Your Guitar Rig With A Pedalboard Amp
Any pedalboard amp, at its core, is a power amplifier packed into a stompbox that can be easily placed on your effects pedalboard. Just like the power amplifier in your combo amp or guitar amplifier head, a pedalboard amp simply boosts the instrument-level signal from your guitar or pedals up to a speaker-level signal that can drive a speaker cabinet.
Guitars
ARE THERE EFFECTS PEDALS FOR ACOUSTIC GUITAR? MEET THE FISHMAN AFX ACOUSTIC GUITAR PEDALS
If you’re an acoustic guitar player searching for effects pedals to expand your creative palette, you soon realize there aren’t many options for effects pedals for acoustic guitar. If you’ve ever plugged your acoustic guitar into a pedal designed for electric guitar in the spirit of sonic exploration, you know that it destroys your core acoustic guitar tone. Electric guitar effects pedals aren’t designed for the expanded dynamic range and frequency spectrum that your acoustic guitar delivers. Thankfully, Fishman AFX Mini acoustic guitar effects pedals are designed to offer creative and inspiring effects that maintain the integrity of your acoustic guitar tone, in a compact and affordable series of mini pedals.
Microphones
Choosing a DSLR Camera Microphone
When it comes to choosing a DSLR camera microphone, there are many factors to consider that will impact your microphone choice. Are you shooting in an acoustically-controlled studio, or out in the noise of the real world?
Synthesizers
BEST SYNTHESIZERS FOR BEGINNERS
With so many keyboard synthesizers and modules available today, what’s the best synthesizer for a beginner in 2023? The answer will vary depending on how you plan to use it.
Home Recording
CAN ONE MICROPHONE DO IT ALL? CHOOSING A WORKHORSE MICROPHONE FOR YOUR HOME STUDIO
It would be nice to have a huge mic locker to choose from, allowing you to audition many and select the perfect mic for any recording project. But that’s not practical for most of us. And if you’re just starting to build your mic collection and looking for maximum value, you’re probably wondering if just one microphone can handle all of your recording duties, including speech and vocals, amplifiers, and acoustic instruments.
Guitar Effects
CAN THE GAMMA ATLAS BOOSTED OVERDRIVE BE YOUR ALWAYS-ON DRIVE PEDAL? TOP INFLUENCERS PUT IT TO THE TEST
With so many overdrive pedals available today, it’s clear that guitarists can never have enough overdrive options. With a simple control set and an affordable price tag, the GAMMA Atlas Boosted Overdrive pedal delivers a wide range of overdrive tones reminiscent of classic TS-style drive pedals — but does it have the tonal tenacity to earn that coveted first-place spot on your pedalboard?
Home Recording Studio Equipment Reviews
Piano
Finding The Best Folding Piano
It's hard to beat a full-size digital keyboard for sheer musical horsepower. They're loaded with countless tonalities, practice tools, MIDI...
Audio Interfaces
CAN YOU MAKE GREAT SOUNDING PRODUCTIONS WITH A CHEAP AUDIO INTERFACE?
With such a wide range of audio interfaces available, it’s normal to be suspicious when you’re looking at the cheap end of the spectrum. What are you missing out on? Will a cheap audio interface sound bad compared to something more expensive? Which is the best cheap audio interface to get?
Drums
HOW TO CHOOSE AN ELECTRONIC DRUM AMP
While headphones are great for private practice sessions, nothing beats the feeling of playing your electronic drum kit through a drum amp. Hearing a drum amp deliver the weight of your bass drum, the thump of your toms, and the crack of your snare drum creates an immersive experience that will propel your drumming to a new level, no matter what style of electronic drum kit you play.
Guitar Effects
Make Music That Moves with Modulation Pedals
We’ll get into all the different types of modulation effects in this article: the thing to know is that a modulation pedal will change a property of your guitar tone (like volume or pitch) over time.
Home Recording
XLR to USB: How to Connect a Mic to Your Computer, Smartphone, or Tablet
If you want to record audio on your computer or portable device with an external microphone, you have a lot of options. And the solution can be as simple as a single XLR to USB cable — but that may actually limit the quality of your recordings instead of enhance it, depending on what your production goals are. After all, if you want to connect a microphone to your computer to record vocals and produce music, you have some very different needs than an independent journalist that needs to record voice memos and narration in loud environments. But the thing we have in common is the need to connect a microphone’s XLR output to the USB port on our computer, smartphone, or tablet, so let’s take a look at solutions that allow you to do exactly that.
Home Recording
How to Use Reverb on Vocals — 10 Secrets to Sound Better
Knowing how to use reverb on vocals can give you a real edge. Let's take a look at 10 reverb tips that will put you on the fast track to stellar-sounding vocals.