Gain stage is a term in audio engineering. It refers to the exact point, during the audio signal flow, when the user can adjust the level of any audio signal. Gain staging is a process that helps you to manage audio levels to eliminate distortion and avoid unwanted noise. Usually, it appears when each component…
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Parallel processing is one of the two main ways of adding affects to a chain. However, before delving into what it consists on, we need to explain its counterpart. Adding Effect to a Chain Serial Processing As mentioned previously, there are two main way of adding effects to a chain. The first approach is serial…
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Sidechain compression, aka ducking, is an audio effect typical in radio, pop, and dance music. In this compression, the presence of an audio signal decreases the level of another audio signal. Radio achieves this effect by lowering the volume of the second audio track when the first one begins to increase the volume or when…
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In audio, panning involves a moving action. An audio pan pot—short for panning potentiometer—is used in a mix to simulate the movement of a certain source from one side of the soundstage to the other. Ideally, timing, filtering, and reverberation differences should be present to complete the image of apparent movement within a specific space.…
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Stem mastering and mixing are crucial techniques for music production. They have the goal to enhance the song and prepare it for distribution. But before delving into specifics, we need to dissect the terms and go back to basics. The Stem in Stem Mastering and Mixing First things first, stems—aka sub-mixes, subgroups, or busses—involve a…
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The LUFS scale is a measurement of loudness units which identify the loudness and true-peak level of audio. LUFS stands for Loudness Units Full Scale. Nevertheless, before it was invented, there were some troubles to correctly indicate this subjective perception of sound. In the following lines I will explain LUFS metering and how it came…
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The Goniometer, also known as an Audio Vector Oscilloscope, is an instrument that offers a complete image of the relationships within a stereo signal. It is a tool that shows the stereo separation signal measurement within the audio metering world. Its main task is to plot the signal on a two-dimensional zone so that the…
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VU stands for volume units—and VU meters are tools that display an average signal level, as they allow the user to perceive louder sounds. VU meters have a moving needle on a graduate scale. The upper part of the scale is calibrated in dB, and the lower one in percentages. Volume is quite subjective since…
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Spectrum analyzers are a specific type of sound level meter. They allow the user to study the amplitude versus the frequency spectrum of any given sound. These analyzers use a wide variety of filter networks and vertical columns that show the data organized on a specific range. The range goes from low frequencies to high…
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An audio spectrogram is a visual representation of a sound. In other words, it is an extremely intricate audio analyzer. As a result, it provides a very detailed and accurate image of audio. A spectrogram is a time-varying spectral representation that has a wide diversity of spectral density of any given signal with respect to…
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