Waves Audio

Can you recreate Valorant weapon sounds with just a water bottle and a bottle opener? Your Cousin Avi certainly can!

Meanwhile at the Waves family meeting... everyone has a different fix for an unruly snare.

Breaking down the mix layers: Lead Vocal, Choir, Bass, Drums, and Vocal Chops.

Sabrina Carpenter Inspired Vocal Chain by Gosha Sher Get the chain here: https://link.waves.com/nkp

When you need a vocal hall that sits smoothly behind a big performance without pushing the dry track back. ATLAS in action on vocals: Clear initial transient retention Smooth high-end damping to prevent harsh sibilance Lush, full-tail decay on big dynamic shifts

The power of stacking vocal processing. Pitch correction and tuning set the pitch foundation, EQ and de-essing clean the tone, the CLA-2A handles dynamics, saturation adds grit, and modulation + delay + reverb wrap it in space.

If your masters are lacking punch or killing your limiter headroom, phase issues are usually the culprit. Phase cancellation strips out low end and makes elements disappear the second you sum to mono. You can’t EQ or compress your way out of a bad phase relationship on the master bus—it has to be fixed at the mix level. Swipe through for a breakdown on how to catch phase issues using InPhase, check your correlation meter, and lock down your low end using F6.

Do preamps matter? The internet is divided on the topic, so we reached out to Multi Platinum Mixer/Engineer/Producer Preston "Prizzie" Reid to get his expert take on the debate.

7 ways to place microphones for your kick drum w/ Noam Wallenberg

po9t.wav's vocal chain inspired by Pure Gold. Tune it first (Waves Tune), clean it up (F6), clamp down on dynamics (CLA-76), clear the noise floor (C1 Gate), add tone and excitement (Vitamin), tame the sibilance (DeEsser), and wash it in space (H-Reverb).

6 different ways to space out your vocals using H-Delay. Digital, analog, slapback, tape, ping pong, and modulated. Each one completely changes the mood and depth of a phrase. What's your go to?

Before you stack plugins, get the basics right.⁠ Pooch rates gain staging as a 9/10 for a reason: if the gain staging is solid, the rest of the mix falls into place without relying on extra bells and whistles.⁠ ⁠ How do your mix priorities line up with these?

If your lead vocal gets lost whenever you turn on your delays and reverbs, it might be a stereo imaging issue. Swipe through to see how Mid-Side EQ with F6 locks the vocal back into the center while keeping all the width and fullness. Save this for your next mixing session.

Some plugins are built to impress in solo. Atlas was built for records. Meet Atlas Reverb: pure algorithmic reverb, tuned by ear and made for records. Watch the story behind Atlas, and hear how thousands of hours of listening shaped a new generation of algorithmic reverb. Check it out here: waves.com/atlas

BB Tubes explained in depth by Stephen DeAcutis

Mixing live sound isn’t a walk in the park - check out how Iron Maiden’s FOH engineer mixes the band's massive tour, plus we asked him to share some behind-the-scenes stories of the live mixing challenges a live sound mixer needs to deal with… We talked to Pooch about the gear behind Iron Maiden's FOH mix, the plugin chains for Iron Maiden lead vocalist Bruce Dickinson, and how Pooch mixes Maiden bassist and leader Steve Harris's bass guitar - an all-important element of Iron Maiden's sound - with both DI and bass bus plugin chains. To watch in full: https://link.waves.com/3ag

Don't get tied up in the details.

7 creative vocal effects to try on your next mix.

Do preamps matter? The internet is divided on the topic, so we reached out to multi-Grammy-winning mix engineer Lu Diaz to get his expert take on the debate.

KICK & BASS: THIS IS HOW YOU PERFECTLY GLUE THEM TOGETHER The Mistake Just relying on standard sidechain compression will duck the overall volume of the bass whenever the kick hits – the frequencies still clash though... Instead Do This! First, grab any EQ or spectrum analyzer and identify your kick’s fundamental frequency (the lowest highest peak – tipically between 40-100Hz) The Fix Put a Dynamic EQ on your bass, route your kick as the external sidechain input, and set a dynamic cut at the kick's exact frequency with a narrow Q-Value The Result Your kick has more room to punch through the mix and the frequencies in the low-end build up noticeably less! Save This Post Save this post for your next mixing session! Keep in mind that track is different, so don’t just blindly copy these settings...