Gray Spark Audio Academy's Blog

DAW
Software and equipment

3 Best DAWs For Audio Engineers and Music Producers

3 Best DAWs For Audio Engineers and Music Producers BLOG-Digital Audio Workstation also known as DAW, is music production/ post production software that allows users to record audio on a personal computer. DAW software works on both the Mac and Windows operating systems. It is used for audio recording, audio editing, MIDI editing, mixing, and

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Mic Review
Software and equipment

Microphone review – SM7B

The Shure SM7B is beloved by professional musicians for its reliable performance, top-grade construction, and noise attenuating technology that lends itself to clear recordings. This isn’t a mic for those making their first foray into recording, rather it’s for aspiring professionals and industry veterans. The uniform frequency response is excellent for all ranges of recording,

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ssl six interface console
Industry Updates

Gear Highlights- SSL SIX

To the casual observer SiX looks like any other compact desktop mixer. Look a little closer and like all SSL consoles, SiX reveals a carefully considered feature set that is driven by an obsessive desire for total flexibility, to encompass every creative eventuality. It may be small but SiX is a classic SSL design. It

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warm audio 76 compressor
Software and equipment

Gear Highlights- Warm Audio WA 76

Gear Highlights- Warm Audio WA 76 Warm Audio’s WA76 set its target high: the most iconic solid-state limiting amplifier in history. How does Warm do it? Through economies of scale, mostly. They don’t cut corners on components (the WA76 employs genuine US-made Cinemag transformers), but they do order parts and build in quantity, which keeps

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Eq blog
Software and equipment

Gear Highlights- Wes Audio Hyperion EQ

Gear Highlights- Wes Audio Hyperion EQ Blog The WesAudio Hyperion is a 500 Series stereo/dual-mono/mid–side 4-band analog EQ with digital recall that gives you complete control via its companion plug-in. Connectivity to your computer is handled via a front-panel USB port — or by a special rear-panel connector — that allows it to communicate with

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SM58 u87 wa47
Software and equipment

Microphone Comparison

Microphone Comparison Blog- We have used 7 different Microphones to test them against each other to hear how each microphone captures the same instrument Microphones used- Neumann u 87 ai, TLM102, Warm Audio WA47, AKG c414, Neumann KM 184, Sennheiser e614 and Shure SM58 Preamplifer- SSL Six Superanalogue  https://youtu.be/eOlpreZ4Anw Large Diaphragm Neumann U 87 The

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Gear manley
Educational

Gear Highlights – Manley Variable Mu

Gear Highlights – Manley Variable Mu – BLOGThe MANLEY VARIABLE MU® LIMITER COMPRESSOR has been the best selling product for many years. It is one of the very few compressors that has become a real standard in Mastering studios and contributed to most hit records over the last decade and probably the next. “Mu” is

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Educational

6 Silly Soundproofing Myths to Avoid

6 Silly Soundproofing Myths to Avoid – Blog, Believe it or not, there are so many ridiculously silly “soundproofing methods” circulating the internet that I thought why not write a blog about one to educate people as to what works and what is a lie. Some of these products are being sold on amazon at

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gray spark audio
Uncategorized

Gear Highlights for Audio Engineers and Producers – Universal Audio 4-710d

Gear Highlights for Audio Engineers and Producers the Universal Audio 4-710d is a classic preamplifier that has a four-channel microphone/line preamplifier with tube and solid-state tone blending, offering four additional line inputs, dynamics control, and eight channels of pristine analog-to-digital conversion. belongs to the category of “a must have analogue gear for every studio”. It’s

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Music Mix
Industry Updates

Best laptops for music producers and audio engineers 2022

Welcome to Best laptops for music producers and audio engineers 2022- Blog. Are you looking to buy/invest in a laptop for Music Production or Music Mixing and Mastering? Well I hope this blog helps you to take the right decision According to me there are a few aspects that a good “music production laptop” should

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school
Careers

Music School Vs Audio School

This is going to be a short blog in a series of commonly asked questions and misconceptions about the field of Audio Engineering and Music Production ie Music School Vs Audio School. In this blog, we will go over what may seem like a very simple question but is the cause of confusion for a

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Squash
Educational

Types of Compressors

The 5 types of audio compressors are VCA (voltage controlled amplifier), FET (field effect transistor), optical, tube, and PWM (pulse width modulation). Each of these compressors work on different principles thus each type of compressor has its own characteristic that it adds to the signal. So let’s get to know more about each of these

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free plugins
Educational

5 Best Free Plugins For Audio Engineers or Music Producers

We all love free stuff and especially stuff that can enhance and add to the sound of our projects. In this blog today we will talk about a few free plugins we have discovered this year. Valhalla Supermassive ValhallaDSP is renowned for producing some of the best (and best free) plugins on the market. Their reverbs

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song
Educational

Student’s Releases – Batch 20-21

In this blog, we’re showcasing our Student’s releases that they’ve worked on over the course of their year at Gray Spark Audio & Sound Engineering Academy. They’ve filled multiple roles, be that of Engineer, Musician, Producer or Mix engineer and done a fantastic job!  CHASING HER – Jxoel & Mythl This song is produced by

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sound
Careers

5 Benefits of going to an Audio School

This is a very common question that I come across and simply put the answer is, “It Depends” There are a lot of good Audio Engineering Programs out there that impart some really high-quality education to students. But that being said there are a lot of factors to look at when making a decision about

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mic comparison blog
Software and equipment

Comparing Different Overhead Microphones

In this blog we will change things up a little, here we are going to try to understand the difference between different overhead microphones and the specific sound they impart. In this video, we will be comparing Neumann KM 184 Sennheiser E 614 Shure SM 57 Sennheiser MD 421 I would like you to take

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Protools spatial render
Tutorials / Masterclass

Tutorial to set up Dolby Atmos renderer with ProTools

In this post today I will walk you through the process of setting up the Dolby Atmos Renderer and how to effectively use it with Pro Tools.The setup process is pretty simple and we will go through all the steps one by one. Related blog: What is Spatial Audio? Step 1 Download the Dolby Atmos

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Software and equipment

How to Fix the “Bass” in your room

A lot of us work in untreated environments and the main issue that most of us face when mixing or monitoring and recording is the lack of accurate Bass definition in a room. Usually smaller rooms by definition have nulls move higher as the room gets smaller. We don’t always have the luxury to always

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Industry Updates

What is Spatial Audio?

Spatial Audio is a new Audio Format introduced by Apple in their recent ’21 Apple Music conference. As usual, after something Apple announces there is a huge hype surrounding the release. To understand how Spatial Audio works, we would first need to understand how our ear can place a sound in space around it. Contact

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Blog Banner
Tutorials / Masterclass

How to Practice Ear Training

Ear training is the process in which musicians and audio engineers use only hearing to gauge pitches, intervals, melodies and chords etc.In this blog post we will primarily be talking about “Pitch” or frequency interval training. This training involves training you ear to easily identify which frequencies are popping out of the given sound. Step

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Blog Banner
Tutorials / Masterclass

What even is dB FS?

What really are Decibels? Decibels simply put are a way to take large values of measurements and convert them into a simpler more understandable set of numbers. Decibel is 1/10th of a Bel, named after Alexander Graham Bell who first used them to measure the loss of signals over telephone lines. Decibels come in many

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Plugins
Software and equipment

4 plugins you’ve probably heard of but dont use enough

Step no. 1 De-Esser / Resonance Suppressor There are various Resonance suppressor plugins in the market right now, tools like Soothe and TDR Nova that can be of real help in situations where you have extreme resonances with your sound source. They can work like De-essers as well and help you clean up things that

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Ghosts
From The Live Room

Palindroma – Ghosts Interview with Nitin M Krishna

Step no. 1 What process do you follow when writing songs? Do you have ideas that you create and go back to them later in the music production phase? There is no particular process that I follow. Sometimes inspiration just hits and I’ll be done with the song in a few hours. Sometimes I’d come

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Industry Updates

Top 5 Saturators to look at for your mix and master

A Saturator is a tool that is commonly used during a mixing and mastering stage to add certain harmonic excitement to a track. Saturators come in various forms and today we will talk about a few common saturators that I use in my Mastering chain and that drive a lot of decisions that are taken

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Software and equipment

10 Mastering Plugins that I can’t live without

Everyone has their set of tools that they can’t live without, today in this blog post i’ll discuss some of the Mastering Plugins that are always a part of my signal chain. They vary from different kinds of EQs to compressors to Saturators.This post could be helpful for people who are looking for new tools

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headphones
Software and equipment

Headphone Buying Guide 2021

Every year as new students start their foray into the world of Audio Engineering, students are always looking to buy the best pair of headphones. There are many factors to consider when buying headphones and some are more important than others and in this blog post today we will discuss the factors that you need

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Software and equipment

5 Entry level Sound Cards for the budding Sound Engineer

Every year at the start of a new batch, every student finds themselves in this dilemma in which interface / sound card they should buy as a starting point to work on their projects and basic home recordings. This blog post will also be helpful for musicians who are looking to buy some basic home

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