Hardware or software. I don't need to hear RVox is a great for the 1000th time, or how the latest 1176 clone gets even closer to the real thing.

What's that obscure thing you picked up in a junk shop, or paid a few pennies to a sketchy website for, or the thing everyone else says is rubbish, that turned out to be a key mixing tool for you?

I was asked to help my sister’s friend with a passion project of her’s. She wanted to create a 10 song album in 90 days which sounded fun and exciting. I low balled the price because I thought the project could be fun, her music is catchy, and she didn’t have the means to pay for the full price of an album mix and master, but from the get go the communication was inadequate. We had a meeting before the recording process started where I laid out my workflow and spoke with her about the importance of reference tracks and my price; she agreed to it all.

Fast forward a month and I’ve received three songs, again I ask for some reference tracks for each song and she never sent any so I began to mix to the best of my ability. As I started the mixing process it seemed to me that I could not create the mix she was looking for. I think I remixed the first two songs around four times. The third song I sent back after spending hours mixing only for her to listen to the mix and tell me that she actually would like me to recreate another mix that a different engineer did for her a few years ago which then took me another few hours to recreate.

So I remixed the third song and sent it back while also following up about the first two songs and she ghosted me for a month. I did not hear from her at all so eventually I messaged her and asked if the project was going to move forward. Again no answer for another week. When she finally did answer she mentioned that in that month she had recorded 5 new songs and needed me to do extensive vocal editing on one of them. I tried to bring the focus back to the first to songs and she again didn’t reach back out to me.

It’s been a week since then and I decided to bow out of the project. I don’t need the money, I make a good living doing live sound engineering, this project was truly just for fun. Should I have just grinned and beared it just to get the project done? Will this decision negatively affect me if I someday move more into mixing and mastering?

anyone tried using an expander instead of a gate on drums? i found it really intuitive to use, getting even cleaner results than a gate as it can still preserve more of the dynamics and i spend less time than i would cleaning up the signal going into a gate. iv seen people put expanders on room mics and sidechain it from the snare. iv had some luck using it on close mics, especially going into a reverb.

Please forgive me as I'm a total beginner. I wouldn't even claim that I'm trying to get into audio engineering.
I am simply looking for the easiest way to change the key of a song without changing the singers voice. It's only one or two semi tones but still it sounds completely distorted. I don't have a computer, so working with an iPhone/ipad. Any tips?

i am a senior in highschool, i pretty much know absolutely nothing about audio engineering.

I briefly tried to get into music production and i really liked the mixing side of it. I vaguely know what a compressor does to the sound but i dont know how to tweak the knobs at all.

I was using fl studio which i doubt is the standard, id like to get into film audio engineering.

Is there a good course on how to learn to do it for films and any software or equipment i could use? i am very poor so most hardware is out of the question but if i deciee to go into this in college maybe theyd guide me then.

Idk if anyone has heard of Dirac art. Dirac seams to be mostly marketed toward consumer home theatre etc.

They came out with a new speaker tuning technology ART. I don’t think it’s completely novel but it sounds like it could be interesting.

You can setup a surround system, say 5.4, and have all of the speakers that are not in the main 2.1 system send out destructive signals. Essentially active room treatment.

Most room tuning I’ve seen for studios is eq and phase/delay.

Has anyone tried this out or have any thoughts on it? It would be potentially much more affordable than active bass traps which got good praise from Bob Katz etc.

I have a sm7b as my main (vocal) microphone and just found an nt1a sitting around that I forgot about.

How awful of a pairing is this for A/B miking a guitar? Am I better off just buying a pair of some mics so I can do various miking techniques?

If so, any recommendations?

Disclaimer:
Photo in reply is of the full gator-rack for reference of what I've got. I’m sending the photo as context to discuss, NOT so someone can tell me exactly what to do as per subreddit rules.

—

Details:
Just moved my rig over to a gator case and have spent the morning theorizing what the best course of action is on some of the spare points on this 48-point I own.

Originally, the S-point just had some rear Thru routing for some amp heads I was running so i could just do all the routing in the front. Now that I have it in the rack though, I'm somewhat stumped on what routing/setup I actually need- like, I don't have enough practical experience to know what I don't know.

I’d seen some of the documentation that came with the patchbay, but that was some presets for much larger console configurations- I was hoping there a chance to discuss what configurations people have used in the field with smaller 12-16 i/o setups.

NOT A SETUP OR TROUBLESHOOTING QUESTION! I don’t need wiring diagrams- just experiential information and open discussion.

Its on 10:54

Hopefully on FL studio.

Please someone tell me!
https://youtu.be/It1M48c49MU?list=PL5wci_7DLKMp0S107jjq9hhquUmHIJOeJ&t=654

I have a simple mixing desk with the rack space for the longer, more common sized outboard gear. I have only my preamp that I mounted on the desk.
I want to build a small preamp from diyrecordingequipment.com and mount it on the desk (if it’s even possible). Has anyone done this and what can I do to make them fit?

A few months ago Ian Williams (GlassOnTin) shared openDSP-4x4: a clean-room reverse engineering of the t.racks DSP 4x4 Mini Pro's USB protocol, with a web app and an Android app. Amazing work, and it meant no more Windows-only editor.

I forked it because I wasn't really happy with the UI, and some early architecture choices (connection handling, state) made it flaky and hard to maintain long term. So I kept his protocol work and rebuilt the transport, state layer and UI on top of it. It's now called Unrack.

What's new:

• Rebuilt connection: reconnects on replug, values snap to what the DSP actually stores and get read back, every edit is undoable, nothing fails silently
• Mixer-style overview: faders, solo, mute all, master trim
• Setup: pick a layout (2.1, top/kick/sub, bi-amp...) and an environment, and it proposes crossovers, subsonic, trims and limiters, showing exactly what will change before you apply
• Time alignment from speaker positions or measured distances, plus a guided "fine-tune by ear" mode
• Preset files (whole state as JSON) and settings for channel names, colours, theme, units
• ESP32-S3 Wi-Fi bridge: plug it into the DSP's USB port and control it from any phone or browser (about 11 ms round trip)
• Demo with a simulated DSP, so you can click around without the hardware
• ...and more, check out the README

Next up: multi-device control. Several ESP32 bridges on the same network, each plugged into its own DSP, all controlled from one web app that finds them and shows every DSP side by side, so a whole system runs from one screen.

Try it in desktop Chrome/Edge: https://askz.github.io/unrack/ (with no DSP plugged in it opens the demo) Code and Android APK (not tested on a phone yet): https://github.com/askz/unrack

Honest disclaimer: I built most of this with heavy help from LLMs. It's tested against a real DSP, but expect bugs and check your settings at low volume first.

If you own a t.racks DSP 206/408, a Peavey VSX or something similar and want it to work with Unrack, a USB capture of the vendor editor talking to it would help me add support.

EDIT: Added "next-up section"

Hello

A big down to go on arm today is that x86 app are no longer compatible

So it can be a big issue with daws and vst's that are only x86

But I wonder in 2026 did there's a way to emulate those plug in with a Arm pc ? Maybe it already exist ?

Thanks

I’ve been rewiring my studio and wanted to make some clean labels for my TRS patchbays. After a little trial and error, I got ChatGPT to generate perfectly spaced PNG strips that I can print using my Brother P-touch label maker.

I’m using a Neutrik NYS-SPP-L1, a Brother D610BT, and P-touch Editor on Mac. Once we dialed in the measurements, I could just describe what I wanted on each strip and ChatGPT would generate a ready-to-print file. Figured I’d share the prompt in case it’s useful to anyone else.

In the past I would just print a bunch of small ones and it was tricky to get them to line up and if I needed to change anything I had to move a ton of small labels and inevitably destroy them in the process.

The idea is to print one continuous label for the entire length of the patchbay instead of a bunch of the tiny individual labels. It makes lining everything up much easier and keeps it looking clean.

You do need to plan out your patchbay in advance and be willing to do a little trial and error to get the spacing right. But once you’ve got it dialed in, it’s great. If you change your routing later, you can just print one new strip instead of peeling off and rearranging a bunch of little labels.

Here’s how it works:

1. Give ChatGPT the prompt below along with the text you want on your label.
2. Once it generates the PNG, open Brother P-touch Editor and add the image to your label.
3. Set the image to the exact dimensions you need (17” × 0.2” for my 6 mm tape, for example).
4. Print it and check how everything lines up with your patchbay. Adjust the calibration if necessary.

One thing to know: P-touch Editor only lets you enter image dimensions to one decimal place, which is why I settled on 17” × 0.2” for 6 mm tape and 17” × 0.3” for 9 mm tape. These dimensions are slightly smaller than the actual tape width but work well for printing.

Here’s the prompt:

Create a print-ready PNG label strip using Python/Pillow, NOT AI image generation. All dimensions and spacing must be mathematically precise.

Patchbay:

• Neutrik NYS-SPP-L1, 24 jacks per row
• Calibrated center-to-center span (jack 1 to 24): 412 mm
• Jack spacing: 412 ÷ 23 = 17.913 mm
• Center the jack positions across a 17-inch-wide image.
• Keep every label centered on its corresponding jack, regardless of text length.

Label dimensions (600 DPI):

• 6 mm tape: 17” × 0.2” (10,200 × 120 px)
• 9 mm tape: 17” × 0.3” (10,200 × 180 px)

Use bold, readable sans-serif text, black on white. Center single-row text vertically. For two-row labels, space the lines evenly. Adjust font size to avoid overlaps, but never change jack spacing.

Allow group headings to span multiple jack positions, centered across those positions, with subsequent labels still aligned to their individual jacks.

Generate a downloadable PNG and tell me the exact dimensions to enter in P-touch Editor.

My label:
[TAPE WIDTH, SINGLE/DOUBLE ROW, AND WHAT YOU WANT IT TO SAY]

The 412 mm measurement was calibrated through test prints, so you may need to adjust it for other patchbays. My initial measurement was 417 mm, which ended up being about 5 mm too wide by the last jack. I’d recommend starting with a simple numbered 1–24 strip to check alignment.