Here's how you can tackle technical challenges in audio engineering for music production.

At the risk of annoying someone, the first step is to identify the problem! And that may not be as simple as it ought to be. Generally speaking most studio "technical" problems can land in one of three categories: 1) Noise Control - if the noise in your monitoring environment is too much you'll really wrestle with mixing, and even tracking come to think of it. 2) Acoustics - this is one that gets bandied about a LOT. And for good reason, a room that you can work in, regardless of the design philosophy, is an advantage. The opposite is also true! 3) Power, grounding, and interconnections - not too difficult to troubleshoot and not too expensive to fix, but this seems to be the most common problem in new(ish) studios. More shortly...

Do not skip this! This is easily one of the most crucial investments in your studio. The top industry gear will not make up for an untreated room. Typically, your control room is treated a little heavier than your live room. The room you record in can benefit from not being completely “dead,” especially if you’re recording live drums. Get a measurement mic and test your room’s acoustics. If you have massive peaks and nulls, this will give you critical information for how to move forward with sound treatment.

Before delving into the challenges, it's important to understand why acoustic treatment is vital. Proper acoustic treatment ensures that: Sound Reflection is Controlled: Minimizes echoes and reverb, which can muddy recordings. Frequency Response is Balanced: Prevents certain frequencies from being overly pronounced or diminished. Sound Isolation is Achieved: Keeps external noises out and prevents internal sounds from leaking. Without these elements in place, even the most expensive recording equipment can produce subpar results.

Acoustic Treatment, is probably one of the most overlooked fundamental audio issues that should be addressed when setting up your studio. 'Standing Waves', the room your using, everything in your room will affect your sound. Smaller rooms will have fewer problems, although lower frequencies may not have enough space to fully develop. Absorption tiles will help absorb a certain amount of the frequencies, but it is also important to consider Diffusion, which is similar to Absorption, but instead of the sound bouncing off the walls/door etc, the sound get diffused and returns to your ears as lots of different intervals. Also Sonarworks & Slate ARC will help elevate sound bouncing around your room, and give a more detailed and flat response.

If there is a "technical problem" it would not have anything to do with the accoustics, its the equipment, and/or its wiring connections. Could also possibly be electrical issues withing the facility. If there is a technical problem, my best advice would be to get expert advice and learn from the pros. YouTube has more information that you could ever need. Start there, and learn your set up.

Position your studio monitors at ear level, in a triangle shape. It should be an equilateral triangle, allowing enough distance for the sound to travel before it hits your ears. 2-3ft is a good distance, but it may vary on the size of your desk. Make sure you have nothing obstructing the sound as it travels to your ears! Also, allow space behind the speaker so that the lower frequencies don't get absorbed into the walls.

One thing I always find helpful is to have tweeters at ears height. It seems to give the best frequency response on the high frequencies

I would echo what others have said and only add that while it is not an exact prescription: the, "1/3rd-of-the-length," listening position can be a very good starting point for finding the optimal location for your speakers. Floor to ceiling distance can also have a significant impact on nodes, so even when you do find that perfect, slightly offset 1/3 position - be sure to check your frequency response at different speaker heights (or calculate it if you know how, and then try.) If you're running a sub in tandem with your mains, it's highly advisable to time-align to your mains to minimize phase issues. Acoustic decoupling between floor, desk, etc, will also significantly minimize resonant distortion.

In my experience, keeping an equilateral triangle formation is a great average, simply for directing critical panning and making the best of an 'average' mixing environment. I'd been lucky enough early on to be in the presence of some esteemed engineers in some renowned rooms (Capitol etc) to witness speaker placements that would make many a proclaimed professional question reality. Most audible frequencies(bellow the very-high) are not very directional and monitors emit these in a mostly spherical manner. Compounded by that fact that 95% of listeners enjoy music in a far less-than-ideal situation, the scales of importance begin to tip. Source isolation and not letting your desk become a resonator starts to take precedence. My unique take.

These are essential practices to establish the highest chance of success from the start. Inevitably, things will go wrong no matter how simple they are or how often you have set them up, and it is important to be prepared for that eventuality. Knowing your chain and taking logical troubleshooting steps are paramount when you run into issues in the middle of a session. Knowing where common problems such as ground loops and hums can occur and how to solve them will keep you ahead of the game. Use meters to check each step in the chain, re-seat or change out cables and mics, hard-patch normals, exercise analog switches, double check I/O settings, check cable runs and light dimmers, etc.

The fundamentals are important. Start with your inputs and physical connections. Allow your input gain to be set to around -18dB for healthy gain staging, giving you just enough room to make adjustments to the sound level while having comfortable control. Distortion and saturation can sound great, but let effect modules do that, instead of clipping your channels. Do not point a microphone at a monitor, or you will get a feedback loop.

Keep your signal chain short as possible from sound source to recording in DAW. Use the fastest interface you can afford, thunderbolt and Dante are really fast . Keep your gain stage under control, typically the coming signal to DAW on -18 DB for recording will give plenty room to mixing your materials and not discord sound. Use short cable as possible if you can during recording and keep sound sources away from equipment noise if you are recording in the same room, also tell your talent to switch off mobile phones, specially the Internet to not disturb audio signals during recording, mobiles can interfere with audio equipment.

Yes, the importance of high-quality cables and signal paths is hard to overestimate but be ready to work with what you have at any moment of your career. A few examples of my own experience. I've worked with the recording engineer of Kanye. Vocals that Kanye recorded on his phone made into the record. MANY songs started like that and this is what you have to work with when it comes to inspiration and being productive. Recently I had to re-mix a live performance of Gloria Gaynor that was recorded on a single mic in 1974 and you have what you have sometimes. Know your gear, grow with it, upgrade when you reach a limit, and get better, the rest is just marketing.

For me I’ve notice that you have to buy the cables that are middle price to achive the best quality and of course the equipment has be great as well. Also when I comes to the headphone jack, gold over silver is the way to go.

On this note, it is also important to mix on a monitoring system with which you are familiar. References are particularly useful when you are working in an unfamiliar or untreated environment, as they can help you identify problem areas and adjust your mixing expectations accordingly. Checking mixes on multiple systems is also helpful. Monitors, headphones, cars, laptops, phones, and portable pill speakers are all excellent in their own way at revealing qualities of the mix such as lead vocal level, bass frequency translation, phase relationships and mono compatibility, transient response and punch, etc.

First you should know the mixing environment you are working in. Monitors and room acoustic for the start. Keeping volume level on 80 DB will help keep your all frequency responses on a similar level and will improve your mixing. Always mix in stereo and not solo individual instruments, listen in context, your mixing music , not single instruments. Only add signal processors such eq, compression, reverb if this can improve sonic performance, set up bus reverb, delays channel for all instruments, keep to minimum signals processing, and always print mix , never bounce, printing through interface will improve final sonics and even our final mixing. Use a high quality plug-in if you can , or get a hardware compressor and equalizer,

The relation between the tracks is the most important thing in the mix. Loud mixes are not coming from loud sources. “Cleaning” the tracks, checking the phase is the key for a good transparent mix! The goal is to make all channels to sound like a track, a song! Music first!! I’m always mixing with the idea of “less is more”. Always be at the moment of every mix stage. Step by step. No rush! The priority is the energy of the mix! That’s the importance of the levels. A breathing mix, without the instruments to fight one on top of the other. Reverbs and delays are a big part of the leveling! That’s why it’s important to have good speakers with a good monitor stands, to hear the real thing!

Mix in low levels, it'll save your ears and will build the balance faster, sometimes check on higher volume to get the feeling of moving air and pressure. Loud sound also helps to find problems in the high end of your signal, hats, vocals, and harshness of the mix. Loud music is good to mix into the compressor and limiter AFTER your overall gainstaging is done. You'll get final-sounding results faster. It takes time to learn it this way, but once you get there, all workflow will be five times faster. With live music be more gentle. Compression should be very transparent, all volume shaper tools come at the end of the process after you blend or separate your instruments and you are happy with your balance and space in your mix.

A fundamental lesson of audio is that it is nearly impossible to truly change the character of a recording. In the same way you cannot make a piano sound like an electric guitar, it is very difficult to make a microphone at the hammers of a piano sound like a microphone underneath or outside the piano. All this is to say a huge amount of frequency management happens at the source based on the instrument, arrangement, and microphone choice and placement. Record with the mix in mind. I will also argue that EQ-ing in isolation has its merits. EQ-ing in context is essential to get elements to sit together in a mix, but EQ-ing in isolation is not bad to establish a good tone for that instrument first, keeping in mind its final role in the mix.

Don't cut too much. Gentle curves. Look for boxy frequencies by adjusting your Q control, and sweeping the range for unpleasant, harsh resonances. You can then remove what you don't like by adjusting the gain. A little goes a long way, and balance/ratio is important. If you cut too much lows, the highs will sound more bright, if you cut a lot of highs, things will overall sound more dark. It's all balance, and diminishing returns to some degree. Make complementary cuts, much like you want to balance each part of the frequency range, 20Hz-20000Hz, to fill everything out, allowing pockets of priority for certain instruments. For example, if you have a keyboard and guitar in the same octave, try pitching the guitar up so it has its own space.

Defensive mixing - clean-up of unnecessary frequencies, resonances, muddiness, harshness, etc. Do that both in solo and full mix with a surgically clean EQ and narrow Q. Offensive mixing - enhancing "good" regions, creating pocket/separation. Do that in full mix context, with wider Q and a "coloured" EQ. Don't freq boost sweep to locate problematic areas, it can/will deceive you. Train and use your ears. L/R EQ-ing > Haas - for achieving stereo width. Don't hi-pass everything unless there's a good reason to. Low-pass filters are largely underused/underrated. If you can, do volume fader moves while doing your EQ moves. Don't use EQ without a motive. p.s. if you're doing sound design, these go out of the window for the most part

Patience is playing the most important role in this as you have to listen attentively (maybe more than twice) to do EQ practically & effectively

Equalizer for cutting first and boosting only if needed. Start from the clean out mix from cutting unwanted frequency, especially low frequency. Only boost if you need to push some elements to stand out in the mix, don't over compress, minimum compression under 5 DB gain reduction is great to keep all your instruments under control, set up higher ratio for low frequency mixing such bass, drums or heavy low synth, and lower for acoustic instruments and vocals, 2-1 is good starting point on vocals, use de-esser on final mix to keep high mid frequency under control, specially on vocals and acoustic instruments, and multiband compression on stereo channel to even our all frequency responses and glue with bus compressor before printing out

Be familiar with the different types of compressors (FET, optical, VCA, variable mu, etc.), as well as the different tonal qualities of hardware compressors. There are numerous iterations of the 1176, but they each have a different character and are selected for use accordingly. Utilitarian compression for leveling and dynamics control should be transparent and unobtrusive. Tailor attack and release, and consider using multiple compressors in series or parallel when transparent compression is needed. Artistic use of compression is overt and adds attitude and punch. You may choose to rely more heavily on a single compressor in this case to lean into its character, even bringing out some of its natural distortion. There are no rules.

Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release. Dynamics control uses these features to shape a sound. You'll use one of the best tools in the audio world, the compressor, to adjust the overall feel of a sample. It works by evening out the volume, boosting the quiet parts, and making the louder parts, quiet, averaging everything to be more even, the more compression you have. Overdoing compression will sound like it has a 'pumping' effect, or in some cases, it will sound like the audio source is being slammed. Your key to mastering a compressor is to learn to hear Attack, Release, while adjusting your threshold and ratio. Attack is how fast it takes your compressor to act on a sound. For ex. if a drum is snappy, add a 10-50ms attack and it will soften.

In my experience, protecting your hearing is crucial in a studio environment, especially when working with loud sounds. Using proper monitoring levels and taking regular breaks during long mixing or recording sessions are essential for maintaining ear health and preventing fatigue. Stepping away allows your ears to rest, helping you make better, more objective decisions when you return. Working hard doesn't necessarily mean working straight long hours straight without adequate rest. Take that break to get your ears reset.

Use compressors not only as loudness dynamics controller but also as transient shaper, color box, audio spacer, and maybe more, to get the most result from this kind of tool. Youtube channel recommendation for this matter: mixbustv

This is too true and I would argue that Compression is one of the most difficult processors to learn how to hear and use. My top two tips after teaching compression for 3 years are: 1) Listen to compression in the context of the track, as it is much more noticeable. 2) Not everything needs to be compressed, think about what you are trying to achieve and this will inform your approach.

After running three recording studios, I found that having clean power and high end cables (power, XLR, 1/4 inch cables, etc) took our production quality to another level. I always make sure that the power to our recording and production system was on its on circuit. Sometimes in commercial spaces the next door neighbor may share your power and it can cause noise. I’ve been in other studios and it was a pet peeve of mine when I hear grounding noises from the electrical. We also buy the best quality cables because there’s so many frequencies in the atmosphere that can interfere with cables that are not grounded properly. When you’re in the middle of a session you don’t want to chase down a bad cable.

My number one piece of advice for engineers and musicians alike, is to avoid looking at the screen of your DAW as much as possible, and use your ears as your guide. The waveforms and meters are meant as analytical tools, but many people start to use them as a substitute for hearing. I’ve often heard people say “it looks too loud”, or “that waveform looks to be off the beat”. This can lead to trouble, especially with strings and horns that don’t have an obvious waveform spike like drums or guitars do. In the tape era, this was not a problem, because there was less visual feedback to contend with. We would do well to remember that music is an aural art form, not a visual one. As the great George Martin once said, “All You Need Is Ears”.

Regarding recording mixers: Whenever you find hum in a channel,always check cables first if connected to a device that is plugged in an outlet,sometimes reversing the plug ?? if not polarized may eliminate the problem.Also depending on how its made,some older type devices don’t use coupling capacitors,which could cause a hum.an isolation transformer can be used.A 1 to 1 passive good quality type works which adds nothing frequency wise. if electronic use one with a ground lift switch.it helps .Always check your mixing (mixer) device input on the channel used ;with other equipment cables to insure there is not a problem with this device(mixer) channel input Just make sure your mixer input ch. is working ??ok Many happy recordings ??