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BoyWonder's avatar

What equipment (or programs, plugins, etc.) would I need as an audio engineer to make the quality of my music sound radio-ready?

Asked by BoyWonder (811points) September 28th, 2011

I’m a hip hop recording artist and was interested in getting my music to that crisp quality just like the songs you hear on the radio. How can I achieve that? This is what I’m working with:

MXL Condenser Mic (stand, pop filter) in a sponge-lined booth
Samson Monitors
Studio One Artist Digital Audio Workstation
Presonus Faderport

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4 Answers

the100thmonkey's avatar

A lot of the sound has to do with how it’s mastered – you want to compress while not overly affecting dynamic range.

Vortico's avatar

The rest is skill at this point. You can do a lot with the gear you have. Don’t be convinced you NEED anything else to be a good musician—new toys will help, but not without practice and more knowledge of music production.

sndfreQ's avatar

Skills. Engineering with a push of a button does not exist. Plug-ins require the technical skill and listening abilities that are honed with experience. You could get a pro-class system like Cubase, Sonar or ProTools, and then take a class online to learn operations. Lynda.com has some good tutorials. Also start reading up. A good publisher of instructional texts is focalpress.com. They have several beginner texts for audio production and engineering.

sndfreQ's avatar

Also, after digging around, I found the Presonus website description. It sounds like the mastering tools you need come with the upgraded version (Studio One Pro). Again, without the know-how fr operating the plug-ins, it’s guesswork.

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