If you are one of the many home recording geeks like me, you realize that you aren’t going to be paying a real life mastering engineer to clean up your mess before you give it to your friends.

If you want to do what you can to get it sounding sweet after your mix, then take in as much information as you can on mastering. The art of the eq, compression, limiting, etc that these guys have mastered is extremely valuable to making your mix sound awesome in any audio system. For a kick start, there is a great 4 part video series on MixOnline.com with Mastering Engineer Mike wells. I have watched them all and highly recommend them.

On a related note, next week, Microsoft is hosting a Mastering series with 4 mastering engineers that I have been lucky enough to get invited to. I’ll be sure to share my tips from the control room when I get back.

Check out the vids at http://mixonline.com/video/mastering_prepare_session/

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In case you managed to miss this article on Apple.com, recording artists Coldplay use Logic Studio to compose music!

Why Logic?
MD: Various reasons really. First, it’s important to me to be able to keep working on a project, whatever the surroundings or hardware available. Many times I would take a session and continue working on it while traveling somewhere. Second, I enjoy (as was the case on Viva La Vida) having a few smaller satellite stations set up so band members can experiment with ideas and bring them to the table while other things may be going on elsewhere. Finally, because I also enjoy working on different styles of music quite a bit, I try to introduce programmed aspects into band productions and acoustic instruments into a more electronic environment: Logic gives me the best of both worlds.

Be sure to read the entire article for the whole scoop. It’s a great read.

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Welcome fellow Logic Express and Logic Studio users. My name is Jason Burns and I am a music creator on the Logic Studio platform. I began creating music with computers in 1993 with a Sound Blaster sound card and Cakewalk on PC in the DOS days. Boy has music production software came a long way since FM synthesis, basic MIDI connections to external synths and zero digital audio recording capability.

I kept with it, staying on PCs with various applications until I was bitten by the ProTools bug in 1999 or so with Digidesign’s DIGI001 interface and the ProTools 5 software. I began it on a Dell PC with Windows 98 but quickly realized I would prefer Mac and moved it to a PowerMac G4.

I stayed with ProTools, continuing to buy new hardware as Digidesign decided mine wasn’t good enough to work anymore, until I finally ditched ProTools, somewhat reluctantly, to give Logic Express a shot at the beginning of this year. I coupled it with a Yamaha 01x Interface/Control Surface and a 24" iMac and I was hooked. In September I bit off Logic Studio and installed it on a big Dual Quad Xeon Mac Pro and it was love at first mix.

So what is the purpose of this blog exactly? Well, quite a few things actually. First, I intend to share digital audio production tips as they pertain to Logic Studio, as well as just general audio ideas and concepts to help you get the most out of your mixes.

Second, I intend to cover using the software, 3rd party plug-ins and keeping your Mac happy and recording smoothly.

Finally, I want to use this to spotlight music being created with Logic, talk about each other’s mixes and have a few industry experts I have contact with to offer constructive criticism of our work.

I hope to build a community around this site, and will launch forums soon for that exact purpose. If you are creating any type of music with Logic Studio, you have come to the right place.

- Jason

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