Grammy-nominated producer and mixer Nathaniel Reichman tested the new Binaural Renderer For Apple Music (standalone) for Production Expert. Nathaniel takes a deep-dive into how spatial audio is bring produced and consumed and the important role tools like Binaural Renderer play, concluding “Binaural Renderer for Apple Music is a breakthrough in ease-of-use for mixers.”
Binaural Renderer applies Apple Spatial Audio rendering to Dolby Atmos 7.1.4, allowing you to monitor how the spatialized audio will sound when uploaded to and streamed on Apple Music.
With Binaural Renderer for Apple Music you can choose headphones or speaker profiles for music or movies with headtracking and personalized HRTF options available with supported headphones, giving you peace of mind and confidence in your mix or master. Now available as a standalone application for desktop.
The nominations for the 66th Annual Grammy Awards are in. Sending a huge congratulations to all nominees, and a special shoutout to our collaborators and all those using Audiomovers in their sessions.
Jesse Ray Ernster
Best Global Music Album “I Told Them…” – Burna Boy
Best Melodic Rap Performance “Sittin’ On Top of The World” – Burna Boy feat. 21 Savage Best Reggae Album “Born for greatness” – Buju Banton
Best Global Music Performance “Alone” – Burna Boy
Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”
Best African Music Performance “City Boys” – Burna Boy
Vance Powell
Best Country Solo Performance “White Horse” – Chris Stapleton – Engineered and Mixed by Vance Powell
Chuck Ainlay
Best Immersive Audio Album “Blue Clear Sky” – George Strait | Immersive Mix & Master by Chuck Ainlay
Pete Lyman
Best Folk Album “Jubilee” – Old Crow Medicine Show
Best Country Album “Zach bryan” – Zach Bryan “Rustin’ in The Rain” – Tyler Childers
Best Country Song “White Horse” – Chris Stapleton “I Remember Everything” – Zach Bryan & Kacey Musgraves “In your love” – Tyler Childers & Geno Seale “Buried” – Brandy Clark & Jessie Jo Dillon
Best Americana Album “Brandy Clark” – Brandy Clark “Weathervanes” – Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit
Best American Roots Song “Cast Iron Skillet” – Jason Isbell “Blank Page” – Michael Trotter Jr. & Tanya Trotter (The War and Treaty) “Dear Insecurity” – Brandy Clark & Michael Pollack
F. Reid Shippen
Best Country Group / Duo Performance “High Note” – Dierks Bentley Feat. Billy Strings | Produced and Mixed by F. Reid Shippen
Bainz
#GrammysNextGen Engineer Ambassador | Class of 2024
Teezio
#GrammysNextGen Engineer Ambassador | Class of 2024
Today the five-time Grammy Award-winning mixer, engineer, and producer F. Reid Shippen (Kenny Chesney, Ingrid Michaelson, Gloria Gaynor) opens up about the turbulent nature of the music industry, and how in the space of twenty-four hours he went from being fired twice to landing the dream job of working with country music megastar Kenny Chesney.
#HorrorStories is a series where the world’s biggest producers, songwriters, and engineers unveil the most outlandish blunders of their careers — providing a much-needed reminder that even the greats make mistakes.
INJECT from Audiomovers is an always-on plugin that allows you to route audio in and out of any channel in your DAW without changing your playback engine.
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TRANSCRIPT
I got fired twice from the same record, which has to be some sort of record.
I did this record with Jay Joyce on a band called Little Big Town. They had a really big hit on that record called Pontoon and it blew up and all of a sudden Little Big Town was back on the map and we were all riding high and it was like crazy. And it’s like, cool, well now it’s time to do the next record.
So I was supposed to track it but they had been in with Jay doing pre production at his studio and by the time I got there, They were already into the recording process. It’s like, it’s already working, people are comfortable, the music’s flowing, we don’t need you for tracking, we’ll just come back on the mix.
I screwed up the mix by, I was in the middle of like, moving my studio around and rejiggering it, and I just didn’t do it right. I wasn’t paying enough attention, I don’t know, I f’d it up, mea culpa, right? And they were just like, this isn’t working for us, this isn’t the direction we want to go. And so I was like, you know, what can you do?
The day after that happened, I got a call. It was like, hey man, this is Kenny Chesney. Eric Church gave me your number, I’m wondering if you’d be interested in mixing my new record. That’s turned into a collaboration with Kenny that we’re on like record five or six right now. So, 24 hours of hyperventilation, actually that time worked out.
In this episode of #HorrorStories, we are joined by Chuck Ainlay, the music producer, recording engineer and mixer known for his Grammy-winning and multi-platinum-selling work with iconic acts like Peter Frampton, Dire Straits, and Taylor Swift. In this conversation, Chuck reflects on a session with Mark Knopfler and the legendary Van Morrison and the moment the tapes stopped rolling and they missed Van’s magical first take of the day.
#HorrorStories is a series where the world’s biggest producers, songwriters, and engineers unveil the most outlandish blunders of their careers — providing a much-needed reminder that even the greats make mistakes.
With LISTENTO from Audiomovers you can stream uncompressed multichannel audio to and from any DAW. Ready to go in five minutes. Just send a link.
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TRANSCRIPT
If you know Van Morrison, he’s like one take. That’s it. That’s really all he’s going to give you.
Mark Knopfler and I were doing a record and Mark had in mind Van Morrison doing a duet on one of the songs. We fly to Bath where Van had his studio. The talkback is a phone call. So Van calls up, says, I’m ready to do it. The engineer who works for Van was operating the tape machine and Van was singing.
It was amazing. I mean, it was just fabulous and about halfway through the song, the engineer stops the machine and, and I was like, what? He goes, well, I’m just not familiar with this machine. I, I guess I put it in rehearse. We’re not actually recording. And I was just like, Oh my God, I have to get on the phone and tell Van, look, we didn’t record that.
Do you think we can take it again? There was a long pause and I was just like, Oh God, Van says, give me a minute. It felt like an hour, but I think it was maybe more like a half an hour or something like that. So anyhow, Van calls up, I’m ready to go again. He sings the song, and it’s great, of course, it’s Van Morrison, you know, but it wasn’t what the first take was.
Unfortunately, we never got that first take, which is a life lesson. Always get the first take.
This time on #HorrorStories, seven-time Grammy Award-winning producer, engineer and mixer Vance Powell (Chris Stapleton, Jack White, Buddy Guy) shares a story of a tracking session that turned sour when a fight broke out amongst a group of musicians.
#HorrorStories is a series where the world’s biggest producers, songwriters, and engineers unveil the most outlandish blunders of their careers — providing a much-needed reminder that even the greats make mistakes.
INJECT from Audiomovers is an always-on plugin that allows you to route audio in and out of any channel in your DAW without changing your playback engine.
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TRANSCRIPT
He just wanted out of there because he was afraid he was going to get shot.
This did not happen to me, but I was there. It involves an artist who has a band and the band tours with the artist and they were cutting a single. And so the band cut the song and everybody was happy and the artist was going to do his overdubs and all that. And so everybody said, cool, we’re off to the airport.
10 minutes after they left, the real drummer shows up and they start cutting with him. 25 minutes later, the drummer and the bass player walk back in the studio because their flight’s been cancelled. Right in the middle of them erasing their tracks and playing over the tracks, new tracks.
The drummer, of course, is like, what the? What’s going on? What are you guys doing? There’s people screaming. And my friend, who is an assistant on the record, Standing in the middle of the room, just pipes up and goes, “We’re out of milk!” And runs out of the room. Just runs through all of it, right out of the room. Like, there was milk somewhere that we were out of.
But he just wanted out of there because he was afraid he was going to get shot.
That’s what was going to happen from the start, is they were going to replace his tracks. So, very tense situation. And it was getting ugly. We’re out of milk. Out the door.
In this year’s first episode of #HorrorStories, Grammy Award-winning mastering engineer and owner of Nashville-based mastering powerhouse The Hit Lab, Nathan Dantzler (Niall Horan, Teddy Swims, Kelsea Ballerini) speaks about the time when a record he was working on was sabotaged by an A&R manager.
#HorrorStories is a series where the world’s biggest producers, songwriters, and engineers unveil the most outlandish blunders of their careers — providing a much-needed reminder that even the greats make mistakes.
INJECT from Audiomovers is an always-on plugin that allows you to route audio in and out of any channel in your DAW without changing your playback engine.
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TRANSCRIPT
That whole weekend I remember going home and just being so defeated because I thought we had made this beautiful piece of art, I thought it was amazing, and then it just wasn’t resonating.
Years ago when I was producing, there’s this band signed to record label that was about to get dropped. I knew the president of the label and so I told him, let me produce an album for this band, cheap. He gave us the green light and so then through the course of the next few months of making this album, every day the A& R would come to the studio and he would ask us to burn him a CD.
And then he was going to keep updating the president of the label. So we’re almost finished with this album. We’re super proud of it. We’re really pumped about this album and then I get a call from the president of the label that says, we’re pulling the plug. We’re not going to do the album and we’re all devastated.
We can’t figure out what’s going on. So then finally, I get a call from the president and he’s like, listen, man, can we get in the studio and maybe just see if we can salvage this thing? And so. he says, pull up this song. We pull it up. He’s like, huh, go to the next song. So we go to the next song, same thing, same thing.
And I said, can you play me what you’ve been listening to? And the A& R guy sabotaged the album and gave him day one tracking roughs and told him those were the, he never sent the president anything until the very end. And then he sent him our day one and so then I burned a new CD to the president of the album finished and he’s like, no tweaks, completely done.
Then it went on and sold a bunch of copies. And that was a emotional rollercoaster.
In this episode of #TilYouMakeIt, we are joined by the music producer, recording engineer and mixer known for his Grammy-winning and multi-platinum-selling work with iconic acts like Peter Frampton, Dire Straits and Taylor Swift. In this conversation, Chuck reflects on how he approached re-mixing the famous Dire Straits record’ Brother in Arms’ to 5.1 and the moment he learned of it’s Grammy-winning success.
#TilYouMakeIt chronicles stand-out moments from the careers of the world’s most esteemed producers, mixers and engineers.
With LISTENTO from Audiomovers, you can stream uncompressed multichannel audio to and from any DAW. Ready to go in five minutes. Just send a link.
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TRANSCRIPT
A record like that, it’s, um, so historic, right? Everybody knows it. And when it came out, it basically launched the CD.
Mark Knopfler asked me to come over and do a remix of the very famous Dire Straits album, Brothers in Arms in 5. 1. I mean, I literally, when I would work. I would have that record playing in the CD player and I just go back and forth, listen to that a bit and see if my stuff was as good. So that’s how much it meant to me.
So I wanted to respect that, make that record as good as that record was, but make it as good as my memory was of it. So it was like having to match the original recording and then make it something else, right? So, you know sort of expanded it. I think it came out really good You know, I mean it got a Grammy, anytime you can get a Grammy that’s something, you know. That was one of them for me.
And of course, yeah, it’s like very important. The awards show happens in the winter, and I was snow skiing in Colorado, and a bunch of us had been skiing, and we were all in the hot tub, you know, hanging out when I got the news. So, I was kind of the celebrity in that hot tub.
In this episode of #Goosebumps, we are back at Blackbird Studios to speak with the studios’ former operations manager and resident drum tech, Paul Simmons, as he reflects on the moment he first listened to side one of 2112 by Rush – a “life-changing moment” that he will never forget.
#Goosebumps is where we ask some of the best producers, engineers and artists about the musical moments that make the hairs stand up on the back of their neck.
With LISTENTO from Audiomovers you can stream uncompressed multichannel audio to and from any DAW. Ready to go in five minutes. Just send a link.
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TRANSCRIPT
Now anytime I hear that intro, you know, the keyboard thing, I know what’s coming.
As far as goosebump moment for music was when I put headphones on and put 2112 by Rush on for the first time, reading along the lyrics with vinyl and I have to listen to the whole side.
In fact, I didn’t even know they had it chopped into pieces on the radio. You’d hear it start on the radio and then they’d cut it off.No! You know. You have to play the whole thing.
A lot of Rush Goosebumps, but that’s the one that pops into my mind. 2112. That was a life changer
In this episode of #DreamCollabs, Grammy Award-winning mastering engineer and owner of Nashville-based mastering powerhouse The Hit Lab, Nathan Dantzler (Niall Horan, Teddy Swims, Kelsea Ballerini), shares his thoughts on the transcendent power of music and the records that have defined culture throughout the decades.
We all have #DreamCollabs is where we ask who would your dream collaboration be with? Living or dead, money and travel are no object. And what would you do?
With LISTENTO from Audiomovers, you can stream uncompressed multichannel audio to and from any DAW. Ready to go in five minutes. Just send a link.
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TRANSCRIPT
One of my favorite things in art and culture and in music are those pivotal moments where something comes out and it changes everything.
In the early 90s you had hair metal was everywhere and then Nirvana came out and it just tidal wave all the hair bands were done, right? And I think that we saw that with the Beatles and we saw that to an extent with Billie Eilish and we’ve seen that with whatever.
For me the dream is to be a part of one of those records. To be part of a record that changes culture.
Something that we had our little bitty part in affects the world in such a way that it’s never the same after that. For me, that’s the goal.
In today’s episode of #MixTricks, we join the five-time Grammy Award-winning mixer, engineer and producer F. Reid Shippen (Kenny Chesney, Ingrid Michaelson, Gloria Gaynor) at Nashville’s Infrasonic Studio as he shares advice on how to stay motivated when working on a challenging mix.
Sometimes finding success means stripping everything back, turning off one of his tried and tested vocal chains and starting from scratch – and working away until he finds the magic in the mix. As Reid puts it, “It’s in there somewhere!”
#MixTricks is where the very best mixers, engineers, producers, and musicians let us in on some of the best secrets, tips and tricks they’ve picked up on their way to the top.
With LISTENTO from Audiomovers, you can stream uncompressed multichannel audio to and from any DAW. Ready to go in five minutes. Just send a link.
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TRANSCRIPT
I’m Reed. We’re at Infrasonic Nashville Studios. My Mix Trick. is not giving up.
Sometimes you’re fighting with something in a mix, and a lot of times, for me, it can be the vocal. It’s really easy to just be like, this just isn’t a great vocal. Because you know what? A lot of times, it isn’t a great vocal. When people are like, can you make me sound like John Mayer? The answer is, no, because you’re not John Mayer.
That’s the way it works, right? Um, but, not giving up is the key. And what I learned is that you just keep screwing with it until you find whatever the magic is. And sometimes that’s running it through a guitar pedal and blending that in. Sometimes it’s… pieces of outboard, or removing all the outboard, or taking all the assumptions that you make, you know, like, I have a vocal chain, I have this, turn it all off, right?
Start from scratch. Put the dumbest factory plug in on it, like, whatever. Just keep going until it’s great. Because it’s there, it’s in there somewhere, it’ll fit in there somewhere, but the key is to just not give up until you get there.
