Amazing Audio at Home Course Outline: Module 2

In this series, I’m going over what to expect inside Amazing Audio at Home: the course that teaches all of the steps to getting pro quality audio at home, using affordable gear. I’m covering each module in detail, one at a time.

You can learn more, and purchase Amazing Audio at Home here.

Module 2: Project Setup

Inside Module 2, I go over the techniques surrounding organizing and setting up an audio project inside of Digital Audio Workstation software. I also go over some fundamental engineering concepts you’ll want to know as we continue, and introduce our sample mix project: the joint mixing project we’ll be working on together throughout the course.

Module 2 of Amazing Audio at Home.

DAW overview and basic mixer controls

In Module 2, we'll be going over the basics of audio project preparation and cleanup, starting with an overview of the Digital Audio Workstation. This video goes over the basics of mixer controls inside of a few different DAW programs, from Logic to Ableton to GarageBand.

Importing our sample project audio files

The first step to starting off any audio postproduction project is file import: this video goes over how to do this properly, and some specifics to look for during the import process. We also go over some of the fundamentals of how digital audio files work, and some common problems to be aware of.

I've included the audio files for our shared sample audio project here for you to download and use. Please download these files, practice loading them up into your own DAW, and then follow along with me as we move through the course, making your own creative decisions in your own software along the way.

Macro time alignment and volume adjustment

Once our audio files have been successfully imported, we need to make sure everything is playing back in time, and our volume levels are hitting appropriately.

This video shows techniques for checking macro time alignment and volume levels. I also go over some common problems I see with volume levels coming from DIY producers, including how to address clipping in the digital audio environment.

Micro time alignment (Phase)

Phase is a concept that’s super important in the pro audio context, but because it’s a complicated and nuanced subject, there’s a lot of bad information on the Internet about how phase works in a practical setting, especially for the home studio recordist.

This video defines phase, shows some different examples of what in-phase and out-of-phase audio sounds like, and then offers some solutions for solving phase issues. I also go over when phase adjustment is and isn’t necessary.

Trimming silences

Trimming silences can be an important technique for arriving at a clean mix, but making this edit incorrectly can result in bad-sounding pops and clicks being unintentionally added onto your tracks. It’s also important to make some creative musical decisions when you’re deciding how much silence to trim: making your track sound “too clean” is just as bad as leaving it “too noisy”, but exactly how far to go here is a musical decision that will always change from project to project.

This video shows how to make trimming edits properly, using both automated and manual techniques.

Preventing clicks and pops

In this video, I go over some handy batch editing techniques for adding fades to the beginning and end of each audio region. These techniques supplement the mostly manual fundamentals I go over in the previous “Trimming silences” video, and will achieve the same results in a very time-efficient manner.

Track grouping and organization

When we're working on audio, we're constantly trying to locate different sounds and make adjustments to them. This process of sound location and adjustment happens hundreds of times during a mixing project.

So, if it's difficult to locate a specific sound you want to change because of poor organization inside of your project, it can really take away from the fun creative parts of the mixing process. Having a messy project is a great way to lose momentum and get stuck. Conversely, having a better-organized project allow you to make creative decisions fluidly and easily.

This video shows some track grouping and organization techniques that will go a long way in helping to make your creative decisions quicker, more accurate, and more fun, during the mix.

Project setup inside our sample mix project

This video introduces the sample mix project: a joint project you and I will be working on together during the course. We’ll both be working off of the same project files, which I’ve included for you to download. Watch me demonstrate in this video, then try it yourself using the files I've provided. The sample mix project is one of the most important pieces of course material: it’s where we turn theory into practice, and it’s where you start to develop your own unique creative mixing process, alongside my guidance.

Module 2 Action Steps

In the Module 2 Action Steps video, I walk you through all the of project import and setup steps we’ve just covered, in a simple list format, so you can practice on your own. Try to follow these steps in the exact same order I'm showing you here, for now.

Make sure to save your project in your DAW after you've done this: we'll continue to work forward from here as we move into our next module.