Jessica Monroe

If you have just unboxed a MIDI keyboard and want to know how to set up a MIDI keyboard through an interface’s MIDI ports, you are in the right place. Many producers hit a wall when their keyboard has only the classic round 5-pin DIN connectors and their audio interface seems to have tiny labeled … Read more

Proximity effect is a bass boost of up to 16dB below 100Hz that occurs when a sound source gets within a few inches of a directional microphone. It is the single most common reason close-miked vocals sound muddy and undefined, and it is the issue I fix most often when engineers send me tracks for … Read more

Picking the right microphone polar pattern is one of the fastest ways to get a cleaner recording. I’ve watched beginners spend hours treating a room when the real fix was switching from omnidirectional to cardioid. On the flip side, I’ve also seen engineers chase “more direction” with a hypercardioid when an omni would have captured … Read more

Miking an acoustic guitar at home without boxy reflections comes down to controlling three things: where you point the microphone, how close you place it, and what your room does to the sound before it reaches the capsule. I spent three months testing every mic position I could find in my 12-by-9 apartment bedroom. Some … Read more

Keyboard clicks blasting through your mic during a Discord call or stream is one of the most frustrating audio problems. Our team has tested every fix that actually works to stop a mic from picking up keyboard and mouse clicks, and the truth is that 90% of these issues come down to three things: mic … Read more

If you’ve ever recorded a single source with two microphones and noticed the result sounded thin, hollow, or weirdly weak in the low end, you’ve run into a phase problem. I hit this wall constantly during my early years of recording, and it took me far too long to understand what was actually happening. Two … Read more

You plug in your MIDI keyboard, the lights come on, your computer chimes to confirm a new device, and then… nothing. The keys feel great under your fingers, but not a single note triggers in your DAW. If you are dealing with a MIDI controller recognized but keys do nothing situation, you are in good … Read more

Few things kill a creative session faster than a MIDI keyboard not detected by your computer. You sit down, plug in your controller, and nothing happens. No signal, no input, just silence while your DAW refuses to acknowledge the gear sitting right in front of it. I’ve been there more times than I can count. … Read more

I have been chasing this exact problem for the better part of a decade. A MIDI controller that works perfectly in Ableton Live stops triggering notes in Logic Pro. The same keyboard lights up like a Christmas tree on macOS but produces silence in Cubase. If you are reading this, you have probably hit the … Read more

If your MIDI controller suddenly only works in one app at a time, or your DJ software stopped recognizing hardware after a Windows update, you are dealing with MIDI exclusivity conflicts on Windows. I have spent weeks testing every fix in this guide across Pioneer DJ, Rane, Akai, and Korg gear, and the good news … Read more