Sam Inglis
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Semi-Pro movie nerd. Novice gamer. Jennifer Jason Leigh superfan. DVD/Blu Ray/4K Collector. Co-Host of Fearless Pretender. Band Maid/JRock fan.
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Articles by Sam Inglis
MPG Producer Deals Guide | SOS Podcast
Cameron Craig of the Music Producers Guild and Chris Cooke of CMU discuss the new MPG Producer Deals Guide, explaining how producer agreements are changing and what producers need to understand about points, royalties, expenses and publishing. They explore the issues facing both established and unsigned artists, and why agreeing terms clearly and putting them in writing is essential. Show Notes 00:00 - Introduction 00:18 - Who are CMU?
Rupert Neve Designs MBP, 551 & 542
One of the biggest names in studio hardware has taken the plunge into software... If there’s one proposition that has always underpinned Rupert Neve Designs’ business, it’s that there is still a place for quality analogue gear in the 21st Century.
LEADER: Computer Concepts
For most of us, a Mac or PC is the focal point of the studio. But it’s unlikely to be the only computer we use. Most digital audio processors are, by any meaningful definition, computers. Give them a keyboard and a screen and a conventional operating system, and they’d probably be capable of running Minecraft or sending emails. But from the user’s point of view, there’s a huge gulf between this type of product and, well, computers. A Mac or PC is designed to be open‑ended, adaptable, versatile.
Building A Freelance Audio Career | SOS Podcast
Michael J. Morgan joins Sam Inglis to discuss the practical challenges of working freelance in the audio industry, from setting rates and finding clients to building relationships and developing a sustainable business.
LEADER: Location Location Location
Some of the most fun recording sessions I’ve been involved with have happened outside the studio. However, recording on location isn’t only fun. It’s also a great learning experience for everyone involved. Every guerrilla recording session I’ve done has taught me something of lasting value. Most of all, location recording brings home to me how much effect the immediate environment has on what gets recorded. I’m not just talking about acoustics here, although that’s undoubtedly important.
Harrison Flex 10
With the Flex 10, Harrison’s designers have delivered features not usually found in a desktop interface, including transformer saturation and real VU meters. Music tech can be novel and exciting, but it can also be utilitarian. Audio interfaces usually fall under the latter umbrella, and that’s fine. We don’t want our audio interface to spring surprises or fuel creativity. We want it to funnel sound to and from our computer, with a minimum of fuss.
LEADER: Go Slower
New music tech products often aim to democratise music‑making. They remove barriers to entry and smooth the path from idea to finished track. And sometimes the benefits are uncontroversial. Orchestral sample libraries, for example, open doors on a world that was once inaccessible. But there’s a fine line between democratisation and dumbing down. When quicker and easier take priority over better, we sell ourselves short. When skills that were once essential become optional, mediocrity ensues.
Using Open-backed Headphones For Tracking
Conventional wisdom tells us to use closed‑back headphones for tracking. But might there be advantages to going open? Headphone drivers radiate sound from both sides. In an open earcup, sound from the rear can escape into free air. In a closed‑back design, it has nowhere to go. If it can’t be absorbed, it will bounce around inside the earcup, interacting in unwanted ways with the sound from the front of the driver.
How The Pros Handle Harshness
Edgy, aggressive midrange can make for uncomfortable listening. Four top engineers explain how they get harshness under control — and how to get the best from Oeksound’s Soothe plug‑in. Ten years ago, a Finnish start‑up launched a plug‑in designed to treat harshness in recorded audio. Word spread, and Oeksound’s Soothe has today become a core part of many pro engineers’ toolkits.
Kernom Elipse, Ridge & Moho
Adding digital control to analogue guitar pedal circuits can be particularly tricky, but Kernom have come up with a fresh approach... French manufacturer Kernom have created an intriguing range of effects pedals, which are based around a novel technology they have dubbed the Analog Morphing Core. Most of us will now be familiar with digitally controlled analogue circuits.
NUGEN Audio MasterCheck 2
If you want to know exactly what streaming services will do to your masters, MasterCheck 2 will give you the harsh truth — in immersive formats as well as stereo. It’s now more than a decade since Hugh Robjohns reviewed the original incarnation of NUGEN Audio’s MasterCheck. Back in 2015, the music production world was still adjusting to the new landscape of streaming services with loudness normalisation.
Final DX4000CL
Final are a Japanese hi‑fi company who’ve been around, in one form or another, since 1974. In that time, they’ve produced record player cartridges, amplifiers and loudspeakers, but their principal focus these days is headphones and earbuds. There’s a strong emphasis on innovation and on in‑house manufacturing, and Final have been early adopters of technology such as 3D printing in metal.
McDSP DC-2
McDSP continue to find new ways to harness their configurable analogue plug‑in co‑processor. The last few years have seen a number of attempts to integrate analogue processing into a software‑based recording and mixing environment. I’ve been impressed by Freqport’s FreqInOut FO‑1 and the Access Analog online subscription system, but McDSP’s Analog Processing Box remains the most elegant all‑in‑one solution I know of. To the user, an APB processor is no different from any other plug‑in.
JZ Microphones MU-1
Marc Urselli & The MU‑1 “I started recording with ribbons and condensers [together] 15 years ago,” recalls Marc Urselli. “I have used this technique on drum overheads, upright bass, bass amps, guitar amps, acoustic guitar, piano, Hammond B3 Leslie speakers, sax, clarinet, brass and winds in general, and last but not least vocals... and room mics too!” Prior to the creation of the JZ MU‑1, Marc experimented extensively with different combinations of ribbon and capacitor mics.
Austrian Audio OC-B6
Are you ready to try something a little different inside your bass drum? Austrian Audio describe their OC‑B6 as the “world’s first purpose‑built large‑diaphragm condenser kick mic”. Such mics are certainly unusual, although I think Sontronics would point out that their DM‑1B has been around for some years now. The Neumann U47 FET has also long been a popular choice on bass drums and speaker cabs, though it wasn’t designed specially for the purpose.
LEADER: Macro Economics
As music production environments become more complex, the challenge of making those environments accessible grows. Learning a modern DAW is very different from operating a four‑track cassette recorder. Luckily, there are now vastly more resources available to learners. Where once we had printed manuals, we have YouTube tutorials, Discord servers, Subreddits and Facebook groups. We can even ask an AI chatbot.
Temecula DSP DEEP/4
A classic effects unit is reborn in plug‑in form. Ensoniq were innovators in the worlds of sampling and digital synthesis. Their ‘transwave’ synths like the Fizmo have a cult following among musicians, whilst in the world of mixing, it’s their multi‑effects processors that attract fond reminiscences. Released in 1992, the DP/4 featured four independent digital processors that could be operated in a number of different series and parallel configurations.
SSL 1
SSL boil down the USB interface to its bare essentials! Many companies offer both affordable and premium products, but few span the same range as Solid State Logic. At one end of the market, they’ll happily sell you an analogue console costing six figures. And at the other, they make audio interfaces costing less than the monthly electricity usage of that console. The latest, and most affordable yet, is the 1.
Shure KSM40C, KSM44MP & KSM32C
Shure’s popular family of studio mics gets a dark reboot — and a new sibling. The KSM32 and KSM44 have been mainstays of Shure’s studio microphone range for a quarter of a century. And in that time, the world of affordable studio microphones has changed beyond all recognition. At launch, the Shure models faced limited competition from a handful of European and US manufacturers, with Chinese‑made mics just beginning to penetrate Western markets.
Oeksound Soothe 3
How much more soothing can Oeksound’s Soothe get? Quite a lot, as it turns out... Since plug‑ins started to become popular, some 30 years ago, many new types of processor have been introduced. A few have become universally successful, the most obvious example being real‑time automated pitch correction. But many of these new ways of modifying recorded sound have remained niche products.
Josephson C706
The C706 aims to shine a new light on one of the great capsule designs. Manufacturers of capacitor microphones fall into two categories: those who make their own capsules, and those who don’t. You could argue that buying in capsules is like bottling someone else’s wine, but capsule design and manufacture is a highly specialised art, and few people have the skill, experience and facilities to do it well.
LEADER: The Driving Force
What do the worlds of music tech, veterinary medicine and funeral planning have in common? The answer is that they’ve all become hot property with venture capital and private equity firms. This is partly a generational phenomenon: the musos who turned their attention to building mixers in 1975 are now understandably ready to cash out. It’s partly because Wall Street and the City of London have a nose for an underexploited opportunity.
Recording A Choir For An Atmos Mix
Would your mic techniques change if you knew your location recordings were destined for a Dolby Atmos release? That’s a question our technical editor recently had to ponder... Back in August last year, the film, TV and games music composer and producer Hilgrove Kenrick — who is a good friend — invited me to record a choir performing a dozen new compositions that he planned to release as four themed EPs in late 2025 and early 2026.
Overloud Gem 160
Overloud give some virtual VCAs a workout in a characterful compression plug‑in. With any large plug‑in bundle, you’ll get more use from some plug‑ins than others. It has certainly been that way for me with Overloud’s Gem Studio collection, which I reviewed back in August 2021. I haven’t often felt the need to revisit their emulations of the Binson disc echo or Thermionic Culture Vulture, but I’ve leaned pretty heavily on some of the other processors, chief among them Comp G.
Focusrite ISA C8X
For the first time, Focusrite have married their analogue heritage and their digital audio expertise in a single product. Rupert Neve’s Input Signal Amplifier circuit has been a constant throughout Focusrite’s 41‑year history. Developed to meet the exacting requirements of Sir George Martin, it formed the front end of the Forté and Studio consoles, and the heart of numerous standalone preamps and channel strips.
Audeze LCD-5s
Audeze say that the no‑compromise LCD‑5s is the best headphone they’ve ever made. Does its quality justify its cost? When a high‑end brand introduces a new flagship product, high expectations are the order of the day. And when said product is a pair of headphones costing four figures, those expectations need to be fulfilled. Audeze have done so in the past; I was greatly impressed by their original LCD‑X when I reviewed them back in 2015.
Focusrite: Designing The ISA C8X
Focusrite's ISA C8X is a milestone product that brings together the company's analogue heritage and their expertise in digital audio. In this in-depth interview, company head Phil Dudderidge and Head of Product Will Hoult talk to SOS Editor in Chief Sam Inglis about the history of the ISA preamp circuit, explain what makes it special, and lay bare the intensive development process behind the first ISA audio interface.
LEADER: More For Less
It might surprise some readers to learn that the beating heart of Studios Chateau Inglis is a 2018 Apple Mac mini. As I’m not a big user of sample libraries, this is mostly employed for tracking and mixing audio. And I don’t think I have ever run out of resources. Its trusty Intel i7 CPU continues to chew up everything in its path. No multitrack project is too large for its 32GB RAM to swallow. I could do with more drive space, but then, couldn’t we all.
How To Record Music Outdoors
When the hills are alive with the sound of music, it’s up to us to record it. You could argue that the great outdoors is the perfect recording environment. With no walls or ceiling to bounce things around, microphones pick up only the direct sound from the source. So, while there’s no good room sound to make your drums more impressive, there’s no bad room sound to corrupt the pure tones that the players are producing.
Yamaha URX44
Yamaha’s new audio interface is not quite like anything else on the market. It’s now more than 20 years since Yamaha purchased Steinberg from Pinnacle Systems. This not only gave them ownership of popular software products such as Cubase, Nuendo and WaveLab; it also delivered expertise in hardware design. Starting with the highly successful MR816 in 2008, jointly developed USB interfaces and controllers have previously appeared under the Steinberg brand.
PSP Tilt-Q
Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best, and tilt EQ is a good example. If you haven’t encountered it before, it’s a way of adjusting the entire frequency balance of the programme material. The user specifies a pivot frequency and a positive or negative gain value. The amount of boost or attenuation gets progressively greater as you get further from the corner frequency, and is symmetrical about it, so as you apply a treble boost, you’ll get a bass cut and vice versa.
Sunset Sound Studio Reverb II
IK bring one of the West Coast’s iconic studios to your DAW in new detail. Some processors arrive in your plug‑in folder with a flourish. Others creep in unnoticed, and gradually worm their way into your affections. I don’t even remember installing IK’s original Sunset Sound Reverb, but I’ve come to depend on it quite a bit in the last year or two.
Freqport FT1-EMU
As well as linking to their FT1 hardware, Freqport’s FT1-EMU plug‑in now also mimics it. Freqport are the Danish‑Australian wizards behind two of the more innovative products I’ve reviewed in recent years. Their Freqtube FT1 allows you to enjoy real, analogue valve saturation within your DAW, with hands‑on control, while the FreqInOut FO1 provides a plug‑and‑play solution for integrating hardware outboard into a software recording setup.
Grell OAE2
This innovative open‑back design aims to bridge the gap between headphone and speaker listening. A new manufacturer founded by veteran German designer Axel Grell, the Grell headphone company have arrived on the scene with a model named the OAE2. And, although their marketing efforts are directed at the hi‑fi arena, they say a lot of things that should interest studio users.
Audeze LCD-S20
With their latest model, Audeze aim to solve one of the harder problems in headphone design. From music to lifestyles, anything ‘alternative’ that’s successful enough eventually becomes mainstream. Planar magnetic headphone technology seems to be following the same course. Since its revival by Dr Drag Colich at Audeze, its combination of low distortion and superb transient response has made planar drivers increasingly popular in high‑end open‑backed headphones.
IK Multimedia Sunset Sound Studio Reverb II
IK bring one of the West Coast’s iconic studios to your DAW in new detail. Some processors arrive in your plug‑in folder with a flourish. Others creep in unnoticed, and gradually worm their way into your affections. I don’t even remember installing IK’s original Sunset Sound Reverb, but I’ve come to depend on it quite a bit in the last year or two.
Warm Audio | SOS Podcast
Bryce Young, founder and president of Warm Audio, joins Sam Inglis to discuss how the company began and how it quickly built a reputation for producing affordable studio gear inspired by classic vintage designs.
Mix Rescue: Ember Rev | Audio Examples
These audio files accompany the April 2026 Mix Rescue feature in Sound On Sound magazine. www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mix-rescue-ember-rev You can listen to each of the MP3 files streamed below on this page, or download the ZIP files of uncompressed WAV files for listening in high-definition in your own DAW.
LEADER: Out Of the Box
Not so long ago, it seemed as though studios would become entirely virtual. Instead, hardware has had a resurgence. DAWless synth setups are a thing. Producers are integrating outboard into computer‑based studios. Sales of reel‑to‑reel tape are up year on year. Even in live sound, there’s a growing trend to incorporate analogue rackmount kit into front‑of‑house rigs. AI seems likely to accelerate these trends.
Mix Rescue: Ember Rev
New arrangements, new mixes and new masters present an album in a fresh light — and offer an escape route from a sonic trap. To stand out in a saturated music scene, you need a point of difference. Cambridge four‑piece Ember Rev have several, starting with their unusual line‑up of vocals, guitar, drums, bass and accordion. Under the benevolent dictatorship of singer and songwriter Dan Ecclestone, the Rev have released five albums, evolving and expanding their horizons every time.
Soyuz V1
Soyuz get ready to hit the road with their first dynamic microphone. Soyuz Microphones were founded in 2013 as a Russian‑American joint project, with manufacturing taking place in Tula, near Moscow. The invasion of Ukraine in 2022 made this arrangement difficult to sustain, although unlike the older Russian mic company Oktava, Soyuz have no connection to the country’s military‑industrial complex, and have issued statements in opposition to the war.
FabFilter Pro-C 3
FabFilter take compression to the max. Terrifyingly, it’s now 15 years since FabFilter’s Pro‑C compressor was released. Back then it was aimed mainly at mastering applications, and had two major selling points. One was its unique graphical interface, which left behind the clichés of skeuomorphic design in favour of actually being pleasant to operate with a mouse. The other was its incredibly smooth sound.
AKG C104, C114 & C151
AKG’s trio of affordable studio mics have more in common than just the letter C. For many years now, AKG’s line‑up of capacitor microphones has been divided into two ranges. Mics targeted at professional applications have a model designation beginning with the letter C, whilst the company’s more wallet‑friendly designs have appeared under the Perception brand.
LEADER: The C Word
We are only a few short weeks into 2026, and I’m already tired of the C word. No, not ‘content’, although that’s bad enough. For this is the year we stop thinking of ourselves as engineers, or producers, or guitarists. To get ahead in today’s world, you need to be a creator. The recent 2026 NAMM Show was positively crawling with creators, who had their own dedicated area on the show floor. But what is a creator? As far as I can tell, it’s someone who does more than just music.
Sonarworks SoundID Virtual Monitoring Pro
The latest extension to Sonarworks’ SoundID lets you take your own studio with you wherever you go. There is a trickle‑down effect in music tech. Major innovations appear first in high‑end products, and only later become more affordable. Back in the day, this process took years, but it seems to be accelerating — and Sonarworks’ SoundID Virtual Monitoring Pro has taken it to extremes. It’s very similar in concept to the Sony 360 Virtual Monitoring Environment I reviewed only last month.
Heritage Audio 73 DI & P DI
Back in the day, the input channels on large‑format consoles were pressed into service not only for miked signals but also for basses, keyboards and other instruments plugged directly into them. Heritage Audio’s 73 DI is an active DI box that aims to deliver that sort of character in a more portable format. Launched alongside the passive P DI, both are available in single‑ and dual‑channel versions.
FLEA M 251 FET
FLEA have replicated one of the most influential mics of all time — but without the valve. Slovakia’s FLEA Microphones have now been around for well over 20 years. In that time, they’ve built up an enviable reputation for their meticulous recreations of classic microphones. FLEA’s Vintage series pays homage to the most celebrated large‑diaphragm valve mics, and includes faithful replicas of the Neumann U47, U48, M49 and M50, the AKG C12 and the Telefunken ELA M 251.
Base 4 Stands
Base 4 have rethought the design of the humble mic stand from the ground up. The results are quite something! New solutions to everyday problems don’t come along very often, but when they do, the effects are far‑reaching. Of all exotic synthesis techniques that have been invented in the last 30 years, how many have had the same impact as sample streaming from hard drives? And what breakthrough in mic design has delivered practical benefits to compare with the Rycote InVision range of shockmounts?
LEADER: Soul Searching
Rock & roll changed everything. Not least, the music industry. Before the mid‑’50s, sheet music outsold records. But no‑one needed a printed score to learn a 12‑bar blues, and no score could capture what made Chuck Berry recordings compelling. Record sales overtook those of printed music, and musicians learned songs by ear, not by reading. Then, in the mid‑’80s, MIDI took music in another new direction.
AI & Music Tech In 2026
We asked music professionals how AI is changing their world. So‑called artificial intelligence is the hottest topic in music tech. Generative AI services such as Suno and Udio allow users to create entire songs from simple prompts. Will they make conventional music production redundant? Or will producers take advantage of a wave of innovative, assistive AI tools to do their work faster, better and smarter?
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