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8 Commonly Googled Music Production Questions

Benn Jordan | August 20, 2025



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Video Gear used:
ATEM Mini Pro
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Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6k
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DaVinci Resolve 16 (100% FREE!)
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Timestamps:
0:00 – Intro
1:26 – How Do I Sample Someone’s Music Legally?
4:21 – How To Soundproof
7:20 – Should I Leave Phantom Power On?
8:12 – Should You Leave Analog Synths Powered On?
10:18 – How (NOT) To Insure Your Gear
12:05 – Are Expensive Cables A Rip Off?
13:55 – Should You Have A Sub?
15:12 – How To Deal With Ground Loops
18:40 – Free Month of Audible!

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Written by Benn Jordan

Comments

This post currently has 43 comments.

  1. @tom_h_producer

    August 20, 2025 at 11:31 am

    Yeah, I had a ground loop that was driving my insane in my last studio. The solution turned out to be to replace the copper HDMI cables with optical ones. Much more expensive, but the instantly and massively improved the noise level. So that is the one instance where spending more money on digital cables is worth it – not because they're better at transferring the 1s and 0s, but because they don't need a ground connection.

  2. @MadHatter54

    August 20, 2025 at 11:31 am

    Ground loops are something i fight monthly when i move shit around and clean. lol figuring this out the hard way so many times and then forgetting about it every4-6months and wondering Wtf is that noise when i arm this track? lol its my dumbass guitar amp output laying ON THE F ING POWER STRIP everytime.

  3. @theondono

    August 20, 2025 at 11:31 am

    Wrt to electrolytic caps: boil off is way more common and insidious than thermal stress breaks, because it slowly accumulates adding hums and noise to your setup until it’s high enough for you to notice there’s something wrong. If a cap breaks due to thermal cycling, in most cases you’ll realize quickly.

    Wrt to hdmi cables: the “versions” are just particular specs, if they comply with the specs you’re right that it doesn’t matter, but sometimes that’s a bold assumption. Some crappy manufacturers know you have no real way to test the cable, because testing eye diagrams is waaay too expensive even for the enthusiasts. Don’t pay for magic platings on the cable, but if you buy the absolute cheapest cable that mentions the right version, be ready to be disappointed.

    Edit: ground loops!
    Ethernet can only cause ground loops if you’re using coax based eth, or in some rare cases because of STP cable. If it’s a short run, just switch to UTP and you’ll be fine!

  4. @stingray1irwin0

    August 20, 2025 at 11:31 am

    Not in a studio context, but I'm constantly repairing and keeping alive a vintage Harmon-Kardon Avi200 as a pro logic 5.0 receiver. The front left and rights are 79-81 (not sure) Technics 3 way LPAs with 12" woofers. A sub would make the entire thing totally unbalanced and sound like crap

  12. @tauernhiker0001

    August 20, 2025 at 11:31 am

    My online distribution company rejected a Cover of Metallica's Ride the Lightning (complete album), with the original vocals put on top of new recorded instrumental tracks.
    So – I got a Vocalist and he did a really great job and I was finally able to release Alpha Scramble Ride the Lightning.
    What nobody was interested in is the fact that there's an inaudible original Bass also in the tracks. The main thing is of course my new Bass tracks. But – I mixed in a tiny bit of the original.
    No problem there – as long as it's not clearly audible – noone seems to care. And no I don't feel like I ripped anybody off.

  16. @k90rbitrescue

    August 20, 2025 at 11:31 am

    I've had plenty of chicks use me to teach them tricks or functions of gear i think giving false information is not a good way to build trust with someone. If some one is doing that then yeah not kewl regardless of gender pretending to like someone for knowledge or status looking pretty will get you no where if you got stabs then your out there killing it

  17. @Inputsignwave

    August 20, 2025 at 11:31 am

    Worth adding about soundproofing: consider if you really need it beyond solving a rooms reflective problems. You don’t actually want a dead room even if you could achieve it, music isn’t made in a dead room and even with sound treatment in a sound proof room your room is going to have its own sound so mixing its best just to ‘know’ the sound of your room and get it so it works for you. Making you a better mixer will be knowing your monitors and room setup intuitively that comes from a lot of listening in that room to many recordings and also listening to those recordings in many different situations. It’s worth listening to your own mixes done in your room on many different situations, in a car, on a phone, in earbuds ( shudder ). This will make you a better mixer than ugly ing up your room with a lot of mostly pointless foam* you want enough panels or sound absorbers in the room so that reflective areas are taken care of. Having soft furniture is good, rugs or thick carpet, a sofa, Ideally you don’t want your desk up against a wall you want some room behind your monitors and you want to be sitting in prime position between them. The former isn’t always possible. Unless you’re building a professional studio building for recording bands etc or mastering. Don’t sweat it to much. The skill is in the artist and your ears, not the room.

  18. @JessicaFEREM

    August 20, 2025 at 11:31 am

    You can "emulate" a ground by using a GFCI extension. They are about $30 but they'll keep your gear safe.
    Fun fact, up until 2022 japan ONLY relied on GFCI at the breaker and are only recently requiring a proper three prong outlet as opposed to a ground screw lug.

  26. @ChrisStoneinator

    August 20, 2025 at 11:31 am

    13:40 That’s… not the argument for high quality digital cables. Like, at all. And it’s not “just ones and zeros going from point A to point B”. You’re not physically throwing numbers down the chute. You’re sending an analog signal that’s as close as possible to a square wave, but can absolutely carry noise.

    Does it matter in music production? Almost certainly not.

  29. @philxdev

    August 20, 2025 at 11:31 am

    alternative sound panels for dampening: I recommend getting panels made out of Basotect … There should be some honest vendors out there who do not mark up and scalp these products to crazy prices… It is melamine-formaldehyde condensation resin foam and in ways designed by the company BASF to have sound-dampening characteristics and it does NOT cost an arm and a leg, despite many vendors telling you otherwise. A panel of this size ~39"x20"x2,8" (1000mmx500mmx30mm) is around 25euro and you should be able to get corner parts as bass traps as well for maybe 40-50… of course it is dampening and not soundproofing.

  34. @jazzdirt

    August 20, 2025 at 11:31 am

    Before sampling was a thing the rule used to be 10s or 4 bars max whichever of those comes first (In the Netherlands at least)… In the '80 they changed it.. That's where the misconception comes from…
    Ground loop -> DI box with ground lift. Also helps with getting shocks from your mic while holding a guitar…

  35. @forbiddenera

    August 20, 2025 at 11:31 am

    @13:41 that's actually not entirely true. Sure, a good digital signal will be indistinguishable, yes. But bad cables can cause lots of issue, hdmi is a good example, some cables don't have the right pins connected properly and signal quality is important especially for bandwidth needs, that's why expensive cable testers can give you an eye graph, LTT has a good video about this.

  37. @starshiptexas

    August 20, 2025 at 11:31 am

    I used to leave my studio monitors on all the time but then had a day long brown out. Lights were just barely visible. I was not home at the time so the monitors were on like this for a few hours. Within a week both of them stopped working. (capacitors)

  40. @jonanon8193

    August 20, 2025 at 11:31 am

    Comments from an Electronics Engineer-
    Leaving electronics on causes earlier death of electrolytic capacitors in power supplies – since they are converting AC to DC they charge during the AC peak and discharge the other time – that ages them. If it is designed well (which is not necessarily anything to do with price) they could live longer than you or I. In PC power supplies though they skimp like crazy which is why you need to buy a new PC PSU every few years but not with audio gear.
    Earth loops – ethernet is transformer isolated and will not contribute to earth loops. The shielding on RCA cables does. The loops are made from a continous earth connection between devices via main power earth and signal RCA cable earths. Note you only need to connect two mains powered devices via 1 RCA cable and you have an earth loop. Any wire carrying AC current that passes through this loop forms a transformer and transforms it's voltage into the RCA cables shield and power cable earth which then is effectively added to the signal in the RCA cable. So do that powerboard trick, but also watch the path each cable takes to avoid loops. NOTE this is entirely separate to the no-earth problem which is where you need to fix your houses earth connection, both yield the hum.

  42. @stickylizardbabyangel

    August 20, 2025 at 11:31 am

    Humans serve purpose. If this machine can negate an entire life's research, work and sense of purpose, that'll be the end of us. 

    We should start thinking about setting limits to its abilities, demanding ways to verify its use under any circumstance.

    Prepare for unforeseen consequences. The custodians of these technologies WILL USE its powers to gain limitless advantage over the rest of us.

  43. @danielcichello4421

    August 20, 2025 at 11:31 am

    DIMMER SWITCHES! Those switches, on floor/table lamps or wall switches and ceiling fans can cause maddening noise issues. If your outlet is on the same circuit as one of these you will get noise. My downstairs neighbor had a dimmer switch and would drive me crazy because i had no idea it was there. It was intermittent because when the switch is off the noise went away!!! Took me months before I asked him about it! I finally found a different outlet but needed a 25' extension cable lol!

Comments are closed.

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