Production Expert

A to Z of Pro Tools - K Is For Keyboard Shortcuts In music and audio post-production, time has become a very valuable commodity. We are always looking for ways to work better and/or faster. Using keyboard shortcuts is one simple way we can both speed up our workflows and use the mouse less, which can also have health benefits. In this article in the A-Z of Pro Tools series, for the letter K, we will look at keyboard shortcuts, what they are, and how they can optimise our workflows.

A to Z of Pro Tools - K Is For Keyboard Shortcuts

Fender Quantum LT 16 Isn’t Just For Guitarists - Here’s Why Following on from a major DAW reincarnation in the form of Fender Studio Pro 8, the company now offer a line of brand new audio interfaces aimed at smaller studios. However with some unique features that could bridge the needs of emerging engineers and established gearheads, here we explore its pro credentials for engineers and producers.

Fender Quantum LT 16 Isn’t Just For Guitarists - Here’s Why

Transforming Vocals For Your Mix With Antares Metamorph Metamorph is Antares’ AI powered audio plugin that transforms vocal recordings with premium, ethically trained voice models directly in the DAW. With a number of improvements for v1.1, here we explore what the latest incarnation of Metamorph can do.

Transforming Vocals For Your Mix With Antares Metamorph

Has Plugin Abundance Reduced Creative Discipline? There’s a good argument against an over reliance on plugins and other software and it has nothing to do with technology. Russ Hughes argues that doing it the hard way is good for us.

Has Plugin Abundance Reduced Creative Discipline?

Offline File Conversion: We Explore A Studio Essential for Audio Pros For any pro who has been stuck in Conversion Hell, there is a new tool in town. Promising simple, secure format switching, here we check out the shape-shifting abilities of How To Convert. If you always suspected there must be an easier way, read on…

Offline File Conversion: We Explore A Studio Essential for Audio Pros

Avid Release Eucon 2026.3 New Features And Various Bug Fixes Avid has released a new version of its control-surface communication tool, Eucon 2026.3. It comes with a new film mixing feature for the S6 - multi-linking PECDIR track, as well as a raft of bug fixes. We have the details.

Avid Release Eucon 2026.3 New Features And Various Bug Fixes

Apple Announces New MacBook Air, MacBook Pro Laptops And New Studio Display Apple has just announced four new products: an M5 MacBook Air, an M5 Pro MacBook Pro in 14-inch and 16-inch models, an M5 Max MacBook Pro in 14-inch and 16-inch models, and a new Studio Display. We have the details.

Apple Announces New MacBook Air, MacBook Pro Laptops And New Studio Display

HEDD Type 20 A-Core 3-Way Studio Monitor - Tested The modern nearfield market is crowded with capable designs, many promising forensic detail, extended low end and fatigue-free listening. The HEDD Audio Type 20 A-Core enters that space with a slightly different emphasis. James Richmond takes a look and listen…

HEDD Type 20 A-Core 3-Way Studio Monitor - Tested

Toontrack Releases Drumopolis SDX By Tony Visconti Toontrack has teamed up with multi-award-winning producer Tony Visconti for their latest Superior Drummer 3 expansion which features eight complete drum kits pinpointing iconic moments of the producer’s impressive career. We have the details…

Toontrack Releases Drumopolis SDX By Tony Visconti

3 Virtual Instruments Composers Shouldn’t Ignore After years in this industry, it takes a lot to make Russ care. But three instruments this year genuinely stopped him in his tracks. Not because of hype or feature lists, but because they sound amazing, solve real creative problems, and actually deliver in the mix. If you’re interested in tools that inspire rather than interrupt, this is one to read.

3 Virtual Instruments Composers Shouldn’t Ignore

Building A Dolby Atmos Equipped Home Studio - A Complete Guide - UPDATED As a freelance dubbing mixer, Graham Kirkman works from home a lot, and like a lot of us, his home studio is just that - a studio in his house. This article is Graham’s story of how, in 2020, he moved his Luminol Audio studio from the loft to a purpose-built, Dolby Atmos-equipped garden studio, and how he recently updated it in 2026 by switching his interface to an Avid MTRX Studio.

Building A Dolby Atmos Equipped Home Studio - A Complete Guide - UPDATED

The Perfect Plugin: The Rise of DIY Audio Plug-Ins We talk endlessly about what AI might automate or replace. Far less attention is given to what it might enable. Quietly, a small number of audio professionals are building their own plug-ins, not to sell, but to solve problems. If that trend grows, the impact may be cultural as much as technical.

The Perfect Plugin: The Rise of DIY Audio Plug-Ins

7 Free Plugins From Dotec Audio Following the overhaul of our free plugin database, there are plenty of free plugins that haven’t been featured on Production Expert for a long time or ever. This time, we are going to look at seven free plugins from Dotec Audio: MIDI-triggered Mute plugin, noise gate, vocal doubler, stereo panpot, gain trim plugin, side-chain mixing plugin, and monitor simulator.

7 Free Plugins From Dotec Audio

Rewriting Harmonic DNA: Exploring HAL Audio Morphosis for Music and Post Although sound seers have long been able to chop up, modulate, or otherwise process sounds beyond recognition, until now actually changing one sound into another has remained elusive. Here we check out HAL Audio’s latest tool for transformative visionary vibes for music and post production…

Rewriting Harmonic DNA: Exploring HAL Audio Morphosis for Music and Post

Pro Tools Zooming Shortcuts Zooming in and out is an important part of working in any DAW. In Pro Tools, I’m constantly changing the zoom level in order to either see more detail in a waveform, change a track height or zoom out to see more of what’s going on in the edit window as a whole. There are plenty of ways to zoom so in this article we’ll cover the essential shortcuts which will help to speed up the way you view and navigate Pro Tools sessions.

Pro Tools Zooming Shortcuts

Free SoliderSound Go-Splitter App Now Available For Windows Following the release of their free stem separation app Go-Splitter for MacOS last week, SoliderSound has announced the immediate availability of the Windows version.

Free SoliderSound Go-Splitter App Now Available For Windows

The Hidden Competition That’s Distracting Audio Professionals Gamification changes behaviour. Introduce a scoreboard and the focus shifts from improvement to position. Social media has quietly done the same to the studio world. If you are honest, are you chasing better records or defending your place in a league you never meant to enter?

The Hidden Competition That’s Distracting Audio Professionals

Five Things That Make Audient iD48 Different With an increasing number of major releases made on affordable gear, Audient’s iD48 is a great contender for smaller productions that demand a high quality audio interface. But what are the things, if any, that might earn its place on any shortlist of 1U shaped contenders? Here are our top features for pros.

Five Things That Make Audient iD48 Different

Expert Panel - Audio Post Production Workflow - Part 1 Dialogue Editing With the overwhelming number of names and roles listed in modern show credits, it’s clear that the industry has come a long way from the days of Casablanca, where there was just one sound credit. To help navigate this complex landscape, Roger Guerin has conducted several in-depth conversations for a new series of articles exploring the intricate world of audio post-production. We kick things off with the Dialogue Editing Department for Film, TV, or Streamers.

Expert Panel - Audio Post Production Workflow - Part 1 Dialogue Editing

Avid Pro Tools - Which Version Is The Right One For Me In 2026? In April 2022, with the release of Pro Tools 2022.4, Avid reshaped its product range into three tiers: Pro Tools Artist, Pro Tools Studio and Pro Tools Ultimate, and later added a free version: Pro Tools Intro. In this article, we compare the four versions of Pro Tools to help you determine which version is right for your needs.

Avid Pro Tools - Which Version Is The Right One For Me In 2026?

Explore the Stunning New Choir Features in Dreamtonics Synthesizer V Studio 2 Pro For decades, audio innovators have imagined creating convincing, human sounding voices from scratch. If you’re a composer or producer who wishes they could hire a whole section of singers to give their mix the complexity it deserves, take a look and listen as we see what the new Choir Voice Collections for Synthesizer  V Studio 2 Pro can do for your virtual voicings…

Explore the Stunning New Choir Features in Dreamtonics Synthesizer V Studio 2 Pro

Report Reveals UK Film And TV Sector Is Becoming Increasing Unsustainable The Film and TV Charity’s second Money Matters report has examined the financial resilience of industry workers – exposing an urgent truth: the UK’s film, TV, and cinema industry is becoming increasingly unsustainable for far too many of the people who keep it running. The report shows that from over 2000 respondents, 74% are considering leaving the industry. We have the details.

Report Reveals UK Film And TV Sector Is Becoming Increasing Unsustainable

Do Atmos Codecs Really Matter? Pro Engineers Compare AC-4, DD+ and PCM Most Atmos listeners never hear the studio master, only a compressed delivery codec. So how big is the difference in practice? The team at Immersive Machines hosted a double-blind 7.1.4 listening test with pro engineers comparing DD+, AC-4 and lossless PCM. The results were closer, and more revealing, than many expected.

Do Atmos Codecs Really Matter? Pro Engineers Compare AC-4, DD+ and PCM

Free Plugin - Woodstock Audio Waveform Compressor Woodstock Audio has recently released a new free plugin, Waveform Compressor. Designed to eliminate guesswork from mixing, the plugin lets users clearly see how their audio is affected through a dynamic waveform display.

Free Plugin - Woodstock Audio Waveform Compressor

The Surprising Ways Pros Are Using APL DUOPAN To Make Their Mixes Better Offering extra ways to convey spatial information, DUOPAN lets engineers combine time and level to paint the panorama. Here industry big hitter Bob Katz, Stephan Bock, and Alejandro Venguer share why they choose DUOPAN for pleasing perspectives.

The Surprising Ways Pros Are Using APL DUOPAN To Make Their Mixes Better

Free Range Audio PT EDL Released - A Reconforming Tool For Mac Pete Gates, the man behind the very popular free app PT Prefs, has released a new paid-for app, PT EDL, which is an EDL reconforming tool for the Apple Mac Platform to handle manual recuts and auto-reconforms in films and TV shows for Pro Tools. We have the details.

Free Range Audio PT EDL Released - A Reconforming Tool For Mac

Windows 11 Adds MIDI 2.0 Support With New Windows MIDI Services Microsoft has rolled out Windows MIDI Services in Windows 11, delivering native support for both MIDI 1.0 and MIDI 2.0, multi-client ports, built-in loopback and high-resolution timing. It is the biggest overhaul of MIDI on Windows in decades, and it could change how producers and developers work on the platform.

Windows 11 Adds MIDI 2.0 Support With New Windows MIDI Services

Steinberg Announces Groove Agent 6 With Drum Layering, New Punch Kit And Pattern Editor Steinberg has released Groove Agent 6, adding drum layering and replacement for kicks, snares and toms, a new deeply sampled Punch Kit, expanded acoustic content and a redesigned pattern editor. Here’s what’s new, what’s changed, and why it matters for producers working with acoustic and hybrid drum workflows.

Steinberg Announces Groove Agent 6 With Drum Layering, New Punch Kit And Pattern Editor

Using ADAT To Expand Input Count On Any Compatible Audio Interface If your audio interface has an ADAT port, you may be sitting on eight extra inputs without realising it. ADAT Lightpipe still offers one of the simplest and most cost-effective ways to expand your I/O using external preamps and converters. Here’s what it is, how it works, and how to set it up properly in a modern professional workflow.

Using ADAT To Expand Input Count On Any Compatible Audio Interface

6 Studio Acoustic Treatment Brands Worth Checking Out In 2026 Accurate monitoring is built, not bought. Panels, bass trapping, correction software and virtual room modelling now work together. These six established acoustic treatment brands remain active in 2026 and are widely specified in professional studios and post rooms.

6 Studio Acoustic Treatment Brands Worth Checking Out In 2026