This was suggested by kennywtelejazz, and sounds it would be a great addition to the forums. It's based on the Tip of the Week I do for SONAR, but would relate to more general techniques topics like recording, mixing, mastering, getting the most out of plug-ins, whatever. Here's how it works.

• Starting Friday at midnight East Coast time, anyone who has a cool technique can post it. Whoever gets there first is considered as having posted that week's tip. 
• If no tip is posted by Saturday at midnight East Coast time, then I'll post one on Saturday from my archives.

This way there's no pressure on anyone to constantly produce or feel obligated. If someone has something cool, they can post. I'll take care of changing the thread title each week to mention the current tip, and including hot links to the tips on this page.
 
Three more things:

• I've spent a lifetime editing articles, so I hope no one minds if I provide that function here. So for example if English isn't your native language, don't worry about it - I can do some tweaks.
• Please feel free to add screen shots or other artwork. An easy way is to go to imgur.com, upload your image, then link to it using the BB and Forum code.
• We can tweak things as we go along. For example if we have more tips than fit in the once a week schedule, we can modify it or allow for two tips per week or whatever.

Where do we post Craig?  And as it's a first come, first served what happens if we spend half an hour creating a post, post it, and find that when the page refreshes there are five others above it..?

Karyn
Where do we post Craig?  And as it's a first come, first served what happens if we spend half an hour creating a post, post it, and find that when the page refreshes there are five others above it..?

You post in this thread. You create the post in advance, then post it. If the spot has been taken, then post it next week.
 
BUT as mentioned, if we end up getting more posts than slots, we can certainly open it up and just make Friday "post your tips" day. I just assume there won't be giant amounts of participation at first (but then again, I figured I'd be lucky if the "tip of the week" hit 10,000 views). 
 
Also, I did say I'd be happy to edit. You may have noticed I go into the Tip of the Week thread periodically and clear out any comments that don't actually relate to the tips. If someone posts a tip here and it starts generating a major discussion, maybe it should be moved to create its own thread - the object isn't to start discussions, but post tips. And I think as time goes on, this thread will define what a tip is - something with some substance, applicable to at least a decent number of people, and hopefully has some thought put into it.
 
This is an experiment, so we'll see how it pans out. It will likely require course corrections. Remember, the "Tip of the Week" started as a "Tip of the Day" during August that would be left up for one month and then archived into the Cakewalk blog...uh...didn't quite turn out that way. 
 
 

Tip: always use a pop filter. Not to reduce pops - they're actually only so-so at that - but to enforce a minimum distance between your expensive microphone and an unschooled rock screamer's spit-hole.
 
Tip: use Velcro to attach your microphone cables to the stand and gaffer's tape to tape them to the floor. The drummer may have an uncanny ability to synchronize all four limbs, but he'll invariably be the one who trips over the mic cable and brings the boom - and your expensive microphone - crashing to the floor.
 
Tip: you can get a Velcro-like paper tape at the garden department of Home Depot that's intended for tying up tomato plants but works great for keeping cables tidy. It's cheap and you can cut it to any length. You can even write on it, e.g. "L" and "R" for audio cables and "IN"/"OUT" for MIDI cables.
 
Tip: when tidying up those cables, don't get carried away with bundling them all together. Keep power, Firewire and USB cables physically separated from audio signal cables. MIDI cables, you can do anything you want with them.
 
Tip: Plug all of your audio devices into the same physical circuit if possible, and ideally add a separate circuit to the room just for that purpose. When installing said circuit, always use a dedicated ground wire that goes all the way back to the service panel. Never rely on conduit for grounding and don't daisy-chain grounds. And always use grounded plugs - ban ground-lifters from your studio, or at least hide them until they're genuinely needed for the occasional two-wire guitar amplifier. Hum is caused by improper grounding, not the third conductor on the plug.
 
Oh, wait, it's Saturday. Never mind.

Thank Bit!! Great stuff.

Good idea Craig.

Good tips Bit.

Anyone plotting a tip for tomorrow?

Tip of week - Trust your ears
 
With the switch from knobs and faders on "real" gear to data entry boxes and digital readouts on screen it's becoming a trend to do everything by the numbers.  "You should high pass all your guitars at 153Hz" or "Apply a little mid cut at 736Hz"
 
Well here's some news, in the "olden days" you couldn't do that because frequencies weren't marked that accurately on gear but nobody complained because it doesn't matter.   If you're going to high pass a guitar, add the high pass, solo the track, press Play, then turn the knob until you start to hear a loss of bass from the guitar.  Then back it off a bit.  That's it.  Ignore what the frequency setting says.
Listen to the sound, ignore the numbers. If it sounds right, keep it.
 
Don't be afraid to experiment or use "extreme" settings.  They are only extreme if you look at the numbers.. If a control can be turned from full left to full right...  try it.  It doesn't matter if it's a gain control, a filter frequency or an fx depth.  Turn the control, use your ears, listen to what it does. If there's a point where it sounds great, keep it.  You'll soon learn where the "good" settings are, but more importantly you'll learn what a control actually does and how it actually affects the sound.  So next time you need a similar sound you can load up the same FX and turn the knobs to "about here" and you'll have it right away without thinking.
 
Your ears are the most important tool in your mixing arsenal, and they're the one bit of kit that you're forced to use and you can't change them.  So learn to trust them.
 
 
 
 
While I do various bits of studio mixing, my main experience is with live FOH where you get 15 minutes to get a half decent sound from a band you've never heard before in a venue you've maybe never worked in before using gear you've never seen before. (unless you brought your own). Then you get one chance to get it right with no re-takes.  You can only do this by listening.
If you've done your job well, the band gets all the praise. If you mess up, the whole audience turns to you...

Great tip. 
 
The corollary to this tip is listen with your ears, not your eyes.  In other words, it doesn't matter what the wave form looks like on the screen, what the frequency curve looks like in the flyout quad curve eq. or what the meters or indicators show.  It matters what you hear (and what it sounds like).

Good advice Karyn, our ears are the most important piece of audio equipment we have in our mix tool box.