30 Tips for Making Better Recordings
Abstract (summary)
Various
recording tips, divided
into the categories of studio setup, microphone tips, DAW, and mixing, are presented and include: (1) have a well-organized
studio, (2) minimize computer noise, (3) experiment with different mic types,
(4) use mic polar patterns to isolate tracks, (5) record tracks to a dedicated
hard drive, (6) use a high sampling rate only when there is a clearly audible
difference, (7) use a high-pass filter to take out low-end garbage, (8)
document complex mixes in writing, (9) use a digital camera to document mic
placement and gear setups, and (10) use a good direct box when recording a
pickup signal and shape the signal with an equalizer.
Full text
Headnote
Learn how
to set up your studio efficiently, choose and place the best mic, optimize your
DAW, and even fix it in the mix.
RECORDING
IS A LITTLE LIKE JUGGLING- there are lots of balls to keep in the air! You have
to set your gear up properly, place microphones, manage levels, avoid
distortion, make sure there's no noise, etc. And then you still have to pick up
your guitar and give a great performance or the whole thing will be for naught!
Fortunately, there are a lot of things you can do that will make recording
easier and result in better-sounding tracks. Here, we've compiled 30 tips to help you on your way to
recording nirvana, broken down into four categories: studio setup, microphones,
DAWs, and mixing.
1 STUDIO
ORGANIZATION. Keep your rig ready. A well-organized studio has the tools you
need at hand so you can quickly and easily enter the room, turn on the power,
and start creating. Are your microphones nearby, or do you have to dig them out
of a storage box buried in the bot- tom of a closet? Is your audio interface
plugged in to your computer and ready to go? To get organized, set up your rig
as if you were going to record a track - get it ready to go, right up to where
you would hit the Record button. I'll even leave mie cables plugged in to a
preamp and coiled up out of the way, ready to plug into a mie and start
tracking. Now take a look at your setup and figure out how you can organize
your gear and tools so that you can get to this point quickly.
2 CABLE
AND ACCESSORY STORAGE. Store each kind of Hem in separate tubs. There's no way
around it; if you're recording, you're going to need cables. And adapters,
stands, pop filters, direct boxes, a tuner, and a variety of other items. So
what do you do with all of that stuff when you're not recording? In my studio,
I have two medium-size storage cabinets, each with four shelves. I also have a
drawer mounted in one of my gear racks. The drawer holds smaller items, such as
picks, slides, capos, a sound meter, a tape measure, a few commonly used cable
adapters, and so on.
In the
cabinets, I keep gear and software manuals, blank compact discs, stompboxes,
direct boxes, microphones, and several clear plastic tubs with covers. The tubs
I use are designed to hold a pair of shoes for closet organization, but any
similar kind will work. Inside the tubs, I store cables, with a separate tub
for each cable type - short 1⁄4-inch, short XLR, USB, FireWire, and so on. One
tub holds stereo mie bars, mie clips, and other mic accessories. In two larger
tubs I have long 1⁄4-inch cables and long mie cables. I use a label maker to
label each tub, and each cable has its own cable tie, so there are no tangles.
This degree of organization makes it a breeze to find exactly what I need in
seconds.
3 STUDIO ERGONOMICS. Make sure your most-used gear is easily accessible.
Are you constantly bending, slouching, or stretching to reach or see things in
your studio? If so, you need an ergonomie makeover! Place the gear you touch
and view all the time at a convenient height and location. Rarely touch
something? It's a good candidate for the bottom of a rack. Rack lights and task
lighting make it easier to see - I even have lights (those little
battery-powered ones that stick up anywhere) inside my racks to make it easy to
see the cabling.
4
MINIMIZE COMPUTER NOISE. Use a simple enclosure to silence your computer. Many
computers are very loud - internal fans and internal and external hard drives
all add noise. There are several ways to control computer noise when you're
recording. First you could get a quieter computer. (My Apple Macbook is
virtually silent compared to my Mac G5, which sounds like a tractor.) You could
run long cables or use a wireless keyboard or recording remote to get away from
the noise. You could place the computer In a sound-isolating enclosure. In my
previous studio, I built a simple foursided box with a door. When I was
recording, I placed the box over the computer to reduce the noise. When I
finished, I lifted the box off. If you do something like this, beware of heat
build up! Computers need to breathe to stay healthy.
5
ACOUSTIC TREATMENT. Use common household items like curtains and blankets. Good
acoustic-treatment materials can be expensive. If you can't swing the price,
you can improve your room with some common household items. It won't be as good
as the "real thing," but you will get better results than not
treating the room at all. Heavy curtains and blankets, hung with lots of
gathering and folds, will absorb reflections. Soft pillows, soft furniture,
thick carpets, piles of dirty laundry, and similar items will all help deaden a
room. A big chair in a corner will help break up bass build up. Full bookcases
can also provide diffusion.
6 USE A
DIGITAL CAMERA. Document mie placement and gear setups. I constantly use my
digital camera in my studio to document mie placements and gear setups. It's a
lot faster than writing down notes, and it doesn't disrupt the session. Plus,
the digital photos can be stored in the same folder as the song files on your
computer.
7 SIZE
MATTERS. Experi- ment with different mie types. Should you use a large- or a
small-diaphragm mie to record? For vocals - and vocal-like instru- ments, such
as wind instruments - large-diaphragms are the standard. For acoustic guitar,
in general, small-diaphragm mies will give you more detail and clarity while
large- diaphragms will provide a fuller, punchier sound. Having said that,
experiment! Try each type and see which you prefer.
8 MONO MIKING. One mic will give you a tight, punchy track. Should you
use one or two mics on your guitar? The answer depends on the result you want.
For a driving, hard-strummed track in a band context, one mic will create a
tight, punchy sound without taking up too much room in the mix.
9 STEREO MIKING. Use two mics for a complete picture of your guitar. For
a solo guitar track - fingerstyle or picked two mics will give a broader,
deeper, more spacious sound, with width that fills both speakers. Two mics can
also be positioned to capture a more complete "picture" of the guitar
than a single mic can.
10
MULTIPLE-MIC SOLUTIONS. Make sure your tracks are In phase. If you're using
more than one microphone on a source, or if you're recording more than one
instrument at a time and the sound from one instrument is getting into another
instrument's mie, you could have phase issues caused by the different arrival
times of the sound waves at different mies. "Out-of-phase" tracks
have a hollow, empty sound when combined. To fix this, try moving the mies
slightly - even a very small distance can make a big difference. Most mixers
(software or hardware) include a phase-reverse switch for each channel; try it
both on and off. One position will usually sound noticeably better than the
other.
11
TRACKING GUITAR AND VOICE. Use mic polar patterns to isolate tracks. Tracking
someone who plays and sings at the same time can be a real challenge - it's
difficult to isolate the guitar from the vocal so that each can be treated
differently during mixdown. There are several things you can do to increase
isolation between the two. Place the mics as close as possible to the guitar
and the singer's mouth. Take advantage of the mic polar pattern* - cardioid,
figure-eight, hypercardioid; all these mic patterns have "nulls"
where they don't pick up sound well. Try to position the nulls for the guitar
and vocal mics so they aren't picking up the other source. Depending on the song
and performance, I prefer to just go with it - either live with the bleed between the guitar and vocal or
use one well-placed mic pulled back a bit to capture both. The result will be a
natural, "you are there" recording of the performance.
12 GIVE IT
SOME SPACE. Pull your guitar mics back a few feet. No one ever hears an
acoustic guitar from a foot away which is where we often place our microphones.
As listeners, we always hear the Instrument from some distance back in the
room. For most instruments the sound "develops" and comes together a
few feet away from the instrument. With guitar, for example, the main source of
the sound may be the soundboard- though the sound quality will vary depending
on the spot on the soundboard you are listening to. But vibrations from the
neck, back, sides - even headstock- all contribute to the overall sound to some
degree, and a close mic will never capture all that resonance. Try pulling your
mics back a few feet, or use distant mics placed five or more feet away in conjunction
with close mics, to really capture what your guitar sounds like.
13 SONIC REINFORCEMENT. Record a pickup track alongside mic tracks. If a
guitar has a pickup, I always record it to a track, even if I'm using
microphones. I then have the option of blending in the pickup sound (with or
without EQ to shape it) to reinforce the mic tracks.
14 TWEAK
THE PICKUP TRACK. When recording a pickup signal, use a good direct box and
shape the signal with EQ. If you're working with just a pickup (no mics), it
can be a challenge to get a great recorded sound. First, use a good direct box
or instrument input. Consider using something like one of the Fishman Aura
processors, which use digital "images" of real acoustic guitars -
I've done solo guitar recordings using these and had excellent results. Many
listeners couldn't tell I hadn't used a mic! D-Tar's Mama Bear is another
option, because it uses digital modeling to create more realistic acoustic
sounds from a pickup. Otherwise, record the pickup signal dry, then during
mixdown carefully EQ the pickup signal to remove any harsh upper midrange.
Brighten the top end to open up the sound, and shape the bass to be more
realistic. Then, add a small amount of extremely short reverb - 1/10 of a
second or so- to simulate the resonance of the Instrument. You don't want so
much that you hear it as a reverb tail, just enough to add some space and depth
to the pickup sound.
15 CUSTOM
TEMPLATES. Sessions with preset tracks and input assignments will get you
started quicker. Remember tip
No. 1 about making it easy to start recording? The same applies to your DAW.
You can set up your own templates - empty sessions with tracks already created
and assigned to inputs and outputs - so that all you have to do is plug in a
mie, arm the track, and hit Record. That saves time and makes the path from
inspiration to recording much faster and easier.
16 OPTIMIZE YOUR CPU. Disable background programs you don't need.
Computers are complex beasts. Often there is a lot going on that we aren't
aware of. Unfortunately, all of that stuff saps power from your computer's
ability to play tracks and run plug-ins. Go through and disable any background
programs and processes, such as antivirus, backup, and anything else you don't
need that could sap power away from recording and processing audio. In many
cases, you'll be surprised how much recovered CPU power you make available to
your DAW.
17
EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES. Record your tracks to a dedicated hard drive. In most
cases you'll get better results if you record audio tracks to a dedicated hard
drive, rather than to your computer's system drive. With the system drive,
there's always danger of the system interrupting for some reason. Plus, you'll
generally have more room and a faster response with an external FireWire or USB
2.0 drive. You'll also want another external drive for backing up all your files
for safekeeping.
18
RAM-TASTIC. Add more RAM for better performance. The best way to increase your
computer's power is to add more RAM. RAM is the memory that your machine uses
to load the operating system and any programs, as well as data that is being
processed, off the hard drive. In my opinion, 1 GB of RAM is the minimum amount
you should have for basic recording, and I highly recommend at least 2 GB. If
you're running virtual instruments (software synths and samplers), 2 GB is the
minimum, with 4 GB being much better. You'll be surprised how snappy and fast
your computer feels when it has enough RAM to function well. (Always check your
software's minimum system requirements for the amount of RAM the manufacturer
recommends.)
19
SAMPLING RATES. If you can hear the difference with a high sampling rate, use
it. If not, save your hard drive. Should you use a high sampling rate, say, 96
kHz, even if your recording is going to end up as a CD or an MP3? For a rock,
pop, or similar recording, I don't hear much difference. For a solo
steel-string or classical guitar piece or an intimate, acoustic jazz recording
with great mies, preamps, and converters, there may be a subtle improvement.
But don't take my word for it. Try recording the same tracks with high and
standard sampling rates, then compare. If your ears hear a difference, go for
the high rate. If you can't tell which is which, save the hard drive and
computer resources.
20
RESOLUTION. 24-bit is the way to go. While high sampling rates don't make a noticeable
difference for most listeners, using 24-bit resolution (as opposed to 16-bit)
definitely is a must. The extra bits increase the resolution of low-level
signals and increase the overall dynamic range in most cases it's definitely
audible, even if the final recording will end up on a 16-bit CD or as an MP3.
21 IDEAL
INPUT LEVEL. Don't max out your meters. Here's a true secret the best engineers
use for getting better-sounding tracks: turn it down. Most people record with
the input levels far too hot. With a modern, 24-bit DAW, there's no need to max
out the meters on the input channel. Instead, try to record so that the average
level is in the -18 to -14 dB level. This leaves plenty of headroom for
transients and attacks. This is especially Important with drums and percus-
sion - and percus- sive instruments like guitar - but it's a good rule of thumb
to follow with all signals. Don't worry about digital resolution; at -1 8 dB,
you're still getting 21 bits of resolution with a 24-bit recorder.
22 AUDIO HARD DRIVE MAINTENANCE. Periodically reformat your audio drive
(after backing it up, of course). Recording and editing can create a lot of
data and a lot of mess on your audio hard drive. It's a good idea to
periodically back up your data, then reformat the drive to start clean. (Did I
mention backing up? Once you reformat, the data on the drive is gone forever!
Be careful and be sure!) It's also a good idea to periodically defragment and
run a disk-analysis program on your hard drive to make sure it stays healthy.
23 BACKUP
CONSTANTLY. Don't delay, backup todayl Speaking of backing up your data, you're
doing this constantly, right? There's nothing worse than losing irreplaceable
audio and songs when (not "if," when) your hard drive fails.
24 ADD
THUMP. Use a low-past fitter to iso"late the low end on a pickup track. In
tip No. 13, 1 mentioned
that I always record a pickup track along with mies on an acoustic guitar. The
pickup track often gets used to add bass to the overall tone. Apply a low-pass
filter or EQ to remove everything over 150 or 200 Hz from the pickup track. Now
blend the pickup track with the mie tracks to add solid bottom end. This is
especially useful if you're using dropped, low, or altered tunings or if you
have a guitar that doesn't project bass very well.
25 FILTER
OUT SUBSONICS. Use a high-pass filter to take out low-end garbage. Most tracks
recorded with microphones - as well as synth and sampled tracks - have lots of
crap (that's the technical term) down in the very low frequencies, below 40-50
Hz or so. This garbage isn't audible on most speaker systems, but it eats up
headroom and can contribute to muddy mixes.
What I do is apply a high-pass filter to just about every track during mixdown.
Turn on the filter and raise its frequency gradually until you hear that the
bass frequencies you want to keep have gone away. Now back off the filter
frequency just a bit until you can't hear any difference with the filter
bypassed or active. The filter is now removing anything that lives below the
audible range of the track. You'll be amazed how much cleaner the low end will
be on your recordings and how much easier it is to fit bass guitars and kick
drums into the mix.
26 TAKE
CAREFUL NOTES. Document complex mixes
in writing. There's so much going on in the typical mix that it's impossible to keep track of it all. A
nearby notebook is useful for documenting what you're doing. This is especially
important if you're using external processors hooked into your DAW. When I'm
done, I'll quickly type the notes into a text file and save them in a folder
along with all the song files.
27 CHECK
YOUR MIX ON MULTIPLE
SPEAKERS. Different speakers will give you a sense of how your mix will sound outside the
studio. There's no way that one set of speakers can tell you everything you
need to know for your mix
to translate well to every other speaker system (despite manufacturer's claims
to the contrary). I use three sets of speakers in my studio: a highquality,
full-range, balanced-sounding set; a high-quality set that emphasizes the mids
a bit (this really helps with balancing tracks and setting compression); and a
small "consumer-grade" set. This last set helps me get a feel for
what the mix will sound
like outside the studio. I use the same model of the small speakers that are in
my office, which I listen to constantly during the day.
28 TAKE
IT TO THE CAR. Give your mix
the "car test." In addition to listening in the studio on several
sets of speakers, burn a CD of the mix
and take it to your car. Most of us hear a lot of music in our cars and have a
good idea of what that environment sounds like. Every mix must pass the "car test" before I
declare it done.
29 LISTEN
WITH HEADPHONES. Check your tracks for extraneous noises and distortion. I use
headphones at four points in the production process: First, to check raw
recordings for buzzes, extraneous noises, and distortion after tracking.
Second, to double-check any edits I've made to a track to ensure there are no
pops or clicks or strange crossfades at the edit points. Third, during mixing, to serve as a
supplemental reference to my studio speakers. Fourth, during mastering, to do a
final detail check.
30 LIVE WITH IT. Take notes about
potential changes to your mix
as you listen. When I finish a mix,
I'll burn it to CD and listen to it for a few days on as many different systems
as I can. I keep a little notebook with me so I can jot down cryptic shorthand
impressions: "Cym crash loud at 2:31?"; "Soft click at start of
verse 2?"; "Bass boomy chor." Later I'll look through the notes
and make small tweaks to the mix
as required.
BONUS TIP AT THE RISK OF GIVING AWAY
the World's Greatest Secret in the Pro Audio Business, your gear (or lack
thereof) won't determine your success. There are three simple steps to great
recordings:
1. Get a
basic recording system in place.
2. Learn
to use it expertly.
3. Make
sure the performance you are recording is absolutely stellar.
At that
point, there is just one key to making great recordings: Listen.
See the
expanded version of this story at acousticguitar.com
Sidebar
Studio
Setup*
* The
quality of your studio will, to a greater or lesser degree, determine the
quality of your recordings. I'm not talking about the quality of your gear
(even today's budget equipment can make great recordings). I'm talking about
how easy your studio is to use, how efficient it is for getting work done, and
how comfortable you are in it.
Microphole
Tips*
* The
microphone is where it all starts - the sound is never going to get any better
than it docs when it is raptured by the mie. You can tweak it, twist it, slice
it, dice it, and squash it, but the quality of the raw miked sound is essential
to the final results. These tips
will help you optimize your miked signals.
Sidebar
DAW*
* Most
home studios these days are based around computer DAWs (digital audio
workstations), which combine tracking (recording), audio editing, effects and
processing, and mixdown features into one convenient package. These amazing
software tools are superpowerful, but all that power can come with the price of
complexity. Here are some tips
for getting more out of your DAW.
Sidebar
Mixing*
* There's
more to mixing a recording
than just pushing up the faders and hoping for the best. The mixing stage of the recording
process - the point where you combine and blend the various tracks, adjust the
tones, add effects, and so on can be just as creative and vital as the
composing, arranging, tracking, and editing stages.
MITCH
GALLAGHER is the author of more than a thousand articles about music and pro
audio and one instructional DVD on audio mastering. In between recording and
mastering projects in his studio (see his guide to recording on page 64), he is
working on his oft-delayed classical guitar album. Gallagher recently completed
his sixth book, The Music Technology Dictionary (Course Technology). When he
accepted the project, everyone told him, "It'll be the easiest book you've
ever writ- ten," which wasn't accu- rate in the least. He lives with his
wife, Felicia, and their two dogs in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he is the
editorial director for Sweetwater.
Indexing (details)
Narrow
subject
Guitarists, Computer
Hardware, Computer
Software, Recording
Equipment (Audio), Equipment
Selection, Sound
Processing, Digital
Audio Workstations, Mixing
(Recording), Organization, Studio
Design (Recording Studios), Microphone
Placement, Recording
Techniques
Broad
subject
Title
30 Tips for Making Better Recordings
Author
Publication
title
Volume
Issue
Source
details
197
Pages
64-66,
68-70
Publication
year
2009
Publication
date
May 2009
Year
2009
Publisher
String
Letter Publishing, Inc
Place of
publication
San
Anselmo, Calif.
Country
of publication
United
States
Journal
subject
ISSN
1049-9261
Source
type
Magazines
Language
of publication
English
Document
type
Instruction/Guidelines
Document
feature
Photographs
ProQuest
document ID
1487468
Document
URL
http://search.proquest.com/docview/1487468?accountid=144516
Last
updated
2012-09-17
Database
International
Index to Music Periodicals Full Text
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