Sound Like A Pro
Recording for the first time can be an intimidating process for a beginning artist, especially in the wake of a music industry that has more competition for a smaller market share. Your first recording, or demo CD, is an important tool for marketing your music. If produced with skill, your demo CD can recruit new fans, land some high-profile shows, and attract record label interest. Patience is paramount when taking on this great challenge. Some tips and tricks can go along way, especially if you are your own producer, engineer and studio manager on a budget.
Once a song is first penned, ensure the melodic content and rhythm structure are tightened up with practise before heading to the studio, like the pros say, “There never can be too much pre-production.” When are tracking always remember, “Bad in, worse out,” which means you can’t polish up bad tracking in the mix (without a major headache and empty wallet), so spend the extra time getting the best tones and levels during the first essential steps of recording the foundation of your song, the “scratch tracks.”
Scratch tracks are recorded primarily to capture the rhythm section and “feel” of a song. When setting up for scratch recording, make sure there is acoustic separation between all performing musicians. The drum tracks are given special consideration during this step—the drum tracks from scratch recording almost always make it to the finished product. To achieve the cleanest audio to tape, choose a recording environment that has minimal echoes and ambient noise. Ensure the kick drum, snare and hi-hats have been miked closely with the mic facing away from the other drums—There are many resources online to guide this task of precision. Experimenting with mic placement is key for discovering the “sweet spot” on each drum for the first time.
After reviewing test recording and confirming that all the tones are sitting in their right places, record enable all of the tracks and run through the song as many times as necessary, just make sure you don’t run out of tape! Don’t fret if the guitar misses a note, or the vocals drift out of key, your main focus when recording the scratch tracks is to ensure the rhythm section is sounding pristine. Once this is achieved, its time to move on to the “overdubs”.
Overdub recording is the process of re-tracking over scratch tracks by correcting imperfections with small segments of “punch ins,” or replacing the whole track altogether. Recording layers of overdubs can add incredible depth and complexity to a song; it can fortify tones with reinforcement or add new musical elements. A great starting point is to layer the vocals and guitars phrasing them slightly different so they sound full and complex. Now the song is getting cluttered with all the new tracks, this is when the mixing process can carve out some of the muck and let the tonality shine through.
Mixing is a technical art form that takes years of critical listening and experience to execute professionally. If you are going to spend money on your record, this is the area to invest in the assistance of a professional. There are many points of reference that almost always take a certain treatment in the mix, but at the end of the day you need to know what to add or subtract to make the song most euphonic to your ears. As a beginning producer, it is beneficial to ask yourself why certain elements in the mix sound imbalanced before touching the board, this will slowly train your ears.
A great analogy for audio mix theory is imagining a chest of drawers, each drawer can only hold so much content, if one drawer is overflowing and the other is empty it will be out of proportion. The goal when mixing is to get a balanced spread of musical content in each drawer, the drawers representing frequency bandwidth. Let your ears make the critical decisions as you sweep with the equalizer on the soundboard, go through each track and slightly subtract the frequencies that sound too loud. Experiment with other plug-ins like compressors and reverbs, but don’t let your song get too “busy” with effects. When the mix is set and everything is sounding balanced and full, add a plug-in called a “limiter” on the main-mix output to tame the levels for CD quality.
These production tips are the very basic steps to recording your first demo CD. It takes years of practise and perseverance to train your ears to listen critically. I recommend reading further into microphone placement and mixing techniques. Not every engineer follows the rules, but you must know the rules first, to break them with confidence.
Recording for the first time can be an intimidating process for a beginning artist, especially in the wake of a music industry that has more competition for a smaller market share. Your first recording, or demo CD, is an important tool for marketing your music. If produced with skill, your demo CD can recruit new fans, land some high-profile shows, and attract record label interest. Patience is paramount when taking on this great challenge. Some tips and tricks can go along way, especially if you are your own producer, engineer and studio manager on a budget.
Once a song is first penned, ensure the melodic content and rhythm structure are tightened up with practise before heading to the studio, like the pros say, “There never can be too much pre-production.” When are tracking always remember, “Bad in, worse out,” which means you can’t polish up bad tracking in the mix (without a major headache and empty wallet), so spend the extra time getting the best tones and levels during the first essential steps of recording the foundation of your song, the “scratch tracks.”
Scratch tracks are recorded primarily to capture the rhythm section and “feel” of a song. When setting up for scratch recording, make sure there is acoustic separation between all performing musicians. The drum tracks are given special consideration during this step—the drum tracks from scratch recording almost always make it to the finished product. To achieve the cleanest audio to tape, choose a recording environment that has minimal echoes and ambient noise. Ensure the kick drum, snare and hi-hats have been miked closely with the mic facing away from the other drums—There are many resources online to guide this task of precision. Experimenting with mic placement is key for discovering the “sweet spot” on each drum for the first time.
After reviewing test recording and confirming that all the tones are sitting in their right places, record enable all of the tracks and run through the song as many times as necessary, just make sure you don’t run out of tape! Don’t fret if the guitar misses a note, or the vocals drift out of key, your main focus when recording the scratch tracks is to ensure the rhythm section is sounding pristine. Once this is achieved, its time to move on to the “overdubs”.
Overdub recording is the process of re-tracking over scratch tracks by correcting imperfections with small segments of “punch ins,” or replacing the whole track altogether. Recording layers of overdubs can add incredible depth and complexity to a song; it can fortify tones with reinforcement or add new musical elements. A great starting point is to layer the vocals and guitars phrasing them slightly different so they sound full and complex. Now the song is getting cluttered with all the new tracks, this is when the mixing process can carve out some of the muck and let the tonality shine through.
Mixing is a technical art form that takes years of critical listening and experience to execute professionally. If you are going to spend money on your record, this is the area to invest in the assistance of a professional. There are many points of reference that almost always take a certain treatment in the mix, but at the end of the day you need to know what to add or subtract to make the song most euphonic to your ears. As a beginning producer, it is beneficial to ask yourself why certain elements in the mix sound imbalanced before touching the board, this will slowly train your ears.
A great analogy for audio mix theory is imagining a chest of drawers, each drawer can only hold so much content, if one drawer is overflowing and the other is empty it will be out of proportion. The goal when mixing is to get a balanced spread of musical content in each drawer, the drawers representing frequency bandwidth. Let your ears make the critical decisions as you sweep with the equalizer on the soundboard, go through each track and slightly subtract the frequencies that sound too loud. Experiment with other plug-ins like compressors and reverbs, but don’t let your song get too “busy” with effects. When the mix is set and everything is sounding balanced and full, add a plug-in called a “limiter” on the main-mix output to tame the levels for CD quality.
These production tips are the very basic steps to recording your first demo CD. It takes years of practise and perseverance to train your ears to listen critically. I recommend reading further into microphone placement and mixing techniques. Not every engineer follows the rules, but you must know the rules first, to break them with confidence.
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