Your best home recording tips/advice/wisdom...

[GuitNGood]

Just had the thought that perhaps we could post a formal list of home studio tips/advice/wisdom we've all picked up along the way.

For example, a great "light bulb" moment for me was learning that a high pass filter was just another way of saying cut the lowest frequencies out of a recorded sound so that, for example, you hopefully won't hear the delivery truck driving by your house as you triumphantly strum the last chords of your recorded masterpiece.

It's also a good way to carve out unnecessary frequencies that can otherwise muddy a mix of instruments.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by GuitNGood

Just had the thought that perhaps we could post a formal list of home studio tips/advice/wisdom we've all picked up along the way.

For example, a great "light bulb" moment for me was learning that a low pass filter was just another way of saying cut the lowest frequencies out of a recorded sound so that, for example, you hopefully won't hear the delivery truck driving by your house as you triumphantly strum the last chords of your recorded masterpiece.

It's also a good way to carve out unnecessary frequencies that can otherwise muddy a mix of instruments.

Much has been covered several times over so you might spend some time looking over prior threads. What might be helpful to you is to post a clip or two for critique (advise ).

[heavyg]

Doug Young's article on recording in this months issue of acoustic guitar magazine..

[GuitNGood]

rick-slo - I was suggesting a "sticky" thread at the top of this forum perhaps.

Yes the search feature is always an option.

GNG

[Bob Womack]

Learn the art of subtractive EQ and learn to spot situations that need it. Why? Every bit of additive EQ you do uses up headroom where subtractive EQ removes energy and allows the overall signal to be boosted. Quite often the easiest thing to do is to crank up an adjacent band of frequencies for clarity but often the real problem is a bulge of unnatural frequencies or resonances that need to be reduced and are hiding an otherwise nice sounding signal.

Bob

[GuitNGood]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

Learn the art of subtractive EQ

That's a great one Bob! Proper EQ can be more effective than fader riding.

[wcap]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

Learn the art of subtractive EQ and learn to spot situations that need it. Why? Every bit of additive EQ you do uses up headroom where subtractive EQ removes energy and allows the overall signal to be boosted. Quite often the easiest thing to do is to crank up an adjacent band of frequencies for clarity but often the real problem is a bulge of unnatural frequencies or resonances that need to be reduced and are hiding an otherwise nice sounding signal.

Bob

Having recently struggled with muddy sounding recordings (that sounded great through headphones, but then sounded awful through bigger speakers), this is really useful advice.

[redavide]

Here's a pretty good tip -- read this "RECORD" subforum regularly and you'll find a lot of really useful information.

[bobby b]

Advice......hmmmm

Dont mix with headphones.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

Learn the art of subtractive EQ and learn to spot situations that need it. Why? Every bit of additive EQ you do uses up headroom where subtractive EQ removes energy and allows the overall signal to be boosted. Quite often the easiest thing to do is to crank up an adjacent band of frequencies for clarity but often the real problem is a bulge of unnatural frequencies or resonances that need to be reduced and are hiding an otherwise nice sounding signal.

Bob

[Rudy4]

The Zen of Home Recording:

1. Quick and dirty is better than over-thinking a project to the point that it never gets done.

2. When working out the details for a new recording idea don't be so heavenly bound you're no earthly good.

3. Fun trumps serious work any day.

4. Remember that in the grand scheme of things the entire process and results are ephemeral, so just dive in!

[louparte]

Mix it to sound good on crap laptop speakers.
If it does - you've probably got a good mix.

If you can't get it to sound good on crap laptop speakers, start ditching parts of your orchestration until it does.

[Berny]

Can I get some recommendations on this thread for a puter prog. to start messing with recording some of my stuff? I'm completely amature [some buscking] and simply want to learn.
Running backing tracks would be useful too. Any help here?

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

Learn the art of subtractive EQ and learn to spot situations that need it. Why? Every bit of additive EQ you do uses up headroom where subtractive EQ removes energy and allows the overall signal to be boosted.

Naw that's just not true Bob. Virtually every software (and 99.9%) of hardware units, that's of course including eq's, compressors, limiters, reverbs, delay's and well.... you name it, have input and output structures designed specifically to address that very situation.. If you're boosting frequencies in an eq section and didn't intend to increase the gain structure it's incumbent on the engineer to compensate at that stage. In this case the eq. Using the Pro Tools eq (as a recognizable example) there is a comparative input and output LED ladder stacked upon each other. At the end of the LED ladder there's both an input and output gain adjustment stage. The ladders are there for a quick glance at what the eq is doing to the gain stage comparative to the original. If a device introduces gain and you didn't intend for it to introduce gain...adjust it at the plug-in level. In fact in any DAW the single most easily overloaded devices are plug-ins. Digi has always preached the "control overloads most judiciously at the plug-in level. The same thing of course applies for subtractive eq. If you've altered the gain stage (in this case lowered) by inserting a subtractive eq setting, the correct move (if you didn't intend to lower the gain) is adjust it at the output stage of the plug-in. I'd never shy away from any technique (like additive eq) because it eats up head room. If in fact it does eat up head room the engineer ain't doin his/her job. In all of this mixing levels are best served at the "fader" stage of the gain journey and a savvy engineer will be fairly diligent to make sure any bus routes maintains that level of unity at grand efforts.


This goes hand in hand with the continuing mis-use of compressors and limiters. By and large (and particularly if there's a make-up gain circuitry built in) simply inserting a compressor can make the gain structure bump. The knee jerk reaction is always; things that are louder initially sound better. The correct use (at least most of the time) is to re-adjust the gain stage so the compressor does it's intended chore without adding the misleading component of "more gain".

In the end I'm adamantly opposed to the web forum wives tale mind-set that subtractive eq is the correct way for folks to use eq. That is patently false. The truth is a practical, sound, fundamental understanding of both gain staging and eq makes subtractive and additive eq an equally vital tool for anyone mixing audio.

[Luke W]

Think more about the space you're recording in than the equipment you're recording with. An average mic and pre in a nice sounding space will give you a better result than a high end mic and pre in a bad sounding space.

Definitely something thats overlooked by a lot of people.