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

[GuitNGood]

bobby b - I see your point and I am definitely in the stereo pair of speakers category so 5.1 (etc) never even occurred to me. Thanks!

rockabilly69 - I think you've got a great tip there and because I am a one man mixer/engineer/composer/producer/band while recording at home, I try to also remember to look away occasionally from the computer monitor while mixing and/or monitoring as a "check and balance".

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by GuitNGood

rockabilly69 - I think you've got a great tip there and because I am a one man mixer/engineer/composer/producer/band while recording at home.

Clearly, as a solo musician/engineer, you need the TONE TANK.

Bob

[Rick Shepherd]

As a home recording enthusiast:

1.) Sound treatment of your recording space is essential.

2.) Proper mic spacing and placement is essential.

3.) Use a good set of monitors.

4.) Wait a day or two and go back and listen.

5.) Use effects and EQ sparingly, too much can be damaging.

[delaorden9]

Hi guys, I'm in the learning process. Here's what I'm applying to my home recordings:

While recording the guitar (acoustic) always point the mics to the 12th fret. The reason, really can't say but I took this advice from an "expert" around the net and he was right.
Always avoid clipping while recording. This is unrecoverable. You'd better record all over again. Configure your input in a mid term and do not stay too close or even too far from the mic.
I keep a distance of about 70 to 80 cm and a level of volume of 60 more or less.
Voice is a little bit complicated for me. Couldn't find the perfect configuration when it comes to distance and input volume. I'm trying.
The mixing: Always set the main mixer volume to at least -4 db or even more . Then I set the individual tracks to -5db or -6db . This action would give me "room" to apply effects, reverbs, EQ, compressor without the risc of clipping.
Second step I apply a little, just a little compression in the main mixer. This action would transfer this little compression to all channels.
Then is up to each own as to apply reverb, chorus, EQ, limiter etc... individually on each channel.
One thing I have learnt (hope so) is that the limiter is always the last to be applied.

I hope I'm doing the right thing.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by GuitNGood

bobby b - as fate would have it...I am the OP!

Please elaborate on the distinction of discreet L C R vs. L/R with center image.

Thanks,

GNG

Just to clarify a bit further. The term LCR like many terms, has several meanings depending on context.

Originally in Music Audio with the introduction 2 channel stereo, LCR ment simply that in a 2 channel stereo mix, various audio tracks were panned either, hard Left, dead Center, or hard Right. In fact before actual pan pots (panoramic potentiometer) there were simple 3 way switches called LCR's (hence the coining of the term) , that selected only the left output, only the right output, or both outputs which is heard as in the center because of the phantom image effect. This type of panning is still used today and actually still referred to as LCR panning.

Long after the term LCR was being used in the Audio industry to describe a 2 channel mixing technique. The film and post industry with the advent of multi channel sound tracks , started using the term LCR to describe (as bobby b stated ) 3 actual discreet channels. And is often referred to as LCR mixing, however it is probably more accurately and also referred to as 3. or 3.1 mixing. hope this helps