In your recordings in your home studio, are you constantly worried about noise? Be honest, it’s okay if you are.
That is something that I have struggled with my entire recording career. Homes, apartments, houses — they’re just not very quiet. A professional recording studio is acoustically treated and isolated. If you walk into a pro vocal booth, it is dead quiet.
But the question I have for you is this — is that really that important? Here’s what I think: no, not really.
Do you use a LOT of EQ when you mix? Do your EQ curves look something like the picture to the right?
If they do, it’s okay. But what if there was a free EQ that worked much better than any plug-in ever could? Would you use it? Of course you would.
What is this free EQ? I’ll tell you.
Today I want your opinion on something.
What makes a “great recording engineer”? If you hang around recording circles, you hear people talk about folks like Eddie Kramer and Bruce Swedien, who recorded great acts like Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and Michael Jackson.
What made these engineers great? Was it their engineering skills? Or was it the fact that they had the opportunity to record these amazing musicians?
Wouldn’t Jimi have been famous regardless of who set up the mics and hit record?
You’ve heard me talk about “getting it right at the source” before. And you’ll hear me talk about it again and again, because it’s SO important.
The sooner you can get rid of the “fix it in the mix” mentality, the better your recordings will be. This is certainly not a new concept, but it’s something I personally need to be reminded of regularly.
That’s where Ronan Chris Murphy comes in. He posted a video last week on his always-incredible Ronan’s Recording Show where he discussed some interesting things he has learned from his adventures in video recording that apply REALLY WELL to the world of audio.
It’s one of those “light bulb” moments that helps you understand the phrase “get it right at the source” in a whole new way.
Head over to Ronan’s site and watch the video. You’ll be glad you did. Here’s the link: Learning my own audio lessons while shooting video.
(Also, be sure to follow @RonanCMurphy on Twitter.)
When I started recording more seriously, I was spending most of my time in professional studios. Fancy studios are awesome. You’ve got a pretty control room with a big console, patchbay, and couches. You’ve got a nice big tracking room, and you’ve probably got a couple of extra rooms or vocal booths thrown in there.
All this is great. For us home studio folks, chances are the musicians we record are no farther away than the other side of the room. Most of us don’t have the luxury of multiple recording rooms, vocal booths, etc.
While all those rooms are nice, I found that it’s VERY easy to fall into a trap. When you’re setting up to record something, you’re running back and forth from the tracking room to the control room, patching mics to preamps, checking levels, etc. It’s really a lot of fun. Then you turn up the monitors in the control room and start listening to the instrument you just mic’d up.
Happy April Fools Day!!!
In honor of this silly holiday, I’ve put together a silly list for you. Print this up and post it in your studio. 
Here we go:
Got this question today from Alex:
Is it a good idead to add an expander plugin on my vocal track? Could I make an AUX track and use it as a send for my vocals?
I notice how it kills the background noise in my headphones and just really pick up my vocals.
You’re sitting in front of a mix, and you know you need to use some EQ on the guitars to get rid of some of the muddy-ness. You grab your favorite EQ plug-in and get ready to wield your magic.
You use a high-Q boost to find that offending frequency. Now what? Cut it by 15 dB? Sounds like a plan!
Hold on. Easy there, tiger.
This past Saturday night I was hanging out with all of my brand new VIP Members at our very first live VIP Session. During the session I showed them how I would mix a live recording from a concert I played in a few months ago.
