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Recording Engineers Who Don’t Make No Sense

Joe Gilder — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Some things just don’t make no sense.

I interact regularly with lots home studio owners.

And the more I hear from them, the more “don’t make no sense” things I hear.

For example…

People who complain that they can never find any paying clients, but they don’t have a single song in their portfolio to show of their chops.
People who can’t get good mixes, and they blame it on their gear.
Automatically upgrading software, even though there’s nothing wrong with the way the system works now.
Re-recording tracks for a song after buying a new piece of gear.
People who put off a recording project until they get that new microphone (or preamp, or interface).
Being convinced that taking recordings “to the next level” involves another piece of gear.
Complaining about the latest paid software upgrade when there’s no need for an upgrade.
People who justify a new gear purchase as a “business expense,” but dragging their feet on actually pursuing paying clients.
People who would rather argue over samples rates than record some great music.
Asking “What’s the best mic for recording X?” rather than “What’s the best WAY to record X?”

I could probably list 100 more of these.

The point is simply this — what “don’t make no sense” things are you doing?

Are you making excuses? Are you letting silly things like gear get in the way of making huge improvements in the quality of your recordings?

Are you waiting around for a magic pill?

I hate to break it to you, but the FedEx guy will never deliver better recordings. Better recordings happen when you commit to being in the studio and doing the hard (but insanely fun) work to get better…using exactly the gear that you own RIGHT NOW.

Maybe you need a nudge in the right direction.

How can you find clients without experience? How do you get experience without clients? It’s a catch-22, right?

One way is to join MixWithUs.com. I’ll send you one song each week to mix, accompanied by a video showing you how I mixed the song.

Once you’re finished, you have my permission to use these songs in your portfolio to get new clients.

Find out if this is right for you here:

www.MixWithUs.com

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9 Ways to Spend That Christmas Cash

Joe Gilder — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 18:09:44 +0000

If you’re like me, your family hates shopping for you. You’re into all this weird music stuff, and they wouldn’t know where to begin. So your presents consist of envelopes with cash and gift certificates. Your grandmother apologizes for such an “impersonal” gift, but you love it. Now you can get exactly what you want.

Are you unsure what to get? The problem with Christmas cash is that it’s usually not enough to get a $2,000 preamp or guitar, but it’s still enough to get some REALLY handy items for your studio.

Here are some ideas to help you burn a whole in your pocket.

1. Earbuds - This may seem odd for a home studio, but I’ve found myself using earbuds more and more for tracking instruments. Why? Well, for one thing they’re low profile, so I don’t have to have this big old pair of headphones on my head. Secondly, they isolate really well. If you’re worried about headphone bleed, in-ears can cut that down to almost nothing.

Also, just recently I’ve been toying around with using earbuds to find the right mic placement. Since they seal the ear and block out a lot of sound, I can place a mic in front of a guitar amp and move it around, all the while listening to the signal coming through my in-ears. It lets me try 10 different mic positions in just a matter of seconds, honing in on the right placement without having to resort to a bunch of trial and error recordings. Pretty fun stuff.

I own a pair of the Sennheiser IE4′s. Fairly inexpensive and sound pretty decent.

2. Percussion Instruments – Percussion adds so much life to your recordings its unbelievable, but maybe you don’t actually own any percussion instruments. I’d jump on that bandwagon if I was you. For example, you can get a simple tambourine and shaker for under $30. You might also want to check out something like a djembe or a cajón. Each percussion instrument can add a new texture to your mixes and keep them from being boring.

If you want some free cymbal swell samples (my Christmas gift to you) click here.

3. Headstock Tuner - I don’t yet own one of these, but if you record much guitar or bass in your studios, this makes a lot of sense. Sometimes guitarists (especially acoustic guitarists) don’t bring their own tuner, or it’s simply just too much hassle to power it up, find a cable, plug it in, etc.

I’ve heard good things about the Snark tuner, might have to grab one myself.

4. Music Stand - This one’s not very sexy or exciting, but if you’ve ever had to play the “balance the chord chart on my knee while I’m playing guitar” game, you know how lame that is. I’ve never bought a new music stand. I got used here. As long as it works, I’m happy.

5. IKEA Rack - What? IKEA makes racks for your gear? No, but they do make a nightstand that’s EXACTLY 19″ wide and 6U tall. It’s called the Rast. All you need to do is buy that and a pair of rack rails, and you’ve got a nice, solid wood rack for a fraction of what you’d pay at the music store. I bought one and LOVE it.

6. Re-amp Box - This is another item on my “to get” list. I’ve never played around with re-amping, but the possibilities are endless. Want to dirty up that vocal track? Send it out to your guitar amp and record that. Want to add more grit to the direct bass track? Run it through your guitar amp and blend it back in with the DI signal.

There are several re-amp boxes out there, but from the folks I’ve talked to, the $99 ProRMP from Radial works just fine.

7. Headphone Amp - If you have a musician in your studio, are you constantly using a headphone splitter cable so you both can use headphones? That’s silly. Grab a headphone amp. I use the HP4 from Presonus. 4 Channels and it even has a mono button and outputs for your monitors, too.

8. Zen & The Art of Mixing - If you’re the reading type (I got a Kindle for Christmas), I recommend picking up Mixerman’s book Zen & The Art of Mixing. While you’re at it, pick up The Daily Adventures of Mixerman, too. Fun stuff.

9. Don’t forget to invest in YOU

If you’re fairly set on gear this Christmas, may I suggest investing in yourself? Learning how to develop your skills as an engineer is the absolute best way to improve. A truckload of gear won’t make you a better engineer or musician, but learning from others can.

That’s why I’m doing my end-of-the-year sale. You can two of my products for the price of one. The deal only goes through the end of the year. Once the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, the sale is over. Here’s the link with the details:

www.homestudiocorner.com/sale

Kick off 2012 with some great new goodies, and tell us what you got in the comments below!

*Most of the product links above are affiliate links, just so you know.

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Auralex Roominators Project 2 Review [With Audio Examples]

Joe Gilder — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 16:00:27 +0000

I’ve talked about acoustic treatment a lot here on Home Studio Corner. Why? Because it’s one of the most important components of your home studio (if not the most important).

Everything you do in a studio is centered around audio waves, right? We’re in the business of capturing, manipulating, and reproducing audio waves.

While we audio cowboys are in the process of wrangling in these unruly audio waves, they’re bouncing all around our room. The more reflective surfaces your studio has, the more unwieldy the audio becomes.

Acoustic treatment is like Ritalin™ for your studio. Audio waves have ADD. They bounce around the room like crazy until they finally run out of energy…then they do it again.

Okay. Enough analogies.

An Undercover EQ

Regardless of your involvement in audio, whether your a casual hobbyist or a full-time professional, your music has a slim chance of sounding decent if you don’t have acoustic treatment.

As these waves bounce around the room, certain frequencies are boosted. Others are cut. If your studio is untreated, the room itself acts like a graphic EQ gone crazy. 100 Hz might be cut by 19 dB while 250 Hz might be boosted by 6 dB.

Every room is different. No room is perfect. You can never have a perfectly flat frequency response, but you can “flatten” it out with acoustic treatment and tremendously improve the sound of your room.

Reflections Galore

Another big reason to treat your room is to improve the sound of your recordings.

Let’s say you’re recording lead vocals. You could have a $1,000 microphone running into a $1,500 preamp, but if the microphone is in a room with a bunch of bare walls, your recording is going to sound like it was made in a room with bare walls. (Shocking, right?)

The microphone will pick up the direct sound of the vocal, but it will also pick up all of the early reflections as the sound waves bounce off the walls and ceiling and race back to the microphone. By treating your room, you can cut down on these reflections and capture a nice, up-front vocal without building a vocal booth.

Auralex Roominators Project 2 Kit

I’ve been a big fan of Auralex for quite some time. I was planning to purchase a set of their LENRD bass traps and extra foam sometime this year, so when they approached me about reviewing some of their products on HSC, I jumped at the opportunity.

They sent me a few things to review, but today we’ll focus on the Roominators Project 2 Kit.

[Disclaimer: Yes, Auralex gave me the Roominators Kit in return for a review. However, I only review products I believe in. I've turned down similar offers from other manufacturers.]

What’s included?

The Roominators kit comes in two gigantic boxes. It includes the following:

(8) LENRD Bass Traps
(24) Studiofoam 2′x2′x2″ Wedge Panels
(5) tubes of Tubetak Pro Liquid Adhesive

LENRD Bass Traps

I think I was most excited about these. I already owned some Auralex Studiofoam panels, so I had a fair amount of absorption in my room, but I didn’t really have adequate bass trapping. Bass frequencies are the hardest to tame in a studio, because they’re such large waves. Bass traps like the LENRDs go in the corners (where bass likes to build up) and helps absorb them.

Studiofoam Wedge Panels

Like I said above, I had some acoustic foam in my room, but not nearly enough. With these 2-foot by 2-foot panels (each 2 inches thick), I was able to liberally treat my entire studio, rather than cutting corners like I had done before.

I applied them in the following areas (in order of importance):

Directly to the left and right of my monitors – This is probably one of the most important applications. Without treatment here, the sound from your monitors bounces off the side walls and reaches your ears at a slightly later time than the direct signal from the monitors. This slight delay causes the monitors to sound undefined. Placing studiofoam here immediately tightened up the sound of my monitors. They sound tighter, and the stereo image is much wider. (It sounded almost mono before.)
Directly behind my monitors – To prevent sound from reflecting off of the rear wall and interfering with the direct sound of the monitors.
Directly above my monitors – Sound waves bounce off ceilings, too!!
Dispersed evenly throughout the room – After thoroughly treating all the areas above, I still had a bunch of panels left, so I applied them evenly throughout the room.

Tubetak Pro Liquid Adhesive

I didn’t use any of the Tubetak adhesive. I simply used a hammer and small nails to place all the pieces where I want them. Once I’m convinced that’s where I want them, I may glue them to the wall with the Tubetak. Until then, the nails are holding up okay…somewhat.

One thing to note about Tubetak. If you decide to glue your foam to your walls, you shouldn’t use standard adhesive, as these oftentimes eat through the foam. (That’s bad.)

See it in action. You can see exactly how I applied the treatment around my studio by checking out my latest Home Studio Tour video.

The Verdict?

There is an IMMEDIATELY noticeable difference in the sound of the room. It feels much more…”tame.” When I talk or clap my hands, I don’t hear the sound bouncing all around the room anymore. It does a little bouncing, but it quickly dies out.

One thing to keep in mind when applying acoustic treatment – don’t try to cover every square inch of your room. If you do, the room will be TOO absorptive and it’ll feel dead. It’s okay to have some reflections, just not an overwhelming amount.

Mixing

From a mixing standpoint, my speakers sound much more clear. I can hear details in my studio monitors that I could only hear with headphones prior to the acoustic treatment. Also, thanks to the bass traps, my studio has a much better low end. It’s not perfect, there’s still some resonance around 200 Hz or so, but the bass is much more pronounced.

Check this out: adding bass traps to my room actually INCREASED the bass response of my room. (See Low End Woes for more on that.)

Recording

From a recording standpoint, I’ve noticed that my recordings sound much cleaner and “tighter.” I don’t hear quite as much room in my lead vocal tracks. The room just seems quieter, which is always nice.

Play some audio already!!

Want to know what a lead vocal sounds like recorded in a completely untreated room versus a treated room? Of course you do.

The bedroom right across the hall from my studio is almost the exact same size as my studio. There’s a bed in there, but nothing on the walls.

I set up a mic in the guest bedroom and recorded a vocal. Then I set up the same mic (with the exact same settings) in my studio and recorded the vocal again. The audio files are 320 kbps mp3′s, and there’s no EQ or compression on either file.

Each was recorded through a M-Audio Luna microphone into a Presonus Eureka preamp into Pro Tools. I was standing 12 inches from the microphone each time.

The Untreated Bedroom:

[See post to listen to audio]

The Treated Studio:

[See post to listen to audio]

What do you think? Pretty big difference, right? And it totally makes a difference in the mix as well. Once you add compression to that first vocal, the sound of the room gets even louder, and you’ll hear it in the mix. The second vocal? Sits in the mix just fine.

The Auralex Roominator Project 2 Kit currently sells for $599 over at Sweetwater. That’s how much you’d pay for a nice preamp or microphone, which are both great, but neither one will help you make better recordings and better mixes. A properly treated room will make your current gear sound much better.

So…what are your thoughts? Let me know by leaving a comment.

If you want to get rid of the frustration of constantly guessing as to how to acoustically treat your studio, join “Understanding Your Room.”
You’ll get the exact training you need to confidently tackle the acoustical issues in your room. Grab your copy here.

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Acoustic Treatment vs. Digital Room Correction

Joe Gilder — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 22:00:06 +0000

Photo by yimmy149

A while back I had the pleasure of attending a seminar given by Gavin Haverstick
of Haverstick Designs. The topic of the seminar was how to measure the acoustic issues of your room. He talked about various measurement techniques and devices.

All of this was very interesting, but the most fascinating part for me was during the question-and-answer section at the end. Someone in the audience asked Gavin to give his opinion on digital room correction.

Let me take a step back and explain what I mean by “digital room correction.” There are several products on the market now that can tune studio monitors to the room they are in. For example, if the room is causing a boost at 200 Hz, these products will use a digital EQ to attenuate 200 Hz. The end result is (ideally) a flat frequency response.

The way these products go about measuring the room is by using an omnidirectional measurement microphone to “listen” to the room while the system generates white or pink noise through the studio monitors. Since the generated noise has the same amount of energy (or volume) across the frequency spectrum, the system can then intelligently “hear” when certain frequencies are being either boosted or cut by the acoustics of the room.

There are three main products that come to mind that incorporate digital room correction:

JBL LSR 4300 and 6300 series of studio monitors – These are very nice studio monitors with room correction DSP built into the speakers themselves. They ship with a measurement microphone for tuning the room.
IK Multimedia ARC (Advanced Room Correction) System – This is a plug-in designed to be inserted on the master fader of your DAW, just before the audio is sent to the studio monitors. It ships with a measurement microphone, and it stores the room correction settings inside the plug-in itself.
KRK ERGO (Enhanced Room Geometry Optimization) – This is a hardware box designed to go between your audio interface and studio monitors. It employs the same basic principle as the other two options above, but it simply does so in a hardware box, rather than in the speakers themselves or as a plug-in.

The audience member who asked Gavin about room correction actually owns a pair of JBL LSRs, but he has no acoustic treatment in his home studio. He was basically wanting to know if he could “get away with” just using the room correction feature on the speakers without buying any acoustic treatment.

Two Parts of Acoustics

When talking about acoustically treating a room, we need to look at two different aspects of sound. You can’t focus on just one and negate the other. Likewise, correcting one won’t fix the other. Those two parts are the frequency domain and the time domain of sound.

Frequency Domain

This is the most obvious side of acoustics. We’re all searching for this fabled “flat frequency response.” We know that the size and shape of a room contributes significantly to the frequency response of the room. Ergo (forgive the pun), we must address those frequency issues by altering the frequency response at the source.

This is done with some sort of equalizer. In the past, engineers attempted to do this buy using some sort of graphic EQ. They would send the outputs of their mixing console through an EQ, which they tuned by ear, out to their studio monitors.

Today we have very accurate products, such as the once listed above. These digital products can EQ a signal with surgical accuracy, but is that enough?

Time Domain

Sound travels fairly slowly (as opposed to light). It only travels at around 1,130 feet per second. We’ve all experienced this. Two football players hit each other on the other side of the field, and you hear the sound of the collision slightly after you see it.

While it’s not as obvious, the same thing happens in a studio environment. The sound leaves the speakers and bounces around the room. The problem is this. To accurately hear studio monitors, you need to hear them by themselves, without any reflections from the room.

This is why manufacturers measure their speakers in an anechoic chamber, a room that allows for no reflections.

If we are in a large enough room, we can clearly hear the direct sound from the speakers and differentiate that from the delayed sound that is bouncing off of the back wall. However, in most home studios, the room is fairly small, and most reflections happen rather quickly.

Our brains aren’t capable of distinguishing between these early reflections and the direct sound from the monitors. In fact, according to Gavin, any sound that reaches our ears within 50-80 milliseconds of the original sound gets interpreted by our brain as the original sound.

For example, if you have your studio monitors in front of you, and you play a snare drum through them, you’ll first hear the direct sound of the snare. A few milliseconds later your ears will hear the sound after it bounces off the walls to your left and right and also the ceiling above you. Since the walls and ceiling are fairly close, your brain will combine these early reflections with the original sound.

The result? Well, let me ask you this. What if you took a snare track in Pro Tools, duplicated it, and delayed the second track by a few milliseconds. What would you hear? The two tracks would be out of phase with one another. Whenever signals are out of phase, all sorts of issues occur, such as comb filtering (where certain frequencies get cancelled out).

The difference in sound will be rather subtle, but imagine this difference across an entire mix! All those frequencies will be reaching your ear at slightly different times. The result? A very fuzzy mix with little detail.

Conclusion

The problem with digital room correction is that it only addresses the frequency domain. Depending on the room, they may do a rather good job. However, if your room is causing a 30 dB cut at 100 Hz, these digital systems won’t be able to fix this. Most of them can only boost the signal by something like 6 dB, which isn’t enough to cover the 30 dB lost by your room acoustics.

As far as the time domain goes, I think it’s obvious to note that no amount of EQ will fix this problem.

I’ve used both acoustic treatment and the IK Multimedia ARC system. My findings? I heard an immediate difference as soon as I put up some acoustic foam to the left and right of my speakers. The sound was instantly tighter and more defined. With ARC, there was a difference, but it wasn’t as dramatic.

The goal of this article is not to sway you from digital correction products. They can be a valuable tool in helping create an accurate mixing environment. I love the JBL LSR monitors. They sound amazing, even without any room correction. Digital room correction, when added to acoustic treatment, can be very effective. However, nothing…I repeat nothing…can replace the need for acoustic treatment.

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Photoshop and Pro Tools

Joe Gilder — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:00:00 +0000

I just got back from a family vacation to the beach. As with any event involving babies, there were a LOT of pictures taken.

My wife and I have a decent little point-and-shoot camera. I think it’s called a DSLR. You can’t change out lenses or anything, but it’s got a lot of the features of the nicer, more expensive cameras.

My sister-in-law, however, has a nice SLR camera. On top of that, she recently bought a really nice $500 lens for it.

Our camera takes nice pictures.

Her camera takes GREAT pictures.

Okay, Joe, this is a recording blog…where are you going with this?

We can all appreciate a good photograph. It doesn’t take a lot of “eye training” to be able to see the beauty of a good picture.

Want better pictures? Get a better camera.

When I look at pictures from my camera, they look okay, but my sister-in-law’s pictures are noticeably better. It would be silly for me to buy Photoshop and work for hours trying to get my photos to look like hers. That’s just silly, right?

Isn’t that what we do with audio? We convince ourselves that that a new piece of software will fix our crappy recordings? I talked about this the other day. (See Unhappy with Your Mixes?)

Photoshop Is Not Magic

…and neither is Pro Tools…or that Waves bundle. If I take crappy pictures, Photoshop won’t make them awesome.

In the same way, if I record sub-par, bad-sounding audio, I’m a fool to think I can fix it later with fancy software.

Is my sister-in-law a better photographer than I am? Absolutely. She knows all those camera features that I know nothing about. So is it possible that I can get the same results with my camera if I put in more effort to work on my technique?

Sure.

But is it also possible that her camera is simply superior and will always take better pictures? Yep.

Don’t underestimate skill, practice, knowing your craft. But also don’t assume that cheap equipment will be just as good as its higher-end counterpart.

The Environment Matters

I mentioned this a couple months ago in an article where I pointed you to Ronan’s Recording Show, where he made the excellent point that a big part of what makes a video/photograph good is the source and the lighting.

Surroundings matter, whether you’re taking photographs or recording a vocalist. Good equipment is certainly necessary. A good room is JUST as necessary.

What do you think? Have you ever thought about audio in terms of photography?

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3 Ways to Kill Your Monitors’ Stereo Image

Joe Gilder — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Home studios aren’t perfect.

In a perfect world, your home studio would be designed by a professional. You’d have a great-sounding control room, a couple of tracking rooms, and a nice, quiet vocal booth.

Raise your hand if your control room, tracking room, and vocal booth are all the same room. (Joe quickly…and sheepishly…raises his hand.)

That’s the reality we face. We’re weekend warriors, home studio recordists. Hobbyists. We’ve got to make the best of what we’ve got.

One of the casualties of a less-than-perfect room is your studio monitors’ stereo image. What’s stereo image? Simply put, it’s how wide your music sounds, coming out of your monitors.

As you might have guessed, your room (and the stuff IN it) plays a big role in how good your monitors sound. It can also severely effect the stereo image.

To be a bit tongue-in-cheek today, I’ll share with you 3 ways to KILL your monitors’ stereo image.

If you’re into bad-sounding music, by all means do the steps below. The rest of you should avoid them.

1. Don’t acoustically treat the side walls

One of the easiest and quickest improvements I made to my monitors’ stereo image was when I placed some simple absorption on the side walls (to the left and right of the speakers).

IMMEDIATELY I could hear things much more clearly. It was almost as if I was listening in mono before. Wild.

2. Place obstructions next to the monitors

One of my readers, Binu, commented a while back on my home studio tour video. He said:

Hi.. Joe.. nice arrangements. Please put your rack into floor, I think it will obstruct the sound from your monitor.

By the time I read that, I had already figured it out, but he was absolutely right. I had my equipment rack to the right of my mix position. It was obstructing the sound waves from being absorbed by the treatment I had placed on the side walls.

The results was an off-center stereo image. Everything sounded like it was panned slightly to the left. (Talk about ANNOYING.)

I moved the rack back behind the monitors, and everything was good again.

3. Don’t center the monitors

You’ve got no chance of a good stereo image if you don’t center your monitors along the wall in your room. If they’re in the corner, forget about it. You’ll never get a clear stereo image.

Which of these tips are you going to apply to your studio TODAY?

[Photo Credit]

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Is Expensive Gear Worth the Money?

Joe Gilder — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 15:00:00 +0000

You heard me talk about gear acquisition syndrome or GAS before. It’s not a new term, and it’s not something we don’t all deal with.

You’ve also heard me say that it’s much more important to use the gear that you currently own to its fullest extent before going out and buying more equipment. At some point though we all inevitably ask the question, Is expensive gear worth the money?

It’s a valid question. There are lots of really cool expensive pieces of gear out there. And they wouldn’t exist if someone wasn’t buying them. So the real question is are they necessary?

As with most things in recording, the answer is it depends.

Let me share with you three steps to take before considering buying a new piece of equipment. This is a good idea if you’re just starting out or if you’ve been recording for 20 years.

1. Drive your gear into the ground.

I don’t like to buy new cars. When I do buy a car I plan to own it for a long time. The goal is to drive it until the wheels fall off and then buy a new car.

Think of your recording equipment in the same way. You should use that equipment until it dies before considering buying new equipment.

I don’t mean that literally. What I am saying is that you need to use your gear so much that you truly understand all the subtle nuances of every piece of equipment that you own. Constantly buying near gear inhibits you from really learning the gear that you currently own.

2. Identify the real problem.

What are you unhappy about in your studio? Is it the equipment or perhaps is the problem you? You need to spend more time practicing, more time learning proper technique. All the gear in the world won’t help you with that.

3. Buy what will have the greatest impact.

If you need to buy one piece of equipment, buy the piece of equipment that will do you the most good.

Acoustic treatment is a great example. It will make everything sound better.

A good microphone pre amp will make all of your microphones sound better.

So those are three steps to help you think through a new gear purchase. How do you go about purchasing new equipment?

[Photo Credit]

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Send/Return Fun with Presonus Firestudio Project

Joe Gilder — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:00:00 +0000

I’ve got a recording session coming up soon with a fairly well-known bass player around Nashville.

As far as I know, he’ll want to record direct. What I’m planning to do is something I’ve not done before, but I’m fairly excited about.

I recently bought a Presonus FireStudio Project for my studio. It’s a simple, one-rack space interface with eight microphone inputs. One of the unique features of FSP is that the first two channels can be either microphone or instrument inputs.

Not only that, they also have balanced send and return jacks on the back which allow me to send the signal off to another piece of equipment and bring it back in before it hits the converters. This is really cool and I’ve only seen this on Presonus products.

So here’s what I’m planning to do: I’ll plug the bass directly into input number one, then use the send to send that signal to my Alesis 3630 compressor. The 3630 is a fairly cheap compressor, but it often times sounds pretty good on bass.

From here, rather than sending the signal back into channel one on the return, I’ll send the output of the 3630 into ANOTHER input on the interface. What this does is allows me to record both signals — a direct signal from the bass and also the compressed signal from the Alesis — on separate channels in my DAW.

Why would I do this? Well, three reasons:

1. Nice tight sound for tracking.

The bass player wants to hear himself as close to how he will sound in the mix as possible, so having a nice compressed sound just for listening back can be beneficial.

2. Two options for mixing.

Having two tracks there gives me flexibility when it comes time to mix tracks. I can use the compressed signal, I can use the dry signal, or a combination of both.

3. Potential awesome discovery for the future.

Let’s say I find the perfect setting on the 3630 for bass. In the future, I can go back to that setting, record that whenever I record bass. That way, I’ll have a nice compressed bass sound and won’t have to use compression during midown.

So do you have any fun tricks that you do in your studio with analog equipment?

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Do I need a mixer?

Joe Gilder — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Recently someone emailed me asking what the “best” mixer was for his home studio.

I replied back and asked him, “Are you sure you even NEED a mixer?”

People get hung up on the fact that a recording studio needs a mixer, or a console. Back in the analog days, of course this was true. You needed some way to play back all those tracks from the tape machine.

Nowadays, though, a lot of the big studios may still have a big console sitting in the control room, but there’s a good chance they’re mixing everything in the box and only using two channels on the entire console.

Here are a few thoughts on mixers in your home studio:

Mixers Can Be Redundant

Your DAW already has a mixer. You know those faders in the mix window? Yeah…that’s a mixer. All your volume adjustments can be done within the software…AND they can be saved with your session. You can’t do that with a mixer.

Your DAW also has EQ, and unless you bought a really nice mixer, the EQ in your DAW probably sounds better. Again…redundant.

Mixers Don’t Need a Computer

This is actually a good point. If you like to just play your instruments, drum machines, keyboards, guitar effects processors, but you DON’T want to have to fire up your computer to do it, you can just run ‘em all into a mixer and go to town.

Even if you just want to listen to music from an iPod or CD player…or vinyl…you can run it through a mixer to give you level control and some basic EQ, etc. No computer needed.

Mixers vs Control Surface

Something can be said for having something you can feel and touch. Using a knob to EQ is certainly more intuitive than dragging a knob on a computer screen. Some people simply hate making fader moves with a mouse, and I can understand that.

For people like that, a mixer might be the perfect thing, but remember…you still need an audio interface. Perhaps a control surface would make more sense, something that’s physical, but still controls the software. That way you don’t have to “reset” the board every time you pull up a new session.

As you can tell, there are plenty of reasons to use a mixer…or not use a mixer. You’ve just got to decide for yourself what suits your personality and workflow. Do you like the idea of summing your signal on an analog board? Of turning knobs and using something physical? Then by all means go for it!

Just remember that a mixer is a necessity as much as it is a luxury.

Okay, so spill the beans…do you have a mixer in your studio?

[Photo Credit]

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How to Instantly Double How Many Mics You Own

Joe Gilder — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Do you own a BUNCH of microphones? More than you can count? Me neither. Let me share with you an easy way to double…or even triple, how many “mics” you own.

I was recently listening to The Home Recording Show – Episode 119, and Matt McGlynn did a fantastic job bringing attention to the fact that microphones have very different frequency responses when the signal is off-axis.

What is off axis? Well, it simply means the that the microphone is not pointed directly at the source. (If you’re miking a snare drum, the high hat will be off axis).

The off-axis frequency response of microphones can be very different from their on-axis response. What does this mean for you?

Learn what your microphone sounds like both on AND off axis.

Generally speaking, when the source is on-axis, directly in front of the microphone, the frequency response is the most flat…or at least the “widest.” When you move the source towards the side of the microphone, you can still hear the source, but it sounds different…oftentimes the high frequencies drop off, and the sound becomes darker.

For example: Have you ever seen someone mic a guitar cabinet with an SM57 angled instead of pointing straight at the cab? The engineer was likely going for a more colored, darker, off-axis sound.

Is the signal too bright? First try a new mic placement. If that doesn’t work, try an off-axis placement. It’s like a natural EQ (and it’s a great way to get it right at the source, without needing to reach for drastic EQ later).

One Mic – Lots of Sounds

As you can imagine, every microphone creates VERY different sounds. One mic could sound completely different when miking directly on axis, then 20 degrees off axis, then 45 degrees off axis. For all you know, you could have three different microphone sounds in ONE MIC.

I don’t know about you, but that’s really valuable information for me and my small collection of mics.

It’s like having multiple microphones!

If you have 3 mics, now it’s like you have 6 or 9…because each mic has its own unique off-axis coloration. Next time you’re recording something, whether it’s a bass cab or a lead vocal, try angling the mic a few different ways. Take an extra 5 minutes to have the singer sing into the different angles of the mic.

You may find a magical combination that you would have never found with the typical “on-axis” approach.

Do you play around with off-axis miking?

[Photo Credit]