Reverb is simple, right? But sometimes people don’t know the best way to set it up. It’s one of those things you wouldn’t know unless somebody showed you, so here it is.
By the way, this principle applies to you even if you’re not using Pro Tools. It’s the standard “Send/Return” technique for setting up effects like reverb and delay.
Enjoy!
If you’d like to go deeper into understanding how to use reverb and delay, become a VIP member and get access to Understanding Reverb and Delay plus tons of other training videos and a community forum.
An HSC reader over in the UK contacted me for an interview. He’s working on a school project about the music industry and wanted to chat with me about home recording technology and how it’s impacted music as a whole.
During the course of the interview, James was asking about the types of people who visit this website, and what they’re goals and intentions are with recording. As we talked about you, dear reader, James asked an interesting question. He asked if I thought that learning about recording, researching techniques, reading articles, watching videos, etc. could potentially inhibit people from getting better. The answer? Absolutely.
If you’re like me, then a lot of your recording sessions in your studio involve you wearing several different hats. For me, I’m a musician, so I’m always recording myself. The problem is studios tend to be noisy. I like to get as far away from the computer and hard drive as I can. That means moving across the room.
The problem, of course, is that now I’m very far away from the computer. I have to do what I call the “recording dance”, where I scurry back and forth between the microphone and the computer. This gets old really quick.
When you’re in the zone to record, and you’re feeling very creative and musical, it’s no fun to stop, take off your headphones, and walk back over to the computer to stop recording and set up a new take.
This is especially frustrating if you make a mistake two bars into the first song, and you have to stop everything and start over. You’ll find pretty quickly that you’ll lose that “zone” that you were in, and playing the music then becomes a chore.
Graham over at TheRecordingRevolution.com posted a video about how to use your ADAT input on your audio interface. If you haven’t seen it yet. Go over there, watch it, then come back here.
Graham does a fantastic job of explaining this oftentimes confused topic. ADAT is a fantastic way to add an additional 8 microphone inputs to your system. (Also, if you aren’t subscribed to Graham’s site, you need to…seriously.)
ADAT Warning
While using ADAT is a killer way to expand your current rig (whether you own a 002, 003, Presonus Firestudio, etc.). However, whenever you start adding digital devices to your rig, you’re adding another level of complexity.
No, I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t add and ADAT preamp to your rig. (It can be a fantastic way to record drums.) BUT there’s one thing that could happen if you’re not careful. And it causes major headaches.
It happened to me a few years ago, and it happened to a friend of mine recently. More on that in a second.
You want to record to a click track…but you also need the tempo of the song to “breathe” in sections. Did you know you can do both with tempo automation? Check it out:
Give Us Your Input
Can you think of a way you can use this on a project? Leave a comment and share your ideas with the rest of us.
I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again many more times I’m sure, but no matter how good your editing and mixing skills are, your mixes will only be as good as the tracks you record. It’s imperative that you place a high level of importance on making your recorded tracks sound as good as possible.
Speaking from experience, I’m really proud of my album, and I’m excited for you to hear it soon. However, I could have done a better job of getting things right at the source. Those of you who joined Mix With Us have heard the raw audio tracks from the album. The acoustic guitars, in particular, could’ve been recorded a little better. The mics were too close to the guitar, so there’s a lot of unnecessary bass in the raw tracks.
As I mentioned last week, my album is finished, and I’m getting ready to release it in the next couple of weeks. If you’d like a free sample, head over to JoeGilderMusic.com. I’m giving away 3 songs from the album. These were all recorded and mixed in my home studio.
I’m planning some pretty cool things for the album release, so make sure you’re signed up to my newsletter, or subscribed to the HSC RSS feed. More to come soon.
But first, let me share with you some tips for finishing an album. There are a bajillion steps involved in producing any recording project, and today I want to share with you 7 tips that really helped me as I went from “I’m working on my album” to “I’m finished with my album.” I’ll share these over the course of several articles. Enjoy!
1. Finish writing the songs before you start recording them.
As tempting as it may be to start recording a song as soon as you’ve written it, resist the urge. As you probably know, songs aren’t written, they’re rewritten. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written a song, started recording it for a few days, then realized that the song needed some major work. Usually that meant scratching everything I’d recorded.
Today I’ve got a quick video for you where I share four or five little plug-in tricks. These are all things I use all the time, and I thought it would be a shame for you not to know about them. Enjoy!
