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.

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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.

Stop Reading This Website

The truth of the matter is this. If you love recording and music, then of course you’re going to soak up as much information as you can. It’s your passion, and it’s something you want to do well, so naturally you gravitate towards places online that are going to help you do that.

Here’s the problem. I can write another 500 posts here on HSC — heck, I can (and most likely will) write another 5,000 posts — and you know what? You could still be in the same place you are now, even after soaking in all that information. Why?

Because reading will never make you better.

Alright, pack it up, folks. Joe’s lost it. He’s telling people that his website can’t help them He’s turning people away by the thousands.

Not quite. But as much as I would like you to read ever blog post I write, watch every video I publish, and buy every product I release, I don’t want you to if you’re not going to actually APPLY the things you learn.

The Big Secret

That’s the big secret, that’s the part you ignore as you read the next article or fire up the next podcast. You feel like you’re getting better. And you’re certainly cramming your head full of knowledge, but is any of that making its way into your studio? Into your music?

If not, you need to re-calibrate and just go make some music for a while. Shut off the internet for a week and go to your studio. I’ll still be here when you come back.

It’s harder than you think. A few weeks ago at the Simply Recording Academy, one of the big takeaway points that I heard a lot of the guys talking about was that they had heard of all of these concepts, like “get it right at the source,” and “use a high-pass filter a LOT,” but it took them actually SEEING and DOING it for it to sink in and become REAL.

That’s what I want for you. My goal is to help you make better recordings, and if that means kicking you in the butt and telling you to turn off the web browser, then so be it.

You working in your studio…that’s where the rubber meets the road. Make it happen. And leave a comment to tell us about it.

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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.

There are a few possible solutions to this. Over the last few years, there have been at least a handful of wireless transport control products on the market. Frontier Designs made one called The Tranzport. I don’t believe it’s for sale anymore, but it was essentially a wireless transport control that allowed you to start and stop playback and do a few other functions wirelessly.

Another solution is a very cool product from Presonus called The FaderPort. The FaderPort is great because it allows you to have volume control with the fader and also all the transport controls you need for recording. The one problem is that it’s not wireless. That’s not a huge problem. All you have to do is get a very long USB cable and place the transport next to you at the recording position.

Now you have the transport controls right there, within arms’ reach to start recording, stop recording, or do whatever else you need to do without having to get up.

The only problem with that solution is that you have to run a cable all the way across the room to the recording position while recording. Then you have to run it back to your mix position when you want to use the fader port for mixing and other things.

My solution.

Here’s what I do. When I bought my iMac, it came with a wireless keyboard. It’s not a full-size keyboard. It doesn’t have the number pad to the right-hand side, so it’s fairly small. I used this for a while, but, if you do a lot of work in Protools or any DAW, you know that there are shortcuts that you can use with the number pad on the right-hand side of the keyboard.

Since this wireless keyboard didn’t have that, I eventually broke down and bought a full-size USB keyboard for the iMac. That left me with a very handy wireless tool. Now, whenever I record across the room, I simply turn on my wireless keyboard and carry it with me to the recording position.

Since I know all the shortcuts, I can quickly and easily start and stop recording. If I mess up an intro in protools, I simply hit Ctrl-period. That stops recording and I can press Cmd-Spacebar to restart recording again. It’s very handy and saves me a lot of time, since I’m not bouncing back and forth from the chair, back to the computer, and then back to the chair.

What do you think? Leave a comment below, and let us know how you deal with the problem of being an engineer and a musician.

[Photo Credit]

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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.

Quick Clocking Overview

I’m not going to bore you with all the details of clocking digital devices. You simply need to know the basics so you don’t end up with jumbled digital mess.

All digital devices work at a particular “speed.” This is known as the “sample rate.” When you start connecting digital devices together (using digital connections like ADAT, AES, S/PDIF, etc.), they all need to be running at the same sample rate, or you’ll have issues.

As Graham mentioned in his video, once he connected the ADAT device to his 002, he made sure both devices are set to the same sample rate (I do everything at 44.1 kHz). Simple, right?

Another tip about digital devices – only one device can be the “master.” All the others need to be the “slave.”

In Graham’s example, either the 002 or the Behringer unit needs to be the master. There are two ways to sync up digital devices: through the digital signal itself (ADAT, AES, S/PDIF all allow for this) OR through a BNC wordclock connection. Since the 002 doesn’t have a wordclock connector, Graham has to clock the 002 to the Behringer through the ADAT cable.

Graham shows us how to do this in his video.

When Things Go Wrong

So far, we’re good. The 002 is clocking off of the Behringer via ADAT. They’re both set to the same sample rate (44.1 kHz). All is well in the world.

Where things can go wrong is if you accidentally change the sample rate of the ADAT device.

Let’s say Graham accidentally changed the Behringer’s sample rate to 48 kHz and recorded a song through the 002 into Pro Tools (which was still set to 44.1 kHz).

Everything will sound fine while recording, but let’s say Graham fixes it the next day. Now both units are at 44.1 kHz again.

When he goes to play back the tracks, they’re going to sound SLOWER than the original recording. Why? Because the audio was technically captured at 48 kHz (at the Behringer converters) and the 002 is playing them back at 44.1 kHz.

As you can imagine, this is no good at all. The song will be slower AND almost a half-step lower in pitch.

There’s no easy way to fix this. It involves importing audio into new sessions and trying to trick Pro Tools into thinking they’re at different sample rates. I won’t get into that today. Suffice it to say this is a tremendous source of frustration.

Usually you just have to re-record everything, which really stinks.

The moral of the story? Always make sure ALL of your devices are set to the same sample rate BEFORE you start recording. Make this a part of your routine before every session. It will save you much frustration…and will potentially keep you from throwing your computer out the window.

[Photo by xlibber]

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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:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9uKf2qRGtU

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.

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In the last article, I shared with you the first three tips for finishing your album. Today, let’s look at the last four.

4. Get it right at the source.

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.

I was able to wield some EQ magic to make them sound okay, but all in all I could have done a better job of getting it right at the source.

5. Don’t insist on perfection.

This may seem contradictory to #4 above, but let me explain.

While the guitar parts I recorded weren’t perfect, they still worked. I could have re-recorded everything, but that would’ve taken more time, and would have likely delayed my album by months.

Ask any recording/mix engineer, and he’ll tell you that he never feels finished with a project. There comes a point where you just have to turn it in.

There are plenty of things I could’ve tweaked and changed on my album. There are places where I played out of time. There are a few notes where I sang out of tune, but all in all, I love the feel of the album, and the imperfections are almost endearing to me.

Besides, if I insisted on perfection, and it took me 5 years to finish my album, there’s no guarantee that it would really sound any better, and I could finish 3 albums in that time (which, to me, sounds like more fun).

6. Step Away

This is a really important step. After I had finished mixing the album, I stepped away. I took a few weeks off and didn’t listen to the songs. Then I came back and did a final listen-thru before handing the mixes in to my mastering engineer.

This allowed me to approach the songs with a relatively “fresh” set of ears. It let me make some final obvious tweaks. AND it got me excited about the songs again. If you never step away from the music, you sometimes loose sight of what you’re doing. Stepping away lets you listen to the album as if you’re a new listener for the first time. Pretty fun stuff.

7. Have someone else master it.

I’ve talked about mastering before, and I know some people tend to think mastering is a scam. I disagree.

I disagreed before, and now that I’ve listened to my finished, mastered album, I wholeheartedly disagree. My mixes sound balanced. The bass is consistent from one mix to the other. The songs are louder, punchier, but they still have dynamic range.

In short, they just sound polished, finished, professional. I’m thrilled with it. If you have the means, spend a few hundred bucks on a good mastering engineer. You’ll be glad you did.

What about YOU?

What do you think? Do you have extra tips for us? Leave a comment below.

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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.

Make sure the lyrics and arrangement are finished before you start recording. You’ll be glad you did.

2. “Chunkify”

I just made up that word, I think.

Whenever there are chores to do around the house, my wife has this habit of saying, “We’ve got a lot to do today.” I always respond with, “What exactly do we have to do?” After she lists out the two or three tasks, it then becomes clear to both of us that it’s not really that much.

It’s the same way with recording. If you speak in terms of “I’m finishing this song” rather than “I’m comping the lead vocals,” you’ll always feel like you have this insurmountable mountain of work to do.

The solution is to divide your projects up into chunks, small individual tasks that, when added up, equal a completed project. For example, rather than saying,

I need to edit all 10 songs.

I would say

I need to edit the acoustic guitars on “No Time” and “Home.”
I need to edit the piano no “Come Quickly.”
I need to edit the bass on “I Won’t Fly Away.”
etc. etc.

Suddenly, I have a list of 100 tasks that I need to complete to finish the album. Sure, 100 tasks is a lot, but it’s measurable. As you chip away at one, you feel a little bit of satisfaction and motivation as you scratch if off your to-do list forever.

[By the way, for more on editing, check out Understanding Editing.]

3. Set deadlines, even if you miss them.

This is nothing new, but it’s worth re-emphasizing. Having a deadline looming in the back of your mind will make you focus more on the task at hand. I missed all sorts of deadlines with my album, but having those deadlines helped me keep moving forward, otherwise, it would’ve turned into one of those 7-year projects that’s always “in the works.”

I would suggest setting deadlines for each of your “chunks.” This will help you with both gaining focus and determining how long it will actually take to finish your album.

Okay, that’s enough for today. I’ll post a few more tips in the next article, but before I do, I need 15 comments on this post. Let me know what you think. What are YOU going to implement today?

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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!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrnK90yYwb0

If you’re looking for more in-depth Pro Tools training, check out Understanding Pro Tools.

Got any plugin tips for us? Leave a comment!!

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You may have noticed that I haven’t posted quite as much this week. The reason? I had a perfect storm of my iMac crashing and having to be in 3 different states over the course of a week. Yikes!

The new iMac is hear and running wonderfully, and before I hit the road for the third time this week, I thought I’d share some things I learned from this experience.

The Story

In case you missed it, I got a new 21.5″ iMac about a month ago. I had been running everything (my studio, HSC, etc.) off of a 3-year-old white Macbook. It still runs great, but it was starting to fade, so I jumped on a demo iMac from Sweetwater.

The first issue I ran into was a bad logic board (the firewire port was unresponsive). I took it to a local Apple repair place, and they fixed it in a couple days. No big deal. (And it was all covered under warranty.)

Well, a few weeks later the iMac decided to shut itself off…never to power on again. So weird. We think it’s a bad power supply.

A week later, I’m typing this article on a brand new iMac, and it’s working like a charm. This could have been a huge nightmare, but it was mostly just an inconvenience. Here are some tips I came up with six tips to help YOU, should you experience a crash in your near future.

1. Buy from a Reputable Dealer

I cannot stress how important this is. Like I said, I bought the iMac from Sweetwater. Yes, I used to work there. Yes, they are a sponsor of HSC. However, I personally buy my gear from them. Check out my review of Sweetwater here.

Having a relationship with your dealer (whoever it is) is crucial, especially when things go wrong. I can’t imagine what would’ve happened if I ordered this directly from Apple or from a big box store online.

As soon as I had problems, I called Sweetwater, and they handled it. Plain and simple. Since this was the second issue this particular iMac had experienced, they just sent me a brand new iMac. AND they paid to have the defective machine shipped back to them.

In addition to that, Sweetwater’s tech support helped me get my Waves bundle up and running on the Macbook. (Since I had upgraded to V7 for the iMac, my V6 plugins on the Macbook were no longer authorized. I upgraded to V7 on the Macbook, and Pro Tools would crash when I launched it. Sweetwater’s in-house tech support helped me out tremendously. No other dealer that I know of does tech support. Very cool. I was able to handle both issues with one phone call.)

2. Keep Your Boxes

I’ve written before about how you shouldn’t throw away the boxes your gear comes in, because you’ll need them when you have to move your studio. They also come in handy when you have to send something in for service. Had I thrown out the iMac box, I would’ve been up a creek.

Luckily, it was sitting happily in my attic. I just pulled it down and packed up the iMac. It took less than five minutes. I don’t even want to think about how much time I would’ve spent searching for another box.

3. Have a Backup Machine

This is obviously not always feasible, but if you can, have a backup machine for your studio. I don’t mean buy two computers, but if you replace your computer (like I did), don’t immediately get rid of the old one.

Had I decided to sell my Macbook on eBay, I would have literally been dead in the water until the new iMac arrived.

4. Keep Your Serial Numbers

This may seem obvious, but when you buy a new computer, you have to re-install all of your software. And unless your software is iLok authorized, you’ll have to re-enter your serial numbers. If you don’t have them, you’re in for a difficult time.

Almost all of my serial numbers have been emailed to me at one point or another, and one of the awesome things about Gmail is I can quickly and easily search my archives and find them.

Also, if you’re a Pro Tools user, you’ll need the activation code, which is normally printed on the inside of the Getting Started Guide. If you happen to lose that guide, like I did…ruh roh.

If you’ve registered your copy of Pro Tools, you can simply log into your account at Avid.com, and your authorization code will be sitting there waiting on you. (Important note: Had I not registered my copy of Pro Tools, I would not have been able to find that authorization code…and I might have needed to buy PT 8 again. Or I would have at LEAST had to spend a day on the phone sweet-talking the folks at Avid into helping me out.)

5. Use External Hard Drives

I don’t need to tell you again that you need to back up your work. However, some of you may still be recording to your internal hard drives on your computers. Not good. Here’s why you should use external hard drives.

Since all of my Pro Tools sessions are on external firewire hard drives, I simply plugged in my Macbook and got back to work. Had they been on my iMac’s internal drive, I wouldn’t have been able to access them.

6. Take Advantage of the Cloud

I’ve gotten to the point where I rarely depend on one computer to handle everything. Using Dropbox, I sync up all my files, including my iTunes library, across both computers.

Simply move your iTunes folder to your Dropbox folder, then hold down option while you launch iTunes, it will ask you where the library is located. Simply navigate to the iTunes folder in your Dropbox folder and BAM! When I add a song to iTunes on the iMac, it shows up on the Macbook. Pretty cool, right?

As much as I can, I keep all important processes/information on the internet as opposed to a single computer. I host all of the content for the Production Club and Mix With Us on Amazon’s S3 service, so none of that was affected by the crash.

Also, since I use Gmail for email (and not a local email application), none of my important emails or contacts were lost due to the crash.

Whew.

Whew indeed. It’s been a crazy week, but once I got my replacement iMac, I had all the software I need to run my studio AND HSC installed and running in just a couple of hours.

What tips do you have? I’ll need 15 comments before I start posting again next week.

[Photo by youngthousands]

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It’s inevitable.

If you’re recording music at home, you’re going to have noise in your recordings. You obviously want to do everything you can to reduce the amount of noise in your recordings.

A few suggestions for cutting down on noise:

• Use thick packing blankets. (I feel like that sentence is direct copyright infringement on the Home Recording Show…they love blankets over there.) These can be a cheap way to block out some noise.
• Record in a separate room. This is ideal but not always possible.
• Use a dynamic mic. They’re less sensitive and may not pick up as much room noise…but they usually require more gain, so you may have more pre-amp noise. Doh!
• Record in outer space. Again, this isn’t always possible.

There are all sorts of tricks for cutting down noise, but that’s not the point of this article. Let’s just assume that you’ll deal with noise at some point in your home recording career…and by “some point” I mean “every day.”

On to the main attraction…4 Ways to Deal with Noise in a Mix.

1. Simply Edit it Out

For most tracks in your session, there are spots where you can just edit out the noise entirely. The most common example is on the lead vocal. If you have a particularly noisy lead vocal, you can just edit out all dead spots where the vocalist isn’t singing.

This noise can be more obvious in quieter parts of the song or during the fade-out at the end, so just get rid of it.

2. Use a Gate/Expander

Perhaps completely editing out the audio entirely doesn’t work. Sometimes complete silence can sound worse than noise (depending on the kind of material you’re working on).

Use a gate/expander can be an effective way to turn down the noise without completely getting rid of it. A gate/expander works in the opposite way of a compressor/limiter.

When the signal is above the threshold, the gate allows it to pass through.When the signal drops below the threshold, though, the gate turns the track down. You can adjust it to turn the track ALL the way down, or maybe you just want it to turn it down 10 dB or so.

It’s pretty common to gate the toms on a drum kit, since they don’t get played as much as the kick, hat, and snare. I also started using a gate for the HSC Podcast. Whenever I stop talking, the gate (technically it’s an expander) turns the audio down by 10 – 14 dB. That way you don’t hear the noise of my computer, etc. when I make those dramatic long pauses.

3. Use EQ Automation

I only do this on occasion, but it can be pretty effective. One place you’ll notice noise is on the last chord of the song, when all the instruments are ringing out. As the instruments fade out, the noise gets more obvious.

You typically hear the noise in the high frequencies first, so one way to minimize this is to automate a high-shelf EQ to slowly cut out the high frequencies as the instrument fades out. You’ll want the automation to correspond pretty evenly with the decay of the instrument, so as the instrument gets quiter, the highs get quieter, too.

This works a lot better than just writing in a fade on the instrument or mix. It’s almost like doing a fade JUST on the highs. Try it sometime.

4. Use Noise Reduction Software

Noise reduction software has come a long way in the last few years. It can be really effective at removing noise without destroying the underlying audio.

I don’t use noise reduction software too much, but if none of the above techniques are working, you might want to give it a shot. I’ve used iZotope RX, and it’s shockingly good.

Final Thought: Don’t be a Noise-o-Phobe

Having noise in your music isn’t the kiss of death. Go back and listen to some of your favorite records. I bet you can hear noise on some of them. Too much noise, on the other hand, can be distracting, but don’t get so caught up in noise-hunting that you forget about the music.

If you want to hear the noise in MY recordings and see how I deal with it, you can still join MixWithUs.com.

How do YOU get rid of noise? Leave a comment!

[Photo by BarelyFitz]

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