rexxzecutioner
Member
I’ve finally gotten around to being motivated enough to type this up, and hopefully it will help some of you out. This is knowledge that I have culminated from my personal experience as an audio engineer and the education that I’ve received in the field, as well. While many of these points I will outline are fundamentally sound, there maybe a few that are simply personal preference, so take into account your own mixing and recording styles as well.
As we all know, music is produced in a logical process. Songs are composed, lyrics are written, and notes are inked down… then comes the time to record.
Before you enter the studio (or fire up the old personal bedroom DAW… that’s Digital Audio Workstation) you have to prepare yourself. Make sure you’re well rehearsed, and you know exactly what you want to record before you do it. This isn’t nearly as important if you’re working on your own time doing your own recordings, but for those that book studio time and are paying for it, well you’ll find out how expensive things can get if you come un-prepared. So, number one thing: Get your shit in order! Make sure your equipment is in working condition, tune guitars, bring extra strings, go through a checklist of goals you want to achieve for your booked time slots, maybe even a physical list detailing what you need to do and what you need to have with you would help. I’ve seen people come to the studio or sit down to record a session at their home, even, and waste too much time by fooling around and stumbling to get their act together because they just didn’t plan beforehand.
Once you have the planning out of the way, you can get down to business. Assuming you’ll be recording with a standard rock/metal set up (that is; guitars, bass, drums and vocals… maybe a few odd instruments and/or a keyboard) this should be a rather streamlined process. The recording phase is all about flow and efficiency. If you are in a studio with multiple recording booths, you can set up your amp cabs into the isolated rooms, and if you have enough room for the drums to be miked in the larger rehearsal area, you’ll be all set to knock those out at once. Smaller studios will require that you record each instrument sequentially though, and for that you might need to do something different. Typically I would record the drums first, as those take the most time to set up and break down, and if things go badly, you can track the drums for all of your songs, and record everything else at a cheaper studio or a project studio for free. After the drums, I would track the bass, then the guitars, and finally do overdubs for vocals.
When setting up microphones or line inputs for your audio sources, you need to be careful of a few things. First you should choose a microphone that best suits what you are trying to record. A high gain guitar amp cab doesn’t need a high quality condenser microphone, nor would I recommend it due to the fragile nature of the mikes. Likewise, when recording vocals you should choose one that would give you a flat frequency response as well as be very receptive to subtleties with the incoming signal. This can all be tossed out of the window if you want a raw sound and don’t care much for higher end production, but for those who do: don’t cheap out on microphones. A good saying is that “Your end result will only be as good as your sourceâ€
As we all know, music is produced in a logical process. Songs are composed, lyrics are written, and notes are inked down… then comes the time to record.
Before you enter the studio (or fire up the old personal bedroom DAW… that’s Digital Audio Workstation) you have to prepare yourself. Make sure you’re well rehearsed, and you know exactly what you want to record before you do it. This isn’t nearly as important if you’re working on your own time doing your own recordings, but for those that book studio time and are paying for it, well you’ll find out how expensive things can get if you come un-prepared. So, number one thing: Get your shit in order! Make sure your equipment is in working condition, tune guitars, bring extra strings, go through a checklist of goals you want to achieve for your booked time slots, maybe even a physical list detailing what you need to do and what you need to have with you would help. I’ve seen people come to the studio or sit down to record a session at their home, even, and waste too much time by fooling around and stumbling to get their act together because they just didn’t plan beforehand.
Once you have the planning out of the way, you can get down to business. Assuming you’ll be recording with a standard rock/metal set up (that is; guitars, bass, drums and vocals… maybe a few odd instruments and/or a keyboard) this should be a rather streamlined process. The recording phase is all about flow and efficiency. If you are in a studio with multiple recording booths, you can set up your amp cabs into the isolated rooms, and if you have enough room for the drums to be miked in the larger rehearsal area, you’ll be all set to knock those out at once. Smaller studios will require that you record each instrument sequentially though, and for that you might need to do something different. Typically I would record the drums first, as those take the most time to set up and break down, and if things go badly, you can track the drums for all of your songs, and record everything else at a cheaper studio or a project studio for free. After the drums, I would track the bass, then the guitars, and finally do overdubs for vocals.
When setting up microphones or line inputs for your audio sources, you need to be careful of a few things. First you should choose a microphone that best suits what you are trying to record. A high gain guitar amp cab doesn’t need a high quality condenser microphone, nor would I recommend it due to the fragile nature of the mikes. Likewise, when recording vocals you should choose one that would give you a flat frequency response as well as be very receptive to subtleties with the incoming signal. This can all be tossed out of the window if you want a raw sound and don’t care much for higher end production, but for those who do: don’t cheap out on microphones. A good saying is that “Your end result will only be as good as your sourceâ€