Recording a rock band playing 'live' in the studio presents a unique set of challenges, but it is still possible to achieve a good result.
Most recording techniques are easy enough to put into practice when you're only faced with the task of working with one instrument or voice at a time, but life gets more complicated when you come to record a rock band playing 'live' in the studio. The main problem in this scenario is spill, specifically from the louder instruments to the mics used on quieter sound sources. In a typical guitar-based rock band, the most vulnerable mics are those used by vocalists and the drum overheads, but acoustic instruments such as acoustic guitars or hand percussion can also present challenges.
Spill can be reduced by the careful setting up of the microphones and sound sources, though in a small studio you'll never get rid of it entirely, not even if you put up acoustic screens.
There may also be other problems, such as snare drums resonating and buzzing along with the bass guitar part where, even though you can gate the close snare-mic to get rid of it there, some buzzing may still be audible in the overhead mics. Fortunately, some drum-kit rattle and buzz currently seems acceptable as part of the natural sound of the kit, whereas, for example, in the '80s it was fashionable to try to keep the kit sounding as clean and sterile as possible.
Let's assume that you have the entire band set up in a lounge-sized room. What can you do to cut down on spill? Guitar amplifiers are obvious culprits, and rock guitarists still seem to like to have big amps turned well up. For recording, though, a small amp cranked hard will often give you a much bigger sound than a stage amp used in a confined space. I'm currently using one of the little Vox AD30VTs for recording, as they sound good at just about any level, but small tube amps such as the Fender Blues Junior are also ideal: if all those early Led Zeppelin tracks were recorded using a 6W tube amp, small amps have to be OK! Where you must use a high-powered stage amplifier, particularly a tube model, I'd seriously recommend investing in a good power soak to plug between the power amp and speaker, so that you can run the power amp hard while attenuating the amount of power reaching the speaker. Even five watts can sound pretty loud in a small room, so choose a model with switchable attenuation settings, such as the THD Hot Plate (see SOS June 2006 for more about power soaks).
You don't need a large stage amp to get a big sound. If you can persuade the guitarist to use a cranked-up small tube amp, you will probably get a better tone and reduce unwanted spillage into other 're only going to put the mic in front of one speaker, so using a 4 x 12 cabinet isn't really necessary unless you're recording in a very large space, where you can also make use of a distant mic to augment the sound. In a typical project or home studio, it is pretty universally accepted wisdom that you put the mic fairly close in, in front of the best-sounding speaker — though using a smaller cabinet with a single speaker might give you just as good a sound, while also reducing spill. As regular readers will already know, the choice of mic and its position across the front of the speaker cone have a dramatic effect on the sound you ultimately capture, so try everything you have and make notes on what works. My personal favourites from my own mic collection are an SE ribbon mic and an Audio Technica AT4050 capacitor mic, though many engineers still swear by the Shure SM57 dynamic mic. There are no real rules and every combination will sound different, so please take the time to try a few different options. Getting the right sound at source is invariably better than struggling with EQ after you've made the recording.
There are various strategies that can really help reduce spill from guitar amplifiers, one of which is to point the guitar amplifiers (this is simpler with closed-back models) away from the drum kit and other vulnerable mics, and to place a thick sound-absorber a couple of feet in front of the amplifier to soak up some of the sound once it has gone past the microphone (which will usually be no more than six inches from the speaker grille cloth). We've tried mattresses, soft furnishing such as sofas, heavy folded blankets and, of course, folded duvets. They all help, but there'll still be some spill. With open-backed amplifiers, it is worth experimenting by pointing the side of the amplifier towards vulnerable mics, as open-backed cabinets have a modified dipole (figure-of-eight) polar pattern, which means that more sound comes out of the front and back than out of the sides. This time you may wish to improvise sound absorbers between the amp and the other vulnerable mics in the room, as well as behind the microphone.
If you think something might work, don't be afraid to give it a try: you might just stumble across something really effective. If you're recording in your living room, for example, try sticking the guitar amps behind the sofa to get more separation. For one project, I got the sound I was looking for by putting a 4 x 12 cabinet flat on its back, then draping blankets, sleeping bags and duvets directly over the cabinet and microphone stand.
If you must use a large tube amp, a power soak such as the THD Hot Plate pictured here will allow you to drive the amp harder without increasing the overall another approach, which has been used on many records, is to have the guitarists playing in the same room as the rest of the band, monitoring via headphones in the usual way, but with the amp miked up in a separate room, or even in a cupboard. Many a classic album has been recorded with the guitar amp in the studio toilet!
Because guitar amps are traditionally miked very close to the speaker grille, spill from other amplifiers or from drums should be at such a low level as not to be a problem. However, whenever you're recording multiple sources at once, using a separate mic for each source, you should always observe the 5:1 rule. That is, you should always ensure that the microphones are separated from each other by at least five times the distance between the microphones and the sources they are recording. This helps avoid phase-cancellation coloration, which is caused by the same source being picked up strongly by two or more microphones.
Where everyone is playing in the same room, a practical setup is to have the players arranged in a horseshoe shape, with the singer in the centre facing the drummer, and the amplifiers facing outwards, screened as well as possible. Remember that using improvised sound absorbers to provide separation and to deaden room coloration is essential for optimum sound quality, so don't skimp in this vital area.
With the exception of the rattling snare drum problem mentioned earlier, close-miked drums don't suffer too much from spill, as drums are basically loud and the mic is usually very close to the drum head. The room acoustics also have little influence on either close-mic'd drums or close-mic'd electric guitar amplifiers, simply because of the proximity of the microphone to the sound source. The overheads are, however, rather more vulnerable, as they are further from the kit and consequently likely to pick up more spill and room ambience. A useful strategy here is to position the overheads slightly in front of the kit and lower them to just above cymbal level. Try to position them so they are not too close to or far away from any individual cymbal, and aim the mics down towards the snare drum, trying to keep them both the same distance from the snare drum if possible. Hanging a duvet or other acoustic absorber behind the kit can stop the overheads picking up reflections from the rear wall and, if at all possible, it is worth using foam collars (such as those made by Auralex) or SE's Instrument Reflexion Filters directly behind the mics, to reduce the impact of sound approaching from the rear and sides of the mics. Even cardioids are only 'deaf' to sound directly on the rear axis — sounds coming from the sides are picked up relatively strongly. If you can improvise more substantial acoustic absorbers between the overhead mics and the guitar amplifiers, so much the better. However, remember that eye contact is often an important part of a good performance, so make sure the drummer can still see the other band members.
As well as considering mic patterns, you should consider those of the sound sources. An open-backed amp, such as the one pictured here, for example, will emit sound to the rear. You should therefore consider how best to position the amp to avoid spill into the mics used elsewhere in the you're still suffering more spill than you'd like when you come to mix, you may need to rely a little more on the close mics, and a little less on the overheads. However, the overheads do need to be loud enough to provide a credible balance for the cymbals, so a useful compromise is to apply some low cut to the overheads at around 250Hz, to clean up the sound and focus on the cymbal component. When this signal is added to those from the close mics, you should still get all the punch you need, but without the muddying effect produced by all that low-frequency and lower-mid spill.
Because I've assumed that this recording is being made in a typical home studio environment, where the acoustics are unlikely to be conducive to a great drum sound, you will need to add in some artificial ambience using a reverb device or plug-in of some kind. Short ambience treatments work well to provide a sense of space without making the sound seem too muddy or washy. This approach can be very successful, providing you've used acoustic absorbers to reduce the amount of off-axis sound getting into the overhead mics, as adding artificial reverb to unpleasant room coloration rarely works. Also bear in mind that any compression you add to the overhead mics will also emphasise spill and room coloration, so if you need to create a punchier sound it may be safer to apply compression mainly to the close drum mics, rather than to the overheads or the overall drum mix. Overall EQ lift in the 12kHz region will add sparkle to the cymbals, and you may also find you need some lower-mid cut in the 200 to 400Hz range, to tame any boxiness that has crept into the sound due to the room acoustics.
The bass guitar itself is easy to record — either via microphone or DI — but it can cause problems elsewhere in the room, as low frequencies are not so easily contained as mid-range and high frequencies. Low bass also tends to cause snare-drum vibration problems. One compromise is to simply play the bass at a lower volume, which shouldn't affect the feel of the performance if everyone hears a decent headphone balance. Another useful tactic is to record the output of the bass amp, either via a mic or by DI'ing from the preamp, but at the same time to record a clean DI directly from the bass itself, using an active DI box to split the signal. You can then EQ out some of the low bass from the amplifier to reduce drum rattling, adding this back in when you mix from the direct (non-EQ'd) DI. The thinking behind this is that most of the character of a bass sound resides in the mid-range frequencies, so it shouldn't make the sound any less characterful if you exclude the deep bass from the amp and then replace it with the low-pass-filtered direct DI.
When it comes to live recording, DI boxes are your friends! For bass, you can filter out the lowest frequencies from the amp and add them back in from the DI signal when mixing. In this way you get the character of the amp during the recording, but minimise unwanted vibration of other instruments, such as drums, caused by the low course, you can lose the spill altogether by using a recording preamp such as Line 6's Bass Pod, which will give a good account of itself for just about any musical style, but don't forget that you need to have a good headphone mix set up to recreate the experience of playing at a realistic level.
As with acoustic guitar, the human voice versus a 100W Marshall stack is a no-contest scenario, so to have any chance of recording usable vocals at the same time as the other instruments, you need either to moderate the sound levels in the room or move the singer to an adjoining room. The latter is preferable from the separation point of view, but less than ideal from a performance perspective. Most often, the singer will record a guide vocal in the room with the band and then replace this later as an overdub but, where it is imperative that the performance be captured live, a substantial expanse of duvet behind the singer and an SE Reflexion filter or similar screen behind and to the sides of the mic will help a lot. Providing the amps are pointing away from the vocal mic, and that the singer works very close to the mic, as they would in live performance, you might just get away with it.
Working this close invariably means using either a stage dynamic mic, normally designed for hand-held use, or a stage hand-held capacitor mic, such as the Neumann KMS105 or the Rode S2. If you use a conventional side-address studio microphone you're unlikely to be able to get close enough to eliminate the worst of the spill without serious popping problems, as any effective pop screen needs to be located a couple of inches from the mic to be effective. Even using a stage mic you'll probably still need good mic technique to avoid popping and, if at all possible, you should get the singer to leave the mic on the stand rather than holding it, as the relative position of the mic and acoustic screens is important.
As with any recording session, remember to consult the singer as to what headphone monitor balance they need and how much reverb they'd like to hear on their own voice while performing.
Keyboards can usually be DI'd without causing any problems, unless you're miking a real rotary speaker cabinet — not a common occurrence in project studios, due to the large physical size of the things! In the event you do have an old Leslie lying around that you wish to use for the recording, there's no reason not to DI the keyboard dry, then feed the track back out through the Leslie prior to mixing, recording the result onto a new stereo track.
For vocal recordings, a studio side-address mic will usually pick up too much spill. If you need to record the vocals live, a stage mic is probably a better option. You don't have to settle for a dynamic mic, though, as there are now plenty of stage condensers around, such as the Neumann KMS105 (pictured) and the Rode S2.Brass and woodwind instruments are generally fairly loud, and a rock sax sound can be achieved by miking close to the bell, even though this doesn't give the most accurate representation of the instrument. Again, relative position of the mic to the instrument is important, and clip-on mics can be useful here if the player tends to move around a lot. In terms of separation, you can apply the same rules when recording quieter wind instruments as when recording vocals — that is, putting absorbers behind both the player and the mic.
Acoustic pianos can be a problem, but in a rock band context you're unlikely to be trying to create a classical concert piano sound, so you can afford to use a pair of mics just a few inches from the strings. If there's enough room, you may even be able to close the piano lid to give you better isolation. This will produce a harder, more assertive sound than classical miking at a distance, but many pop and rock producers prefer this sound in any case, as it cuts through well in a mix. The simplest solution, of course, is to use a good electronic piano, but not every player is happy to make that compromise.
In my experience, a lot of bands try to play their studio set just as they would live, which often results in a guitar tone that is far too dirty to mix comfortably. A practical solution is to use an active DI box to split the guitar signal, so that the Thru signal feeds the amp and the buffered signal is recorded clean to a separate track. If you find the original mic'd amp sound isn't working in the mix, you then have the option of re-amping the clean DI'd track by feeding it out into a guitar amp that has been mic'd in the usual way, or using a plug-in amp simulator to turn the DI'd sound into a plausible rock sound. You may even be able to combine the processed DI'd sound with the original amp recording to achieve a satisfactory result. If you're not convinced the band has got it right, this is a very easy way to cover yourself.
On the subject of setting levels, you should remember to leave plenty of headroom, as sound levels invariably creep up as the players get into their stride during the session. If you are recording at 24-bit resolution, then you can easily afford to leave 12dB of headroom, which will normally give you a viable safety margin against 'level-creep'.
Most of what I've discussed here would seem, in hindsight, to be largely common sense, but it is surprising how many seemingly obvious factors can get overlooked when your prime concern is getting your music down. Moderating the level of guitar and bass amplifiers, either by choosing smaller amplifiers or using power soaks, not only reduces spill but often produces a better sound. Recording with less amplifier distortion than you use live is also a good thing to try if you can: you can always add more distortion or compression later, but you can't clean up a sound that has been over-distorted, which is why I suggested the 'safety' straight DI.
The other important factor is the use of acoustic screens (or mattresses, duvets, sleeping bags and so on). These make a huge difference in minimising spill and taming unwanted room reflections, and you should not under-estimate their importance. The new generation of screens designed to go behind mics are also very effective, and if you do a lot of recording as a band, these are well worth considering. However, you should always remember to balance the use of screens with the need for visual communication between the members of the band while performing.
Finally, the better your source sounds, and the less spill you have, the easier your song will be to mix. By now you will probably have learned that the phrase 'fix it in the mix' is somewhat over-optimistic and that a great mix starts with a great recording of a great performance.
SOS
Wednesday 31 August 2016
Recording Vocals At Home
Recording Vocals at Home: Clean & Clear
The times they are a-changin'. It used to cost an arm and a leg to go into the studio to record vocals. Now, consumer level recording equipment is not only more than good enough, but it's affordable enough that anyone who's serious about the task can put together a quality vocal signal chain for under a thousand dollars, and even less than that! The question has shifted from "How can I afford it?" to "How do I do it?" Let me show you.
No matter your goal... whether you're a rapper, producer, singer, podcast creator, video game designer, etc., you need a quality vocal chain set up and ready to rock at home. Recording vocals at home used to be a dream, and now it's a no-brainer. Money is no longer the barrier to entry. The know-how is what gets in the way because you have to know not only which pieces of studio equipment you need, but how to hook them up, in what order, and how to record the signal in your computer, not to mention using the software. That sounds intimidating right?
Don't worry. After this article, you'll understand the concept like the back of your hand and know exactly what you need. Remember, the question is not just "how do I record vocals?" but how to get a clean and clear end result that sounds professional. This broad question could open a huge can of worms that could spawn a discussion that could go on for weeks.
What we're going to do is skip the nuances and get right down to the nitty gritty with a quick overview so you can get started immediately. I'm even going to wrap it up with a few equalization and compression tips to take your clean recording from crystal clear to polished and ready for your listeners. In the future, we'll explore each sub-topic in this article in more depth. But for now...
Without further ado...
Here's a table of content of sorts to let you know what we're going to cover, in order:
Microphone
An Example of Perfect Quality Vocals
If you cover the basics of each of these areas, you will achieve decent results that are good enough to present to the world without being embarrassed. If you go the distance and take the time to accumulate the equipment by trading up quality over time and really learn the tricks of the trade, you'll have pristine results that would make the Abbey Road guys cry. I jest, but you can compete and even charge money to help others get the results they need. Let's get started. At the end, I'll show you some Abbey Road results that'll make your mouth water.
Note: All of the "recommendation" links you'll see below formatted like this will all take you to Amazon so you can get an idea of the price and other technical details. I'll show you my favorite budget option and then my absolute favorite option available, despite cost, so you can get a frame of reference. If you're ballin' on a budget, you're still going to get massive results with these suggestions. In some cases, I'm won't show you this or that since it's all budget. I'll show you types.
Don't worry about the order that these various pieces of equipment go in within the signal chain. We'll cover that in the conclusion. It's simple and will make plenty of sense by the time you get there.
Microphone
The microphone, obviously, is the very device that allows you to capture the fluctuations of your vocal cords. When it comes to mics, price doesn't always correlate to quality. There are also many types of microphones that you should be acquainted with. But as far as vocals go, you need to ask yourself what type of vocals you'll be recording.
Dynamic Mics
Shure SM57 Dynamic Mic
If you're recording rap vocals, heavy metal screaming, or anything else that's forceful and varies in volume and intensity constantly, you'll want to go for a dynamic microphone. They can not only withstand the force of air that'll be shooting out of your mouth, but won't decrease in their ability to record as humidity rushes past the diaphragm.
Give it a good preamp and it'll take you all the way. Big studios default to it for a lot of applications.
Favorite: Electro-Voice RE20 - "The Radio Announcer's Choice"
I'll venture to say 99% of radio shows use this for their DJ's and talk shows. It's got a great proximity effect to enhance the bass in your voice if you choose.
Condenser Mics
Rode NTK Condenser Mic
On the other hand, if you're recording singers with beautiful voices that feature subtle nuances that should definitely show up in the recording, then you'll want a condenser microphone. You'll see various types, but go for a large diaphragm condenser mic. Because it's larger in diameter, it's more sensitive to each sound wave that hits it. That also means that you shouldn't scream directly into it or let spit fly into it, etc. If you decide to record a rapper or "screamo" type of vocalist on it, make sure they face off-axis and use a pop-filter and windscreen, without question. No matter what type of vocalist you're recording, expect a lot of sibilance and plosives at times.
Budget: MXL 990 - "As Good as the Rest of Your Chain"
My feeling about this mic is that it will perform as good as you'll let it, based on the rest of your gear. You'll eventually want to upgrade, but it'll get you started for sure. It will become your bottle neck for quality later on, though. (Another option is the Oktava MK-319)
I love this mic more than my cat (not my dog though). I go to this mic for all types of vocalists, unless their voices feature a lot of bass and I want to capture that. This microphone shines for anyone with a mid to high frequency ranged voice. It only gets better as you pair it with better preamps.
Here's a heads-up to remember as you continue this article. Most mic's have different casings that require specialized shock mounts. Fortunately, if you buy most mic's new (and I suggest that for condensers so you know it wasn't treated roughly), it'll come with its own custom shock mount and mic stand adapter. If you order a bunch of stuff at once, be careful that you're not doubling up on those items!
Room Acoustics
Something that a lot of people don't consider is that the recording environment is just as important as the equipment you use. Many home studios choose to use a closet as a make-shift vocal booth to try to avoid these issues, but that only exacerbates the issue. What is this issue I'm talking about? Acoustics.
Room acoustics refers to the size of the room, the orientation of the walls, how smooth the walls are, etc. All of these things affect how sound waves will bounce back to the mic.
These "bounces" are called reflections. They can create delays, reverbs, constructive or deconstructive interference at various frequencies, and a multitude of other problems like flutter and on and on. The tools discussed in this section will help you combat these problems. You've basically got two options.
Acoustic Treatment
People will tell you, "Oh, you don't need to treat your room, just close mic everything." Don't listen. If you want to record freely in your studio room or vocal booth, it will require acoustic treatment. I'm going to tell you a little about it here, but if you want to learn more please head over to our full feature on acoustic treatment Prepare to lose your mind and become addicted though. It's a fun topic.
Professional Acoustic Treatment (Panels and a Diffusor at Bottom)
To be honest, I'm not going to suggest this to someone who's recording vocals exclusively. If you're mixing or recording a band all at once, then this is for you. There are two types of acoustic treatment out there, the cheaper and less effective egg-crate foam type, and the more handsome paneling option. Within both there are reflection panels, clouds, bass traps, diffusors, and more. Again, read our full feature if you want to go this route; it's too much to cover here.
I honestly would only ever use these kits inside of a vocal booth, and have. Some people are happy to plaster their walls with this stuff, but not only would I not want to look at it, but it's not that great. The positive is that it's cheaper than the dickens and does help.
Favorite: Professional Studio Paneling - "The Now We're Talking Option"
You can order these from Real Traps or GIK Acoustics Those are the only two options I'd consider. I made my own by ordering the right high-density insulation and doing some wood-working.
Reflection Filters
If you're mainly focused on vocals, let's be honest. Skip that whole can of worms above and go for a reflection filter. These are miniature acoustic treatment panels that attach to your mic stand and envelop your mic. Not only will they block out any reflections making their way back towards your mic, but they also stop the creation of reflections in the critical directions (based on the pick-up pattern of your mic, which should be cardioid for vocals). It'll make more sense if you look at a picture of one:
Auray Reflection Filter
The snazzy part is that the egg crate foam, in this case (and what makes it suck in the full-on room application) is that it only absorbs middle and high range frequencies. It let's the bass frequencies pass through it here so they don't bounce back at you (which is a huge problem in small rooms like vocal booths or closets). This is your ticket to the big leagues for cheap if you're only recording vocals at home. With the EQ tips I'll share with you at the end of this article, you'll be absolutely pleased with the results.
Not only do I feel Auray's option has a more sturdy construction, but you can change the shape and open up your mic to more room ambience if you choose.
I've said my piece. Start with a reflection filter and save yourself the acoustic treatment nightmare until you're ready to expand beyond just vocals. Then the nightmare will become a beautiful fantasy that you can't get enough of. It's absolutely my favorite aspect of having a studio.
Mic Stand & Shock Mount
This part isn't nearly as fun as the rest, but it's crucial. As far as mic stands go, you have a couple of options. These include a desktop stand and a standing, traditional mic stand. It really depends on what you're doing. If you're podcasting or recording audiobooks, you might as well sit down since it's going to take a while. If you're trying to perform your best take of vocals ever, you'll want to stand up so you can get a full lung and stomach expansion and belt it out. When it comes to standing stands, you can consider whether or not you'd like to add a boom to it (the part that stretches out so it's not just straight up and down). Also, think about how heavy the shock mount, the reflection filter, and the mic is. This will help you decide if you want a boom, and the critical decision of if you want tripod legs or a heavy circle base. I prefer legs.
Various types of mic stands, including booms and desktop styles
Tripod Legs: If you want to use a boom, you'll want a stand of this type of stand so you can angle the boom over a leg to keep it from tipping over. Especially if you have a reflection filter on it and a heavy condenser mic.
Circle Base: If you forgo a boom, then you can rock a tripod or a circle base The circles are usually made to be very heavy to keep from tipping. And you're less likely to trip over a leg and knock the whole set up over (which is bad for a condenser's tube).
When it comes to shock mounts, a condenser mic should come with one custom fitted to it. You can buy them for dynamics, but it's not as necessary. What they do is suspend the mic in mid-air off of the mic stand using rubber bands so that bass vibrations aren't moving up the stand and getting into your recording. If you have a random mic but no shock mount, search for a one-size-fits-all and it'll do the trick.
Pop Filter & Wind Screen
There's not much to this. Pop filters do exactly what they sound like they do, which is help dissipate bursts of air, known as plosives, that occur during syllables that start with the letter "B" or "P" for instance. I prefer the kind of pop filter that is on a flexible arm that extends towards the vocalist. You can orient it in a certain way to achieve two results: You can keep the vocalist from getting right up on the mic and spitting all over it and breathing their hot, humid air into it, and you can trick them into remaining slightly off-axis. This distance and off-axis orientation should completely eradicate pops. If they don't, you can use volume automation when you clean up the vocals to hide any that slip through.
One of the coolest pop filters available, the WindTech PopGard
Wind screens are essentially the same thing as pop filters, and you can combine the two if you have an unruly vocalist. While a pop filter is a thin piece of fabric stretched out (think of panty hose), a wind screen is a thicker chunk of foam that goes all around the mic (think of a sock). Wind screens may come more in handy if you have a vocalist who likes to hold the microphone in their hand.
Pop Filter: This is an example of your typical pop filter , unlike the nifty one above. They are cheap enough that you can put up two if you need.
Wind Screen: These are you basic wind screens They are only a dollar or two each, and you can buy them solo or in packs. You can get any color of the rainbow too.
At least have one or the other, but go ahead and pick up a nice pop filter and a pack of wind screens. They are both cheap enough and are more than worth it. The last thing you want is the perfect take ruined when it could have been saved by you not being a cheap bastard!
XLR Cables
Notice I didn't just say "cables." I specifically typed XLR. Any microphone worth it's weight is going to expect an XLR cable. If you even consider using a mic that asks for a USB cord, you should take that USB cord and... well, you get the point.
Typical 3-Prong XLR Cable
The main reason I wanted to talk about XLR's is to save you some money. One of the biggest myths in the business, and it's only perpetuated by audiophiles who have more money than sense, is that super expensive cables are better than cheap ones. Yes, to an extent, that's true. You don't want to go so bottom rung that the cables don't have any shielding and pick up tons of 60 Hz hum and other electrical interferences.
But you also don't need these cables that get your money through crazy marketing. If a cable tells you all about it's 24 karat gold micro-weaved and braided shielding with quantum vibrational flux capacitors, then put it back on the shelf. There's one company that's notorious for this type of scam, and they are a real "monster," ya feel me. I'll point you in the right direction (take note of the length before you order any cable!):
Budget: There are plenty of budget cable companies. Hosa does a good job , Livewire is okay, and Monoprice is another that pops in my head. They aren't budget, but more so standard in price.
Favorite: If you can afford the extra spend and want a piece of mind, I like to run my vocal signal chain with Mogami cables , along with my monitors. They go the extra mile without extorting you.
This goes for all cabling of all types all across the board. Never fall for the marketing trick. Now, the one thing that is true is that if you're using an unbalanced (versus balanced) connection, you don't want a ton of extra length on the cable. That's more opportunity for interference to be picked up. With balanced it doesn't matter. This is another topic that's far beyond the scope of this article. Honestly, just don't get a 30 foot cable if you only need 6 feet and you won't need to worry about it.
Preamplifier
Let me stress this, because it's not obvious until you've had some experience. The difference in a crappy preamplifier and a quality preamp is literally night and day. And yes, you must have one, because you have to boost the signal in the cable from "mic level" to "line level." Stuff like electric guitars, keyboards, and electric basses are already at line level, but mic level is very quiet.
Some goofy dudes will try to get around having to buy a preamp by just cranking the volume on their inputs like mad. All you're doing is introducing a boat load of noise. You need to boost this signal without also boosting the noise, and that's what a preamp does.
Let me preface this part of the discussion by letting you know that interfaces will come with preamps on most every channel, that you can bypass or not. So if you're stretching your budget thin, you're better off not buying an independent outboard preamp and adding some extra cash to your interface purchase. If you can afford to pick up a stand-alone racked or desktop preamp, then do it, only if you can spend enough to get past the bottom rung of quality. The cheapest ones on the market will harm your signal more than they will help, while the best mic preamp will unlock the full potential of your mic.
FMR RNP Preamplifier - The Really Nice Preamp
Remember earlier, too, when I said that most microphones have a range of ability to provide you with a quality recording. You can force a microphone to sound like crap by pairing it with a horrible preamp, or you can help it show its full potential by hooking it up to an awesome preamp. This is not the place to skimp out on and be cheap. Do this step right!
Budget: FMR RNP - "The Really Nice Preamp"
I can't sing this pre's praises enough. FMR cut the cost by offering a plain plastic casing in a desktop format, but the electronics are a masterpiece. You can rack them with various kits out there. Check out the Funklogic options, which is how I racked my RNP and RNC together.
Favorite: Great River MP-2NV - "The I'll Never Need Another Preamp Again"
This is on my wishlist ever since I was able to play with one of these. They say at the level of perfection, you have various flavors to appeal to preferences. This is my flavor. It's pristine and adds nothing to the signal, whereas some top-level pre's might add warmth or coloring.
Preamplifiers are my second most favorite piece of studio gear after acoustic treatment. That's because it's the second most important, after acoustic treatment. That's a hint. Get the RNP if you can!
Interface
What most people who are new to the concept of recording don't understand is how your audio signal is moved into the computer. This is what an interface does. Many beginners will attempt to use their computer's sound card, but not only does it not feature all of the components you need, but the ones they do have don't cut it. You need an interface, which is like a glorified outboard sound card with additional features.
An interface combines several elements of the signal chain. Remember, most will include at least one if not two channels that include a preamplifier. It will include analog-to-digital converters and digital-to-analog converters so you can move the signal into the computer and back out so you can hear it through your monitors. That's the basic concept.
Let me say up front. If this is the spot you try to save money on, you're going to doom yourself. Don't buy some kind of $50 dollar cheap audio interface and expect any of the components inside of it to be worth a crap. Another heads up is that a lot of interfaces will come bundled with installation disks for a DAW, which we will talk about next. Make sure you know what you're getting so you don't buy twice!
Lastly, you'll find several options for how the interface connects to the computer. You'll see USB, Firewire, Optical TOSlink (Lightpipe), Thunderbolt, Ethernet, and more. Concern yourself at this point with only USB or Firewire. Both are fast enough at this point and have been for at least a decade for this level of recording (one to ten tracks at a time or so). It's just a matter of preference. I use Firewire right now.
Focusrite is known for having quality preamps in their interfaces. If you're only recording one voice at a time, you can slide by with this money-saving option.
This bad boy gives you so many inputs and outputs that you'll be ready to record an entire band, including a million drum mics, but you'll need to add some preamps into the mix.
Focusrite offers expansions that can daisy-chain to this main interface though. I love Focusrite.
There are tons of interfaces out there and I've only tried a handful, partially because once you buy you don't need any others unless they fry their electronics over time. Mark of the Unicorn, or MOTU, makes some solid stuff. I enjoyed my two that I went through, but I'm currently using the Saffire Pro 40 mentioned above and don't see myself leaving Focusrite in the future.
DAW Software
Again, before you purchase a DAW, or digital audio workstation, make sure your interface isn't coming with one first! When it comes to DAW's, there are a ton of options that will all get the job done. Let me list a ton just for example: Avid Pro Tools, Apple Logic Pro, Ableton Live, Image-Line Fruity Loops Studio, Cakewalk Sonar, Steinberg Cubase, Sony Acid Pro, Propellerhead Reason, Presonus Studio One, MOTU Digital Performer, Cockos Reaper, and on and on.
A typical DAW user interface
If you want to simplify the decision, consider either Pro Tools or Logic Pro (if you're on a Mac with OSX, this is killer and my favorite). Those are the leaders, and if you learn them, you've learned them all.
A DAW is a digital audio workstation. It's a piece of software that communicates to all of the hardware we've been talking about. It will take the recordings and lay them out for you on a multi-track where you can then proceed to signal processing and making your vocals sound even better. It's not an option if you want to produce the kind of results everyone expects in this modern age.
Windows: Go for Pro Tools You can get it for Mac too but Avid doesn't keep their update cycle as on point for Macs right now. You will either need an Avid interface or buy a USB dongle to be able to use Pro Tools. It's how they keep people from stealing their software, which is smart.
Apple Mac: Go for Logic Pro It's beautiful, intuitive, and keeps getting better. And since it's made by Apple, you know it will always work for your Mac and be up-to-date with their constant operating system upgrades.
Vocal Mixing Tips
It'd be real crappy of me to tell you about all of these tools you need to record but then leave you hanging. What I can't do in this article is explain how to install your DAW and sync it up to your interface, tell the multi-track mixer which inputs to use, or give you the complete run down on mixing. You need to take the time to experience the learning curve of a DAW.
Everyone has to, but only once. Then you're good to go for life.
I want to share some techniques for post-processing your vocals. I can't go in super depth here. If you'd like more details, please check out our article on basic audio mixing tips Here,
I'm going to point you in the right direction. You'll understand it all and can revisit it after you've become familiar with your DAW and it's plugins.
Equalization
When dealing with vocals, you'll want to vary these values depending on if you're doing something where it's vocals only such as a podcast, or if you're mixing vocals into a song. The principals will remain the same. In your DAW, find a parametric EQ plugin and apply it to the track. Open it and you'll have you have five nodes that you can move around to affect the frequency spectrum of the vocals, from the lowest portions to the left and up to the highest on the right. You should be able to play the track and see it's signal appear on the plugin.
Oceanturtle's Fnequalizer Plugin
On the leftmost side, apply a low-end roll off. You'll want to start it anywhere from 60 to 100 Hz, where the slightest impact occurs. It will veer deeply off to the left, removing more and more of the sub-bass frequencies out of your vocals. This won't impact your voice, but it will remove any low frequency noises that crept into your recording. For mixing over kick drum and bass, you may choose to push this value as high as 150 Hz. You can change the rate of the roll off as well so that it descends more sharply. You can do the same at the high end or even the inverse where you boost the high end. Use your ears, not your eyes, to make the proper decisions.
Now use another node and set up a medium width Q curve and subtract anywhere from 2-6 db of amplitude and begin sweeping it from around 200 Hz up to 500 Hz. You'll find the sweet spot where a sense of muddiness is removed and clarity occurs. This is removing the boomy sensation your room is creating due to lack of complete acoustic treatment.
Do the same as above but use a wide width Q curve (boost wide and cut thin!) and add anywhere from 1-3 db of boost around 2.5-6 kHz. Sweep it around and play with the width of the curve to find the sweet spot. This is the range where the human voice has definition. It will help your words be understood. The value will be lower for females and higher for males.
Compression
Once you've EQ'd your vocals, you've removed the "nasty" frequencies, or at least turned them down to where they aren't recognizable. Now you're ready for compression. You don't want to compress your vocals before you've done this preliminary EQ-ing or you'll just be compounding the problem.
Logic Pro's Compressor Plugin
Compression has four variables associated with it: Ratio, Threshold, Attack, Decay. For vocals, you can usually get away with a very fast attack and decay. These have to do with how quickly compression is applied and released after the amplitude surpasses and dips back below the threshold you set. The threshold is set in decibels and is the level you choose to start apply compression. The ratio then is like an inverse gain knob. For vocals, you could use a 2:1 and as high as a 5:1, depending on the style of vocals and genre of music. Rap and Pop will take more to duplicate the feeling you're used to hearing. What this means is that if your vocals go over the threshold by 5 decibels, it will reduce it down to 1 decibel in volume, assuming a 5:1 ratio. If it goes over by 10 db, it will be reduced to 2 db. This evens out the volumes of your vocals so the spikes and dips are less extreme.
When done, you may find you want to add an additional EQ plugin after the compression and do a little bit more work with it. It should be minor. If you find yourself doing a lot of EQ work after compression, that means you didn't do it right the first time before compression.
Effects
This is the fun part. Play around with panning, delays, flangers, reverbs , pitch shifters, and more to get an idea of what the possibilities are.
Logic Pro's Space Designer Plugin
Certain effects will be more appropriate for some songs or applications than others, but largely this boils down to the creative control of the mixer. You can also independently apply compression and EQ to the effects as well by sending them to another track via a bus.
Perfect Quality Vocal Recording Example
I can't leave you to the task without providing an example of something to aim at. Here's Paul McCartney singing Golden Slumbers from the Beatles' album Abbey Road, recorded at the amazing Abbey Road studio! (Edit: That one got yanked off of YouTube. Here's an equally good example from Boyz II Men singing The Beatles tune Yesterday!)
Notice the clarity due to the reduction of extreme low-end and the muddy area, along with the compression that keeps the overall average volume consistent across segments. Then listen for the subtle reverb tail. You can produce these results at home with the proper studio gear and practice. Keep hope and work hard!
Recording Vocals At Home is a Piece of Cake!
That's it, my friends. Really. There are three aspects to recording vocals that follow chronologically along the audio signal chain. You start with your hardware which sends the signal to the computer and DAW software and then you apply some post-processing. It's a piece of cake once you've done it a couple of times.
Take your time to experiment. Once you've familiarized yourself and become comfortable with the technical aspects of recording, you'll brain will be ready to get into the creative part, and that's where your world will open up to an endless realm of possibility. Be patient and studious and you'll get there in no time. These skills are horizontally applicable to recording instruments too! You're on your way to becoming a professional studio engineer!
The times they are a-changin'. It used to cost an arm and a leg to go into the studio to record vocals. Now, consumer level recording equipment is not only more than good enough, but it's affordable enough that anyone who's serious about the task can put together a quality vocal signal chain for under a thousand dollars, and even less than that! The question has shifted from "How can I afford it?" to "How do I do it?" Let me show you.
No matter your goal... whether you're a rapper, producer, singer, podcast creator, video game designer, etc., you need a quality vocal chain set up and ready to rock at home. Recording vocals at home used to be a dream, and now it's a no-brainer. Money is no longer the barrier to entry. The know-how is what gets in the way because you have to know not only which pieces of studio equipment you need, but how to hook them up, in what order, and how to record the signal in your computer, not to mention using the software. That sounds intimidating right?
Don't worry. After this article, you'll understand the concept like the back of your hand and know exactly what you need. Remember, the question is not just "how do I record vocals?" but how to get a clean and clear end result that sounds professional. This broad question could open a huge can of worms that could spawn a discussion that could go on for weeks.
What we're going to do is skip the nuances and get right down to the nitty gritty with a quick overview so you can get started immediately. I'm even going to wrap it up with a few equalization and compression tips to take your clean recording from crystal clear to polished and ready for your listeners. In the future, we'll explore each sub-topic in this article in more depth. But for now...
Without further ado...
Here's a table of content of sorts to let you know what we're going to cover, in order:
Microphone
An Example of Perfect Quality Vocals
If you cover the basics of each of these areas, you will achieve decent results that are good enough to present to the world without being embarrassed. If you go the distance and take the time to accumulate the equipment by trading up quality over time and really learn the tricks of the trade, you'll have pristine results that would make the Abbey Road guys cry. I jest, but you can compete and even charge money to help others get the results they need. Let's get started. At the end, I'll show you some Abbey Road results that'll make your mouth water.
Note: All of the "recommendation" links you'll see below formatted like this will all take you to Amazon so you can get an idea of the price and other technical details. I'll show you my favorite budget option and then my absolute favorite option available, despite cost, so you can get a frame of reference. If you're ballin' on a budget, you're still going to get massive results with these suggestions. In some cases, I'm won't show you this or that since it's all budget. I'll show you types.
Don't worry about the order that these various pieces of equipment go in within the signal chain. We'll cover that in the conclusion. It's simple and will make plenty of sense by the time you get there.
Microphone
The microphone, obviously, is the very device that allows you to capture the fluctuations of your vocal cords. When it comes to mics, price doesn't always correlate to quality. There are also many types of microphones that you should be acquainted with. But as far as vocals go, you need to ask yourself what type of vocals you'll be recording.
Dynamic Mics
Shure SM57 Dynamic Mic
If you're recording rap vocals, heavy metal screaming, or anything else that's forceful and varies in volume and intensity constantly, you'll want to go for a dynamic microphone. They can not only withstand the force of air that'll be shooting out of your mouth, but won't decrease in their ability to record as humidity rushes past the diaphragm.
Give it a good preamp and it'll take you all the way. Big studios default to it for a lot of applications.
Favorite: Electro-Voice RE20 - "The Radio Announcer's Choice"
I'll venture to say 99% of radio shows use this for their DJ's and talk shows. It's got a great proximity effect to enhance the bass in your voice if you choose.
Condenser Mics
Rode NTK Condenser Mic
On the other hand, if you're recording singers with beautiful voices that feature subtle nuances that should definitely show up in the recording, then you'll want a condenser microphone. You'll see various types, but go for a large diaphragm condenser mic. Because it's larger in diameter, it's more sensitive to each sound wave that hits it. That also means that you shouldn't scream directly into it or let spit fly into it, etc. If you decide to record a rapper or "screamo" type of vocalist on it, make sure they face off-axis and use a pop-filter and windscreen, without question. No matter what type of vocalist you're recording, expect a lot of sibilance and plosives at times.
Budget: MXL 990 - "As Good as the Rest of Your Chain"
My feeling about this mic is that it will perform as good as you'll let it, based on the rest of your gear. You'll eventually want to upgrade, but it'll get you started for sure. It will become your bottle neck for quality later on, though. (Another option is the Oktava MK-319)
I love this mic more than my cat (not my dog though). I go to this mic for all types of vocalists, unless their voices feature a lot of bass and I want to capture that. This microphone shines for anyone with a mid to high frequency ranged voice. It only gets better as you pair it with better preamps.
Here's a heads-up to remember as you continue this article. Most mic's have different casings that require specialized shock mounts. Fortunately, if you buy most mic's new (and I suggest that for condensers so you know it wasn't treated roughly), it'll come with its own custom shock mount and mic stand adapter. If you order a bunch of stuff at once, be careful that you're not doubling up on those items!
Room Acoustics
Something that a lot of people don't consider is that the recording environment is just as important as the equipment you use. Many home studios choose to use a closet as a make-shift vocal booth to try to avoid these issues, but that only exacerbates the issue. What is this issue I'm talking about? Acoustics.
Room acoustics refers to the size of the room, the orientation of the walls, how smooth the walls are, etc. All of these things affect how sound waves will bounce back to the mic.
These "bounces" are called reflections. They can create delays, reverbs, constructive or deconstructive interference at various frequencies, and a multitude of other problems like flutter and on and on. The tools discussed in this section will help you combat these problems. You've basically got two options.
Acoustic Treatment
People will tell you, "Oh, you don't need to treat your room, just close mic everything." Don't listen. If you want to record freely in your studio room or vocal booth, it will require acoustic treatment. I'm going to tell you a little about it here, but if you want to learn more please head over to our full feature on acoustic treatment Prepare to lose your mind and become addicted though. It's a fun topic.
Professional Acoustic Treatment (Panels and a Diffusor at Bottom)
To be honest, I'm not going to suggest this to someone who's recording vocals exclusively. If you're mixing or recording a band all at once, then this is for you. There are two types of acoustic treatment out there, the cheaper and less effective egg-crate foam type, and the more handsome paneling option. Within both there are reflection panels, clouds, bass traps, diffusors, and more. Again, read our full feature if you want to go this route; it's too much to cover here.
I honestly would only ever use these kits inside of a vocal booth, and have. Some people are happy to plaster their walls with this stuff, but not only would I not want to look at it, but it's not that great. The positive is that it's cheaper than the dickens and does help.
Favorite: Professional Studio Paneling - "The Now We're Talking Option"
You can order these from Real Traps or GIK Acoustics Those are the only two options I'd consider. I made my own by ordering the right high-density insulation and doing some wood-working.
Reflection Filters
If you're mainly focused on vocals, let's be honest. Skip that whole can of worms above and go for a reflection filter. These are miniature acoustic treatment panels that attach to your mic stand and envelop your mic. Not only will they block out any reflections making their way back towards your mic, but they also stop the creation of reflections in the critical directions (based on the pick-up pattern of your mic, which should be cardioid for vocals). It'll make more sense if you look at a picture of one:
Auray Reflection Filter
The snazzy part is that the egg crate foam, in this case (and what makes it suck in the full-on room application) is that it only absorbs middle and high range frequencies. It let's the bass frequencies pass through it here so they don't bounce back at you (which is a huge problem in small rooms like vocal booths or closets). This is your ticket to the big leagues for cheap if you're only recording vocals at home. With the EQ tips I'll share with you at the end of this article, you'll be absolutely pleased with the results.
Not only do I feel Auray's option has a more sturdy construction, but you can change the shape and open up your mic to more room ambience if you choose.
I've said my piece. Start with a reflection filter and save yourself the acoustic treatment nightmare until you're ready to expand beyond just vocals. Then the nightmare will become a beautiful fantasy that you can't get enough of. It's absolutely my favorite aspect of having a studio.
Mic Stand & Shock Mount
This part isn't nearly as fun as the rest, but it's crucial. As far as mic stands go, you have a couple of options. These include a desktop stand and a standing, traditional mic stand. It really depends on what you're doing. If you're podcasting or recording audiobooks, you might as well sit down since it's going to take a while. If you're trying to perform your best take of vocals ever, you'll want to stand up so you can get a full lung and stomach expansion and belt it out. When it comes to standing stands, you can consider whether or not you'd like to add a boom to it (the part that stretches out so it's not just straight up and down). Also, think about how heavy the shock mount, the reflection filter, and the mic is. This will help you decide if you want a boom, and the critical decision of if you want tripod legs or a heavy circle base. I prefer legs.
Various types of mic stands, including booms and desktop styles
Tripod Legs: If you want to use a boom, you'll want a stand of this type of stand so you can angle the boom over a leg to keep it from tipping over. Especially if you have a reflection filter on it and a heavy condenser mic.
Circle Base: If you forgo a boom, then you can rock a tripod or a circle base The circles are usually made to be very heavy to keep from tipping. And you're less likely to trip over a leg and knock the whole set up over (which is bad for a condenser's tube).
When it comes to shock mounts, a condenser mic should come with one custom fitted to it. You can buy them for dynamics, but it's not as necessary. What they do is suspend the mic in mid-air off of the mic stand using rubber bands so that bass vibrations aren't moving up the stand and getting into your recording. If you have a random mic but no shock mount, search for a one-size-fits-all and it'll do the trick.
Pop Filter & Wind Screen
There's not much to this. Pop filters do exactly what they sound like they do, which is help dissipate bursts of air, known as plosives, that occur during syllables that start with the letter "B" or "P" for instance. I prefer the kind of pop filter that is on a flexible arm that extends towards the vocalist. You can orient it in a certain way to achieve two results: You can keep the vocalist from getting right up on the mic and spitting all over it and breathing their hot, humid air into it, and you can trick them into remaining slightly off-axis. This distance and off-axis orientation should completely eradicate pops. If they don't, you can use volume automation when you clean up the vocals to hide any that slip through.
One of the coolest pop filters available, the WindTech PopGard
Wind screens are essentially the same thing as pop filters, and you can combine the two if you have an unruly vocalist. While a pop filter is a thin piece of fabric stretched out (think of panty hose), a wind screen is a thicker chunk of foam that goes all around the mic (think of a sock). Wind screens may come more in handy if you have a vocalist who likes to hold the microphone in their hand.
Pop Filter: This is an example of your typical pop filter , unlike the nifty one above. They are cheap enough that you can put up two if you need.
Wind Screen: These are you basic wind screens They are only a dollar or two each, and you can buy them solo or in packs. You can get any color of the rainbow too.
At least have one or the other, but go ahead and pick up a nice pop filter and a pack of wind screens. They are both cheap enough and are more than worth it. The last thing you want is the perfect take ruined when it could have been saved by you not being a cheap bastard!
XLR Cables
Notice I didn't just say "cables." I specifically typed XLR. Any microphone worth it's weight is going to expect an XLR cable. If you even consider using a mic that asks for a USB cord, you should take that USB cord and... well, you get the point.
Typical 3-Prong XLR Cable
The main reason I wanted to talk about XLR's is to save you some money. One of the biggest myths in the business, and it's only perpetuated by audiophiles who have more money than sense, is that super expensive cables are better than cheap ones. Yes, to an extent, that's true. You don't want to go so bottom rung that the cables don't have any shielding and pick up tons of 60 Hz hum and other electrical interferences.
But you also don't need these cables that get your money through crazy marketing. If a cable tells you all about it's 24 karat gold micro-weaved and braided shielding with quantum vibrational flux capacitors, then put it back on the shelf. There's one company that's notorious for this type of scam, and they are a real "monster," ya feel me. I'll point you in the right direction (take note of the length before you order any cable!):
Budget: There are plenty of budget cable companies. Hosa does a good job , Livewire is okay, and Monoprice is another that pops in my head. They aren't budget, but more so standard in price.
Favorite: If you can afford the extra spend and want a piece of mind, I like to run my vocal signal chain with Mogami cables , along with my monitors. They go the extra mile without extorting you.
This goes for all cabling of all types all across the board. Never fall for the marketing trick. Now, the one thing that is true is that if you're using an unbalanced (versus balanced) connection, you don't want a ton of extra length on the cable. That's more opportunity for interference to be picked up. With balanced it doesn't matter. This is another topic that's far beyond the scope of this article. Honestly, just don't get a 30 foot cable if you only need 6 feet and you won't need to worry about it.
Preamplifier
Let me stress this, because it's not obvious until you've had some experience. The difference in a crappy preamplifier and a quality preamp is literally night and day. And yes, you must have one, because you have to boost the signal in the cable from "mic level" to "line level." Stuff like electric guitars, keyboards, and electric basses are already at line level, but mic level is very quiet.
Some goofy dudes will try to get around having to buy a preamp by just cranking the volume on their inputs like mad. All you're doing is introducing a boat load of noise. You need to boost this signal without also boosting the noise, and that's what a preamp does.
Let me preface this part of the discussion by letting you know that interfaces will come with preamps on most every channel, that you can bypass or not. So if you're stretching your budget thin, you're better off not buying an independent outboard preamp and adding some extra cash to your interface purchase. If you can afford to pick up a stand-alone racked or desktop preamp, then do it, only if you can spend enough to get past the bottom rung of quality. The cheapest ones on the market will harm your signal more than they will help, while the best mic preamp will unlock the full potential of your mic.
FMR RNP Preamplifier - The Really Nice Preamp
Remember earlier, too, when I said that most microphones have a range of ability to provide you with a quality recording. You can force a microphone to sound like crap by pairing it with a horrible preamp, or you can help it show its full potential by hooking it up to an awesome preamp. This is not the place to skimp out on and be cheap. Do this step right!
Budget: FMR RNP - "The Really Nice Preamp"
I can't sing this pre's praises enough. FMR cut the cost by offering a plain plastic casing in a desktop format, but the electronics are a masterpiece. You can rack them with various kits out there. Check out the Funklogic options, which is how I racked my RNP and RNC together.
Favorite: Great River MP-2NV - "The I'll Never Need Another Preamp Again"
This is on my wishlist ever since I was able to play with one of these. They say at the level of perfection, you have various flavors to appeal to preferences. This is my flavor. It's pristine and adds nothing to the signal, whereas some top-level pre's might add warmth or coloring.
Preamplifiers are my second most favorite piece of studio gear after acoustic treatment. That's because it's the second most important, after acoustic treatment. That's a hint. Get the RNP if you can!
Interface
What most people who are new to the concept of recording don't understand is how your audio signal is moved into the computer. This is what an interface does. Many beginners will attempt to use their computer's sound card, but not only does it not feature all of the components you need, but the ones they do have don't cut it. You need an interface, which is like a glorified outboard sound card with additional features.
An interface combines several elements of the signal chain. Remember, most will include at least one if not two channels that include a preamplifier. It will include analog-to-digital converters and digital-to-analog converters so you can move the signal into the computer and back out so you can hear it through your monitors. That's the basic concept.
Let me say up front. If this is the spot you try to save money on, you're going to doom yourself. Don't buy some kind of $50 dollar cheap audio interface and expect any of the components inside of it to be worth a crap. Another heads up is that a lot of interfaces will come bundled with installation disks for a DAW, which we will talk about next. Make sure you know what you're getting so you don't buy twice!
Lastly, you'll find several options for how the interface connects to the computer. You'll see USB, Firewire, Optical TOSlink (Lightpipe), Thunderbolt, Ethernet, and more. Concern yourself at this point with only USB or Firewire. Both are fast enough at this point and have been for at least a decade for this level of recording (one to ten tracks at a time or so). It's just a matter of preference. I use Firewire right now.
Focusrite is known for having quality preamps in their interfaces. If you're only recording one voice at a time, you can slide by with this money-saving option.
This bad boy gives you so many inputs and outputs that you'll be ready to record an entire band, including a million drum mics, but you'll need to add some preamps into the mix.
Focusrite offers expansions that can daisy-chain to this main interface though. I love Focusrite.
There are tons of interfaces out there and I've only tried a handful, partially because once you buy you don't need any others unless they fry their electronics over time. Mark of the Unicorn, or MOTU, makes some solid stuff. I enjoyed my two that I went through, but I'm currently using the Saffire Pro 40 mentioned above and don't see myself leaving Focusrite in the future.
DAW Software
Again, before you purchase a DAW, or digital audio workstation, make sure your interface isn't coming with one first! When it comes to DAW's, there are a ton of options that will all get the job done. Let me list a ton just for example: Avid Pro Tools, Apple Logic Pro, Ableton Live, Image-Line Fruity Loops Studio, Cakewalk Sonar, Steinberg Cubase, Sony Acid Pro, Propellerhead Reason, Presonus Studio One, MOTU Digital Performer, Cockos Reaper, and on and on.
A typical DAW user interface
If you want to simplify the decision, consider either Pro Tools or Logic Pro (if you're on a Mac with OSX, this is killer and my favorite). Those are the leaders, and if you learn them, you've learned them all.
A DAW is a digital audio workstation. It's a piece of software that communicates to all of the hardware we've been talking about. It will take the recordings and lay them out for you on a multi-track where you can then proceed to signal processing and making your vocals sound even better. It's not an option if you want to produce the kind of results everyone expects in this modern age.
Windows: Go for Pro Tools You can get it for Mac too but Avid doesn't keep their update cycle as on point for Macs right now. You will either need an Avid interface or buy a USB dongle to be able to use Pro Tools. It's how they keep people from stealing their software, which is smart.
Apple Mac: Go for Logic Pro It's beautiful, intuitive, and keeps getting better. And since it's made by Apple, you know it will always work for your Mac and be up-to-date with their constant operating system upgrades.
Vocal Mixing Tips
It'd be real crappy of me to tell you about all of these tools you need to record but then leave you hanging. What I can't do in this article is explain how to install your DAW and sync it up to your interface, tell the multi-track mixer which inputs to use, or give you the complete run down on mixing. You need to take the time to experience the learning curve of a DAW.
Everyone has to, but only once. Then you're good to go for life.
I want to share some techniques for post-processing your vocals. I can't go in super depth here. If you'd like more details, please check out our article on basic audio mixing tips Here,
I'm going to point you in the right direction. You'll understand it all and can revisit it after you've become familiar with your DAW and it's plugins.
Equalization
When dealing with vocals, you'll want to vary these values depending on if you're doing something where it's vocals only such as a podcast, or if you're mixing vocals into a song. The principals will remain the same. In your DAW, find a parametric EQ plugin and apply it to the track. Open it and you'll have you have five nodes that you can move around to affect the frequency spectrum of the vocals, from the lowest portions to the left and up to the highest on the right. You should be able to play the track and see it's signal appear on the plugin.
Oceanturtle's Fnequalizer Plugin
On the leftmost side, apply a low-end roll off. You'll want to start it anywhere from 60 to 100 Hz, where the slightest impact occurs. It will veer deeply off to the left, removing more and more of the sub-bass frequencies out of your vocals. This won't impact your voice, but it will remove any low frequency noises that crept into your recording. For mixing over kick drum and bass, you may choose to push this value as high as 150 Hz. You can change the rate of the roll off as well so that it descends more sharply. You can do the same at the high end or even the inverse where you boost the high end. Use your ears, not your eyes, to make the proper decisions.
Now use another node and set up a medium width Q curve and subtract anywhere from 2-6 db of amplitude and begin sweeping it from around 200 Hz up to 500 Hz. You'll find the sweet spot where a sense of muddiness is removed and clarity occurs. This is removing the boomy sensation your room is creating due to lack of complete acoustic treatment.
Do the same as above but use a wide width Q curve (boost wide and cut thin!) and add anywhere from 1-3 db of boost around 2.5-6 kHz. Sweep it around and play with the width of the curve to find the sweet spot. This is the range where the human voice has definition. It will help your words be understood. The value will be lower for females and higher for males.
Compression
Once you've EQ'd your vocals, you've removed the "nasty" frequencies, or at least turned them down to where they aren't recognizable. Now you're ready for compression. You don't want to compress your vocals before you've done this preliminary EQ-ing or you'll just be compounding the problem.
Logic Pro's Compressor Plugin
Compression has four variables associated with it: Ratio, Threshold, Attack, Decay. For vocals, you can usually get away with a very fast attack and decay. These have to do with how quickly compression is applied and released after the amplitude surpasses and dips back below the threshold you set. The threshold is set in decibels and is the level you choose to start apply compression. The ratio then is like an inverse gain knob. For vocals, you could use a 2:1 and as high as a 5:1, depending on the style of vocals and genre of music. Rap and Pop will take more to duplicate the feeling you're used to hearing. What this means is that if your vocals go over the threshold by 5 decibels, it will reduce it down to 1 decibel in volume, assuming a 5:1 ratio. If it goes over by 10 db, it will be reduced to 2 db. This evens out the volumes of your vocals so the spikes and dips are less extreme.
When done, you may find you want to add an additional EQ plugin after the compression and do a little bit more work with it. It should be minor. If you find yourself doing a lot of EQ work after compression, that means you didn't do it right the first time before compression.
Effects
This is the fun part. Play around with panning, delays, flangers, reverbs , pitch shifters, and more to get an idea of what the possibilities are.
Logic Pro's Space Designer Plugin
Certain effects will be more appropriate for some songs or applications than others, but largely this boils down to the creative control of the mixer. You can also independently apply compression and EQ to the effects as well by sending them to another track via a bus.
Perfect Quality Vocal Recording Example
I can't leave you to the task without providing an example of something to aim at. Here's Paul McCartney singing Golden Slumbers from the Beatles' album Abbey Road, recorded at the amazing Abbey Road studio! (Edit: That one got yanked off of YouTube. Here's an equally good example from Boyz II Men singing The Beatles tune Yesterday!)
Notice the clarity due to the reduction of extreme low-end and the muddy area, along with the compression that keeps the overall average volume consistent across segments. Then listen for the subtle reverb tail. You can produce these results at home with the proper studio gear and practice. Keep hope and work hard!
Recording Vocals At Home is a Piece of Cake!
That's it, my friends. Really. There are three aspects to recording vocals that follow chronologically along the audio signal chain. You start with your hardware which sends the signal to the computer and DAW software and then you apply some post-processing. It's a piece of cake once you've done it a couple of times.
Take your time to experiment. Once you've familiarized yourself and become comfortable with the technical aspects of recording, you'll brain will be ready to get into the creative part, and that's where your world will open up to an endless realm of possibility. Be patient and studious and you'll get there in no time. These skills are horizontally applicable to recording instruments too! You're on your way to becoming a professional studio engineer!
Tuesday 30 August 2016
10 Expert Tips For Rocking The Bass Guitar
Anne Erickson
Having an appreciation for the bass guitar, I understand that a having bass player that knows how to move and groove is critical to the sound of any band. Having also served as a bass player, I know that the lower end sometimes gets the shaft when it comes to media coverage. Well, not at !
Below, check out 10 Tips for Those Rocking the Bass Guitar from a collection of noteworthy players. Who's your favorite bass slinger? Add to the conversation below!
Duff McKagan from Guns N' Roses, Velvet Revolver and Jane's Addiction on recording, as told to Bass Player:
I try not to get caught up in Pro Tools; I'd rather play a song all the way through than sit there and edit parts together. We tracked Velvet Revolver's Libertad as a live band, and on most of the tunes, we didn't use a click track. Sure, some of the tracks speed up at the end, but they do so for a reason: because the music and the feeling are getting more intense. I think the listener wants to hear that, too. Most important for me is being in that deep pocket with the drums. To do that, you have to empty your mind. Especially when we're recording, I empty my mind completely and picture myself literally inside the bass drum. Whenever that thumper hits, I'm just a little behind to create the groove.”
Jaco Pastorius on getting his stage sound via :
I turn the bass on the amp all the way up because I only use the back pick-up on the bass. I never use the bass pick-up on the front so I have to compensate quite a bit with the amp. I have a sound that's like an R&B-type sound which is real punchy and hits.”
Victor Wooten on getting his bass to sound like a guitar on his album Words and Tones, as told to Premier Guitar :
I'm always looking for new tricks and techniques. I always use a ponytail holder hair band on the neck of my bass, and I found that if I moved it to the 17th or 18th fret, I could make sounds like a guitar player using pinched harmonics. So I put distortion on the instrument and, just like a guitarist, I took a solo on ‘Sword and Stone' that sounded just like a guitarist would. It was definitely something new for me.”
Ozzy Osbourne bass player Blasko on using the overdrive pedal, as told to Bass Player:
I'm not a fan of distortion, because I think it causes you to lose a lot of the roundness of the tone. But I love overdrive. In the way I play, it helps the notes connect to one another. It's hard for me to get excited when the bass tone is completely dry. I also like to have a lot of bottom end; our stage volume is sometimes so high that I can't hear myself, so I like to know that I can still feel myself by moving lot of air.”
Primus' Les Claypool on tips for young bass players, as told to Alter the Press :
Play as much as you can and play with as many people as you can. People who just sit in a room and play, are only going to get so good. Playing music is like having a conversation, if you have conversations with the same people over and over again, you're not going to be as loquacious as someone who speaks to different people, from different backgrounds, all the time. Play with as many people as you possibly can, even if they aren't any good.”
Red Hot Chili Peppers bass player Flea on how studying music theory can help your playing, as told to Bass Player Magazine :
I took theory, composition and jazz trumpet at the University of Southern California. The main thing I got out of that experience was my theory class, and the big thing was Bach, who blew my mind in a way that Hendrix did to me when I was a kid, or Charlie Parker. I always appreciated classical music, but not to the point where I really delved into it. I took classes with a theory professor, Professor Neal Desby, and I also studied with him privately. I was really getting into Bach…. It's something to aspire to. It's just amazing.”
Rush's Geddy Lee on getting the perfect bass sound” as told to Bass Player:
I've always liked my tone to have an edge, but over the years, I've been moving the edge higher and I've brought in more warmth. When I got my first Wal, it blew me away—the lower mids are so constant and the tone fits so easily into the context of our band on record. I don't need to use a lot of fancy EQ; the bass just naturally bounces and hangs there. That's what I'm really after; the bounce of the sound. If I'm playing a lot of notes, I don't like the tone to get twangy; I like there to be a bit of depth to it…”
Nikki Sixx on using the Gibson Thunderbird to get his trademark sound, as told to Guitar Center :
I've played Gibson Thunderbirds for my whole career. The Thunderbird is me. It's become such a part of me that I don't even look right holding another bass anymore. The Blackbird is my version of the Thunderbird. It's like a race car. Both of the pickups are wired together, and there are no tone or volume controls. The only control is a toggle switch that turns the pickups on or off. The word ‘finesse' should never come into play when you're talking about rock bass. It's like sex. You've just got to do the job. Playing bass isn't about making love. It's brutal, nasty, dirty, and raw. That's what the Blackbird is. There are other basses for other styles of music with volume and tone controls, but I just want to go. It's not like I'm going to turn the tone control back 25 percent and the volume back 10 percent to play the bridge of ‘Home Sweet Home' on stage.”
Jason Newsted on creating rhythms, as told to Bass Player:
A lot of people who aren't necessarily musicians visit the studio, and I keep various noise-making devices around—drums, knockers, nose flutes—so they can play along. I love watching instructional videos, so I bought the Santana rhythm-section tape, From Afro-Cuban to Rock Latin Percussion. It shows five general rhythms and how you apply them—but once the musicians start doing their thing, I just sit and watch in amazement. I haven't spent enough hours learning how to play them.”
Green Day bass player Mike Dirnt on what advice he would give to an up-and-comer, as told to Guitar Center :
I would say, first of all, play music with friends. Don't just play with somebody because they happen to have a lot of skills. Play with people you get along with because happiness is a road traveled, not a destination. If you can find it within yourself to be happy with working 40 hours a week and having a gig on the weekend or just having something to look forward to as far as having different shows and playing with friends. If you can be happy with that, if you can be happy with the least, then you've already succeeded. Chances are, all it's going to be is you gigging from weekend to weekend for the rest of your life or until you get going.”
Having an appreciation for the bass guitar, I understand that a having bass player that knows how to move and groove is critical to the sound of any band. Having also served as a bass player, I know that the lower end sometimes gets the shaft when it comes to media coverage. Well, not at !
Below, check out 10 Tips for Those Rocking the Bass Guitar from a collection of noteworthy players. Who's your favorite bass slinger? Add to the conversation below!
Duff McKagan from Guns N' Roses, Velvet Revolver and Jane's Addiction on recording, as told to Bass Player:
I try not to get caught up in Pro Tools; I'd rather play a song all the way through than sit there and edit parts together. We tracked Velvet Revolver's Libertad as a live band, and on most of the tunes, we didn't use a click track. Sure, some of the tracks speed up at the end, but they do so for a reason: because the music and the feeling are getting more intense. I think the listener wants to hear that, too. Most important for me is being in that deep pocket with the drums. To do that, you have to empty your mind. Especially when we're recording, I empty my mind completely and picture myself literally inside the bass drum. Whenever that thumper hits, I'm just a little behind to create the groove.”
Jaco Pastorius on getting his stage sound via :
I turn the bass on the amp all the way up because I only use the back pick-up on the bass. I never use the bass pick-up on the front so I have to compensate quite a bit with the amp. I have a sound that's like an R&B-type sound which is real punchy and hits.”
Victor Wooten on getting his bass to sound like a guitar on his album Words and Tones, as told to Premier Guitar :
I'm always looking for new tricks and techniques. I always use a ponytail holder hair band on the neck of my bass, and I found that if I moved it to the 17th or 18th fret, I could make sounds like a guitar player using pinched harmonics. So I put distortion on the instrument and, just like a guitarist, I took a solo on ‘Sword and Stone' that sounded just like a guitarist would. It was definitely something new for me.”
Ozzy Osbourne bass player Blasko on using the overdrive pedal, as told to Bass Player:
I'm not a fan of distortion, because I think it causes you to lose a lot of the roundness of the tone. But I love overdrive. In the way I play, it helps the notes connect to one another. It's hard for me to get excited when the bass tone is completely dry. I also like to have a lot of bottom end; our stage volume is sometimes so high that I can't hear myself, so I like to know that I can still feel myself by moving lot of air.”
Primus' Les Claypool on tips for young bass players, as told to Alter the Press :
Play as much as you can and play with as many people as you can. People who just sit in a room and play, are only going to get so good. Playing music is like having a conversation, if you have conversations with the same people over and over again, you're not going to be as loquacious as someone who speaks to different people, from different backgrounds, all the time. Play with as many people as you possibly can, even if they aren't any good.”
Red Hot Chili Peppers bass player Flea on how studying music theory can help your playing, as told to Bass Player Magazine :
I took theory, composition and jazz trumpet at the University of Southern California. The main thing I got out of that experience was my theory class, and the big thing was Bach, who blew my mind in a way that Hendrix did to me when I was a kid, or Charlie Parker. I always appreciated classical music, but not to the point where I really delved into it. I took classes with a theory professor, Professor Neal Desby, and I also studied with him privately. I was really getting into Bach…. It's something to aspire to. It's just amazing.”
Rush's Geddy Lee on getting the perfect bass sound” as told to Bass Player:
I've always liked my tone to have an edge, but over the years, I've been moving the edge higher and I've brought in more warmth. When I got my first Wal, it blew me away—the lower mids are so constant and the tone fits so easily into the context of our band on record. I don't need to use a lot of fancy EQ; the bass just naturally bounces and hangs there. That's what I'm really after; the bounce of the sound. If I'm playing a lot of notes, I don't like the tone to get twangy; I like there to be a bit of depth to it…”
Nikki Sixx on using the Gibson Thunderbird to get his trademark sound, as told to Guitar Center :
I've played Gibson Thunderbirds for my whole career. The Thunderbird is me. It's become such a part of me that I don't even look right holding another bass anymore. The Blackbird is my version of the Thunderbird. It's like a race car. Both of the pickups are wired together, and there are no tone or volume controls. The only control is a toggle switch that turns the pickups on or off. The word ‘finesse' should never come into play when you're talking about rock bass. It's like sex. You've just got to do the job. Playing bass isn't about making love. It's brutal, nasty, dirty, and raw. That's what the Blackbird is. There are other basses for other styles of music with volume and tone controls, but I just want to go. It's not like I'm going to turn the tone control back 25 percent and the volume back 10 percent to play the bridge of ‘Home Sweet Home' on stage.”
Jason Newsted on creating rhythms, as told to Bass Player:
A lot of people who aren't necessarily musicians visit the studio, and I keep various noise-making devices around—drums, knockers, nose flutes—so they can play along. I love watching instructional videos, so I bought the Santana rhythm-section tape, From Afro-Cuban to Rock Latin Percussion. It shows five general rhythms and how you apply them—but once the musicians start doing their thing, I just sit and watch in amazement. I haven't spent enough hours learning how to play them.”
Green Day bass player Mike Dirnt on what advice he would give to an up-and-comer, as told to Guitar Center :
I would say, first of all, play music with friends. Don't just play with somebody because they happen to have a lot of skills. Play with people you get along with because happiness is a road traveled, not a destination. If you can find it within yourself to be happy with working 40 hours a week and having a gig on the weekend or just having something to look forward to as far as having different shows and playing with friends. If you can be happy with that, if you can be happy with the least, then you've already succeeded. Chances are, all it's going to be is you gigging from weekend to weekend for the rest of your life or until you get going.”
Butch Vigs Drum Recording Secrets
It's quite possible that Butch Vig is tired of hearing his name mentioned in the same sentence as Nirvana's Nevermind, but in this case we think it's justified. The rousing thunder of Dave Grohl's opening drum line in the still-electrifying Smells Like Teen Spirit still stands as the most iconic drum sound since the days of Bonham and Moon.
The Garbage drummer's production credentials don't end there, of course: Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, Green Day, Foo Fighters and Muse have all called on the services of Vig in their pursuit of a mountain-moving rock sound.
In this interview, Vig discusses his key drum recording methods, working with Grohl and what to do when it's not working...
Do you see yourself predominantly as a drummer or producer?
"I probably look at myself as a producer first and foremost. I really love the studio. As I've found out, my live chops need a lot of work. It's one thing recording a song and doing two or three takes but now we're rehearsing six hours in a row to get things tight for live. It's a long uphill battle to get back into fighting shape, but I'm slowly getting there. When I'm in the studio I don't really practice. There was a long chunk of time I didn't even sit behind a drum kit when I was working with Green Day or the Foo Fighters."
Do you have a go-to drum sound you like to get when you're recording?
"It's really project by project. I try to follow during pre-production what everyone is playing, particularly the rhythm section. For instance, with the Foos I'll notice what Taylor defaults to, how he likes his tuning. But I'll be listening in the track too to see what the song calls for in terms of playing and sonically.
"I like drums to be tuned more mid or low, I like mid or lower snares, I don't like super high tuned snares. Luckily, someone like Taylor is pretty easy going. I might suggest a snare to use on a track, we'll put it up and if it sounds right on the track he's not too picky. Neither was Dave. Dave would listen to the drums and say, 'They sound great, man'. He'd leave it up to me to make sure the drums sound good in the context of drums and bass."
Are you hands on with drum sounds and parts when producing?
"I get pretty hands on. I think part of it is that I'm a drummer and I'm always aware of what the groove sounds like, what the drums sound like and what particular fills are. I think that's been one of my strengths. I've always got in the back of my head that it needs to work for the song. That's not to say you can't have moments the drums jump out and get to shine on their own.
"I mean like 'Rope', who does a drum solo in the middle of a bridge these days?! Not too many people! That was a really fun moment. To me that song was totally cool and allowed to have those drum fills. That song with the feel and stop and go rhythm guitar pattern had a prog feel and with the Foos they have that kind of thing every now and then so it made perfect sense that we could do that kind of arrangement."
You helped influence a lot of drummers with the Nevermind drum sound. How do you think it stands up 20-odd years on?
"I think that record sounds great and the drumming and drum sounds are great. Part of that is that it's pretty simple and not gimmicky. Drum sounds can be defined by a certain era and then frequently they sound dated when a style or fad moves into fashion. Just the way I recorded those drums was pretty standard. Miking kick and snare, overheads, toms and some room mics. Having said that the room we recorded that in at Sound City was amazing and part of it was that Dave Grohl is an incredible drummer. I think that helps it all sound fresh. I think it's a great sounding rock record and his drumming is incredible."
Have your methods for getting drum sounds changed much since Nevermind?
"I don't get uptight about how I record drums any more. There was a period post-Siamese Dream where I started getting more and more detailed - using more microphones, more pre-amps, spending more time getting sounds. It was around the time of the first Garbage record where I threw all of that out the window.
"If there's only two mics, lets do kick and snare and record it in mono. I guess for me what's exciting is that I don't think there are any rules. If you've got a track that calls for really precise drums, a Neil Peart drum part or something, you'll spend a lot of time getting things balanced and use a lot of different mics and different drums to get this incredibly transparent, clear sound. But that's not to say if you just want a trashy room sound you cant just put one mic in a corner if you get the right balance.
"It depends on the kind of vibe you're going for. Drums really give the listener a sense of where a song has been recorded and where it's taking place. If you have guitars, bass and drums and put on a huge room-y drum sound with lots of reverb it's going to sound like it was recorded in an arena. If you mute those and just put in a tiny kick and snare that's very dry with no reverb it's going to sound like it was recorded in your bedroom.
"The decision making process of how you record the drums and how much equalisation and ambience and compression and whatever you put on them defines the space of where the listener perceives the song is. It's powerful when you realise you can radically change how a listener is going to perceive a song."
Do you have a preferred mic set-up when tracking drums?
"It's different from band to band. I usually like a dynamic mic on a kick for a close mic but I like the fat 7s for the thumpier, woollier sound. Sometimes I'll use a 57 on a snare, sometimes I'll use a condenser, an AKG41, I might use a ribbon mic on a snare especially if there's a lot of hi hat bleed.
"I have a tendency to like condenser mics on drummers that don't hit the cymbals real loud, and if they do hit them loud I like to use ribbon mics because they're softer in the top end.
"Sometimes I'll record with stereo ambient mics, sometimes I'll just put up one and try to compress it out of a preamp really hard or run it through an effects pedal to give it a vibe. I'll run the drums to some sort of stereo compression and then really hammer it.
"So any time you feel it's not very exciting, you bring those up and the drums go crazy with compression. A lot of the time we use the Roger Mayer compressor the RM58. It's one of the most extreme, crazy compressors in the world. They're great, there's nothing that sounds like them in the world. It sometimes makes things sound like early Who records."
Do you like to pan the kit in the mix?
"Usually kick and snare down the middle with the overheads wide left and right. Sometimes I'll position them right over the drummer's head so it's from a drummer's perspective. Sometimes I move the overhead mics directly over the cymbals.
"With room mics I'll try to move them around so when you bring them up in the mix you can see the space the drums are in. With toms I usually pan left and right. I don't usually pan them hard left and hard right. I like to get it so it make sense as if you've got a drummer playing ten feet in front of you.
"Sometimes if you're using all programmed beats it's good to throw it all out of the window and f with your head a little bit, so put the kick down the middle and the snare off to one side with maybe the cymbals to the other side and the toms doing a weird automated pan back and forth or something. It all depends on what the song calls for."
When tracking do you prefer the entire band to track live?
"With Garbage, every song is different. With a band like the Foos we tracked that live so it's basically them going for rhythm takes between Dave and Taylor making sure we had a core and then we'd overdub Chris, Pat and Nate. With Green Day I would go in and Billie, Mike and Tre would record live together, but I was just going for keeping Tre's drums. Billie would go back in later and overdub his rhythm guitar and Mike would do his bass."
What preparation do you put in drum-wise before heading into the studio, whether it be with Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, Muse or an unknown band?
"I don't get too crazy with tuning. I'm pretty good at tuning but I have a drum tech called Mike Fasano. Usually I'll get him in on the first day, whether it be with Garbage or working with someone else, I'll have him come in and tweak the drums. On Day One I like to have the whole day to set everything up, including the amps.
"The majority, though, is getting drums set up and EQ-ing, compressing or whatever. When you come in on Day Two you're ready to record. I think you should be able to get a good drum sound in a day. If you can't, maybe you're over thinking it or maybe the drummer isn't very good!"
Is there a danger of drummers trying to over perfect their sound?
"I think that happens some times. Everybody will perceive how drums should sound in a different way - whether it's the producer, engineer or the drummer. Sometimes you get obsessed with things, like the kick drum isn't punchy enough, or the snare isn't sitting right and sometimes it's the player, sometimes it's the microphone, sometimes it's the wrong snare for the song and you need to fundamentally change it.
"You can run into those problems and when you do the first thing you have to do is see if the drummer is causing the problem with the way he's playing or the part and then you start looking more at the technical parts of it. You look at the microphones, the kind of drums and try to figure out why it's not working."
Is mixing typically a key point for an album's kit sound?
"On some albums it's defined. With the Foos the sound of the garage - it is what it is. You can EQ and compress a little in the mixing, but it wouldn't change the sound profoundly.
That was good in a way because from day one we knew the sound of the drums. Sometimes in the process of making a record the quicker you can make decisions and move on and not leave it all to the mix process that's a good thing. If you can define those drums early on that will help later on."
The Garbage drummer's production credentials don't end there, of course: Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, Green Day, Foo Fighters and Muse have all called on the services of Vig in their pursuit of a mountain-moving rock sound.
In this interview, Vig discusses his key drum recording methods, working with Grohl and what to do when it's not working...
Do you see yourself predominantly as a drummer or producer?
"I probably look at myself as a producer first and foremost. I really love the studio. As I've found out, my live chops need a lot of work. It's one thing recording a song and doing two or three takes but now we're rehearsing six hours in a row to get things tight for live. It's a long uphill battle to get back into fighting shape, but I'm slowly getting there. When I'm in the studio I don't really practice. There was a long chunk of time I didn't even sit behind a drum kit when I was working with Green Day or the Foo Fighters."
Do you have a go-to drum sound you like to get when you're recording?
"It's really project by project. I try to follow during pre-production what everyone is playing, particularly the rhythm section. For instance, with the Foos I'll notice what Taylor defaults to, how he likes his tuning. But I'll be listening in the track too to see what the song calls for in terms of playing and sonically.
"I like drums to be tuned more mid or low, I like mid or lower snares, I don't like super high tuned snares. Luckily, someone like Taylor is pretty easy going. I might suggest a snare to use on a track, we'll put it up and if it sounds right on the track he's not too picky. Neither was Dave. Dave would listen to the drums and say, 'They sound great, man'. He'd leave it up to me to make sure the drums sound good in the context of drums and bass."
Are you hands on with drum sounds and parts when producing?
"I get pretty hands on. I think part of it is that I'm a drummer and I'm always aware of what the groove sounds like, what the drums sound like and what particular fills are. I think that's been one of my strengths. I've always got in the back of my head that it needs to work for the song. That's not to say you can't have moments the drums jump out and get to shine on their own.
"I mean like 'Rope', who does a drum solo in the middle of a bridge these days?! Not too many people! That was a really fun moment. To me that song was totally cool and allowed to have those drum fills. That song with the feel and stop and go rhythm guitar pattern had a prog feel and with the Foos they have that kind of thing every now and then so it made perfect sense that we could do that kind of arrangement."
You helped influence a lot of drummers with the Nevermind drum sound. How do you think it stands up 20-odd years on?
"I think that record sounds great and the drumming and drum sounds are great. Part of that is that it's pretty simple and not gimmicky. Drum sounds can be defined by a certain era and then frequently they sound dated when a style or fad moves into fashion. Just the way I recorded those drums was pretty standard. Miking kick and snare, overheads, toms and some room mics. Having said that the room we recorded that in at Sound City was amazing and part of it was that Dave Grohl is an incredible drummer. I think that helps it all sound fresh. I think it's a great sounding rock record and his drumming is incredible."
Have your methods for getting drum sounds changed much since Nevermind?
"I don't get uptight about how I record drums any more. There was a period post-Siamese Dream where I started getting more and more detailed - using more microphones, more pre-amps, spending more time getting sounds. It was around the time of the first Garbage record where I threw all of that out the window.
"If there's only two mics, lets do kick and snare and record it in mono. I guess for me what's exciting is that I don't think there are any rules. If you've got a track that calls for really precise drums, a Neil Peart drum part or something, you'll spend a lot of time getting things balanced and use a lot of different mics and different drums to get this incredibly transparent, clear sound. But that's not to say if you just want a trashy room sound you cant just put one mic in a corner if you get the right balance.
"It depends on the kind of vibe you're going for. Drums really give the listener a sense of where a song has been recorded and where it's taking place. If you have guitars, bass and drums and put on a huge room-y drum sound with lots of reverb it's going to sound like it was recorded in an arena. If you mute those and just put in a tiny kick and snare that's very dry with no reverb it's going to sound like it was recorded in your bedroom.
"The decision making process of how you record the drums and how much equalisation and ambience and compression and whatever you put on them defines the space of where the listener perceives the song is. It's powerful when you realise you can radically change how a listener is going to perceive a song."
Do you have a preferred mic set-up when tracking drums?
"It's different from band to band. I usually like a dynamic mic on a kick for a close mic but I like the fat 7s for the thumpier, woollier sound. Sometimes I'll use a 57 on a snare, sometimes I'll use a condenser, an AKG41, I might use a ribbon mic on a snare especially if there's a lot of hi hat bleed.
"I have a tendency to like condenser mics on drummers that don't hit the cymbals real loud, and if they do hit them loud I like to use ribbon mics because they're softer in the top end.
"Sometimes I'll record with stereo ambient mics, sometimes I'll just put up one and try to compress it out of a preamp really hard or run it through an effects pedal to give it a vibe. I'll run the drums to some sort of stereo compression and then really hammer it.
"So any time you feel it's not very exciting, you bring those up and the drums go crazy with compression. A lot of the time we use the Roger Mayer compressor the RM58. It's one of the most extreme, crazy compressors in the world. They're great, there's nothing that sounds like them in the world. It sometimes makes things sound like early Who records."
Do you like to pan the kit in the mix?
"Usually kick and snare down the middle with the overheads wide left and right. Sometimes I'll position them right over the drummer's head so it's from a drummer's perspective. Sometimes I move the overhead mics directly over the cymbals.
"With room mics I'll try to move them around so when you bring them up in the mix you can see the space the drums are in. With toms I usually pan left and right. I don't usually pan them hard left and hard right. I like to get it so it make sense as if you've got a drummer playing ten feet in front of you.
"Sometimes if you're using all programmed beats it's good to throw it all out of the window and f with your head a little bit, so put the kick down the middle and the snare off to one side with maybe the cymbals to the other side and the toms doing a weird automated pan back and forth or something. It all depends on what the song calls for."
When tracking do you prefer the entire band to track live?
"With Garbage, every song is different. With a band like the Foos we tracked that live so it's basically them going for rhythm takes between Dave and Taylor making sure we had a core and then we'd overdub Chris, Pat and Nate. With Green Day I would go in and Billie, Mike and Tre would record live together, but I was just going for keeping Tre's drums. Billie would go back in later and overdub his rhythm guitar and Mike would do his bass."
What preparation do you put in drum-wise before heading into the studio, whether it be with Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, Muse or an unknown band?
"I don't get too crazy with tuning. I'm pretty good at tuning but I have a drum tech called Mike Fasano. Usually I'll get him in on the first day, whether it be with Garbage or working with someone else, I'll have him come in and tweak the drums. On Day One I like to have the whole day to set everything up, including the amps.
"The majority, though, is getting drums set up and EQ-ing, compressing or whatever. When you come in on Day Two you're ready to record. I think you should be able to get a good drum sound in a day. If you can't, maybe you're over thinking it or maybe the drummer isn't very good!"
Is there a danger of drummers trying to over perfect their sound?
"I think that happens some times. Everybody will perceive how drums should sound in a different way - whether it's the producer, engineer or the drummer. Sometimes you get obsessed with things, like the kick drum isn't punchy enough, or the snare isn't sitting right and sometimes it's the player, sometimes it's the microphone, sometimes it's the wrong snare for the song and you need to fundamentally change it.
"You can run into those problems and when you do the first thing you have to do is see if the drummer is causing the problem with the way he's playing or the part and then you start looking more at the technical parts of it. You look at the microphones, the kind of drums and try to figure out why it's not working."
Is mixing typically a key point for an album's kit sound?
"On some albums it's defined. With the Foos the sound of the garage - it is what it is. You can EQ and compress a little in the mixing, but it wouldn't change the sound profoundly.
That was good in a way because from day one we knew the sound of the drums. Sometimes in the process of making a record the quicker you can make decisions and move on and not leave it all to the mix process that's a good thing. If you can define those drums early on that will help later on."
Monday 29 August 2016
Analog Tape Vs Digital Recording
Which sounds better, analog tape or 24-bit digital recording? Los Angeles producer/engineer Adam Kagan set up a session to find out. Listen to solo'd bass, guitar, and piano tracks from session stars Carlos Rodgarman, Grecco Buratto, and Carlitos del Puerto; decide for yourself whether you prefer the pristine sound of digital recording or the warm” tones of analog tape on electric guitar, bass, and piano.
I started my professional recording career in the early 1990's, when 2-inch tape was the main recording format for all but the few who could afford a Sony 3348 digital machine. We recorded to either a Studer, Sony/MCI, Ampex or Otari tape machine and mixed through our analog boards to a half-inch tape machine, usually a Studer or Ampex.
Each tape machine had its advantages and disadvantages: the JH-24 (Sony/MCI) could punch like no other and sounded great, but alignment was a pain and the remote was little more than functional. The Ampex machines sounded fantastic, but forget about punching at all. The Studers had the best of both worlds, with good punching and great sound — at a very high price. In contrast, the Otari machines and Sony APRs had modern features, like auto-alignment and built-in synchronization, but were not considered great-sounding machines.
You pays your money and takes your choice. JH-24 photo from Flickr user Ronan_C
Fortunately for me, I started right on the cusp of affordable digital multitrack recorders, in the forms of the Alesis ADAT and Tascam DA-88s. Pro Tools (then called Sound Tools) was in its infancy, but worked very well for two-track editing. A few esoteric digital workstations, like the NED Synclavier, AMS Audiofile and Fairlight showed up in post-houses and top-level composer's studios, but were way out of reach for the average person.
For a little perspective, a decent Sony/MCI JH 24 machine could be purchased used in the early 90's for around $15,000-not including wiring or required maintenance (e.g., several thousand dollars for a new headstack). At that time a reel of 2-inch tape cost almost $200 and gave you 14 minutes of 24 tracks, so a typical 48 track project (one to three songs) would set you back at least $400 in tape costs.
ADATS and DA-88s brought the cost of 24 track digital audio down to $10,000-15,000, and you could buy just one 8-track machine to start with for around $3000. Digital tape was cheap, with ADATs relying on S-VHS tapes and DA-88s relying on Hi-8 tape cassettes. Each one of those formats, and their various spin-offs, had sonic and functional differences, like synchronizers, remotes, sample rates, etc. These modular digital machines revolutionized the home recording scene before Digidesign (now Avid), EMagic (now Apple), Opcode (now gone), Steinberg and MOTU took the lead with computer based solutions.
So here we are today, with me feeling old and telling stories of yore, with everyone all a-flutter with renewed interest in getting back to the good old days” of recording to analog tape and pressing vinyl. The changeover from all analog recording to mostly digital recording during the late 90's brought with it lots of bias, superstition and just plain ignorance. It is true that the very first generation of digital recorders, like the Sony F1 and early DAT machines, didn't sound as good as the state-of-the-art analog machines. However, the low cost and ease-of-use of the new digital machines guaranteed their success. Luckily, pro audio and audiophile users pushed manufacturers to create better sounding converters and better tools to process the sound (now known as plugins).
It is my belief that much of the pain of switching over to digital recording was due to the tools that engineers had mastered for analog recording. For instance, applying EQ and compression (or no compression) to tape to make up for the color that the tape added didn't sound so great when recording to digital. Bright FET microphones and harsh transistor preamp tones became rounded off in a pleasing way on tape, and by the 100th mix pass, the high-end was rolled off and the transients smeared so much that the final mix sounded phat, warm and fuzzy. It took experienced engineers a minute (or years) to gather their thoughts, re-examine their tools and learn how to take advantage of the clarity, quiet, and unforgiving purity of digital recording. At that point recordists moved towards super-fast, ultra-clean and high-gain preamps and transparent compression. Low cost digital processors stopped using transformers and tubes, which lowered costs and also lowered THD , while widening frequency bandwidth specs from DC to light. We had finally found it: perfect, clean, sterile audio!
Fast forward to now. Today's great equipment designers came up studying the fundamentals of analog design, and learned digital design and processing during the evolution of digital.
This has led to a hybrid approach of using colorful transformers and tubes alongside super-clean analog and digital processing for the best of both worlds. Recording artists like Lenny Kravitz led the way to digital, and then reverted back to analog, showing us the extremes of each medium. I think almost everyone is now satisfied that by using good sounding analog gear and even affordable converters, digital recording is not only acceptable, but can sound downright amazing.
Humans just can't let things rest, though. Now we want to re-integrate production techniques and sonics that can most easily be found or created using our old friend(?) analog tape, alongside our digital gear. Fortunately, tape machines have not been out of use for very long, and the techs and engineers at top studios still remember how to align and maintain analog machines. Unfortunately, the companies that made 2-inch tape have all closed their doors. Some new companies have done a good job picking up the pieces, and have been manufacturing analog tape for a few years. While the quality and sonics of the new tape is not exactly the same as the best tape of late 90's, the stock is very good and totally useable.
It is, however, expensive, with a reel of half-inch running about $100, and a new reel of 2” tape from ATR or RMGI fetching just over $300.
I, for one, was happy to see 2” tape slowly fade away, and early on I was toting my Pro Tools rig to mix sessions where the studio begrudgingly set up their SSL synchronizer to talk to my Pro Tools rig. Nowadays the Pro Tools rig has taken the place of the tape machines in almost every studio, and a premium has to be paid to use the analog machines, if they are even still available.
So, how do we know when the analog machine will add just the right amount of punch, warmth, fuzziness or just plain magic to our drums, vocals, guitar, bass? Recently, I worked on a project that was recorded at a few different world-class studios, using both analog and digital recorders and used the experience to document some notable differences in the sonics of each recording format. I will summarize each tracking session and give audio examples, where possible for each instrument and format.
Drums
Here's the basic scenario: a Latin pop record with some great players, mostly recorded using acoustic instruments (or amplifiers) in great studios. The drums, played by Mario Calire , were recorded at Henson (formerly A&M) in studio A and were engineered by Elliot Scheiner If you don't know who Elliot is, look him up — he has recorded, mixed and produced most of your favorite records, from Steely Dan to the Foo Fighters.
The drums were only recorded to 2” tape, so no direct comparison can be given here, but I'll include a sample that you can compare against your drum sounds. Keep in mind that Elliot's drum sound will probably kill yours regardless of analog or digital, but it is a great benchmark to work towards.
Session Setup
The rest of the album was recorded at Ocean Way in Hollywood , using an Ampex 2” machine and their fantastic Focusrite console. The 2” tape we used was NOS 3M 996 tape stock that Henson Studios sold to us, and we recorded at a level of +5/185 at 30 ips, which is a quiet, but not overly hot level. For reference, most of the R&B stuff I recorded in the 90s was at +9/185, while a lot of rock stuff was recorded at +3/185. Basically, the higher the level, the lower the noise floor and the punchier the sounds. So, drum machines, synths and smooth vocals sound huge with very little tape hiss at a high level and a tape speed of 30ips, while distorted guitars, loud, live drums and screaming vocals sound huge, with a higher, but acceptable, noise floor at a lower recording level and lower tape speed (15 ips). No noise reduction was used on this project.
For the remainder of the instruments, all tracks were recorded buss out from the console and multed (split) at the patchbay to both the tape machine and the Pro Tools interface. The output of the tape machine's repro head fed a Prism Dream converter and then went to Pro Tools digitally. After each recording pass, the tape tracks were nudged forward in Pro Tools by a bit over 9000 samples (about 10ms at 96khz), which was the delay between the direct signal and the output of the repro head of the tape machine. We recorded into Pro Tools at 96khz, 24bit. Vocals and percussion were recorded at our private studios, so there was no tape used, but the few synth tracks we used were recorded through tape. I didn't print tape and Pro Tools for the synth tracks because I could spend time playing back midi instruments and adjusting the record level to get the desired tape saturation vs tone for the synths. For the live players, I didn't have the luxury of time to experiment with tape levels, so I went with my experience for best practice.
Bass (acoustic and electric)
WIth drums out of the way, we were onto bass. First we recorded acoustic bass, played by Carlitos del-Puerto I used a FET 47 on the body and a KM54 on the neck, with both mics about 8 inches from the instrument. Both signals were mixed at the console and bussed to one output.
Acoustic bass tracks are the sum of the Fet 47 and KM54
Guitars (acoustic and electric)
Guitars were next and the player was Grecco Buratto on both acoustic and electric. Acoustic guitar was miked with a Neumann KM 54 around the 14th fret. After a few minutes, I decided the analog tape was not the way to go with acoustic guitar, so we recorded only direct to Pro Tools. Electric, however, was another story. Grecco came to the session armed to the teeth with amps, cabinets and pedals. We set up four or five different pairs of cabinets in the live room and his pedalboard, amps and switcher were in the control room with us.
Each cabinet was miked with three mics (isn't a big studio wonderful!): an SM57, anMD 421 and a FET47. I usually buss the 57 and 421 to one track and record the more distant 47 as a room mic onto a separate track. For the audio examples, there are a variety of styles and one example also includes the mix processing to show how different the guitar wound up sounding during the mix. For the most part, electric guitars on tape were used for the final mix.
All guitar tracks are the sum of an SM57 and MD421 close mics:
Piano
Piano was interesting. We had two pianos to choose from and we went with the smaller, 7-foot Steinway B, over the 9-foot D. Piano was played by co-producer Carlos Rodgarman I miked the piano with two Royer R-121 s in a sort of XY pair, right above the hammers and focused about halfway down the strings. The setup looks like a V” with the point toward the strings. The backside of the mics point over the players shoulders. The live room in studio A is huge-over 2000 square feet with 23′ ceilings. With this mic setup, the piano sounded live, but not bathed in reverb. For this type of pop music, I like a bright, punchy piano with good stereo spread and the Royers provide that very well-and still fold towards mono without sound phasey. The ribbons also take EQ well, and I provided a sample of tape, Pro Tools and the processed version used for the mix.
Conclusion
All-in-all it was a good experiment and well worth the extra mile. For the drums and bass, the tape certainly added a punchiness that would otherwise take a bit of processing to achieve. The electric guitars benefited from the rounding off that the tape provided on certain tracks and on others I like the clarity of digital signal.
Acoustic guitar didn't really work for me on tape, and piano was a mixed bag.
For day-to-day recording I don't have the luxury of tape, but for the important projects or the special case where a certain color is desired, tape can certainly add its sonic signature.
As for printing my stereo mixes to tape vs digital… don't get me started…
matthew mcglynn
I started my professional recording career in the early 1990's, when 2-inch tape was the main recording format for all but the few who could afford a Sony 3348 digital machine. We recorded to either a Studer, Sony/MCI, Ampex or Otari tape machine and mixed through our analog boards to a half-inch tape machine, usually a Studer or Ampex.
Each tape machine had its advantages and disadvantages: the JH-24 (Sony/MCI) could punch like no other and sounded great, but alignment was a pain and the remote was little more than functional. The Ampex machines sounded fantastic, but forget about punching at all. The Studers had the best of both worlds, with good punching and great sound — at a very high price. In contrast, the Otari machines and Sony APRs had modern features, like auto-alignment and built-in synchronization, but were not considered great-sounding machines.
You pays your money and takes your choice. JH-24 photo from Flickr user Ronan_C
Fortunately for me, I started right on the cusp of affordable digital multitrack recorders, in the forms of the Alesis ADAT and Tascam DA-88s. Pro Tools (then called Sound Tools) was in its infancy, but worked very well for two-track editing. A few esoteric digital workstations, like the NED Synclavier, AMS Audiofile and Fairlight showed up in post-houses and top-level composer's studios, but were way out of reach for the average person.
For a little perspective, a decent Sony/MCI JH 24 machine could be purchased used in the early 90's for around $15,000-not including wiring or required maintenance (e.g., several thousand dollars for a new headstack). At that time a reel of 2-inch tape cost almost $200 and gave you 14 minutes of 24 tracks, so a typical 48 track project (one to three songs) would set you back at least $400 in tape costs.
ADATS and DA-88s brought the cost of 24 track digital audio down to $10,000-15,000, and you could buy just one 8-track machine to start with for around $3000. Digital tape was cheap, with ADATs relying on S-VHS tapes and DA-88s relying on Hi-8 tape cassettes. Each one of those formats, and their various spin-offs, had sonic and functional differences, like synchronizers, remotes, sample rates, etc. These modular digital machines revolutionized the home recording scene before Digidesign (now Avid), EMagic (now Apple), Opcode (now gone), Steinberg and MOTU took the lead with computer based solutions.
So here we are today, with me feeling old and telling stories of yore, with everyone all a-flutter with renewed interest in getting back to the good old days” of recording to analog tape and pressing vinyl. The changeover from all analog recording to mostly digital recording during the late 90's brought with it lots of bias, superstition and just plain ignorance. It is true that the very first generation of digital recorders, like the Sony F1 and early DAT machines, didn't sound as good as the state-of-the-art analog machines. However, the low cost and ease-of-use of the new digital machines guaranteed their success. Luckily, pro audio and audiophile users pushed manufacturers to create better sounding converters and better tools to process the sound (now known as plugins).
It is my belief that much of the pain of switching over to digital recording was due to the tools that engineers had mastered for analog recording. For instance, applying EQ and compression (or no compression) to tape to make up for the color that the tape added didn't sound so great when recording to digital. Bright FET microphones and harsh transistor preamp tones became rounded off in a pleasing way on tape, and by the 100th mix pass, the high-end was rolled off and the transients smeared so much that the final mix sounded phat, warm and fuzzy. It took experienced engineers a minute (or years) to gather their thoughts, re-examine their tools and learn how to take advantage of the clarity, quiet, and unforgiving purity of digital recording. At that point recordists moved towards super-fast, ultra-clean and high-gain preamps and transparent compression. Low cost digital processors stopped using transformers and tubes, which lowered costs and also lowered THD , while widening frequency bandwidth specs from DC to light. We had finally found it: perfect, clean, sterile audio!
Fast forward to now. Today's great equipment designers came up studying the fundamentals of analog design, and learned digital design and processing during the evolution of digital.
This has led to a hybrid approach of using colorful transformers and tubes alongside super-clean analog and digital processing for the best of both worlds. Recording artists like Lenny Kravitz led the way to digital, and then reverted back to analog, showing us the extremes of each medium. I think almost everyone is now satisfied that by using good sounding analog gear and even affordable converters, digital recording is not only acceptable, but can sound downright amazing.
Humans just can't let things rest, though. Now we want to re-integrate production techniques and sonics that can most easily be found or created using our old friend(?) analog tape, alongside our digital gear. Fortunately, tape machines have not been out of use for very long, and the techs and engineers at top studios still remember how to align and maintain analog machines. Unfortunately, the companies that made 2-inch tape have all closed their doors. Some new companies have done a good job picking up the pieces, and have been manufacturing analog tape for a few years. While the quality and sonics of the new tape is not exactly the same as the best tape of late 90's, the stock is very good and totally useable.
It is, however, expensive, with a reel of half-inch running about $100, and a new reel of 2” tape from ATR or RMGI fetching just over $300.
I, for one, was happy to see 2” tape slowly fade away, and early on I was toting my Pro Tools rig to mix sessions where the studio begrudgingly set up their SSL synchronizer to talk to my Pro Tools rig. Nowadays the Pro Tools rig has taken the place of the tape machines in almost every studio, and a premium has to be paid to use the analog machines, if they are even still available.
So, how do we know when the analog machine will add just the right amount of punch, warmth, fuzziness or just plain magic to our drums, vocals, guitar, bass? Recently, I worked on a project that was recorded at a few different world-class studios, using both analog and digital recorders and used the experience to document some notable differences in the sonics of each recording format. I will summarize each tracking session and give audio examples, where possible for each instrument and format.
Drums
Here's the basic scenario: a Latin pop record with some great players, mostly recorded using acoustic instruments (or amplifiers) in great studios. The drums, played by Mario Calire , were recorded at Henson (formerly A&M) in studio A and were engineered by Elliot Scheiner If you don't know who Elliot is, look him up — he has recorded, mixed and produced most of your favorite records, from Steely Dan to the Foo Fighters.
The drums were only recorded to 2” tape, so no direct comparison can be given here, but I'll include a sample that you can compare against your drum sounds. Keep in mind that Elliot's drum sound will probably kill yours regardless of analog or digital, but it is a great benchmark to work towards.
Session Setup
The rest of the album was recorded at Ocean Way in Hollywood , using an Ampex 2” machine and their fantastic Focusrite console. The 2” tape we used was NOS 3M 996 tape stock that Henson Studios sold to us, and we recorded at a level of +5/185 at 30 ips, which is a quiet, but not overly hot level. For reference, most of the R&B stuff I recorded in the 90s was at +9/185, while a lot of rock stuff was recorded at +3/185. Basically, the higher the level, the lower the noise floor and the punchier the sounds. So, drum machines, synths and smooth vocals sound huge with very little tape hiss at a high level and a tape speed of 30ips, while distorted guitars, loud, live drums and screaming vocals sound huge, with a higher, but acceptable, noise floor at a lower recording level and lower tape speed (15 ips). No noise reduction was used on this project.
For the remainder of the instruments, all tracks were recorded buss out from the console and multed (split) at the patchbay to both the tape machine and the Pro Tools interface. The output of the tape machine's repro head fed a Prism Dream converter and then went to Pro Tools digitally. After each recording pass, the tape tracks were nudged forward in Pro Tools by a bit over 9000 samples (about 10ms at 96khz), which was the delay between the direct signal and the output of the repro head of the tape machine. We recorded into Pro Tools at 96khz, 24bit. Vocals and percussion were recorded at our private studios, so there was no tape used, but the few synth tracks we used were recorded through tape. I didn't print tape and Pro Tools for the synth tracks because I could spend time playing back midi instruments and adjusting the record level to get the desired tape saturation vs tone for the synths. For the live players, I didn't have the luxury of time to experiment with tape levels, so I went with my experience for best practice.
Bass (acoustic and electric)
WIth drums out of the way, we were onto bass. First we recorded acoustic bass, played by Carlitos del-Puerto I used a FET 47 on the body and a KM54 on the neck, with both mics about 8 inches from the instrument. Both signals were mixed at the console and bussed to one output.
Acoustic bass tracks are the sum of the Fet 47 and KM54
Guitars (acoustic and electric)
Guitars were next and the player was Grecco Buratto on both acoustic and electric. Acoustic guitar was miked with a Neumann KM 54 around the 14th fret. After a few minutes, I decided the analog tape was not the way to go with acoustic guitar, so we recorded only direct to Pro Tools. Electric, however, was another story. Grecco came to the session armed to the teeth with amps, cabinets and pedals. We set up four or five different pairs of cabinets in the live room and his pedalboard, amps and switcher were in the control room with us.
Each cabinet was miked with three mics (isn't a big studio wonderful!): an SM57, anMD 421 and a FET47. I usually buss the 57 and 421 to one track and record the more distant 47 as a room mic onto a separate track. For the audio examples, there are a variety of styles and one example also includes the mix processing to show how different the guitar wound up sounding during the mix. For the most part, electric guitars on tape were used for the final mix.
All guitar tracks are the sum of an SM57 and MD421 close mics:
Piano
Piano was interesting. We had two pianos to choose from and we went with the smaller, 7-foot Steinway B, over the 9-foot D. Piano was played by co-producer Carlos Rodgarman I miked the piano with two Royer R-121 s in a sort of XY pair, right above the hammers and focused about halfway down the strings. The setup looks like a V” with the point toward the strings. The backside of the mics point over the players shoulders. The live room in studio A is huge-over 2000 square feet with 23′ ceilings. With this mic setup, the piano sounded live, but not bathed in reverb. For this type of pop music, I like a bright, punchy piano with good stereo spread and the Royers provide that very well-and still fold towards mono without sound phasey. The ribbons also take EQ well, and I provided a sample of tape, Pro Tools and the processed version used for the mix.
Conclusion
All-in-all it was a good experiment and well worth the extra mile. For the drums and bass, the tape certainly added a punchiness that would otherwise take a bit of processing to achieve. The electric guitars benefited from the rounding off that the tape provided on certain tracks and on others I like the clarity of digital signal.
Acoustic guitar didn't really work for me on tape, and piano was a mixed bag.
For day-to-day recording I don't have the luxury of tape, but for the important projects or the special case where a certain color is desired, tape can certainly add its sonic signature.
As for printing my stereo mixes to tape vs digital… don't get me started…
matthew mcglynn
Friday 26 August 2016
Practical Recording Techniques
by Bruce Bartlett
We can't afford to record in your studio, so we'll record at home and you can mix it”. Sound familiar?
In a tough economy, an increasing number of musicians don't have the money to spend several days or weeks in a studio at the hourly rate. What's more, a lot of artists need time to develop sonic ideas by trial and error, and can't afford to do that on studio time.
Some performers shun the studio for other reasons. I get too nervous in the studio… I'll just record myself with a portable recorder and let you overdub the other instruments.”
Many musicians own DAW setups — or flash recorders — and can do their own tracking at home. But some lack the expertise and equipment to make clean recordings in the first place.
They might hand you a load of barely usable tracks, and expect you to make them sound good.
While a number of musicians have mastered recording skills and can produce great-sounding tracks, some don't know what they're doing. They need your help. If you want to put your name on their album or demo, you want to work with them so they'll record the cleanest tracks possible. Then you'll spend less time fixing sonic errors and more time being creative.
We'll look at two approaches to improve the end product:
teach your customers how to record at home effectively
use plug-ins and editing to improve their recordings.
Offer Advice to Record-at-Home Musicians: Talk with your clients to make sure they can supply you clean tracks. Try to find out their skill level so you don't insult them by telling them stuff they already know.
The advice you give home recordists is the same as you'd give to a novice recording engineer in a pro studio. You can discuss the following points wIth the band members, or simply give them this article to read.
First tell your customer that it's difficult or impossible to remove reverb, compression and distortion, so make sure to keep those under control. The same goes for background noise.
I'll describe specifically how to keep a handle on those problems.
Listed below are some suggestions for musicians to follow when recording. These tips apply both to 2-track and multitrack recordings.
Get rid of noise sources: Turn off the furnace or air-conditioning when you record. Maybe record in the basement — it tends to be quiet because it's surrounded by earth and cement blocks. Wait for trains and planes to pass. Seal cracks under doors with towels; maybe cover windows temporarily with plywood sheets. Have an electric guitarist rotate or move around to find a spot where hum stops.
Improve room acoustics: Hang some mattress foam, packing blankets, sleeping bags or comforters on the walls or on mic-stand booms. Put a roll of fiberglass insulation in each room corner to act as a bass trap. Or buy some pressed fiberglass panels and put one across each corner. One source is
Mike fairly close: If you place a mic or stereo recorder too far from the instruments, it will pick up lots of muddy-sounding room acoustics which can't be removed in the mix. Try to stay no farther than 1 foot from the mics or recorder.
Don't clip the signal: Check the recording levels not only during regular playing, but also during loud accents. Aim for -6 dB maximum level on peak-reading level meters. Some keyboard patches are louder than others — try all of them when setting levels.
Monitor the recording: Put on headphones and listen to what the mics are picking up. Often you can hear background noises much easier with headphones than without. Play back recordings to check balances between instruments and vocals.
Turn off effects: Some recorder-mixers automatically insert compression or other effects when you record. Make sure they are disabled.
Suggestions for Better Multitrack Recordings
Avoid ground loops: Connect recording equipment, keyboards and instrument amps to the same outlet strips. First make sure that the outlet's circuit breaker can handle the current of all that equipment. Use direct boxes between electric instruments and the mixer, and flip the ground-lift switch to the position where you monitor the least hum.
Use good mics: Borrow or rent some if you don't have any. A basic mic collection includes a cardioid dynamic mic for guitar amps and drums (like a Shure SM57), a small-diaphragm cardioid condenser mic for cymbals and acoustic instruments, and a large-diaphragm cardioid condenser for vocals.
Minimize leakage: In other words, try to make each mic pick up only its own instrument. To do that, mike close with cardioid or supercardioid mics — about 8 inches away or less.
Record bass and keys direct. Overdub quiet instruments and vocals after recording the loud instruments. You might place the band members in a circle so that adjacent mics aim away from each other.
Use effective mic placement: Ask your recording engineer how to mike various instruments, or refer to articles and books about that topic. (I've received acoustic-guitar tracks made with the mic close to the sound hole, and had to EQ like crazy to get rid of the boomy sound.)
Suggest that the drummer remove the front head of the kick drum, put a pillow or blanket inside, and use a hard beater to get a tight, snappy beat.
Figure 2. One method of miking a kick drum.
Use a pop filter on vocal mics: To prevent breath pops, place a hoop-type pop filter a few inches in front of a vocal mic. You can improvise one: try a coat-hanger wire curved like a shepherd's crook, with a nylon stocking stretched over the loop. You might use a foam windscreen as a last resort.
Solo and export each recorded track starting from time zero: That way, all the tracks should line up when imported into the studio's mixing software. Disable any effects plug-ins when you export the tracks so that the studio can use only their own plug-ins.
Name each track's wave file by the song and instrument: For example, Road Runner Blues-lead ”. Or Soul Spice-high harmony 2nd ”. That avoids confusion in the studio when it comes time to sort out the tracks.
Ways to Minimize Time in the Studio
Some musicians do want to record in the studio because the sound they get is so much better than they can get at home. They need to know how to make the recording process as efficient as possible so they don't run up a huge bill. You might offer these suggestions:
Record yourself with a simple DAW or recorder-mixer to work out production ideas at home. See what works and what doesn't so you don't need to experiment in the pro studio.
Bring lyric sheets and charts with each song's arrangement. Work it out at home, then bring in charts as a memory aid in the studio. Make copies of the lyrics and arrangements for the engineer.
Consider recording fewer songs. A 10-song album costs about half as much to record as a 20-song album. 10 great songs are better than 20 songs with filler.
Practice until you can play without mistakes. Obviously, that saves studio time that is spent fixing errors.
Consider punching-in rather than fixing problem spots with editing. Often it's faster to re-record a botched musical phrase than to correct it with copy-paste edits or volume changes.
If you have changes you want to make in a mix that you auditioned at home, note the time of each change. Finding a time location is a lot quicker than finding a particular lyric in the second bridge!
Fixing It In the Mix
So far you have advised the band on ways to record well at home. Eventually they will hand you a hard drive, flash card or CD s containing their tracks. It's your job to take those raw recordings, clean them up, and add EQ and effects to make a super mix. Let's go over some tricks to achieve that goal. First we'll clean up the individual tracks.
Delete or mute parts of each track where nothing is playing: Those sections contain leakage and noise. Either slip-edit the beginning and end of each clip, or highlight unwanted sections and delete them. Another method is to use volume envelopes or automated mutes to silence the parts you don't need.
Gate drum tracks to reduce leakage or to tighten up the sound: Here's a typical procedure. Play and solo a tom-tom track that has a gate inserted. Gradually increase the gate threshold until the background leakage goes away, but you still hear the tom hits. Set the attack time fast, like 1 msec, and set the hold time for the desired amount of sustain on each note.
Some gate plug-ins have a setting called lookahead time”. If you set it to 10 msec, for example, the gate opens 10 msec before the transient hit occurs. That lets you use a longer attack time (rise time) without losing the transient's attack.
Highpass filter every track: Insert a highpass (low-cut) filter in a track. Set Q to 1.7 and play the track. Start with the filter frequency at 20 Hz , gradually raise it until the sound thins out, then back off a bit. That removes noise and leakage below the lowest fundamental frequency of each instrument and vocal.
Fix clipped notes: Suppose a kick-drum hit is clipped and sounds crackly. Find the full-amplitude spike where the clipping occurred. Zoom way into the waveform until you can see the individual waves.
One solution is to delete the clipped waveforms and add short fades into and out of the hole" that is left.
Another solution is to create a clip (region) of those waveforms and lowpass filter the highs in that region. Some DAWs let you redraw the waveform in a smooth curve to remove the clipping.
Here are audio samples of a clipped kick-drum signal before and after editing:
Filter out hum and hiss: Some EQ plug-ins have a hum-filter preset which inserts a comb filter starting at 50 or 60 Hz Others have de-noise processing. A simple lowpass (high-cut) filter works well to remove hiss in a guitar-amp track. Try a Q of 1.7, and gradually bring down the filter frequency to the point where the sound gets dull, then back off.
Delete breath pops: Find a pop or thump in the vocal track. Zoom far into the waveform there until you can see the longer wavelength of the pop signal. Then highlight and delete it.
Add short fades into and out of the deleted section. It's amazing how well this works.
Enhancing Stereo Recordings
Some musicians record themselves with a portable stereo recorder. Here are some tips to improve a recording made on such a device.
Use an analyzer/ EQ program such as Harmonic Balancer: This program can work wonders on stereo mixes that have a bad tonal balance. Har-Bal analyzes and displays the spectrum of a mix so you can pull down any over-emphasized frequencies that color the sound ().
Cut frequencies below 40 Hz : There might be low-frequency rumble from trucks or air conditioning in the stereo mix.
Maybe add reverb: Homes don't have reverb with a long decay time, so you might add just a little reverb with 1.5 - 2.0 seconds RT60. That gives a more commercial" feel. Try to filter the lows out of the reverb signal so the bass and kick don't get muddy.
Add compression: If a singer really belts the loud notes, tame them with compression.
Widen or narrow the stereo stage: Plug-ins are available that create mid/side (sum/difference) signals from the left-and-right stereo signals. You can vary the amount of difference signal to expand or shrink the stereo image.
There you have a number of tips to enhance your customers' tracks and to optimize those tracks when they record them. Recording at home and mixing in the studio is becoming more common, so it helps to develop skills for this type of record production.
We can't afford to record in your studio, so we'll record at home and you can mix it”. Sound familiar?
In a tough economy, an increasing number of musicians don't have the money to spend several days or weeks in a studio at the hourly rate. What's more, a lot of artists need time to develop sonic ideas by trial and error, and can't afford to do that on studio time.
Some performers shun the studio for other reasons. I get too nervous in the studio… I'll just record myself with a portable recorder and let you overdub the other instruments.”
Many musicians own DAW setups — or flash recorders — and can do their own tracking at home. But some lack the expertise and equipment to make clean recordings in the first place.
They might hand you a load of barely usable tracks, and expect you to make them sound good.
While a number of musicians have mastered recording skills and can produce great-sounding tracks, some don't know what they're doing. They need your help. If you want to put your name on their album or demo, you want to work with them so they'll record the cleanest tracks possible. Then you'll spend less time fixing sonic errors and more time being creative.
We'll look at two approaches to improve the end product:
teach your customers how to record at home effectively
use plug-ins and editing to improve their recordings.
Offer Advice to Record-at-Home Musicians: Talk with your clients to make sure they can supply you clean tracks. Try to find out their skill level so you don't insult them by telling them stuff they already know.
The advice you give home recordists is the same as you'd give to a novice recording engineer in a pro studio. You can discuss the following points wIth the band members, or simply give them this article to read.
First tell your customer that it's difficult or impossible to remove reverb, compression and distortion, so make sure to keep those under control. The same goes for background noise.
I'll describe specifically how to keep a handle on those problems.
Listed below are some suggestions for musicians to follow when recording. These tips apply both to 2-track and multitrack recordings.
Get rid of noise sources: Turn off the furnace or air-conditioning when you record. Maybe record in the basement — it tends to be quiet because it's surrounded by earth and cement blocks. Wait for trains and planes to pass. Seal cracks under doors with towels; maybe cover windows temporarily with plywood sheets. Have an electric guitarist rotate or move around to find a spot where hum stops.
Improve room acoustics: Hang some mattress foam, packing blankets, sleeping bags or comforters on the walls or on mic-stand booms. Put a roll of fiberglass insulation in each room corner to act as a bass trap. Or buy some pressed fiberglass panels and put one across each corner. One source is
Mike fairly close: If you place a mic or stereo recorder too far from the instruments, it will pick up lots of muddy-sounding room acoustics which can't be removed in the mix. Try to stay no farther than 1 foot from the mics or recorder.
Don't clip the signal: Check the recording levels not only during regular playing, but also during loud accents. Aim for -6 dB maximum level on peak-reading level meters. Some keyboard patches are louder than others — try all of them when setting levels.
Monitor the recording: Put on headphones and listen to what the mics are picking up. Often you can hear background noises much easier with headphones than without. Play back recordings to check balances between instruments and vocals.
Turn off effects: Some recorder-mixers automatically insert compression or other effects when you record. Make sure they are disabled.
Suggestions for Better Multitrack Recordings
Avoid ground loops: Connect recording equipment, keyboards and instrument amps to the same outlet strips. First make sure that the outlet's circuit breaker can handle the current of all that equipment. Use direct boxes between electric instruments and the mixer, and flip the ground-lift switch to the position where you monitor the least hum.
Use good mics: Borrow or rent some if you don't have any. A basic mic collection includes a cardioid dynamic mic for guitar amps and drums (like a Shure SM57), a small-diaphragm cardioid condenser mic for cymbals and acoustic instruments, and a large-diaphragm cardioid condenser for vocals.
Minimize leakage: In other words, try to make each mic pick up only its own instrument. To do that, mike close with cardioid or supercardioid mics — about 8 inches away or less.
Record bass and keys direct. Overdub quiet instruments and vocals after recording the loud instruments. You might place the band members in a circle so that adjacent mics aim away from each other.
Use effective mic placement: Ask your recording engineer how to mike various instruments, or refer to articles and books about that topic. (I've received acoustic-guitar tracks made with the mic close to the sound hole, and had to EQ like crazy to get rid of the boomy sound.)
Suggest that the drummer remove the front head of the kick drum, put a pillow or blanket inside, and use a hard beater to get a tight, snappy beat.
Figure 2. One method of miking a kick drum.
Use a pop filter on vocal mics: To prevent breath pops, place a hoop-type pop filter a few inches in front of a vocal mic. You can improvise one: try a coat-hanger wire curved like a shepherd's crook, with a nylon stocking stretched over the loop. You might use a foam windscreen as a last resort.
Solo and export each recorded track starting from time zero: That way, all the tracks should line up when imported into the studio's mixing software. Disable any effects plug-ins when you export the tracks so that the studio can use only their own plug-ins.
Name each track's wave file by the song and instrument: For example, Road Runner Blues-lead ”. Or Soul Spice-high harmony 2nd ”. That avoids confusion in the studio when it comes time to sort out the tracks.
Ways to Minimize Time in the Studio
Some musicians do want to record in the studio because the sound they get is so much better than they can get at home. They need to know how to make the recording process as efficient as possible so they don't run up a huge bill. You might offer these suggestions:
Record yourself with a simple DAW or recorder-mixer to work out production ideas at home. See what works and what doesn't so you don't need to experiment in the pro studio.
Bring lyric sheets and charts with each song's arrangement. Work it out at home, then bring in charts as a memory aid in the studio. Make copies of the lyrics and arrangements for the engineer.
Consider recording fewer songs. A 10-song album costs about half as much to record as a 20-song album. 10 great songs are better than 20 songs with filler.
Practice until you can play without mistakes. Obviously, that saves studio time that is spent fixing errors.
Consider punching-in rather than fixing problem spots with editing. Often it's faster to re-record a botched musical phrase than to correct it with copy-paste edits or volume changes.
If you have changes you want to make in a mix that you auditioned at home, note the time of each change. Finding a time location is a lot quicker than finding a particular lyric in the second bridge!
Fixing It In the Mix
So far you have advised the band on ways to record well at home. Eventually they will hand you a hard drive, flash card or CD s containing their tracks. It's your job to take those raw recordings, clean them up, and add EQ and effects to make a super mix. Let's go over some tricks to achieve that goal. First we'll clean up the individual tracks.
Delete or mute parts of each track where nothing is playing: Those sections contain leakage and noise. Either slip-edit the beginning and end of each clip, or highlight unwanted sections and delete them. Another method is to use volume envelopes or automated mutes to silence the parts you don't need.
Gate drum tracks to reduce leakage or to tighten up the sound: Here's a typical procedure. Play and solo a tom-tom track that has a gate inserted. Gradually increase the gate threshold until the background leakage goes away, but you still hear the tom hits. Set the attack time fast, like 1 msec, and set the hold time for the desired amount of sustain on each note.
Some gate plug-ins have a setting called lookahead time”. If you set it to 10 msec, for example, the gate opens 10 msec before the transient hit occurs. That lets you use a longer attack time (rise time) without losing the transient's attack.
Highpass filter every track: Insert a highpass (low-cut) filter in a track. Set Q to 1.7 and play the track. Start with the filter frequency at 20 Hz , gradually raise it until the sound thins out, then back off a bit. That removes noise and leakage below the lowest fundamental frequency of each instrument and vocal.
Fix clipped notes: Suppose a kick-drum hit is clipped and sounds crackly. Find the full-amplitude spike where the clipping occurred. Zoom way into the waveform until you can see the individual waves.
One solution is to delete the clipped waveforms and add short fades into and out of the hole" that is left.
Another solution is to create a clip (region) of those waveforms and lowpass filter the highs in that region. Some DAWs let you redraw the waveform in a smooth curve to remove the clipping.
Here are audio samples of a clipped kick-drum signal before and after editing:
Filter out hum and hiss: Some EQ plug-ins have a hum-filter preset which inserts a comb filter starting at 50 or 60 Hz Others have de-noise processing. A simple lowpass (high-cut) filter works well to remove hiss in a guitar-amp track. Try a Q of 1.7, and gradually bring down the filter frequency to the point where the sound gets dull, then back off.
Delete breath pops: Find a pop or thump in the vocal track. Zoom far into the waveform there until you can see the longer wavelength of the pop signal. Then highlight and delete it.
Add short fades into and out of the deleted section. It's amazing how well this works.
Enhancing Stereo Recordings
Some musicians record themselves with a portable stereo recorder. Here are some tips to improve a recording made on such a device.
Use an analyzer/ EQ program such as Harmonic Balancer: This program can work wonders on stereo mixes that have a bad tonal balance. Har-Bal analyzes and displays the spectrum of a mix so you can pull down any over-emphasized frequencies that color the sound ().
Cut frequencies below 40 Hz : There might be low-frequency rumble from trucks or air conditioning in the stereo mix.
Maybe add reverb: Homes don't have reverb with a long decay time, so you might add just a little reverb with 1.5 - 2.0 seconds RT60. That gives a more commercial" feel. Try to filter the lows out of the reverb signal so the bass and kick don't get muddy.
Add compression: If a singer really belts the loud notes, tame them with compression.
Widen or narrow the stereo stage: Plug-ins are available that create mid/side (sum/difference) signals from the left-and-right stereo signals. You can vary the amount of difference signal to expand or shrink the stereo image.
There you have a number of tips to enhance your customers' tracks and to optimize those tracks when they record them. Recording at home and mixing in the studio is becoming more common, so it helps to develop skills for this type of record production.
3 Basic Techniques For Overhead Drum Mic Setup
Recording drums is not an exact science because no two sessions are the same. Drums, studio rooms, and microphones vary so much that there's no single right answer.
Today, we'll look at three simple techniques that can be applied to most setups, regardless of style.
3 Tips for Recording Overhead Drums
1. Spaced Condensers
Here we have a pair of AT4050 microphones set to cardioid positioned above the kit. The spaced pair configuration offers a great deal of flexibility in placement. Position the mics low above the cymbals to remove emphasis from the rest of the kit. Position them at a higher elevation for a more balanced sound. The farther apart you position the microphones, the wider your stereo image will become. Wherever you place them, make sure the overhead mics are equidistant from the snare drum.
2. X-Y Configuration
The second technique is the X-Y configuration. Use two cardioid condenser mics arranged with the elements as close together as possible at a 90-degree angle. This coincident arrangement offers a focused, phase-coherent stereo image. We recommend a pair of AE5100 microphones mounted on a stereo bar. Place them directly over the snare to keep it centered in the stereo field, and keep them high enough above the cymbals that they never physically pass through the element.
3. ORTF Technique
The third and final technique we'll cover today is ORTF. This is another coincident pair of cardioid condenser mics positioned 17 cm apart, angled 110 degrees from each other. For this technique we recommend AT4040 mics. This method offers a phase coherent stereo image similar to the X-Y configuration, but with more width and cymbals relative to the rest of the drum kit.
With these three basic drum mic setup techniques, you can experiment to find the perfect stereo image. Widen your image by widening the gap between your microphones and make it narrow by bringing them together.
Today, we'll look at three simple techniques that can be applied to most setups, regardless of style.
3 Tips for Recording Overhead Drums
1. Spaced Condensers
Here we have a pair of AT4050 microphones set to cardioid positioned above the kit. The spaced pair configuration offers a great deal of flexibility in placement. Position the mics low above the cymbals to remove emphasis from the rest of the kit. Position them at a higher elevation for a more balanced sound. The farther apart you position the microphones, the wider your stereo image will become. Wherever you place them, make sure the overhead mics are equidistant from the snare drum.
2. X-Y Configuration
The second technique is the X-Y configuration. Use two cardioid condenser mics arranged with the elements as close together as possible at a 90-degree angle. This coincident arrangement offers a focused, phase-coherent stereo image. We recommend a pair of AE5100 microphones mounted on a stereo bar. Place them directly over the snare to keep it centered in the stereo field, and keep them high enough above the cymbals that they never physically pass through the element.
3. ORTF Technique
The third and final technique we'll cover today is ORTF. This is another coincident pair of cardioid condenser mics positioned 17 cm apart, angled 110 degrees from each other. For this technique we recommend AT4040 mics. This method offers a phase coherent stereo image similar to the X-Y configuration, but with more width and cymbals relative to the rest of the drum kit.
With these three basic drum mic setup techniques, you can experiment to find the perfect stereo image. Widen your image by widening the gap between your microphones and make it narrow by bringing them together.
Wednesday 24 August 2016
Five Tips For Recording Your Drums
Planning to take YouTube by storm with your drumming skills? Want to listen back to your groove to see if you're on the money? Penning the next Stairway with your band mates? Then you'll need to record yourself playing drums. Follow our guide and you'll be well on your way to getting the perfect drum sound.
1. Do I record with acoustic or electronic drums?
Recording drums can be a technological minefield. There's no right or wrong way, but for the majority of drummers wanting to record their playing, the ‘best' way to record drums is clear: achieving the best result, as simply as possible, quickly. Whether you go for acoustic drums or an electronic drum kit, the aim is the same; to capture the drum recording so that it can be treated or edited.
Recording acoustic drums is a science in its own right. When you consider the cost of decent mics, preparing a live room, then the hours of post-production work to perfect the sound, it can get expensive and time consuming. And that's if you know what you're doing. For most people, it pays to hire a studio and engineer who can do this for you.
Recording digital drum kits has several advantages; there are several ways to record (more of which later on), there's no need for microphones or a live room (keeping costs down), the set-up is less of a headache than mic'ing up acoustic drums (for example achieving separation; separating cymbals from drums with no audio bleeding across the microphones), and best of all you can achieve a result that equals the best drum recordings. In the professional recording industry, recording electronic drums is becoming more and more common for all of these reasons.
2. Do I trigger a module, MIDI or software?
Here, there are three choices; record the performance and sound directly from the module; record a MIDI performance and add drum sounds later, via software; trigger sounds in computer software (such as Toontrack's EZ Drummer) as you play. Generally, the choice comes down to the amount of control you want to have over the drum sound and the drum mix.
Recording directly from the module lets you choose the instruments you want to play, edit them so they sound just right, and then record your performance as an audio track.
Depending on the module you use, you'll be able to record a stereo track or record each drum and cymbal as an individual channel. This is perfect whether using a multi-track recorder, analogue mixer or DAW software in your computer and gives you a similar level of control as having each part of the kit mic'ed up separately.
Recording MIDI allows your drum performance to be recorded in your computer as MIDI data, although no actual sound from the module is recorded. The MIDI file can be edited and played through drum software, or through the module (if that module has MIDI inputs and outputs) so that the sound is recorded separately from the performance.
Triggering software allows you to trigger software as you play the drums. The drum sounds from the software can be recorded at the same time.
3. Choosing the right module for you
The choice of module will determine what you can and can't do. For example, the HD-3 V-Drums Lite kit has great drum sounds, but they can't be edited and there is just a single stereo audio output. The MIDI out connector means this kit is a prime candidate for recording MIDI data or triggering software in a computer. Triggering in this way uses the sounds or instruments within the software and allows them to be recorded.
On the other end other scale, the TD-30 module has highly advanced tone editing with thousands of instruments on tap, complete control of the recording ambient environment (so you can select and experiment with different ‘rooms' or spaces in which to record). You also have multiple ‘direct outputs', so that every drum and cymbal has a separate channel in the recording software, mixing desk or DAW controller. In the drum world, this is like placing a mic on every individual drum and cymbal. This gives the ultimate control when mixing and for many drummers, the ability to edit their instruments and then edit the entire drum mix is the best result of all.
The TD-30 module (or brain) also had MIDI inputs and outputs. This means that if you record a performance using MIDI, you can edit that performance in your computer (for example removing errors or correcting the timing via quantisation) and then play that performance back through the module to re-record the tones or instruments in the TD-30.
In the middle of the range, modules found in the TD-11 and TD-15 V-Drums kits have many more instruments and tones available than the HD-3. You also have control of the ambient environment, and a choice of stereo audio outputs, MIDI and USB audio (stereo). This will record left and right audio channels straight into your computer. When recording stereo outputs though, you do have less control in mixing the drums, as all the instruments are blended in the final audio signal being recorded.
4. Don't forget latency
Latency is the length of time between hitting a drum and hearing the sound. With electronic drums, consider what happens when you hit the drum pad. The pad senses that it has been hit and converts this into an electronic signal, which is then sent to the module via the jack cable. The module processes this signal, triggers the appropriate sound, and sends it via the audio output cable to headphones, a monitor or an amp. The greater the latency, the longer it takes between the hit and the sound being output. Latency is measured in milliseconds, and the lower the number, the better.
Latency is bad news when you're drumming. When you're playing drums, if there is significant delay between playing and hearing the sound, it can really put you off. Latency makes your playing feel like it's ahead of the beat, or the sound lags far behind your playing - which in turn affects your performance. In previous years, latency was more an issue than it is today.
By recording the sound and performance directly from the V-Drums module, latency is virtually non-existent. You will simply monitor the drum track by plugging headphones straight into the module, as you would when practicing or playing live.
When triggering software in a computer using MIDI, latency can occur. This can be affected by the power of your computer, the speed of the processor, the quality of audio and MIDI interface, and how many programs your computer is running at any one time.
The latest V-Drums with SuperNATURAL technology has the lowest-ever latency of any V-Drums kits with the lowest latency available in the industry. So, when recording MIDI or triggering software using MIDI, latency is reduced to the point that it doesn't really matter.
5. Next steps
It's just a matter of weighing up which is the right way of recording for you. There are pros and cons with each method. But in any case, recording your V-Drums kit provides a range of options for multiple situations, and is by far the easiest way to lay down a reliable and solid drum track.
1. Do I record with acoustic or electronic drums?
Recording drums can be a technological minefield. There's no right or wrong way, but for the majority of drummers wanting to record their playing, the ‘best' way to record drums is clear: achieving the best result, as simply as possible, quickly. Whether you go for acoustic drums or an electronic drum kit, the aim is the same; to capture the drum recording so that it can be treated or edited.
Recording acoustic drums is a science in its own right. When you consider the cost of decent mics, preparing a live room, then the hours of post-production work to perfect the sound, it can get expensive and time consuming. And that's if you know what you're doing. For most people, it pays to hire a studio and engineer who can do this for you.
Recording digital drum kits has several advantages; there are several ways to record (more of which later on), there's no need for microphones or a live room (keeping costs down), the set-up is less of a headache than mic'ing up acoustic drums (for example achieving separation; separating cymbals from drums with no audio bleeding across the microphones), and best of all you can achieve a result that equals the best drum recordings. In the professional recording industry, recording electronic drums is becoming more and more common for all of these reasons.
2. Do I trigger a module, MIDI or software?
Here, there are three choices; record the performance and sound directly from the module; record a MIDI performance and add drum sounds later, via software; trigger sounds in computer software (such as Toontrack's EZ Drummer) as you play. Generally, the choice comes down to the amount of control you want to have over the drum sound and the drum mix.
Recording directly from the module lets you choose the instruments you want to play, edit them so they sound just right, and then record your performance as an audio track.
Depending on the module you use, you'll be able to record a stereo track or record each drum and cymbal as an individual channel. This is perfect whether using a multi-track recorder, analogue mixer or DAW software in your computer and gives you a similar level of control as having each part of the kit mic'ed up separately.
Recording MIDI allows your drum performance to be recorded in your computer as MIDI data, although no actual sound from the module is recorded. The MIDI file can be edited and played through drum software, or through the module (if that module has MIDI inputs and outputs) so that the sound is recorded separately from the performance.
Triggering software allows you to trigger software as you play the drums. The drum sounds from the software can be recorded at the same time.
3. Choosing the right module for you
The choice of module will determine what you can and can't do. For example, the HD-3 V-Drums Lite kit has great drum sounds, but they can't be edited and there is just a single stereo audio output. The MIDI out connector means this kit is a prime candidate for recording MIDI data or triggering software in a computer. Triggering in this way uses the sounds or instruments within the software and allows them to be recorded.
On the other end other scale, the TD-30 module has highly advanced tone editing with thousands of instruments on tap, complete control of the recording ambient environment (so you can select and experiment with different ‘rooms' or spaces in which to record). You also have multiple ‘direct outputs', so that every drum and cymbal has a separate channel in the recording software, mixing desk or DAW controller. In the drum world, this is like placing a mic on every individual drum and cymbal. This gives the ultimate control when mixing and for many drummers, the ability to edit their instruments and then edit the entire drum mix is the best result of all.
The TD-30 module (or brain) also had MIDI inputs and outputs. This means that if you record a performance using MIDI, you can edit that performance in your computer (for example removing errors or correcting the timing via quantisation) and then play that performance back through the module to re-record the tones or instruments in the TD-30.
In the middle of the range, modules found in the TD-11 and TD-15 V-Drums kits have many more instruments and tones available than the HD-3. You also have control of the ambient environment, and a choice of stereo audio outputs, MIDI and USB audio (stereo). This will record left and right audio channels straight into your computer. When recording stereo outputs though, you do have less control in mixing the drums, as all the instruments are blended in the final audio signal being recorded.
4. Don't forget latency
Latency is the length of time between hitting a drum and hearing the sound. With electronic drums, consider what happens when you hit the drum pad. The pad senses that it has been hit and converts this into an electronic signal, which is then sent to the module via the jack cable. The module processes this signal, triggers the appropriate sound, and sends it via the audio output cable to headphones, a monitor or an amp. The greater the latency, the longer it takes between the hit and the sound being output. Latency is measured in milliseconds, and the lower the number, the better.
Latency is bad news when you're drumming. When you're playing drums, if there is significant delay between playing and hearing the sound, it can really put you off. Latency makes your playing feel like it's ahead of the beat, or the sound lags far behind your playing - which in turn affects your performance. In previous years, latency was more an issue than it is today.
By recording the sound and performance directly from the V-Drums module, latency is virtually non-existent. You will simply monitor the drum track by plugging headphones straight into the module, as you would when practicing or playing live.
When triggering software in a computer using MIDI, latency can occur. This can be affected by the power of your computer, the speed of the processor, the quality of audio and MIDI interface, and how many programs your computer is running at any one time.
The latest V-Drums with SuperNATURAL technology has the lowest-ever latency of any V-Drums kits with the lowest latency available in the industry. So, when recording MIDI or triggering software using MIDI, latency is reduced to the point that it doesn't really matter.
5. Next steps
It's just a matter of weighing up which is the right way of recording for you. There are pros and cons with each method. But in any case, recording your V-Drums kit provides a range of options for multiple situations, and is by far the easiest way to lay down a reliable and solid drum track.
Recording The Bass Amp
Using a Beta 52 and SM 57 on the bass cabinet
Today everyone is conditioned to go direct with the bass guitar that many times miking a bass amp is completely overlooked. That's too bad because it can bring something to the track that you just can't get any other way. Here's an excerpt from my Audio Recording Basic Training book that provides an exercise for bass amp miking.
"Back in the 60's and 70's, the way engineers recorded the electric bass was by miking the bass amp. As direct boxes became more and more available, the trend eventually swung the other way, with most bass recording done direct. Today it's very common to record a bass using a combination of both an amp and direct, which provides the best of both worlds. While the bass will sound full and warm with a direct box, the amp can add just enough edge to help the bass punch through a mix.
When using a direct box, be aware that they're not all created equal in that some will not give you the low fundamental of the bass that you expect when recording this way. Active DIs do a better job at this than passive, although some passive boxes (like the ones made by Radial) do an excellent job because of the large Jensen transformer used in the circuit.
Depending on the sound that fits the track best, mix the amp track with a DI track. The sound will change substantially depending upon the balance of the DI and miked amplifier.
ALWAYS check the phase relationship between the amp and DI to make sure there's no cancellation of the low end. Flip the polarity switch to the position that has the most bottom.
Also remember that there's no rule that says that you have to use both tracks, so don't hesitate to use just a single track if it sounds best in the mix.
E7.4: Miking The Bass Amp
A) Listen closely to the amp as the bass player plays. If there are multiple speakers, find the one that sounds the best as in E7.1A.
B) Place a large diaphragm dynamic mic like D-112, RE-20 or Beta 52 a little off-center and a couple of inches away from a cone of the best sounding speaker in the bass cabinet.
C) Move the mic across the cone. Is there a spot where it sounds particularly good? Keep the mic at that spot. Is the sound balanced frequency response-wise? Can you hear any of the room reflections?
D) Move the mic towards the end of the cone? Is there more low end? Is it more distinct sounding?
E) Move the mic towards the center of the speaker? Is there more low end? Is it more distinct sounding?
F) Move the mic about a feet away from the speaker. Is there more low end? Is it more distinct sounding?
G) Move the mic about 2 feet away from the speaker. Is there more low end? Is it more distinct sounding? Can you hear more of the room? Does it work with the rest of the instruments?
H) Raise the cabinet about a foot off the floor. Is there more low end? Is it more distinct sounding?
I) I) Place the mic where it gives you the best balance of body and definition, and balance between the direct and ambient room sound."
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