Recording and Production tips

[Bluesberry]

Keep it coming guys, this is turning into an essential reading thread.  I have learned a lot already, stuff I will try on my next song.

[Geir]

Love that picture Geir - while I was reading the post, I was thinking "I do this visually in my head, what we need is a picture..." ... and there it is! It's not the same picture I use, but it's very close

I am very visual in my head I think so I needed a picture to make sure I got my message through. It is very simplified, I was planning on making another picture to illustrate the separation by frequency. I'll see if I cen get it done later.

I've got to go now, but before I forget - shall I mention "complementary EQ"? It's an extra weapon you can use when you've run out of spaces in the picture. If someone knows what I mean and explains it, cool... But otherwise I'll write some waffle next time I'm on (tomorrow I hope)

Yes yes !! We need more weapons !! Please elaborate, I haven't heard of this technique before.

[Wartime Novelty]

As has already been said i always high pass all my guitars at 95-100hz.

i also always take a little notch out of the bass guitar sound about -3dB cant remember the exact frequency as it was advice given by a friend so i saved it as a preset ill check it next time i have my recording stuff set up

i then boost the kick drum by +3dB in the same frequency to make the kick and the bass lock together and be really tight sounding.

[s.w.goatlips]

If anyone here has the time and the expertise ( and I'm pretty sure a couple of you do) could you please expand on the subject of compression. And by that, I mean could you try to explain it right from the very basics. I understand a little of how it works and why it's needed, but I'm really lost when it comes to how to do it.
As far as EQ goes, I now try to avoid it in the same way that I try to avoid Reverb. I figure that will all happen at the final mix/master time, and EQ in particular can really start to get messy once you start screwing around with it.
One thing that has brought me some relief was purchasing a half decent mic. I think I mentioned it somewhere else, but I got a Sennheiser E840 (not a condenser) and I feel like it has given me a much better approach to recording my voice. Also, it does work with some (not all) of the patches on the MBR. I guess most people here probably already know this, but singing ACROSS the pointy end rather than straight into it brings much more success, less popping etc. Or if you really need a pop filter then go for the old coat hanger wire and your wife/girlfriends panty hose.

[T.C. Elliott]

A couple of things. Firstly this link is a decent overview on compression: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression

Secondly, High pass AND low pass can help things sound crisper or clearer, but my ears aren't good enough to know when I'm doing it to improve the sound and when it's just out of rote. Usually, but not always, I high pass at 50hz and low pass at 20k. Why? Because on rare occasions I it'll clear up a mix quite nicely and to my ears almost never hurts. Of course, I'm a beginner mixer so...

Thirdly, I thought of this in a slightly different sense, but an on-line friend, multi-instrumentalist and damn near pure genius in (or near) London explained the spacial relations in mixing thusly:
"360 degree mixing" - If you think of 3 planes: x (going left to right) is panning, y (going up and down) is pitch and z (going backward and forward) is to do with how close something sounds.

Reverb and delays... time shifting, generally puts an instrument or sound source closer or farther from your ears. So something very dry will sound close and something very reverby will sound farther away. (Too much and it just sounds like an effect, good or bad.)

Panning, obviously, puts things left or right of center, but also increasing or narrowing the stereo image of a sound source may also be of value and worth checking out.

And then pitch, we usually think of as the actual songwriting. But arranging, or even cutting out space for the instruments can be rewarding as well.

And finally, a thought that relates. A nice full sounding acoustic guitar is great if you are recording/mixing G&G. But if you have more than two instruments (guitar/vox) then that acoustic will quite likely be masking vocals, or electric or even keys in ways that makes the mix muddy. It is often good in a mix to have a soloed track that sounds thin or incomplete if that same track adds to the total mix. So, if you hear that same acoustic in a rock song soloed, it might sound very percussive and lacking most mids and all lows. But if it sits in the mix better, if you can hear it clearly among all the distortion and other instruments fighting for space, that is much better than a soloed track that sounds full and a mix that suffers because of it. I've still not wrapped my head around it completely, but in mixing, rarely should a solo track be sculpted. Instead always mix in context.

Thanks for letting me re-iterate what has already been said in my own words.

[j.g.]

This must be one of the most useful threads posted on here.
Between you all there are so many great tips and bits of advice which can help everyone.
Thanks for starting it Geir, and AndyR for putting your expert knowledge and experience forward, and all the others who have contributed.
We can all take something from this and will keep coming back for more.
Geoff
 

[stoman]

Great thread. I'm sure many people will find this useful.

Here are a couple of basic observations from my side. I will contribute more when my time allows:

THE 3 DIMENSIONS OF A MIX

When I recently talked to a colleague of mine at work about what mixing songs is about, he said: "Why, I thought all you have to do after recording is balance out the volume levels and distribute the actors from left to right."

But there is much more to it. One thing we need to be aware of before we start mixing is that a song has actually three dimensions:

1. Width (where the sound appears in the stereo image)
2. Depth (how near or far a sound source is)
3. Frequency

1. Width seems to be the easiest part: You simply use the panning knob of a track to place it where it belongs on the x-axis. But that's only one half of the truth. A common rule is to put sounds with more characteristic lower frequencies more towards the center. That's why the bass and the kick are almost always arranged dead center. Old recordings from the 60s, when stereo mixing was new, often have the bass on one side and the drums on the other, but there were mostly technical reasons to do it that way (limited number of recording channels, several sounds on one track, ...). However, it always depends. Sometimes breaking common rules is a way of artistic expression, and everything that sounds good is good.

2. Creating depth in a mix is crucial for a lively, "natural" overall sound. But how can we move a sound back in our mix? There are two important factors to pay attention to:

a) When a sound source is far away from us we don't hear its high frequencies. The reason is that low frequencies carry more energy. The more the sound approaches us (like e.g. a car on a street coming closer to where we stand) the more we hear of the high frequencies. So, if you want to move a sound behind others in your mix, fade out the high frequencies in your EQ. There are formulas to calculate the exact amount in dB depending on the distance, but using your ears should usually be good enough.

b) In an environment with reflecting parts like walls of a room you will also notice that a sound produces echoes/reverberance which increases the more the sound source moves away from our ears. A lot can be (and has been) written about how to use a reverb device correctly. The most important settings are the room size, the diffusion (which is caused by the surface material of the reflecting obstacles), the length of the reverb tail and the early reflections (how long does it take before the first reflections of the original sound reach your ear? - the longer it takes the bigger the room seems to be, and the nearer the sound itself will appear).

Note that (a) also holds for the reverb itself, so fade out the EQ on your reverb too. A mix will usually have at least 5 - 7 reverb units with different settings.

3. If your mix sounds muddy, or if you cannot make out all the parts clearly, you most likely have a problem with the frequencies. Some instruments will mask out each other because they occupy the same frequencies. There are several ways to deal with this:

a) Try to distribute the conflicting parts in the stereo image. If you have two instruments that both fill up the same frequencies, and both need those frequencies to sound good, move one of the instruments far right and one far left in the mix.

b) Find out where the characteristic frequencies of an instrument are. Make sure those frequencies are not being masked out by another instrument. If they are, identify that other instrument. It is very likely that the other instrument does not need those frequencies to play its role in the mix, so use an EQ to make room for the instrument that does need them. Important: Always start by removing frequencies! Only boost parts, if you need to over-emphasize a frequency range for artistic reasons.

Don't be shy when removing whole frequency ranges from an instrument. E.g. a piano or a guitar does not need anything below 150 Hz in a mix unless it is used as a solo instrument. If you take away those frequencies the mix will immediately become clearer and more precise, i.e. less muddy. An instrument that sounds "castrated" when played solo, can still do a great job in the mix because the removed frequencies are occupied by other important instruments.

c) If two instruments have conflicting frequencies that cannot be removed for some reason (e.g. a bass and a kick drum with the same characteristic frequencies), try a compressor with side-chaining abilities and use one instrument (the kick drum) to compress the other and make room for itself. That way the bass will only be suppressed when the kick drum is being hit.


So much for now. Hope it helps a little.

Regards,
  Steffen

[AndyR]

I've got to go now, but before I forget - shall I mention "complementary EQ"? It's an extra weapon you can use when you've run out of spaces in the picture. If someone knows what I mean and explains it, cool... But otherwise I'll write some waffle next time I'm on (tomorrow I hope)

Yes yes !! We need more weapons !! Please elaborate, I haven't heard of this technique before.

Well....

Here's an excellent example of it :

i also always take a little notch out of the bass guitar sound about -3dB cant remember the exact frequency as it was advice given by a friend so i saved it as a preset ill check it next time i have my recording stuff set up

i then boost the kick drum by +3dB in the same frequency to make the kick and the bass lock together and be really tight sounding.

I've not used it this way before (but I will next time I'm using drums - thanks Tony ).

Basically you take a few db out of one track, and and add them back on another track, at the same frequency. It's very useful when the tracks are getting mixed to the same area in the stereo. It can have the effect Tony describes - locking them together - but it can also stop two parts fighting each other for volume. On the "locking together", I've even had it make two parts sound as if they'd been played a bit better, more in time with each other than they actually were!

EDIT: stoman's post arrived while I was posting - just read it, excellent stuff Steffen

One of the things I'm finding encouraging on here is that we're all heading in roughly the same directions, some from trial-and-error, some from research and then trial-and-error, etc, etc... but we're all going roughly the same route...

But this is VERY important:

everything that sounds good is good

This is probably my most important rule - but I always forget to say it when typing!

[Bluesberry]

Stoman's in the house, that was a great post Steffen, real good info to go along with the other great posts.  I am going to read this thread over a few times today, let it sink in.  Any more good stuff guys...this is the post to put it.  Essential reading.

[dasilvasings]

Thanks a lot for this!

2 questions:

Is it worth to add reverb to highly compressed guitars to put them at different depth? I usually don't record lead guitars, but I'm now working on a lead, and it overlaps the rythm guitar big time. I was thinking in panning them apart, but now i see is not the best option... BTW Are leads always played in the higher octave of the guitar?!?

How do you find the "characteristic frequencies of an instrument"? For example, I know the bass is in the 30 - 300 Hz, but the sound of the fret being hit is somewhere above (e.g. slap), or the "woody" sound of the fretboard. How do I find them? If I boost the lower freq it gets that full dub/ reggae sound, which is not always welcome (oddly, my ears tell me that this "bassier bass" fills a lot the soundscape, but it shouldn't since there's no sound in mid/ high freq).

Cheers,

miguel