Björgvin Benediktsson

Sound engineer and musician Björgvin Benediktsson teaches you How to Record Great Music with whatever equipment you got!

Audio engineering and music production are a huge subject, but by breaking down the essential facets of audio engineering and recording into easily consumable chapters, Björgvin gets you up and running by covering everything from buying essential audio equipment to using reverb effectively in your recordings.

If you’ve been thinking about recording music or dabbling in audio engineering, then kick-start the process by grabbing a copy of Björgvin’s book and start learning How to Record Great Music with whatever equipment you got! RECORD

HOW TO

GREAT MUSIC...with whatever equipment you got!Get Good

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Table of Contents3Contents

Foreword 7

1 What Makes a Good Sound? 10

Nature and Style of the Instrument 10Balance 11Performance 11A Great Instrument 12Start With a Great Sound 12

2 How I Record Music 14

Equipping Your First Studio Room 16Easy Solutions 18Diffusion 20Live Room or Dead Room? 20Don’t Compete with the Big Boys 21Equipment 21Buying the Basics without Breaking the Bank! 23Recording Computer 23Interface 24What to Look Out for in an Interface 25Old School Recording 28Connectors 29Audio Software 30Monitors 35Headphones 36MIDI controllers 38

Table of Contents4

3 An Intro to Microphones and Mic Techniques 41

The Condenser 41Dynamic Microphones 43Ribbon Microphones 43Polar Patterns 44Microphone Techniques 49

4 The Recording Workflow 59

Pre-Production 59The Recording Chain 60Multi- track Recording 62Conclusion 65

5 The Audio Mixer 67

Gain 69Knobs and Switches 70Equalizers 71Inserts 72Sends 72Fader 74

6 Audio Editing 77

The Editing Process 77The Best Way to Cut and Edit Audio 78Mixing 79Critical Listening 79Levels 80Panning 81Equalization 82The BEST Way to EQ! 84Frequency Spectrum 86

Table of Contents5EQ Experimentally 89Compression 90The Sounds of Compression 91Limiting 93Parallel Compression 93Gates 95Effects 98Automation — Taking your Mix to the Next Level 104Preparing for Mastering 106Putting it All Together 107

Conclusion 109

Thank You 110

About The Author 111

FOREWORD

Foreword7

ForewordAudio engineering and music production is a huge subject. To the novice just starting out, all the choices of processors, microphones, pre-amps, knobs, and switches can really deter you from getting involved with record-ing your music. That is not to mention how complicated some recording software can be! It took me years actually to want to know how to record the music I was playing. I was happy just to play my guitar and let someone else do the technical stuff, mostly because I was intimidated by all the things I seemed to need either to own or know how to use.

I’m sure that many of you feel the same way. All that gear and all those techniques just to record my song? C’mon! Does it really need to be that complicated? Where do I even begin?

You want an easy to follow explanation with practical tips to get you start-ed in audio engineering. Believe me, I understand exactly where you’re coming from.

I got tired of always looking for tips and practical help online. All I got were sites that were more interested in showcasing the newest sample library or synthesizer rather than actually teaching you how to use any of these audio production tools. I had tons of questions like:

• What is the best way to mike up a guitar cabinet?

• Why do my vocals sound so bad through my dynamic microphone in the middle of the room?

• How do I use delay and reverb effectively?

• What on earth is A.D.T.? Some sort of attention deficit disorder?

Luckily, I did find some of the answers to my questions on the web with sites like AudioTuts+, so I decided it was time for me to give something back and to try to provide something which I wish had been available when I got started. Through my studies — and a lot of trial and error — I’ve finally

Foreword8

learned the answers to most of these techniques I had questions about in the beginning, so I hope my knowledge and experience can be useful to you too.

I’ve tried to make to this book a practical guide to audio engineering. I like quick tips and I feel that practical applications are crucial to remembering how and why to use a specific technique. We won’t be going into the theoretical specifics of every little thing; rather, I’ll try to give you the practi-cal knowledge needed to start in the world of audio engineering.

I’ve covered topics like: how to get started with buying essential audio equipment for your productions, setting up a small home studio, and learning how the phases of pre-production, recording and mixing all work together to create a complete package.

I’ve tried to build this book for quick and easy reference so that you don’t have to read this book from start to finish. If you’re having problems with getting your instrument mic’d up properly, then just flip to the microphone and microphone placement section of the book. If you’ve finished recording but have no idea where to start mixing, then skip over to the mixing chapter to get your bearings.

Basically, this is the book I wish I had when I was learning the ropes, and I hope it can help you too!

Let’s get started!

What Makes a Good Sound?10

What Makes a Good Sound?Recording music is a subjective process. Nobody does it exactly the same way. Engineers are usually trying to reproduce something that they hear in their head using the tools they have on hand. However, regardless of music genre or style, there are always certain things people try to capture in order for their instruments to sound good.

Nature and Style of the Instrument

You need to take the nature of the instrument into account when choosing the correct way to record it. A bass guitar is a low-end instrument that needs a different approach than a violin. Similarly, screaming rock vocals have a different sound than a female jazz singer. Depending on the nature and style of the instrument, a “good” sound can be accomplished in a myriad of ways.

“Variaties op een violiste” by FaceMePLS, available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

What Makes a Good Sound?11

Balance

Sounds need to have balance. Instruments need to be balanced in the frequency spectrum. A bass track with too much bass will clutter up a mix. A guitar track that has too much distortion or bite will cause fatigue to the ears of the listener. A great sound is a balanced sound. It will be balanced in the frequency spectrum while still taking its fundamental nature into account.

Performance

A sound is only as good as its performance. You can record with the best gear in the world, but if the musician can’t play, it’s worthless.

“Freaksville studio sessions” by Marc Wathieu, available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

What Makes a Good Sound?12

A Great Instrument

Similarly, if you have an out-of-tune, cheap sounding instrument, then that’s what’s going to end up on your record. Make sure your drums are tuned, your guitars are set up, and the amplifiers are in working order.

Start With a Great Sound

If you keep these things in mind, you’re halfway there already. Capture the full extent of your sound, including the frequency response, quality of performance, and nature of the instrument. That way, you’ll have better sounds to work with down the line.

“playing hands” by Ctd 2005, available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

“Jazzman 2” by me’nthedogs’ (Mark Robinson), available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

How I Record Music14

How I Record MusicSo what are the proper steps to record ing a great song? How do you get from idea to implementation to final product? It’s easier to know what you have to do if you have an easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide to a finished song.

Step 1 – Arrangement

First things first: you need to have an idea for a song. Before you start recording, you need to know how that song starts and ends and all the chapters in between. The arrangement is the structure of the song. Do you have a song structure that’s easy to record and follow? Is it a typical verse/chorus/bridge thing or is it more experimental? In order to record a song you will need to know its structure.

If you can play it through on acoustic guitar or piano then you’ve probably got the arrangement down. Having a set arrangement that doesn’t change makes it easier for everyone involved. Everyone can learn it by heart and not worry about it suddenly changing. So before you start recording at all, make sure the structure and arrangement of the song is finished.

Step 2 – Foundation

The next step is to lay the foundation of the track. In a simple band record-ing this usually consists of a drum track and maybe a guiding scratch guitar. A scratch track is a track that’s used as guidance for any other instrument. For example, I recently recorded a scratch guitar and vocal track for a song I was recording. When I had recorded my scratch tracks we layered drums on top. At that point we could continue layering instruments on top, deleting the scratch tracks when they weren’t needed anymore. Bass guitar also constitutes as a foundation track, and is sometimes tracked at the same time as drums. Bass guitar is the melodic foundation to the rhythmic foundation of the drums. So, lay the foundation first, a drum or a core rhythm track of some sort before you start adding everything else.

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Step 3 – Rhythm ‘n’ Riffs

When you’ve got the foundation tracks down you can start adding your rhythm elements. This can be a re-recording of your scratch tracks, with greater care taken in the recording process. This can also be the guitar riffs, piano chords or synth stabs. In other words, everything that constitutes as more of a rhythm element in the song, as opposed to a lead instrument, should be added at this point.

Step 4 – Lead Elements

At this point you should have a really grooving and well-constructed mix. You have your tight foundation with the drums and bass as well as the rhythm elements driving the song forward. Now, the next thing to do is to add lead vocals and solos. Get rid of that scratch vocal track you were using and record the polished final product. Fill in the holes, insert guitar solos and lead fills where appropriate.

A Final Produced Product

Congratulations on your well-constructed recording. Take each step separately in your quest for a great sounding recording. That way, you have an easy list to follow, and won’t get lost in the session.

Jargon Problems?

Every industry has its jargon. Audio engineering has its fair share of complicated terms and vocabulary that nobody else knows, wants to know or will ever use. Audio engineers need to know the correct language so that we can communicate efficiently with our fellow recording engineers. Working without a shared language is like travelling without one. You could be getting yourself into difficult situations because no one understands each other. It’s much easier when everybody speaks the same language.

Throughout this book I will use jargon and slang that’s relative to what I’m talking about. In order for you to fully understand the jargon, slang, and definitions there will be brief, easy to understand explanations in the “jargon corner” positioned in the side bar. That way we can keep the dialog flowing without you getting distracted by industry jargon.

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Equipping Your First Studio RoomFor many recording studio start-ups, the home studio reigns supreme. It’s a place where we usually start honing our recording skills, but many give up because they never seem to get a good sound out of their gear. Most of the time it’s not the gear or their talent that is at fault, but the room.

You see, a bedroom might be one of the very worst areas to record in due to acoustics. The bare walls of a bedroom cause sound to bounce all over the place. When you are listening to your music, you want to hear only what comes out

of the speakers. You do not want to hear the speakers along with all the reflections of the sound that’s bouncing around the room. Just like you want your reference monitors to tell you exactly what your music sounds like, you also want the room to leave your music alone, allowing you to concentrate on what’s coming out of your monitors.

Professional studios go to great lengths to build recording spaces that allow instru ments to sound good. Money is put into creating rooms that have no parallel walls (which helps with diffusing reflections and creating a better sound), enough absorption to eat that ringing tone you hear when you clap your hands, as well as creating thick bass traps to control all the low-end frequency that one needs to hear accurately when mixing. So, how does the beginner get better sound out of his home studio?

Acoustic Treatment

We need to treat our room before we can try to get better sounds out of it. Most bedroom studios have to deal with a num ber of things before they

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start sounding good. Luckily there are a few simple things you can do to make any room of your home sound better.

Common Problems

• Flutter echo – This is the weird high-pitched noise you hear when you clap your hands in a small, enclosed space. The reflections of the sound generated by clapping ping-pong all around the room creating that high-pitched ring that we’ve come to recognize as flutter echo.

• Standing waves – Standing waves are generated when a certain frequency goes back and forth between parallel walls, generating crests and troughs of that frequency at certain places around the room. This means certain frequencies are overabundant where the sound wave is at its highest but almost non-existent where the sound wave is at its lowest. Standing waves can create problematic bass build-up. That makes it hard to hear accurately the low-end of your mix, either adding too much or way too little of the bass frequencies.

• Top standing wave tip – At the AES 2010 Convention, Gavin Lurssen, a mastering engineer, offered the audience a great tip for reducing standing waves. Simply take some blankets, roll them up and lay them in the corners of the room where the floor meets the wall. It will kill a standing wave every time.

• Outside sound – Background noise from the outside world can intrude on your recording and ruin a take.

• Reflections – When you are mixing in an untreated bedroom you are not only hearing what’s coming out of your speakers, but also all the build-up of reflections that those sound waves create when they are bouncing around the room. So without any acoustic treatment you are essentially mixing a track for your room. And the listener can’t take your room with you everywhere he goes.

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Easy SolutionsThere are a few easy solutions to help make your room sound better. We can use tools like absorption or diffusion, and it’s easier than it sounds to treat a room. You just have to know what you are dealing with.

Absorption

It’s easy to deal with higher frequencies ringing all over the place by using thick blankets as absorbers. Blankets are good for high frequencies and are great in a pinch. If you want a professional look to your studio and don’t want thick, ugly blankets hanging on the walls you can buy designed acoustic treatment from companies like Auralex and Primacoustics. But quite often (if you are only worried about ringing flutter echo) some carefully positioned blankets can help dampen the “roomy” sound.

You can also create great absorbers using thick rock wool or fiber glass framed with plywood and wrapped in thick fabric. These kinds of DIY treatment are a great way to help with your room acoustics without spending a lot of money.

Bass Trapping

Low frequencies are generally more pro-blematic and harder to deal with. In order to absorb bass frequencies, you will need to create so called “bass traps.” Low frequencies create these standing waves that have a bad effect on your room’s acoustics. By creating bass traps using thick and deep absorbers filled with rock wool, mineral wool, or semi-rigid fiberglass (dense building materials you can usually

Blankets are great ab­sorbers. Roll them up for bass trapping or hang them on the wall for reducing reflections. Bookcases, abnormal angles and just a lot of stuff in your studio will reduce the 90° corners and diffuse the sound waves for cheap. Bring a bookshelf in from the living room and put it against the rear wall. It won’t be as perfect as a professionally designed diffuser but it’s certainly better than nothing.

How I Record Music19

find at a hardware store), you can create an effective bass-eating treatment for your studio.

Bass usually builds up in corners. Try to place bass traps strategically: in the corners of a room to eliminate as many 90° angles as you can, as well as in any other location you feel there is an overabundance of low frequencies.

Many home recordists create do-it-yourself bass traps and absorbers and go on to share their methods online. A quick search on Google using the terms “DIY bass traps” will give you an abundance of resources. However, if you’re like me and are either a) lazy or b) have enough money to spare, you can buy pretty decent room treatment packages online from Auralex. And they even offer a free room analysis in order to tell you which package is best for you.

Further Reading

For more information on bass traps, check out What Are Bass Traps and Why Do You Need Them?

cut-away diagram of a DIY bass trap

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DiffusionSince a non-reflective dead room sounds pretty unnatural to our ears, using diffusers is a good solution. Diffusers scatter reflections that come at them in every direction, eliminating all the energy that reflective sounds make. Diffusers are also a great way to enhance a room’s sound without absorbing all the frequencies of the room. With diffusion, we eliminate annoying frequency buildup, but hold on to the live sound a room has to offer.

Diffusion Placement Tips

• We can eliminate flutter echo with carefully positioned diffusers. By scattering the high frequencies we eliminate the ringing noise that flutter echo creates.

• Diffusion behind the mixing position scatters reflections coming from the monitors, resulting in better monitoring and enhanced stereo imaging.

• Real diffusers are hard to build, but you can create convex angles easily in your studio to help scatter and diffuse the sound waves. Any material that eliminates the 90° angles of the room helps diffuse and reduce the energy of the sound waves, creating a more controlled listening environment.

Live Room or Dead Room?If we are working in one room only, it’s generally good to have a little ab-sorption to take care of the problematic, low bass frequencies and eliminate some of the ringing flutter echo. Then, you should concentrate on creating a live-but-controlled environment with diffusers. We don’t want to suck the life out of a room with too much absorption, but we still need to control and scatter the reflections that are going to be present. With a nice balance of absorption and diffusion we can create a room that can be usable for both recording and mixing.

How I Record Music21

Don’t Compete with the Big BoysCommercial studios spend thou sands of dollars in order to make their rooms sound amazing. Since you don’t have that kind of money (or have better ways to spend it) we can try to make do by using a little do-it-yourself mentality and some ingenuity. Since we don’t have to treat as many rooms as a typical recording studio we can focus on getting a great (or at least a usable) sound in our little studio room.

Further Reading

Mo Volans, an Audiotuts+ writer, has written a great Beginner’s Guide to Acoustic Treatment that will probably answer any further questions you might have on the subject.

EquipmentIn order to record great audio, you don’t necessarily need great audio equipment. You certainly need passable equipment that is in working order, but there is one thing that is much more important than your equipment: your ears.

Your ears, given to you for free at birth, might be your most valuable asset. If you can’t tell broken and bad sounding equipment from expensive high quality gear then it’s pointless to spend all that money right? That said, you’ll still need some gear to record your songs. It doesn’t have to be the most expensive gear in the store. It just has to suit your needs and budget. Not affording the most expensive microphone does not mean you can’t accomplish a great sound. You’ll just have to use your ears a little bit more to find that perfect spot where the equipment really shines.

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Before You Go Shopping

Make a note of what you think you will need before you start shopping for equipment. The amount of different gear, brands, makes and models is overwhelming, so if you don’t have a concrete list of things you really need, you just might get lost. Worse yet, without preparation you could acquire

“GAS” (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) and spend way too much money on things you don’t need.

Ask yourself the following questions while preparing your list:

1. How much are you going to record at one time?

2. When debating on what kind of microphone you need, ask yourself: Do I need a full range condenser for my vocals, a dynamic mic for my loud guitar amp, or a versatile drum microphone package to record drums?

3. Does your interface come with a bundled audio software package that you can use or do you need to buy a separate one?

4. Can you get away with buying smaller monitors or do you need big ones for that extra bass?

5. Will you be recording guitar and vocals only or are you going to be making electronic music on your MIDI controller?

6. Do you need extra money to buy acoustic treatment, or can you learn to make it yourself?

7. What can you get cheap without sacrificing the quality of your setup?

You may not know all the answers to some of these questions yet. Without further ado, let’s dive into the basic equipment you need to get your hands on to record some great audio at home.

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Buying the Basics without Breaking the Bank!To get started in audio production you will need to buy quite a few things. Audio production and recording can be an expensive hobby, but when you are getting started you don’t have to break the bank to get the necessary equipment. We’re not creating a record-ing studio or a music business, so we won’t need outside investors or a loan from the bank. While every studio is different — they all have different needs and goals — there are certain things that every small project or home studio should have.

Recording ComputerLet’s take it as a given that you have a com-puter. Most home studios are run with a recording computer of some sort. Whether that’s a workstation dedicated to only your audio production projects or your laptop for every day tasks depends on the seriousness of your recording career and the budget you can allow yourself. Some people get by fine with a laptop, but others like having their dedicated quad-core super computer run-ning their audio programs. Whichever you choose depends on your budget and needs.

You can normally record to a separate, stand-alone hard drive without a problem, as long as the hard drive runs fast enough. The standard speed for audio recording

The faster your processor, the more memory­intensive plug­ins your computer will be able to handle. A 60­track song with 60+ plug­ins on every channel is going to eat your computer for breakfast. Your processor matters more than your RAM when mixing, but you should have an abundance of RAM to go around This is especially true if you are running many programs at once (so if you’ve got Firefox or Illustrator running in the background, shut them OFF!)

How I Record Music24

hard drives is 7200 RPM. Go get one of those and use it only for your audio.

If you’ve ever wondered why your computer always knows when it’s time to update, it’s because it’s always communicating with inter net resources. It uses up some of its proces sing power doing so. In order to opti-mize your performance, disconnect from the internet when recording. Think about it: How are you going to be productive if your computer isn’t even paying attention?

InterfaceIn the modern recording world, where most everything is digital, you need an interface. An inter-face is the physical unit you connect your microphones to. It also acts as your computer’s soundcard when you connect it to your computer, allowing you to connect your speakers and headphones to it. The interface is the intermediary between your microphone and your computer system.

What interface you choose depends on a variety of factors: How much do you want to spend? How many inputs do you need? How do you want to connect it to your computer? Those are questions will define what you need. You can get away with pretty cheap interfaces if you only need so many inputs, but the budget starts rising as soon as you need more mic inputs. Not only in the interface itself, but also in the quantity of microphones you will need to buy.

Sites like ecost.com have refurbished computers at half the price. Scout for deals there, sooner or later a cheap but kickass computer will come along.

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Pre-amps: The mic inputs of an interface are your pre-amps. Down the road you might want to splurge on high-end tube pre-amps that add an extra layer to your sound, but for now we’ll just be having normal transparent solid-state pre-amps. They don’t color your sound and most budget interfaces have clean and decent sounding built-in pre-amps.

What to Look Out for in an InterfaceSample rate and bit depth – Most inter faces now support up to 192 kHz of sample rate and 24-bit recording. If for some reason the interface you are considering only records at 16-bit, I would recommend finding another one.

Sample Rate – In the digital audio world we record all our audio and convert it into computerized bits in a format that a computer can understand. Sample rate is the amount of audio samples the computer processes at any given time. How many snapshots of your G­chord or snare hit will the computer take? That’s dependent on how high your sample rate is. Higher sample rates mean higher quality audio, but also require much more hard drive space.

Bit Depth – When digital audio first came out the highest rate we could record at was 16­bit. So we pushed our audio as close to its recording limits as possible which sometimes caused digital clipping (digital distortion). Now, since we have 24 bits to play with, we don’t have to record as loud as we can. Basically, never record anything at 16­bit if you can do it at 24­bit. It’s like deciding to record a vinyl record to cassette instead of burning a CD. Why would you ever do that?

“Focusrite Saffire 6 USB” by Aramek (Ty Konzak), available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

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The higher the sample rate, the more accurate your recorded files will be. I wouldn’t worry too much about needing to record at 192 kHz.

Inputs – The inputs are the physical connections where you connect your microphones or instruments. How many inputs do you need, i.e. how many instruments do you want to record at once? Do you want to be able to record drums and several instruments at once, or will you be satisfied with two microphone inputs for the occasional vocal track or acoustic instrument?

Outputs – Outputs are the jacks that con-tain your outgoing recording signal. Are you going to be routing your signal to more than just your computer? Will you be connecting outboard gear such as compressors to your interface?

Headphone input – A headphone input is where you connect your head phones. Is there a separate headphone input? I really recommend getting an interface that has a separate headphone input. If you are only

Choosing your sample rate 44.1 vs. 48 vs. 88.2 vs. 96 kHz? Which one should you choose? There is an eternal fight over higher sampling rates sounding better. I personally think it’s a question of compromise. High tech studios record at higher sample rates because they have the space and equipment to appreciate such sample rates, but you might not need to go

higher than 48 kHz in your home studio. Remember that CD quality is 44.1 kHz so if you are ok with sacrificing a little quality to save some space, I wouldn’t worry too much about the higher sam­ple rates. Many engineers record at 44.1 kHz so if it sounds good to you and you don’t have the space to spare for large audio files, then I wouldn’t worry about it.

ADAT stands for Alesis Digital Audio Tape, or may refer to ADAT Optical Interface/Lightpipe.

S/PDIF stands for Sony/Philips Digital Interconnect Format, an standard for digital audio

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using one room to record in it gets very annoying when you constantly need to physically turn off your monitors every time you want to record something.

Extras – Are there any extra inputs or outputs that you could use later, such as S/PDIF digital inputs or ADAT optical inputs?

Example: You decide you only need two microphone inputs for now but the one you’re getting has ADAT. You can keep in mind that whenever you need more inputs you can just buy a separate interface that

also has ADAT, and connect it to your existing one for an instant extra eight inputs. With the right preparation, you can start small but expand easily when the need comes.

Additional Interface

All those inputs and outputs! Common inputs and outputs such as XLR/MIC and TRS/Line aside, there are a few other specifics you need to know about. S/PDIF inputs look like RCA inputs but are digital and connect two lines of audio with one connector. If your interface has one of these and you have another interface that has the same, you can record two more channels of audio at the same time. But if you have optical ADAT, which are connected via a lightpipe cable you can connect eight extra channels of audio. This can be useful. If you are using an eight pre-amp (mic input) interface that has an ADAT in/out, you can hook up a second eight pre-amp interface and record

All the budget interfaces like the Firepod from PreSonus or the M­Audio Fast Track are cheap and sound great at that price. If you only need one input, don’t spend your money on eight. Buy a small one if that’s all you need and use the money for something else.

Still confused? Head over to Audiotuts+ and check out their buyer’s guide: 36 Audio Interfaces Under $1000. You’ll be able to find interfaces that suit any need.

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16 tracks of audio at the same time. Perfect if you want to record a small live band.

Old School RecordingAlthough most recording projects today are done with an interface and a computer, there are those who prefer the traditional record-ing methods. This can be an old school tape machine or a hard disk recorder like the Tascam DP-02 or the old Alesis ADAT HD24.

The advantages of using a hard disk recorder is that you only need to lug around one fairly compact recorder, instead of your entire computer and interface. All things considered, using hard disk recorders can be limiting since you don’t have access to the same amount of special mixing tricks available with a computer program.

But when used purely for recording it has its added advantages. Its plug-and-record mode requires you to get a good source sound from the get-go without any fix-it-in-the-mix mentality. Also, by using it in conjunction with a great mixing station you can import all your well-recorded audio into a computer for that final touch.

Using Tape

Tape is still used, but it is so expensive that many opt to not use it, or at least not during recording. Some use saturation or

Get a portable recorder like the Zoom H1 or H2 for a cheap live recorder that you can take to gigs and rehearsals. You can even use them to record podcasts, interviews and great sounding instruments. They are easy to use and sounds great. Check out WingField Audiofor audio samples.

“Reel to Reel” by alex_lee2001 (Alex Lee), available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

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tape emulation plug-ins to get a convincing tape sound. Others bounce their master tracks to tape, taking advantage of the warm sound it gives their finished mixes. Many purists still swear by tape, but with digital audio constantly getting better as technology takes exponential leaps it’s just a matter of time before it will become outdated.

ConnectorsThe most typical cables a studio has are the quarter-inch jack plug and XLR connector. Microphones are connected with XLR connectors and instruments like guitar and bass are connected using jack plugs. Some interfaces or mixers only have a JACK plug out, in which case you will need balanced jack plugs so that you don’t lose signal quality.

Visuals can help us identify the differ ences between connectors, so here’s a quick guide…

XLR – These are the typical microphone inputs that have three prongs and connect easily to microphones. XLR cables are usually balanced.

JACK – Sometime known as TS or TRS cables. Jack cables can be unbalanced (TS) or balanced (TRS). The typical TS cable is the guitar cable, and the speaker cable is a good example of a balanced TRS cable. Shown here are TRS.

RCA – Stands for Rockin’ Consumer Audio. Not really! It got its name because it was introduced by the Radio Corporation of America. It is the typical connector that we find on the back of our home stereo and on cheap mixing desks. The double RCA to MiniJack is a must have for any iPod DJ.

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S/PDIF – These connectors look like RCA cables, but actually transmit two signals through one S/PDIF cable. Some interfaces have S/PDIF IN enabling you to connect two more channels into your interface. Since it’s a digital interface you can buy a great tube pre-amp to enhance your interface, using its S/PDIF to transmit the signal to your computer via your previous interface.

Then we have all of the adaptors, enlargers, and minimizers that you might need. The most popular one is the 1/8” jack to 1/4” jack plug that you really need to plug in your headphones. It’s always good to have adaptors that turn one type of cable into another. There’s going to be a time where your singer only wants to use his or her own headphones — but they only have a 1/8 inch plug. Having an adaptor on hand keeps your vocalist happy.

Audio SoftwareThe amount of audio software currently available is astounding. From easy-to-use demo programs like GarageBand, Audacity, and Ardour to state of the art audio recording programs like Logic Pro, Ableton Live, or Pro Tools. Without going into the specifics and pros and cons of each recording program (which could probably be a book in itself), let me just say that if you are serious about your audio produc tions then you should consider as many options as you can. Do the research on the various types of programs before you part with your cash.

If you are just dabbling in recording the occasional demo, then maybe you shouldn’t splurge $400 on a feature-packed recording program if you aren’t going to be using most of its features. You would be better of trying one of the free recording packages like Ardour or Audacity. Then again, many recording interfaces come with audio software, the best deal in that

TS / TRS – stands for Tip/Sleeve and Tip/Ring/Sleeve. The TS carries a mono signal, while the TRS carries a stereo signal. You can easily ID a TRS cable by the extra R (ring) on the jack.

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department being the Mbox that comes bundled with the Pro Tools audio software.

Many other interfaces offer Cubase, Logic or Ableton Live with their inter faces but they are usually “lite” or downgraded ver-sions of the full recording software. That might be enough for you to start out, but it might not. There are endless arguments over which audio program is the best, and what I’ve found is that the program you like the best is usually the one you start out with. If you started recording in Logic or Pro Tools, then those are probably the ones you will feel most comfortable using.

So before you decide on your audio program of choice, it wouldn’t hurt to download a few demos and take the various programs out there for a test drive before deciding on your preferred program dedication.

Top Four Audio Recording Programs

There are definitely some audio programs that dominate the marketplace. Some are platform specific, only working on either Mac or PC, or have some attributes that makes them preferable for some genres and pro-ducers. In no particular order, here are some of the most popular ones.

1. Logic Pro | http://www.apple.com/logicstudio/logicpro/

Logic Pro 9 is the latest version of Logic produced by Apple. It is Mac-only and is very desirable for both the electronic music pro-ducer as well as the home recordist. Ample loop and sample banks combined with all sorts of interesting software synthesizers makes Logic Pro one of the better DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) out there. You do not need to buy a special interface or hardware to run Logic Pro; it should work on absolutely everything. That said, as usual, be sure to check the compatibility when pairing up an interface with your software.

DAW – short for digital audio workstation. It’s just a fancy word for an audio recording software or software sequencer.

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2. Pro Tools | http://www.avid.com/US/products/family/

pro-tools

Produced by Avid, Pro Tools is widely regarded as the industry standard when it comes to professional recording studios. It works both on Mac and PC and is definitely one of the most popular DAWs when it comes to professional recordings. Pro Tools has a home version called Pro Tools LE and a more sophisticated (and expensive) version called Pro Tools HD. Pro Tools used to only work with Digidesign-specific interfaces, like the Mbox2 and Digi 003. With the release of Pro Tools 9, Avid has opened up the program to any interface that you want to run with it.

3. Ableton Live | http://www.ableton.com

This is a favorite for professionals like DJs and live musicians that rely on their computer for their shows. Although you could treat this software just like any other audio sequencer, it is the live window, complete with triggerable clips, that wins the performance musician over. By loading in pre-recorded clips and creating different soundscapes or chord structures, you can structure a complete live show or DJ set. Live works both on Mac and PC and doesn’t have any specific interface preferences either. Ableton Live makes it very easy to create a full band-like sound at home.

4. Steinberg Cubase | http://www.steinberg.net

Cubase is a perfect alternative to the aforementioned programs. If you want to buy your own interface, and not be forced into buying an Mbox, Cubase is a great option. If you don’t have a Mac or don’t need the extra live-sound capabilities that Live offers, Cubase has all the functions that make up a great DAW.

Some audio software is free or extremely affordable. Some afford ables include Ardour, Audacity, or Cockos Reaper.

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Microphones

You need a decent micro phone to get you going. This might have cost you quite a bit in the past. With today’s techno-logical offerings, it’s amazing how affordable a solid micro-phone can be.

For vocals and acoustic instru-ments, I would opt to get a nice condenser microphone that can work in a variety of situations. A large diaphragm condenser can become your best buddy if you choose the right one.

Dynamic microphones don’t capture the full frequency range of a vocal, so in order to compliment your voice properly I would rather recommend a good quality condenser microphone.

Lastly, ribbon microphones are best left for later when you have the money and interest in expanding your microphone collection. For a more detailed explanation of microphones flip over to page 41.

But I just started? I don’t know what I need?

If you only have a budget for one type of microphone, it’s not going to be the ribbon mic due to price, and the frequency response of a dynamic mic might be a little lacking if you are just going to be recording vocals and the occasional acoustic instru-ment. Your best bet is to start with an above-average condenser microphone which will work for most projects. If you

“Microphone” by visual.dichotomy (Grant), available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

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need a dynamic microphone for loud guitar work then you can always get a pretty good dynamic mic for much less later on.

Consider it this way: Spend a little more when you are starting out on a condenser microphone, then when you finally need that dynamic mic, you won’t need to shell out as much money for your second one.

Budget Microphone Solutions

There are a few condenser microphones which are affordable options. The following are usually lower price and work well as the start to your microphone collection.

• Audio-Technica AT2020

A great sounding medium condenser that works just as well with acoustic guitar, and for drum overheads, as it does with vocals. It is the best value for your money on the market.

• AKG Perception 220

AKG is a staple in modern recording, and this condenser is hard to beat when it comes to budget vocal solutions.

• Rode NT-1A

This is the most expensive one of the bunch, although (at the time of this writing) they usually retail below $300. However, this quiet and sensitive condenser captures every essence of your performance, making it a worthwhile investment.

If you are in the market for a nice condenser microphone, it wouldn’t hurt to look at one of the three listed above. If you have something else in mind, just be aware that some budget microphones are exactly that: cheaply priced and cheaply made microphones. Spending around $250 on your first condenser microphone is a justifiable investment. Later down the line you can invest in $1000+ Neumann and Telefunken mics. For now, the happy medium of $250 is a good starting point. If $250 is still too much,

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then check out my recommendations for super cheap condensers here: 4 Cheap-Ass Microphones for the Frugal Engineer.

MonitorsIt’s always nice to have a pair of really good monitors (also known as speakers) to mix your music on. These reference speakers are called moni tors because they are monitoring the signal. They are designed to give you the flattest frequency response possible and they do not enhance or tweak the sound in any way. This allows you to trust that

what you are hearing through the monitors is actually what the signal sounds like, and not what the speakers want it to sound like. Make sure you get yourself monitors you like the sound of; you’ll be doing a lot of listening through them. The best way to find the set of monitors for you, is to listen to your favorite songs through them. If you listen to music you are really familiar with, you will notice if the monitors sound different, or off from what you are used to. If you think there’s something just not right with the sound of one brand of monitor, research other alternatives — no matter how popular, or how great the reviews they’ve received may be.

What Type Do You Need?

Sizes vary and depending on your needs and seriousness you can get away with buying cheap, small monitors for basic demoing, or bigger monitors that have tight bass and clean high-end sound. I started with hi-fi speakers and sang through a cheap dynamic. It worked then because

Multi-monitor setup. Later down the road you might want new monitors. It’s a good goal to have at least two different pairs of speakers that you can A/B your mixes on. So when you want new monitors, don’t sell the old ones unless you really need the cash!

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I wasn’t going to release my stuff to the public, but rather demo it for my band. I’ve come a bit further since then and now I want quality, full range monitors for serious record making.

Always do significant research on the vari-ous types, makes and models of all the monitors that are in your price range before buying. If you can, demo them by listening to songs you know inside out. By listening to new speakers on known material you can quickly gauge if a certain pair of speak-ers “speak” (or sing) to your personal preferences.

Monitors Can be Cheap Too!

Some quick gear recommendations can be found at Audio Issues, where I’ve compiled a list of decent choices for under $500: Cheap Studio Monitors for the Budget Conscious Engineer.

HeadphonesGet yourself a pair of good head phones. Nice, quality headphones are a joy to listen on. If they are accurate, good head phones also can help you find those pesky frequencies that you need to cut in your mixes. Headphones come in a couple different basic varieties:

• Closed back headphones

These headphones are ideal for recording since they allow less head phone bleed, or chance for sound to escape through the earcup.

A/B’ing something means going back and forth between two things. In this case it would be listening to the same mix on two different monitoring systems, allowing you to hear the difference between them.

“Beyerdynamic T50P4” by foeock (foeoc kannilc), available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

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• Open-back headphones

Open back headphones allow sound to escape through and are not suitable for recording due to the amount of noise that escapes. They can, however, be useful for mixing purposes.

Since these headphones can be pretty similar in appearance, it’s a good bet to check the specifications of your head-phones to see if they are open or closed back.

Tips for Mixing with Head phones

• Headphones are useful in order to hear the individual sound quality of an instrument. Soloing an instrument with headphones enables you to hear the signal with more accuracy than listening through the monitors.

• Headphones are invaluable for checking the stereo balance of your mix.

• Stereo effects and pan automa tion can be mixed easier with headphones.

The cardinal rule of mixing is that you should never mix a complete song only with headphones. By listening to your mixes in headphones you take the room out of the equation and you might create a mix that’s not suitable for any environment. Use headphones to check for inconsistencies and details but not as your complete mixing solution.

If you want some affordable recording headphones that don’t bleed, you can use a pair of cheap headphones and some earmuffs. Check out this video for a better look: Homemade Hi­Fi Headphones.

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Choices for Headphones

You can’t go wrong with trusting the community, so checking out Audio-tuts+ reader community’s favorites can point you in the right direction: Headphones Roundup: Audiotuts Readers’ Favorites.

MIDI controllersMIDI data is essentially computer data that is used to interpret music messages. Controllers are any type of machine that can control, send or receive MIDI messages. You can use MIDI to create sounds from samples and synthesizers that you otherwise would never have been able to record in a studio. Having a dedicated MIDI keyboard can therefore enhance and expand your home studio set-up exponentially, giving you all sorts of crazy options you may not have considered using before.

Keyboard Control

The MIDI controllers most often seen in home studios are the MIDI key boards, like the M-Audio Keystations, that are more commonly used for triggering software synth patches, and fader controllers like the Mackie Logic Control. Keyboard controllers are used for playing synths, pianos and elec tronic drums. The keys on the MIDI key boards are programmable so you could theoretically make any note on the keyboard do whatever you wanted.

Other Controllers

Fader controllers or MIDI mixing boards are synced with your audio soft-ware so that you can control the tracks and knobs of your DAW by moving

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the faders and knobs on your mixing surface. A glorified mouse I hear many say. I could agree, but many people like the touch faders can give them, which can be different than drawing in your automation. It gives you a human feel, being able to touch your tracks and “ride” them manually.

Other studios sometimes just have them for show. They have a 24 track fader-board that controls their DAW but when it comes time to mix? They just use the mouse.

Further reading about MIDI: 8 Reasons MIDI is Still Alive and Kicking.

With these things in mind, try to make the best start-up purchase you can. And before you stop, don’t forget to buy all the cables you need. It’s very frustrating to end up at home with everything connected except your microphone because you forgot to buy an extra XLR cable.

Now, with your gear bought and set up, it’s time to learn how to use all this gear in the most efficient and practical manner.

Faders are the sliders you see on mixing consoles. They are at the bottom of every channel and usually control the volume of the channel it corresponds to. The knobs control a variety of functions, from setting the gain of the incoming signal to controlling the volume of the channel when you want to send it somewhere else.

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An Intro to Microphones and Mic TechniquesDepending on how or what type of things you are going to be recording, there are a few different microphones to consider. I’ve touched on this a bit earlier when considering budget, but let’s look at microphones now in terms of what you need to know beyond that.

Let’s break it down into three groups, the condenser, the dynamic and the ribbon. I’m not interested in going into the specifics of how the micro-phones are made. You don’t need to know how the diaphragms are put together or how the moving coil works in a dynamic mic.

But when you are deciding on a microphone, whether online or at the store, you know what you are looking for and what each type will deliver.

The CondenserCondenser microphones are full-range microphones that pick up a very broad frequency spectrum. We use condenser microphones when we want to catch the full frequency range of an instrument. Condensers are sensitive to loud levels and they respond well to tran sients, or the initial attack of a signal.

What’s attack? The attack of a signal is the first part of its sound. A snare drum sound has a fast attack since its waveform spikes quickly. A bowed cello or double bass would have a slower attack as the sound reaches its loudest level.

Microphones and Mic Techniques42

Attack-Decay-Sustain-Release is a general way of describing the shape of a sound.

Large Diaphragm Condenser Microphones

Large condensers are suitable for a variety of applications. For the typical start-up studio, however, they are mostly used for vocals and the occa-sional acoustic instrument.

Small Diaphragm Condenser Microphones

Small condensers are used when you need a microphone that has an increased frequency response in the high frequencies. They capture high-end brilliance, well… brilliantly. Therefore, small condensers are used for instruments such as piano, cymbal overheads, and other acoustic instruments. Condensers are more expensive, but they are essential in getting a well-defined, full range sound.

It’s amazing what good quality sound you can get out of some of cheap condensers these days. Sure, maybe the $1000+ microphones have a little more balanced sound, or maybe have a little warmer sound, but it might not be worth a $1000 more if you are just starting out. Test them out if you can, and make sure you can hear the difference between them. If you can’t hear the difference between a $100 and a $400 microphone then you are basically overcharging yourself $300. Without the sound quality, only difference is money lost.

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Dynamic MicrophonesDynamic microphones have a slightly narrower frequency range than the con densers. If a hypothetical con denser microphone captures the full frequency range of an instrument from, say, 50 Hz–20 kHz then a dynamic microphone is only going to capture the frequency range up to maybe 15–16 kHz. They tolerate higher volume levels better and don’t distort as easily. They are great for capturing louder and “dirtier” signals, such as rock vocals, drums, and amplified electric guitars. Dynamic microphones are used all over the place and are very popular for live-sound applications. Dynamics don’t cost that much and it’s always good to have one or two great (but cheap!) dynamic mics lying around.

Ribbon MicrophonesMicrophones all have a different feel: if condensers are leather and dynamics are denim, then ribbons are silk. They have a smooth frequency response and are known to have that silky, smooth sound. There are some cheap ribbon microphones out there, but ribbon mics are usually an investment. Great ribbons are expensive but they deliver on what they promise, which is a silky smooth sound.

Don’t overspend on dynamic mics. if you can’t find a good dynamic microphone for less than $100 you are looking in the wrong place. If big box stores aren’t selling them for cheap, start looking on Ebay or Craigslist for used dynamics. They’re incredibly difficult to break, so a worn­out pair on Craigslist might sound exactly the same as a brand­spanking new one.

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Polar PatternsPolar patterns are effectively the way microphones hear. Do they hear sound coming from any direction or are they directional and only hear sound coming straight on? Bi-directional microphones are mics that hear from both front and back, so you can record from the front and back of the mic. For the newcomer it can be confusing to figure out how to use polar patterns to his advantage. Microphone polar patterns are a pretty cool

Search the Gearslutz forum for people who modify micro­phones. There are many different threads for differ ent micro­phone mod ding so a quick search on the forum might get you in contact with qualified mic modders. Getting a cheap ribbon mic and then having somebody modify it for cheap might give you a great ribbon sound for a fraction of the price.

Frequency spectrum – The audible frequency spectrum spans from approximately 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Different instru ments span different frequency ranges, but it’s always a good idea to have microphones that capture the full frequency range of an instrument as well as their harmonics. See a detailed breakdown of the frequency spectrum at page 86.

Harmonics are the multiples of a specific frequency. The first harmonic of a 100 Hz wave is 200 Hz, the second 300 Hz, and so forth. You can think of harmonic like a note on the piano. If you play a single note on a grand piano you not only hear that single note but all the harmonics of the other notes when it resonates with the other keys. You want to capture the full harmonic range of instrument, which condensers are well suited for.

Microphones and Mic Techniques45

thing to understand and knowing about the different polar patterns can help you pick a microphone that will capture the audio in an amazing way. They affect how and where the microphone picks up the sound and is a big factor in how the sound will eventually turn out.

Many condenser microphones can have switches that switch between a cardioids, omni-directional or bi-directional pattern. Dynamic microphones usually come in some variety of a cardioid pattern and the ribbon microphone is normally bi-directional by default.

3D Patterns

Polar patterns are in fact three dimensional about the axis of the diaphragm that senses sound vibrations inside. For most microphones this axis is the same as that of the body of the mic. For bi-directional microphones, the axis lies perpendicular to the body of the mic.

Polar patterns in 3D: bi-directional (left), omni-directional (right). The tip of the yellow arrow indicates 0° and the blue ring shows the 90° point.

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The Cardioid Family

The Cardioid

A cardioid microphone is the traditional unidirectional microphone: one that picks up everything in front of it and a little bit to the sides, but next to nothing from the back. This makes it ideal when you need to record in less than optimal rooms because the diaphragm isn’t picking up as much of the room as another polar pattern would.

Supercardioid

The middle child of the cardioid family. This one is a little more directional than the normal cardioid, and picks up a little from the back as well, but not as much as the hypercardioid.

Hypercardioid

A hypercardioid microphone is more direc-tional than a normal cardioid, but does tend to pick up more signal from the back. The advantage of the hypercardioid is that it rejects more from the sides than the typical cardioid pattern.

Tips:

• Facing the microphone away from a second instrument reduces the amount of bleed possible.

• Use a cardioid microphone when you don’t want to pick up unwanted acoustics and reflections from the room around you.

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• Use a hypercardioid when you don’t want hi-hat bleed in your snare drum microphone. Place it so the side is facing the hi-hat, eliminating the hi-hat but picking up the snare.

There isn’t really a defining aesthetic on the microphones that tells you what type of cardioid pattern it is inside. You usually just have to read the specifications to discover its nature.

Bi- directional

Bi-directionals (or “figure eight” micro-phones) pick up the sound from — you guessed it — two sides at once. So if you have a microphone like the condenser shown in the picture, on a figure eight pattern then it will pick up a signal from both the front and back grill, It wouldn’t matter which grill you would sing into, but sounds coming to the side of the microphone between the grill will not be picked up as much.

Tips:

• Bi-directional mics are great for recording two instruments at once.

• Try recording backing vocals with singers facing each other for a better performance.

• Use the Blumlein technique: Two bi-directionals at a 90° angle, in the middle of the room for ambience.

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Omni- directional

Wherever you are singing into this micro-phone, you can be sure it will pick it up. Omni directional microphones pick up signals from any direction equally.

Proximity effect – When a signal gets closer to a microphone, the microphone has a tendency to accent the bass frequen-cies. This is called the proximity effect. The omnidirectional polar pattern is the only microphone not to have the proximity effect. Depending on the situation you might want to accentuate the low end frequencies for a fatter sound. But usually, you want to back it off a bit as to get a more balanced sound from your microphone. If your sound is too thick (boomy) or bassy-sounding then see if you can’t back off the microphone a bit to fix it.

Tips:

• Use it when you want to pick up the ambience of the room as well as your instrument.

• Try it on vocals in a great sounding room for instant reverb.

• Get nice and close to the microphone without suffering from the proximity effect and give your vocals a sultry and intimate sound.

Now that you know how the polar patterns work, it’s time for us to delve into the practice of how to use them effectively with microphone techniques and placement.

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Microphone TechniquesYou can’t just “point and shoot” a micro phone and expect to get the best sound available. Using microphones is a little trickier than that, but nothing to be too worried about. By using proven techniques you can be sure to get the best out of your microphones, whatever it is that you are trying to record.

There are a few ways to set up the micro-phone, or “mike up,” an instrument. We’ll cover the most commonly used options: mono, stereo, or multi-mic.

Single Microphone Techniques

By using a single microphone we’re putting the results in the hand of a single microphone’s attributes and specifications. We’re relying on one microphone to be fully capable of reproducing the instrument being recorded. For instance, we can use single microphone techniques when recording vocals, electric guitar and bass. Although you can always use more microphones on any instrument, sometimes simpler is better. A mono mic technique is good when the sound is going to be playing in mono and you feel that a single mic does the instrument justice.

• One on one – If you want to capture the full sound of a specific instrument, make sure you record at an equal distance to the instrument’s width. For example, if a drum kit is 1.5 m or 5 feet wide, then place a microphone the same distance away.

• Sweet spot – Listen to the instrument and try to find a sweet spot in the room — where the sound just jumps out at you. Instruments sound different depending on where you point the microphone, and your preferred position might be different depending on the specific sound you want.

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Stereo Techniques

The use of stereo techniques is a great way to get added depth and fullness out of a signal. With stereo, we use microphones positioned in a way that they capture the full acoustic spectrum not only of the instrument itself, but also capturing the acoustics of the room surrounding it. There have been quite a few stereo microphone techniques designed through the years, and all of them have been designed with certain applications in mind. Let’s look at some of them.

Tried and Tested Stereo Techniques

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X/Y Technique

The X/Y technique might be the easiest stereo technique to use. It uses two microphones, preferably condensers in a cardioid pattern. Position the microphones so that they are touching but facing away from each other in a 90° angle. That way both microphones pick up the center sound source but capture the surrounding ambience and the body of the instrument.

Tips:

• X/Y is great to use as overhead mics on drums. You can place the stereo pair by the ears of the drummer, for instance. Remember to pan the X/Y configuration correctly to each side inside your DAW. Panning both microphones completely to the left and right will result in maximum stereo enjoyment. The right microphone is picking up the left side and the left mic is picking up the right side.

• There is no need to worry about phase with mics that are so close to each other.

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M/S – Middle Side Technique

Using the middle side technique requires a little effort, but the sound and versatility of the technique is well worth it. An M/S technique needs two condenser microphones: one of the cardioid family and the other of the bidirectional variety.

Point the cardioid microphone at the room’s sweet spot for an instrument or at the middle of a sound source. The bidirectional microphone is then aligned at a 90° angle from the cardioid, where its polar patterns will pick up the sides.

With the two microphones positioned correctly, here is a step-by-step guide to creating a middle side sound:

1. Assign the cardioid microphone to the first channel, with the bi-directional one on the second channel.

2. Using a post-fader aux, send a copy of the bi-directional mic to a third channel.

3. Mute the cardioid channel and flip the copy of the bi-directional mic out of phase. Use your mixer’s phase switch if it has one. Your DAW’s EQ plug-ins usually have a phase switch that you can use as well.

4. Set your speakers to mono.

5. Align the faders of these second and third channels so the two out-of-phase signals cancel each other out. They only cancel each other out if you are listening in mono and they are centered.

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6. Go back to stereo and pan both bi-directional mics, one hard left, the other hard right.

7. Unmute the cardioid microphone and add it to the mix.

Now you should have a nice ambient stereo signal from one bi-directional microphone but copied to both sides of the stereo spectrum. The cardioid microphone picks up the fundamental body and attack. The cardioid is directed at the instrument so it is picking up the instrument sound. The bi-directional mic creates the stereo width since it is “listening” to the room around the instrument. We’re left with a great sounding stereo as a result. This technique works really well in great sounding rooms because that’s what the bi-directional mic is picking up. If you are in a lackluster room then you’re better off using a different stereo technique, such as the X/Y.

Spaced Techniques

Sometimes we need to space our microphones apart to get the full width of a specific signal. When recording a choir, big band, or just a plain old drum kit, a spaced pair technique works wonders. Keep these two guidelines in mind when you need to space your microphones apart.

• The A-B Technique – Keep the microphones spaced apart around a third of the instrument’s width. This allows you to capture the full stereo image of a large ensemble like a brass band or a choir.

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• The 3:1 Rule – This is a good rule for avoiding phase difference. If one microphone is positioned at a distance of 1 m (~3 feet) from the sound source, then the second microphone needs to be 3 m (~9 feet) apart from the first one.

Multi Microphone Techniques

It’s good practice to use a few microphones on a sound source to capture different characteristics to the instrument. A good example of this would be the electric guitar. You can place two different microphones, a dynamic and a condenser, on a guitar cabinet. By mixing them together you can get a great sound that you wouldn’t have been otherwise able to capture with only a single microphone. Another good example would be when recording a brass instrument. Use a dynamic mic to pick up the close sound of the saxophone and a condenser to get the room sound; you can mix it together for a close but deep sound.

Whichever microphone technique you end up using, remember to listen critically to all the nuances and characteristics of a sound before choosing your technique. Placement is crucial when it comes to a great recording and the sound of an instrument can change drastically by simply changing the location of the microphone or switching techniques. Experiment with each technique to see which one fits your bill.

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Figuring out Which Microphone to Use

You have a client that wants you to record his bonang instrument. You have no idea of how to record such an instrument, but luckily there are a few ways to gauge which microphone to use.

Dynamic Levels

Is the instrument really loud? Maybe you can’t use condensers or ribbons on an instrument as it may overload the micro phone, so you may need to distance the condenser accordingly to avoid overload. Alternately, you may be better off using a dynamic microphone as they have a higher resistance to loud levels.

Transient Response

Does the instrument have a fast transient attack like a drum or cymbals that reach their loudest level quickly? Or does the attack of the signal slowly reach its peak like a bowed cello? Condensers have a much faster transient response than dynamics so they are better equipped at dealing with instruments that have a fast attack, such as percussion or strummed acoustic guitars.

Frequency Response

Frequency response is how a particular microphone translates a particular audio signal. Dynamic microphones have a narrower frequency response than condensers, so naturally wouldn’t be as suited to full frequency instruments such as piano, vocals and similar acoustic instruments. Then

Instrument waveforms: flute (left), cymbal (right). A bonang will probably be more like the percussive cymbal.

Microphones and Mic Techniques56

again, dynamic mics are great for loud electric guitars or rock vocals, where the fullness of the signal isn’t as much of a factor as the attitude of the performance.

So depending on these factors, you can choose which microphone to use in which situation. Whether you’re going for a loud rock vocal or a soft plucked acoustic guitar, you can assess the situation and select the right microphone from your collection.

Phase

When I was starting out I was constantly hearing about phase and how wary I should be of it. The hardest part was learning what phase actually was so I could start looking out for it.

In a few words, phase is what happens when you record an instrument with two microphones at different positions. Because the sound waves hit the microphones at different intervals some frequencies cancel each other out, resulting in a weaker signal.

We don’t have to go into the math of calculating phase difference in order to know how we can avoid it. When you are using two or more microphones on a specific signal (say, a guitar), make sure that once you add all of the microphones into the track the signal gets stronger instead of weaker. Most

Waveforms in phase (left) are stronger, out of phase (center) cancel or diminish; inverting an out of phase signal (right, blue line) can restore the signal strength.

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audio programs have a way for you to invert the phase of a signal, so if you aren’t sure if your recording is out of phase, just try flipping the phase of one track and see if it gets stronger. If it does, leave it that way. If it gets substantially weaker, just flip the phase again and forget about it.

Another trick to check phase. You can zoom in on a recorded waveform to see if both waveforms of the tracks are aligned. By analyzing the crests and troughs of the signal you can see it plain as day if they are out of phase or not.

Using Whatever You’ve Got

I realize that not everybody has an expensive set up. When starting out you have to make do with what you’ve got. But by “make do” I don’t mean blaming your equipment on your bad sound. Experimenting with micro-phone placement, creating acoustic treatment on your own or getting the best performance out of a musician is still more than half of the battle.

There’s no excuse in blaming lazily recorded sounds on your less than stellar equipment. It might not sound exactly like a Neumann microphone through a Neve pre-amp, but through experimentation and actually taking the time to find the sweet spot of the instrument, you can squeeze great sound out of any type of equipment.

Budget Tips:

• Don’t blame it on the microphone – Try different mic placements to find the sweet spot.

• Reduce the room – If you have too much room sound in your microphone, reduce the room with acoustic treatment, baffles, and blankets.

• Rent microphones – If you absolutely need a specific sound from a boutique microphone then try renting one for your particular session. It is much better to rent for a few days to get a great sound than to buy an expensive mic you only use once.

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The Recording Workflow

Pre-ProductionPrior to recording anything there is another type of production that you need to think about: pre-production. Before you even set up a microphone to record, think about what you want to accomplish. Ask a band what they want out of the recording. Ask them about their influences and how they want to sound. All this brainstorming happens before you even create a new session in your DAW and is a valuable way to streamline the complete recording process. By having a fairly clear idea of what you are going to be doing you can increase your workflow and be more productive in the studio.

A few things to think about when you are planning the production process:

What type of music are you going to be recording? Is it going to be all screams and distorted guitar or will it be subdued folk? You need to approach each genre differently and be prepared for the nuances each musical style brings to the mix.

Will you need extra gear? Does the band want some type of sound that you can only achieve by renting amps or high-end microphones? Are they going to bring special-sounding synths or electronic controllers? Some things are harder to record than others and knowing what every band member is going to be bringing will keep you from scratching your head when they start rolling in the weird instruments.

Is there a specific sound they want? Listen to their influences and take down what kind of sound they are interested in. Don’t automatically assume they want a certain sound before you go in. That might cause some disappointments when you hand in their first mix.

In general, make sure you know what you are going to do before you start. It will make for a much easier and hassle-free recording process. You can get as creative and as involved as you want, but by having a clear set of

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guidelines to follow you can get creative in a much easier way. Keeping things tidy and organized using your computer or specialized production notebooks like Audio Notes can come in handy to keep track of all your production ideas.

The Recording ChainThe recording chain consists of a few things that you need to be familiar with. The record ing chain starts with the creation of the sound from the instrument and ends with you listening to it through your monitors.

The Instrument

Make sure your instruments are in top-notch condition; that they are well-configured, in tune, and sound good in the room. Restring your guitar and make sure that the singer doesn’t have a cold. Move your instruments around the room and see if there is a specific spot where they shine. The room is always an important influence, so by taking the time to walk around and listen to the source can get you better results than just setting up a mic in the “usual” position.

The Microphone

Make sure you are selecting the correct microphone for the job. If you have a varied selection of microphones, try testing a few microphones and seeing which one sounds the best to you. Find the sweet spot of the instrument and do your best to place the microphone so it picks up the full characteristics of the instrument. For the low-down on microphones, refer to Chapter 3.

If you are paying for studio time, make sure you spend a lot of time in pre­production before you go into the studio. Going in and knowing exactly what you will be doing will save you a lot of money.

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The Pre-amp

Once you have a microphone that you want to use to record, you need to plug it into the pre-amplifier (or pre-amp for short). A pre-amp takes the signal from the mic and amplifies it to a loud enough level. When you’re starting out, your choice of pre-amp is most likely the microphone input of your recording interface. That is, when you buy your interface, its mic inputs come with decent pre-amps. Most of these pre-amps are fine and are generally clean sounding. Later on, you might bypass the microphone inputs of your interface with a smooth tube pre-amp. The signal normally goes into your recording program via the interface using either FireWire or USB cable. See page 65 for more information about mic/line input.

A/D Converters

Analog-to-digital converters are more commonly known as A/D converters. These convert the acoustic signal that you record with your microphone into the computer binary language of ones and zeros. The higher quality the converters are, the better the match of digital data to original acoustic signal. Normally, the converters in your interface are decent enough to start out with. But, keep an eye out for a high-end converter when it comes time to upgrade your setup.

Outboard Gear

Just like that tube pre-amp that you really want, buying any outboard gear is also a good investment, down the line. Keep in mind that a lot of engineers are never content with the studio they have because they always want something more. There’s always new equipment or newer models coming out, and a lot of audio engineers develop a severe case of GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome), even though they know they only have a limited use for some

You’ll save money if you make sure the instrument is well configured. Better to pay an expert $50 to set up your guitar properly than go through a day at the studio without results.

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of that precious gear they want. So when you think it’s time to buy some outboard gear, consider getting a nice compressor that you can record through. It’s good practice to have a compressor in the chain to catch any peaks that a singer might have when you’re recording vocals. It’s also just nice to have a good analog compressor that has a specific sound you like.

Know your Signal Path

Now that you know the tools that you will be using it’s easier to troubleshoot if some thing goes wrong. By familiarizing yourself with the recording chain and its signal flow you can easily spot anomalies or errors by simply checking each component out individually.

For example, say you have everything set up to record but nothing happens and you can’t get any sound. Instead of frantically pulling every cable and desperately running around trying to figure out why nothing is happening, you can just divide the signal path down into all these different elements and check out if each one is working correctly. It will save you a lot of time and stress. Think of it like a game of chess. Chess masters need to be able to see a few moves ahead in every game in order to visualize their victory. You need to be able to see where your signal goes in order to solve any problems that arise when recording your next hit.

Multi- track RecordingThe good thing about multi-track record ing is that you can record each instrument separately and at your own pace. You might start off with the drummer going through his parts, then instrument by instrument you have constructed a complete song. It’s perfect because the whole band doesn’t have to suffer if the guitar player can’t perform that solo quite right the first few times through. It also allows you take more time experimenting

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with different instrument parts and arrangements. Always record every instrument separately if you can. It’ll make the creative process so much easier.

Recording a Singer- Songwriter

Sometimes a singer-songwriter comes along that has a hard time recording his guitar parts and vocal track separately. You take one element away and he gets insecure and uncomfortable, resulting in a less than stellar performance. When you have this situation the only thing you can do is to try to place the microphones as well as possible for each instrument so that they don’t bleed into each other.

It’s hard to mix a song when everything you do to the vocal track directly interferes with the sound of the guitar. Try to use super-cardioid microphones that are more directional in order to reduce spill from the accompanying instrument.

If possible, you can have the artist do a scratch version of the song with him playing both parts

and then later overdub a new recording over the existing parts. That way he’ll give you a good original performance and still feel good about playing over himself.

Recording Vocals

One of the most important parts of any song is the vocal part. Make the singer feel comfortable singing his part and take into account anything he might need to make his performance better.

“guitarist Chuck Muldoon” by Ctd 2005, available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

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Various microphones will fit some people better than others. You can try five different condenser microphones on one singer and he’ll sound different through each one. Some styles might also benefit from different microphone types. Screaming rock vocalists might like the sound and high volume capabilities of a dynamic microphone over the more sensitive condenser or ribbon mics.

A good starting distance for recording vocals is roughly a foot (33 cm) away from the microphone. If you are recording in your bedroom it is best to find the spot where you have the least amount of reflections. A heavily absorptive space in your room would be ideal since you want a clean and reflection-free voice in order to make the most out of it in the mixing stage. As with any other instrument, take the time to experiment with different positions. Angling the mic up or down can change the sound of the singer, as well as moving it forwards or backwards. Just be careful of the added bass due to the proximity effect when you place the mic very close to the source.

Recording a Live Band All at Once

Sometimes you just want to record the band in its natural environment while members are playing all at once. Maybe you feel that they gel better when they record together, or maybe you’re recording a live show. In any case there are a few things to consider.

If possible, try to place amplifiers in different rooms. This reduces the amount of bleed from other instruments and gives you more options

Use a pop­filter to reduce any unwanted plosives (the harsh P and T sounds a singer makes). Think of it as a mouth­guard for your microphone. It keeps the singer at a safe distance and makes the end result sound better.

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when it comes time to mix. If you have a big room for the drums and smaller isolated rooms for the guitars and bass you can have everybody playing along with headphones on by the drummer, capturing a great live performance with the added benefit of isolated multi-track recording.

If you are recording a live show, or do not have the benefit of many rooms, you will need to isolate the instruments as well as possible. This means trying to create walls and baffles out of anything you can find. Chairs covered with blanket to create make-shift go-between (Go-Bos) can work, as well as putting a blanket over the amplifier itself to reduce unwanted bleed. Another easy way to reduce the amount of bleed from other instruments is to face amps away from each other using directional microphones. Sometimes the bleed doesn’t hurt that much, and there are certainly legendary songs (Bohemian Rhapsody comes to mind) that were recorded with substantial amounts of bleed from other tracks. However, it is always good practice to make sure you can focus on each instrument separately in the mixing phase.

ConclusionRecording great audio with whatever you got takes a lot of experimentation, critical listening, and experience to get right. There is no one right way to record. There are so many techniques, experiments, and ridiculous sounds out there that were created out of pure inspiration or coincidence. Something might sound great to you but bad to somebody else. It doesn’t matter. It’s the journey to find inspiring sounds that makes it all worthwhile.

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The Audio MixerNow that you know all the different things you need to record, let’s take a look at the more technical para-meters of a typical mixing console. Back in the old days, all the audio went into big, heavy mixing desks. They were used to record all the audio that was coming into the mixer and when the tracking (recording) stage was over, these audio mixers were used to tune, optimize, and mix all the audio that they had recorded on to tape. Now, most of the same features are done inside your recording computer, with your DAW acting as one big mixing console.

Everybody should have a good grasp on what all the buttons on an audio mixer do, not only in order to be able to navigate one when you see it, but also because many of the mixer’s features are found in any common audio software. By knowing your way around a physical mixer, you can instinctively recognize most of the functions in any DAWs mixer window.

A mixing board can look pretty complicated to the untrained eye. There are usually all sorts of multi-colored buttons and numbers; many have no idea where to start if they want to record something through it. The impression is that it would be an epic task just to even make a sound go through the whole thing.

But it’s actually not that hard. In fact, most of those buttons do the same thing. It just looks intimidating when it’s all bunched together. How complicated it is depends on the number of tracks a mixer has. The good news? Once you know how to work one track, you can work them all.

“Art of sound” by peppe1987 (Giuseppe Mennella), available under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives license.

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Many of today’s audio engineers and bedroom recordists do most of their work on a computer, and don’t really depend on bulky mixing boards any more. Nonetheless, it’s a good idea to be familiar with how a typical mixing desk works, just in case you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to run an analog desk.

Let’s compare the channel found on a typical analog console to one found in a typical mix window of a computer program. Many of these definitions and names can also be found on any audio interface. Gain, Pad and Line/Mic can all be found on a typical audio interface, but for the sake of demonstration let’s start going through a typical channel strip of a mixing desk, starting from the top.

Gain is the amount of volume you are letting into a channel on the mixer or interface.

Pad is the knob that cuts down the gain by −20 dB. Depending on the Pad knob it might be −10 up to −30 dB. It’s used when you have a really loud instrument and you need to cut the gain coming into the pre­amp.

Mic/Line is usually seen on pre­amps and interfaces. There are usually both XLR and jack inputs on each channel, so this switch switches between the two different inputs, depending on what kind of signal you are plugging in. Mic input is the raw signal from a micro­phone, which otherwise has to be pre­amped to be detected. Line input has already been amplified.

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GainAfter we plug in a microphone or instru ment into the pre-amp outlet of a mixing desk we need to set the gain (volume). We need to get a level that will allow us to record at an optimum level. If this channel goes straight into your computer via an interface you will be bypassing the pre-amp of the interface itself. That means you’ll be using its line-in instead of its microphone input.

Make your performer sing or play at his highest volume so you can set the gain at an optimum level. Too high gain will make the audio clip in the computer program. Digital clipping is bad and will ruin your audio! Don’t make it too soft, either. Find a middle where the audio looks strong but isn’t overloading into your audio program.

16-bit vs. 24-bit

Oh, and by the way, you are recording at 24-bit aren’t you?

By recording at 24-bit you have much more headroom to work with inside the digital audio spectrum. Back in the day you had to record as “hot” as possible to distance yourself from the noise floor. But in the 24-bit world,

Clipping is slang for when you digi­tally distort an audio signal. We’re not talking about warm tube distortion like on rock guitars. We’re talking about incredibly annoying digital dis tortion that completely destroys an audio signal. If you gain a signal too much in the digital domain you will clip the audio. And you won’t like it.

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we don’t have to record as hot, but we still have headroom to increase the volume of our signal without introducing audible noise.

Knobs and SwitchesIn the gain stage, or the gain area of your mixer or interface, you’ve probably come across some switches that either have weird numbers or symbols. These are the typical ones:

• Pad – This is the “Oh my god, there’s way too much signal and my gain knob is already down?!” button. It attenuates (that’s nerdy jargon for “lowers”) the volume of the incoming signal by a pre-determined value, normally

−10 or −20 dB.

• Phase – This is sometimes shown as a button with what looks like a zero with a slash (Ø) on it. This flips the phase of the signal 180°. This is good when you are using two microphones on a specific signal and you need to invert the phase of one of them to avoid microphones cancelling each other out.

• Trick on phase – If you are using two microphones on a snare drum (one on top facing down and underneath facing up), be sure to flip the phase of the bottom mic otherwise you run the risk of serious cancellations.

• Line – Depending on if you are plugging a jack plug or a microphone cable into the mixer, the pre-amp needs to know which input it should be listening to. “Line” stands for jack cables, and “mic” stands for — you guessed it — microphones!

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EqualizersNormally, after the gain stage we get to the EQ (equalization) and Insert stage. Those multi-colored knobs are equalizers that control different frequencies. Depending on the awesomeness of your mixing desk, they can be either really simple or extremely elaborate. These equalizers usually contain the following:

• Frequency selectors – You can turn the knobs to select a specific frequency to edit.

• Gain – The gain knob allows you to boost or cut those frequencies you selected with the frequency selector.

• Q – Here you can specify the bandwidth and accuracy of the equalization. Sometimes you need narrow cuts to fix something, and sometimes you need broad boosts to enhance a specific instrument.

Normally, on average mixing desks, the high and low frequencies have a shelving equalizer and the middle frequencies have a bell curve equalizer. What’s the difference between these two?

• Shelving equalizer – A shelving EQ boosts or cuts above or below a certain frequency. Take a high shelf EQ that’s boosted at 12 kHz. When you boost with a shelving EQ you boost all the frequencies above 12 kHz as well.

• Bell curve equalizer – With a bell EQ, you just boost a specific frequency, and the surrounding frequencies in a bell around the center frequency. It depends on the Q how big the surrounding area is.

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InsertsA typical analog desk often doesn’t have compressors or other inserts like gates. The big, professional desks, like the SSL and Neve consoles do, but normal, everyday mixing desks like you find in live situations do not have built-in dynamic controls.

Instead, they have inserts just like in your audio program where you can insert any type of gear you want. The difference between using inserts in your audio program and on the mixing desk itself is that, with audio programs, you are adding inserts after the recording in the computer. For example, inserting a compressor in the recording chain of a vocal track means you are recording that vocal with compression already on it. As a result, if you compress too much during that recording you can’t take it off without re-recording, so make sure you are absolutely positive you want that particular compressor or effect to be left on, otherwise if you change your mind, it’s back to the recording phase.

SendsSends are really important. Sends are for sending a specific channel somewhere else on the mixing console. Sends are also in your audio program where you can send a specific sound to a separate channel for further processing. Sends have all sorts of functions to them.

Sends are great to send instruments and elements to other places where they get treated without changing the source sound. Sends are also used to create monitor mixes when recording. Sends on live desks are even more important since they are used to create the stage sound for the band. When mixing, we use sends to manipulate our instruments with effects like

Use a great­sounding compressor during record­ing for its inherent sound, not for the compression. If it has a great sound and colors the signal nicely, use it.

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delays and reverbs. Time-based effects are almost exclusively used as send effects and are very rarely inserted on the instrument channel itself.

• Use sends – to add reverb or an effect to an instrument without affecting the original signal.

• Don’t use sends – to equalize or otherwise try to change a signal, because you will only change its copy, not the original.

Before I go into the nature of sends, let’s explain the differences between two other terms: pre- and post-fader.

• Pre-fader – When you send a signal from a channel using a send, sometimes you want the signal to be independent of the levels you created with the channel fader itself. Example: you’ve created a perfect headphone mix for the drummer but you want to fool around with the drums. By having the send on pre-fader, all your fader-noodling won’t affect his great headphone mix.

• Post-fader – This is the oppo site of pre-fader, or when your send level is affected by your fader level. All the send levels are controlled with your fader, so the volume on the fader is directly proportional to how much level the send receives. This technique is normally used for effects. You want a reverb or delay to follow the level of the track itself;

You can leave the channel fader down and still have the signal sent to an effect like reverb if you have the send set on pre­fader. This can be used to create an interesting ghost reverb effect.

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otherwise the effect will be independent of whatever volume changes you do to the signal.

Some live mixing desks have dedicated effect sends that are routed to their built-in effects processor. Using these effects can come in handy if you are mixing a less than ideal, on-a-budget, live session. A tiny bit of reverb or other effects can “professionalize” your gig instantly.

Pan Control – The pan knob positions your selected track somewhere in the stereo spectrum. Pan knobs can be useful to find a space for every element in a mix. Read more on panning in the mixing section starting at page 77.

FaderThe channel fader is the volume knob of your recording. Set the level of your instrument by placing the channel fader at unity gain. Unity gain is recorded at 0 dB, or where it says zero on the channel track. Then turn the gain knob up or down until you reach an optimum recording level. Now that you have a nice recording level going you can turn the fader down without compromising the gain of the signal. The same amount of gain is always going to enter the pre-amp, but you control the volume with the fader.

“Slider” by VirtualErn (Ernesto Andrade), available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

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Difference between Gain Volume and Fader volume: When you are recording a signal you want to get the gain to a loud level. Crank up the volume of the gain knob to let the signal into the pre-amp. When you have a loud but clean signal, free of distortion, that’s the signal you can work with. That’s the loudness you have control over with the fader. You can make that signal louder or quieter, but you won’t let any more signal into the pre-amp unless you turn up the gain again. If you let in too much gain you might distort the pre-amp. If you let in a clean amount of gain into the pre-amp and turn the volume of the fader up to maximum it won’t distort the pre-amp because the signal is already in your interface.

Recording drums might require a separate mix. After getting every microphone at an optimum level, create a volume mix for yourself in the control room. If you have created a separate mix for the drummer you can enjoy your mix without interrupting the performer’s concentration.

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Audio EditingAudio editing is one of those menial tasks that take time, but once you do, you’re glad you did it. It’s kind of like cleaning your refrigerator, or mowing the lawn. It leaves you with cleaner audio that is easier to work with. By cleaning up and cutting out all the background noise, clicks and pops that you accidentally recorded, you don’t run the risk of suddenly hearing an annoying breath in the wrong place or headphone bleed in a quiet part once you are in the mastering stage.

In the digital recording age, we don’t need to worry about becoming surgically precise with scalpels and magnetic tape. We can just cut, paste, and edit to our hearts content with one hand on the “undo” button for mistakes. That’s the beauty of digital recording.

For that reason you have no excuse to not edit your audio correctly. With the ease of audio editing, it’s obvious that clicks, pops, and background noise are just signs of amateur and lazy recording engineers. The only reason to leave background noise in is for special effect, or for a live recording.

The Editing ProcessFirst of all, you should delete the silences between vocal phrases or other instrument audio. Those silences only contribute background noise, headphone bleed, and guitar amp hum. Any dead space should be edited out for enhanced clarity.

Use fades as much as you can. Fade in every track with a quick fade so that the incoming track doesn’t jump out at the listener when it starts. By

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using quick fades at the beginning and ending of every region, you eliminate the on/off switch feeling of loud tracks. Your track will sound smoother and more professional once you’ve deleted all the background silence and done all of your fades.

Audio editing can also be creative! You can move parts around and try out different arrangements with ease. Creating double choruses, doubling vocals with simple copy and paste and other sorts of arrangements, are all easily achieved when we are working in the digital audio spectrum.

The Best Way to Cut and Edit AudioAudio is represented by waveforms that go up and down around a specific zero line. This line is where the audio is silent. By zooming in on your audio waveforms and cutting at this zero point, you eliminate the risk of creating unwanted clicks in your audio. Waveforms which are cut at a loud point in the audio will click and pop when it plays. By cutting at the zero point, your waveform starts in silence without any annoying clicks.

Good habits – Make correct audio editing a habit after recording all your tracks. By making it a separate stage from both recording and mixing, you create a sense of need for editing correctly and efficiently. A track full of nice sounding audio tracks is easier to handle and more enjoyable to mix than tracks full of annoying clicks and noise that you keep editing out over the course of your mixing process. So before you start mixing, get used to making audio editing a separate goal. It will make your mixing process much more enjoyable.

A cut in the middle of a waveform (A) will cause an abrupt change in volume when added to other audio. Cutting at a zero point (B) will allow the sound to start cleanly.

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MixingWhen you’ve finally laid down every track you want in your song, it’s time for mixing. When the recording production process is done, every little solo, backing vocal, and orchestral back-ing is recorded it’s time for the mixing production to begin.

Depending on the number of tracks you’ve recorded in a song, there are different challenges you face when mixing together your tracks. If you have an enormous production, filled with “Bohemian Rhap sody-style” vocals and lush orchestral strings backing everything up, you need to start finding a place for all these elements. Prioritize. You have to be able to hear every element in a mix, but there are certain elements that are more important than others and need a little extra attention.

Critical ListeningMixing is a critical listening pro cess where you weed through the recorded tracks and make judg ments on what is going where, what holds the track together and — essentially —what the track is actually about. By taking all the elements, instruments and sound scapes of a songs and sculpting them together, we create a coherent mix that’s big, wide, and deep. We push things down, filter things out and pull things back, creating an exciting aural mix. It applies to any genre, whether we’re doing a country folk song or an electronic house jam.

Mixing has a few critical areas that we need to attend to when we begin. It’s good to have a good workflow and direction so you don’t end up aimlessly going from one thing to the other. You have to first figure out where the mix

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is going before you decide on where it’s going to take you. By that I mean you have to listen to it: determine the leading factors of the song — whether that’s the vocal, acoustic guitar or lead synth. After you find the defining point in the track you can start sculpting around it.

Let’s start with a few basic things we have to keep in mind when starting our mix.

LevelsWe can’t have every track at the same volume, can we? Certain things scream for attention when they should be lowered underneath everything. Lead elements like the vocal can drown in a wall of guitar if we don’t set the levels straight right away. There are a few different ways you can start a mix.

With the Foundation

Let’s look at the drums. If we start by mixing the drum levels we can get a pretty good idea of how loud we have to make every thing else. Get a good volume balance on all the drums before you start adding in other elements. Other instruments go on top or around the drums so by having a solid foundation we can easily hear when things start getting too loud.

With a Defining Element

But what if your track doesn’t have drums? Then you find the thing that most closely defines the foundation of the song (a deep bass line or a driving acoustic guitar strum, for example). By setting a level foundation you can start laying things on top, to the sides and in between.

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PanningJust like levels, panning is equal ly important for placing ele ments in a mix. Whereas volume levels control how much of a specific instrument you hear in a mix, panning controls where the instrument is coming from. When you have a wide stereo spectrum, there is no need for all your instruments to clash and fight for the center. With panning, you can even things out across the stereo spectrum and give each instrument its respective playing field.

There are a few general rules when it comes to panning. First of all, we need to keep the stereo spectrum even and you can’t pan things in a way that tilts the mix to either side of the spectrum.

The Mix

It’s annoying to listen to an uneven mix in headphones since you almost get a feeling that you’re tilting to one side. Also, we need to focus on what types of instruments get panned. Bass instruments, or elements with a lot of low frequency energy tend to stay in the center. The kick drum, the bass and other similar instruments are anchored in the center to give it weight. Take the panning of a typical drum kit: the kick drum and snare are paired to the center. Then all the other elements of the kit, the high-hat, the toms and overheads are panned all over the stereo spectrum to give you the perception that you are listening to the drum kit playing in front of you. The toms are panned across the spectrum so you can hear the tom roll naturally from right to left, but sometimes the floor tom is panned to the center, since it has such a deep sound to it.

“Mixer HDR” by JoshSemans, available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

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• Panning to create stereo – You can create stereo sounds out of a mono-sound source with panning. All you need is to send a copy of the signal to a bus, a separate auxiliary channel, where you pan it to a different position, therefore creating a bigger and wider signal out of the original instrument. Try this in conjunction with different EQ, effect, and reverb for a more enhanced effect.

• Find a place – When mixing we have to find a specific place for every instrument, and therefore we try to scatter them all over the place with panning. Percussion might go 50% to the right while the synth stabs might be panned 50% to the left to accommodate.

• Which vocal where? – The main vocals are panned to the center, but all the other backing vocals are panned freely across the spec-trum in an attempt to make the vocals bigger and more powerful. Backing vocals are there to accent and enhance the main vocal, not to clash and fight with its rightful place in the center. Like in every aspect of mixing, it’s a question about finding the right balance. By panning things over the spectrum, we can find each instrument room to breathe and to shine.

• Pan a picture – Think about panning like placing elements in a painting. You want to have each instrument placed properly in their rightful place and not clashing with another dominating element all the time. As a photographer you wouldn’t ask a family to stand behind the father in a photo session, you would ask them to spread out and fill the picture. The same applies to panning your sounds in a mix. You can’t bunch everything in the center behind the vocals and the snare. You need to spread things out and let them breathe.

EqualizationEqualization is one of the most important tools an audio engineer can have. It’s a sound shaper, and can enhance or repair instruments, making them sound much better than originally recorded. An EQ allows you to mold a specific sound to your tastes, bringing out certain frequencies that enhance

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a signal while cutting out troublesome fre quencies that don’t flatter the sound. It also helps accommodate each instrument in a mix. By cutting out frequencies that clash between elements we can fit everything into a mix nicely with the creative use of EQ.

There are three specific ways to use EQ. We can cut, boost or filter.

Cut

Usually, we cut to repair sounds. If an instrument sounds too boxy, or ill-defined, we can cut out the frequencies that cause that sound and effectively repair and make the instrument better.

Boost

When we need to bring out certain characteristics of an instrument, like presence or thickness, we boost certain frequencies that affect those elements. If cutting is plastic surgery, boosting is applying makeup.

Filter

We filter out frequencies we don’t need in a signal. Filtering is extreme cutting. Like hitting delete on frequencies. There are a few different types of filters we can use:

• High Pass filters (HPF) – Also known as Low Cut filters. These filters filter out the low end and let the high frequencies “pass” unharmed. Cutting out the low-end energy of a guitar that is inter-fering with the bass guitar, for example.

• Low Pass filters – The opposite of a HPF. These filters filter out the high end by certain frequency, leaving the lower frequencies alone.

“Project 365 #41: 100211 The Equaliser” by comedy_nose (Pete), available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

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Sometimes hissy guitars with too much distortion can benefit from low pass filtering. It reduces the hiss and takes some of the ear-fatiguing distortion out of the mix.

• Band Pass filters – These are filters that only let a certain fre quency pass while cutting out the frequencies at both sides of the spectrum. It’s not very musical to use band-pass filters since they cut every-thing except a specific frequency out of the spectrum. But it is useful to create effects and to accent a very specific frequency range.

• Notch filters – These are highly surgical filters that cut very specific and narrow frequencies in the spectrum. These cut out a certain frequency only, leaving all others alone.

Notch filters are good when you need to get rid of a certain fre-quency that’s conflicting with the balance of the sound. Taking the boxiness out of a kick drum by adding a notch filter at 300 Hz, or reducing sibilance in a singer by cutting at 7 kHz, for example.

The BEST Way to EQ!I remember looking at equalizers when I was starting out and was terrified. I had no idea what all those numbers meant and no idea on how to make my instrument sound any better. Without going into the jargon of what specific frequency areas include, which we’ll do later, I’m going to divulge the secret to EQ’ing effectively.

When you are dealing with a problematic frequency that you want to get rid of, the best way to get rid of it is to pinpoint it and then eliminate it (or at least reduce it significantly). Here follows the easiest way to pinpoint problematic frequencies.

• Grab your parametric EQ plug-in and set the Q to as high as it can go.

• Boost that frequency band as high as it can go. Notice how you’ve immediately accented a certain frequency above all others?

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• Now scan the frequency spectrum with your boost as high as it can go. By slowly scanning the spectrum like this you will undoubtedly find your frequency nuisance as it pops out at you.

• Cut that annoying frequency all the way down. Only bring it back up if you feel that you’ve lost some-thing from the signal by cutting so drastically.

• Repeat the process if you feel there are more frequencies bothering you. This type of EQ’ing works on any signal and is a great way to effectively EQ professionally.

There are some inherent characteristics to the EQ spectrum. Certain sounds are located in certain areas of the frequency spectrum and if you familiarize yourself with where certain sounds can be found you can EQ faster and more efficiently.

The frequency spectrum of hearing is generally said to be from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, although it must be said that only newborn ears can actually hear that high since we tend to lose our perception to the higher frequencies as we get older. With every ten years you lose about 2 kHz from your hearing. So take care of your hearing; your ears are your most valuable tools. After all, if you can’t hear well, how can you EQ a recording?

Q for you? – In a typical parametric equalizer there is an option for frequency, gain (cut/boost) and Q. The Q stands for quality and relates to the precision of the cut itself. A higher Q means a narrower cut. A lower Q means a broader boost. This in effect allows us to either accurately pinpoint a problematic frequency we want to cut out or give a nice broad boost accenting a certain area we want to bring forth.

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Frequency Spectrum

There are various areas of the frequency spectrum that sound a certain way. We can break them up into about four or five areas, and can use the standard octave values as landmarks in those areas.

Bass

The first area is the lower bass. This is the frequency area from 31 Hz to about a 125 Hz. There is not a lot to use before 40–50 Hz because many instruments don’t have any energy lower than that. Also, if you are listening to music through computer speakers you won’t hear these frequencies at all since the speaker cannot reproduce such a low frequency.

• The frequency area from 50–100 Hz gives an instrument, like the kick drum or bass guitar, more low end weight.

• A good trick to clear up any excess low-end from instruments that don’t need it is to filter out these frequencies completely.

• An electric guitar won’t really need any of the frequencies below 100 Hz so you can filter them out, giving more space to the bass instruments themselves. But if the guitars seem to lack fullness or weight you can boost from 100 Hz to 150 Hz to add some thickness.

• Also, if you feel there is too much “boominess”, low-end energy that’s cluttering up the clarity of a certain track, you can cut from 150 Hz to around 200 Hz to clear up any muddiness.

• If your vocal track sounds too thin, a nice boost in the 150 Hz area can give an added impact on your vocal track.

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Lower Mids

The low mids are the lower middle frequencies. The 200 Hz area tends to muddy things up a bit. If things start getting undefined and lack clarity, chances are a cut in this area can help clear things up nicely.

• However, the area around 250 Hz can help increase clarity on bass instruments. It won’t give them weight like it would in the lower 100 Hz area, but it can add thickness and body to toms, guitars, bass and organs. Be wary of adding too much here for vocals since they tend to sound boomy.

• A reduction in the 300 to 400 Hz area can help reduce “boxiness” on drums and help give the kick drum a rock drum sound.

• A good way to EQ toms is to find the boxy middle (or “mids”) and cut them first before you start adding lows and highs.

• The body of a snare drum can be found in the 500 Hz area and it can sometimes clash with the electric guitar.

• You can filter the lower ranges quite severely on the drum over heads. Try filtering at 250 Hz and even try going up to 500 Hz if you just want to focus on the sounds of the cymbals. If it sounds better and less cluttered to you, it is better.

Higher Mids

The upper mids have a lot to do with the higher harmonics of instruments. Remember that we want an even frequency response. Although we all want our instruments to sound nice and present, too much good can ruin the listening experience. Since the human ear is the most sensitive in this area, it is also an area where we are the most susceptible to hearing fatigue. With too much boost in the mid areas our ears tire faster.

• If you need more presence or attack to the bass guitar, try boosting around 700–800 Hz. You can EQ out the cheap acoustic guitar sound by cutting in this area as well.

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• The area around 1 kHz is the go to area if you anything has a tele-phone like sound. Vocals that sound telephone-y often need a nice cut around 1 kHz.

• The attack of pretty much everything can be found around 2.5 kHz. If your guitars need more bite, your snare needs more snap, or your bass guitar needs more string definition, they can all be created by boosting in this area.

• Certain kick drum sounds can be created with specific boosts in this area. If you boost around 2.5 kHz you achieve a nice rounded rock kick, but if you boost higher up in the 3.5–4 kHz area your kick starts sounding more like something on a metal record.

• You can sculpt your vocal sound by increasing the definition at 3 kHz or adding some presence at 5 kHz. The area around 5 kHz is also where you can increase the clarity of the acoustic guitar.

Highs

Using the high frequencies we can add some air and enhance elements that are lacking in high-end energy.

• Beware of sibilance in singers and make sure to cut a little bit in the 7 kHz area if the singer’s sounds are annoying you. Or better yet, use a de-esser to focus on those pesky

“s” sounds. A de-esser pinpoints the frequencies that have most of these sibilant sounds and reduces them.

• Brilliance is centered at around 8 kHz. By brilliance I don’t mean the intellectual kind, but the sound that makes an instrument shine, or stand out. If you want to add just a tiny bit

Use a de­esser to eliminate problematic sibilance. De­essers are frequency specific compressors that only compress the “s” sounds of a vocal track. A how­to tutorial on creating a de­esser can be found here: How to Create a De­esser from Scratch in Logic (or Any DAW for That Matter)

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of highs to make a sound stand out you should try to find it at around 8 kHz. This applies to acoustic guitar, brass, vocals or piano — pretty much anything that you think needs a little shine.

• Above 10 or 12 kHz is where we encounter the “air” of instruments. Air is that subtle characteristic that makes the sound of the instrument lift up. It doesn’t feel “treblier,” it just feels more “airy”. Since these frequencies are so high, by boosting them we are only affecting a very small part of the instruments.

• That said, many elements need a little extra air to shine through, with a nice 12 kHz shelving boost on cymbals for example. If your instru-ments need extra brilliance but you don’t want to clash with other elements, adding a little air here (from 10 kHz or so) and there can make a mix sound more even.

EQ ExperimentallyEvery instrument is different and you should not take these num bers as gospel truth. You still need to find the exact frequencies of where your instrument needs attack or can do with a little less boom. Try the method described above to EQ effectively, but when boosting make sure your boosts are broad instead of narrow. You want to make the instruments sound natural, which can’t be achieved with narrow boosts that sound unnatural. But by scanning around the frequency areas using this guide for help, you can quickly enhance and EQ your recorded sounds.

Instead of using a high shelving EQ to add extra high frequencies, use an exciter instead. Exciters add artificial harmonics to a track and can sometimes be substituted for a too extravagant high frequency boost.

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Further Reading:

Will Walker’s EQ tut at Audiotuts+ is a good read for more fre quency specific tips: 3D Mixing Part 3: Equalization.

A different take on frequencies can be found in my guide: How To Recognize Frequencies.

CompressionCompressors are one of the most important tools to audio production and mixing, but also one of the processors that can be confusing to the newcomer. Being familiar with and knowing what a compressor does is not so confusing when you get down to it, and it can take a loose, uneven mix and shape it into a tight and powerful hit.

There are quite a few buttons on a compressor and knowing what each of these buttons does and how they work together is an important way to understand how to use compression effectively.

Compression Parameters

• Threshold – The threshold determines at what level your signal starts working. As soon as a signal reaches the threshold it starts compressing according to how you set the remaining parameters. The threshold in conjunction with the ratio are the most important parameters of a compressor and they work together to create specific compression sounds.

• Ratio – Here you specify how much compression you want to apply to the signal that crosses over the threshold. If a signal crosses the threshold by 4 dB and the ratio is set to 4:1, the compressor will compress it down and only allow 1 dB to come through.

• Attack – How fast do you want the compressor to start working? You can make a compressor clamp down on a transient with a fast

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attack, or you can set it slower, letting the attack of the instrument come through before compressing it.

• Release – When do you want the compressor to stop working after it has dropped below the threshold? A long release can create an unflattering constant compression effect.

• Knee – How hard does the compressor kick in? A soft knee applies compression gradually but a hard knee setting makes the compres-sor kick in immediately.

• Gain Reduction Meter – The most important meter on your com-pressor. Here you can see how much you are compressing a signal as well as how fast it starts and stops working.

• Output/Makeup Gain – You make up for the amount of volume you are losing by compressing with the make-up gain. Since you are reducing dynamic range, you are also reducing a little volume. If your compressor lowers the volume of the signal you can increase it again here.

The Sounds of CompressionIf you have a very dynamic signal that is all over the place — going from quiet whispers to exploding screams — you can use compression to even out the dynamics and make an instrument sound more even and level.

Subtle compression

Subtle compression is taming the dynamics in such a way that you don’t squash a signal and render it lifeless, but rather that you control the peaks by compressing the loudest parts while the rest stays unaffected.

You do this by using a low ratio, like 2:1 – 3:1, and setting the threshold in a way that it just lightly tickles the peaks of a signal. Push the threshold down until you see light compression going on in the gain reduction meter, when

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the designated instrument plays a little louder. Play around with the attack and release to get that perfect light compression you want.

You could see the compressor react when a guitar player is doing accented strums on his guitar, the vocalist pushing his voice a little louder or a pianist hammering down on his chords.

If you only want to give your signal a little compression — maybe only give the signal a little color from the compressor — just make sure you are compressing about 1–2 dB. This is a minimal amount and works well for subtle taming of peaks as well as a little color.

Too much compression!

Sometimes you can compress a signal too much. Over-compres sion, as I like to call it, is when you squash a signal and give it absolutely no dynamic range whatsoever. This can be cool for effects or trying to get a special sound but it can also suck the signal dry, leaving you with an unnatural and dull sound.

It’s easy to give a specific sound a squashed and over-com pressed effect. This is the exact opposite of subtle compression since we are pushing the threshold down until it affects the whole signal all the time. Push the threshold down until you see the gain reduction meter constantly compressing more than 10–20 dB. Since most of the signal is now over the threshold the ratio plays an important part in how much compression you want to apply. When squashing we usually have a higher ratio. The end result of this will be a squashed and squeezed signal that can sound awesome on sampled drums, room microphones, or electronic synths, for example.

Although many engineers fight against the use of over-compres sion, the fact is that it can come in handy quite often to create unnatural but usable sounds. It’s a case of knowing when to break the rules, so if you know what you are doing and you think it sounds good, I wouldn’t worry too much.

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LimitingLimiters work similarly to compressors, except that there is no compression involved.

Huh?

What I mean is that once a signal goes over the pre-determined threshold, a limiter doesn’t compress a signal down according to a 2:1, 3:1 or 4:1 ratio. What it does is cut off every part of the signal that goes over the threshold, thereby limiting it. This can be handy to lightly control peaks and maximizing levels without the sound of pumping over-compression.

Tips:

• Limiters can be used to reduce the peaks of signals subtly. If you are worried about a signal going past a certain point you can put the limiter at that specific decibel point and it’ll only cut off the signal that goes past that point.

• Limiters are used in mastering to make the whole mix sound louder. Similarly, you can use a limiter on a specific instrument to make it sound louder. Put the output at −.01 dB and push the threshold down until you notice it getting substantially louder. The drawback is the loss of dynamic range of the signal, but that’s the trade-off if you really need that extra pump in loudness. A good introduction on limiters can be found here: A Beginner’s Introduction to Limiters.

Parallel CompressionSometimes called “buss compression” or “the New York compression trick”, this is when you heavily compress a copy of a signal while leaving the original intact. This allows you to get a nice punchy sound to your drums, for instance, without compromising the dynamics of your original drum take.

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Say you have a very nice sounding drum kit that you’ve mixed to perfection. Although it sounds great, you feel it needs a little extra “punchiness” factored into it in order to really make the mix stand out. By using parallel compression you send all the drum tracks to a separate stereo bus. There you insert a compressor that squashes the signal down and gives your drum kit a pumping, over-compressed sound. By mixing this heavily compressed signal underneath the original dynamic drums you get best of both worlds — a clean sounding drum track with the added benefit of heavily compressed and punchy drums.

A step-by-step guide can be found here: Give Drums Impact with Parallel Compression.

Compression is an art form and everybody probably does it differently. Some people like squashed snare drums and over-compressed pumping vocals. Others like the subdued subtle compression, letting instruments breathe and only using com-pression to enhance something that’s already there.

You can use compression for subtle auto-leveling or as a hard-core effect. You might use different compression techniques on individual elements in a single song that work perfectly together. Some instruments respond well to a lot of compression and others sound unnatural.

Many famous engineers use their compres sion techniques as a defining factor in their sound, and who knows, maybe you can find “your sound” in the way that you approach compression. Which way you choose and

Six Compression Tips:

1. If a guitar part is too “strummy,” dull the string sound with a fast attack.

2. A good starting point for vocals is a ratio of 3:1 and a gain reduction of 4–6 dB.

3. Compress your piano for a commercial pop sound.

4. Beware of the pumping sound caused by a slow release.

5. By tweaking the attack and release you can compress your drums so that the gain reduction meter plays in time with the track.

6. Too much compression on an acoustic guitar will make it sound weak.

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like depends on the genre you are creating, the stance you take towards compression and the experimental nature of your mixes.

For further reading on the various compressor types, with audio examples, check out The Beginner’s Guide to Compression at Audiotuts+.

Ratios are a well known parameter in many processors, and some find its function baffling. For a more in-depth exploration into what exactly the ratio does check out this article: What Does the Ratio On Your Compressor Really Do?

GatesGates are used to silence a particular part of the audio signal until that particular signal reaches the threshold you set, whereupon the gate opens and lets the sound through. This is good for cleaning up drums, such as toms, where you gate all the bleed from the rest of the drums and you only let the sound of the toms through. For example, a microphone recording the kick drum is still going to be hearing some parts of the rest of the drum-kit. By using a gate you can trigger the microphone to listen only when the kick drum is playing. The general para-meters of a gate are:

• Threshold – Opposite of what the compressor does, when a certain sound reaches the threshold the gate opens up, letting the sound through.

• Range – Similar to the ratio control of the compressor, but in reverse. It controls how far the gate turns the sound down once it’s past the threshold again. If you just want to reduce the volume of the toms

“1/4″ inputs, inserts, & outputs” by flattop341, available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

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subtly, then you can use the range button to push the level down without completely cutting the sound off.

• Attack – In relation to the gate, the attack is the time it takes to open once a signal has passed the thres hold. A slow attack lets the signal through but can cut the attack off the incoming signal, which can be beneficial in some cases.

• Release – How fast do you want the gate to chomp down on a signal once it’s past the threshold? A release that is too fast can cut the signal abruptly, making the gate chomp down on the end of the waveform. This makes it sound unnatural.

• Hold – Here you can specify in milliseconds how long you want the gate to stay open before the release takes over.

Gates are a great dynamic tool. They can be used for many applications and some people mistakenly think that they are only good as clean-ups for drums and other noisy instruments. Although they can be used to great effect for drum gating and noisy guitar clean-up, we can also use them as great dynamic processors that can create interesting effects for your productions.

Gated Reverb

By using the gate in conjunction with reverb we can get a big sounding re-verb without a long reverb trail that might clutter up your mix. Gated reverb has been used on countless records and is a signature sound of the 80’s snare drum sound. Phil Collins takes most of the credit for popularizing it, although many other famous artists have been known to use it.

Creating a gated reverb sound is very easy if you follow these simple steps.

• Send a copy of your snare to an effect bus via an auxiliary send.

• Insert a big hall reverb on the effects bus so that your snare sounds big and awesome.

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• Now insert a gate plug-in after the reverb on your effects bus. Pull the threshold down until the gate silences the reverb until you are left with only the formerly dry snare sound.

• Using your gate’s side-chain you can select the snare track to be your trigger so that every time your snare drum hits, the gate opens and lets the reverb through.

• For more information and an audio sample, check out this tutorial at Audio Issues: Gated Reverb for a Thicker Snare.

By tweaking the parameters of the gate you can get some pretty cool snare drum sounds. Make sure your threshold is at a good position to let the reverb through, as it is the defining factor in opening up the gate. Playing with the attack and release parameters allows you to control how quickly and how long the reverb comes on.

Depending on how you tweak these parameters, you can make the reverb sound like it’s being sucked back into the snare or jumping out of it. By playing with the release you can time the reverb to the track, creating an additional rhythmic factor to your snare drum sound.

Side-chaining

Side-chain techniques can be used to great effect in mixing. Side-chaining is the technique of having one audio signal, such as a kick drum, control the effect the compressor has on another audio signal, such as the bass guitar. Below are some of the popular side-chain tutorials from Audiotuts+

• How to Set Up Sidechain Routing in Logic, Cubase & Reason

• Create a Triggered Noise Gate Effect in Logic

• 6 Creative and Alternative Uses for Sidechaining

• Enhancing the Kick Drum with Sine Waves

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EffectsI’m a guitar player first and fore most. I came to musical maturity in the age of Radiohead, Incu bus, U2, and Rage Against the Machine; heavily processed and effected guitar playing has always fascinated me. Later on, as an audio engineer, I found out how all the same effects used for creating weird guitar sounds were extremely useful when mixing your tracks. Using effects for creating weird sounds, or enhancing already great-sound ing instruments with subtle modulation is like adding that last touch to your work. It’s like that extra pinch of salt that your dinner needs or that final little detail to your design.

Modulation Effects

Modulation effects enhance the sound of your track by copying your signal and adding tiny differences in timing, phase, or volume. This is done with an LFO, a low frequency oscillator, that modulates the copy of your signal, creating different results depending on the effect that you choose.

• Chorus – Chorus creates a slightly detuned copy delayed by a 15–30 millisecond delay. The result can be a rich stereo sound, nice for guitars and doubled vocals.

• Flanger – Similar to a chorus except that the delay time is shorter and we can reintroduce the signal with a feedback control. By feeding a delayed and detuned signal onto itself we create a characteristic swooshing effect. It can add a nice edge to your distorted guitar solos or give your vocal that 70’s rock-vocal sound.

• Phasers – Phasers use two LFOs that create an even more compli cated swooshing effect. While a flanger

Guitarists are a separate species; they will always want to record everything with their effects turned on. If you think this will cause problems in the mixing stage, split the signal and record a separate clean copy. That way you can add your own effects when you mix.

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can create subtle phase differences, a phaser is usually much more noticeable in a mix.

• Vibrato – You can hear the charac-ter istic vibrato sound on a Hammond organ. Vibrato can be used to create a subtle shimmering effect caused by the slight pitch shifts that the effect generates.

• Tremolo – The LFO of a tremolo controls the volume of a signal, not its pitch. We can achieve nice rhythmic effects with the use of tremolo. By timing it to a track we can add a rhythmic element to many instruments.

These are the most commonly used modu lation effects that you will come across when adding effects to your music. They can add an extra element to boring parts, create subtle enhancements to great sound ing instruments or completely alter the way a specific track sounds. By playing around with the parameters of each of these effects, you instinctively get a feeling for how they can be used in such a diverse manner.

Delay

The music industry is the one place where you got to love delays. They can be so versatile and diverse and can make your mixes sound different. Just by playing with your delays you can create additional rhythmic factors to your guitar parts, double your vocals for a more powerful sound, or make a guitar solo larger than life. Add that to all the weird effects you can create with powerful delay tools like the Delay Designer in Logic Pro, or by chaining a few stereo delays together: there’s no wonder that it’s so popular!

In essence, delay effects copy and reproduce a signal a few moments after the initial sound. Simply put, this technique “delays” a copy so that it makes the sound twice. But how much time is between the delays, how often the

Turning effects on and off during a song can keep a mix interesting and a listener’s attention focused on the song.

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delays happen, and in what kind of rhythm the delays repeat themselves, will all determine what kind of effect you end up with.

Let’s go over some basic parameters:

• Time – The time that passes between the source sound and the delay. This is measured in milliseconds.

• Feedback – How often do you want the feedback to repeat itself? A single repeat causes a double-tracked sound when the time is short, but more repeats cause a “Pink Floyd-style” guitar ping-pong or — if set to maximum — can cause the delay to overload, where the signal repeats itself continuously.

• Mix – The ratio of the clean and delayed sound. Delays in audio production are usually used as send effects and therefore the mix slider should be set to 100% wet, or only the delay sound.

• Modulation & EQ – Some delays have depth and rate controls that allow you to slightly detune and modulate the delays in order to create an even more distinguishable sound from the original. There is often an EQ option as well so you can roll off the highs or lows of the delayed sound, either dulling it down or brightening it up.

Short, Medium & Long Delays

Usually, delays are classified as short, medium, and long. Short delays range from 10–100 ms or so, with medium delays taking up the time between 100–500 ms and long delays encompassing all the times longer than that. Of course, depending on the actual BPM of the track the short-medium-long categorization can be subjective. The same performance with three different delays can produce three different results, so it’s always a good idea not to automati-

Rock solos demand delays. It’s the law. So a great solo can benefit with a 100 ms delay with only one repeat to give it that wider and bigger sound.

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cally flip the delay into BPM SYNC mode and be done with it, but rather experiment with the various time patterns that your delay unit has to offer.

Timed Delays

Delays can also be grouped by their inher-ent note value when it comes to musical timing. That is, a short delay in sync with the song is a 16th or an 8th note, while medium and long delays can range from quarter notes to a full bar note. It’s always a good idea to experiment both with synced delays in musical values or by experiment-ing with different BPMs. Although it’s usually a good idea to time your delay to the tempo of the track, sometimes you might want some irregularity to break it up.

Reverb

Reverb is one of those “must-know” mixing tricks. Reverb is the reflective sound of a room. When you clap your hands you can hear all the re-flections, or reverb, of the room. The reason you sound so good singing in the shower is because the reflective surfaces of the tiles in your bathroom give a natural reverb that enhances your voice. Without using reverb in our mixes there is a tendency to get a hopelessly dry track, with all the instru-ments competing for the front row seat. Reverb takes elements of the mix and pushes them back or brings them forward. By using reverb we position each track in their own place, where they don’t have to compete for your attention with everybody else.

But reverb isn’t just reverb. There are a few different reverbs available that you can use in your mixes. We call these different reverbs “reverb modes,” according to what type of space it is emulating.

Accent your vocal phrases with timed delays in sync with the backing track. A nice, timed delay in quarter notes can sound great at the end of a vocal phrase, for example.

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Reverb Modes

Hall

High ceilings, big open spaces. The hall reverb is the go-to reverb mode for lush ballads and big sounds.

Spring

Listen to any guitar sound from any “surf record” coming out of California in the 60’s and chances are you can hear an abundance of spring reverb on every guitar track. Spring reverb has a very special sound to it and has a characteristic “boing” when you push it too hard.

Plate

This is, in a sense, electro-mechanical reverb. Plate reverb emulates the metal plates so popular in old recording studios. Great for short vocals and snare drums.

Room

Some rooms sound better than others. And a good room mode can make your recording sound like it was recorded in a great sounding room. Room reverbs have a differ ent quality to them than a hall. They don’t sound as big and usually have more reflections. They can be very effective to only add a little ambience to your instruments.

Chamber

In the old recording studios, they use to have echo chambers that created their reverbs for them. A signal was routed to speakers positioned in the echo chamber where it was picked up by a microphone that not only picked

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up the routed sound source, but also the reverb generated by the chamber itself. Presto! Instant, natural reverb.

Convolution

Convolution reverb is not a mode, per say, as it can be any type of reverb you want. Convolution reverb is a type of reverb engine where you feed the engine the desired room you want. By taking a snapshot of a room’s characteristic, we can effectively load the space of any room we like into a convolution reverb engine. Logic Pro’s Space Designer is a good example of a great convolution reverb engine. In it, you can select the desired reverb you want from a palette of halls, plates, and rooms. All of the impulse responses are snapshots of a certain room, filled with the characteristics of said room.

I don’t think there is a set rule when it comes to a perfect reverb sound. Every song is going to sound different and need a new approach. The enormous amount of reverb devices and tweakable parameters that come with every reverb engine is staggering. Although you might like a specific vocal reverb on one track, it doesn’t mean it will work for the next one. The genre, song style and other factors all have a say in what type of reverb is suitable, as well as how much is a good amount. You can always default to your favorite reverb, but sometimes you might need to tweak it to suit each scenario. Here are four ways you can experiment with creating certain reverb sounds:

1. Equalizing your reverb is an amazing way to make your reverb stand out (or blend in if you want that more). For instance, using an EQ plug-in before your reverb can make it easier to filter out unwanted sibilance generated by the reverb.

2. You can use panning to your advantage to create an interesting reverb sound. Double-tracked guitars with their reverbs panned to the opposite side of each other can give a thicker double-tracked feel. You can do similar things with delay to make a production seem larger.

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3. Separate your reverbs from the source sound by adding some pre-delay to it. A 20 ms pre-delay can give a vocal track a big sound without cluttering up the source signal.

4. Send your instruments to a small room reverb. It can give the in-strumental section the feeling that it was all recorded in the same room. Adjust the level of the sends to push instruments back and forth in the room.

Automation — Taking your Mix to the Next LevelYou can get every instrument to sound amazing. You can have every ele-ment EQ’d to perfection and compressed perfectly in time with the beat of the song. You can have every effect subtly added so there is not an over-abundance of reverb or delay trails clouding up your mix. In theory, you can walk away happy because your mix sounds like the bomb!

But you know there is something lacking. Although everything sounds great in its own right, you just don’t feel it. Everything is going on but nothing is moving. Your mix sounds great, but it also sounds a little boring. There is no movement, no excitement. Your mix makes you bob your head, but it doesn’t give you goosebumps. What can you do to fix that? Welcome to the wonderful world of automation.

Automation

Automation simply means making subtle changes to certain parts of your mix. You can automate the volumes of your guitar parts so that a quiet sounding guitar has a higher volume in the chorus, or you can automate reverbs so that the chorus part has a different reverb than the verse. Auto-mating your mix helps your musical piece breathe and move, and basically just a lot more exciting. These subtleties can really make a difference to the listener. When you’re recording, it’s all about position, position, position. But at the end of the mix, it’s all about automation, auto mation, automation.

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With subtle automation you hold the listener’s attention throughout the song, because you are always introducing new elements and little tweaks that create an organic soundscape out of the mix.

Automation has two purposes. Firstly it can be used to create interest, introduce new elements, and constantly keep the listener on their toes. Secondly, you can use it to make subtle changes in effects, levels and dy-namics, making your track breathe without the listener really noticing how things are changing around him.

In your DAW there are a few ways you can automate. First, you can use your chosen DAW’s automation system, writing in level changes, mutes and so forth. If you have a MIDI controller this becomes even easier, especially with volume automation since you have the added benefit of a human touch. But drawing in automation data can get pretty tricky if you want to automate certain parameters of an EQ, reverb or other effect settings.

Another way to automate is to cheat. By cheat, I mean don’t draw in and use all the complicated parameters that are such a hassle to change once you’ve written them in. Rather, use separate tracks for automation purposes.

Say you want to accent certain aspects of a vocal track with delay. The last words of every verse are accented with triplet delays and you are fed up with trying to work out how only to accent those three words. The delays come in too late (or too soon), clouding up the first parts of each sentence. Instead of trying to figure out the best way to draw in automation, use another track.

• Create a different track where you either insert or send to a delay.

• Cut the phrases or words you want accented with delay out of the first vocal track and paste them on the delay track.

• Fiddle with the delay parameters until you have your desired effect.

• Now the main vocal track should just run along nicely and when it comes time for delay, the other track takes care of it.

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• Perfect automation without the hassle of drawing in excessive automation data.

Automation compliments a mix and takes an already great sounding mix further. A bad sounding mix filled with automation is not going to sound good on its own; it’s the combination of an amazing song, great sounding tracks and subtle automation that make a mix sound really great. If one of those elements are lacking, you can’t make up for it with the increased

“amazingness” of any of the other factors. It’s a quiet equilibrium that includes the ingredients for a great mix.

Preparing for MasteringNow you have your great recording and you’ve mixed it to perfection. Since it’s always a good idea to have someone else master your work — since a different set of ears will hear your songs much differently than you — it’s time to figure out how you want to bounce your mix down to a master track for the mastering engineer.

• Bounce to a proper lossless format – MP3 is great for uploading your music to the internet and its small size is perfect to carry thousands of songs in your MP3 player but it’s an absolute no-no when it comes to mastering. Bounce your song to WAV or AIFF which are lossless formats so that you don’t compromise the great sound you’ve sculpted.

• Bounce to 24-bit – Even though CD format is 16-bit, mastering engineers still apply their magic in the 24-bit region. So when bouncing your track, make sure it’s bounced to 24-bit.

• Leave some headroom – Make sure you aren’t overloading the master fader when you bounce to track. If you leave no headroom for the mastering engineer, your master mix is incredibly loud, and the master fader is hitting the red clips all the time, your mastering engineer isn’t going to able to do much. Leave some room for him to make your mix louder and punchier, that’s his job.

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Finally, talk to your mastering engineer and find out how he wants your mixes. He might want them a certain way. A little bit of communication can save you a lot of time and money so make sure you are doing everything the way he wants it.

Putting it All TogetherWhen are you done? That’s a tricky question. Engineers try to recreate the song they hear in their head. If you had an idea for a song, or a specific sound you were looking for and you think you’ve accomplished it, you’re done. You can mix and tweak and change your sounds to your heart’s desire but eventually you have to ask yourself: Are you making things better, or are you just changing them pointlessly? A checklist for a great recording session could look something like this:

• Have all the necessary equipment you need to record everything.

• Make a preliminary pre-production plan to account for anything that could go wrong.

• Set up all your equipment properly. Use the right microphones for the right instruments.

• Make sure everybody is in tune and all the instruments are set up properly.

• Have your instruments sound great at the source before even pointing a microphone at them.

• Take the time to locate the optimal positions for your microphones. Microphone placement is crucial for obtaining the best sound to work with.

• After tracking all your instruments, go through and edit them. Make sure there are no glitches or pops in the audio. Edit out silences and make everything sound good before mixing.

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• Mix your instruments together using EQ, compression, panning and levels to make everything fit nicely together. Mixing is the most creative aspect of engineering so make sure you use some effects such as delay and reverb to really make your mix stand out.

• Finally, when you think your mix is done make sure you prepare it correctly for mastering.

Remember that what sounds good to one might not sound good to another. As long as you’ve taken care to make sure all your audio sounds great at the source and you are using all your equipment correctly, then what you do with it is up to you.

ConclusionLike every other puzzle, audio engineering can be broken down into bite-sized pieces. It’s harder to digest the enormous world of music mixing and audio production, especially when you stand with a microphone and instrument in hand while looking at a complicated computer program and have no idea of where to start.

By breaking down the essential facets of audio engineering into easily consumable chapters, I hope you can now fearlessly plug in your mic, fire up your recording program of choice and get your next idea down on

“tape” without breaking a sweat.

Getting to know the fundamentals is the hard part — everything else is fun. When you know how everything works, there is only fun to be had discovering new audio tricks. Keep posted at Audiotuts+ for the newest audio production tutorials as well as checking out my site Audio Issues for easy-to-use audio production tips.

Thank YouTo my lovely Liz, thanks for being proud of me every day.

To my parents for being so supportive of all the things I’ve wanted to do and for allowing me to follow my passion.

To Palli and Geiri for being instrumental in creating a sound engineer out of me.

To maestro Ramón at SAE for being such a great professor, and for teaching me all the theory I needed to succeed.

Lastly, thanks to Audiotuts+, first for teaching me new audio tricks, and to Joel Falconer and Adrian Try for giving me a chance to pay it forward.

About The AuthorBjörgvin Benediktsson is a sound engineer with a diploma in audio engineering from the SAE Institute in Madrid, Spain. He’s an avid guitar player and audio enthusiast having worked in the music industry since 2006. He’s written countless articles on audio production, both for Audiotuts+ as well as his own site Audio Issues. When not writing about audio, he can be found in his home studio recording and

mixing music for himself and others. He is originally from Iceland, but currently resides in Tucson, Arizona wondering why Jojo left.

Björgvin Benediktsson

Sound engineer and musician Björgvin Benediktsson teaches you How to Record Great Music with whatever equipment you got!

Audio engineering and music production are a huge subject, but by breaking down the essential facets of audio engineering and recording into easily consumable chapters, Björgvin gets you up and running by covering everything from buying essential audio equipment to using reverb effectively in your recordings.

If you’ve been thinking about recording music or dabbling in audio engineering, then kick-start the process by grabbing a copy of Björgvin’s book and start learning How to Record Great Music with whatever equipment you got! RECORD

HOW TO

GREAT MUSIC...with whatever equipment you got!Get Good

Björgvin Benediktsson

Sound engineer and musician Björgvin Benediktsson teaches you How to Record Great Music with whatever equipment you got!

Audio engineering and music production are a huge subject, but by breaking down the essential facets of audio engineering and recording into easily consumable chapters, Björgvin gets you up and running by covering everything from buying essential audio equipment to using reverb effectively in your recordings.

If you’ve been thinking about recording music or dabbling in audio engineering, then kick-start the process by grabbing a copy of Björgvin’s book and start learning How to Record Great Music with whatever equipment you got! RECORD

HOW TO

GREAT MUSIC...with whatever equipment you got!Get Good