Recording Tricks Tips...general education.

[santucci218]

Lately I have been into big sounding music. Mainly, Devin Townsend. I want to sound big too, but I havent a clue how to start. I know basic stuff. Double track guitars and hard pan them left and right. Blah blah blah. But what are some more interesting tips? Anybody know of any other forums that would offer some good incite? Even open to books, videos, whatever. I just want help to get my recording quality up.

[BurningSkies]

Learn to use compression. Learn to use it in several different stages of recording and mixing. Learn a few different compressors and how to get different dynamics from them.

[Hellbastard]

Originally Posted by BurningSkies

Learn to use compression. Learn to use it in several different stages of recording and mixing. Learn a few different compressors and how to get different dynamics from them.

+1
Also you can't expect to get "big" sounds from a track you recorded bad from the beginning. So learning proper recording techniques: mic placement, preamp choice and use, EQ and compression is very helpful.

[Charling]

Yeah there's SO many techniques, a huge part of learning to be an engineer is gathering a library of your favourites then knowing when to use them (and when not too as well!)

As mentioned if you don't record good sounds, you'll get nowhere so start with setting up well, tuning drums well etc and taking some time over the micing/getting a good take. Also as mentioned you NEED to get to know compression WELL. Compression is ALL about listening, you can describe techniques roughly but every track is different and the compressor will react very diferently, it should feel almost like playing an instrument when you are setting the control's.

That aside, there area gazzilion cool techniques for getting size and depth, heres some of my fav's

Drums:
- Delay the room mic by 20ms+, you hear the room sound later that the close mics, and it gives you the impression of a larger room. Experiment with long delays!
- Put a mic in the next room
- Get good low end on the mics, rooms, OH's and ambients are harder to 'make big' if they are thin.
- Use a floor tom to judge where in the room the best resonance is and build your kit around that, put the first OH in the spot where you get the most resonance. (you may need a step ladder, and it'll need to be a GOOD resonance!)
- Give the snare a dedicated short verb and maybe compress that with the dry snare to give it some weight and length. Then send this to your normal drum verb.
- Pick some mics to be super compressed and moderately compress the others, you want to get a good balance between dynamics popping out, and gaps between the drums being 'filled in'
- Point some mics at the floor 6' away or so, lots of low end! Doesn't always work though. Different floor surfaces have different results.
- Get everything in phase when micing up! This is impossible with drums, but you can make sure your room mics compliment the kick and snare and don't thin them out when added.
- Put a bit of the kick through a PA speaker behind the drummer, roll off all the highs, this gets some kick weight in the room and helps give your OH's a larger than life picture. This can work with under-tom mics as well.
- EQ out frequency buildups in room mics so they fit neater over the close mics.
- Bring up a crush mic, distort it through the best distortion you have and blend a little in to the mix, a nice alternative to a slammed compressor approach.
- Put a slap back delay on the kick, or a verb with a big enough pre-delay to hear a distinct little echo after the kick hit, keep it tight, and take a little of the low end off so it doesn't go mad. Try and get the pre delay in time with your track using a delay calculator so it grooves, you'll need a fair bit of top on the kick and this doens't work so good with fast tracks. (check dig for fire by Pixies to hear this).
- its all about rooms or artificial rooms really
- If you want your drums to be big, you HAVE to make space for them, notice how many tracks with huge drums have comparitively small guitars or visa versa.
- Keep the kit small! Too many mics means to much phasing to deal with and it thins things out unless you get anal with gates etc.

GTRs
- Mic the cab with 2 mics and double track, put mic A of take 1 in the left along with Mic B of take 2. Do the opposite in the other speaker. This CAN thin things but certainly give some dimension to the guitar!
- Record a nearly-clean track along with the main gtr doubles, this gets some definition, you only need it very quiet.
- Flip the phase of one side of the gtrs, this is pretty daring, it will ruin your mix for mono but it is used a fair bit as almost everything is stereo now. It pushes gtrs WIDE!
- Record with only as much gain as you need, too much just fills the track with high end fizz and broken up low end. Use as little gain as possible!
- Split the signal to 2 amps and mic one differently.
- Reverb! Hard to get right on big gtr's, you have to be careful as it will quickly mush up. If possible get it from a room mic quite far from the amp (to avoid too much phase)
- Slapback delay again! Time it to the track.
- Mic back further from the amp, where all the speakers come into focus, you may need a pair of headphones in the room for this while you move the mic around and listen for the sweet spot (note, NOT the point where it is loudest!). Don't try this on a day you will need to mix, as the headphones will need to be pretty loud!
- Make space for them in the mix!
- Try everything you can to make your double tracks subtly different to the master, pedals, different gtrs etc all help fill slightly different areas.

Hope some of those are useful , this is just some stuff I can think of right now but I'll add if I remember anymore!

[santucci218]

all amazing tips. I am trying a few of them out currently. Can you explain the phasing more clearly? I am doing all this virtually by the way, no actual mics. I can change the phasing of my mics in Guitar Rig though! So im curious as to what you mean...I think i did it, but im not 100% confident. Tell me what you think of this mix when it all comes in.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page...songID=9558221

also, yes, i know its rough. Im just taking about the quality.

[BillyIVbass]

Don't have much to offer, but I get the magazine Tape Op it's all about engineers, recording and recording gear. It's an interesting read.

[Charling]

YES! Tape op is amazing, and absolutely free! A magazine of that quality for free is a fine thing.

Phasing is not something you really need to worry about when using sampled drums, but its a good thing to learn. Its something that happens when you are using multiple mics on one source. If you double mic a kick, for example with both mics next to each other (phase aligned) then the sound hits both mics at the same time and they 'double up'. You get an increse in volume but as the two mics are sound different you get a combination of the characteristics of their sounds. All good. But when one mic is, or needs to be, in a different position to get a different character of the same instrument you have to watch out for 'phase'.

In the kick drum example, if Mic a is further away than mic b then it will register the first 'peak' in the waveform later than the first mic. If this mics peak coincides with a trough in mic a then they will cancel out to a certain extent, resulting in a quieter, thinner sound. You can fix his by moving the mics a bit, but if a mic is really out of phase (ie its reacting in an almost exactly oppossite way to the first mic) then rather than moving things you can 'flip the phase' of one of the mics.

This 'mirrors' the mics response, so where there was a peak is now a trough and visa versa. The sound remains unchanged on its own, it just means the speaker moves away from you initially, rather than towards you, and it sounds identical to the original. But the benefit is that it now lines up better with the 2nd mic so they re-enforce each other rather than cancel each other out.

Micing drums is a mine field of phase. Just getting 2 kick mics in phase takes a little work, then you add the overheads and get them in phase with the kick. But the snare is in a different place to the kick, so its not likely to phase in the same way when combined with the overheads so you have to choose to get the phase best with the KICK or the SNARE, getting both perfect is impossible! You'd normally choose the snare. But then add a room mic, and it has to be in phase with the kick, snare, and now the overheads as well. Then add a hi hat mic and ditto etc etc.

Micing drums is a compromise from the word go.

With guitar its easier, normally just make sure the mics internal capsules are lined up and go from there. With multi mic'd guitars you often flip the phase to make sure they are nicely lined up. If you flip the phase and the result is a thin, tiny, cancelled sound then you know your mic placement is pretty good. If it still sounds ok with the phase flipped then you are somewhere in between phase, and you need to move a mic to get it closer to one or the other. (unless thats the effect you want!)

Generally, phase is only of concern when multi micing instruments. But you can use it as a technique in the mix too. When you flip the phase of one side of your double tracked gtr then the left and right speakers try and cancel out, gtr wise. (even if its 2 different takes, a similar enough gtr sound will always try and phase with its partner). But because the speakers are apart you still hear each gtr well. However, in the center of the image in between the speakers the gtrs DO cancel out a bit, towards the far left and right not so much. Thats why flipping the phase of one side of the gtrs makes it feel like they spread out a lot more. It kills some of the gtrs prescence in the center, making the overall image wider, at the expense of ruining it for mono sytems.

Your track seemed ok, drums were decent but as soon as the gtrs came in it swamped them! Suddenly the drums went from large to small. You should make some space in the lows and mids to keep the drums big. Also, your gtrs would be nicely bright for a full track with vocals, but as an instrumental track you can afford to push the high-end further, as they are not competing with much up there. Basically, shift the gtrs up and away from the snare, so they fit nicely between snare and ride. The take out some lows but leave in a little bit there to join them with the upper bass and lower snare. When the solo comes in it is indistinct from the rhythm gtrs, this bit needs to soar! make sure that it end up brighter than the rhyhms, or at least has a space carved for it in the mids.

Good tracking, but you need to make more space in the mix, which makes me think of another mix-tip...

- Lots of carefully filtered small sounds end up sounding a LOT bigger together than lots of huge sounds that eat each other! A clear mix is easy to make huge, a messy one impossible.

[santucci218]

im going to work on something else in the next few days and post back, so keep checking. Thank you much for this!

[ljazz]

Originally Posted by Charling

Good tracking, but you need to make more space in the mix, which makes me think of another mix-tip...

- Lots of carefully filtered small sounds end up sounding a LOT bigger together than lots of huge sounds that eat each other! A clear mix is easy to make huge, a messy one impossible.

Charling.....
Great advice in both of your posts!

But I love this tidbit most. It is something I keep trying to get across to my frontman (wannabe producer, and general all around know-it-all).

[Emibass]

check out gearslutz.com

[chrisp2u]

Originally Posted by Emibass

check out gearslutz.com

Yeah, there are a ton of online resources for learning this stuff, but between there, the tapeop forums, and the homerecording foums, you should be able to find out all you'd ever need to know. Then your biggest problem will be keeping yourself from buying new gear constantly.
---
c

[fokof]

Get a good reference and tune your listening/control room.

[magneezius]

sound on sound magazine/website has a lot of great advice
http://www.soundonsound.com/articles/Technique.php

and +1 to what charling said about A clear mix is easy to make huge, a messy one impossible.

Because you can't polish a turd