Absolute beginner to recording/mixing/production - where do I start?

[InAbsentia_]

So I've got a DI box, a Line 6 UX2, guitars, lots of ampsims/impulses, a few amps and a PC - but I literally have no idea how to mix or produce or get even close to to the sounds many people on these forums get using a USB interface and ampsim with some impulses. (I have no idea how to 'tweak' tones and so on)

Where do I read up on this? I open up a thread and see things like 'I used a bandpass and LPF at x kHz' and stuff like that which I don't understand at all, other than that LPF stands for low pass filter.

Where do I learn these things from scratch + how do I learn to 'tweak' my tones using ampsims to get those crazy sounds you guys do? Is there any resource on this? I'm willing to pay money to get my hands on a book, or any sort of resource that'll help me out.

Thanks for any kind of help I may get!

 

[Skinny Viking]

honestly, the best place to "start" is here

pick a term or a topic you want to start getting in depth with and use the search function. From the sounds of it, you have a LOT of homework to do and you shouldn't kid yourself into thinking you're gonna get any kind of great results immediately. The things you hear on here are the result of people doing this shit day and night for quite a while

 

[InAbsentia_]

honestly, the best place to "start" is here

pick a term or a topic you want to start getting in depth with and use the search function. From the sounds of it, you have a LOT of homework to do and you shouldn't kid yourself into thinking you're gonna get any kind of great results immediately. The things you hear on here are the result of people doing this shit day and night for quite a while

I'd love to do what you're telling me, but how do I know what I 'need' to know? It'd be wonderful if you could tell me what I need to know, because frankly, I don't have a clue.

And yes, I have some homework to do and then some. Trouble is, I don't know what my homework is.

Thanks for the reply man, really appreciate it.

 

[Jind]

While I wholeheartedly agree with Skinny Viking on the fact that this place is a great resoeuce for all things audio engineering related, I also feel that a good book or two to serve as references for the terminology thrown about in these posts is very helpful for wrapping your head around some of them and the processes involved.

Some high quality places to start might be:

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Recording-Techniques-Seventh-Book/dp/0240810694/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275917648&sr=8-1"]Modern Recording Techniques[/ame]

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Recording-Engineers-Handbook-Artistpro/dp/159863867X/ref=pd_sim_b_2"]The Recording Engineers Handbook[/ame]

Both are excellent resources you will find yourself going back to over and over again.

 

[Skinny Viking]

break it down into concepts ...

for instance, start with EQ teminology:

HPF = high pass filter (everything higher than your setting will pass ... also called low-cut)
LPF = opposite to above
Notch
high shelf
low shelf
bell

start looking up and reading everything you can on what exactly EQ does, what you should use it for and how, and what you probably shouldn't be using it for. Look at an EQ plugin that you have and look at all the buttons and their names, look them up and start learning exactly what these functions do and how people use them in practice

EQ is one of the fundamentals that you need to at least be familiar with the concepts of before you can apply them correctly

after that, move on to compression ...

attack
release
ratio
soft knee
hard knee
threshold
input gain
output (makeup) gain

Before you get crazy with the 50 billion different things that you WILL need to learn to start making things work the way you want, you need to learn the basics. EQ & compression are 2 of the most basic concepts of recording & mixing and also 2 of the most important

as you start doing research on these things, you're gonna stumble upon other bits of info that you will find are directly related to them and how they are applied

 

[InAbsentia_]

While I wholeheartedly agree with Skinny Viking on the fact that this place is a great resoeuce for all things audio engineering related, I also feel that a good book or two to serve as references for the terminology thrown about in these posts is very helpful for wrapping your head around some of them and the processes involved.

Some high quality places to start might be:

Modern Recording Techniques

The Recording Engineers Handbook

Both are excellent resources you will find yourself going back to over and over again.

I've had a look through some books but they all seem to go into depth about micing, mixing tables and so on when I'm probably going to go down the ampsims/impulses and SD2.0 route.

If you guys learnt it, how did you? I looked all over for some kind of a tutorial on how to do this stuff but I didn't find anything. There's obviously some kind of resource on this though! You can't get mixes and tones like some of the one's I've heard by trial and error.

 

[InAbsentia_]

break it down into concepts ...

for instance, start with EQ teminology:

HPF = high pass filter (everything higher than your setting will pass ... also called low-cut)
LPF = opposite to above
Notch
high shelf
low shelf
bell

start looking up and reading everything you can on what exactly EQ does, what you should use it for and how, and what you probably shouldn't be using it for. Look at an EQ plugin that you have and look at all the buttons and their names, look them up and start learning exactly what these functions do and how people use them in practice

EQ is one of the fundamentals that you need to at least be familiar with the concepts of before you can apply them correctly

after that, move on to compression ...

attack
release
ratio
soft knee
hard knee
threshold
input gain
output (makeup) gain

Before you get crazy with the 50 billion different things that you WILL need to learn to start making things work the way you want, you need to learn the basics. EQ & compression are 2 of the most basic concepts of recording & mixing and also 2 of the most important

as you start doing research on these things, you're gonna stumble upon other bits of info that you will find are directly related to them and how they are applied

Thank you sir, I'll get right on that. Is there anything specific relating to guitar tones (metal, specifically) that I can read up on to help me sort out my ridiculously bad tweaking skills?

 

[Skinny Viking]

You can't get mixes and tones like some of the one's I've heard by trial and error.

you'd be surprised just how much trial and error goes into getting a lot of those tones you speak of ... the only difference is that the people getting them most certainly already have a firm grasp of the basic concepts involved and even then it still takes time & work to get it right

 

[Skinny Viking]

Thank you sir, I'll get right on that. Is there anything specific relating to guitar tones (metal, specifically) that I can read up on to help me sort out my ridiculously bad tweaking skills?

you're not gonna know how to even go about "tweaking" something without understanding what the tweaking is doing.

Amp sims and guitar tones ... everything from input level, to the tone shaping before the amp sim (tubescreamer pedal as an example) to the type of strings and pickups, to the way you actually play the guitar ALL have a major hand in the final tone ... keep in mind that this is all before you have even started trying different setting on the amp sim itself. If you understand even just the basic concepts of EQ, you'll understand why you should make a change to the setting of something to get closer to the sound you want. Otherwise you'll just be randomly changing values which will take you 100 times longer to get the results you want, and even then you won't understand what you did or why it worked

 

[InAbsentia_]

you're not gonna know how to even go about "tweaking" something without understanding what the tweaking is doing.

Amp sims and guitar tones ... everything from input level, to the tone shaping before the amp sim (tubescreamer pedal as an example) to the type of strings and pickups, to the way you actually play the guitar ALL have a major hand in the final tone ... keep in mind that this is all before you have even started trying different setting on the amp sim itself. If you understand even just the basic concepts of EQ, you'll understand why you should make a change to the setting of something to get closer to the sound you want. Otherwise you'll just be randomly changing values which will take you 100 times longer to get the results you want, and even then you won't understand what you did or why it worked

Thank you, that's exactly what I needed to hear. I've always been confused as to how people know how to get closer or get the same tone as they've heard on a record and so on.

One thing though, everything I look up on EQ dives straight into dips and scoops at frequencies and so on without going into the basics of what a dip is and why I'm doing it at a certain frequency and why I need it at all. It seems like they assume you know this stuff, but I don't. So where do I learn all of that before looking up the information in the threads here?

Thanks for your time, man. People always tell me this board is full of elitists who don't give the time of day to anyone willing to learn!

 

[Skinny Viking]

Try this to start with ... by all means this is NOT set in stone ... many variable come into play when deciding if you should boost something, cut something and where / how much BUT, its a starting point for you to wrap your head around the concept of EQ frequencies

http://www.idmforums.com/showthread.php?t=18237

read this until your eyes blow out of your head, then read it again, and again, and again, until it starts to sink it. The experiment, make a clip of a guitar part and start making EQ changes to it based on what it says in the guide. Listen to what you hear happening as a result of the changes you make and see if its in line with what you thought it would do. You're on your way to training your ears

 

[Jind]

Also - don't underestimate the act of "just doing it"! You can research and read all you want, but nothing, I repeat nothing will beat the learning you get from just digging right in, recording yourself, finding song's to mix (there are quite a few songs folks have posted here that a search will find all ready recorded and waiting for you to dig in and mix), and twisting knobs (well virtual knobs in most cases), and just experimenting. You will learn so much more this way than by reading things and trying to imagine what the results sound like. I read all about compressors before I ever touched one and it was not until I actually started trying out various plugins that I really understood what I read and how each change effected the output. Don't be afraid - just do it!

 

[Ionei]

Don't expect to get epic tonez with just the guitar.
Bass guitar is a huge part of the sound.

I usually record drums, guitar then bass.
And when the bass is recorded and done the whole fucking thing sounds SO SO SO much better.

 

[InAbsentia_]

Don't expect to get epic tonez with just the guitar.
Bass guitar is a huge part of the sound.

I usually record drums, guitar then bass.
And when the bass is recorded and done the whole fucking thing sounds SO SO SO much better.

Speaking of bass, are there any decent bass VSTs around? Currently using the Cubase stock, which sucks donkey balls to be honest.

 

[Skinny Viking]

Speaking of bass, are there any decent bass VSTs around? Currently using the Cubase stock, which sucks donkey balls to be honest.

I think you're getting a bit ahead of yourself dude

bass can be a LOT trickier and difficult to work with than guitars and you don't even know what you should be doing with those yet ... I'm starting to get the impression that you're looking for some kind of quick fix (I can haz presetz?) instead of actually wanting to learn properly which is what I had assumed at 1st.

 

[xFkx]

So I've got a DI box, a Line 6 UX2, guitars, lots of ampsims/impulses, a few amps and a PC - but I literally have no idea how to mix or produce or get even close to to the sounds many people on these forums get using a USB interface and ampsim with some impulses. (I have no idea how to 'tweak' tones and so on)

Where do I read up on this? I open up a thread and see things like 'I used a bandpass and LPF at x kHz' and stuff like that which I don't understand at all, other than that LPF stands for low pass filter.

Where do I learn these things from scratch + how do I learn to 'tweak' my tones using ampsims to get those crazy sounds you guys do? Is there any resource on this? I'm willing to pay money to get my hands on a book, or any sort of resource that'll help me out.

Thanks for any kind of help I may get!

Buy decent monitors if you don't have any, if you can HEAR what you are doing with eq, you'll soon grasp alot of it by yourself.

 

[InAbsentia_]

I think you're getting a bit ahead of yourself dude

bass can be a LOT trickier and difficult to work with than guitars and you don't even know what you should be doing with those yet ... I'm starting to get the impression that you're looking for some kind of quick fix (I can haz presetz?) instead of actually wanting to learn properly which is what I had assumed at 1st.

I didn't mean for it to come out that way. It's just that I can't get a feel of what a bass 'feels' like in the mix because I don't have anything solid to work with.

I'm in it for the long term, and I'm willing to learn everything slowly. I've been playing around with EQ and reading that link you gave me all night. I think I'm beginning to understand (barely) what it's all about and why you do it.

 

[InAbsentia_]

Buy decent monitors if you don't have any, if you can HEAR what you are doing with eq, you'll soon grasp alot of it by yourself.

I just bought a set of Sennheisers, I hear things which I never heard before.

 

[Skinny Viking]

I didn't mean for it to come out that way. It's just that I can't get a feel of what a bass 'feels' like in the mix because I don't have anything solid to work with.

I'm in it for the long term, and I'm willing to learn everything slowly. I've been playing around with EQ and reading that link you gave me all night. I think I'm beginning to understand (barely) what it's all about and why you do it.

ok cool man

if you're just looking for something to get your head out of the EQ thing (sorta) for a bit (told you your eyes will blow out of your head) then here's a pretty good thread dealing with bass

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/production-tips/517848-bass-processing.html

I strongly suggest that before you rush into things that you keep taking your time and absorb the essential basics 1st ... however, its always good to experiment. All theory and no play can be just as bad