Beginner Q- what to read

[He's Dead, Jim]

Hi everyone,

As this is my first post here, I thought I should briefly introduce myself. I've been scouring the internet after buying a Line6 UX1 with Pod Farm a couple of weeks ago. It occurred to me soon after plugging my guitar in and realizing that it sounded like crap that, just like analog recording, I need to actually know and understand how recording and mixing work. I've found a lot of the threads on this forum to be incredibly useful, so I thought I would make an account and try to learn by osmosis. Thanks for your patience!

The reason I made this thread, though, is to ask what you think I should read, aside from the stickied threads in this forum. Are there any other sites with really good crash courses on how to record metal, and in particular how to make Pod Farm sound more professional? I know it's on the low end of the amp simulation quality spectrum, but I'm working on a budget.

For reference, my gear is:

*Sterling Sub 4-string bass
*EZDrummer & DFH
*ESP LTD 407-7 (7 string)
*Line6 UX1 with Pod Farm 2.5 & the Metal Shop pack
*Impulses from a thread on this forum a while back- mainly God's Cab, Tone Vampire, and the God's Cab NT5 on the end for room sound
*MacBook Pro, early 2011 model
*Reaper

Lastly, I swear to god I'll never ask for Joey Sturgis' Pod Farm settings, so you can all rest easy tonight.

 

[anotherpaul]

Hey, man!
There's a ton of great blogs and youtube channels dedicated to recording and mixing guitar-oriented music, setting up the tone on the guitar amps and other stuff. I would suggest these off the top of my head:
http://www.youtube.com/user/fearcomplexmusic
http://www.olaenglund.com/
http://therecordingrevolution.com/

The last video on therecordingrevolution.com actually is about books on mixing, so go watch it right now. So as far as reading is concerned, my personal favorites are The Art of Mixing by David Gibson and Systematic Mixing Guide.

 

[captainboom]

Systematic by Ermz is a must have. Really cheap for the content provided. It doesn't move from my desk since I got it.

 

[Mashreef]

get the
Systematic Productions - The Systematic Mixing Guide with Ermin Hamidovic - (ERMZ)
it will help you the most..
Its cheap
get that PDF and start working on it...

 

[Trevoire520]

As much as I recommend the systematic mixing guide, you really need to have a decent grounding in the basics before you'll get anything useful out of it as it's a more advanced book.

Start off by googling some basic concepts:

Proper digital recording levels
Gain staging
Equalization (frequency, filter types, Q value)
Compression (attack, hold and release times, ratio, compressor types (VCA, FET, Optical) parallel compression
Limiting
Clipping
Reverb

The important part is to have your DAW open and experiment while you read and learn new concepts, apply them and actually understand what they sound like. When reading about compression stick one on a snare track and see what fast/slow/light/heavy settings sound like.

 

[Mashreef]

@Trevoire520 i totally forgot about those

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

Thanks for the input. This is really interesting stuff and very, very useful. Cheers!

 

[EmilDelaRosa]

Read Mixing Audio by Roey Izhaki or Mixing Secrets by Mike Senior. Both books provide golden information about mixing, I have learned a lot from them myself! after that go get Ermz' systematic mixing. It's all about solidfying your fundamentals.