Lessions I learned the hard way (studio stuff)

gabriel g.

gabriel g.

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Sep 7, 2006
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1. Preproduction is the shit!

-It clears up arrangment stuff. Shows you what the band members can play (which guitar player should play which song)

-Shows the drummer what he can play, and what doesnt make sense

-helps the singer write and shape his lyrics


2. Good cymbals

-you can sample replace like a motherfucker but nothing will help you make bad cymbals sound good

3. Dont let the band rush through the songs, so they get the maximum out of their studio days

-in the end every song will have its flaws and nothing will be perfect or as good as it could be

4. Pussy pickers

-no matter how skilled one guitar player is, how "awsome" he can sweep and shit, dont ever let him record the rythms because no matter what amp and cab you use, it will sound weak

5. Drummers

-if the drummer cant play a tight double bass or a punk beat, dont let him.
Make him play the hands only and put in the kicks later.

-You can beat detective or slip edit like a young Zeuss, but no matter what, if the kick and a cymbal hit are miles away nothing will help you fix this, it will sound like shit

6. Edit the drums after tracking and before the other instruments get tracked

-otherwise the other instruments will be untight as well and you have to fix everything when the band is out, which sometimes is impossible and second leads to mistakes that cant be fixed at all

7. Sounds

-you as an engineer have a unique sound (should have :) )
-Bands have their sound too !!!!

-Dont force the band in the mix to sound like XYZ or shit.
you have to mix it to make the best out of the bands sound and on the other hand fullfill your idea of a good sound.

-Sometimes this means trigger it to death, sometimes it means, dont trigger anything....

-The PrePro should make this clear. If you know you wont use samples, you cant put in kicks in a double bass part, so your job is to convince the band/drummer that the double bass part makes no sense


feel free to complete this list with your experiences
 
You're not a 'bad guy' if you kick out/ban one of the members of the band from your studio. The only one really butthurt by it is the guy you kicked out, and fuck 'em.

And in the same vein, in a typical 5 member band, you really only need to personally meet 3 of them and they don't even need to be in the studio at the same time.
1. The good guitar player (which naturally is always the one who writes the music) to record scratch tracks.
2. The drummer to track/program drums.
3. The vocalist to lay down some sikkvoxx!
Have the guitar player come in after drums are done to record final guitars and bass. My life would be so much easier if I didn't have those non-essential members taking up space in my recording space.

That's my mini rant.
 
Nice points so far! Here are my 2 eurocents:

1. Use automation more! IMO It's what separates a good mix from a great mix. Separation is cool, but without movement, anything will sound boring very quickly. Be creative.

2. When you are changing one element of the mix, actively pay attention to what it does to the rest of the mix. If one thing goes up, the rest goes down.

3. (VCC thread reminded me of this one) Record/mix at reasonable meterlevels. Many plugins and hardware are calibrated to function optimally around -18dbfs (some a bit more or less), so use this to your advantage. You will still be far above the noisefloor, but you have almost 20 decibels of headroom to work with. If things are too quiet, turn up the monitorlevels.

4. Room treatment and placement of monitors vs listeningposition is the best investment you can make to improve your mixing. If you aren't rich, just build some panels yourself. Even a little bit of treatment is a step forward. And don't put your monitors below your earlevel in the corner of a room if possible!
 
Nimvi said:
4. Room treatment and placement of monitors vs listeningposition is the best investment you can make to improve your mixing. If you aren't rich, just build some panels yourself. Even a little bit of treatment is a step forward. And don't put your monitors below your earlevel in the corner of a room if possible!
Click to expand...

+1

It took me wayyy too many years to realize that you needed an accurate mixing environment before monitors/gear even matter. I used to spend a month on a mix. Running to my car and listening, then running back to the studio and making adjustments.

Bass traps are amazing :D
 
A personal view of mine, which I don't really see anyone getting interest in;

for instance, you said "good cymbals"... well;

Take a splash, choose a splash ? 2 differant splash will not necessarly have the same note. One might be a C and the other one a B.
You need to choose the good one considering the main key of your song...

Same goes for tuning all the drums. Why have the floor hit the wrong note ?

I never see anybody concern with that.

Maybe I'm dumb, but tuning is not only the pegs of a guitar ;)
 
Plendakor said:
A personal view of mine, which I don't really see anyone getting interest in;

for instance, you said "good cymbals"... well;

Take a splash, choose a splash ? 2 differant splash will not necessarly have the same note. One might be a C and the other one a B.
You need to choose the good one considering the main key of your song...

Same goes for tuning all the drums. Why have the floor hit the wrong note ?

I never see anybody concern with that.

Maybe I'm dumb, but tuning is not only the pegs of a guitar ;)
Click to expand...

I think this is an awesome ideal to strive for, but after some effort on my part in the past Ive never seen a concrete method for actually making this happen.
It started when I read something about Danny from Tool tuning his toms to actual notes in the song. I then re-headed and spent hours whacking toms with a full range tuner trying to obtain consistent note values. This was a complete failure and annoying. Then I did the obvious thing and hit the net to read forums and see if others were talking about in regards to this. I found nothing promising, and most drummers on the drum forums were saying that it seemed better in theory than in practice even on the high end DW kits that supposedly have a pitch from the factory. So I concluded that unless your Danny from Tool or some badass studio drumtech its not likely that this is something that should be a concern.

That said, if you know of a method to produce repeatable results in terms of pitch on common tom sizes I would love to know about it. Genuinely curious.
 
Manicompression said:
if you know of a method to produce repeatable results in terms of pitch on common tom sizes I would love to know about it. Genuinely curious.
Click to expand...

+1.

I have tried and failed here too. I now just use a drum dial and move the tension round until the tom has the charater I am looking for which works well and nothing seems particularly 'out' but if there is another technique I will be keen to hear about it.
 
There was that thing at NAMM this year, drum tuning thing, that would show you the pitches and shit. Looked pretty good for doing that kind of thing.
 
1. Get "the take" through whatever means necessary. Punch in, record half speed, line up single palm mutes or whatever else it takes. Having a tight record is more than half the battle.

2. Record IN TUNE. if you don't have an ear for pitch, get one. If your guitars and bass aren't in tune you'll never get that huge bottom end you want. This brings me to point three...

3. Make sure the instruments are set up correctly, be proficient at setting up just about every bridge / neck combination imaginable. Don't trust anyone but yourself to do this job properly. Learn to fix, tune and dampen drum kits effectively.

4. If the musician sucks, find a capable replacement. There is a threshold that I like to refer to called "the uneditable," where no amount of tinkering will save it.

5. This sort of covers all of the above but ATTENTION TO DETAIL. make sure all of your drum samples are perfectly in-phase, make sure there is no extraneous noise on any of the tracks, don't skimp on automation.

6. Something about the band will always suck ass, how you deal with the issue is up to you but fixing it will always make a better record.

7. You will make mistakes, either get good at fixing them or learn to live with them.

8. Make your least favorite song on the record everyones favorite. Don't be afraid to tear something apart, rearrange it, add overdubs and even add riffs if it makes the song work. A good song with a good arrangement mixes itself.

9. Your gear isn't the problem, you're the problem. Obviously this has exceptions but don't blame deficiencies in your mixes on gear, a $3500 compressor isn't going to make you mix like CLA.

10. Enjoy yourself, we work in a pretty damn cool profession, it can get frustrating but my god the worst day in this job is better than the best day in most. If you are working happily the end product will be better.

Lastly, charge well for your experience, no one likes slaving away for $5 an hour. Believe in your skills, chances are you're worth s lot more than you're charging.
 
derekmoffat said:
TuneBot. I want one of those, only $150!
Click to expand...

I was reading about the Tunebot on here but I couldnt watch the YT videos because my internet here at home is sad and slow. I didnt know it could do this, full on awesomeness. Still I have to wonder if Andy or Colin are really worried about the toms on their recordings having a definate pitch in relation to the songs on the record. I would like to hear more user experiences about it though.
 
Hey for the drums.. I just adjust things in my DAW. Sometimes I just adjust a few cents of a semitone to get things "glued". especially the snare and kick.

For real drums, I'm not talking about a big change tho, don't need to have your toms too high or sloppy low. For instance. If you're tuned to E minor and the drums is tuned to E normal, it's just a note off. You're note going to have the drums slack for a note, just a little less tension. But like, the overtone will fit the note of the guitar. If not, to me it's like a guitar playing an E and a bass playing an Eb at the same time. Dissonant, but we don't pay attention because it's percussion right.

For the cymbals, it can be a matter of flavor. I don't know if they are made to actually accomodate differant tuning, but it's interesting to keep in mind that when they don't sound the same it's not only about the brightness, but also the note.

edit: tune with the ears :)
 
Plendakor said:
Hey for the drums.. I just adjust things in my DAW. Sometimes I just adjust a few cents of a semitone to get things "glued". especially the snare and kick.

For real drums, I'm not talking about a big change tho, don't need to have your toms too high or sloppy low. For instance. If you're tuned to E minor and the drums is tuned to E normal, it's just a note off. You're note going to have the drums slack for a note, just a little less tension. But like, the overtone will fit the note of the guitar. If not, to me it's like a guitar playing an E and a bass playing an Eb at the same time. Dissonant, but we don't pay attention because it's percussion right.

For the cymbals, it can be a matter of flavor. I don't know if they are made to actually accomodate differant tuning, but it's interesting to keep in mind that when they don't sound the same it's not only about the brightness, but also the note.

edit: tune with the ears :)
Click to expand...

So do you use a tune bot to get the drums at a pitch the tom actually can sustain through a session and adjust later, or your just saying that you attempt getting them in tune by ear in the box by pitching and stuff? I hadnt considered attempting it this way, but i didnt think that there was a way to measure the actual note value of a tom pitch in a daw in order to know that its flat or sharp or whatever. Also, the reality of a tom pitch is that it modulates a bit depending on the velocity of the hit. I almost wonder if having a tom at the same note of the guitar / bass riff wouldnt create more definition problems in certain places.... just thinking out loud here.
 
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