Hey guys,
Not totally on-topic but not off-topic either as this is about organization.
I'm updating my site infos a bit and thought I'd share this with you. This is the text I want to put up, hoping it will answer most of the questions I got. What do you think of it? Do you find it clear (probably not) or how could I make it any better?
RECORDING
To prepare for the recording, you should meet the following requirements.
Your instruments should be well prepared and in good shape. This means new drumheads, new strings (although there's nothing wrong with having strings set up a day or two before the actual recording, I usually prefer their sound after a few hours of usage anyway), etc.
Bring extra drumheads, sticks, strings, picks, etc. It's always a pain for everyone to stop a session and have to run to a music shop because something is missing.
I can provide headphones for you but if you have one that you particularly like or are used to, bring it on! Especially if you sweat a lot ;-)
You should have done your homework, which means you must know the songs, what your role is (this can be worked out though if I'm producing), and you must be able to PLAY the songs. Today there is a tendency to believe a computer can fix everything and do the work for you. I have to reckon that this is true to some extent, but music (at least the one we're about here: rock & metal) should be played by humans and not quantized, autotuned, fixed... to the point of losing its soul and essence. Hey, even brutal death metal has a heart.
Plus, you will undoubtedly look like an idiot on stage if you can't play what's on your record anyway. So yes, I can help - No, I'd rather not do the job instead of you.
Those are just common sense advices really, but I will not force you to do anything you don't want to. If you want to play on an out of tune guitar with rusted strings, that's your call. Something good might come out of it as well, as there's not just one way to do things, and experiment is the way to be new.
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MIXING
So if you're gonna record in another studio or do it yourself and want me to mix, here are a few recommendations:
- All I have said in the "Recording" section on the right applies here.
- Record in 24 bits. 44.100 kHz is just fine, but you can record at higher rates if you really want to. For Cubase users, even if you edited or recorded at a 32 bit resolution, don't send me those 32 bits wave files! Convert them to 24 bits first please.
- Take pictures of the recording and send some to me in a folder, that will help me greatly, especially to know where drum microphones were positioned and stuff like that.
- Record the triggers signals for the drum kicks, snare and all toms. Just put a trigger on it, and plug the XLR out into the mixer / sound-card / whatever device you're gonna be recording with. This will just record the transducer signal (a clicky sound), no drum module is needed for that. This by no mean imply that I'm gonna replace your sound with others, it's just for security: if I HAVE to, I'll be able to do it properly, and either way it's gonna be very helpful to gate the tracks.
- Tune those drums. I mean, really, it's very important. If your drummer doesn't know how to do it, or no one in the studio can help with that, rent a pro to come and do it (can be a local drummer who knows his shit). It's definitely gonna be money well spent (if the guy is good of course).
- Talking about tuning drums, don't rely on me to fix things later. Get it right in the first place. Get the sound at the source. It must sound good to begin with to sound great in the end. There's no magic, computers can't turn shit into gold. Garbage in, garbage out.... Mixing is like applying a very powerful microscope on your recordings, so if there's crackling, popping, rattling, noises... they're gonna be very obvious in the end, so fix it.
- That being said... some of my previous works have more or less consisted in salvaging sessions and the end result was quite acceptable (enough to be internationally distributed), so I guess I didn't usurp my nickname "Magic Brett"!
- Same applies to your performance.
- Do not apply EQ or compression or whatever when recording if you're not 100% sure to know what you're doing, get the sound natural.
- When recording guitars and bass, record a DI signal of them as well as your miked signal. This will be useful in case the miked signal is just not usable or doesn't fit (or if the sound is varying too much between takes, you know how tube amps sound slightly different after a few hours of warming-up, etc.). Anyway, in case I must reamp your sounds, I will need the DI. Reamping is a technique to replace guitar or bass tone without asking the guitar player to re-track his performance. If you're recording in a studio, the guys there will know what to do. If you're doing it yourself, inquire and learn about the subject as this is quite critical.
So if you have already recorded, I do hope you have followed the previous recommendations. So the next steps before sending your songs to mix are the following:
- Clean up your tracks: remove unwanted noises, only keep the right takes and don't include alternate takes as I'll think you want them all to be heard. Delete everything that shouldn't be on the record. Remove all the fades.
- If you used Virtual Instruments, bounce them to audio files.
- Consolidate all your tracks so they all start at zero. You can use wav, aiff or whatever. That way, I'll just have to import them at the same timing and they will all be aligned perfectly. Even if a guitar solo only starts after 3 minutes and there are 3 minutes of silence before it, do it that way.
- Rename those files to a format that makes sense and keep this format constant throughout all your songs. I typically name the files starting with a letter for the instrument (a for drums, b for bass, c for rhythm guitars, d for rhythm guitars DI, e for lead guitars, f for lead guitars DI, g for clean guitars, h for clean guitars DI, g for acoustic, k for keyboards, o for orchestra, v for lead vocals, w for backing vocals and z for miscellaneous stuff). Then following the letter is a number for the track itself (for drums: 1 is kick, 2 is snare top, 3 is snare trig, 4 is snare bottom, 5 are all toms, etc). If you can use my system that would be very cool and very effective, would save me a lot of time that would be precious to get a better sound instead of struggling through your files.
When using left and right mentions, use the drummer's perspective (and let me know if the guy is left-handed):
It probably seems confusing, so here's how a session audio folder usually looks like, will make things much clearer:
a1 Kick In
a1 Kick Out
a1 Kick Trig
a2 Snare Top
a3 Snare Trig
a4 Snare Bottom
a5 Tom 1
a5 Tom 1 Trig
a5 Tom 2
a5 Tom 2 Trig
a5 Tom 3
a5 Tom 3 Trig
a6 Hi-Hats
a6 Ride
a7 Overhead Left
a7 Overhead Right
a8 Room Left
a8 Room Right
b1 Bass DI
b2 Bass Mic
...
c1 Rhythm Gt A1
c1 Rhythm Gt A2
c2 Rhythm Gt B1
c2 Rhythm Gt B2
...
d1 Rhythm Gt A1 DI
d1 Rhythm Gt A2 DI
d2 Rhythm Gt B1 DI
d2 Rhythm Gt B2 DI
...
e1 Lead Gt 1
e2 Lead Gt 2
e3 Lead Gt 3
...
f1 Lead Gt 1 DI
f2 Lead Gt 2 DI
f3 Lead Gt 3 DI
...
g1 Clean Gt 1
g2 Clean Gt 2
...
h1 Clean Gt 1 DI
h2 Clean Gt 2 DI
...
g1 Acoustic Gt 1
g2 Acoustic Gt 2
...
k1 Pads
k2 Choir Aaahs
k3 Piano
...
o01 Contrabass
o02 Cellos
o03 Violas
o04 Violins
o05 Bassoon
o06 French Horns
o07 Trumpet
...
v1 Lead Vocals 1
v2 Lead Vocals 2
...
w1 Backing Vocals 1
w2 Backing Vocals 2
...
z1 Ukulele
z2 Bagpipe
z3 Thunder
...
- I can't stress this enough, but make sure you got all the right files and that none are missing. Test if you got everything right by importing those files in a DAW and checking if everything's aligned and if nothing is missing.
- If recording to a click, export the tempo map of your songs and their time signature changes as MIDI files and include those files with the audio. If there's just one tempo for one song and it's all 4/4 then it's even easier.
- Include your DAW's original project file as I could eventually have to refer to it at some point if anything goes wrong (I can open Pro Tools, Cubase, Logic or Reaper files) .
- Put all those files in one folder, one folder per song.
- If possible, include a "rough mix" of each song so I can refer to it to know what's the main line, the lead instrument, where the emphasis should be. You can of course just leave that to me too but at the risk of my guess being wrong (nothing undoable anyway).
- If your music is pretty complex or contains very complex choir parts, intricate 200 tracks of samples, or heavy orchestral sections, my advice is to premix those and send me stereo stems of those sections. Use Pro Tools, Cubase, Logic or Reaper to mix those parts in a separate folder called "Slave", include the original slave audio files in this folder with your DAW's project (in case I need to modify something in your premix) and only put the stereo stems files in the global audio folder. For instance for orchestral parts, provide me with "woodwinds", "strings", "brass", "percussions".
- And finally if you know what you want sound wise, make a note already in a text file. If you don't know what you want, but know what you don't want, do the same. Or you can leave it all up to me if you're just unsure. There's nothing worse than someone who's telling you what they want without even knowing it. Don't hesitate to include in an extra folder some songs from other bands that you like a lot soundwise and, without wanting to sound like them, would like me to keep in mind during mix. Also, on that note, tell me which song you want me to mix first, one that would be representative of your music, one that would set the color.
- Burn those folders on DVDs or, even better, put them on an external hard drive or a flash memory key: USB2, Firewire 400 or Firewire 800 (preferred). It's gonna be much faster for you, for me, and is not "that" expensive today. Send those by mail (UPS, Fed-Ex or the likes are better cause safer). Keep in mind that I will not send your drives or DVDs back.
- Once I get all the files, I'll work on a first song and will upload it to my private FTP server. It will then be up to you to tell me if you like it or not, what you like or not, and what you want to be changed or improved. Some mixes can take a few trials and errors before getting perfectly right to fit your expectations (especially if you know what you want precisely), so don't hesitate to give me your honest opinion.
- If you want to have your material mastered somewhere else (and in that case only), I will provide the unmastered tracks at no cost, but exported stems will be charged (say if you want separated mixdowns of your drums, bass, guitars, vocals, etc).
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MASTERING
I can also master your own mixes or mixes done at another studio. For that, provide me the stereo mixdowns for each track (without any fade-in / fade-out) at the resolution / sample rate they have been recorded. A DVD should be able to contain all those... Include a text file with a note of what you want or not (if any) and eventually include an extra folder with some songs from other bands & albums that you like a lot (I mean, the sound, not necessarily the music) and, without wanting to sound like them, would like me to keep in mind during mastering. Please include those reference files as Wav files and not overcompressed mp3.
I do not charge by the hours I spend on your material (never really seemed fair to me as who can tell if someone is not charging you 5 hours for something that took them 2?) but by the length of your material. I never start with any preset, every mastering work is different. So my rates for eMastering are fixed and as follow (prices in euros):
250 : if material is less than 30 minutes
300 : between 30 and 40 minutes
350 : between 40 and 50 minutes
400 : between 50 and 60 minutes
450 : over 60 minutes
Upon approval I will send you 16 bits / 44,100 Hz wav files through my private FTP server.
If you want me to sequence the album and send you a Disc Description Protocol (DDP) file instead, there will be an extra cost of 50. In this case I will probably need ISRC codes for each song and a UPC/EAN code for the album. If unsure about what that means, please Google those terms.
I can send you physical copies as well (2 sealed copies for the factory and 1 copy for your needs) for an extra 40 (including shipping).
Of course, any mastering studio can claim to make your mixes shine and take your money. That's why I decided to offer a one song test mastering job (3 minutes long max) for a very small fee (50), so you can decide if my work is right for you or not. If we work together after this test mastering, half of this fee this will be refunded.
And finally, of course, I could indeed make your stuff sound really loud, but I'd rather honestly try to make it sound really good.
