Becoming a great audio engineer, musician, or both is a lifelong process. Without any official finish line to cross, it can be difficult to see progress as your skills improve. One musician, Mr. Billy, set out to record, mix, and release 12 CDs over 12 months. Surely with that amount of work done in such a short amount of time there were some sacrifices in quality, but that isn’t necessarily bad. If you strive for absolute perfection in every single mix, it may have a negative effect on your work capacity or even your own personal learning curve.
You can read the full article here: http://therecordingrevolution.com/2013/02/25/the-fastest-way-to-improve-your-engineering-songwriting-and-performing/
Recording Tips and Techniques
Using Headphones While Mixing
Mixing using headphones exclusively may not be ideal, but sometimes it’s the only option available. Whether it’s a sleeping baby, irritable neighbors, or just other occupants that would rather not hear your work throughout the day, there are plenty of reasons not to want to use a speaker system for mixing in your home studio. By using good quality headphones that are designed as a piece of audio equipment instead of a fashion accessory, you will be well on your way to producing great mixes.
You can read more about mixing with headphones, and some pitfalls to avoid, here: http://audio.tutsplus.com/tutorials/mixing-mastering/mixing-with-headphones/
Mixing Drums
I just read a terrific article – as in you should print it out and tape it to your wall – about drum mixing. Eric Ferguson wrote this article for Recording Magazine, and it is chock-full of really excellent mixing and processing tips for a standard drum kit. Recently, I wrote about EQ settings for kick and snare drums – Equalization On Kick and Snare Drums. The below article mentions EQ too, but goes much further, talking about setting up 2 stereo buses (see our article Creating Subgroups In Reaper and Pro Tools for what those are) to put different effects like compression and EQ on each.
I’m definitely going to be using these tips in the future.
Check it out here: http://www.recordingmag.com/resources/resourceDetail/130.html
Equalization On Kick and Snare Drums
Equalization – or EQ for short – on drums is pretty important. Arguably the two most important drums to focus on in a standard drum kit are the kick and the snare. In the video below, you’ll see some excellent tips on EQ settings for both of those drums.
Basically, you want to add some energy at 70 and 100 Hz for the kick, for that boomy bassy sound. This also leaves you room to boost your bass guitar at around 80 hz to help it not conflict with the kick. There are a few other settings he shows you as well.
For the snare, it starts out with boosting the highs from 5 KHz and up using a shelving EQ (lifts all the frequencies at the target frequency and above (or below for a low-end shelf) for added sizzle, crack and air. Then for some punch and presence, there is a boost at about 250 Hz.
They use Apple’s Logic Express (the baby brother of Logic Pro) for their demo, but the same tips are true for any mixing session or software you use, including Reaper.
Check out the video below:
Placement Options For Multiple Microphones
Depending on your needs and goals for a recording, there are several different options for mic placement. Using multiple mics can improve the quality of the recording, but even details as small as the angle of the mics in relation to each other can have a significant impact on how the signals received by each mic will sound when played back together.
You can read more here: http://audioundone.com/multiple-microphone-techniques-a-b-placement-x-y-placement-jay-kadis