#1 MR. I HAVE IT ALL BUT I STILL SUCK

Start small, don’t invest in expensive equipment unless you can see yourself using it, all the time or atleast most of the time. Research gear well before you commit to buying it. Top of the list of the worst mistakes ever made.

#2 MR. RUSTY STRINGS

Use new strings on guitars, new cables for instruments. Warm up your voice if you’re doing a vocal take. However, this guy is only a measly second to MR. IAMTOOLAZYTOTUNEMYINSTRUMENTSLOLZ. Those belonging to that category have lost all hope, and deserve to be jailed next to the city litter dump.

#3 MR. NOISY

Eliminate noise, buzz from instruments and surroundings. Do it one step at a time. Optimizing your source signal beats post-processing, anyday.

#4 MR. CLIPPER

Don’t clip when recording tracks – watch the gain knob on your inputs. But sometimes, clipping can have interesting effects if you need them. You feel like killing me already don’t you?

#5 MR. MUDDY MOE

Don’t ignore the low-mids (250-500Hz)! Good control over the low-mids is required to add warmth, and remove mud from beefy/muffled recordings.

#6 MR. TURN UP THE BASS

Hold your horses. keep the bass under control. Learn more advanced techniques like sidechaining if you still want to use tons of BASS in your recordings, since MOAR BASS = SECKS anyway. Right? Yeah.

#7 MR. TINNY TANNY

In same fashion, don’t overdo the treble. While good high-end in a song screams quality recording, overdoing it can easily kill the mix, making it sound small, trashy, and sterile.

#8 MR. VOCALS TOO LOUD

Seriously, what are you yelling for? Realize that a good mix is about finding the right balance. Right balance will give out the right vibe, and convey the message of the song. There is no formula though. If there was one – you wouldn’t be reading this would you? You’d be rolling in your silk sofa in your bay area mansion.

#9 MR. DROWN IN REVERB BCOZ IT IS KOOL

As the old saying goes ‘Don’t let your cat drown in your cappucino’.

No one cares if you’re not heard. Unless you want that?

#10 MR. I DONT PAN MY INSTRUMENTS

Think of your song as a plate you’re holding out to someone serving you food. Would you like it if they stacked tomatoes, curry, icecream, yogurt, and tartar sauce on top of each other? Pan wisely, use the stereo spectrum to your advantage. Surprise your listener with intricate pans.

MOAR TIPS:

1) Hang out on interest forums and ask questions. Learn, contribute and share and you will benefit immensely. www.freq20.com is one such forum.
2) Listen to music, more music, and even more music. Even if you can’t hear things consciously, your subconscious picks up minute details like spacing between sonic regions that will help you make better mix decisions when you’re recording. No music is bad music, unless it’s Coldplay of course.
3) Use a Spectral Analyzer – while you must understand that your ears are the ultimate judge, they’re also tricked easily. Use a Spectrum Analyzer (like this free one) to guide you visually. Be careful not to base entire mix decisions on the spectral analyzer though.
4) Use EQ wisely – Too many people have said this already. Just google ‘EQ tips’ to see results. Cut more often than boost.
5) Compression – Mastery or atleast a good understanding of compression will take your recordings and make it sound as monstrous a horny elephant on hormone shots. You could start by reading this.

And now, brave new recordist – you’ve come thus far. Why not ‘like’ this post to share and help other brave new recordists?

Compression is a necessary aspect in a good mix. In subtle amounts, it adds punch, depth, and even ‘feel’ to a mix. When overused, you can end up with a stale, lifeless, squashy mix. Here I’m going to run through the basics of compression, using a lovely Tama snare track as our waveform. Compression has four main parameters.

So, what’s Attack/Release/Threshold/Ratio? I had talked about this in my previous post on Mixing drums.

But now, let’s look at it visually.

Here’s the original waveform. A beautiful transient at the start, and fades out nice and clean. Ahhhh. Click to enlarge.

Uncompressed Tama Snare Waveform

Now, let’s compress it. Here’s how it looks after using the following settings, with a threshold low enough to trigger the compressor right at the start. The white line shows the moment when the compressor starts (estimated attack), and the red line shows when the compressor ‘releases’, which means it stops acting on the waveform.

Attack: 100ms (white line) Release: 500ms (red line), Ratio 2:1

Now, let’s try different settings.

Attack: 50ms (white line) Release: 1ms (red line), Ratio 2:1

Notice how the red lines kick in almost immediately after the white lines ‘attack’ the waveform. This is because the release is set at a very low setting of 1ms. What does this mean to the audio? It means that the compression takes place almost throughout the whole waveform after the first attack since as soon as the compressor ‘releases’, the audio is ‘attacked’ immediately. Of course, threshold will determine when the compressor will stop attacking, based on the shape of the waveform.

Next example.

Attack: 1ms (white line) Release: 500ms (red line), Ratio 2:1

Makes sense now? Compare this to the original waveform and notice how the shapes are different.

Attack: 1ms (white line) Release: 1ms (red line), Ratio 2:1

Straightforward again?

Ok, now you have a better grasp of how compressors work. But, how does it affect the sound of the waveform? Let’s take the snare drum as the example.

As is obvious, the snare waveform consists of two major parts – The initial hit of the snare, and then the decay of the snare. When you have a very small attack setting, of about 1ms, the compressor acts on the initial ‘hit’ of the snare, and affects the dB based on your ratio.

What does it do to the sound again? You get a ‘crack’ sound. Yet, it sounds tiny. Why? This is because the initial transient or hit of the snare is important in giving the snare some beef as well as snap. Now, slowly increase the attack to 5ms and gradually to 15ms. You will notice more and more of the snare’s initial transient goes through uncompressed, which inturn makes the snare more present in the mix. I leave it to you to experiment with the release settings and figure out how that affects the sound.

Happy compressing!

- Sridhar

Melakartha by sridharsmusic

It is no dark art, but it did take me quite a while to get there. I’m going to share some simple ideas and concepts that can make your mix (and thereby song) a lot more appealing, and complete. When was the last time you wrote a great song in your head, but which turned out to sound like nails on a blackboard by the time you had finished recording it?

Bear in mind, this is a complete bedroom guide – If you’re the kind who came here looking for suggestions on tweaking that SSL hardware rack, or trying to reduce the noise floor on your mammoth 32-channel tube pre-amp powered mixer that sits on your desk, let me shoo you away before you get disgusted with our primal, budget mixing methods

Bedroom Tracking

A) What you’ll need -

• An interface between your instrument/mic and your computer – I’m not going to get into the details on this, there are tons of guides and comparisons on which interface to use. I personally use the Line6 GuitarPort which is an older version of the Pod X3 in the market right now and is discontinued. I’ve had good results with line6 and their products are highly recommended.(OR)
• A soundcard

• Software DAW – Cubase/ProTools/Logic/Adobe Audition/Ableton Live/Sonar, the list is endless. This is completely dependant on your preference. I really like Adobe Audition 3 for tracking so I will base the rest of this post on that, though the concepts are applicable across all the DAWs.

• Headphones/Speakers for monitoring – Highly recommended are the Sennheiser HD650 or, the cheaper Audio Technica ATH-M50

B) Setting up your DAW

• Metal has always been about precision, and heaviness. Tightly timed tracks = HEAVY! So I’m assuming that we want to be recording to a click track.
• For a bigger sound to your guitars, you MUST double track and pan your guitars. If you’re a tight player, you are most certain to enjoy the sonic results from quad-tracking your guitars as well.
• Set your DAW to record at 24 bit audio, at 48 khZ. Warning: Ensure that your interface can do this before you buy it. Refer to this guide here for detailed comparisons of audio interfaces
• Set your signal levels on your interface (using the gain feature), or using the ‘Volume’ feature on the POD – to make sure that youre getting a moderately hot signal, but this would vary if you are using different preamps. For starters, record a couple sample waveforms to check this, and see that there is not more than 5-10dB between the top (clip) areas and your highest signal level.
• Make sure your DAW inputs are set to the interface, and get tracking !
• Tip : If you’re using an amp modeller for your guitar like the line6 pod, make sure you go easy on the treble and presence knobs – somehow line6 has this tendency to add a horrific amount of those which end up making your tracks sound sterile. Bass is another tricky issue to deal with, but bass is generally more controllable during the mixing stage.

The next article coming up in a couple of days – Bedroom Mixing!

Stay tuned, and leave a comment if you have any feedback, or any questions to be answered. Cheers!

Sridhar