Recording at Home or Away

Do It Yourself Approach – There are basically two ways to record your own CD. The first is what a lot of independent artists are doing: they do it themselves in the privacy of their own home. They get themselves a computer, install Pro-Tools and go to town.

The advantage to this approach is simple. You can spend a year recording your CD and tweak every tiny thing that bugs you. You can punch in your guitar solo seven thousand times between Thanksgiving and Christmas ’til you get it right. You can fix any pitch problems, add tons of layers, spend a bunch of time getting a killer tone, go nuts without getting yourself in debt like you would if you had to pay an engineer or for the same amount of studio time.

The only problem is that unless you practically have a studio in your home, you are going to have a rough time recording a full band, especially if you play the kind of music that needs to be played live, with real musicians. Jazz, Fusion, Blues and some Rock are a few examples. Drums are a nightmare and big amps can also possibly pose some problems. That is why the kind of music that generally gets recorded using this “do it in the privacy of your own home” method is ambient, techno, electronica and the like. Not to say you can’t record other genres effectively but a recording studio tends to produce better recording results when you need to record traditional instruments.

A decent quality pro-tools system can cost anywhere from five to thirty grand depending on how many tracks (and speed) you need but it is a great investment if you plan on producing good quality recordings at home.

The Traditional Approach – Rehearse the band and get in the studio. This poses one big obstacle: MONEY! Studio time is expensive so you need to be well rehearsed or at least use musicians that are quick. Both my CDs, Big Bad Sun and my first release, Prospects, were recorded this way and with no rehearsals. We only had three days to record the Big Bad Sun CD so more then the other two guys in the band, I had to be totally prepared. I had to know exactly how I wanted to start and end each song, the form or each tune, have my lyrics together. Recording a CD in three days is impossible if you have to spend more than two hours on each song so I had to have an image of each song in my head before we even got in the studio. By the way, most CDs are recorded in about a month but when you are paying for the studio time yourself, plan on doing it in about five days or you’ll go broke.

Who Does What

The Engineer - When recording at home an engineer is out of the question (unless it is you). You would have to be Bill Gates to be able to afford paying an engineer to come over everyday for six months. In a recording studio, you will have to hire one or use the one that they give you. Out of all my years playing guitar in dozens of recording studios, I still don’t know how to turn half the stuff or much less mix my own tracks. As I said, most recording studios will supply an engineer but you may want to hire one with a good reputation. You can always listen to CDs that they engineered. Basically engineers are passive for the most part, they work best when they are told what to do. That’s where problems arise. I mean, during a recording session if the engineer where to ask me; “How do you want me to EQ the snare drum?” I would be dumbfounded for an answer. I know what I like when I hear it but I don’t know how to EQ it to make it sound like what I like. So if you are not up to giving the orders, you may want to consider a producer. A producer is who usually does the ordering. By the way, I paid the engineer for the Big Bad Sun session about twelve hundred dollars for the three days plus the mixdown.

The Producer - Sometimes you can find a guy that is good at both engineering and producing. One reason a producer is good to have is because with only a few days in the studio, you are going to have a hell of a time editing your tracks by yourself. Let me explain: let’s say you are recording your vocal track, usually you sing through the song four or five times and record each take on different track. Each time you sing through it, the producer sitting at his groovy producer desk in the studio, picks the phrases from each vocal take that he likes the best. He makes notes on your lyric sheets, marking which phrase he likes from what take. After you are done singing through the song several times he will tell the engineer how to glue the different parts he likes together. If you aren’t the greatest singer, it is an enormous undertaking, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. It would take you way to much time to do this yourself. He will also tell the engineer how to mix everything, what kind of reverb, delay, how to EQ your guitar. Being a musician, you would figure that you could tell the engineer how to mix everything but I found that after hours in the studio I tend to lose my sense of perspective but a good producer’s ears never seem to get tired. A good producer also has a fascinating ability to know how things will sound recorded. Guitarists tend to listen to the sound of our amp and that’s where it ends but the producer listens to the sound of our amp, imagines the sound hitting a specific mike placed in a specific location in the studio, travel to the mixing board, get some reverb and delay added, get mixed with the other instruments, get mastered, burned and getting stuck in a $27.99 CD player bought at K-Mart and getting listened to by someone who probably doesn’t even play the guitar. Musicians tend to listen in real time but a producer must be a clairvoyant. You should definitely take a listen to the CDs that he has produced before you hire him. Each producer has his style, some guys like everything super wet and some hate wet sounding recordings, so it is best to match up your likes and dislikes with his. When you meet with him, tell him what kind of image you have and maybe give him some CDs of recording that you like. One reason I picked the producer I did for the Big Bad Sun session is because he, like me, is a guitarist and pays special attention to mixing the guitar correctly.

In the Studio Before you Actually Start Recording

Equipment - This is what happens when you get in the studio to record your CD: You get there and bring your equipment in. Generally decent studios will already have various amps and at least one quality drum set but you may still want to bring your own if that is what you are used to. I always bring my own amp because I can dial up my sound right away but also because I have a good professional relationship with the most of the companies that offer me special deals on my equipment. For that reason I want to use their stuff on my recordings as promotion for them. If the studio has an amp that is better than yours, you can always use it instead of your own anyways.

Microphones - Next the engineer will be getting everything miked up and getting the sound together. This will take a little time. He will be placing a mike right on the speaker of your cabinet and most likely an ambient mike a few meters away. Open back combos like Fender amps generally get a mike in back also. Two or three mikes for one guitar amp. The producer may suggest specific mikes for your amp. I personally like a cheapo Shure 57 on a Marshall and Sennheiser for an ambient mike. I sometimes like to use two amps and pan them somewhat right and left, this will make some engineers crazy and other like this kind of thing. I like the subtle differences in each respective speaker. Some engineers don’t like the sound of the mike too close to the speaker, some like a 57 stuck an inch away. The sound is different but both get good results depending on who is doing the engineering.

Headphones - Recording is a very unnatural way to make music. How you hear yourself and each other will make or break the session. There are different ways to record. You can record everything separately but the disadvantage to this method is time and it also makes it pretty difficult to end songs and it also makes musical interplay an impossibility. Recording everything separately also takes a lot of time. If the tracks for type of music that you create are best recorded separately, you might want to consider going for the “do it yourself at home” method discussed earlier. The type of music that I mostly write requires, at least everything but the vocal track, to be recorded simultaneously. I used to like to be in the room with my amp and watch the other guys through the window but lately I have been playing in the same room with the bassist and drummer and run a line to my amp in a separate location. To make up for the lack of sustain I crank up the amp really loud and I seem to be able the get the tone I want. The next step is getting the mix right in your headphones. If you screw this up, you will be miserable throughout the session so it is best to get this straight right away. There are some engineers who know exactly how to send your sound back to you in your headphones and others that you will have to spell it out a thousand different ways in order to get it sounding right. I have the engineer mix a little delay or reverb on my guitar so I can play things easier. The reverb or delay on your guitar is a temporary thing only for your monitor so don’t worry if it is a little to long or short or mixed in a way that you don’t think appropriate for your music, you will be able to change it later when you mix the recording. Now you are ready to record.

Recording

Play - Now you can start recording. When the engineer or producer give the okay you can play through the tune. The first time is pretty much a rehearsal, now your ready to go. If you have it together, three or four takes may be enough. You then will go back to where the engineer and producer are and listen back to each take through the studio monitors and you can decide with the producer which take is the best. You can also punch-in anything that may not have worked out the way you wanted. Remember this: anything that bugs you a little will bug you a lot after you burn a thousand CDs. So if you hear something that you don’t like, punch-in the individual part again or do another take with the band. When you listen back to the take in the mixing room don’t let it bother you if your guitar volume is too low or the kick drum is too loud, that will all get fixed during the mixdown. If you are using Pro-Tools the producer may have the engineer fix some timing or pitch problems on the spot. Modern technology has done wonders for the recording process.

Vocal Tracks

Vocals - When I record my own music, I generally record the music first and do the vocal tracks later on. But be careful not to get stuck doing every vocal track on the last day. If you figure that you will sing every song five times and record ten songs, you’ll have to sing fifty takes. Sing a couple of songs a day and don’t risk injury. As I mentioned before, the producer will pick different sections or each vocal take and edit them together to get one perfect vocal track for each song. He also may fix any pitch or timing problems using the computer. Make sure you have copies of your lyrics for the engineer and producer if you are using one, as I mentioned, they will be marking which individual phrases to glue together to make the final track.

The Mixdown - After the tunes are recorded the engineer and producer start to mix everything. He will add reverb and delay on various parts and EQ things. The producer and engineer might fight about certain things here, if that happens leave for a while and come back later. You are paying the cash so you will give the final okay. Usually getting the first tune mixed down takes a ton of time, maybe three or four hours. After that the next tune will go faster. Every engineer is different. I have seen guys mix a whole CD in several hours and make it sound great and other guys spend a week mixing and have the recording end up sounding like crap. We spent about twenty-four hours mixing Big Bad Sun.

Choosing A Studio

What to look for - Because the computer is used mostly these days rather than tape, the process is a lot faster. When things where recorded on tape half your studio time was spent rewinding each take. It may seem trivial but when you record nine or ten songs four or five times each, puch-in solos, separately record the vocal tracks several times each and edit them, you spend an enormous time rewinding tape. Since studio time is expensive definitely pick a digital studio over an analogue one. Whether or not you record at home or in a recording studio, there is also one more great advantage to using Pro-Tools. Since it is pretty much standard software for recording, you can send the data out for various purposes. Mastering is one example but also imagine this, you could record your tune and send the data to me, and then I could record in a guitar solo and send it back to you. You could send your data all over the world and have different people record different tracks. Couldn’t really do that in the old days. Generally the medium sized studios will charge you on average four of five hundred dollars a day including an engineer. Less if you bring in your own engineer but of course you will need to pay him separately for his time. The big studios will charge you more and may be less interested in the project.

Best of Both Worlds

There are some guys that combine both the “do it yourself at home” and “traditional” methods for spectacular results. Keyboards and sequences are recorded at home, the data brought to the studio, drums, guitars and vocals added, data brought back home, tweaked and tweaked again, etc.. This method is also very cost effective as it reduces your time in the studio.

Once It’s Recorded

Mastering - Don’t screw up here. You get in the studio, record a great session, mix it down, and add the perfect blend of equalization, reverb, delay and whatnot. Now you have to get it mastered. When you master a CD this is what happens, the data goes to a mastering studio, the mastering engineer will then arrange the songs in the proper order, do fade-outs on the songs he is supposed to, make sure all the songs are the same level, EQ the whole thing, compress the music so there is no jagged edges sticking out, and raise the general volume. He basically makes it easy to listen to. My general rule of thumb is that I never let the engineer who mixed the music master it. It is a whole different thing and it is best to let someone who listening with fresh ears to master it. Mastering takes four to eight hours and costs between four hundred to a grand depending on the mastering studio and amount of songs that need to be mastered. I would suggest you wait at least a week to master your CD. You should listen to it a bunch of times in different stereo systems before to make sure you like the mix first. Studio monitors sound great so don’t let them fool you, compare it to some other CDs at home in the same stereo that you always listen to.

Is it worth it? - I would guestimate that five days in the studio, including the mixdown will set you back about five or six grand depending on what studio, what engineer and producer you use. Lets see here, fifteen dollars per CD multiplied by one thousand CDs equals fifteen thousand dollars, which in turn will make you ten thousand dollars in profit. If you sell them all you can re-press another thousand. Lets say the whole thing costs you five thousand dollars to do, you will need to sell three hundred and thirty three units. If you have four guys in your band, you would each have to sell eighty three CDs each (and you can probably sell more than a few to your own mother). If you can put together a good CD, a website and gigs it is not a tremendous undertaking at all. Imagine if the CD where to hit and you sell ten thousand of them, $150,000!!!!! Stranger things have happened.

Whichever recording method works best for you if for you to decide and both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. My final advice is this: it is easier making music than selling it so be not only an artist but also be a businessman. Do the math, homework and all the preparations you need and finally sell enough to make a profit. Let me know how things turn out.

Some people like to let the ideas flow during recording. Maybe you would do this in a jam band to catch some brilliance of spontaneity. Perfecting your songs and arrangements beforehand, however, can save you a lot of time in the “studio.” Making a good recording always takes longer than one would like, especially if you plan to go on the road soon. Have a good idea of what sound you’re looking for before you record. If you don’t like a section of lyrics, change it. Chances are you will like it less later.

9.) Be creative, but don’t overproduce.

Demos should leave a little to the imagination. If you’re sending a demo to a label, you want to give them your “sound,” while giving them room for new ideas. You definitely don’t want to produce in such a way that your recordings sound nothing like your live show. The recording should “demonstrate” how you sound live, only more perfected.

Harmony is a good idea to spice up vocals. Double- (or even triple-) track your vocals to add fullness. Panning instruments gives a nice stereo sound, but some frown upon panning demos as A&R execs may be listening to your demo with one broken speaker (doesn’t seem likely, but you never know…).

8.) Listen to professional recordings.

While it is a good idea to listen to other local bands, matching your recordings to pro recordings gets you closer to the industry standard. While it is difficult to achieve this sound, aiming high will get you closer. Listen to your own tracks relative to pro recordings rather than other home demos.

7.) Minimize extraneous noise.

This is probably the most obvious tip. Record in a room that doesn’t echo (unless you want it to) that lets in as little noise as possible. There’s nothing worse than hearing children screaming in your mix (unless that’s what you’re going for).

6.) Get your sound right before recording.

Perfecting your overall sound before recording minimizes the need for post-recording editing. Use a pair of good headphones and listen carefully to the input stream coming from the mics. You may need to use a mixer to adjust the frequencies. If you have a warm blues amp and you’re looking for a more modern rock sound, you may need to reduce the mid frequencies and increase the presence. Watch the amount of reverb you use, you don’t want your input to sound muffled.

5.) Get it all mastered.

Either do it yourself or send it to a pro. When mastered, a set of songs are sonically maximized, the volume will be that of industry standards and equal across tracks, and the songs will be equalized to maximum potential.

4.) Be comfortable.

If it’s hot, turn on the A/C between takes. If you’re tired, take a break. Playing when you’re tired can result in poor performance. Get plenty of sleep the night before. Keep hydrated (especially if you’re the vocalist). Warm-up for everything, no matter what you do.

3.) Use the right mics.

Notice that I said “right” mics rather than “expensive” mics? Often times a well-considered, lower range mic can do a better job than an expensive mic that doesn’t suit your need. (Disclaimer: stupid story ahead!) When I first started recording many years ago, I purchased the Shure SM58 to record with, thinking it was a better choice than the SM57 since it cost more. What resulted was a muffled mess of noise. I ended up purchasing the SM57 anyway. The moral: just because a mic costs more doesn’t mean that it’s better. Do your research and purchase the mic that suits your needs.

This is harder for vocalists. I’ve tried many mics ranging up and down the price spectrum. While I tend to stay away from the super low end (and can’t afford the super high end), I have found that price does not equal sound quality. Determine what type of voice you have, and then do some research as to what mic suits you best. The best mic I ever used was a handmade mid-price tube condenser mic from a local company. I preferred it over mics twice its price because it suited my needs.

Finally, choosing the correct mic to your needs eliminates the need to mess around with EQ settings. This saves both time and the quality of your sound.

2.) Know your gear!

Learn to use your recording system properly. If you use software, learn how to edit tracks effectively. It’s best to have an idea of what every button and knob does, even if you never use it. The quality of recordings increases exponentially as you learn to use your gear.

Similarly, you should have some idea of how to mix and apply effects. The recording process is difficult, but the mixing and editing process is twice and grueling and time-consuming (but very rewarding).

1.) Practice.

This applies to every aspect of music. You should be able to play in your sleep! Doing so will not only improve your performance, but will vastly increase the time spent recording. You will notice that your abilities will increase dramatically over time. Try new techniques (especially if you’re a budding vocalist) and you won’t be disappointed with your growth.

Keane Li is the songwriter/guitarist for the band Festizio. He is also the winner of the 2003 Online Rock Festival’s “Original Song” award. Visit: www.festizio.net for more information.

About the Author

Keane Li is the songwriter/guitarist for the band Festizio. He is also the winner of the 2003 Online Rock Festival’s “Original Song” award. Visit: www.festizio.net for more information. Also check out… Top 10 Tips: Writing a “Hit” Song

In this day and age, where making an album can cost less than $3,000, just about anyone can make an album. The problem is that just about anyone does…

Every week I receive CDs for review from around the world. These CDs are from the independent industry, so they’re people doing the music they like rather than the music a label tells them to do. This is a plus as, generally, these albums are much better than what comes out of the major labels. If you haven’t read my reviews, I suggest you do; there is a lot of undiscovered talent out there.

However, as I don’t like writing negative reviews, I receive a lot more than what graces our pages. The thing is one quickly realizes that not everybody should be making albums.

I know how this sounds, so let me explain what I mean by this. I’m not saying that the albums I don’t review are made by untalented people; it’s just that, generally, they are made by people who should have waited a while before making an album. They do have evident talent, but they should have developed their abilities a little more before making an album.

For a band

If you’re in a band and playing a lot of gigs, when should you make an album? Some will tell you that you need one to get gigs out of your normal circuit, that is, other towns and markets. That is not exactly so. If you have a good buzz going, your reputation will precede you. What you can do is simply rent a good recording system and the services of a sound engineer and record a show. Put your best received three or four songs together on a CD and you can use this to try and get other markets.

Overall, this whole operation will be quicker and will cost a lot less. You can do this for under $500. I suggest doing this early on as it will allow you to hear how good you sound and where you need to improve (no-one sounds perfect live, not even the seasoned professionals). Also, you never know who will be at your show, so keep a few copies with you in case someone from the industry shows up and asks for something. Just remember to put a contact name, address, telephone numbers, e-mail address printed directly onto the CD. These are more important than the band name and the song titles.

Remember that making an album suggests that you have at least 50 minutes of good music to present. If your band has only ten original songs, now might not be the best time to record an album. You should probably write more songs. Introduce a new one instead of one that the audience doesn’t seem to like as much. Check out the reaction. When you have around 50 minutes of orginal music that is all well received, then you should look into making an album.

A sure sign, also, is when people come up to you after a show and ask you if you have an album to sell. I don’t mean your aunt who’s come out to see how good you are, I’m talking about people you don’t know, people you’ve never met before. When they come up to see you and ask for an album, then you should consider making one.

Also, it’s important to remember that a studio album will not sound like a live show. The reason is fairly obvious; in the studio, you have endless tracks to play with and you can record a track as many times as you like before getting it right.

Unfortunately, as most live albums are not really live: tracks are redone in the studio, tracks are added, you don’t realize this when listening to the Rolling Stones live.

The best example of this I have seen, and I’m sure it’s not the only one, is Asia. After their second album, Alpha, which was recorded in Morin Heights on a 48-track system, before the days of digital recording, they did a show in Japan which was filmed for MTV. The show is called Asia in Asia. If you listen to this recording and compare the songs to the studio versions, you realize that there is a lot missing.

So, when recording an album, remember that you won’t sound like that live unless you want to inundate your live show with recordings and MIDIs.

Another thing you have to remember is that your stage presence also affects your sound. Sometimes you’ve been hearing a band on the radio for months and you can’t stand them. Then, because their opening for another band you want to see, or because a woman twisted your arm, you’re seeing them live and you realize that they’re great. Mind, you, the opposite can also happen. This is because their stage presence is so good, that you’re not just hearing the music, you’re getting an experience for each of your five senses.

Remember that your studio recording will not deliver your stage presence. Another reason for making sure your material is strong before going into the studio.

The solo artist

When you’re solo and not gigging, and there can be many legitimate reasons for not gigging: your first gigs bring in no money, yet a lot of the musicians who would be willing to play for you will require payment, or you may simply live in a market which is not into the style of music you’re playing. There can be many more legitimate reasons why you’re not gigging.

So when is it time to start recording?

First, you should have a fairly large amount of songs. Over the years, the ones that sound best to you will be obvious, these are the ones you’ll be playing the most often. Once you have fifteen or more of these songs which you keep playing over and over, that’s when you should consider recording an album.

And that’s when things start getting complicated.

Once you’ve made the conscious decision of cutting an album, there will be songs you haven’t played in years which will start haunting your every waking moment. Some will even be in your dreams (and that’s not just a manner of speaking).

Because, as you’re now focused on recording rather than just playing a song on a single instrument for yourself, the older songs start taking a new life and you start seeing them in a new light.

The best advice I can give you at this point is make demos. If you have access to MIDI software, this is the cheapest way to go. Soon (I have been saying this for a while, but it is a monumental task) I will be showing you how to do it using Guitar Pro 4. You don’t need to wait for me though.

Demo even those older songs which you hardly remember unless you really don’t like them anymore. Sometimes just adding drums can make a huge difference. The demos don’t have to be perfect; just have more tracks than just a guitar and a voice. You’ll also start getting all sorts of ideas as to how to improve the material.

Then, the worst part. Choose the ten or so tracks that will be going on the album. You’ll probably need input from other people for this. It gets so complicated at some point that you can’t see your way clearly out of it. That’s why I strongly recommend you don’t wait until you have a hundred good songs before making that first album.

That’s what I did, and let me tell you that selecting the songs was a nightmare. I called upon professionals in the industry to help me out, such as Warren Buttler, Jeff Sherman and Robert Berry. I hope you don’t have to through that ordeal. It took me about 8 months just to make the appropriate selections and I’m still uncertain as to some of the tracks.

Once you have your demos and have made the selections, then and only then, is it time to cut the album.

Overall

Remember that your first album will follow you all your life; like it or not. Suppose you sell 500 copies and that’s about it. Then, five or ten years down the road, you sign up with an important label. They’ll want to hear that album. If they like it, they’ll re-edit it. If they don’t, they won’t.

Suppose your worst critic finds out about that first album and, in retrospect, you realize it really isn’t good, what do you think it will do to your career? You can’t undo the past.

So, overall, before making that first album, make sure it’s the right time and that you are really ready for it.

**Note: for those of you already familiar with the basics of recording audio onto your computer, you can skip the “Essentials” section and head straight on down to “Shaping The Sound”.

Essentials

The first and most important thing is your setup. It’s worth mentioning at this point that much of what I go on to say is applicable to real hardware, but I’m assuming most of you are like me and can’t afford the real stuff ;). So put up with me if I babble like a nerd for a few minutes – it’s all important in the long run. There are a few things you really should have in order to successfully record live instruments onto your computer.

A fast CPU

Not so much essential as it is preferable, to keep things running nice and smooth. I’m running a 1600Mhz AthlonXP, but anything down to a PIII 500Mhz will be fine.

A decent soundcard

More specifically, an ASIO soundcard. I won’t get overly technical here, but basically, if you don’t have an ASIO soundcard, don’t worry; you will still be able to record live audio into your sequencer, but you won’t be able to hear the effects processing in real time. You will only hear it on playback. If you do have an ASIO soundcard, then providing your CPU is up to the job, you’ll be able to hear the input of your instrument, outputted almost instantly complete with EQ, effects etc. This is obviously the best way to work. While I’m on the subject, a decent ASIO soundcard will set you back around £/$120, but considering that for all intensive purposes this one card can outperform pretty much any piece of bass/guitar hardware…it’s a sound investment don’t you think?

Software

There is such a huge range of software available that it would be silly to try and cover it all here, but basically you need a sequencing package that supports direct monitoring. Examples of this are Steinberg’s Cubase SX (which I’m using), ProTools, Cakewalk Sonar, GuitarTracks (which I know alot of you use) and so on. You will also need ‘plug-ins‘, specifically dynamics and EQ plug-ins. This is just a fancy word for additional pieces of software that function like stomp boxes or FX units. Many if not all of the processes I will describe make use of various plug-ins. Thankfully there are many great free ones out there on the net. Check out www.directxfiles.com to get some! It will also help to have amp modeling software, but I’ll touch on that a little later on.

Getting Ready to Record

Right, so hopefully you’re adequately kitted out on the equipment front, you’ve got your Audio sequencing package all fired up, so how about we lay down some bass!

The most common first question is “Help! How do I get my bass into my soundcard – the plugs are different and stuff!!”. Well there are several ways to go about this but the most straightfoward is to have some sort of pre-amp which will allow you to plug your 1/4″ guitar lead jack into the front, and run the signal out of the back, into the phono sockets (or mini-jack line in) on your soundcard. Your pre-amp could be a dedicated one, or an effects unit (if you have one) set to bypass, as it will essentially function the same as a pre-amp.

Now your bass is connected to your PC… why isn’t it making a noise? Well depending on whether or not you’re using an ASIO soundcard the answer varies. If you’re using a bog standard soundcard, you need to go to the windows mixer (the little yellow speaker icon in the bottom right hand corner), un-mute your Line Input and make sure it’s turned up. All being well, you should hear sound straight away! Now, if you’re using an ASIO soundcard then you need to ensure two things.

1. That ASIO direct monitoring in your sequencer is off (if your sequencer has this option)
2. That you have created an audio channel in your sequencer, and it’s inputs are armed and ready for recording.

Hopefully you should be hearing something now. The first rule before recording is always be sure to get your levels – I usually give my bass a good hard twang, constantly adjusting the input level until the clip indicator disappears. This way, you know you have plenty of signal overhead. Clipping is hard, if not impossible to remove once it’s ‘printed’ to tape/hard drive, so best to fix it at the input stage before it becomes a problem.

Seeing how you’ll be spending a good deal of time with your hand on the mouse, it seems most practical to lay down a few bars of bass riff first rather than try to wrestle with playing and tweaking at the same time! For the purposes of this article I’ve played in a few bars of slap bass, along with some drums and guitar which are introduced a little later, to help place the bass sound within the context of a song.

Shaping The Sound

Needless to say the sound coming straight out of your bass is not a pretty one. It is probably quite boxy, the levels are uneven and it certainly wouldn’t sit well in the mix as it stands now. Chances are it sounds a little like this;

Click here to listen to the unprocessed bass sound:

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Again, notice the boxy tone, as well as the uneveness of the levels, specifically where I hammer on during the last part of the bassline.

This is due to two things (three if you count my playing – but we won’t go there!)

1. You are not using a bass amp! Bass cabinets have the nice effect of rolling off alot of the more undesirable high frequencies, and accentuating the more pleasant lows. Most also feature a pretty decent EQ section for further adjusting the sound. When recording DI (direct input – no amp), pretty much everything gets through, including string rattle, the sound of your hand moving over the strings and so on. Which all makes for a rather nasty wooden sound.
2. You are not using any dynamics processing. Actually this is largely related to point number 1, in that most bass amps include some sort of compressor and/or limiter to regulate the signal. The output of a bass guitar is far less predictable and easy to manage than that of a regular guitar, especially when slapping or popping.

Thankfully there is a solution to both of these problems, so lets work on the second one, first – regulating your signal. Any dynamics processing should ideally come first in the signal chain.

Dynamics

There are two options here – you can either compress the signal, or limit it. A compressor works by constantly adjusting the input and reducing it by the ratio you define (see below) to keep the volume comfortably between the nominal and maximum range, preventing signal overload. So basically it has the effect of controlling the peak volume of any given signal, as well as adding sustain to a sound by keeping the volume more or less constant as the signal decays. But if used improperly, it can also have the effect of taking away all the true dynamics of your playing, in that there will be no distinction between soft and loud. A limiter works a little differently. It will retain the dynamics of your sound, but if the input signal exceeds a certain level, it lowers the volume thereby reducing any nasty clipping or distortion.

Which to use? Well that depends on the style of music you play. Hard rock basslines will benefit from compression, as this will emphasize the attack, raise the overall level and “punch-to-the-gut” factor of your sound, and will also greatly improve sustain. If however you’re more inclined towards more expressive forms of playing where you rely on the contrast between quiet and loud, then you’ll want to use a Limiter. It’s worth mentioning that a compressor can act as a limiter, but a limiter can never act as a compressor. So if you can’t lay your hands on limiter plug-in…don’t worry.

Most good compressor plug-ins will have the following controls:

Threshold – this is the level at which compression kicks in

Ratio – this is the amount of compression, given in ratios like, 5:1, 12:1 etc.

Attack – given in milliseconds, this determines how long the compressor waits before reducing the signal, to allow the attack to get through.

Release – how long will the input signal continue to be compressed after the initial attack. If you require a long sustained sound, you want a long release time. If you want it short and punchy… well you can guess how it goes.

Knee – not all compressors will have this, but it’s basically a way of controlling how long it takes for the compression effect to be introduced after the signal threshold is exceeded. Again, quick aggressive playing requires a low knee setting, whereas slower expressive playing requires a higher one.

Gain – compression lowers volume, so a gain control is required to bring it back up to a normalized level. Some compressors have an ‘auto-makeup-gain’ setting, which automatically compensates for the loss in volume.

So, to put all this into practice, say you wanted to even out the levels of a slap-bass line. You would call up your dynamics processor as an insert on the audio channel that contains your bass, set a ratio of something like 10:1, a fairly quick release time like 50ms, and an attack time of about 15ms. Knee, you could probably turn off altogether. You’ll want the threshold to be low enough to catch all your slapping, but high enough to preserve your quieter playing. Also the effect of compressing the signal will lower its output, so you’ll need to make up the gain that was lost during compression with the Gain setting. There are no exact figures for this set in stone – it’s just down to experimentation. Most good compressor plug-ins will give you a graphical representation of how your signal is being compressed, so you’ll be able to judge for yourself whether or not the threshold is too high or low, or the release is too long and so on.

Click here to listen to the same bassline with compression applied

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

This has fixed things somewhat – the overall level has been raised, and that hammer-on is far more audible than before.

Something to be wary of here is setting the attack time too low. Perhaps the loudest portion of your signal, will be the attack – that is the initial sound of your finger/thumb/pick striking the string. From personal experience I’ve found that setting the compressor plug-ins attack time to include this portion of the sound in the compression process causes some degree of clipping (and digital distortion is not pleasant to the ear like amp distortion). So for best results, never have your attack time set to 0ms as it tends to overload the compressor. In hardware this would simply result in over-compression, but software can often be a little less forgiving and has its own set of inherent flaws and artifacts to deal with.

**Note: if after all your efforts you’re still getting clipping, this means the signal has distorted on the way in to the sound card. See “Getting Ready to Record” for advice on checking your levels.

Equalization (EQ)

Hopefully, after messing around with your dynamics processing, you should have a more regulated, even sound. But it still doesn’t sound right. This is where EQ comes in. As ever, there is more than one way of EQ’ing a sound.

Parametric – basically a filter, Parametric EQ allows you to focus in on a specific frequency in a sound using the Frequency control, and either cut it or boost it using the Gain control. A good parametric EQ will also have a Q setting which is used to control to what extent raising or lowering any given frequency will affect the frequencies surrounding it.

Graphical Multiband – commonly found on the front of bass amps, in stomp-box form, and on the front of some old sketchy Hi-Fi systems, graphical EQ is used for more approximate shaping of the sound and has the advantage of giving you a graphical representation of the shape of your EQ curve. A basic 10 band graphic equalizer will allow you, for example, to boost at 400hz, but you may well be pulling up 300hz and 500hz too. The more bands you have, the more control you have.

Multiband Parametric – yep you guessed it, a combination of the previous two types. A multiband parametric EQ is more beneficial in the sense that you can control the extent to which cutting or boosting a frequency pulls the sidebands along with it. Each filter can have it’s own Q setting, allowing for far greater control of the sound.

So, again, how do we put all this into practice? Well perhaps the greatest tip given to me with regards to EQ’ing, is to think of all the frequencies in a sound as being musical notes. So for example, it’s more than likely that there is an underlying ‘tone’ to your bassline you recorded which sticks out and generally makes it sound bad, boxy, dull etc. What you want to do is identify the approximate pitch of this unwanted tone. Rather than aimlessly fiddling with the EQ until you roughly achieve the desired effect, set your Q setting to narrow (as narrow as it will go in fact) and boost it as high as you can. Use the frequency control to gradually sweep through the sound until eventually it will hit the offending frequency, or ‘note’ if you will, and make a rather loud jar-like sound. Now all you have to do is cut that frequency, and you’ll notice an instant improvement.

Click here to listen to the bassline with compression and EQ added

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

In my experience, I usually find cutting at 200-250Hz by about -8db really removes that horrible boxy tone and also helps cut down interference between the bass and the kick drum once it’s playing within the context of a song. A parametric filter set to low-shelf, boosting at around 100Hz by 3 to 4db will emphasize the extreme lows, especially if you’re a 5 string player. If you find your sound is degenerating into a mass of rumble and click, roll off some of the bass and apply a subtle boost with a wide Q setting at anywhere from 400-500Hz. This will add definition to the actual notes played. If you find some of the top end has mysteriously vanished, it can’t hurt to boost the high-mids with a wide Q by a few decibels, just to brighten things up. These aren’t ‘definitive’ figures here – just recommendations. You’ll soon find out what works and what doesn’t.

Amp Simulation

We could leave it there – your bass is hopefully sounding a heck of alot better now and would stand up quite well in a track. But it’s still lacking the warmth and character that makes up a good bass sound. And this warmth and character is usually only achievable if you possess a bass amp. If like me, you have unsympathetic neighbours and a wallet so empty it could float away in the breeze, then chances are you don’t have an amp. But don’t panic! What you need is amp/cabinet simulation software. Now alot of what I mentioned above is achievable through free software, and indeed chances are your sequencer will have dynamics and EQ built in as standard. Amp and Cabinet simulation however, comes with a price. Not a fortune mind you, but it will involve purchasing the software. I would highly recommend ReValver, at around $90 (there is a fully working demo version up for download). It has simulated pre-amps, EQ modules, modulation effects, and more importantly – power amps and speaker cabinets all the way up to 2×15″ and 1×18″. There’s not a great deal here to explain – you simply pick a speaker cabinet, and away you go.

But…this presents a few small problems as I have found out. The speaker simulations are in essence, a very complex series of parametric filters and other effects, such as distortion, all working in very precise manners to model the physical behaviour of a real speaker. What this means, is that all that hard work you did EQ’ing back there can, potentially, be ruined! The EQ that’s going on in the speaker simulation is conflicting with the frequencies you cut or boosted earlier on in the signal chain. Added to this, the speaker itself will no doubt possess its own inherently undesirable frequencies, as can be heard in the example file.

Click here to listen to the bassline with compression, EQ and Amp simulation

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

However, the solution to this is simple. Place equalization after the speaker simulation. Just use the same technique as described in shaping the raw bass sound, to cut out the offending frequencies and shape the sounds to your needs.

Click here to listen to the final processed sound, including post-speaker EQ

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Editor’s Note: The difference between #4 and #5 is pretty subtle and hard to hear on a small PC speaker system, but go back and listen to #1 and you can hear the improvement clearly. -Dan

As for dynamics – personally, I find placing them post-speaker is a bad idea. The speaker simulation goes as far as to emulate the idle amp noise! Placing a compressor after your amp will in effect raise the volume of this noise, and you’ll end up having to resort to noise-gates and all other such malarky and then…well it just gets messy. So personally, I don’t do it. Ever. But heck you might get different results than me.

Anything else?

Yep. Just remember, if you’re using an active bass you’d be better off setting its built in EQ to flat. All that extra bass boosted by the active circuitry will pump the compressor needlessly and sap alot of the energy from your playing, and indeed the recording as a whole. It will also cause the compressor to kick in unpredictably, and it’s generally a bad idea.

Lastly, for best results try to keep things roughly in the following order: Dynamics -> EQ -> FX. Or, if you’re using speaker simulation: Dynamics -> EQ (to shape the bass sound) Speaker/Cabinet -> EQ (to shape the overall amp sound).

Well that just about wraps it up. All of the above is based on the assumption you’re using your computer to record, but as I said at the beginning, much of it is applicable to real situations with real hardware, with the exception of things like mic techniques of course – something I confess to having absolutely no knowledge of. Also as I’ve said throughout nothing here is definitive. I’m still learning new things by the day, but if even some of what I have learnt and described here comes in handy to you in your recordings or demos – well then that’s a good thing isn’t it? Happy Slapping!

Links

To help get you on your way here are some relevant links.

• www.db-audioware.com – home of Dave Browns excellent dynamics processing plug-ins
• www.waves.com – makers of the awesome Waves 4.0 plug-in pack, also used in the example mp3’s for EQ’ing

Multi-track Recording

The most important device to understand when making a home recording is the multi-track recorder. A multi-track recorder is a recording device that can record individual things concurrently and separately so that they can be played, recorded over, or otherwise manipulated individually without disturbing other parts of the mix. For example, you can record the guitar separately from the other instruments thus enabling you to change the guitar’s volume, its effects, or any number of other characteristics without changing anything in the other instruments. In fact, you could even erase the guitar completely and the rest of the recording would remain unchanged.

To illustrate this, let’s look at how an analog 4-track recorder works. The diagram below is a representation of the surface of the tape used to record your instruments. In most 4-track recorders, it will be nothing more than a standard cassette tape like the ones you use in your home stereo system.

Figure 1

Each “track” in the illustration is an area that can be recorded onto separately. For instance, the guitar mentioned above could be recorded onto track number 1, the drums could be on track number 2, the bass could be on track number 3, and the vocals could be on track number 4. With such a system of separation, the guitar could be erased from track number 1 without affecting the instruments and vocals recorded on the other three tracks. Also, using this system, the tracks 2, 3, and 4 could be played while track number 1 is recording. This makes it possible for the guitar to be recorded while the musician jams along with the other three tracks on the tape.

A 4-track recorder has four parallel divisions or sections called tracks where individual and separate sources can be played or recorded. In analog equipment containing more than four tracks, this system is mechanically the same, except the tape is usually larger so that it can physically contain more tracks. On the other hand, digital equipment requires a little imagination to understand. The principle of separation of the concurrent tracks is the same, but the tracks are created digitally inside the machine. You can’t (at least I can’t) draw them out on paper, but for conceptual purposes, they are the same as those in any analog multi-track recorder.

Ping-Pong

Once you understand how a multi-track system works, you’re ready to tackle the subject of ping-ponging. In the tabletop sport of ping-pong, a little plastic ball is bounced back and forth across a table. In multi-tracking, a recorded piece of audio is bounced (via recording) from one track to another. Consider the illustration below.

Figure 2

Let’s say we wanted to move the guitar recording from its current position in track 1 into a new position on track 4. We would (through some controls on the multi-track machine) record what is on track 1 onto track 4 by playing the tape and using the appropriate knobs and switches to set track 4 in “record mode.” Once that was done, the tape’s tracks would now be configured like this.

Figure 3

As you can see, the guitar has been recorded onto track 4. It didn’t, however, erase the guitar that was already on track 1. It simply copied it. On a digital machine, this can be done electronically without having to physically record (and listen through the whole song) like we would using analog equipment. It would be a similar internal process to the one that occurs when you copy and paste text on you computer.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Why would you want to move the guitar to another track in the first place? The truth is you probably wouldn’t, but if you wanted to move both the bass and the guitar onto track 4 you would gain a major advantage. In Figure 2, you only had one empty track, but if you moved the guitar and the bass onto track 4, you would leave two tracks available to be recorded over by other instruments.

Figure 4

As in figure 3, the guitar and bass haven’t been erased from their original tracks, they’ve just been copied as a set onto track 4. The good news is that you have two tracks available to use now instead of only one, but the bad news is that now whatever changes you make to the bass will also affect the guitar. They are now tied together inseparably onto a single track. You have in effect just “ping-ponged” them from their original tracks. The technique of ping-ponging can be used over and over again as a means of turning four tracks into as many tracks as you need. The only drawback is that each time you record and erase a track on an analog tape, it will suffer some wear and tear, and each time you move it from one track to another the quality of sound for that instrument (or voice) will be reduced. This loss of sound quality (called generation loss) is something you should keep an eye (or ear) on. In theory, ping-ponging can be done an unlimited number of times. However, on tape there is a practical limit. On the other hand, if you’re recording digitally, there is virtually no generation loss at all, so ping-pong to your heart’s content.

Punch in/out

Sometime during the recording process, someone is bound to make a mistake. A guitar player may hit a sour note, a bad cord might make an electrical hum shoot through a recorded track, or a phone might ring in the background of an otherwise good vocal recording. Any number of things might go wrong. In fact, any number of things will go wrong. Don’t let it stress you too much; it’s all just part of the recording experience. Besides, thanks to a process of punching in and punching out, those little recording faux pas can usually be reduced to nothing more than easily remedied inconveniences.

Basically, punching in and punching out is a process for editing out mistakes on individual tracks. It works something like this: Let’s say the guitar is to be recorded onto track two. Your guitar player is on a really good day and gets it perfect on his first attempt except for one wrong chord in the middle of the second verse. Using the technique of punching in and punching out, you won’t have to make him do the whole thing over again. He’ll only have to play through the part of the song where the mistake took place. All you have to do as the recording guy is rewind the tape to a few seconds ahead of the mistake (far enough ahead for the guitar player to get in the groove), and play it back while he jams along. Once the playback gets near the spot where the mistake was, you start recording his guitar onto the same track (punch in) and when the playback gets past the mistake, you stop recording (punch out). Planning the punches on places in the music where there is a pause in the guitar part will ensure a nearly seamless fix even on inexpensive equipment.

In addition to fixing mistakes, the process is very good for doing parts over and over until you get them just the way you want. It’s especially good for insertion of backup vocals and special effects. We’ll talk more about this in Part 3 when we discuss the step-by-step process of home multi-track recording.

Mixdown

Once you’ve recorded everything you want and you’ve ping-ponged and edited your recording to your satisfaction, you’ll be ready to mix it all together, add effects, equalize the complete mix, and record the whole thing onto a single master tape or onto any number of digital media. This is called mixdown. No matter what kind of multi-track recorder you’re using, some kind of mixdown is always necessary.

If the multi-track unit is analog, the mixdown is done by playing all the tracks back and adjusting them so that they sound good together. Once that is done, the finished mix can be recorded onto a cassette or can be digitized as a finished product. If the multi-track is digital, its final mix can be recorded in the same way, or it can be converted directly to a digital format that can be read by a CD, DVD, or MP3 player. The resulting recording from either a digital or an analog 4-track can then be used as a master for making copies.

A Word on Detail

Detail, or attention to detail, is the most important concept in all recording. Even though you’re on a budget and your equipment is a little lacking, if you pay close attention to the details, your finished product can still turn out to be something you can be proud of. Bad recordings aren’t usually the result of one giant mistake. Instead, they often result from the cumulative effect of a huge amount of seemingly insignificant oversights. For instance, if you have one bad mic cord that causes a nearly inaudible hum on a single take, it probably won’t hurt the overall mix too much, but if you use that same cord every time you record any take on any track, the hum will multiply to where it becomes real problem. It will ultimately ruin your whole recording. Don’t let one anything ruin your hard work. Always use the best equipment available to you, never say, “that’s good enough,” and never be afraid to do a second take. Later in the process, you may not be able to. It’s the little things – the details – that make all the difference in the world.

In Part 3 of “Recording on a Budget,” we’ll begin a step-by-step examination of those details as we walk through making a home multi-track recording.

Also check out… Recording on a Budget Part 1: The Equipment

Step 1: Decisions, Decisions…

The first thing you need to do when you’re ready to record is to decide why. Seems simple, doesn’t it? On the surface, it is; but you need to remember that your reasons for recording in the first place will greatly influence nearly every aspect of the recording process, including the money. If you want a recording intended for sale to the public, you will most likely need to go to a studio and shell out some cash. However, for other purposes requiring a little less perfection such as making a demo tape or making a keepsake for yourself and your closest friends, a home recording can be just as satisfying and a whole lot less expensive. Simply put, you can save a ton of money by doing it yourself. In fact, buying the equipment needed to make a home recording can easily cost less than paying for studio time to do only a couple of songs. And best of all, you can use your equipment over and over again until you’ve recorded and re-recorded everything and anything you ever wanted.

Step 2: Take Inventory

Once you’ve bravely decided that you want to record your material on your own, you need to do a realistic assessment of what equipment you already have. Just walk into the practice room or (like in my case) all over the house and look around. If you’ve been playing long enough to get to the point where you’re ready to record, chances are you’ll already have a variety of miscellaneous equipment lying around that can be useful. Many of the things you’ll need won’t necessarily even be part of your band’s gigging equipment. Just look to your home entertainment system, and you should see a few helpful items. Don’t forget you’re doing this on a budget, so you don’t want to overlook anything. For a basic idea of some things you’re likely to need, check out the photo and list below:

Recording device for mixdown

• Cassette Deck
• Home Computer (DVD/CD Burner)
• Reel to Reel Tape Machine
• Mini Disc Recorder
• Multi-track recorder
• PA Equipment
• Effects Unit(s)
• Equalizer
• Mic stands
• Mixer
• Speakers
• Mics
• Cables (all kinds)
• Headphones
• Paper and Pencil
• Pillows, mattresses, sheets of plywood or Plexiglas
• Duct Tape (you always need duct tape)

The setup in the photo is about as basic as a recording setup should ever get unless you’re planning to record something live directly to tape. Most of the equipment is inexpensive, and most of it is really old (ever see a Roland Space-Echo?), but I once used it to make a demo good enough to burn onto a CD and distribute at shows. And the only cost (since I already owned a Yamaha MT100 4-track recorder and a fair amount of PA equipment) was the cost of a few blank cassette tapes.

After reading through the list of things needed to record, you may be wondering why you need so many different recording devices. The truth is, you don’t. You’ll only need one multi-track recorder and at least one other recording device to complete the recording process, so use the best thing you have. A DVD recorder would be great, but a cassette tape deck will do the job if that’s all you’ve got. Again, you’re on a budget, so making do with what you have is the name of the game. “Making do” is an art unto itself, so don’t be afraid to be creative when coming up with the necessities. For instance, for recording purposes anything can double as a mic stand. You can use lamps, music stands, old drum stands, or even weird broom handle contraptions held together with duct tape. Also, for budget purposes, a home stereo EQ can be used to do the final mixdown. Don’t overlook those cheaper mics either. They may have some usefulness when you’re trying to track down enough mics to record the drums.

Step 3: Open the Wallet (Just a little)

Chances are you’ve discovered you already have most of the equipment you need in order to make your own recording. Your PA has provided most of it, but you’re probably short one key piece of equipment, a multi-track recorder. At this point, you have several choices you could make. Your least expensive choice would be to find a friend who has one, and convince him/her to let you borrow it or to help you make the recording. The main advantage here is that either way, it ends up being free. The downside is that you may have to deal with another voice in the decision making process. Another choice is to find a music store that will rent you a good recorder. The upside in this option is that you can probably get a much larger more powerful unit than you would if you had to buy one. The down side is that the longer it takes you to record, the more it will cost. The final option is to buy the multi-track recorder yourself. The advantage here is that you will be able to use it over and over at your leisure, and you will be able to spend enough time with it to become an expert in its use. The major disadvantage, as no doubt you’ve already guessed, is that it will cost considerably more than the other options will. Of course, when you consider that you may use it to record a whole lot of songs, in the long haul the choice to buy your own multi-track machine can end up being the most cost effective decision of all.

If you decide to buy, you will be faced with a very wide range of choices and potential costs. At the time this article is being written, the American Music Supply catalog lists analog 4-track recorders at around $300.00. On up the scale, low-end digital 8-track recorders start at $400.00. Of course, the prices go up and up from there. As usual, the more you pay, the more you get, but even with a really inexpensive 4-track (combined with the equipment listed above), you should be able to make a recording you’d be proud to play for your family, friends, and even club owners. You need only add one element – you.

Step 4: The Learning Curve

The real key to recording on a budget is to learn as much as you can about how the recording process works. Read everything you can about it, talk to people who’ve recorded, and experiment a lot with your equipment. Some of the digital stuff is fairly complicated to use, but the basic principles are the same whether you’re using a huge and complex Roland VMBASIC72 digital recording system (over $6000.00) or a cassette tape Tascam 414mkll 4-track recorder (around $300.00). Keep at it, and don’t get discouraged. Just like learning your instrument, you’ll get better at it the more you do it. The best most expensive equipment in the world won’t make good recordings if the person using it doesn’t know what he’s doing, but lucky for you, a guy armed with the proper knowledge (and a little ingenuity) can make great mixes on even the lowliest equipment. In part 2 two of this article, we’ll discuss some recording methods and techniques that can help you do just that.

Also check out… Recording on a Budget Part 2: Recording Concepts

By far the most crucial aspect of recording acoustic guitars well are the microphones used to record them. For instance a dynamic vocal mic will neither be sensitive enough to handle the instrument’s relatively small volume, nor able to cope with the fretboard’s entire frequency range. Go for a good quality capacitor microphone every time.

Tip: record in an environment that sounds good to start with. Ever done it in the bathroom? You might get a great result from those super sound-reflecting tiles.

The next most important thing is to position your mics correctly. However, like many things, there’s more ways to skin a rabbit etc. We’ll concentrate here on a tried and tested method.

Position your mic about 24 inches (0.6m) from the neck to body join. The idea behind placing the head of the mic a fair distance from the instrument is to be able to capture some of that resonant air emanating from the instrument

The next thing to do is to fire up your recorder and don some headphones. Now wander slowly around the area with the mic, listening out for that sweet spot. When you find it, stop. Put the mic stand right there and start recording.

Tip: If you want your acoustic to sound right up front in your face, record in stereo. That’s to say, get two good quality capacitor mics, point them across each other at roughly 90 degrees and keep their heads real close.

When you are recording you don’t want to hear anything but the guitar. So ban any ticking things like watches from the room. Try to be still and focused when you play. Above all, don’t sneeze.

You’ll know when you have succeeded when you merely have to apply minimal corrections in EQ to achieve a strong and acoustically pure result.

• All name brands mentioned in this article have been evaluated by the author. No one has paid him anything to mention these. These brands in no way represent an exhaustive list.
• This column is designed for users of the PC environment. Apologies to people using other platforms.

The digital environment, although not the best, does offer some cheap solutions for musicians. Not the best? Then why is everyone converting to digital? What’s this guy talking about?

Digital is a conversion of naturally occurring phenomena into a series of off/on electrical pulses, i.e. 0’s and 1’s. Off or on. Analog is the recording of these phenomena as they occur. Your ears, like your eyes, do not perceives zeros and ones, but natural impulses. Digital, therefore, is an interpretation of what is there as if it were perfect. Have you ever seen perfection?

To illustrate this, watch a digitally remastered version of the original Star Trek series. You’ll quickly notice that the uniforms, although they have always been very colorful, come out looking very unnatural. The reason for this is simple, color comes from light. There are 3 basic colors: red, green and blue. White being the combination of all colors and black being the absence of color. What you see in the real world comes more from reflected light. The light from the sun, a light-bulb, etc, falls on the objects around you. Depending on the density of their surface (paint, ink, etc), some light is absorbed while some is reflected. Colors then become exact opposites. The basic colors change from red to magenta, green to yellow and blue to cyan. White becomes the absence of color (all of the light is reflected back) and black becomes the combination of all colors.

On film or video, the reflected colors become the proper color schemes. When they are digitally remastered, a computer analyzes theses colors and makes an approximation and replaces it with a scheme of emitted light. Therefore, the colors are backwards. Also, the computer uses a color scheme of about 16 million colors. The monitor you’re staring at right now is probably set for 16 million colors. The human eye can only detect 140,000 colors. Need I say more?

Sound works pretty much the same way. The human ear, as we’ve demonstrated before, can only hear 12 half-tones which correspond to the seven notes and five sharps/flats. Although, there are many other sounds that exist out there, the human ear is just not built to hear them. A dog will hear ultra-sounds. They are just normal sounds, but at a level that we can’t hear. It’s as with light: radio waves are actually light. Only the human eye cannot perceive that part of the spectrum.

The reason why so many people are converting to digital is that it’s cheap. Of course, engineers decided back in the 60’s that everything should be digital, therefore, the capabilities of Analog have never been fully investigated.

CD vs LP

You will hear a lot of people say that they prefer the sound of an LP over the sound of a CD. They will explain that they like the scratches and hisses. They don’t. They know that there is something warm about the sound of an LP and attribute it to the scratches and hisses. What they really do prefer is the recording and mixing medium. In pre-CD days, everything was done using analog technology. Today, most recording is done via digital.

So why am I writing an article on building a digital studio if I believe analog to be best? There are ways of fooling the system.

MIDI or Noon

Everyone talks about MIDI. It’s cheap, it doesn’t take much disk space on your computer, it’s simple. I’m French so in my language, MIDI means Noon. That’s too early in the day for me to start recording…

Midi is a way of interpreting notes. A programmed digital keyboard will receive a MIDI signal telling it to play a specific sequence of notes using a specific pre-programmed sound. Say you’d have a digital keyboard that could actually emulate the sound of a guitar (if you’ve ever tried this, you’ll know that no keyboard can copy the sound of a guitar). You’d send it a program telling it to play the chord C four times in a 4/4 measure.

Take a tape recorder and record yourself strumming a C four times. You’ll realize upon listening to it that you never hit it exactly the same way twice. Close, but not perfect. The first time you might slightly touch the open 6th string, the second time hit it hard, the third time not at all and the fourth slightly. Also, if you could precisely measure the times, you might realize that instead of 1-1-1-1 you have 0.9-1.2-1.1-0.8. With MIDI programs, you’ll have a perfect C every time and the times will be exactly 1-1-1-1. Not very natural. So that is why you want to be as analog as you can.

Keyboards

If you’re using keyboards, the same underlying principles apply. If your digital keyboard says “Hammond Organ”, it won’t sound like a Hammond. The Hammond, being an electronic organ depends on the power supply, the resistance in the wires, etc. Power supplies are never perfect, so hitting the same notes twice, you’ll find variations in the sounds. The digital keyboard cannot copy these variations, therefore, the sound will always be identical.

If you want to use keyboards in your recordings, you’re much better off using older electronic keyboards that will have these power supply/cabling defects and produce less than perfect sounds.

As with the guitar, if you go into a guitar shop and try 5 identical guitars of the same brand, same series, made by the same person, they won’t sound exactly alike. The density of the wood, amount of glue, usage of strings, pick-up proximity, etc will give you variances in the sound.

Music is a human art. Humans not being perfect, the music is not supposed to be perfect. It’s the imperfections that allow us to enjoy the music.

So how can you use a digital medium to make a good recording? It depends on the digital format you’re using. The best results will come from using the .WAV format.

Sound waves

Sound travels in waves.

What a tape recorder does is record this wave as is. What the PC WAV format does is the same. The only difference is that instead of the line being rounded, it will be a series of steps so small that the ear cannot perceive the difference.

It’s similar to a bitmap image. If you’ve ever looked closely at a scanned image, you’ll realize that the image is a huge grid. All the little squares are filled with information relative to color. The grid is so small that you cannot make it out from a normal viewing distance.

So the WAV format does not make a perceptible difference in what is being played. However, the big problem with WAV is that it takes a lot more space on your hard drive than MIDI or MP3 or other formats. But it is the format that is truest to reality.

Basics

If you have a PC with a sound card, you can immediately start using this format. First though, you must make sure your sound card settings are right. Go into the control panel (Start/Settings/Control Panel) and select “Multimedia”. Your overall volume setting for playback and recording will be there. You may adjust these if you wish. In the “Recording” properties, make sure you select CD Quality. Make sure “Show volume control on the taskbar” is selected.

As far as recording quality goes, CD Quality is the best. Anything below will be quite noticeable, and you won’t like the results. Don’t go above 16-bit, it takes up more space and the human ear can’t decipher the difference. Format should be 44.100 kHz. Same differences as above.

What you need to do then is to plug in your guitar, mike, keyboard, whatever into the “Line In” of your sound card. Then you start Sound Recorder (Start/Programs/Accessories/Multimedia/Sound Recorder). The buttons work like any tape recorder. You must control the input volume of your sound card the same way you do it with the output volume. Double-click the volume control on the taskbar (bottom right of your screen, it should look like a yellow PA speaker). You will now have a window called “Play Control”. Click “Options/Properties”. Select “Adjust volume for recording”. Make sure “Line In” is selected, then hit OK. You will now be presented with a mixer with slide bars to adjust overall and individual volume settings for recording.

You may then record a piece of music of your choice and play it back, save it, etc. With a lot of practice, you can record a second track and mix it in with the first (Edit/Mix with file). With some of the better sound cards, you can open a second copy of Sound Recorder and play the first track while you record the second.

Of course, this is pretty basic. Once you start playing around with this, you’ll want more. At some point you will need to spend money. There’s just no way out of that one. But you don’t have to spend it all at once. That’s the nice part.

First of all, if you have a cheap $20 or so sound card, you will burn it after a while. After you’ve burned two or three of those, you’ll realize you might as well invest in a good sound card. I’ve been using a Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live. Slightly over $80 US. This one won’t burn and you should be quite satisfied with the sound. You need a sound card that is made for musical recordings.

Next up, you’ll want a good software package. The best I’ve found is Sonic Factory’s Sound Forge. An amazing software that’s a full studio. Price is a bit stiff, though, around $500 US. The problem with it is that it’s not a true multi-track. It does not allow you to record several tracks side by side and mix everything together once you’re satisfied with the results. What you do is record the second track separately, then use practice and patience to mix it in at the right spot. But the mixing capabilities are enormous! Once you’ve mixed in a track and saved the file though, you can’t undo it. So you’re better off working on copies of the files. If you end up making a huge mistake (you’ll make a lot of those at first), you can revert back to an earlier version.

This, of course, implies disk space. Stereo CD quality WAVs use about 10 Megs of disk space for every minute of recording. If you don’t have enough, you’ll have to consider a new hard drive. Four Gigs minimum. Anything above that will be fine.

After a while you’ll be tired of always hooking and hooking your cables to the sound card input and readjusting the volume settings every time. Time for a mixer board. I agree with Dan Lasley, go for something used. Try the Pawn Shops, you should be able to get something good for about $100 US. You don’t need something that’s very sophisticated.

Finally, you’ll want to spend a few bucks, around $200 US on a CD burner. That investment, though will pay up for itself pretty quickly. Once you have it, you’ll find all sorts of different uses for it. You’ll wonder how you ever lived without one.

Once you’ve made all these acquisitions, you’ll have a fully functional home studio. Results will be as good as using tape.

Once again, I’d like to reiterate that the sound should be decided before the sound card. Use analog effects as much as possible. Use the mixer board settings and record “As Is”.

As usual, questions comments, feel free to email me.

The guitar’s great, but…

Learn another instrument or three. Although the guitar is probably the most versatile instrument ever invented (on what other instrument can you plan an Am twenty different ways?), it’s useful to learn other instruments. It also helps if you’re in a period of lack of inspiration. You’re picking on the strings and no ideas are coming? Bang the keys of a keyboard! Learning the basics of the keyboard is simple enough. The white keys are setup in a series of 3, then a series of 4. All the series of 3 are C-D-E. All the series of 4 are F-G-A-B. All the black keys are sharps/flats. (Note: the logic of starting at C becomes obvious when you use the scale as it should be used with sounds rather than letters: Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti: Do is C.)

Becoming very good on the keyboard is another matter altogether, but as long as you can play it basically, you’ll be able to use it for writing and recording. If you go out and buy a synthesizer, try and find an old analog one. They sound so much better than digitals. More about that next week.

As for playing the bass, I’ve found that with a good equalizer, you can make your guitar sound like a bass. It may not be ideal, but it works.

To finish a song

Often enough when you have an incomplete song, putting it on tape or computer will help you to complete it. Record what you already have, even if it’s only a minute or so. Add the other instruments and you start getting ideas to complete it.

The reason for this is that you have to start looking at your song from a different angle. If you were writing the music by just strumming it, you may find that you don’t like that anymore. So you have to rethink the main guitar part. Same chords, just played differently. Or you may decide to keep the strumming as is, but to add on to it. Perhaps a second guitar playing a melodic lead, perhaps another guitar picking the chords. Your imagination is the only limit.

Then you have to think in terms of other instruments. Perhaps using the keyboard as the main background instrument. Bass lines will come naturally, once you practice with the instrument a little. As with keyboards, being a great bass player is another thing. But you’re not supposed to be a one-man band. Or at least not a very virtuoso one.

Once you have that partial song recorded and you start listening to it, you’ll find that it starts taking on a life of its own. A life that, quite often, you never suspected. If you want to try an interesting experiment, lend one of your songs that you’ve never arranged to a band, let them play with it for a while, then go and hear them perform it. You’ll most likely be blown away.

I’d like to give you some direction as far as how to arrange your songs, but I don’t think I’d be doing you a favor. There are some basics, but if you head into that direction, you won’t get your own original sound. If you ever want to turn professional, you want to be unique.

If you don’t sound unique, you can only have limited success. If even that. The way record companies think is that once something original happens, they have to copy it to death. When Suzanne Vega started making (very good) albums in the 80’s it surprised the suits in the rec companies that a woman could make money singing. That there were actually talented women out there (I could’ve told them that a long time ago…).

So then they started this wave of women singers. Giving them a harder edge. Melissa Etheridge, Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette… Only one the last of those three actually has any talent. Of course, Alanis has enough talent for three. At least.

These women get signed up because the record companies want to sell an image. A raunchy woman. Talent is completely disregarded: They made a star with Celine Dion, didn’t they?

Demystifying the demo

Once you start recording, you may want to look into recording a demo. I have heard of only two demos that were made into albums. One was from the ex-singer of a band called Offenbach (they had some success in Canada and the US in the seventies). When he died of cancer in 1990, he left a demo, piano and voice of his next album. It was given to a producer who had to add an awful lot of instruments and voices to make it into an album. The second case I’ve heard of was Aldo Nova’s first album. Most of that album is the actual demo. However, the demo was recorded with professional musicians in a professional studio.

Nowadays, almost everyone who records an album must record a demo first. David Bowie is a notable exception because in his case it doesn’t matter: The record companies still don’t know what to make of his music…

When the Counting Crows want to record an album, they must first make a demo of it, turn it over to the rec company execs who’ll listen to it and decide to finance it or not. If they don’t like a song, they’ll ask the band to replace it. If they refuse to do so, they’ll have to find themselves a new contract. It’s that simple, the rec companies run the show, not the artists.

Of course, the band won’t spend a lot of money on the demo, they’ll just jam the songs together. Once in the studio, it’ll be the producer’s job to record this in a suitable manner.

Thinking your demo

You want a record company to sign you. As a solo artist and not a band, your recordings must reflect your songwriting style. The people listening to your demo don’t care whether you can sing well or not, they know what can be done to a voice in studio. And they can force you to take singing lessons if it pleases them. They also don’t care whether you’re a good musician. They have long lists of session musicians. There’s too much reverb, the balance is off, the mixing could be improved? You won’t produce your first album. Record companies won’t trust you with that.

What they want to hear are the songs. They want to find out if they can make money off your writing style.

Some people submit demos that are nothing but an acoustic guitar and voice in front of a tape recorder. Others spend thousands of dollars on a recording that will have to be redone anyway if they get signed.

What you should look at is producing something that will be halfway. If you have friends who play other instruments and that you can convince to help you out for free, do so.

What should a demo look like?

Your demo should have three or four songs. No more. Don’t even think of putting another on there, they’ll throw out the demo without even listening to it. As record companies want to make money, you should put your most commercial songs on it, not your best. It’s preferable if the songs do not exceed three to three and a half minutes.

It should be done well enough for them to get the gist of it, but when it’s done too well, it may also give the impression that this is what you want recorded and nothing else. They don’t care for hotheads. If possible (if you own a CD burner or know someone who does), submit your demo on a CD.

If you have to submit it on a tape, use a metal tape rather than the standard quality. All tapes are made of metals, but the “Metal” ones don’t degrade and are much more resistant to temperature variances. Don’t be afraid to spend money on the medium.

As for presentation, you’ve always been told that a nice presentation goes a long way. That is so true. If you present it in a way that is original, it will attract attention. Your demo might end up on the top of the pile to be listened to at the beginning of a session rather than at the end when nobody’s interested anymore. Don’t forget a presentation letter. Tell them who you are and where you come from. Which bands you’ve played with. If you’ve had some media coverage, include the clippings. And make sure to include a few photos. You can just scan them in and print them. It’s cheaper and the result is the same.

Don’t forget to include the lyrics to every song on the demo. This is crucial. They want to gauge you as a writer.

Where to send it

Now that’s a question that comes up a lot. You’ve just recorded a demo that you want a record company to hear. Where should you send it? Hint: Record Companies. Take a CD that was issued in your country and look behind it. Odds are that the address of the record company will be on it. That’s where you have to send it. Send it to record companies in your local market, not in another country. If you can’t find the address, do a search on record companies on the web. When I was looking for addresses in my local market, I found several sites that had complete listings, including contact people.

If you don’t have a contact person’s name, put a label on the envelope clearly indicating the word “Demo”. The person who receives it will know what to do with it. Record companies get these all the time, so they have policies in this matter. As for submitting it in person or by mail, it doesn’t really matter. Odds are you won’t meet the execs anyway. You’ll more than likely just hand it in to the receptionist. However, you are sure it will be in if you go in person.

Having a copy on your website is also a good idea. I’ve heard of one or two sites where you can post your demo and they claim that it will be listened to by rec company execs. DO NOT APPROACH THESE. They get enough demos mailed to them, do you really think they have the time to go on the web and find some more? I don’t know what’s behind these sites, but I don’t want to find out the hard way.

Don’t bother sending your demo to a producer. They don’t listen to demos.

Don’t forget to mail yourself a copy first for copyright protection. A friend who happens to be a Notary told me a few weeks ago that you can bring it over to a notary who’ll seal and stamp it and keep a record as absolute unrefutable proof that you did in fact write those songs. It will cost you a little, but it may be worth it in the long run.

However, times have changed and rec companies aren’t interested in wasting time being sued, so there are very little chances that your material will be stolen.

Independent vs Major

These days, there are two kinds of rec companies, the Independent Label and the Major Label. With Major Labels, they ask only one question when they listen to a demo: Will this sell three million copies? (Around the world.) If their answer is no, they’ll reject the demo.

Independent Labels are another issue altogether. They’re usually started by people who get tired of what the Major Labels put out. They want to hear real music, so they sign real artists. You probably won’t make as much money with an Independent as with a Major, you probably won’t have the same fame, but you’re much more likely to get a better deal.

Always watch out for the sharks

There are some people out there who pass themselves off as Independents but are just in it to rip you off. If you’re not sure, get an agent or talk to a lawyer.

The agent

Getting an agent is also a good idea. He’ll have better contacts and might be able to get you a contract faster than you can by yourself. Again, you need to present the demo and negotiate. Don’t forget, though, that if you’re not satisfied with the agent’s work, it’s hard to break the contract binding you with this person.

Rule of thumb

Submit all copies of your demo at the same time. NEVER accept the first offer. Tell them you’re expecting a call from someone else. If they really want to sign you, they’ll call back with a better offer: It’s all part of the game and they all play it. If you get one phone call, you’re more than likely going to get more calls. Then you start them bidding against one another. If you get the one phone call only and they haven’t called back a week later, call them back. Ask them to repeat the offer. Tell them what you would like, or tell them that you’ve been offered more somewhere else (you don’t have to give them any names). Don’t make any outrageous lies, though, they’ll know it. Don’t sign for the sake of signing.

Never sign for just one album. Look for at least two, but no more than three albums. By investing more in you, they’re more than likely going to back you up a lot more.

Worst case scenario

Even if nobody calls back, they’ll write back. They’ll send you a letter explaining what they liked and disliked about your demo.

Take all that advice into consideration and use it to record your second demo. Don’t even worry if the second demo is turned down, I know of one singer who was signed with his seventh demo. Persistence is the key!

Thanks to David Hodge for pointing out a few things I’d forgotten to mention.

Questions, comments, feel free to email!