Fix It In The Recording!
FIX IT IN THE RECORDING!
by Greg Forsberg, President/Chief Engineer, The Mastering Room
© 2010 All Rights Reserved.
“Fix it in the mix”. These five words probably take more credit for more mediocre sounding records than any other recording studio mishap in history. Just the sound of those words combined into one sentence sends chills up my spine, and after you adopt these simple, common sense recording practices, you will never utter those words again.
Keep It Short!
The single most important thing you can do to create great sounding tracks is to take pristine care of your audio signal on the way to tape, and the best way to do that is to create the shortest, cleanest path to the multi-track recorder humanly possible. Start cleaning your path with the cables that you use. Invest some money in high quality cable even if you can only afford a stereo pair, and use them for everything. Keep the cable length as short as possible. If your instrument is 3 feet from your multi-track, don’t have 20 feet of cable coiled on the floor below them. The shorter the path, the more detail will remain intact with your audio signal. This is especially true with low level signals such as those between your microphone and whatever preamp you are using. Remove all equipment that is not absolutely necessary from the signal path and whenever possible, skip the board and plug directly into the multi-track. The difference is amazing.
Kill the Noise!
Listen extra close for any hiss, hum or buzz. I’m sure we think we all do this automatically, but I mean REALLY listen. The ultimate test is to put on a pair of headphones and listen when the instrument is not playing. If you hear any noise whatsoever, hunt it down cable by cable, machine by machine until you find it and eliminate it. All small noises combine together over multiple tracks and when your finished mixes get to a mastering room with an incredible monitor system, the noise will stick out like a sore thumb. The bottom line here is take your time and don’t ever hit record when you hear even the slightest hum or buzz.
Red Lights Mean Stop!
When the multi-track is in record, your eyes should be glued to its meters. The pretty green lights should be dancing about ? of the way up the meter and if you see them waltz into the red, even for a second, stop the recording, fix the levels and start again. When dealing with analog tape, a little red sounds great at times. In the digital world, it is nasty. I know this is common information, but you know you are guilty of saying “Oh, it’s ok, it just touched red for a second.” It is not ok. It’s lazy and it sounds bad. Just do it again.
Manic Compression!
The compressor is probably the most abused piece of recording gear in the studio, and again, when we use them, we need to think “less is more”. A lot of people will compress everything that goes to tape because they think they have to. The truth is, if your sounds are coming from a drum machine or synth, you likely need very little or no compression to achieve great levels to tape and “up front” sound. Keep in mind, a certain amount of compression and/or limiting will need to be done in the mastering process in order to bring your tracks up to a competitive level in comparison to other commercial music, so go light in the recording. Compressors are noisy and have a flattening effect on your audio, and in the recording process, you should be thinking “3-D sound”. Some instruments really benefit from careful compression but again “less is more”.
Remove MP3 From Your Vocabulary!
MP3’s sound like garbage and have no place in music production. End of story. Think about it, a song in .wav or .aif format is roughly 40mb. A “decent” .mp3 is 6mb. Where did all the audio data go? The answer is right in the trash. If someone gives you a prerecorded instrument in mp3 format, you need to demand a .wav or .aif. That’s all there is to it. In fact, if you are taking the engineers seat on your own music, don’t even listen to mp3’s in your portable mp3 player. They will just skew your perception of what sounds good.
All of these practices are strictly adhered to in major studios, so why should it matter if you are working in a project studio, a bedroom or a million dollar studio? Today we have the technology to make a record in a broom closet that would have cost $200,000 ten years ago. The only difference is the care and professionalism given to the music. Take extra time, be extra picky, and make better sounding records!
The Mastering Room was founded by President/Chief Mastering Engineer, Greg Forsberg. Greg has a long history in the music business, from Staff Engineer at the world famous Plant Studios in the Bay Area, to his 10 years owning and operating Supaslump Masters, a premier mastering facility located in Las Vegas, Nevada. With a discography of over 800 mastered albums, Greg’s attitude towards his craft is to live it, eat it, breath it, sleep it and get up and do it again.
info@TheMasteringRoom.com www.TheMasteringRoom.com
PH: 415-948-4734
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