| Attention Bands: Don't
go into the studio by yourself! Work with an established and experienced
producer!!!!!
As an independant producer, I only work with one band
at a time. In other words, I work only on YOUR RECORDING until its
done before I start working on something else. Here are the steps
that I will guide you through:
PRE-PRODUCTION:
1) Evaluate Live Performance
2) Discuss arrangement of songs and recording techniques
3) Rehearsal Coaching for new parts, fills, styles, click track.
TEMPLATE:
4) Rough Demo with click, sparse instrumentation, and vocals.
RECORDING:
5) Print drums, rhythm instruments, rough vocals and solos.
6) Overdubs
7) OPTIONAL - transfer from tape to computer
8) Overdubs, final lead vocal, editing, tuning, effects, composite
vocals, backup vocals, reamping.
MIXDOWN:
9) Warm up tracks, edit, effects, tuning, overdubs, reverb. Four
mixes on four different days.
MASTERING:
10) Use multiband limiter and a different monitoring system.
____________________________________________________________
I have learned through experience to limit all sessions to 8 hours
maximum.
I like to have some or all the band members there for the first
mixdown session. You'll take it home and listen to it on your home
stereo, and write me a detailed email list of all the changes you
want made. Then I do another mix by myself and post the WAV files
on a hidden webpage. You are the only one who knows about this page,
and so no one else can hear your music while it's in the production
stages. You should be able to download and listen to these files
on any computer, as well as burn CDs if you want to listen to the
mixes in your car. After getting feedback from you about what changes
you want made, I will tweak the mixes and re-post them on your website.
I will do up to 4 mixes this way, assuming you still have the hours
for it.
Once you're happy with the mix, I will then master the songs to
give them their loudest volume possible, and to make the volume
level even across all songs. Sometimes boosting the volume during
mastering brings out things that weren't obvious before. In this
case, we'll remix and remaster again.
I usually approach bands I'm interested in working
with. But if your band is planning a recording, don't get started
without talking to an established producer. Many bands have an idea
of the final "sound" of their recording, but are unclear
of how to arrive there. Capturing the sound and performance of your
band in the right mood, right atmosphere, and right moment should
be the highest priority. Just hiring a guy by the hour to set up
mics and hit the record button is the LAST thing you want to do.
Producing professional quality recordings in a very
comfortable, all-analog recording studio has been a dream of mine
since I was twelve years old. Now that dream has come true. Just
twenty minutes outside of Boulder, Colorado, my Atlantis Recording
Studios features a 16-track reel-to-reel and an English StudioMaster
Gold Board, as well as a fully analog signal chain.
Currently the studio is associated with Fluid Rhythm
Entertainment, a Denver-based production company. FRE has a dedicated
space for tracking, as well as a mixing/mastering room. Located
in Wheatridge, Colorado, the site features a 60' by 40' room. We
prefer to do all tracking an the analog domain. We can then mix
using Pro Tools because of its superior editing capabilities and
mixing automation.
If you would like to submit a demo or EPK, please
send it via email. If you have a disk that you would like reviewed,
please send it to me via email, myspace, or facebook...
Please keep in mind that I get demos all the time,
and can't always respond right away, but I will eventually listen
to it! Make certain your contact information is clearly labeled
on the CD!
When a band is ready to record, I come to one of their
rehearsals. There is no charge for this. Listening to the band in
rehearsal as opposed to at a live concert gives me the chance to
get familiar with the band's working habits and individual personalities.
It also allows me to catch the vibe when the group is in their own
comfortable space. I take notes about the strong and weak points
of the songs, which I then share with the band. Depending on the
bands willingness to experiment with new ideas, I may have them
try to add a harmony vocal, or use the end of the song as the intro.
Or, if the band is unwilling to add any new elements to the music,
I respect that, and simply make notes on mic placement, or other
technical issues. I do not make notes on the weak points of individual
players, because I believe that every artist is constantly evolving,
and my job is to capture how they sound right now at this moment.
I always ask each band these questions:
What is this song about? Why did you write it?
Would you all like to stand in the same room while
you record the drums?
How much input or musical direction from me is too
much?
Do you need and/or want help with CD duplication,
a web page, distribution, booking, etc?
Another important aspect of pre-production is the
template track. Some producers call this "demo-ing out the
song". This is where you take one acoustic guitar and the lead
vocal part, and perform the song with a click track. Or maybe you
take the your favorite live stereo recording of the song played
at rehearsal, or at your last concert. If you have a copy of the
song recorded with a good vibe and high energy, the quality doesn't
matter. What we're going to do is play that recording through your
headphones as you track your parts.
*********************************************************
A Brief Step by step by step guide to DAW Home Recording
(by request)......
1. Measure the distance between each overhead and
the snare drum, so that they are the same distance from the center
of the snare drum head. Play the snare drum and record a few hits.
Look at the waveforms you've just recorded on the two overhead tracks.
Does the snare drum hit happen at exactly the same time on both
tracks, or are they slightly staggered? Aligning phase of these
2 mics is critical. Listen to a well recorded snare on a hit album.
Now listen to your snare. does it have bass? if not, boost 200hz,
or maybe 250hz. the snap is around 2k, and the mids are around 700hz.
2. Put one mic inside the bass drum about 3 inches away from the
beater, pointed directly at the the head. Put another mic just outside
of the bass drum hole. Put a blanket over the outside of the bass
drum so that the outer bass drum mic does not pick up the cymbals.
Record some bass drum hits. Listen to these two signals mixed together,
then flip the phase on one of them. Listen to a well recorded bass
drum on a Grammy winning album. Listen to your bass drum. Does it
have the right snap? if not boost 5k. does it have enought sub?
if not, boost 55hz. Does it sound like cardboard? if so, cut mids
(1k)
Now, most engineers I've workied with pan tom 1 hard left, pan tom
2 to the center, and pan tom 3 hard right. This is not how the drums
sound acoustically when you stand right in front of them. Plus,
the floor tom has so much more bass than all the others, it sounds
unbalanced to have it all come from one side. If we were using an
analog mixing board, the 9 oclock position would be good for tom
1, and the 3 oclock position would be good for tom 3. But what does
that translate into if we're using a 100=100 pan slider on a daw?
<60 left for tom 1, center for tom 2, >60 right for tom 3.
Each tom should have the same volume as the snare.
Next we have gating. Gating is very neccessary on the toms. It may
not be so important on the bass or snare, depending on the type
of music. If it's metal, I'd gate them. If it's jazz, or music based
on acoustic guitar, I wouldn't.
The hat is always too loud. put a baffle around it, or just make
sure that all other mics are pointed away from it.
Overall kit should be sent to a stereo bus, where you can put effects
on the entire kit. First eq the overall drum mix, then compress
the overall drum mix. Compress each drum to taste, and compress
the overheads slightly. Be careful not to overcompress!!!!!!
Noise is your enemy. Proper gear and proper set-up
should leave you in a position to record noise free, without any
additional steps. But be sure to make a nice clean fade at the beginning
and end of each individual region to eliminate noise.
*********************************************************
Here is the story of Jed, the local singer who wants
desperatley to succeed as a musician. Please read this story as
an example of what NOT TO DO!!!!!!!!!!! Make a mental list of all
the decisions that Jed should have made differently.
CHAPTER ONE: Failing to plan is planning to fail.
Jed was the lead singer of a local band, called "Tonedeaf".
One day, Jed opened the phone book and flipped to the "R"
section for recording studios. He called the first number on the
list, A Plus Studios. The call with Bob the engineer was breif.
They scheduled ten hours of time starting at 9:00 am on Saturday,
and Jed paid for it all in advance on his credit card. The rate
was $35 per hour.
Jed and his band arrived at the studio by about 10:00
am Saturday. Jed met the engineer, Bob, and introduced the other
members of the band. "This is Donny the drummer, Gary the guitarist,
and Reggy the bassist."
"Pleased to meet you," Bob the engineer
said. Then he told the band to bring in the drums and amps. They
began loading in the equipment, but took frequent breaks to sip
on some beers and call thier girlfriends. By about two o'clock,
the band had all the gear set up. Jed was ready to play, so he turned
to Bob the engineer. "We're ready! I guess our time starts
now."
"No," Bob replied. "Your time started
at 9:00 am, which is when you reserved the studio.We blocked out
this time for you and you alone, and turned away other eager customers
who wanted 9:00 to 2:00, to make the space available to you. You
paid for the time and you got it."
Jed was furious. He was already five hours into the
time that he paid for, and that left him with only five hours left
to record. He had essentially paid the studio $175 so that he could
sit around and drink beer and talk on the phone.
Another hour went by, and Bob was still setting up
the microphones. "Hurry up!" Jed yelled. "Work faster!
What's taking so long?" Bob soon took a dislike towards Jed,
because of all the verbal abuse. After all, Bob was an unpaid intern,
working on this project so that he could "get his foot in the
door" of the music business. Bob decided he didn't care how
this project turned out, he only wanted to get it over with as quickly
as possible. In fact, Bob didn't even like their music. He could
have checked the overhead mics for phase alignment, but he didn't
bother, because he figured that the band couldn't tell the difference.
"OK," said Bob. "What's the title and
tempo of the first song?"
"What's a tempo?" asked Jed.
Bob replied. "You didnt' write down all the tempos
of all the tunes during rehearsal?"
Jed looked confused. "I guess not."
The mics were placed and levels were set. Everyone
was ready to roll. Bob patched the metronome through the drummer's
headphones, hit the record button, and spoke into the talkback mic;
"We're rolling. Do a four count and then hit it!".
"We never do four counts." said the Donny
the drummer. "We just play." So the band started into
the first tune, and fell apart in about 20 seconds. Everyone looked
around in confusion.
"What's that stupid cowbell in my headphones
for?" the Donny the drummer asked. Bob told him that it's called
the click track. "Well, turn that dang thing off! I can't play
with that!" Bob turned it off.
Jed told the engineer to hit the record button, and
then the guitarist started in to the first riff. Everyone came in,
and the song went well until half way through. The drummer forgot
that the chorus was supposed to be played twice, and so the whole
band stopped. They talked over the arrangement, and then started
from the top again. This second take of the song went well, and
as soon as everyone hit the last note, the drummer said "Almost
perfect. Let's do it again." The band recorded a third take,
and except for one mistake in the first verse it went well. Just
after hitting the last note, drummer exclaimed "I messed up
on that one!". Bob suggested they do one more take. The band
played a fourth take, and as soon as everyone hit the last note,
before the cymbals had even died out, the drummer said "That
was totally groovy, man!"
The band listened to all three takes, and decided
that the energy and vibe was really the best on the first take,
but the ending was the most solid on the third take. So they told
the engineer to paste them togther. Bob carefully found a a silent
spot in the recording to make the cut. In a few minutes, he was
done making the edit.
"Let's listen," said Jed. The band listened
to the new edited version. Everyone frowned. It was obvious where
the edit was placed, because the song abruptly changed speeds.
"Your third take was played faster than your
first take, so there's no way we can paste them together without
it sounding like crap."
"What about pasting in the ending from the second
take?" Jed said. Everyone watched carefully as the engineer
pasted in the ending from the second take. When he was finished,
everyone listened, and then groaned.
"That's even worse," said Bob. "Your
second take is slightly slower than your first take."
"I don't understand why we can't put those takes
together," Donny said.
"Well," Bob said, "you didn't play
EXACTLY the same speed on every take. It may sound like you played
all the takes at relatively close speeds, but they must all be EXACTLY
the same speed if we are to edit them together. No human can accurately
guess the exact same speed every time. Even Mike Portnoy from Dream
Theater plays with a click track. In fact, the whole band rehearses
with a click track that has been "templated out" to contain
all the meter changes. They record a rough copy of the song with
it during rehearsal so that they have a high spirited, vibey take
that's exactly at the right speed. Then that's what they pump through
their headphones when they go in to the studio to cut an album."
"Let's just scrap all this editing stuff, and
go with take four," said Jed. The band listened to take four,
and decided that is wasn't a very good take, but was better than
all of the other options so far. But everyone agreed that Donny
saying "That was groovy, man!" over the top of the last
note was unacceptable.
"Can't you just edit that out?" asked Donny.
"Or paste in the last note of some other take?"
"Nope" said Bob. "Every take has talking
over the last note. We never recorded any takes where you play the
last note and just let it ring."
CHAPTER TWO: Egos galore.
"Let's listen to our song, and if it's good enough,
we'll move on to record the guitars," Jed said. So the band
listened to the song as it played. Jed sang along. Donny talked
on the phone loudly with his girlfriend. Gary was asking Jed questions
about reverb. Reggy was telling Jed a story about last night at
the bar. When the song was over, Jed spoke: "Let's move on."
Now it comes time for the rhythm guitar overdub. The
guitarist got in the booth, and cranked up his amp. The engineer
set the level nice and hot. Everyone was ready to rock. "Let's
hit it!" Jed said.
Bob hit the record button. "We're rolling."
The track started, but the guitarist missed the first
note, and came in a split second later. "Stop!" yelled
Jed. "How is he supposed to know when to come in when the track
just starts cold? Can't we put some kind of count-off in there?"
Bob looked at Jed. "Did you do a count-off when
you recorded the original track?"
Jed was furious all over again. "Let's just put
four clicks before the song."
Bob looked at Jed again. "There USED TO BE four
clicks before the song, but the drummer told me to turn off the
click track. Remember? What I can do is turn the click back on and
give Gary two measures of preroll." Bob pointed to the computer
screen. "See? We'll start right here."
Jed didn't understand what he was seeing. He didn't
understand the blips on the screen, or the lines, or anything else.
He didn't know what a measure was, let alone two of them. It was
now becoming obvious to himself that even though he was a good singer
and songwriter, he was in way over his head. It was not possible
to sing while organizing everyone else's part while trying to communicate
with the engineer in a language he doesn't understand. He pretended
he understood what Bob had just said. "Let's roll."
Bob hit record. After eight clicks, Gary came in a
the right time, but couldn't match up the last note of his guitar
intro with the first note of the drum entrance. He tried take after
take, but it only got worse. After an hour filled with twenty five
unsuccessful takes, he threw his guitar down with a loud crash,
walked out the door, and went to the bar.
"Why didn't he seem to be able to keep time during
the intro?" Jed asked Bob.
Bob turned and looked at Jed. "Well, when you
recorded the original take, there was nothing keeping time: no click
track, no drums, no template track. The only time we have to use
is the guitarist's timing of the original introduction. Unfortunately,
he wandered slightly in his rhythm, and we're trying to get him
to lock in with a track that's out of time."
Jed's face scrunched up. "But I thought the intro
was played just right. I never realized until now that it did speed
up a little toward the end."
"You were busy working on the vocals, and trying
to get us to move along. You should have brought in a template track,
rehearsed with a click track, or listened to the timing of each
part before you moved on to overdubs," Bob said.
"But I did listen to the track before we started!"
Jed said.
"What were you listening for?" Bob questioned.
"What do you mean? I listened to the song, and
sang along. I was imagining how good it could sound once we get
to recording harmony vocals," Jed stated.
Bob shook his head. "You should always be CRITICALLY
LISTENING. That means that your actively listening for something
specific. When I told you to listen to the rhythm of the guitar
into, your ears tuned in to that one specific item, and you HEARD
what I was pointing out. But that's not the same as just generally
listening to a song and singing along. When you do that, you're
not actively listening to any specific thing - you're passively
listening. When the track was playing back, everyone was supposed
to be listening, but Donny was on the phone, Gary was asking questions,
and Reggy was telling a story. No one was listening. I don't see
how anyone could have critically listened, because if there is even
one person talking, you cannot critically listen. It's not possible
to critically listen with three people talking in a room. It has
to be absolutely silent. That's why mastering engineers don't allow
anyone in the room while they're working. Because they can't work
if someone is talking, asking questions, or even making the slightest
noise."
"What's mastering?" asked Jed.
**************************************************
CHAPTER 3:
"You didn't go to the library or to the internet
and look up the steps in creating a CD? Did you ask anyone who has
made a CD what steps they took?"
"Well no. Why should I? I know exactly what to
do. You just play the songs, and the engineer hits record. It's
easy."
"So you've studied phase relationships, frequency,
and so on. Would you add more 300 Hertz to the bass drum or less?"
"I don't know what a Hertz is, let alone 300
of them."
"So what makes you qualified to mix that bass
drum? How many times have you successfully mixed a bass drum in
to a mix that made it on to the radio?
"None."
By about 3:00 am, Jed had smoked three packs of cigarettes
and drank thirteen cups of coffee. His wife was calling every twenty
minutes to ask "when are you coming home?". And he had
to make one more trip to the ATM machine to pay for more time. They
were eight hours over their original time, and needed more. It had
been too long and stressful of a day for him to be able to perform
well, but he was going to get in the booth and sing anyways. "Who
cares if it's not very good. At least it will be finished."
Jed was already mad. "Well I know it's out of
tune and the timing is lousy, but can't you just put some reverb
or echo or something on it to make it sparkle?"
Bob turned to Jed and said, "my teacher in recording
school had a saying: You Can't Polish A Turd."
*********************************************************
The value of ear training:
As a guitar teacher, one of the first things I notice
that sets apart a beginner level student from a professional musical
artist is bends. When a pro bends a note, she bends it to a certain
pitch. When she has finished executing the bend, the note is in
tune. Usually this means either a half step or a whole step.
A beginner has no idea what a half step or a whole
step is. So when a beginner bends the string, he bends it arbitrarily.
There is a certain nievete in their attitude of just enjoying the
fact that the pitch of the note is being raised. There is a certain
thrill in the emotion tie to raising the pitch of a note. What they
might not realize is that to note is horribly out of tune. The note
is out of key. The note is micro tonally pitched INBETWEEN two notes
that we recognize as part of the tempered scale.
Ear training is crucial to recognizing pitch.
One of the hardest things to tell a band is this:
"I'm sorry, I can't record your band, because your singer sings
out of tune and is out of key on every song."
Usually, the band responds with "No he doesn't!
He sounds fine!"
Reality check. When none of the members of the band
can recognize weather a note is in tune or out of tune, that is
a red flag.
If the members of the band possess the ability to
decipher if a note is in tune or out of tune, and they're just afraid
to say anything, then that creates a huge problem of communication
and egos. If you're afraid to tell your singer that he's out of
tune, then that's fine for playing in the garage. But if that goes
on for years unchallenged, then what happens when you get into the
studio? The producer says to the singer, "sing it again, you
were a little flat that time." Then the singer angrily storms
out of the studio, shouting "NO ONE EVER TALKS TO ME LIKE THAT!"
*********************************************************
A Multiple-Grammy winning producer once commented
to me that just about everyone and their brother has recording equipment.
The cost of stand-alone recorders and computer software has plummeted
since the 1980's, and technology continues to improve. It has become
realistically affordable for the layman to buy the gear to make
a 16 track recording. That means that just about anyone can record
a demo in their basement or garage. But there are several things
that separate the pros from the weekend warriors:
1. Training, Knowledge and Experience in what to listen
for.
2. Microphones and Mic Pre amps of sufficient quality
and transparency.
3. The actual physical space in which the sounds are
captured.
Microphones and microphone pre amps make all the difference
in the world when it comes to capturing a sound just as your ear
would if you were standing there next to the instrument. You can't
walk into an auto dealership and only spend $100 on a car, and expect
that you have something just as good as everyone else on the road.
You just can't get something that's reliable for $100. Its not possible.
You can't get a mic pre with an self noise low enough to be acceptable
for less than $500. Even the Expensive Manley VoxBox has higher
self noise than I like to deal with. A solid mic pre amp runs in
the range of $1,500 to $2,000. If you're using anything less, you're
making a demo. The best sound comes from quality transformers, not
necessarily from tubes.
Many studios and engineers apply digital reverb to
raw sounds captured in a soundproof room. This is to bring about
the illusion that the instrument being recorded was actually played
be a person in a large, ambient room. It has been the standard ever
since spring and sheet reverb was invented. Doing it this was has
its benefits, because if a sound as well as its reverberations are
recorded, there's no way to eliminate the reverb during mix down.
In other words, you're stuck with it. However, capturing a sound
the way you'd like it to appear in the final mix down as closely
as possible is very important. Too many times I've been in the studio
with a musician who says aloud "that doesn't sound very good,
but we'll fix it in the mix." Re-amping is a key secret in
the recording world. A vocal that was captured dry can often be
brought back to life by blasting it through a guitar amp at the
top of a staircase, and putting the mike at the bottom of the staircase.
**********************************************************
Why you should never record a "demo":
Many musicians are very excited about recording a
demo. Demo is short for demonstration. Decades ago, a simple "boom
Box" cassette recording of your band jamming in the garage
was sufficient to take to any club to get a gig. The club owner
would just put the tape in his stereo, listen to the first 10 seconds
of the first song, and then decide weather to give you a gig or
not. He may or may not look at the glossy photo of your band, or
peruse any bios, song lists, or other literature you put on his
desk.
But if your goal in recording is public release of
your material, or radio play, internet downloading, or attracting
the attention of a record company, you're going to need a polished
recording. The overall sound quality, presence of the vocals, balance
between instruments, stereo spread, "room" sound, bass
clarity, etcetera, have to compete with the quality of the multi-million
dollar recordings you hear on the radio.
Here are the most often mistakes that are overlooked
when making a recording that makes it obvious that it is not polished.
1. The tempo is unsteady (the song speeds up, slows
down, etc...)
2. The instruments do not play rhythmically in unison,
resulting in "flams".
3. The mix has the singer buried, or too hot, or has
WAY TOO MUCH REVERB! If you can notice the reverb, there is too
much. There are unintentional noises that are not part of the music
that have not been edited out.
5. The instruments were recorded monaurally.
6. The instruments and/or vocals are out of tune.
7. The instruments share the same frequencies and
have not been eq'd, resulting in "muddiness".
8. The recording has performance mistakes, has no
overdubs, and is tracked beginning to end "live", because
the band believes that they shouldn't record something in the studio
that they can't perform the EXACT SAME WAY live on stage (a common
fallacy).
9. No compression has been applied to the individual
tracks, resulting in certain hits overpowering the rest of the music.
10. All the instruments play at full volume all the
time.
This last one is the one that really gets under my
skin! Imagine going to see a Shakespeare play where all the actors
stay on the stage for the ENTIRE PLAY! No one enters, no one exits.
It's hard to tell a story that is going somewhere or have tension
progressing toward resolution when everyone is there all the time.
How many times have you recorded where guitar is on
one track, bass on another track, and vocals on another track? I
can tell you from experience that most engineers use one microphone
per instrument, one channel of the mixing board per instrument,
and one track on the recorder per instrument. Although there is
a lot you can do with panning, and with outboard stereo effects,
I have found that most professional producers insist that every
track be recorded in stereo. And I'm not talking about "fake
stereo", where one channel is assigned to two tracks of the
recorder, resulting in two tracks containing the exact same sound
waves. I mean two mics, two channels, two tracks.
*******************************************************
Many producers during mix down have their engineer
bounce the music only (and perhaps the background vocals) to its
own separate stereo track. Or perhaps they sub mix it to its own
stereo auxiliary channel. They then add in the lead vocals, and
apply a ducking compressor or limiter to the master fader. This
allows the lead vocal to punch through the music bed. In Pro Tools
I've found that mixing the music to its own aux channel and applying
a light dose of the L1 limiter, and then having the lead vocal on
another track helps it to pop out nicely.
Ever wonder why your favorite bands sound so "tight"
through your stereo? Playing with a click track allows the engineer
to see the beat on the screen, and go through every bass drum hit,
every snare drum note, every bass guitar note, and line them up
perfectly in time. Only the greats like Ringo Star can play a beat
without a metronome and avoid speeding up or slowing down. Each
member of the band should rehearse their part with a metronome,
especially the drummer. If your drummer is unaccustomed to playing
with the metronome, have her begin practicing alone focusing on
one song per day for a month. Then when she is ready, turn a metronome
on at band rehearsal and run through your set. You'll have to have
a sheet of paper where you write down all the song titles and their
tempos. Don't book studio time until your band can play all the
songs all the way through with the metronome. And of course, bring
your tempo sheet to the studio. Your engineer should have a template
session for each song with the correct tempo all set up for you
when you arrive at the studio. He's going to need a copy of your
tempo sheet.
**********************************************************
Mastering is the final step in preparing your songs
for duplication. It involves not only a final eq, but setting the
volume level of each song so that they are the same. The most important
part of mastering (and also the most misunderstood) involves making
certain that the digital information is formatted according to industry
standards.
You can spend as many hours as you like recording
and mixing. You can add as many tracks as you like. But for a lot
of musicians, they never feel like they're "done". Finishing
the project and arriving at a feeling of completion takes practice,
experience, and a good attitude. Many painters paint and paint,
and then paint over everything they've done, They feel like if they
add more, the painting will get better. But if you've ever worked
with watercolor, you already know that too many layers of paint
results in a mud puddle. If a sculptor chips and chips away too
much, there wont be any stone left.
Mastering usually involves four key steps.
1. Increase the strength of the audiol signal, so
that the music seems "louder". This is usually accomplished
by running the song through a basic compressor. Setting the make
up gain very high increases the "volume" of the music.
A new idea in the area of mastering is the multi-band compressor,
which I find essential when mastering heavy metal music, especially
with hardcore vocals.
2. Limit the peaks by passing the music through a
peak limiter, by reducing the volume of any loud notes.
3. A final EQ. Since mastering is done in stereo,
we cannot change the mix at this point, so decreasing the presence
of the hi hat or toning down the lead vocal can be done with some
careful eq.
4. Adding harmonics, either odd or even, to the song.
A clarinet is a great example of an instrument with odd harmonics.
A violin has even harmonics. Add more richness by adding odd-ordered
harmonics, add brightness by adding even-order harmonics.
Pro Tools has many mastering plug-ins available. Massey
makes a very good one that is simple to operate. T-Racks makes a
very nice mastering suite of 4 plug-ins bundled together. I find
that there are more buttons and knobs, and therefore, more possibilities.
But I also find that all their presents are unusable.
There are also many outboard rack units for mastering.
If you are using Pro Tools, or any other digital recording medium,
stay away from outboard racks unless they have a digital ins and
outs. You simply can't trust the unit to get as close to digital
zero without clipping if you're turning input and output knobswhile
eying the meters. I would always set my maximum output level at
"-0.1" instead of "0", because when the final
disc is played on equipment from different manufacturers, or older
equipment, a "0" reading can ruin your whole recording.
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Please look at the 'self noise' of any mic before
buying it.
Here's the basic way I plan on doing a drum mic setup,
until I see the room, see the kit, hear the drummer actually play,
then change my mind! |
