A Few Killer Home Recording Freebies

[brandondrury]

In an effort to make this critiquing more efficient I've decided to steal specific sections of Killer Home Recording and give them away as freebies. This way I don't have to explain concepts in half-ass form when I already have a full-blown comprehensive solution (which was the purpose of Killer Home Recording anyway) that vastly exceeds what is typically done on forums/blogs/etc.

[brandondrury]

This was stolen from the pages of Killer Home Recording: Murderous Mixing.

I Hate War m “ ” But I Love “Important”
Members who run around the forum at RecordingReview.com are well aware of the fact that I'm not big on the word “w a r m". In fact, if you type it on the forum, I will come out looking like this: ****. That's mostly a joke, but I have serious reasons why I do it. I don't feel that the word “****” means anything more than “good”. It's not useful for describing audio in my opinion because there are too many contradictory meanings.

So saying “I like **** vocals” doesn't really mean anything to me. Even if it did mean
something to me, it still wouldn't mean anything without any context to compare it to.

However, I was writing about vocal compression and I said:
“You could use volume automation to fix this, but there is something authoritative about using compression on vocals that I like (at least in situations where the vocals need to be authoritative) that vocal automation can not do.”

The magic word here is “authoritative”. That's a word I like! While it's impossible to describe in terms of frequency response, I think it's safe to say that we all know an authoritative vocal at least when compared to a not-so authoritative vocal. In this instance, I'm thinking in terms of the power of the music and the musical performance.

I was reading a thread online recently and a person mentioned that in certain instances, he likes to add a little bit of 300Hz to the vocal to make it sound “more important”. I really like that. Important! When we think of terms like “bright”, “dark”, “thin” etc they all have their place in specific discussions, but just to say we have a bright sounding vocal is kind of focusing on the effect more than the cause. When we start looking at a mix as a way of highlighting the most exciting elements or by making the important elements sound “more important” we put ourselves in a position where we can best serve the song.

So while I'm not saying that you shouldn't use words like “bright” or “dark”, if you are capable of making your important tracks sound more important and your authoritative tracks sound more authoritative, you will stay a busy mixer.

[brandondrury]

This one was stolen from Killer Home Recording: Audio Engineering




If A Mix Hurts, You Fail!
This audio engineering business is about as subjective of a topic as you can get. It's hard to teach specific tactics when I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to achieve. One guy wants a Luther Vandross production. Another guy wants to sound like the Sex Pistols. Regardless of all the possibilities of production, there is only one rule that applies each and every time no matter what. If a mix hurts, you get an automatic F!

In other words, if any part of your mix gives physical pain to the listener from excessive harshness, there is no way that listener will receive all of the intended musical intensity. You have placed a brick wall-like distraction in front of the listener.

So when in doubt, go darker in the upper midrange and high end.

Note: I'm going to ignore Sadomasochists in this case.

We Like It Loud!
For whatever reason, when we really like a song, we crank it up. I can't explain it, but I don'tknow anyone who doesn't do this. Our favorite songs don't hurt when we crank them up, and if your goal is to make music that is good enough for someone to crank up, make sure itdoesn't hurt either!

[scottii15]

Hey people Ive been trying to find answers about this recording shit because I am strictly an artist and I dont Know a damn thing about audio engineering and what not but if you could respond to this you may help me change the world-thx

Aite i have an audio technica at2020(usb) and a macbook
Right now all i have been doing is downloading instrumentals and dragging them onto garage band
from there I hook up my mic and record on garageband
the quality is less than average and I know there is probably a few simple things that could improve the quality
I was thinking about buying one of SE Electronics home studio reflcetion filters but its quite pricey and Im not sure how effective it is
Also Im not sure about these mic pre-amps and if i need one for my microphone

Any advice will be helpful even if its acouple lines
Thanks Guys and Girls

[huckleberry]

Have you read the zen of mixing by mixerman?
What was your take on that book if you read it.

[brandondrury]

I have read Zen and The Art Of Mixing. I REALLY liked Mixerman's first book, which wasn't an educational book at all, quite a bit better. This one was dramatically less fun and a whole lot more formal. I learned a few things. I thought it was definitely worth reading, but it suffered from the usual problems you often see when big dogs try to teach. I didn't feel it was a full-blown ultra-comprehensive kind of thing. There are many great concepts in it, the kind of concepts you expect from a $20 book.

I'm a big believer in learning as much as you can and if I learn one little thing, it's easily worth $20 to me and I do recommend it as part of the gig.

Zen And The Art Of Mixing Review

[nobel]

Weldon a great information sharing by you, i really appreciate to you about this. this is really awesome dude. very nice to have this post. thanks man

[ValCasey]

Have you read the combination of zen mixerman? What is you join the book, if you read it.

[Guitarslinger5150]

Although I certainly appreciate your opinion. I dont understand why you don't like that word "****" in a mix. To me it's a perfect discription. Another term I don't understand is "Kick drum" - Eddie Kramer hates that term discribing a Bass drum. I guess it just all depends on taste.

[brandondrury]

You can read about my problem with w a r m here: Law #1 - W A R M is BANNED! I'm not sure how many different individuals you attempt to communicate about sound with, but any term that has 15 different and conflicting meanings generally has zero meanings in my book.

Another term I don't understand is "Kick drum" - Eddie Kramer hates that term discribing a Bass drum.

A lot of guys mention Eddie Kramer when mentioning this. I trust Eddie Kramer a whole lot when he's in front of a console. I do not think he is the god of semantics, however. That's my job.

I'm always shocked when this discussion comes up, actually, because the labeling of tracks in the DAW immediately moved me in the direction of calling it the "kick". Having a "bass drum" and a "bass guitar" causes multiple problems mid session.

Brandon