Share your favorite production tricks / techniques

S

ssseals

New member
I'm working on multiple recording projects at the moment and am always looking/listening for interesting production/arrangement 'tricks' to spice them up. Like using dynamics... quiet fingerpicking through verses, soft strumming in the pre-chorus, stumming/tamborine in chorus. Or making sure that instruments play off each other well and don't occupy the same sonic space. Panning guitars. Using the studio as a tool.

Some of it may seem like common sense, but when you go to record a song, there are so many possibilities outside just strumming and playing (like it was written) and I don't want to use the same techniques on every song.

Most of what we're working on are singer/songwriter type songs, most without drums, so we're trying to get creative.
 
Use EQ with reckless abandon

Dont pan vocals too hard, it sounds wack

Dont be afraid to use a good reverb

insert a compressor on your master bus
 
When I am mixing, and the guitar player wants "Just a little more high end please", I like to have a box with a couple of knobs that sits next to the console and act like I plug it in at the patch bay then "tweek" the knobs! :D When I get it just right in their opinion, then I pick up the box that doesn' t have any wires connected to it, and the guitar player actually starts to listen after that! :D

I am a Creep!
 
I think my best production trick is making the performer(s) feel at ease and at home while we are working.I will usually crack a joke or something right from the outset to get them to loosen up and perform well.That seems to help the production better than any recording tecqniques or technical mumbo jumbo I have learned to date.


Have a good one!
 
Thanks for the replies. I should mention that this is all home-based with friends/bandmantes, not 'real' clients, so it's all pretty laid back except for trying hard to make a good project.
 
Here's a paste from the Def Leppard Thread...

It explains how I recorded my song "In my head".. Theres a few tricks and tips in it....

POSTED BY VOXVENDOR>>>

"How do I do it?"

Well, thats a very, very interesting story... You see, It all started, that day Mutt Lange was over at my house for tea.... We got talking about Vocals and......

Ahhh never mind.. I'll save that one for another day


Ok.....

Drums....

Boss DR770 for Bass and Snare... The Snare is actually 2 snares layered on top of each other...

The Cymbals and Hi Hats are all real live...

Little Trick, that is simple, but not many drum programmers do it...Have 2 tracks for your snare, and during a roll, or fill have one of the snares flam.. (in other words, make it sound like the drummer is hitting the snare with 2 sticks, but one is slightly later...

I just pasted the snare onto the second snare track, and just nudge it enough to be a little bit late....

This can be done by hand, but it's a little more involved..

You will hear this effect in the first drum fill on the song "In my head" when the " big" drums all jump in...and once again, at the end of that little drum part just before the end chorus comes back and fades out..


Guitars.... POD.. Mexi-Strat... During the chorus, there are 4 layers.. There is a lower power chord, and I pan that left, and then seperately record the same power chord, but with a slightly different guitar sound, on a different track and then pan that one right, and then I do another power chord, which is sort of a "harmony" to the first one, and then do the same thing, left and right with slightly different guitar sound...

Piano....Thats my Roland Groove Keyboard.... Nothing fancy, just a preset...

Vocals.. These were done, just though my Digi 001 Breakout box, no fancy Pre's... The mic I used was a AT4033....

How are the backing vocals done..??

Well, it's actually simpler then it sounds.... there is in all 75 Layers there, and 50 of the layers are sperately sung....

I used an SM57 for the backing vocals... (at least im pretty sure I did)

The only way to get that "airy" Def Leppard sound, is through lots and lots of layers... and I mean seperately sung, I don't mean just cutting and pasting...

I have had people tell me that I can do it with 4 layers... if anyone tells you that, tell them they are talking from there ass... It's impossible..

I have even challenged people who have told me that, and they say they will post a clip, but I have yet to hear one..

It is the fact that the singers breath is going into the mic and onto the track 50 some odd times that gives the vocals that airy sound...

No EQ, or Reverb, OR cutting and pasting will do that..

Everyones system is different.. but here is how I did it...

The higher harmony was sung 25 times all onto different tracks.... You might have to do some bouncing to achieve this...

Then I eq'd and compressed the hell out the the vocals.... I can't say exact settings on eq or compression, cause It was so long ago, and I have since done away with that vocal session...(I had to add alot of High eq and take out alot of mids to acheive "the effect") and then I bounced them all onto one track... I then compressed that track..... Then I duplicated that track, spread the 2 tracks wide... (I had to delay one by a millisecond or so.., cause it went a bit phasey)

Then the lower harmony was sung 25 times, and the exact same method was used... bit it is just down the center, it's not stereo..

Keep in mind, I was doing the vocals in a new session along with a mono bounced mix of my song just as a guide track....

So after I was done the back-up vocals, I mixed them so the fit good together, and bounced them to disk as a stereo wav. and then imported them into my actual song-session..
Then, I just moved them around, and duplicated them enough times, for all my choruses.. (The part was only actually sung once)

Other than that... thats pretty much how it was done...


Mutt Lange does a 5 part harmony for Def leppard and usually 20-30 layers for each part... So thats about 130-160 layers in total... In Def Leppards stuff... But sometimes, it's just a few... like about 100 or so...

Joe
 
All of those techniques you mention are legendary.

They helped define a particular sound, and a particular era in my life that I remember fondly. I'll never forget 7th grade . . . passing along the walkman back and forth behind Mr. Cox's back when he turned around to write something on the board about Russian history. And usually it would be Pyromania jammin' away. You see, Mr. Cox's hearing wasn't too great, so we could get away with it.

But as fondly as I remember it all, those days are over. And the sound is outdated. Very much like Phil Specter's "wall of sound," I have to believe that the current decade . . . do we even have a name for our decade yet? How about the zero's? Okay, the zero's sound, I think, is defined more by a return to simplicity. 50 layers of vocals won't cut it anymore . . . and the wall of sound is about as "yesterday" as the Berlin wall.

That said, I think the best production technique/secret I can think of is K.I.S.S. Just keep it simple, stupid! Keep everything as dry and organic as possible. Get your tracks to sound the way you want them on the way in, so you're not forced to over-produce on the way out. Use neutral-sounding mics and preamps, keep effects to a minimum, and pull out the reverb only for special occasions.

On the subject of reverb -- try experimenting with natural verb if at all possible. This can be a lot of fun, actually. Do some recording on-location at your church if you can get access. Or an old warehouse if you can rent one out for a day. I personally can't wait for the day when I can record some vocals at the subway station. I haven't yet, but it is one of my goals. :)

Don't over-compress, because you'll lose the dynamic element. If you're worried about volume, remember that most people have volume buttons on their stereos, and they know how to use them. Electric drums can still be pretty cool, but only if you're doing techno / industrial / electronic music. They just don't have a place any longer in Rock & Roll as we know it. :) There are some exceptions, though, I will admit.

In summary, I just think the listening public is growing weary of all the over-production from the 80's and 90's. Good news is the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears are quickly showing themselves to be the passing fads they are (were). I'm looking forward to a return to simplicity . . . fewer tracks, less clutter, more focus on the music.

Two of the best-produced albums in the last decade I can think of belong to Fiona Apple (When the Pawn) and Elton John's "Songs from the West Coast." Both, you may notice have very minimalistic production. Minimal effects, but excellent production and musical value.
 
chessrock said:

But as fondly as I remember it all, those days are over. And the sound is outdated. Very much like Phil Specter's "wall of sound," I have to believe that the current decade . . . do we even have a name for our decade yet? How about the zero's? Okay, the zero's sound, I think, is defined more by a return to simplicity. 50 layers of vocals won't cut it anymore . . . and the wall of sound is about as "yesterday" as the Berlin wall.
Click to expand...

I Disagree... The 90's were the age, of having grungy rock bands recording live off the floor....Keeping it "real"... (well so they used to say)

Now with Linkin Park, Alien Ant Farm and Sum 41, the hottest rock groups these days, we are back into big productions...

Have you heard the Linkin Park CD?.. It's a huge Production, with vocal layers, electronic drums, lots of guitar layering, Samples, Drum loops....

Right now the LP cd is arguably the hottest rock cd around

It's coming back bro.. Be ready for it...



Oh, and Really Who cares what is in.... So what, if all these Nirvana Wannabe bands, are trying to keep the garage rock thing going....

I like Layers, and Big productions.... and Thats why I do it... whether it's in style or not doesn't mean anything to me..

But, as I said... she's-a-comin'-back!

Joe;)
 
VOXVENDOR said:
Now with Linkin Park, Alien Ant Farm and Sum 41, the hottest rock groups these days, we are back into big productions...
Click to expand...

Again, it seems like we're still talking about teenie-bopper bands here. :) :) My guess is their following consists largely of a young audience. Which is all part of my theory. Everything goes in waves, and it won't be long before the record companies catch on to the fact that the teen / early-college market isn't the only market out there. What you say is true as of this hour on this day. The late-20's / early-mid-30's crowd has been ignored, largely, for the past 10 years, and a lot of us miss the simplicity of the grungie bands we listened to in our day. We still have money to spend on records, and we're sick of all the Celine Dion / Shanai Twain and even Dave Matthews (to an extent) crap the record companies have been force-feeding us.

And although we've long since donated our flannel shirts to the Salvation Army, we still like music . . . we have money to spend on it . . . and it won't be long before we can put away our Britney Spears dart boards for good.

And keep in mind that the younger crowd knows their way around Gnutella better than any other age category, and it won't be long before the record companies get hip to the greater profit potential of the Gen-X'ers. However you look at it, we're still more likely to actually purchase the CDs and pay $100 + for the concert tickets. It all goes in waves, and I'm merely looking ahead to the next several years rather than the immediate present.
 
I gotta agree with ya Vox. At least in the sense that a good technique is a good technique, regardless of the era. Hell, if something sounds good, use it.
 
Interesting chessrock. You're starting to show your age. ;) I remember the 80's rockers saying the same thing not quite a decade ago (now I'm showing my age).

For some reason, I think the mid-30's crowd lends itself more to rock than grunge.
 
Details on vocal compression

Hey VOX...

When you said "compressed the hell out of the vocals", can you give me details as you best remember them?

In particular, what threshhold setting and what ratios would you consider to be "compressing the hell" out of the vocals?

Anything else relevant worth mentioning?

Thanks in advance.

P.S., 50 different layers sung? How long did that take? 100 years?
 
Ok.. this is a rough estimate...

Threshold -32.9db
Ratio 3:00:1
Attack 11 ms
Release 50 ms
Knee 80

Total reduction tops out at about -11 db..


Thats just a guess... but it was something close to that...

Joe
 
Re: Details on vocal compression

TripleM said:

P.S., 50 different layers sung? How long did that take? 100 years?
Click to expand...

Actually about 2 hours.... If you know what you want and know how to get it, and sing relatively good takes, it doesn't take long.....

The part I did in the song, was only done once, and then I just duplicated the backing vocal mix as many times as needed...
 
ssseals said:
Thanks for the replies. I should mention that this is all home-based with friends/bandmantes, not 'real' clients, so it's all pretty laid back except for trying hard to make a good project.
Click to expand...
I'm in the same boat and I find that even though you're not paying for the time, there's a lot of self-imposed pressure to get the thing done. In my case, at least, we're all older with families and such. We don't get together as much, so music time turns into a blab-fest unless I know exactly what I want to do. Since I do most of the writing, too, that means everything from demo-ing other people's parts ahead of time to having mics set up and the recording rig up and running before anyone comes through the door. If not, my studio turns into the set of "The View"...
 
Cool, I like them. How long you been recording, and what do you use to record them? If you don't mind my asking....
 
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