Tips and Cool Tricks

NL5

NL5

Unpossible!
OK, I'm bored out of my skull, and a couple of other threads got me thinking. I know we've done this before, but it's always a fun exercise.

List some tips and/or tricks that you like, or think a newbie should know.

I'll start with a couple tips -

Compression - learn how to use it as an effect, not as "gain" control. Start with an 1176 if you can. It's only a few knobs - play around and really LISTEN to what it does at various settings. If you have drum room mics, set it to British Mode, and just destroy the tracks, and tuck 'em into the mix. On vocals, always crush the hell out of them. Then, run 'em through again, and hit 'em harder. Seriously.

The Room - is probably way more important than you think.

A Cool Trick -

Pull the fader all the way down - There are a million and one cool things you can do with a track when the fader is pulled all the way down. Play around with it, and don't be afraid to experiment.


So, let's hear some other great Tips and Tricks. :D

.
 
OK, I'll bite while I'm waiting for some software to compile...
NL5 said:
Pull the fader all the way down - There are a million and one cool things you can do with a track when the fader is pulled all the way down.
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Oh, very nice ;) :D.

- Actually, I have a favorite related one: Don't be afraid to mute all pr parts of tracks as the final mix. Even though every member of the band will individually tell you otherwise, not everybody needs to be playing full-bore through the entire song; an un-tamed arrangement that often winds up sounding like a mish-mosh of mish-mosh in the final mix.

and

- Everybody has drums, a guitar or two and a bass. Add some spice to your mix with the small and more uncommon stuff as accent. There's nothing wimpy about the well-placed shaker, macarena, block, etc. Like any spice they can be overdone, but at the right amount will make the difference between just another mix in a million and one that stands out.

I'll keep it short for a change and stop here...It's about time for my software build to lock up my computer with a new bug anyway ;) :D.

G.
 
Nice Glen!

And to add to your thing about muting. I'll take it one step further. Just because a track is recorded, doesn't mean it has to be used. I've gotten tracks to mix with 87 guitar tracks, and they can't figure out why it doesn't sound "full". I remix it with two guitar tracks, and they want to know how I got it to sound so great. I'm a firm believer in the KISS principle. if you don't know why you're adding something, don't f$#%ing add it!
 
Dogbreath said:
track at lower levels!
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QFT.. I shoot for about -12 peaks. If the first thing you do is pull all your faders down to -12, you're doing it wrong... I think that one thing caused the single biggest improvement to my sound.

Another huge thing for me: Turn the gain down on your distorted guitars, esp. if you plan on layering tracks. It'll sound heavier in the mix. Yeah, we know it doesn't sound good while you're jamming setting levels and etc, just try it..
 
Good points dude...backing off the gain on my guits has helped a bunch.

And I guess I should've clarified my "track at lower levels".

Input fader @ unity
Track fader @unity
Master fader @ unity

The one you back off to say -12 is the input (trim) gain.

Sound about right?
 
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On the "try different instruments" note... try using electronic stuff. processers and whatnot. I recently had a band come in for a couple weeks to record five songs for them and they used a vocal effect on their stuff the whole time. i think it was a guitar pedal, a digitech rp250 or something? ANyways, the stuff turned out great. I'm going back in to remix it, but I think they've got some gold here!!!!! r&b infused metal -- AWESOME.

I'm a big fan of production techniques :) Not really knowledgeable on actual recording techniques as I tend to "learn the hard way".
 
Yeah, the input gain/trim. So the track itself peaks around -12. Depends on the interface, you don't really have to worry about the master/track faders unless they affect the signal going over your usb/fw. My interface send a pre-fader signal, taken directly after the pre/gain, so my sliders could be at -∞ for all I care. My old Yamaha mw10 sends a POST fader signal, so if I was still using that I WOULD have to set all 3 so the final output to the usb was ~-12. I never tracked that low back then tho, but I was really good at getting it to -.1 or -.2! :o
 
Try to record only things that deserve to be recorded (as cocky as it may sound)...

Nothing harder to try to get a drum sound from a newbie drummer. It´s not gonna happen, and it´s not about your budget hardware!
 
I'm having sample rate coversion problems and am highly upset, so I will play too

My new fad for the month...parallel compression and reverb...reverb the shit out of a vocal, pan it maybe 20 degrees left (my preference of course) and then pan the shit out of a track with the reverb on a send buss (pre fader) w/ a heavy compression. Maybe a nice delay (depending on the space of the composition)...

Here's one I learned the hard way..PREAMP....esp. for the DAW freaks..Those pre's on your A/D device aren't good..trust me

The best one, for all hi end/ low end studio owners, mixers, producers, whatever...A/B your mix with something you like thats similar. If you can get it close, no matter what your environment (to some extent) you will have a pretty decent mix going. (provided you have good taste in music in the first place)
 
Use different compressors. Really study the compressors that you have and learn their characteristics, whether they are clean or distort when pushed hard, how their attack/release characteristics are (whether they're fast or slow, for example), then use them in complementary manner. Don't be afraid to use 2 or 3 different compressors inserted onto the same track that are targetting different aspects, whether controlling unruly peaks, adding attitude, "geling" together different sounds (on a group/bus track). This way you can have things that have controlled dynamics yet don't lose their punch and heft for example.

When dealing with complex processor chains (say for example EQ -> Comp -> EQ -> Distortion -> Comp -> Saturator -> etc.) make sure to bypass processors in the middle and take note how your chain sounds, this is especially the case when dealing with any sort of dynamics processor be it EQ, compressor or some kind of distortion device as they are highly dependent on what comes before them. If you're dealing with plugins with these kinds of chains, you may even want to automate the FX bypass to alter the sound according to different sections in the tune.

When using vocoders with vocals, make sure you EQ and compress the vocals before they hit the vocoder to enhance intelligibility.

When doing sound design, you can even use non-audio applications to mess with a sample. For example you can load an .aiff or .wav file into Photoshop, apply Gaussian Blur to it and then reload that into your DAW or sampler. This will give it an interesting lo-fi reverby type of sound that you can't get any other way.

Don't be afraid of nasty digital distortion. Things such as Wraparound distortion, waveshaping and FM can be great for crunching up percussive sounds or background drones. The key here is not to use these sounds all the time, just use them to spice things up here and there (unless of course you're pretending to be a post-industrial rivet-head such as myself). Some post processing such as filtering, eq and compression maybe necessary to take some of the harshness out, if you deem it necessary.

If you have a convolution reverb, there is nothing preventing you from loading any audio file into them. So load them with drum loops, single hits, pad sounds and process audio through them to come up with some interesting evolving sounds that you can drop here and there to spice things up.

That's it from me for now.
 
Ironklad Audio said:
oh shit, i just forgot that i found a few of those sitting around in my attic

maybe i'll go blow the dust off and rack 'em up real quick...
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LOL. I meant 1176 style compressor. They have software versions, and I think some are even free. :)
 
the sound you want comming out your monitors is not always the sound you want comming out your guitar amp. Get the amp like you like it then bring the gain lower then you normally would. Less gain is cleaner going in and easier to build up layers for heavier sounds more gain layered starts to sound like fired bacon :)


never forget to experement. I have albums that have sold well with tracks of me recording cell phones me scratching the back of chairs hitting a door micing a fish tank aquarium and countless other odd things any sound can be musical and useful to the producer and i mean any sound
 
Track three takes of vocals. Pan one center, one at two o"clock to the right and one at 10 o'clock to the left. Lower the panned ones so the center track is loudest. Adjust so the other two panned tracks fill out the lead center vocal and add reverb to the center vocal only.




Bonus points:
Then, reverse the track, double the vocal tracks with delay, reverse again and speed up, reverse again and slow down 1/2 value you sped up BEFORE you reversed the tracks and in between when you doubled and reversed again.

Great effect, I got it from the Expert Village guy. Very knowledgable engineer, that one.
 
MCI2424 said:
Then, reverse the track, double the vocal tracks with delay, reverse again and speed up, reverse again and slow down 1/2 value you sped up BEFORE you reversed the tracks and in between when you doubled and reversed again.

Great effect, I got it from the Expert Village guy. Very knowledgable engineer, that one.
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I smell a hit record there!
 
noisewreck said:
When doing sound design, you can even use non-audio applications to mess with a sample. For example you can load an .aiff or .wav file into Photoshop, apply Gaussian Blur to it and then reload that into your DAW or sampler. This will give it an interesting lo-fi reverby type of sound that you can't get any other way.
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I HAVE to try that. :D


(I'm kind of a sonic anarchist sometimes, and get off on making guitars sound like they're not guitars...)
 
if the deseser isnt doing it you need to go download the freeware deKer it takes all the clicks out of your vocals for a nice smooth polished sound

and go get yourself a alesis 3630 compressor its a secret industry standard to make main vocals pop in a mix its a sound like nothing else out there

also take all your bangin drum samples and convert them to 12 bit audio then back to 16 bit that will give them a lo fi crunch
 
MCI2424 said:
Bonus points:
Then, reverse the track, double the vocal tracks with delay, reverse again and speed up, reverse again and slow down 1/2 value you sped up BEFORE you reversed the tracks and in between when you doubled and reversed again.

Great effect, I got it from the Expert Village guy. Very knowledgable engineer, that one.
Click to expand...

I'll never forget the first time I heard that done and realized I knew nothing about mixing whatsoever.
 
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