Random Tips and Tricks: Post some, read some

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zoetrope

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Sprinkled throughout these wonderful threads are the occassional gem of an idea. I'd like to start a thread that is just a random assemblage of tips, tricks, ideas, and recording "secrets" you have used or heard about. It can be anything.

To start things off, here are a few I'm stealing from the Tape Op book, which I highly recommend. (Available through http://tapeop.com of course!)

1. The Guitar split signal wah pedal trick!
Split the signal from your guitar or guitar mike, send one line direct to one channel, the other line through a wah pedal, adjust the wah to get a cool sound, keep it there, send that to another channel. You can mix these left and right for a cool stereo sound. Variation: play the way while you do this.

2. The Snapple bottle trick!
Stick a mic in a large Snapple (or other) bottle, point the mouth of the bottle at the source, about 6 feet away, use another mic to close mic the source (like a kick drum), pan these left and right or mix them for weird phase shifting sound.

Let's hear some of your favorites!
 
That wha Trick sounds like a good one to try!Headphones on Pod or other similar device is agood one also..mic the headphones.And the "mechanical"filter effect of the Snapple bottle can be done with paper towel rolls also for some interesting effects.And one more that I can think of is useing a transducer pickup{that you would stick on a acuostic guitar}stuck on a loud Marshall type 4/12 cab..kinda like a stethoscope...cool for heavy sounds

Don
 
There are no tricks, this is pure science.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, my system is now 90% midi, just tracks for an acoustic guitar, some vocals, Sax solo..thats all. How about some tricks to beef up our sampled sounds in a mix. We don't have acoustic problems to deal with, but sometimes some samples can sound a little bland. I'll share 1 of the things that I do.
Strings: I like a flowing string swell, that is the widest thing in my mix, I take a mono track of the strings, and pan hard left, I take a direct out feed to a delay, and back in on another channel hard right. Depending on the music, the delay can range from 150ms to 300ms. I then feed from the original track a touch of hall verb, which is returned stereo in the usual fashion, on the delay track, I pump the send to max, into the same verb, but then reduce the fader down considerably. This is super wet. When the swell begins out of the left, the direct verb starts the aural cues, after the delay, the sound swells to intensity surrounding the listener with a bath of delicious timbre. Try it You will like it. Anyone else have something?
--Rick
 
Mix compressed signal with uncompressed

The Dixon/Murmur undercompression trick:

Here's another one from the Tape Op book, which is just full of gems. In an interview with Don Dixon, who produced Murmur and Reckoning for REM, he talks about this great idea he used on a single coil Rickenbacker to smooth out the peaks, but it could be used elsewhere. He used fast limiting and sent that to one channel, then sent the uncompressed signal to another channel, and mixed these onto one track. You end up with a full sounding signal that still has all the peaks.
Cool idea I'm anxious to try out.
 
Join In!

Hey, this thread has over a 100 views and so few replies, come on! Share those little gems you've gathered. Anything goes, so post away.

And here's another one I picked up from the Tape Op book.

The Bounce high and low to same track trick:

If you have to bounce tracks, try to bounce instruments in different frequency ranges to the same track, like a flute and a bass drum to one track. That way you can still change their relative volumes using the EQ; boosting the high will bring up the flute but leave the bass drum alone (for the most part). This little bit of magic turns a 4 track into an 8 track . . . well, kind of. It is a very good idea.

Let's hear yours!
 
To cut down tape hiss, use a parametric EQ, find out the best frequency that cuts out the hiss. Then when you record, boost this frequency by a set amount. Then when you mix down, cut that frequency by the set amount. The hiss will be cut out and the material recorded will be played back as it was originally.

Does that make sense? Well i know what I mean. You can do the same by just adding extra high eq when recording and cutting it when mixing.
 
Use your software frequency analysis feature to take a "snapshot" of a region of silence before the program material begins (or even between notes).The peaks will be 60 cycle hum,room resonances,all the stuff you don't want to hear later.Graph the offenders positions and their "Q" and slap em back with parametric EQ.Result is a very clean sounding recording.

Tom
 
don't have monitors?

here's my trick for converting your speakers into make-do monitors until you have the $$ to get real monitors..

Take your most favorite professional CD production-wise and pop it into a cd player. Place a flat eq in between the CD player and tape player.. Record your CD to tape and take it to another tape playing source (e.g. your car) and listen.. make as many eq adjustments as necessary to get the best sound on tape that sounds good in all your playing sources..

Use this eq setting in conjunction with your speakers to help compensate for the loss resulting from the curved frequency response of your speakers..

Cy
 
My favorite trick Ive learned from Ed.....

2" tape running at 15ips with Dolby SR............
 
here's a drum recording trick we've used with success:

to get a huge kick sound, build a cardboard (or other material) tunnel sticking out from the kick drum about 4'. close mic the drum and stick another mic at the end of the tunnel. mix those two together.
 
toad_uk said:
To cut down tape hiss, use a parametric EQ, find out the best frequency that cuts out the hiss. Then when you record, boost this frequency by a set amount. Then when you mix down, cut that frequency by the set amount. The hiss will be cut out and the material recorded will be played back as it was originally.
Click to expand...

This is how Ray Dolby got rich and retired a San Francisco socialite.
 
Yeh bongolation. I thought of that one a few years too late. Just think, people could have been recording with Toad A in the studio.

The double T logo is a trademark of Toad Corporation.
 
Here's an old Craig Anderton classic:

For a dead vocal booth, use a closet full of clothes. Can't beat it at any price.
 
Tom, explain further "Use your software frequency analysis feature to take a "snapshot" of a region of silence before the program material begins (or even between notes).The peaks will be 60 cycle hum,room resonances,all the stuff you don't want to hear later.Graph the offenders positions and their "Q" and slap em back with parametric EQ.Result is a very clean sounding recording.

Tom




We used a bunch of throw pillows from couches and stuff and made a big tunnel in front of the kick drum after we got it mic'ed inside. There was also a mic at the end of the tunnel. It thumps.
 
use a trigger on your snare drum and send it's signal to the sidechain input on the gate that you use for snare. The trigger signal will then be used to open/close the gate allowing a much tighter gate on snare with less risk of cutting off the softer hits.
 
Dirty up your drum machine

If it's good enough for Tchad Blake, it's good enough for me...

If your drum machine is sounding too clean and precise for your song (particularly if you're after a 60's-ish sound or are combining with real drum tracks and trying to sound like it's a single kit), try using a clean amp sim in the aux (or in the insert, though I found this too much of an effect).

I had to combine programmed kick and cymbals with real snare and toms (due to lack of mics/compressor/drumming skills and not having brushes sounds on my zoom 123). The real and the sampled did not combine well at all, until I remembered reading about this technique (Tchad uses sansamps on real drums). Using the vox amp sim on my Roland VS840ex worked a treat to dirty up the programmed sounds...

Also from the inimitable Mr Blake, try using a large metal instant coffee can for the "Snapple Trick"

Primus' Les Claypool recommends using a large closet as an amp booth... The door open and closed to various degrees will give you different "room sound"

I'll try and think of more...
Steve
 
another cool trick --

try playing with sympathetic vibrations...
for cool guitar effects, put an acoustic guitar (with an amp jack) in the same room as your amp. play an electric through the amp, mic it, and run it into one channel. take the line out from the acoustic and run it into another channel. when you hit certain notes on the electric, the corresponding string will vibrate on the acoustic. by mixing these two together you can get cool ghostly-reverb effects...

--tim
 
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