Starter settings on the Web?

[HapiCmpur]

I’ve found a handful of books that contain helpful recording “recipes” that newbies can use as starting points as they learn to tweak EQ, reverb, compression and such in their recordings. For instance, Peter McIan’s book, Using Your Portable Studio, recommends a group of settings for lead vocals, another group of settings for rhythm guitars, another for bass, and so on, just to put novices in the general ballpark of what tends to work well in most applications. And I figure since every application is different, the more recipes I have the better off I’ll be.

Problem is, the books are expensive, very similar in most respects, and only contain a handful of those recommended settings. Everything else is pretty much the same from one book to the next--a chapter on how recorders work, a chapter on how mics work…you know how it goes. Naturally, I don’t want to buy half a dozen very similar books just to get a bunch of different setting recommendations, so I’m wondering if there are any websites out there that offer something similar.

A Google search turned up these two: http://lmbpc.ulh.ac.uk/audio/eq_settings.htm and http://www.orange-fields.com/widepages/wideasleeprec.html.

But I think I'm going to need more. Any suggestions?

 

[Sennheiser]

Yes. Experiment on your own with your equipment.

You are not going to learn the art of recording out of a cookbook for mixing. You have to experiment and learn your equipment and what sounds good to you and what sounds like crappola.

Sorry. Those are the facts. You probably have all of the written material you will ever need, now you just have to take a hands-on approach.

 

[HapiCmpur]

You are not going to learn the art of recording out of a cookbook for mixing. You have to experiment and learn your equipment and what sounds good to you and what sounds like crappola.

I certainly understand the need to experiment, but I disagree with your assertion that raw experimentation is a good way for newbies to learn such a monumental set of tasks. That’s kind of like telling someone who just read a book on drawing that he can now learn to do oil paintings through trial and error. EQ alone offers an almost infinite number of possibilities in any given application. Add in dynamics processing and all the rest and it becomes something worthy of a full apprenticeship. I’m just a hobbyist; I’m not looking to make a second career out of this.

Novices need starting points. Besides, it just makes sense to benefit from the knowledge and experience of those who’ve gone before us. I believe that I’ll learn more (and more rapidly) by comparing how, say, Peter McIan and Craig Anderton EQ a piano than I will from randomly turning knobs myself just to see what happens. So while I appreciate the need to experiment eventually, I don’t think I’d benefit much from it at such an early stage in my education.

So my original question is still open to anyone who’s aware of any good sites on EQing and such.