What is your most memorable "ah-ha!" moment in learning to mix/record?

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multiplied tonic harmony eq cuts making something more prominent by actually removing part of it, Learning how to tune drums cos alot of drummers unfortunatley cannot, ,stopping comparing mixes to mastered recordings,walking around a little during mix playback,lots of a-ha`s there!(telling a band that a good mastering engineer is a turd polishing alchemist to shut them up)
 
1. Use the bass roll off and/or be aware of those low frequencies.
2. Don't close mic an acoustic.
3. Stop watching the music on the monitor and remember how to listen.
4. Less is more.
5. You don't have to hard pan stereo tracks to sound big.
 
I haven’t had a “moment”, unless you can describe a moment as something that goes on forever. Maybe the closest to a moment was when I realized the incredible amount of hype involved with digital. :rolleyes:
 
earlyriser said:
1. Use the bass roll off and/or be aware of those low frequencies.
.
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Same here, I used to EQ highs trying to make layers, then I realized theres four octaves of notes/tones between 55hz and 880hz,(for example) shit speakers pronounce the low-mids, thats where I get a clean mix that translates well to other systems.
 
BIG +1 on not close micing an acoustic

Compressors will make a huge difference if you delvelop an ear for what they do, and not over use them.

A good preamp is forgiving

Don't track so hot... +1MM

If you mix, let someone else master. If you master, let someone else mix. They ain't the same thing, don't try to do both.

No amount of knowledge or gear is going to make you suck less. Practice, become a better player, and the recording will progress with you.

Check your ego, and accept criticism from those who have experience. This is my biggest AH HA moment.

Every once in a while, leave the recording room, go outside, and obsess about something else. :)
 
My "ah-ha"

Hello all,

This is my first post on this excellent forum. I just wanted to share my recent 'A-Ha' (no not the band from 80's) moments..
1. When recording heavy/rock guitars, Do not use the same amount of gain you would use on live gig..

2. Use large diaphragm mics as drum overheads :D When we recorded the first selfmade demos with my band, we had only 2 small diaphragm condencer mics. They did do their job, but the sound was weird. Could be also that the mics are not that good, but the 'A-Ha' moment was there :D

3. I realized this just now reading this thread.. My input signals are way too hot.

4. I really have to get good monitors. Currently I have some old Logitech computer speakers and I really want to try mixing with decent monitors.
 
When I first started recording it was with GarageBand, and I automated my tracks to get them to mix well.
Moving to logic I done the same for ages until I was mucking about one night, and discovered Compression
Ah-Ha!

It does it all for you and more!

I found it fantastic, it almost mixes the track for you.

And I've yet to get carried away and drain all emotion from my recordings (I hope)
 
For those of us who have limited experience/knowledge of home recording but are nevertheless keen as mustard, this has got to be one of the most useful and eye-opening threads in the forum. So much to learn and yet I can see the sense in most of what is being said here. It would probably horrify most of you to learn that, being in temporary accommodation, I have to "set-up" wherever there is a spare room/table available; record vocals with a USB mic; use software instruments and samples (courtesy of Logic) and mix with headphones because even if I could afford decent monitors I have no decent place to put them. Still, we all have to start somewhere and what I really enjoy is the creative process. :)
 
the big one for me was learning never to use the phrase "i can fix that later"

JUST RE RECORD IT......ALWAYS. :)

i think the luxury of free and easy digital editing can really damage the entire point of recording, which for me, is capturing a performance


seems so obvious, but i think a lot of people are guilty of this.
 
Steenamaroo said:
the big one for me was learning never to use the phrase "i can fix that later"

JUST RE RECORD IT......ALWAYS. :)

i think the luxury of free and easy digital editing can really damage the entire point of recording, which for me, is capturing a performance


seems so obvious, but i think a lot of people are guilty of this.
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For me there have been a few. But one is the opposite of Steenamaroo's, that is, the notion that studio trickery can enable later fixing and any end listener will be none the wiser unless you tell them.
 
The reality check on our oh so finely tuned human (mine anyway) 'objective critical listening skills.
Actually I get a re-up on my humbling shots every once in a while-- Tweaking a compressor, eq whatever, while it's in by pass.
;)
 
Reverb on drums comes after the room mics have been adjusted to taste, if at all.
Great gear is irrelevant to a mediocre performance.
A really good preamp and mic do make a difference, a hi end compressor is the sound you are usually looking for.
A Reddi preamp is something all bass players should bring to the studio.
A great static mix is great, a mix with movement is more interesting.
The room in which you mix has more to do with a great final product than most anything else, as well as your FQ (frequency quotient - IQ applied to sound or your hearing skills)
Outboard compressors are better than plug in compressors.
Most plug in FXs are useless except Delays and Reverbs which generally work. Not always but generally.
A great arrangement is the framework people expect.
The center of the mix is critical and the communication center point.
You can make professional sounding tracks at home by yourself but it's more fun to do it with some trusted compadres.
You can only be consistently good at two or three instruments, let someone else create the other parts.
Headphones are great for learning to mix but never use them for a final mix.
Never commit to a final mix unless you have heard it on at least 4 different monitor sources.
An SM57 is the universal translator of sound.
Hybrid mixing needs to be a goal if you can't afford an SSL.
The CL1B is the holy grail of vocal compressors.
The GM EQ is the holy grail of EQs.
A great sound is quickly found with the following preamps 1073, 1081, API550, V76 although out of the price range of most of us.
You will never be happy unless you own a U47 although you never will.
You owe it to yourself to get a C1 or API 2500 master buss compressor. Although you probably won't.
Mastering can be done at home although you owe it to yourself, one time, to at least find and use a professional mastering engineer to see how its' really done.
Knowing what mics to use for tracking reduces your frustration and lowers your mixing time.

These were my enlightening moments.
 
I think someone should close this thread already. The bullshit is going to start spilling into people's living rooms.
 
There is often a tendency to present personal discoveries and preferences as universal, unalterable truth~facts. I find the world a more paradoxical and expansive place than that.
I don't think any of my "A~ha !" moments translate to anything earth shattering or universally applicable.
But they were to me.
Probably my first moment like this was when I was learning to play bass. I initially borrowed an amp off a friend but he soon wanted it back. For reasons I've totally forgotten, I didn't buy one for myself {probably because I'd just discovered ganja} but as I had a new Hitachi cassette tape deck with two mic inputs, one day I just got the idea to stick the lead into one of the inputs, put the deck into record mode and pause and the sound of the bass came out of the speakers ! It was 9 years before I bought an amp !

For the first 6 years that I recorded, if I wanted effects on vocals or guitars or bass or whatever, I had to record with them. It actually never occurred to me to record dry and add effects after. The manual of my Tascam 488 hinted at it but it was written in such a way that it may as well have been Japanese for all the sense it made to me. Hence, much of my early stuff is drowned in effects in a most indisciplined way. I had bouncing down to a fine art when one day, I was driving around and it really hit me like "Eureka ! I have found it !!". I thought about ways that I could use the FX sends and returns to add effects and I couldn't wait to get home and try it. I had these two songs that segued, "Gone with the mind......and out of our heads" that I'd written in B {first and last time I tried that !} and because my mate and I fluffed some bits, we recorded it in 2 sections. So when I was bouncing them into one continuous piece, I tried the effects thing and it worked ! I was walking on the moon !

I was desperate to be able to transfer all my 8 track portastudio tracks to my Akai DAW in one go and the means to do it with the Mark 2 existed {finding that was how I heard of HR.com in the first place}.
I had the mark 1.
It couldn't be done with the mark 1. Getting 7 of the 8 tracks was possible but no good to me because the 8th track would drift. I tried doing it with 4 and 4 but the second set just drifted and matching up the tracks was impossible. I tried it. The guys that developed a way of getting all 8 tracks out on the mark 2 kept on talking about "inserts" and "Cue outs" which the mark 1 didn't have. But one day as I was thinking about it, it occurred to me that if I played one track as a cue and not a mix and fed it out of the headphone socket, it should work. And it did ! It only took me 7 years to figure it out. But it's made working on the older stuff possible.......and easier.

I'm semi hopeless with compression. Sometimes I can get it to work for me quite effectively. Other times, I haven't a clue. Ever since I first used one in 2000, I've often had to go extreme in order to hear it working. But recently {this week in fact}, an "A~ha" moment occurred when I worked out that by having hardly any make up gain, I could push it really hard on drums and get a more punchy sound without artifacts or that horrible volume dip and suck that comes, especially on cymbals. For the first time, I can perceive transparency and subtlety.

Double miking an acoustic guitar is standard and nothing groundbreaking. But in addition to double miking, I found that plugging in the electro acoustic and adding a shitty bottletop pick up and plugging that in and blending all four tracks gives me a better acoustic guitar sound than I have ever been able to achieve in any other way. The sound of the electro acoustic plugged in on it's own is awful. The sound I get from the bottletop mic is raw but acceptable. With some EQ~ing and panning, the four tracks, at least to me, sound great.

A similar thing happened with my acoustic bass guitar. I originally bought it because I was looking for a kind of double bass sound. Well, the first time I played it, I realized it wasn't happening with roundwound strings. So I changed them for flats. As it was fretless {the fretmarks are drawn on} I could do nice swoops and I used to plug it in and double track with a mic. But it wasn't really double bass. I gave up on that idea and just bought a double bass ! But one day, I plugged the acoustic bass guitar into my line 6 15 watt guitar amp and put on some very light chorus {I generally hate chorus} and messed with the settings and ended up with what I think is a grand little fretless electric bass sound. Completely unexpectedly and by accident. Live, it would be rubbish, but it's wonderful for recording, especially with a 58.

Editing is such a useful tool to have and can be used in a very creative way. When adding parts to an already existing recording to extend it, setting the in and out points can be a challenge. But instead of setting points on the beat, I've found that by setting the points just before the bass drum at the start of a beat rather than on the beat, I get seamless joins.
Drummers are often quite mathematical !

I've had and continue to have, these moments of discovery. It's only afterwards that it all seems so obvious.
 
jaynm26 said:
Who resurrected this old skeleton post ???
Click to expand...
Given that's it's not a poll, it should be rather obvious. :RTFM:

By the way, when you see an old thread resurrected, it's not part of the terms of membership that you are obliged to read any new posts. :D

Which brings another "moment" to mind.
The main reason I got into digital recording was the notion of "automation" which I mistakenly understood to include the mouthwatering prospect of mixing in sections. Which, when you do 20 minute songs, is a wonderful notion. So I was a little disappointed to discover that the DAW I have didn't have that function and that, in any event, that wasn't what automation was.
Anyhow, after a couple of years, I bought an identical secondary DAW, mainly as a back up unit in case my main one kaputted. It was going at a reasonable price in one of the few musical instrument exchanges left in London since the computer music revolution.
Although the idea was to use it as a back up, I soon found I was using both machines because I'm always working on multiple projects. I'd forgotten about the idea of section mixing when suddenly one day after a couple of years, either as I was driving or just coming out of a sleep, it hit me ! Because part of the editing can involve moving chunks of data and cutting out the spaces you might not want {thereby shortening a song or track}, it occurred to me that I could mix from machine A in tiny sections to machine B and then when all the parts of a song were finally mixed to my satisfaction, just use the "cut~move" bit to bring the whole lot together on machine B, thus a seamless performance. So simple. And so effective. It works brilliantly. I laughingly refer to it as 'poor man's automation'.
Thinking in this way also brought the added benefit of being able to fly tracks in from other projects to an existing one, which the version I have {Akai DPS 12i} can't do. Which makes sampling sooooo easy. I've been flying cymbal crashes in and in the absence of one of my drumming pals, creating the drum tracks from already recorded songs to create new songs, like the world was going to end tomorrow.
 
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