Recording drums is tricky. You’re just throwing a bunch of mics together, all aimed at separate drums that are somehow supposed to record a punchy and tight drum sound. Terrifying isn’t it? All those microphones phasing each other out and making your snare drum thin, your cymbals wishy-washy and your toms boomy. What’s an engineer...
There’s an inverse relationship between how many instruments you put in your mix and how much space you can give them in the EQ spectrum. The bigger the arrangement, the smaller the space each instrument has in your mix. A power-punk quartet with drums, bass, two guitars and loud vocals a la Offspring? Not much...
I love this article Graham Cochrane wrote over at The Recording Revolution about Getting more Width and Separation the Backwards Way. I loved it because it reminded me of an interview with a top mixing engineer. I can’t remember his name but I believe it was from one of Howard Massey’s Behind the Glass books....
A clean guitar sound is something people actually struggle with. To me it was always the opposite. I had the hardest time getting the distortion sound I wanted, as I’ve mentioned before. I think the key to a great clean guitar sound is threefold. Clean guitar Clean amp Clean fingers Clean Guitar Some guitars are...
I ran across this quote yesterday when I was looking through some of the feedback readers sent me recently. I asked this person what the hardest part of mixing was. After going through the typical issues of muddines, EQ, compression and the like this golden nugget just popped out: “I just need to practice” Well...
I believe one of the best ways to improve your music production skills is to listen and dissect popular songs throughout history. And I would even suggest blatantly stealing ideas and making them your own. If you can get so inspired by a certain song that you borrow its ideas and create your own I...
I was a panelist at the Independent Film Arizona monthly meeting recently. The subject was sound so a friend of mine tagged me to speak about sound and offer some advice to filmmakers who want to produce better sound for their films. Now, I don’t know a lot about on-location film audio but as a part...
Got a great question from a reader the other day: “Is it okay to practice or just improvise mixes over and over again on the same project? “ First of all, it’s not up to me to judge whether it’s ok to practice. Of course it’s good to practice your skills. But the better thing...
Translation. It’s one of those things that are so important for your mix. It doesn’t really matter if you have the best equipment in the world. If your mixes sound bad on the bad systems, then your high-end monitors mean nothing. Well, here are three things you can do to make sure your mix sounds...
I’m flying to Guadalajara, Mexico in a month to produce an album with a friend of mine. I’m betting it’ll be a lot of fun, but it’s also a little stressful. Not in the scary sort of way but rather the exciting kind of way. Enter the Importance of Pre-Production You see, we’re going to...