Recording Tips

We are near to an end of the trimester and songs are almost ready for submission, well as an audio engineers we will never be fully ready or satisfied with the mix until the due date but that i guess its same with every engineer out there. So, in this blog i would like to share some few recording tips and tricks we came across while recording for our final project. Before starting with your project always give few session for only learning and getting to know the console (if you are using the desk for the first time). The more time you spend in practise sessions and experimenting the more fluently your recordings will be without any waste of time.

The basic yet really important things which we often overlook

• Keeping it simple

This is something very basic and all the engineers know it, yet we often overlook this and try to make our song huge and fancy. For example, recording an acoustic guitar in stereo with 2 microphones with more chances that phase may occur, where all you need is one mono track and can be recorded perfectly with one microphones.

• Use new strings and drum heads for the recording.

At the starting of our course this is something we dint bother about it much as we were new, but when we came along we realised that how important it is to use new strings and heads in recordings. Getting a good quality of strings and tuning it properly makes the whole song much better. It can be really minor thing but you only know when playing a song with old strings and then new strings.

• Vocal recording

Every singer has their own unique singing style, So there is no really one rule or one perfect microphone for all singers. For my project i used Rode K2 which i felt was great for recording vocals of my friend. After we tried few different microphones, Rode K2 was a perfect match for her voice. One should always keep in mind thats its not about which microphones are great, but which microphone is right for the voice.

Why is Vocal microphone upside down ? As many of us had this question. Well, you wouldn't know unless you experiment. And even though it doesn't make any big differences i would suggest anyone to try this.

The reasons behind the hanging microphones

. - When mic is placed upside down, It solves the heating problem which is not a big issue but the rising of heat may change the sound of the mic in long run or even damage the diaphragm a bit.

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- The important reason that i found was very helpful is that, placing the mic slightly above the nose so that the breath of the singer is kind of eliminated. When my friend gets into the music, she tends to look slight upward while singing in high pitch or usually the chorus part of the song, which not capture the exact frequency when mic is placed in normal way. It also avoids the plosives or any direct air blasts into the mic.

• Know when to call it a day

This is something i still struggle with somedays. There is no doubt that every engineer wants their recording and mix to be great and would work hard until they are done, but it is really important to take breaks in the middle, rather than trying to complete your mix in sometime and still not happy with it. Mixing or recording for too long gives you ear fatigue and also you become exhausted listening to one thing over and over again and you no longer can figure things out for the mix especially to those who mix in their headphones. My best way to avoid this is taking breaks in the between and just sit in silent or going for a walk outside (again not listening to the songs in high volume while walking). May be even starting the next day with refreshed mind.

References

"Bobby Owsinski's Big Picture Music Production Blog: The Reasoning Behind The Hanging Microphone". Bobbyowsinski.blogspot.ae. N.p., 2015. Web. 12 Aug. 2016.