The Nearly Men-Hints & Tips

Find below some hints and tips that others may find useful which I'll update on a 'as and when' basis..

This page basically contains a selection of thoughts and suggestions that others may find useful when indulging themselves in their recording projects.
Something that a lot of people do (myself included) is to get somewhat carried away with the recording process whilst not really giving much thought to what they want to achieve with the finished result. A classic example is laying down multiple guitar overdubs when really only one was needed, then finding that your multi-layered work of art is a pig to try and mix ! A case of less is more !

Another thing I tend to do during mixing regarding the use of effects is to set the effect level (be it delay or whatever) to what I think is right and then reduce its level by a notch or two. The reason for this is that in the heat of the moment a large wash of effects may sound wonderful, but on repeated listening it can get tiresome, so again less is more !

Also I try to mix in the context of the song not individual instruments, which is a bit hypocritical since my bass is always pretty loud but we'll call that artistic licence! But basically if your sat at home playing all the instruments yourself (as opposed to being sat at home playing with yourself, which if that is the case, your on the wrong type of website !) there are no egos vying for centre stage, so you should be able to produce a far more objectively balanced mix.

One problem involving PC' s is their tendency to crash, sulk and generally behave like a spoilt child when given more than one task to do. Therefore it pays to keep your PC in good trim and rather than go into this in great detail there was a great article published the UK' s 'Computer Music' magazine (Iss.13 Dec 99) giving loads of tips and free software to achieve the desired result.

Monitor mixes, if your having problems pitching vocals try this, whack up the vocal level fairly high so when you sing into the mic so it’s clearly audible in the headphones (do I really sound like that ?, yes you do!), make sure your backing track is clearly audible as well, then take off one earphone and do a take. Did the take sound better ? There’s a good chance it did, because you’ve somewhat crudely balanced the monitor sound with the natural sound that your ear is use to. Remember that the sound you hear when you speak is a combination of waves transmitted though the air direct from your mouth to your ear, reflective airborne sound from the room your in, and most importantly vibration through your body (bones, flesh etc.) so by wearing headphones it disturbs this natural balance, hence ‘It sounds different’ so by taking one earphone off helps restore the balance.

EQ is a wonderful tool which can bring out the best in a recording but it also has many pitfalls for the unwary. Always try to get the best sound you can down on tape first, then use the EQ to tweak rather than radically alter the sound. Another thing to bear in mind that in a lot of situations using 'cut' rather than 'boost' can give far better results, so try both and see what sounds best.