Get Started With Recording, Mixing & Mastering - Guide to Starting Your Home Studio

© Keith Scully 2015 – KeithScullyMixing.com

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INTRODUCTION Thank you for downloading your free copy of my new eBook. If you've been passed this eBook from a friend then I'm glad you've got it too and I hope it helps you get well on your way to making some great music. If you're reading this then the chances are that you are a musician, songwriter or a budding engineer or producer looking to learn about the process of creating music and getting it ready for release to the outside world. Throughout this book I'll be giving you some advice on setting up your recording or production space, choosing equipment and connecting everything together, as well as recording various instruments and vocals. I'll also run through the mixing process, the mastering process, and finally, I'll touch a little bit on distribution and how to get your music out into the world quickly and easily.. s you progress through the book I'll also point out some either free or very easily affordable options available to you when choosing some hardware or software for your home or pro!ect studio. If you've already got a fully functional studio then thats fine and you should use what you know, but if you're completely new to this and don't have any equipment at all to start with then this should help with the decision making process when you're purchasing your gear and stocking up on software. I would like to point out that this eBook is not an instruction manual in any way. It is simply here to provide you with a fundamental understanding of each part of the process along with some principles you can follow to get your music out there quicker and get it sounding better. bove all, there are no rules when it comes to producing music, the most important thing to remember from beginning to end is to en!oy it"

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CONTENTS YOUR STUDIO........................................ ........................ ................................................... ....................................3 .........3 The %oom........................................................................................................................& ardware.........................................................................................................................( )omputer.............................................................................................................( udio Interface............................................................... Interface........................ .............................................................................( ......................................( *icrophone..........................................................................................................+ eadphones  -oudspeakers............................................................................... /oftware........................................................................................................................#$ 0igital udio 1orkstation 2013.......................................................................#$ 4irtual Instruments.............................................................................................## 5lugins...............................................................................................................## ll The )hoice Is 6reat, Isn't It7...................................... ...................................... ..............................................#8 ........#8 MAKING CONNECTIONS.................................................................................14 9-%................................................................................................................................#: ;ack...............................................................................................................................#: /50I<...........................................................................................................................#= %)...................................................................................................................#= T>/-I?@............................................................................................................#= *I0I...............................................................................................................................#= Balanced vs Anbalanced )onnections..........................................................................# -ine -evel......................................................................................................................# RECORDING.....................................................................................................17 >verview........................................................................................................................#( *icrophone 5olar 5atterns............................................................................................#( 5hantom 5ower.............................................................................................................#+ 5roximity Cffect..............................................................................................................#+ %ecording -evels...........................................................................................................# 5hase............................................................................................................................# The %ecording 5rocess.................................................................................................8# /cratch Track.................................................................................................................88 %ecording 0rums...........................................................................................................88 >ne *icrophone................................................................................................88 Two *icrophones...............................................................................................8& %ecording Bass 6uitar...................................................................................................8: %ecording coustic 6uitar.............................................................................................8= %ecording Clectric 6uitar...............................................................................................8 %ecording 4ocals...........................................................................................................8( MIXING..............................................................................................................29 >verview........................................................................................................................8 5reparation....................................................................................................................8 Track >rder........................................................................................................&$ )olour )oding....................................................................................................&$ Track *arkers....................................................................................................&$ Cditing................................................................................................................&$ 6etting To The *ix........................................................................................................&8 /etting The Balance......................................................................................................&8 Asing CD.......................................................................................................................&&


3. Asing )ompression.......................................................................................................&= Asing %everb.................................................................................................................& Asing 0elay...................................................................................................................&(
MASTERING.....................................................................................................40 DISTRIBUTION.................................................................................................43


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YOUR STUDIO THE ROOM *ost of us do not have access to the facilities or the resources to work in a room that was professionally designed and professionally treated acoustically. If you're reading this book then there's a good chance you are working from your bedroom or spare room at home with no real recording space, or if you're lucky enough you might have a garage, basement or some other large room in which you intend to record various instruments in, as well as carrying out mixing and mastering tasks. If you're going to be working solely on headphones with no recording being done in the room then you have a huge advantage here because the room itself will have little or no impact on the music. owever, if you intend to record anything in the room andor use loudspeakers for listening back then it is worth reading on. Because there's such a large variety of rooms you could use for this purpose it would be impossible for anyone to provide you with all the instructions on how to treat your room. The shape of the room, the siEe of the room, the floor and ceilings surfaces and the construction materials of the walls all come into consideration. Because these aspects can vary so much all rooms will have different sound reflection properties and therefore each room will have its own unique sound to it, which may be for the good or the bad. n untreated room will have an uneven frequency response and the room you work in is very important if you are using loudspeakers for playback because the room will 'colour' what you hear from the speakers when you're mixing or mastering. 1hat this mean is that the reflections in the room interfere with the direct sound from the loudspeakers. The result of this is that you can't accurately hear what's being played through the speakers which makes it hard to !udge how your mix will sound in other rooms on other playback systems. It is also very important when recording in that space too because your recordings will have the sound of your room printed on them, which is likely not a good thing if you haven't made the efforts to even out the response of the room itself. >ne huge misunderstanding is that your room should be covered from ceiling to floor with foam tiles to kill all reverberation, which is completely wrong. There's a pretty good chance that nobody will be listening to your finished music in a room with no reverberation, so it doesn't make sense for you to create it in one either. Four intention here is to create a neutral sound balance, to level out the frequency response of the room. lmost every small space will have problems with resonating bass frequencies which results in your room sounding a little boomy, so you need to bring these under control first. 1ith solid bare parallel walls you're also likely to have some flutter echo happening in the room if you hit a drum, clap your hands or play guitar in the room so this is something else you might have to deal with. In this section I'll give you some basic guidelines on how to set up your room !ust enough to get reasonable results at little cost so you can get straight to the music. To begin with I want to mention the placement of your monitors in your room. void placing the monitors in the corners of the room. Fou should also avoid placing them exactly halfway along any of the rooms dimensions and exactly halfway from ceiling to floor. If you're in a rectangular room you should position the monitors facing down the


5. long axis of the room. *onitors should be stood upright and not lying on their side, which compromises the stereo image, and they should make up two corners of an equilateral triangle, the third corner of which should be you in the listening position. 1hen dealing with sound reflections in a room there are two main forms of treatmentG absorption and diffusion. bsorption uses various materials to absorb sound, whereas diffusion breaks up the sound waves so they're less troublesome. The low frequencies are the toughest to deal with and require a high level of absorption. To give you an idea of how much you need, for an absorber to be effective at treating a #$$E audio signal it should be approximately &$cm thick, or approximately $cm thick for a =$E signal. These values would vary a little depending on the absorption properties of the material being used. -ow frequencies should be targeted before mid or highHrange frequencies. nce you've got the low end under control it is time to move on to dealing with higher frequencies. *idHrange and high frequencies can be treated quite easily using acoustic foam panels from companies such as uralex. Fou should first prioritise what are known as the 'mirror points'. These are the first sound reflection points in the room. 1hen the sound leaves the monitor it bounces back from these points towards the listening position. nce the bass has been dealt with the first points in the


6. room to focus on are the orange areas. The purple areas should be the next for treatment if you can stretch your budget a little further. ;ust some final tips to finish off this section If you can hang the absorption materials an inch or two away from the wall this will increase their effectiveness. Fou should also avoid covering any more than :$J of your room, you are likely to kill the sound if you do so.


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HARDWARE )omputer The first piece of hardware you'll need, and which you've surely got lying around somewhere, is a computer. This will be the hub of your studio and it doesn't matter if it is a 5) or a *ac, you can make music on it with great results either way. /ome people will argue the advantages of one over the other but my advice is that if you're familiar with 5)s then use a 5), and if you're familiar with *acs then use a *ac.

1hat's worth mentioning here is that the more processing power you have in the computer the more processing you can carry out during mixing sessions.

8. digital audio passes through a 0igitalHtoHnalog )onverter 20)3 to convert it back to an analog signal which is sent to the headphones and loudspeakers.  good choice of audio interface for starting out with would be the n a very basic level microphones convert sound pressure into electrical energy, and there are & main typesG dynamic microphones, condenser microphone and ribbon microphones. 1ithout getting into the technical side of things, they !ust use different kinds of technology to do what they do. 0ynamic microphones and )ondenser microphones are most popular, though some people would use ribbon microphones a lot in a studio. 0ynamic microphones are robust and relatively inexpensive in comparison to other types.

9. The %ode ?T#H is a largeHdiaphragm condenser microphone mainly used for vocals but also works well with a variety of instruments. It has gained a reputation for being a microphone that punches well above its weight in terms of the quality of performance you get for the price you pay. This microphone is also sold as a full kit that includes a great shockmount and a quality pop shield 2we'll get to these in a bit more detail later3. Fou can expect to pay around K #+ in the CuroEone, L #& in the A@ or M 88 in the A/ for this whole kit. To find out more click here for Curope or here for the A/.

The /hure /*=( really is a classic microphone. It is a workhorse of a mic that I can safely say you can't go wrong with. This dynamic microphone is great on snare drums and on guitar cabinets. It is also useful on vocals and I've even heard of people getting good results using it on a kick drum, so you can see the range of tasks this mic can be put to good use on. This mic is a mustHhave whether you're in a small home studio or if you're in a studio at the top end of the recording industry. The cost of the /*=( is around K #$ in the CuroEone, L +$ in the A@ and M  in the A/.
*onitorsG @%@ %5 %o@it •

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;ust a few points to bear in mind most of the headphones I've mentioned above are of an open back or semiHopen back design which are good choices for the reference monitoring and critical listening required for mixing and mastering duties. If you are


10. recording with headphones you may wish to use a closed back design to avoid spill from the headphones hitting the microphone you're recording with. ne might be better off with headphones rather than monitors in a situation like this. lso, if you're predominantly working at night time then headphones might be the better option if loudspeakers are likely to cause disturbance. 6et to know your speakers and headphones N 1hatever you choose, spend the time to get to know your speakers or headphones really well. Take out a bunch of your favourite )0s and spend time listening to them. -isten to as much music as you can on them. The longer you spend listening to music on your headphones or monitors the more you'll become familiar with how they behave. Things to look out for are how they respond to transient sounds such as drums, how bright or dark they are in terms of the energy they have in the higher frequencies, how much bass and low end they produce, how wide the stereo imaging is and how clear the frontHtoHback depth is in the music you play through them. •

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SOFTWARE 0igital udio 1orkstation 2013 The 0igital udio 1orkstation 2013 is the most important piece of software in your studio. This is where all the recording will be done in the computer and it is where all the editing, mixing and mastering is done afterward. Four options will depend a little on whether you are using a 5) or *ac computer. /ome of the most popular 01s on the market are 5roHTools, -ogic, )ubase, %C5C%, -ive, />?%, /tudio >ne and %eason. ll are compatible with both platforms except -ogic which is *acH only and />?% which is 5)Honly. I work in %C5C% myself and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new 01. If you're costHconscious then %C5C% might be a good option for you too because of its inexpensive license fee of !ust M $, despite it becoming one of the most


11. popular 01s out there over recent years. 5roHTools is somewhat of an industry standard though when it comes to professional studios, and some 01s are also more suited to working in specific genres of music. *ost of the 01 manufacturers offer a trial version or even a free version with a limited featureHset so I would recommend you try out most, if not all, of the above 01s and see which one best suits your way of working. >nce you've selected your 01 then move on and get to know it as well as you can. Being familiar with most of the common shortcuts for example will slice chunks out of the time it takes to complete a production. >ne common misconception among those new to all this is that music produced in one 01 will sound much better than music produced in another 01. I can assure you now that this is not true. 1hether it is 5roHTools, %C5C%, -ogic or )ubase, neither of these 01s directly effect sound of the music. 1hat you do in the recording, mixing and mastering is what defines the end result. 1ith that out of the way you should be free to go about your evaluations before choosing your 01. 4irtual Instruments 4irtual Instruments allow you to create a variety of sounds that otherwise you would need dedicated hardware or a physical space to record yourself... and possibly a really nice set of microphones too. If you're short on instruments or recording space then you can look at a huge range of software instruments to fill those gaps.

12. A is used in *ac workstations. 4/T is used in various 5) and *ac 01s. )heck which plugin format your 01 can host, and !ust as I suggested with the 01s, try before you buy. /ome of the big names out there for plugins are Aniversal udio, 1aves, /late 0igital, /oundToys,
CqualiEer 2<%CC3, Tokyo 0awn -abs /lick CD 2<%CC3, *elda 5roductions *CqualiEer 2<%CC3, lk!b -uftikus 2<%CC3 Compressor N *assey )T= 2M (3, @langhelm *;A) 2K8:3, @langhelm 0)+) 2K8$3,

4ariety of /ound Thrillseeker- 2<%CC3, vladgsound *olot 2<%CC3, ntress *odern compressors 2particularly /eventh /ign, -ost ngel,
*assey Tapeead 2M 3, 5lugP*ix naloger 2M :3, 4oxengo Tube mp 2<%CC3 Reverb N 4alhalla %oom 2M =$3, 4alhalla 4intage4erb 2M =$3, 4ariety of /ound epic4erb

2<%CC3 Delay N )ockos %ea0elay 2<%CC3, 4ariety of /ound ?asty0-F 2<%CC3 Modulation / Chorus N con 0igital *ultiply 2<%CC3, Blue )at udio )horus 2<%CC3

/ome of the plugins listed you might find a bit too complex in the beginning with all the parameters available, particularly the vladgsound plugins, so maybe leave these until some time later. *ost of these plugins come in 4/T format and the others are available in %T/, 9 or A. If you feel stuck because your 01 won't support the 4/T or A format then you try Blue )at udio 5atch1ork which is a plugin adapter of sorts that allows you to use 4/Ts in 5roHTools for example.

ALL THE CHOICE IS GREAT, ISNT IT! 1ell... Fes, and ?o. dvances in technology mean we can now have quality tools at our disposal and an extremely well equipped studio in a small space such as a bedroom, something that could only be dreamt about a few decades ago. The abundance of equipment on the market has also driven down the cost of gear so everyone can get involved, which is great for music. owever, the problem we have is that it gives us too much choice. 1e can get caught up using tonnes of different plugins and not getting to know any one of them particularly well. 1e can also spend long hours debating the best audio interface on internet forums when in fact all of them are


13. perfectly useable for creating professionalHsounding music. Then you have software developers marketing their new plugin as that one missing piece you were looking for to get that sound you were always after, which is clever marketing from the sellers but completely takes the focus away from the ability of the user. ?one of this is particularly helpful when it comes to helping you develop your craft. *y advice to you is to pick your 01, audio interface, microphone and headphones 2or monitors3 then move on. ccept what you now have and then focus on using those to learn your craft and get better at recording, mixing and mastering music. 1hen it comes to plugins !ust pick one distortion, one delay, one reverb, one limiter, one deH esser, etc. Four most important tools are your CD and compressor so for these I would allow two of each, one with a clean transparent sound and one with some character, such as one modeled on a piece of analog hardware. /tick to the plugins you've selected and use !ust these on every pro!ect you work on for the next six months. This way you'll get very familiar with how they work and what sounds you can achieve with them, and the spotlight is taken off the plugin and onto you.

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MAKING CONNECTIONS To get all of your audio equipment communicating with each other you need to start connecting them together, and although a lot of the gear connecting directly to the laptop or desktop computer can be done with the everHreliable A/B connection you may need to use an assortment of other plugs and sockets to connect various instruments and sound devices to your audio interface. In this section we'll take a look at the most common connections.

XLR The 9-% is the industry standard when it comes to balanced audio connectors. Fou're likely to find 9-% connections on the ma!ority of Q microphones, particularly professionalHgrade microphones. They are also used to connect loudspeakers. There are a variety of forms of the 9-% connector but the one we're most concerned with when working with audio is the &Hpin version. >ne pin is used for 'ground' 2or 'earth'3 25in #3 and the other two pins, 5in 8 and 5in &, are used for 'hot' and 'cold' signals respectively. >n the audio interface you're using in your home or pro!ect studio you are likely to find at least # or 8 9-% inputs which you will generally use for microphones. If you are using a condenser microphone it will require phantom power, which is :+ volts 0), and the balanced 9-% connector will allow you to transmit that power to the microphone once you hit the phantom power button on your interface or mixer.

"ACK >@ the ;ack is not the official name for this connector but it is one of the most common terms we use for it. The '!ack' is a phone connector and is correctly referred to as a T%/ connector. T%/ stands for Tip, %ing, /leeve, which are the & conductors in the connector. Fou might notice in the image on the left the two black rings around the connector. This will tell you that it is a T%/ connector. There is also the T/ version which has !ust one black ring, the one closest to the tip. They look !ust like the T%/ connector except for that one difference. T/ stands for Tip, /leeve, and this connector has !ust the two conductors. The /leeve is the 'ground' and the Tip P %ing carry the audio. T%/ connectors are used for /tereo or Balanced *ono connections, whereas T/ connectors are for Anbalance *ono connections. There are a number of different siEes


15. when it comes to '!ack' connectors but the most common one we come across in audio production is the .&mm 2#:Hinch3 connector. Fou'll be familiar with this if you play electric guitar because this is the connector we use to plug the guitar into an amplifier, pedal <9 or 0I box. This connector is also used for headphones, synthesiEers and electronic keyboards, as well as loudspeaker outputs on a home audio interface. It is also worth briefly mentioning the &.=mm 2#+Hinch3 connector. This is the one used for headphones or earphones on an i5od or any other portable audio device.

S#$DIF /50I< stands for /ony5hilips 0igital Interface and is generally pronounced 'essHpeeH diff' or 'spihHdiff'. 1here the previous two connections we looked at were analog connections, meaning they transmit audio in lowHpower electrical current, the /50I< connection is a digital connection meaning it transmits audio in digital #s and $s. The /50I< format is best used over short distances and generally uses two types of connector, the %) and the T>/-I?@. %) The %) connector is used for coaxial cable connections and the the connector is often called a phono connector. The 1hite cable carries the -eft side of the audio signal 2or the *ono signal3 and the %ed cable carries the %ight side of the audio signal. >n each connector the pin in the center carries the audio signal and the collar around it is the 'ground'. In some udioH 4isual 243 connections you might see a Fellow cable too, this carries the 4ideo. T>/-I?@ The T>/-I?@ connector is used for fiber optic connections. It is commonly known as an 'optical cable'. These cables can fail or become permanently damaged if the cable is bent tightly. owever, they do not suffer electrical problems such as ground loops or electromagnetic interference.

MIDI *I0I stands for *usical Instrument 0igital Interface. The *I0I cable does not carry any audio signal, it carries event messages like pitch, velocity, notation, and more. These messages are sent from a *I0I keyboard controller or a *I0I instrument to a sound device or sequencer that triggers the audio we hear.


16. >ver recent years the *I0I connection has been increasingly replaced by *I0I over A/B, so many *I0I keyboards you are likely to see in the home studio now are connected directly to the computer by A/B.

BALANCED %S UNBALANCED CONNECTIONS Fou might have noticed I made use of the words 'balanced' or 'unbalanced' when discussing the various connectors.  balanced connection has one ground and two audio conductors, such as the 9-% or T%/ connections, whereas an unbalanced connection has one ground and !ust one audio conductor, such as the T/ or %) connections. Balanced connections protect the audio from external noise and electrical interference and allow the use of longer cables. *ost modern audio systems allow balanced and unbalanced connections to be mixed successfully, but you can have problems with certain outputs and inputs if you are connecting an unbalanced plug to a balanced socket, or vice versa.
LINE LE%EL The term 'line level' is often spoken of in discussions on audio connections. -ine -evel refers to the strength of an audio signal being transmitted between audio devices and is the highest level signal before amplification.

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RECORDING O%ER%IEW This is where you start laying down your greatest musical achievement yet. t this stage your goal is to capture a good song really well . In the home or pro!ect studio you're unlikely to be recording large ensembles with multiH mic setups, particularly if you're working with !ust the one microphone to start with. But that's a good thing right now. Fou've first got to master the craft of using a single microphone effectively, then you can move on and add a second or a third. lways remember that a bad recording engineer will produce a poo rHsounding record even when using topHofHtheHrange gear, but a good recording engineer can produce an excellentHsounding record with !ust modest gear, and I include home studio equipment when I say 'modest gear'. /o much of the equipment available today is capable of great results so bad recordings are generally a result of poor engineering, not poor recording equipment. gain, focus on you and not the gear. 1hen recording, there's not !ust one way of recording any type of instrument or vocal. There's no wrong way either. The only rule is to make sure it sounds good. Cxperimenting with microphone positioning is essential to finding out the best way to record each sound in the room you're in, so don't !ust set it and forgot it. /pend the time getting things perfect before you commit the recording. Fou should be prepared for tweaking your mic placement until you get it !ust right. The more you do this the better you'll get at recording. In this section I'm going to explain a little about the recording process and then provide you with guidelines on how to record some of the most commonly used instruments. Before that I'm !ust going to run through a few things you should know.

MICRO$HONE $OLAR $ATTERNS Cvery microphone will have whats known as a polar pattern, which is the microphones directional sensitivity to sound pressure. This might sound complex if you've not heard of it before but believe me it is not. There's a number of different patterns but the main three used in the studio are )ardioid, >mnidirectional and
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1hat these plots are really trying to do is give a &0 representation of a microphones sensitivity in a 80 graph, which might be why they come across as being a little confusing. 1hen looking at these plots try not to get too caught up in the signal attenuation figures 2H8=dB to H=dB3 and don't try calculate exact angles or anything either !ust yet. Think of the microphone as being in the middle, !ust as in the first image on the left, and think of $S as being the sound source the microphone is aimed at. 1hat a cardioid microphone will do is pick up everything in front of it as well as quite a bit of sound from the sides. The cardioid microphone will also re!ect sound from behind it, which is useful when you want to avoid another sound and your mic placement will be key to this. )ardioid is the most common polar pattern in microphones, however they suffer from 'proximity effect' 2which I'll get into shortly3 and 'plosives' which are short, strong blasts of air on words beginning with 5s and Bs. n omnidirectional microphone is equally sensitive to sound pressure all around it. This gives a more natural sound and they are not affected by proximity effect and suffer less than cardioid with plosives too. '>mnis' tend to pick up a lot more of the room, so they are at their best when used in a great sounding room. These are commonly used in stereo mic configurations. The figureHofH+ 2aka biHdirectional3 microphone is equally sensitive to sound to the front and from behind it, but re!ects sound from the sides. These also provide a 'natural' sound but like cardioids they suffer from proximity effect. ll ribbon microphones are figureHofH+ by their nature, and like omnis they are often used in stereo mic configurations. There are other patterns such as /upercardioid, ypercardioid, /ubcardioid, etc, but they're more or less variations on those detailed above and you are unlikely to be using these in the home studio.

$HANTOM $OWER 5hantom power is 0) electrical power that is required by certain microphones in order to operate and is distributed through the audio cables from a mixing console, preamplifier or audio interface. The voltage is typically :+v 0) and the microphone will use as much power as it needs. To power a microphone in need of phantom power simply engage the button for R:+v on the audio interface or preamp you are using. 5hantom power generally doesnt affect audio quality and is safe to use but you shouldn't supply phantom power to microphones that do not need it, especially ribbon microphones.

$ROXIMITY EFFECT This is the buildHup of bass or low frequency energy in a sound that happens with a directional microphone 2one with a cardioid polar pattern3 is placed too close to the sound source. The easiest way to see this is when recording a vocal. sk the vocalist to sing or speak at a reasonable distance from the mic, and while doing so steer them closer to the microphone. Fou'll immediately hear the bass tipHup. This can work nicely to fatten the vocal but too much and the vocal will sound boomy which is not ideal at


19. all. It doesn't !ust happen with vocals though, try it on an acoustic guitar too. This may not be a huge problem when you're recording a track with !ust a few vocals or instruments but over #=, 8$, &$ tracks or more it could get problematic.

RECORDING LE%ELS >nce you've got your A/B audio interface hooked up it should be pretty simple to get it working with your chosen 01. )heck the manual for your 01 on how to set which audio device you're using and to set the audio ins and outs 2also known as I>3. 1hen you add a new track to your 01 session and arm it for recording then you should see the incoming signal from your microphone flash up on the track meter on screen, peaking and dropping with the sounds hitting the mic. Before you record anything set the gain on your audio interface so that you're getting a good level. By good level I mean not too quiet but also not peaking right up at the top of the meter. 1hen working with digital systems such as your 01 your track meters are likely set to measure in dB
$HASE 0ealing with phase is more of a concern when recording with more than one microphone on a sound source, so when you're recording with !ust the one microphone don't worry about this right now. owever, as soon as you add another microphone to the mix you'll need to consider this. 5hase is basically the peaks and trophs of a soundwave, which is fine on its own, but problems might occur when you've got two microphones on the one source and when you run the soundwaves from each microphone sideHbyHside and they don't line up right.


20.
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>n recording hardware and software you might see a button with what looks like a circle with a diagonal line running straight through it from bottomHleft to topHright. It will look something like the one in the image to the right here. This is the polarity inversion button. 1hen pressed, this button will flip the polarity of the soundwave on that channel. 1hat this means in a very simple way is that peaks will become trophs and trophs will become peaks. This is a useful tool when checking, or trying to improve, phase relationships between channels. 1hen using two microphones on a source the distance between each mic and the instrument itself will be a ma!or factor in deciding the phase relationship between the signals from the two microphones. 1ith that in mind, if you can set both mics at the same distance from the source then you should be on the right track.

21.

THE RECORDING $ROCESS %ecording, which is also commonly known as 'tracking', should take place once all preH production has been completed. 5reHproduction is the writing and arrangement of the music. The music and lyrics should all be written and the arrangement of the song should be fully mapped out. ny electronic drum or synth parts should be programmed at this stage too. 5erforming musicians should also be well rehearsed and all instruments should be properly tuned before recording begins. Before you commit to recording any sounds make sure they sound good. If you've ever heard the phrase 'fix it in the mix', forget about it. If you consider it acceptable to take average recordings and try make them great during the mixing stage then you're doing it wrong. -isten actively to instruments and vocals to figure out what it is that makes it great and find the perfect place to position the microphone to capture that. This may take a few rounds of trial and error, but that's >@. -isten to how things sound through your monitors or headphones. If necessary, record a sample of say &$H$ seconds and then play it back and listen. If it is possible to improve upon then go back and reHad!ust the microphone or the instrument, or maybe even the position of the vocalist then go through it again N listen to it actively through whatever monitoring system you use and if necessary record a sample and play it back. This process should be followed for all instruments and vocals being recorded. If it sounds as good as you want it to sound then you're ready to record some real takes. If you've got !ust one microphone then you don't have to worry about choosing the right one, but if you have two or more then it is worth knowing that all microphones have their own sound. They may sound full, thin, bright, dark, etc., all have their own 'inHbuilt CD'. Fou might often hear people ask what the best microphone to record a certain instrument or vocal is. There's no single answer to any of these questions because there are so many sub!ective opinions. If you've got a really great room, a highHquality interface with great converters and you're ready to invest some serious money into a top class microphone then I recommend that you do your research on various microphones and demo whatever ones you can get access to. >therwise the answer is thisG T&' ()*&+ )-(/&' + ' ) +&' ' +&+, +  55 +&' )-(/&' 6 &' )585' + 6, )+ 8'+ )+& +&' : 6 (' +(6)* + ('-(:. This is how to approach microphone selection and you may soon find that it is particularly important when recording vocals. If you've got two microphones try both out side by side and see which one suits best and move on. In the home studio, without the locker packed with microphones and the space to fit an orchestra, you'll be recording instruments and vocals one at a time. This way of recording is known as overdubbing. 1hen recording each instrument it is important that the performer is comfortable. The technical side of recording is crucial but most of the what comes across to the listener of a finished track is a great performance, so it is vital that the musician is in the right place to perform at their best.

22. recording you can run through full takes 2recording the song from beginning to end in one go3, or recording section by section 2ie. Intro, chorus, verse, etc.3 and taking a number of takes from one section before moving onto another. The way you choose to record takes depends entirely on how comfortable the musician is performing the music and whether heshe is more confident recording full takes or recording section by section.

SCRATCH TRACK This is a very basic track that you'll record first then overdub everything else to. By 'very basic' I mean a recording of !ust vocal and an acoustic guitar for example, most likely to a click track in your 01. 0uring the rest of recording process you'll record drums, bass, electric guitar, keyboards, etc, alongside th is scratch track. It is a guide for the rest of the recording. s the scratch track is often seen as '!ust a guide' it can be ea sy to think that it is not that important, but you'll hear every now and again about some successful commercial track where the engineer will say that the guitar or vocal was actually the first take done in the scratch track. /trangely enough this take actually turned out to be the best take so they decided to keep that one in the final mix. 1hat I'm trying to say is don't treat the scratch track as unimportant. %ecord it well. If you're !ust engineering the song and not performing yourself you can use this perception to your advantage. 1ith the performers thinking it is '!ust a scratch track' it can relax the musician or vocalist which can lead to great moments early on in the process. It is also the period where musicians aren't burnt out after #$ hours recording so handle the scratch track as well as you'll handle everything after it. fter the scratch track is down, the order in which you record everything else sho uld be determined by the importance each instrument has in the song. If the drums drive the track from start to finish then maybe the drums should be recorded next. If the drums are not a huge part of the song then move onto the bass or piano or whatever is next in terms of its importance in the song. Throughout the rest of this chapter I'm going to give you some guidelines on recording the most common instruments. I'm also going to assume you've got !ust one microphone, but I'll briefly mention some other ideas !ust in case you have another microphone or a 0I box you can use too. 1hen experimenting during the recording stages don't be afraid to trust your ears and trust your own taste.

RECORDING DRUMS

>ne *icrophone %ecording drums with one microphone is not the most common way of recording drums, but it is possible to get a very useable sound if you approach it the right way. 1ith one microphone on the drum kit you should take a little time to find the


23. optimal placement for the microphone. 0rums are generally a huge part of most songs so you shouldn't rush this. It might mean some extra experimentation when you have !ust the one mic but it'll be worth it. Trying to record a whole drum kit with !ust one microphone, getting a nice balance of all parts of the kit, can be a huge learning experience for any engineer. To start off try placing the microphone out in front, facing the center of the kit maybe 8 or & feet away away, at a height !ust above the top of the kick drum. Fou can vary the height a little to get more or less of different sections of the kit, for example if the kick drum is too prominent try raising the mic a little and vice versa. If you want you can push the microphone closer too or even place it in the middle of the kit, !ust above the kick drum and pointing towards the snare. Cxperiment with the positioning, small ad!ustments to the position of the microphone can make huge differences in sound. Because drums are loud acoustic instruments your room will play a ma!or part in the sound of your drum recording so if the sound of your room is affecting your drum sound in a negative way then reduce the distance between the microphone and the drum kit to get more of the drums and less of the room. If you're lucky enough to have a great sounding room then the opposite applies, don't be afraid to pull the microphone back out a little into the room to get a greater sound. Two *icrophones If you've got an audio interface similar to those I've written about earlier in this book then you'll have two inputs for recording two microphones at once. By using two microphones to record drums it helps you pick up a bit more of the sound of the kit and also gives you a bit more stereo width to work with when mixing. There are a few different techniques you can use for recording a drum kit with two microphones but the one I'm going to explain here is called the Recorderman technique.

24. Both mics need to be equidistant from the snare and the kick drums so you can check this by getting a long piece of string or a cable and following these stepsG Take one end of the string and use a piece of masking tape to stick the string to the center of the snare drum, then take the other end of the string and with a piece of masking tape again stick this to the kick drum at exactly the point where the beater strikes the drum. -ift the string towards the microphone above the snare until both legs of the string are taut, then pinch the string where it touches the microphone. 1hile continuing to pinch the string there, pull the string across to where the second microphone is positioned. The point at which you are pinching the string should touch that microphone too while both legs of the string still taut. If not then ad!ust position of the microphone so that it does, making sure it is still pointing at the center of the snare. By using the string or cable in this way you can make sure that both drums are of equal distance to each mic. This will ensure that the kick and the snare remain center of a good stereo image of the kit, and it will also help keep the recording of the snare drum and kick drum in phase. Fou'll remember earlier in this chapter of the book when I explained a little about phase in audio signals. 1hen you introduce a second mic into the recording each sound will hit the microphones at slightly different times resulting in phase differences. Cnsuring the distances are equal will help keep the phase relationships here in good order. nother benefit of using the %ecorderman technique in the home or pro!ect studio is that due to the positioning of the microphones it records a lot of the kit and little of the room, which is good because in most of these studios the rooms are not ideal environments for recording drums and so you won't have the wonderful room acoustics of a large purposeHbuilt commercial facility. The positioning of the mics also means that the cymbals will be understated a little, which is good because in many drum recordings the overhead microphones pick up too much of the cymbals and this results in the recordings from the overhead mics sounding too harsh, which in turn makes them difficult to work with when mixing. The %ecorderman method is a great technique to get you started in stereo drum recording. If you find that recording drums with one or two microphones doesn't really cut it for your production then your other options are to use a bigger multiHmic setup if possible, use samples, or try one of the virtual instruments mentioned earlier in the book, such as COdrummer, ddictive 0rums or /teven /late 0rums. 1ith these you can program every drum hit on each part of the kit or you can use drum parts from their libraries. It may not have the same feel as recording a drummer who has rehearsed and performed particularly for that song but these software packages provide highHquality recordings of some top class drum kits so they can work really well.

RECORDING BASS GUITAR

Bass guitar recording is relatively straightHforward. There's also a few ways to do it in the home studio. The first way is the easiest, and probably most common, which is to plug the bass into an instrument input !ack on the audio interface and record straight into the 01. This will give you the direct 'dry' bass signal. /ome will love the direct sound, however some musicians won't want this as their 'bass sound' but there's more to this and I'll explain in a moment.


25. nother option is to use a microphone to record the bass amp. If you've got your own signature bass tone with your amp then that's great, and you should record that. mps are great for the character and tone they give in comparison to the dry direct sound. 1hen recording a bass amp try placing the microphone about H#8 inches from the speaker. If you've got a cabinet with multiple speakers then place it in front of the best sounding speaker. 5ointing the mic directly at the center of the speaker cone will give you a very inHyourHface sound whereas pointing it a little to the right or left of the center of the cone will produce a warmer sound. Try experimenting too with the distance by moving the mic a little closer to the speaker or further away from the speaker. *oving it further away is likely to reduce the low end energy of the amp a little whereas moving it closer will increase the low end energy picked up by the mic, but be mindful of proximity effect. The only problem with recording bass in the home studio is that if you are recording !ust the amp then it is likely you'll miss out on some of the really nice low end energy the bass has to offer, unless you've got a large amp that you can play really loudly. I don't recommend doing this either if you're likely to disturb a lot of people. lso, if you have a microphone similar to the ones I've mentioned earlier, then they are not necessarily designed for bass sounds which means you'll be left short on bass energy here too, even when the mic is right up close to the cabinet.  popular way of overcoming this is to record the direct sound and record the amp sound. The direct sound will carry the really low end, and some of the clarity in the higher frequencies, while the bass amp will bring all the character and tone that comes with it. These should be recorded on separate channels in your 01 but be wary of potential phase issues since as you are recording two tracks of the same sound source. To record both sources at the same time you can use a 0I Box with a '-ink' or 'Thru' socket available. 5lug your guitar into the Input !ack on the 0I box and connect the >utput of the 0I box to the input of your audio interface. In terms of sound, this is more or less the same as connecting your guitar directly to your audio interface. owever, with the -ink or Thru socket you can take a feed of this direct signal and connect it to the input on your guitar amp. 1ith a microphone on the guitar amp you can record the amp sound when the guitar is played as well as the direct signal through the 0I box. If you're not hung up on using your own amp then this opens up a world of opportunity to experiment with bass sounds by using a virtual instrument. -ine  5>0
RECORDING ACOUSTIC GUITAR

1hen recording acoustic guitar you need to find the right balance between various elements of the sound of the acoustic guitar being played. There's the sound coming from the sound hole, the sound of the pick on the strings, the sound of fingers sliding along the strings on the neck of the guitar and there's the overall sound of the guitar in the room it is being played in. If you've got an electroHacoustic, which is an acoustic guitar with an internal pickup and


26. preamp that you can plug a standard guitar cable into, then I would advise against plugging this guitar into your interface to record. %ecording direct will produce a thin sound that will sound a lot less natural in a recording. This system is really !ust used in live performances on stage. To start off recording the acoustic guitar I would suggest you place the microphone between +H#8 inches from the guitar. The height of the microphone should be level with the neck of the guitar and the microphone should be placed in front of the neck pointing slightly inwards toward the #8th fret on the guitar. This should provide you with a nice clean sound with some of the brightness of the strings. Ase this as your starting point and experiment from there. If you want to get more of the body of the guitar you could place the microphone at the same height but in front of where the fretboard meets the sound hole and point outwards toward the #8th fret on the guitar. This will allow the mic to pick up more form the sound hole. 1hatever mic placement you chose you should be aware that the guitar, the microphone, how the guitar is played and what is being played on the guitar will all affect how you place the microphone. The song and the sound you have in mind is also highly important. >ther alternatives for mic placement would be to place the microphone at the same distance from the guitar a few inches lower than the guitar pointing !ust below the sound hole, or a few inches above the guitar pointing downwards at !ust above the sound hole. Fou can ad!ust the distance between the microphone and the guitar by moving the mic a little closer or a little further away, but !ust be careful of pushing the mic too close to the guitar at the sound hole which will produce a very boomy sound which is as a result of the proximity effect I've mentioned before. There are stereo techniques for recording acoustic guitar too but I'd recommend becoming proficient with !ust the one microphone for now !ust to start developing your skills recording an acoustic guitar. If you're thinking about getting some stereo width from your acoustic guitar in your production then you can doubleHtrack the acoustic guitar, which is to record a second performance !ust like the first one but on a different channel in your 01 and you can use panning in the 01 during the mixing stage 2more on this later in the *ixing chapter3 to spread these out over the stereo spectrum. *ore often than not a single mono acoustic guitar track thats recorded well will be !ust what you need, even when acoustic guitar is a ma!or part of the production. RECORDING ELECTRIC GUITAR

/ome of the methods for recording electric guitar are very similar to what I explained earlier about recording bass guitar. The most common way of recording electric guitar is by setting up a microphone at the guitar cabinet and recording the sound of the speaker. If you've got a cabinet with multiple speaker cones then find the best sounding speaker and place the microphone right up close to it. Cxperiment with the position of the microphone in terms of which part of the cone it is pointing at. 5ointing directly at the center of the cone may sound harsh, whereas pointing it further from the center and closer to the edge of the cone will sound a lot warmer. If you feel it is necessary you can try recording a few bars of guitar


27. in each of a few different positions on the cone then play them all back before deciding what position you like best. That generally covers a lot of what recording electric guitar involves. If you've got more equipment available such as various amplifiers, cabinets and guitars then you can try out different combinations to find the guitar tone you're looking for. %ecording electric guitar through virtual guitar amplifiers and effects pedals has become extremely popular in recent years. -ine  5>0 ne technique worth serious consideration when recording electric guitar is to record the dry sound as well as the sound from the amplifier, !ust as I recommended when recording bass guitar. The reason for doing so differs a little however. 1hen recording both of these signals from a bass guitar the idea is that both tracks would be blended together at the mixing stage, whereas with electric guitar it is unlikely you'll use the dry sound for blending with the amp sound. 1ith electric guitar the dry sound can be very useful as a backup. If the tone of the recorded guitar amp doesn't fit in well with the rest of the track once all instruments are recorded then the dry electric guitar signal can be run through one of the virtual amplifiers to create another amp sound without having to go back and reHrecord all the guitar parts. Being a virtual guitar amp this sound can be continually ad!usted until the final mixdown is done. The dry sound can also be reH amped through another physical guitar amp later on if necessary. ll this flexibility can be invaluable in some sessions and mixing engineers may request the dry tracks if there are problems fitting guitar recordings into the mix of a song. RECORDING %OCALS

4ocal recording is most often left until last. >ne of the reasons for this is that the music, instrumentation and arrangement will affect the vocal performance. >nce all the music tracks are in place the vocal is ready to be recorded. s far as the average listener is concerned the vocal is the most important part of any song, in most musical genres anyway.

28. properties. lways use a 5op /hield 2aka 5op nce you've followed the advice throughout this section and have managed to successfully avoid excessive room ambience and plosives then you're well on your way to getting a great vocal recording.


29.

MIXING O%ER%IEW /o once you've got all the recording done it is time to mix all those individual tracks into a single stereo audio track that sounds great. This is very much a creative process but one that requires a lot of technical skill and in my opinion is by far the most difficult part of the music production process to master. In this section I'll explain the mixing process, the most important tools used in mixing and provide you with some common techniques to get you started with these too. 0o remember however that every song is different so some tools will be more important to some songs than others, and how you use each tool will be different depending on the song. 1hat I'll do is provide you with some basic principles to begin with. Before I go any further I'm going to run through a few things in relation to your 01. In your 01 you're likely to have two main windows, a *ix window and an Cdit window. The Cdit window is the one that displays all the tracks listed from top to bottom down the left hand side of the screen with all their audio waveforms extending across towards the right hand side of the screen. The *ix window is the one that displays all the tracks in the session laid out from left to right with each track containing a volume fader, pan pot, mute and solo buttons, and various slots for inserts and sends. This is the window that looks similar to the layout of a mixing console. In case you have little or no experience using 01s I'm going to briefly describe some of the tools available on each channel. The main one as I'm sure you know well already is the volume fader which controls the volume of the audio playing back through that particular channel. Then there's the pan pot 2or sometimes a slider3, and turning or moving this left or right will allow you to place the audio from that channel in any position across the stereo field. The *ute button simply mutes that channel and the /olo button mutes every other channel so you can only hear the audio playing through the solo'd channel.

$RE$ARATION Before you start to mix it is essential that you set yourself up for creating the best mix


30. you can produce by preparing your mix session in the right way. 5reparing your session will save you from wasting time trying to locate various sounds and various sections of the song so that you can focus more on important decisions. I understand that this kind of thing is not hugely exciting, but it is important to get this work out of the way so you can focus entirely on the creative aspects of trying to shape the mix. Track >rder -ay out your tracks across the mix window. @eep all your drums tracks togeth er, all your guitar tracks together, all your background vocal tracks together, etc. Then choose the order for them that you think will best suit your way of working. verhead -', '>verhead %, 'Bass', '6uitar #', '-ead 4ocal', 'Backing 4ocal 8', etc. )olour )oding Four 01 should give you the option of colouring the channels in your session. )hoose a colour for each group of instruments and apply them in the session.

31. tools like tabHtoHtransient which will help you !ump right to the front of transient peaks in the audio waveform which is useful for editing drums for example, and you will probably have pitchHshifting or pitchHcorrection tools too. If you're not yet familiar with your 01 I would suggest reading the manual which will explain all the editing tools available to you. Ase your editing tools to cut out silences in the audio regions. This will help tidy your session and make it easier to see the arrangement of the song in the edit window. -isten closely to all the audio tracks and cut out any audio glitches, background noises, pops or clicks that shouldn't be there. Fou should also listen out for any sound that cuts in or out too suddenly and add a fade in or a fade out. 1hat you should be trying to do here is to deal with any sounds that distract you from the song itself. If some sounds are out of time a little you can slide them left or right to line them up a little better with the other instruments. owever, be careful when moving tracks containing 'bleed' 2the sound of other instruments in the background3 from other sources. This is also a good time to check the phase relationships for any instruments recorded with multiple microphones, or with a direct signal and an amp feed taken at the same time. In the %ecording chapter I discussed phase, and it might do no harm to glance over that section again. 1hen preparing to mix there are a few ways to improve phase relations but the most common way is to flip the polarity of the audio waveform on one of those tracks. Fou might remember the polarity inversion button from earlier. /ome 01s come with this button on the track panel beside the volume fader but if your 01 doesn't have one here then you might find this button on a simple stock 6ain, Trim or CD plugin and you can insert one of these plugins onto the relevant track to make use of the polarity inversion switch. n example of how you would check the phase of an instrument recorded with two microphones would be to listen to both channels together, then flip the polarity on one channel and compare that to how it was beforehand. If they sound better together when polarity on the second channel is inverted then you can leave it like this, but if the instrument doesn't sound better then you can return to the original sound by hitting the polarity inversion button again. 6enerally, if the polarity inversion improves the sound of an instrument you will find that the instrument will have more 'body' with a better lowHend frequency response and it will also sound more defined. >utHofHphase recordings will often sound thin and sometimes 'weird'. 6etting the phase right on instruments recorded through multiple sources is critical and I can't stress enough how important it is to spend the time getting this right. Improving the phase relationship can dramatically improve the sound of an instrument in the production. ?o matter how much you try to CD or process an outHofH phase instrument it will never sound good, so get the phase relationship right to begin with. 1hen editing it is important that you : + go craEy editing everything !ust for the sake of editing. Cvery edit you do should be done with intent and purpose. 0on't go moving every drum hit onto the grid, ad!usting the timing of every bass note, tuning a vocal until every word or note sung is perfectly in tune. Fou will kill the performance. Cditing should be seen as getting the song ready to be mixed, not as a process you take advantage of to 'fix' everything about a recording thats not perfect. If the performances have been rehearsed well enough they should be recorded well anyway. Cditing should not be seen as a process to make up for the lack of a good performance or a good recording. /pend hours editing your song and you'll be sick of it before you even start mixing, which I can assure you is not good at all.


32.

GETTING TO THE MIX Before you start mixing you need to have a plan. Fou should have a pretty good idea of how you want your song to sound once it is finished being mixed, then you work out how to get it there. If you don't have the end result in mind then you're !ust throwing faders around and twisting knobs on various devices aimlessly. There aren't many rules at all in mixing but if there was !ust one then that would be 'Balance'. *ixing is all about balancing the sounds you're working with. That includes setting volume levels across all the faders of your session, but also includes getting the various instruments and vocals to fit with each other in various other ways. This will become clearer a little bit later on. If you were painting a picture you first have to consider the medium on which you're painting, ie. the siEe of the paper or canvas. Fou can also do this with mixing, though not in the same physical sense, there's a finite area you have to work with when crafting a mix too. Fou've got three dimensions to work within.
SETTING THE BALANCE It is time to get to work. Turn up some faders a little and start building a rough balance with !ust volume and panning. ;ust a moment ago I used the idea of mixing within a &0 box, well volume and panning lets you control the frontHtoHback and leftHtoHright dimensions. 1hen positioning sounds within this space the panning controls where between the speakers you place each instrument, and the volume controls how close or how far or how close the sound is. t a low volume it will sound far away but at a high volume it will be right up front. /tart with the most important instrument, turning up the fader and setting a reasonable level. *ake sure you leave plenty of headroom because not only do you want to avoid clipping on that channel but once you continue to add instruments to the mix the overall volume on the master fader is going to increase and you don't want that to be clipping either. >nce you've set the volume you can then pan it to where you want it in the stereo field. This first instrument is likely to be the drums for a lot of people but some engineers will start with the lead vocal then move onto the drums after that. 1hen the drums are done move onto the bass and the lead vocals, setting levels for each. The lead vocal, bass and drums are generally the most important instruments in most popular genres but if thats not the case in your song then start with whatever


33. instrument is the most important and then progress through every other instrument in order of importance, bringing each one into the mix, setting a level and positioning it with the pan control. 1hen panning there are no strict rules but generally the most important instruments, ie. the kick drum, snare drum, bass and lead vocal are kept in the center. 1here you put everything after that is completely up to you, !ust be aware that if you were packing stuff into a physical box there are only so many things you can fit in one place before you run out of room. 1hen mixing you should remember this too because if you have too many instruments panned dead center then it is going to get too crowded there and therefore more difficult to hear individual instruments clearly. /o leave space there for the important stuff and push everything else to the sides to some degree. If you've recorded drums with one of the methods I described in the %ecording chapter then you will not have individual snare and kick drum tracks, you'll either have a single mic covering the whole kit, that I would recommend you keep in the center, or you have two 'overhead' mics from the %ecorderman setup that you can pan out to the left and right to give you some stereo width. owever, if you've recorded with this twoHmic setup I recommend you don't pan fully to the left and fully to the right because with the lack of additional microphones capturing the kick and snare you can end up a bit light in the middle of the stereo spectrum and the kick and snare will become weak in the mix. 5an them to equal distances left and right, say &$J left and &$J right, to keep the kick and snare strong in the middle and still get some stereo width on the drum kit. 1ork your way through the rest of the instruments until all of them have been positioned in the mix. *ake sure you don't have everything loud and up front because then there's no depth in the mix, and if everything is loud then nothing stands out. This might be difficult to get to grips with in the beginning because we're so used to hearing loud commercial productions every day so you might instinctively push everything up front. %emember that the commercial mixes have been mastered and prepared to sound that loud before being released. Four mix hasn't been mastered yet so !ust f ocus on building a nice balance of all instruments in the performance that sounds good and that has depth to it.

USING E; The equaliser 2CD3 is the tool used for ad!usting the frequency content of a sound and is inserted into the channel of the track you want to work on. In a very basic way an CD lets you select a frequency somewhere along the audio spectrum and either cut or boost the volume of that frequency. Before using CD it is essential to understand the frequency spectrum. This spectrum is 8$E to 8$kE and covers the range of human hearing. There are a number of different bands within this rangeG -ow

34. sound. 6et #$$E right and you'll get a nice fat bass but set too much and it gets 'boomy'. 6et :$$E right and it sounds 'warm' but too much makes it sound 'thick'. aving #kE too high will make it sound 'nasal', or having :kE too high makes it sound 'harsh'. 6etting familiar with using these types of sub!ective terms can help decide what it is you want to change about the sound. *ost 01s will ship with a bundled parametric CD whether it is CD III in 5roHTools, %eaCD in %eaper, or )hannel CD in )ubase or -ogic. These CDs will let you select which frequency you want to work with, will let you boost or reduce the gain on that frequency and will also allow you to control the bandwidth of your gain changes using the Q control. These CDs will also have a number of bands with each band allowing you to affect a different frequency. Cach band will contain a filter which will determine how that frequency is affected. The most commonly used filter is the peaking filter 2also known as a bell filter3 which increases or decreases the volume of a chosen frequency. This frequency will be the center frequency of a bell curve in the audio with the width of this curve being determined by the bandwidth control. Fou will also have the option of using a highHpass filter 2also known as a lowHcut filter3 which removes everything below the cutHoff frequency you've chosen, or a lowHpass filter 2or highHcut filter3 which removes everything above the chosen cutHoff frequency. The last of the most common filter types are the low shelf filter, which increase or decreases all frequencies below the chosen frequency, or a high shelf filter which increases or decreases all frequencies above the chosen frequency. The approach I recommend you follow when using CD is to cut away anything you don't want or anything that doesnt sound good and leave everything thats great about it. The stock CDs mentioned above are perfectly good for this. It is too easy to start pushing up frequencies to make sub!ective tonal ad!ustments, and there is scope for this, but it should be secondary to removing all the clutter. Think of it in a similar way to sculpting a statue from a marble block, you have to cut away all the unnecessary stuff to finish up with something great. Because you are taking away energy in the sound the overall volume level of that sound will decrease after it is been CD'd, so if you've cut away quite a bit then ad!ust the output volume control on the plugin to match it to what the volume of the sound was before you made any changes to it. This is easily done by pressing the bypass button on the plugin and listening to the 'before' and 'after' versions of the sound and then ad!usting the plugin's output volume if necessary until you perceive the loudness of each version to be the same. Balance is a key word here again. ne tool on a standard CD that I recommend you make use of on almost every track is the highHpass filter. *ost recorded instruments will carry some energ y in the low frequency range that you might not even know is there, and that you don't need. >ver the whole mix if all tracks are carrying small amounts of this energy this adds up a lot of unnecessary low frequency information that makes the whole song sound flabby. Try using a highHpass filter on every track apart from kick drum and bass guitar to cut away


35. everything below approximately #$$E and you'll immediately hear the bass end of your song get much clearer. ow you CD your tracks depends on how they are recorded, how many tracks are in your mix and how you want the final mix to sound. -earning how to use CD takes a lot of time and practice so stick at it and experiment. *y final piece of advice when using CD is to avoid drastic cuts and boosts when you're starting out, so stick to within approximately =dB for ad!ustments. The bandwidth of the cut or boost, which is determined by the D setting on the CD, will also sound more natural with a wide bandwidth than a really narrow bandwidth. This is particularly important when boosting frequencies. s you CD various tracks you should go back and review your main balance of the song. /ome ad!ustments might be needed to the instruments you've been working on after you've made changes to the audio.

USING COM$RESSION )ompressors control the dynamic range of an audio signal. 1hat this means is that they tighten up the range between loudest moments in the sound and the quietest moments in the sound. In a way it makes the audio waveform more dense. Though a compressor can serve many purposes in mixing, one of its primary uses is to even out a performance. nce again the stock compressor in your 01 is a good one to get started with. >n the compressor you'll see a number of parameters. The most important ones are Threshold, %atio, ttack, %elease P >utput 6ain. The Threshold control lets you set where you want the compressor to begin compressing the audio, so when you lower the threshold the loudest parts of the performance that pass the threshold will be compressed based on how you set the other parameters. The %atio parameter lets you control how much it compresses.  setting of #G# means no compression will take place, whereas a :G# ratio means that for every :dB that passed the threshold only #dB will reach the output of the compressor. This will result in the audio coming out a little bit quieter because the compressor turns down the volume of those peaks. It is for this reason that you use the >utput 6ain control to turn it back up again so you can increase the volume of the audio to match what it was before compression, but have a more even performance. The amount that the compressor reduces the volume by is shown on the 6ain %eduction meter. The ttack and %elease controls let you cont rol how quick or how slow the compressor reacts to the audio once it passes the threshold, and then how quickly or slowly the compressor releases and allows the audio to return to its original volume after it has been compressed. Cxperiment with the attack and release parameters and set them to taste, !ust be careful of creating any unH natural artifacts if you intend on retaining any natural feel in the performance.


36. /ome compressors have a more simplified approach with one knob for 5eak %eduction 2sometimes labeled 6ain %eduction or )ompression3 and the more you turn this the more compression you get. These compressors are likely to have a second knob to control the output gain so you can read!ust the loudness of the audio after compression has taken place. The famous Teletronix -H8 compressor is one such compressor. lternatively you might find another design that offers Input and >utput controls as well as the %atio options and ttack and %elease settings. This type of compressor has a fixed threshold and the more you increase the input the more you drive audio into compression and the more gain reduction takes place. The >utput control again lets you read!ust the level of the audio. The hugely popular Aniversal udio ##(-? compressor is designed in this way. If you are completely new to compression then for basic balancing purposes I would suggest using the simpler designs for instruments such as vocals and guitars. 1hen working on transientHdriven sounds such as drums I would suggest using a different compressor with more control over attack and release times. ;ust be careful not to kill the transient 2the initial attack of the sound3 and I would suggest setting the release setting in time with the tempo of the song so that the gain reduction on the audio is allowed to return to $dB on the meter !ust before the next beat. I would also recommend that you look for relatively conservative gain reduction on most instruments of approximately & or : dB. >nce you've developed a better understanding of compression you can experiment more and more with how these tools affect the audio. 1hen compressing audio the average volume of the sound increases so its easy to think that what you're doing sounds better, because our ears tend to make us think that louder is better. This is why its hugely important to set any make up gain carefully so that you are not fooled by any potential loudness boost. -ike anything else you do when recording or editing or mixing, use a compressor with purpose and don't !ust insert a compressor on every track simply by default. If the volume of an instrument feels unstable when you've set your fader level during the initial balance then it may need a compressor to help even out the performance. ;ust as I recommended with CD, when you add compression to the various tracks in the mix you should go back and review your balance again and make any necessary fader ad!ustments.

USING RE%ERB %everb is made up of millions of repeated reflections of the original sound. %everb can help you develop the sense of depth in your mix as it generally helps push instruments back further into the mix. There are a number of different types of reverbs such as %oom, /pring, )hamber, all, 5late, etc. Four choice of reverb depends on the type of music you're working with as well as your own taste. Asing reverb on a sound allows you to put that sound into a certain space. This can be purely sub!ective and you can use big spaces to make individual performances in the mix sound bigger, but sometimes you also need to think about whether the siEe of the space is appropriate for the music.

37. compression, you use a '/end' on the track to send a copy of the audio from that track to another track. The track you send it to is another track in your session on which you have a reverb effect inserted. This is your return track. The reverb inserted on the return track should be set to #$$J wet. This is done using the 0ry1et control, which basically lets you blend the original signal and the effected signal. Fou don't need any of the direct dry signal because this will come from the original audio track so once this control is set to #$$J set the fader on the return track to $dB then you can go back to the original track and ad!ust the level of the send. The send level determines how much of the audio from that track is sent to the reverb track. The more you send to it the louder the reverb will be. 1hen using a /end on any channel the send itself can be set to '5reHne of the main controls on a reverb is 5reH0elay. This determines how long of a delay there is between the direct sound and the start of the reverb. It is used to set a short time lapse between the two which is useful to separate the reverb from the direct sound. /ometimes when you put a reverb on a sound it can lose some clarity or definition when there's no preHdelay. /etting a short preHdelay helps bring some of that clarity back because the direct sound is allowed to play on its own for a very short time before the reverb begins. nother important control is the %evert Time, sometimes labeled %T$ or 0ecay, which controls the reverb deca y time. opefully your reverb plugin has plenty of presets to try out. 1ith the likes of CD and compression I don't use presets because the plugin doesn't know anything about the audio you play through it so presets are not that useful, but with reverb the presets can be great and once you find a preset close enough to what you're looking for you can tweak it if necessary before adding it to your track. >nce you've got your reverb plugin set up, go back to the original audio track and pull the send level all the way down then play back the song and slowly bring the send level back up to introduce some of the reverb until you've got it !ust where you want it in the song. dding too much reverb can wash all over a nice balanced mix so be careful.

USING DELAY  delay is a repeat of the original sound. ;ust like reverb, delay can help you develop the sense of depth in the mix by putting instruments in a defined space and pushing them further back into the mix. The most important parameter on a delay plugin is the 0elay Time. This determines how long it takes for the repeat to occur after the initial sound. Fou can freely select this time period by choosing how many milliseconds 2ms3 you want to delay it by, or you can set it by musical times such as quarterHnotes, eightHnotes, sixteenthHnotes, etc. which uses the tempo your pro!ect is set at to keep delay repeats in time. The ne common way of using a delay is to set up a mono slap delay. This is generally a single repeat at a short delay time of somewhere between $H#8$ms. d!ust the delay time so that it works well with the track. It can help put vocals and instruments in a space without resorting to reverberation. Fou can experiment with its placement in the


38. stereo field too, leave it in the center behind the vocal or use it on a guitar thats panned to the left but pan the delay itself to the right. nother common use to set up a stereo delay to add lots of width to a sound. Fou can do this by using a stereo delay plugin or by setting up two mono delay plugins but have the delays panned to opposite sides. Fou can set up the timing again by musical time such as an eightHnote on one side and a sixteenthHnote on the other, or set it loosely yourself by having $ms on the left and #$=ms on the right. Cxperiment with the delay times until it sounds good in the track and also experiment with the feedback, though I would suggest increasing the feedback slowly and with caution because some delays can get really loud as the repeats regenerate over and over. -ike reverb, delay is most commonly used in a /endH%eturn setup with the send on the audio channel set to postHfader. >nce you've got the delay plugin set up the way you want it you can play back the song and then slowly bring up the level of the send to add in the delay. 0elays are often used quite discreetly in a track to give a sense of space and width, however it is possible to get really creative with delay so don't be limited by that if you feel a certain instrument or a certain section of the song calls for more extreme use of delay as an effect.

FINAL THOUGHTS 1hen your mix is finished it should be well balanced. ll instruments should be heard clearly, particularly the most important ones in the production, and any reverb or delay effects should be mixed in at appropriate levels so that they are not distracting the listener from the song 2unless that was your intention from the outset of course3. I mentioned that when creating your balance of the song that you should leave lots of headroom when introducing all the instruments to the mix, and I can't stress how important this is. Fou should aim to have your final mix peaking at no higher than HdB on your master fader, so when setting initial balance levels don't start off by setting the first instrument peaking at around this level because as you bring in the rest of the instruments the overall volume of the pro!ect is likely to increase. /tart off by setting the first instrument to peak at a much lower level, say around H#8dB or H#dB, and work the rest of the instruments around this. If this is too quiet to listen to then turn up the monitoring volume on your audio interface. Fou want to avoid a situation where you've got all instruments in the mix and you're pushing the master fader to its limits. 1hen mixing in your 01 everything is done on the computer and it becomes strangely easy to get caught up in everything you see on the screen. This also applies to editing and to mastering. Fou try to 'fix' waveforms you see in the edit window that don't 'look' right, you try to set volume levels at a particular 'number' on the fader or try to have audio signal peak at a certain number on the scale, you try to pan something a very particular 'degree' on the stereo spectrum, you !udge what a compressor is doing to the sound by what the gain reduction meter is 'showing' you, or you wonder if the curve you've !ust created in the graphical display of your parametric CD 'looks' right. /ome of this stuff is really irrelevant in one sense. It can turn into mixing based on what you see, rather than mixing based on what you hear. The point I'm trying to make is that you should use the information on the screen to help you through the process but make all final decision on the basis of what you hear . Cvery so often close your eyes or turn off the screen and listen. *ake critical decisions based on what you're hearing,


39. without the distraction of the screen. t the end of the day we're not creating a visual product, we're crafting something that sounds great, right7 >ver time you're inevitably going to acquire more plugins to add to your arsenal of tools and effects. 1hile there is an element of excitement to buying and trying out new plugins I think there also needs to be an element of control over these acquisitions in order for you to get the most out of the plugins you have. Before you go adding a ton of CDs or compressors take a look at what you already have. I mentioned before that the ones that come with your 01 are often quite good and well worth sticking with. If you do add some thirdHparty plugins do some research and add one or maybe two but don't go overboard. )lean processors will have no 'sound' to them whereas character processors will have some form of analogHmodeled saturation to them. 5ick one clean CD and one character CD, and the same with compressors, then use !ust the CDs and compressors on every pro!ect for the next six months. 6et the know them really well, how they react to various types of audio, and discover what it is you really like 2or dislike3 about them. aving #= compressors ready to go in your 01 usually means you waste time picking various ones and messing around with them before progressing, whereas having two compressors you know extremely well will help you focus on your own skills and help you get the mix finished quicker.

40.

MASTERING

*astering is the final stage of preparation before your music is ready for release. It is about preparing it for the release medium, whether that is digital download, )0 or vinyl. If you've got a number of songs for an C5 or an album then mastering also involves preparing these songs to have a consistent sound from track to track. It requires a lot of critical listening and one of the key priorities of the mastering engineer is to ensure that the music is going to sound good on as many different playback systems as possible. t this stage it is a good idea to get a more experienced engineer to master your music. Cven if it is only for the 'fresh' ears that haven't been buried in the writing, recording and mixing of the music so far, this will bring a new perspective to things. owever, if you want to carry on and master your own music yourself then you can. The process here normally involves adding some gain if the finished stereo mix is too quiet, tweaking the CD balance on the whole track, compressing if required to control overall dynamics before limiting to bring the volume up to commercially acceptable loudness levels. The signal flow may also involve some form of stereo wideness processing or some form of clipping where necessary. 1hile you're mastering your own music it is important to be aware that you should only be using CD and compression to make minor tweaks. utput )eiling, where Threshold simultaneously raises the output volume while lowering the threshold


41. and >utput )eiling controls the maximum output volume. lternatively, you might have another one that lets you set the 6ain and the >utput )eiling, where the gain increases the loudness of the audio and pushes it toward the >utput )eiling which limits how loud the audio can go. 1hen setting the output ceiling on a limiter never going all the way up to $dB, set it anywhere from H#dB upwards but no higher than H$.&dB. The limiter should also have a gain reduction meter, !ust like a compressor. @eep an eye on this meter and try not to remove any more than dB with the limiter when you're increasing the loudness of your song. If you're taking over +dB off with the limiter then you either need to make some ad!ustments to your mix or you're simply !ust squashing the life out of your song. >f course you want your music to be loud enough to compete with the rest of the music out there but it is so important too that your music still retains plenty of dynamics and life. 1hen a lot of people think of mastering they think of increasing the loudness and tweaking different aspect of the sound, but mastering doesn't !ust involve the sonic aspect of the audio processing. -ike I said at the beginning of this chapter, it is about preparing it for the release medium. ne 5rofessional, for example, has a pro!ect mastering page that you can export 005 images from. If your 01 doesn't have this facility then you may need to invest in some additional software or get in touch with someone who can do this for you.


42. To finish this chapter I'm going to explain a few bits of information you're likely to need before distributing your music, the I/%) code and the A5)C?. The I/%) is the international code for identifying a recording. This is the code used to identify royalty payments for the rights holder. These are generally available for free so look up the provider in your local country or region. Four distributor may be able to provide this to you if you don't already have any. The A5)C? is the barcode. >btaining your own barcode can be expensive so thankfully most distributors can provide these too for a small charge or in some cases for free. This information should be embedded in your 005 image or provided to your distributor if they are not arranging it for you.


43.

DISTRIBUTION /o your music is finished and now it is time to get it out to the rest of the world. In this section I'm assuming that you don't have a record label at all and that you are releasing your music yourself. Fou need to choose whether to release your music on a physical medium or by digital download, or a mixture of both. If you plan to release music on a physical medium then )0 is the most common option. 0istribution on )0 is great because although )0 sales have declined in recent years there's still a lot of people out there who like to get a physical product. Fou can sell )0s at all your shows, you can approach local independent retailers to see if they will stock your music, or if you can reach an agreement with a distributor it will allow you access to some of the bigger music stores. /hould you opt for digital release you have a number of channels to choose from. 0igital release is highly recommended given the potential exposure your music can get online.
If you want to make your music available on some of the larger platforms like iTunes, /potify, 6oogle 5lay, maEon, etc. then you will need an aggregator. These are digital distribution companies who will get your music for sale worldwide on these sites. There are lots of digital distributors out there. /ome of the most popular are 1- 2www.awal.com3 )0Baby 2www.cdbaby.com3 Tune)ore 2www.tunecore.com3 These distributors all allow you to sell and make money from iTunes, /potify and others. They have varying costs attached so do some research on each one before deciding which company suits you and your music best. /ome have a music store app available for selling your music on
FouTube is another great choice for getting your music out there. lthough it is a video platform you can still use it to stream your music, even if you haven't made a music video. Fou can create a slideshow of band photos or album art for example. FouTube has become a ma!or search engine for discovering music in recent years. >nce you've got your distribution set up you need to promote it as much as possible. This can be done in various ways in your local music scene and online through social media. To help ensure your music gets to the right people you should tag your songs correctly on sites like /ound)loud and Bandcamp, etc. including genre, styles, moods, location, and more. Fou can also submit it to music discovery or music


44. recommendation services such as -ast.fm and ll*usic. If you're !ust putting out your first releases then I'd recommend making a least some tracks available for free to help spread your good work.


Get Started With Recording, Mixing & Mastering - Guide to Starting Your Home Studio

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