Some thoughts on double-tracking vocals for a better vocal sound:

Also, there is a whole LOT of room between center and hard pan. Many a hit has had vocals panned just to one side of center or another – perhaps 30% or so – in order to balance a call and response with a guitar or horn section or backgroud vocals that were about the same distance to the other side. Or how about vocal duets? Do you want them both up the middle? Perhaps, but often not.

How to care for a tube mic:

When not in use, keep it in a tightly sealed case with silica inside the case, and keep the case itself in a dry consistantly cool room (if you are comfortable in the room, so will the mic be).

Often, the bass and vocals fight for the same space in a mix. This thread on Homerecording.com has thoughts on finding a balance between bass and vocals:

I’m very surprised that no one else seems to be a proponent of ducking the bass… It’s almost magical to my ears.. I’ve stuggled with the problem deonoted by the thread’s tittle for years and ducking the bass is the most efficient and least harmful (to the original tone delivery that I have came across..

Tags: bass-guitar, vocals

Digital equipment simplifies most aspects of recording, yet high profile studios still work in analog, often recording to magnetic tape. Why stick with the older, more expensive technology (especially with the panic over Quantegy’s decision to stop making tape?)

Ethan Winer offers some thoughts on the matter in his article Gaining an Edge with Subtle Distortion:

Years ago I did a mix in my DAW and made a cassette copy for a friend. I noticed the cassette sounded better – more “cohesive” for lack of a better word – and I liked the effect. A few times I even copied a cassette back into the computer, used a noise reducer program to remove the hiss, then put the result onto a CD. I knew it was an effect, not higher fidelity or the superiority of analog tape, but I had to admit I liked the effect.

Recording to magnetic tape is inherently lossy. (Spend some time reading about tape bias and AC bias to see just how tricky it is to capture acoustic detail on magnetic tape.) However, Winer discovered that the low-level distortion introduced when recording to tape adds pleasing qualities to a mix.
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Tags: distortion, mixing, professional-engineers, tape

Newsweek has a good summary of Steve Jobs “jeremiad” (available here) against DRM in digital music:
Jobs is far from the first insider to argue for this. His essay is only the latest contribution to a growing movement to drop DRM from legally purchased songs.

The RIAA’s response today seems to have missed the mark:
Jobs did mention the possibility of Apple licensing FairPlay to competitors in his letter, only to dismiss the option out of hand due to Apple’s concern that such a move would inevitable lead to leaks of proprietary technology. “Such leaks can rapidly result in software programs available as free downloads on the Internet which will disable the DRM protection so that formerly protected songs can be played on unauthorized players,” Jobs wrote. The RIAA dismissed such concerns in its statement: “We have no doubt that a technology company as sophisticated and smart as Apple could work with the music community to make [interoperability] happen.”

In unrelated news …

Shrinking Physical Space Boosts Independent Digital Sales
Just recently, The Shins (Sub Pop) scored a second-place finish on the US-based album charts, a result that included strong digital album sales. Overall album sales for the group totaled 119,000, of which 35,000 were digital. Those percentages are increasingly common for independent artists, and shrinking floor space at big box retailers will further the trend.

Tags: newsdigest

Focus on noise: Even if you record digitally, electrical equipment in your room can cause interference in your analog gear. 3 common sources of noise: Lights, mobile phones, and monitors. Try recording a track normally, then re-record with your lights and phones and monitors turned off. If there’s a difference, you’ve got noise to eliminate.

A second vocal mic adds possibilities at mix time: Add a second microphone to your vocal recordings, one that audibly differs from your main vocal mic. For example, if you normally use a large condenser mic for vocals, add a small dynamic mic, like an SM57. Place the second mic as close as you can to the main mic, so both record the same sound

This second mic can be used to colour your vocal. For example, you can heavily compress the sound of this mic while leaving the main mic untreated. Or try switching between each mic throughout the song, perhaps to get a different vocal sound in the choruses.

Everyone can have good ideas: Even drummers.

Tags: tips-digest, vocals

I follow the tribulations of the major music labels with something akin to glee. It’s partially the petty satisfaction of watching a bully get his just desserts. But as an indie artist, I also have practical reasons for rejoicing.

With the traditional business model failing, it seems that future success in the music industry will require novel approaches. The big labels have been slow to adapt, however. And the opportunities they’re missing leave some great openings for independent artists.

Witness the plummeting price of CDs. Thanks to iTunes, the big box retailers now want CDs they can sell at $9.99:

Physical retailers are pressuring the labels downward on price (of course, Wal-Mart is the biggest culprit) because they don’t want to be undercut by iTunes 9.99 on all single albums. We’re rapidly moving to a 9.99 world on the big sellers.

CD Baby’s $13 CDs were a bargain when Amazon charged $18 a pop, and that helped independent artists sell albums. So on the face of it, major retailers selling $10 CDs looks like bad news for us little guys. But the RIAA would have us believe that the cost of CDs should have risen over the last two decades. The industry is clearly, perhaps willfully, out of touch. And therein lies our opportunity.

As indies, we’re not tied to shareholders and a business model that we must defend with ridiculous cost-of-living calculations. We’re not even tied to $13 a CD. Or $10, for that matter. In fact, as Koopa showed last month with their download only single on the UK Top 40, we’re not tied to CDs at all.

Compounding the industry’s woes is the real concern that CD sales are headed for a tipping point:

But the specter of a flattened physical is now looming, and Goldberg pointed to markets like Taiwan and Korea, both of whom have experienced physical drops of about 70 percent over a 3-4 year period. For the most recent week, album sales were 14 percent below year-ago tallies, part of a multi-week trend.

We’ve seen a steady decline in CD sales over the last decade, but thanks to Walmart’s, Target’s, and Best Buy’s use of CDs as loss leaders, the big labels have a guaranteed market for their wares. If public interest in CDs continues to wane, these retailers will conclude that floor space covered with racks of CDs can be better used to sell iPod accessories. And as with falling CD prices, the major labels’ lack of response to this threat presents opportunities for artists willing to experiment with creative marketing.

So what’s an enterprising unsigned artist to do? Michael Wolff’s article Facing the Music is a few years old, but still eminently relevant. He offers this advice:

If you’re providing free entertainment, which is obviously what the music business is doing, then you have to figure out some way to sell advertising to the people who are paying attention to your free music… Or you can provide stuff that’s free, and use the free stuff to promote something else of more value that people, you hope, will buy — now called the “legitimate alternative.” (Putting video on the CD is one of those ideas — though, of course, you can file-share video too.) Or sell the CD at a level that makes it cheap enough to compete with free (free, after all, has its own costs for the consumer).

CDs may not disappear overnight, but it’s clear that the business of music has changed. If you ever plan to sell your music, the uncertainty in the industry right now presents opportunities unlike any you’ve had as an independent artist.

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Tags: business, predictions

The optimal sample rate at which to record is a matter of considerable debate. Proponents of recording at sample rates above 44.1 KHz typically claim that the higher frequencies yield greater detail. And while there’s a tradeoff – tracks recorded at 96 KHz need more than twice the storage space of those captured at 44 KHz – we’re assured that the increased detail means listeners hear more accurate recordings.

Don’t believe it. In recorded sound, accuracy is a myth.
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Tags: mixing, myths, samplerate

How can I give my mixes that organic ABBA sound?

ABBA is not an organic sound. Quite the contrary. Their sound relied heavily on layered vocal tracks, heavy use of digital verbs, and lots of synths.

What do we know about getting that Big Star drum sound?

The earliest Big Star tracks were recorded for Rock City originally by me and Chris Bell (we just “moved” the basic tracks over to the BS project), and the later ones were recorded by John Fry and Chris mostly. The mic’ing techniques were usually about the same for everyone, and quite “normal,” I would say. Neumann 87 or 86 above, perhaps an 84 on snare, or RE-15 or something like that. Not many mics, mostly 3 or 4 on a whole kit. Not REAL close mic’ing, but not WAY back either. Not much processing.

Why doesn’t my song sound like the Foo Fighters?

On the verses, it sounds like they have the drum overheads muted. Sounds like just kick, snare, and hi hat close mic’d. With the high hat slightly off to the side so it stays out of the way of the guitar. When the chorus hits, boom, overheads are in. But they’re actually not pushed all the way to the side, they are more like maybe 55 degress off center. Listen carefully to that first verse, Taylor Hawkins hits a cymbal in the middle and it sounds *nothing*like the cymbal hits during the chorus. It sounds like it got picked up through the hit hat mic – just a clue that the overheads are muted during the verse.

You know the drum sound on The Cure’s Disintegration? Yeah, so, how do I get that?

It could very easily be a metal drum. When you tune them down and keep the stick off the rim, the don’t “ping” so much.Also, It sounds to me like the over heads are a coincident pair centered over the snare and note the crashes are not hit real hard. One good compressor in parallel and medium 16″ crashes will sustain great if you don’t smash them to hard.

Tags: professional-engineers

Hometracked’s most-visited pages in January:

Great FREE vocal plugin chain
10 hallmarks of amateur recordings
Gert’s process for online musical collaboration
DIY portable vocal booth
The importance of checking a reference while mixing

Tags: hometracked

[updated 06/06 per poorsod’s comment below]
Mike at Garagespin brought my attention this morning to Lightspeed Audio, a company promising real-time internet musical collaboration. Lightspeed claims: “[Our] media collaboration technology platform allows musical enthusiasts to create digital-quality audio over the Internet in real-time.”

Their technology, as described (it’s not available yet,) differs from existing offerings like NimJam, Net Music Makers and Collaboration Central, which aren’t real-time, and the original eJamming software which was MIDI-only. Most likely, it’s closer to Audio Fabric‘s Desktop, and eJamming’s just-announced, and inexplicably named, AUDiiO. Both of these support the real-time exchange of full audio.

“Real-time,” however, comes with a caveat in this context, one that Lightspeed doesn’t hint at: You might meet your band mates virtually, but their physical location still matters.
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Tags: collaboration

Here’s a tutorial on grabbing your own samples, and building a beat in Acid:

Tags: video