Recording violin and fiddle is both art and science:

In almost every situation, I would be at LEAST 4 feet further away with the mic than in those pictures. the harshness comes from the fact that the instrument was never designed to be heard from that close.

Do you need your ears cleaned? An audiologist chimes in:

Someone mentioned ear candles. I would absolutely, under no circumstances EVER use an ear candle. They are a hoax. We did some experimenting with these in graduate school and there is no way you can produce enough “suction” to remove anything from the ear canal with them. At best they are a waste of money and at worst they are potentially dangerous.

Tracking a 5-string bass shouldn’t be any more difficult than a bass:

if you can’t plug the bass into any old di and get a decent to good sound with no fiidling, the problem is with the hands and/or the instrument they’re holding. if you got a decent sound coming off tape (oh my, how tape takes care of so many bass problems), but when you drop it in the mix it disappears or plays hide and seek, the problem is likely in the arrangement and/or the part. that doesn’t mean that the solutions to the above problems can’t be found somewhat or even mostly in gear and tweaks, because a talented set of hands and ears can work miracles. but ime even the best miracles fall short of what happens when a great part is well played and mixed into the right arrangement.

Tags: bass-guitar, hearing

While it’s sometimes considered bad practice, there’s no reason you can’t serve as your own mastering engineer. This article from Music Tech Magazine covers (in flashy detail) everything you need to know about mastering your own material:

One of the reasons people take their music to professional mastering engineers is that they bring a ‘fresh pair of ears’ to a project. If you’ve been even partly responsible for writing, arranging, recording and mixing your material, your judgement mat be coloured by over-familiarity with its contents. So have somebody sit in on the mastering session who’s never heard a beat of it before.

The article covers all the essentials, from EQ and A/Bing your material against a good reference, to software and hardware choices. But I’m particularly fond of the advice quoted above. In fact, even if you’re not going to bother mastering a track, it’s still helpful to have a trusted outsider give you feedback on your mix.

Tags: mastering

Here’s a short video showing how to layer in Reason for fatter drum tones.
Of course, you can accomplish the same thing in any DAW, if you use midi-triggered drums, by duplicating the midi track and sending each copy of the track through a different drum synth.

Tags: drums

Basements Become Recording Studios
But advances in computer equipment have made it easier to set up a high-quality music studio with a relatively small budget — for teenagers with a couple of guitars and a drum set as well as entrepreneurs with professional aspirations.

World’s first 1 terabyte drive
Hitachi’s storage division has unveiled what it claims to be the world’s first one terabyte 3.5 inch disk drive.

Digital Music Consumers Are More Involved Music Fans
The vast majority of online music service users reported that enjoying music over the Internet expanded their musical tastes, allowing them to discover new artists and explore new music genres.

MySpace cut download quality
… since the back end of 2006 all mp3 downloads have been automatically converted to 96kbps/22Hz, regardless of the quality of the mp3 which was originally uploaded.

Tags: newsdigest

Vocal recording and effects chains include, depending on the performance, a de-esser, a noise gate, an equalizer, and a compressor. Frequently, engineers also add effects like chorus, delay, tape saturation (unless recording to tape, of course,) and reverb, to enhance the sound.

In a pro studio, most of this treatment is handled by expensive hardware and plugins (like those from Waves and UAD.) But you don’t have to break the bank to polish up your vocal tracks thanks to the many libraries of free plugins found on the Internet, most available for any DAW that supports the VST standard.

I’ve compiled a list of the best plugins for a killer free vocal chain, along with a sample of the plugins at work on one of my vocal tracks.
(more…)

Tags: plugins, vocals, vst

From Revolution Audio, 5 ways to speed up your work. Tips on improving your efficiency without upgrading your hardware.

[A] disorganized studio is no help to anyone… The first key to organization: making a space for everything. Do you have a place to hang your mic cords? Do you store your mics and stands when they are not in use? Keep your CDR’s handy? Think about what you access most and from where.

Tags: home-studio

Brandon at RecordingReview.com has developed the Home Recording Soundcard Wizard, “the easiest way to find a soundcard that is right for you.”

As a newbie, it’s tough to get straight answers as to what you really need. You have to do a month of research just to figure out what you need to research. Well not anymore! Just use the Home Recording Soundcard Wizard. Go through each step and read as much as you need to. You’ll find a list of ideal soundcards for your needs immediately.

Soundcard, in this context, means any device used to get sound into and out of your computer, whether via PCI, firewire, or USB. If you’re in the market for a new audio interface, and the specs make your head swim, this tool should save some time.

Tags: hardware

This thread on homerecording.com has some good advice on finding inspiration to finish writing a song.

I think you’re stuck on a mental fixation. Perhaps the anxiety of creating a good song is getting in your way. The difference between a veteran songwriter and begining songwriter is that the veteran has developed his own system which he can recall at anytime.

Recording distorted vocals (a la The Strokes and The Hives) is an artform:

I find that when people ask for a distorted vocal, they tend to react most positively when I roll off a lot of high and low end with EQ and then add minimal distortion. I think often what they’re really asking for is limited badwithdh/frequency response and not as much fuzz – which can exagerate certain mid frequencies giving it a similar frequency curve to tha HP/LP’d signal.

For (much) more detail on The Strokes sound, see this lengthy interview with their producer, Raphael Gordon:

So was it just the sound of Raphael’s basement that made The Modern Age sound the way it did? “There were a lot of elements,” admits Raphael. “There was the sound of The Strokes, which can stand up on its own; there was the way that I think about sound and what I consider to be important in a recording; and then there was the basement configuration, not only for the sound of a band playing together in a small room that isn’t covered with cosy wood and sound baffles. It had brick and concrete, with some home-made baffles here and there.

Have you ever needed to record a mandolion?

I like to point a small dia condenser at the bridge from above the instrument near where the players right ear would be if they leaned right over the instrument to hear it better (as many do).

(We could have used this advice years ago, when recording the Time & Whiskey track Galway. Rather than properly miking the mandolin, we just ran the pickup straight into the board. So of course it sounds nothing like a mandolin.)

Tags: inspiration

Lars Ulrich & crew discuss some of the techniques used when tracking his drums on Metallica (i.e. The Black Album)
The secret to Lars’ sound? Cut’n’paste … and plywood.

Tags: drums

Here are detailed instructions for building your own plate reverb:

Typically, the plate is a large sheet of steel suspended in a tubular steel frame. In theory, the plate simulates a large concert hall, or church, with a decay time of approximately five seconds at approximately 500 Hz. A driver attached to the plate excites it, and as the sound waves travel through it, the plate flexes. The plate’s motion is then picked up by one or two contact mics, and added to the dry signal at the mixer.

The project isn’t for the timid. But if you’re handy, and have a large sheet of steel lying around, an authentic plate reverb could add a distinctive touch to your recordings.

Previously: Create your own reverb

Tags: diy, reverb