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04/04/12 13.34

25 hot recording tips

9. If you find mechanical noise is clouding a recording (saxophone keys clicking, for example), try placing the mic behind the player or to the side, so that its partially shielded from the offending cacophony. 10. The ideal distance for an acoustic guitar mic is around 35-45cm away from the soundhole. Place it any closer and your sound will be overly boxy much further away and youll pick up too much of the rooms ambience. 11. Get your musician to try playing in a number of styles (eg, picked and fingered for a guitarist). You never know which might sound better, and you then have layering options for mixdown and different versions for your arrangement stage. 12. If your vocalist is struggling to hit the notes, try washing their monitoring signal with a lot of long reverb. Theyll then be able to use the reverb on their voice to better detect their own pitch, making it much easier for them to make adjustments. 13. A handy tip for school music teachers: the best way to record an upright piano is with two condenser mics behind, placed left and right and pointing slightly down, with the top and back of the piano removed. If you cant remove the back, open the top and place the mics left and right, about two feet above. 14. If youre using a classic electric piano riff, try recording it using an amp or amp modelling plug-in for that authentic live stage sound. 15. Struggling with the performance of a riff? Thanks to timestretching, you can play it slower and more accurately, then ramp it up to the right speed later. Its not cheating if nobody knows and it sounds great! 16. Does your building have an interesting-sounding hallway or other acoustic space? A really bright-sounding bathroom, perhaps? Put a microphone in there, play your track back and record the rooms natural reverb, ready to mix in. 17. For decent vocal recordings, create a small area packed with duvets and blankets a wardrobe is ideal. Of course, you need to ensure that you have enough light to read the lyrics and enough space to be able to stand a decent distance from the microphone.
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18. It sounds incredibly obvious but when youre recording an instrument or voice, make sure that the backing track only plays through well-isolated closed-back earphones with minimal noise-bleed, so as to record a clean signal. If your vocalist is struggling to hit the notes, try washing their monitoring signal with a lot of long reverb. 19. Always get loads of ad-libs from your vocalist, and make sure they try singing sections of verses and choruses in separate takes, holding notes so that the tail of one vocal section can be laid out to overlap the start of the next. This can create a really energetic effect. 20. The best placement for a vocal mic is actually slightly above your vocalist, as it forces them to tilt their head back slightly, thus opening up their throat for clear and strong voice projection. 21. Whatever you do, dont let your vocalist get drunk or worse. There might be a few rare musicians out there who do a better job after theyve had a few beers, but they are a very small minority, and this is especially true for vocalists whatever they might tell you! 22. Recording guitars can be a tricky business because of latency issues. If you like to monitor with effects, but want to record a clean signal, then you need to use something like the Line 6 Pod, and preferably a unit that enables you to output the dry signal alongside the effected version. An alternative solution is to get hold of a small analogue mixer/splitter and send the signal to your Pod and the computer simultaneously. 23. If your vocalist just isnt hitting the right notes, try doing a little DIY vocal coaching. For example, if theyre singing flat, ask them to sing a little sharp. And if they cant do that, try temporarily tuning the backing track up a few cents (singers tend to be around 10-20 cents sharp or flat) to force them to compensate. 24. Weve already told you to make yourself a recording template, but thats no good if you dont use it. You should get into the habit of leaving something recording every time you play an audio instrument, mix, sing or otherwise jam. Then just delete it if you havent done anything worth keeping. 25. If youre recording with sensitive microphones, make sure your players arent
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04/04/12 13.34

wearing anything that might rattle or bash against their instruments. Theres nothing more annoying than the sound of a watch, button or jangling chain ruining that one perfect take and remaining undiscovered until after the musicians have gone home!
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