Articles discussing Recording approaches
I'm happy to have worked, and to continue to work, with artists who are capable of doing some of the recording themselves. True, I will insist on a certain standard of technical quality, but many of my clients are fully capable of saving themselves some money while becoming a greater part of the project. Does… Continue reading Who Says We Have to Match?
(To read this series from the beginning, start here.) If you’ve followed this series from the start – WOW, you are hungry for information, and you have also proven your strength by sticking with me through the whole story! We’re nearing the finish line. Take a deep breath and we’ll get there together. It’s time now… Continue reading “Every Time I Record Myself, It Sounds Terrible.” Part Nine – Speak Up!
(To read this series from the beginning, start here.) If you’ve followed this series from the start, you’ve seen our sound signal excite a microphone into generating an electrical signal, which has been amplified, converted to a digital signal, stored in a DAW and mixed with other recorded signals to build a mix, and even a… Continue reading “Every Time I Record Myself, It Sounds Terrible.” Part Eight – Right Back Where We Started
(To read this series from the beginning, start here.) By now, you’ve used your DAW or stand-alone recorder to record one or more audio tracks, maybe even an entire arrangement with multiple instruments and voices. The next challenge is to transform these tracks into something that can be shared with your fans. What Is Mixing? When… Continue reading “Every Time I Record Myself, It Sounds Terrible.” Part Seven – Tricks for the Mix
(To read this series from the beginning, start here.) By now, you understand how to get your sound into a microphone, through a preamp, and converted into digital data. So who’s going to keep track of all that data, and how will it be managed? Enter the DAW Maybe you haven’t heard of a DAW by… Continue reading “Every Time I Record Myself, It Sounds Terrible.” Part Six – Saving the Day with the DAW
(To read this series from the beginning, start here.) So far, this discussion of the recording chain has taken us up to the Microphone Preamp. The next device in the simplified recording chain is the Analogue-to-Digital Converter, often called the “A-to-D” or just the “Converter”. The job of this device is to interpret the electrical… Continue reading “Every Time I Record Myself, It Sounds Terrible.” Part Five – Tearing Sound to Bits
(To read this series from the beginning, start here.) Last week we discussed how to choose a microphone, and how you might go about using it in your recording space. After the sound is captured by the microphone, where does it go? This week, we look at the Microphone Pre-Amplifier, usually just called the preamp… Continue reading “Every Time I Record Myself, It Sounds Terrible.” Part Four – Giving Mike a Boost
(To read this series from the beginning, start here.) So, our discussion of how to get a better-sounding home recording has so far discussed the pieces of gear required to record sound (part 1), and the ways in which we might get the best out of our own gear in our own room (part 2). … Continue reading “Every Time I Record Myself, It Sounds Terrible.” Part Three – Mike? Who’s Mike?
(To read this series from the beginning, start here.) In last week’s post, I wrote about how you can experiment with whatever gear you have and discover the best way to capture your performance with your own gear, in your own space. And I wrote that we would ignore the quality of your gear for… Continue reading “Every Time I Record Myself, It Sounds Terrible.” Part Two – What’s Gear Got to Do, Got to Do With It?
We have all watched, maybe in a movie or documentary, or on YouTube, a video clip of musicians in the studio being recorded by a nerdy engineer, and it sounds like pure magic. This is so inspirational; it makes us all want to be there, recording music! So we buy some recording gear, bring it… Continue reading “Every Time I Record Myself, It Sounds Terrible.” Part One – What a Mic Wants, What a Mic Needs…
