RECORDING TIPS
These are basic tips to prepare you and help give your mix the absolute best quality that it can be. They will not always make or break your recordings, but they will help your engineer/mixer get the best possible sounding recording for you. It all starts at the source, and that's you, so always be prepared.
Guitarists and Bassists
- For killer tones especially in metal and hard rock, it always begins with the player, and not just the amplifier and cabinet you're using. Picking and palming technique, the right type of pick, and strings, a high quality guitar with high quality pickups (I always suggest EMG's, but that's just me) will give you that awesome attack, and bite.
- Make sure your instruments are in good playing condition. Be aware of shorting or wiring issues, fret buzz, properly intonated and they stay in, and hold tune well.
- Alway have new strings on your instruments before you record.
- Make sure you have fresh batteries if your instrument uses active pickups.
- Always make sure you or your engineer records DI (direct In) tracks for possibly re amping later in case you are not happy with your tone.
- Most important is to obviously make sure you are well rehearsed, and know your parts.
Drummers
- Make sure your drums are of good quality and in good playing condition (no missing lugs, broken hardware that rattles, or broken bass drum pedals). Try to have some kind of pillow or dampening in the kick drum.
- Always try to have fresh drum heads before recording, and make sure they are well tuned.
- Make sure your cymbals are not broken and are in good working condition.
- Please Have a hole on the front of your kick drum set anywhere from 3-9 o'clock for inside microphone placement.
- Remember it always starts with the player to get great tones and good takes, and getting consistent strokes on every drum especially the snare and kick.
Vocalists
- Knowing and understanding a little about microphone proximity is important to know while recording, by keeping proper distance and control when your voice gets louder or more energetic in areas, and not to ever cup the mic.
- Always make sure you or your engineer places a pop filter before the microphone.
- Try to find the most driest/dampened place to record your vocals in the studio or home (If your home, closets work great!).
- Do not always rely on your mixer to use autotune on your vocals if necessary for major out of key or pitch issues. Always be prepared to give your best performance possible.
- Try hard to have you lyrics memorized. It makes a big difference in getting a great performance, so your are not focused too much on phrasing or trying to remember the lyrics.
- Make sure you are well rested, hydrated and feeling healthy before recording vocals.
What is Mastering?
So in a nut shell, it begins by just getting a set of fresh ears on your mix other than you, your band, your engineer or your producer. Mastering also can be adding more volume, mild equalizing, compression, limiting, and dithering to the overall mix to give it a little more polish and spice. It also means cleaning up each song with proper fade ins & outs and cleaning any pops or noises heard at the beginning or ending of your song, and also by placing them in the proper listening order for full length albums or EP's that makes them flow together nicely.
Mastering is not meant to fix a bad mix, and sometimes you may not even hear a difference between the mastered or unmastered version. Masterings purpose is mainly to prepare your music to translate well on radio, vinyl, and for streaming services. Also you should know that most streaming services like Spotify, and Apple Music will penalize your master if it is too loud. So just because it's loud does not always mean it's a good thing.