The Source
Site Updated: 03/11/10It all starts here...
To explain this as plain and as simple as I can, “If you use low quality samples, microphones, or equipment, you will get low quality music!” By no means is this designed to discourage you, it is to educate you and help form good guidelines to follow for the future.
If you cannot afford expensive gear, don’t let that stop you. I have always believed it’s not what you use but how you use it, when it comes to creativity! If you’re anything like me and you’re a quality freak then keep reading. Otherwise, I am not sure this is the place for you?
What’s First?
When it comes to making music and recording instruments and vocals it is very important to focus on the samples being used, the sound of the instrument or the sound of the vocals from the very beginning.
Drum Samples
Spend time with your drum samples and create yourself drum kits of your favorite sounds. I have provided “free drum kits” on my website as well. This way you don’t always have to hunt for your sounds. Make sure that none of the drum samples are distorted, unless you are going for that effect. I personally like to have drum samples without any other sounds layered in with them. Sometimes you get a kick drum that has a hi-hat in it because someone has sampled it from another artists’ music. This sound has already been processed and will be processed again and again if you keep using it. I delete those files!
With music, it all really comes down to two things. The two things that grasp the listeners’ attention and get the people dancing. The drums and the bass. We’ll get to the bass in another chapter. As for the drums, if you spend time and find yourself some quality drums that have a nice low end on the kicks, a crack on the snare, and clean crisp hi-hats, you can’t go really go wrong. Your beats will sound good! Now it’s just up to programming those catchy drum patterns and layering the drums with other instruments.
Instruments
If you’re using live instruments, I would highly recommend that you spend a lot of time with experimental recording. Find the best settings for each particular instrument so that you have a good starting point for each new project. If you’re using a bass guitar, which brings the life and body to most modern music, you want to really dial in the low end and make sure that the bass and kick drum do not clash in the same frequency ranges. This will be covered in more detail in my Equalizing Chapter.
When it comes to guitars, electric guitars are a bit easier to work with in a studio environment. Plug them into a mixer and apply a bit of gain and your ready to start experimenting with the sound. Maybe plug in an effects pedal or some sort? Same goes for an electric acoustic guitar. They are pretty standard to record. The challenges come with plain acoustic guitars. You need to spend a lot of time with microphone placement and experimental recording to gain a good understanding of how to microphone your guitar and get the best possible sound. Never guess! Practice, find the sound and remember how you got it so you don’t waste time. Write down the settings if you have to.
Tone generators are always good to have as well. You can decide to get yourself a tone generator and control it with a midi controller keyboard or you can invest in the real deal! A keyboard music production center with a built in sampler, keyboard, and tone generator (www.motifator.com). With tone generators you can usually alter the sounds to create your own unique sounds for your music. It is important to make sure that you get these sounds to sound the way you want before you record them. You never want to record something twice. It will slow down your projects and things will never get done!
The high light of the show, the singer and emcee! If you don’t capture a good recording of the vocal you’re wasting your time. The vocal is supposed to be the icing on the cake! It needs to be warm, crisp, and easy to understand. Usually when I record vocals I apply slight compression to the track just to keep the levels tame and under control. This will be explaining in more detail in the Compression Chapter.
There are a few important things to know before working with vocals. First of all, you need to spend time with your singer or emcee and explain microphone techniques to them. You both need to agree on a placement and the singer or emcee needs to stick with it to make the recording process easier. If the singer has a different microphone placement on each take, an experienced ear will ear it! Also, spend time with your singer or emcee and find the best EQ for his or her voice. This will create a distinction between the music and the singer and emcee. Always remember that the singer and emcee are the most important part of a song.
Conclusion
If you are serious about what you’re doing it is important to create guidelines to work by. If you sample something, make sure you document it for future purposes. Who knows, you might just sell that song to someone and you will need the source music for copyright reasons.
Store your files on external hard drives and make sure to back up your work. I will say that again! Back up your work! I have two hard drives set up as a RAID1. This means that what ever I place on hard drive #1 is automatically copied to hard drive #2. I change a file or delete a file on hard drive #1 it also updates on hard drive #2. This is great if one hard drive crashes. You have a backup and can keep working, just replace the hard drive that crashed and configure the RAID1.
Keep organized! I can’t say that enough either. If you are not organized from the beginning you will regret it in a few years. Trust me! I am speaking from experience. I will cover this in the File Management and Organization Chapter.
Once you have covered all of these bases, you are ready! It’s time to start creating music for the world to hear. Be creative, be open to new ideas, and always follow your instinct. I appreciate your time and always appreciate your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggests please feel free to email them to me.
Chapter: Mixing