MIX
OVERVIEW Part 1 (setup & tracking) | Part 2 (vocals) | Part 3 (EQ) By Eric Downing The purpose of this article is to give an overview of the recording process. These methods can be used in an environment that does not include a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation); however, they are geared toward working in a computer-based environment. Furthermore, I am targeting these discussions at low-budget home or project studios. In this article I’m going to assume a fairly modest setup that includes a DAW, an audio interface, mics, cables, studio monitors, hardware compressors and preamps. Keep in mind that I’m only going to briefly touch on some key elements here, so if I write “Isolate the kick drum as best as possible,” don’t worry! I will describe this process in detail in future articles. You can always reach me at audiomail@covad.net if you need to. So … here we go … Let’s take a fairly typical rock band setup: vox, guitar, bass and drummer. Because this article is geared toward a modest budget, we are tracking the band in a three-bedroom house using only eight channels at a time. PREPARATION Before the band comes to your studio, it’s a good idea to discuss with them what to expect. I find it much easier if the band knows how long it’s going to take, what to bring besides their rig, and that I won’t cut corners for the sake of anyone’s comfort. With most of the low-end gear I’ve used, there is no room for cutting corners. Depending on one’s level of professionalism one might further the notion that there is never any room for cutting corners. For this project, I will tell the band that we will be overdubbing vocals and we will have to DI the bass. If the bass player complains, I can persuade him that my chorus plugin is far superior to his/her DOD foot pedal and I will of course need him/her to sit in and help tweak the sound after the initial recording. For me, this is a benefit because effects on a bass guitar might work at a live gig, but recording them wet, or with effects (including EQ), can be disastrous. It is very important to me to get a clean, dry signal for the bass. In my opinion any effects for the bass should be very subtle and finely tuned. It’s important to have a clean working environment and comfortable place for the talent to relax between takes. Of course many of you will likely be recording in a house or a warehouse, so the object here is to find a balance between strangers in your personal space and the comfort of said strangers; let’s call them clients. First impressions are important and if you look and act professional, chances are your attitude will translate to a better reception of your craft. I always ask the musicians to show up early (7-9 a.m.), especially the drummer, and will generally have coffee and donuts available. I think this is valuable as it aids in the session getting off on the right foot. ACCESSORIZE Some things I have found handy to have around are a 14-inch generic drum head, guitar strings, picks, plenty of power strips, bass strings if you can afford them, extra quarter-inch instrument cable, a soldering iron, guitar wrench and, most importantly, duct tape. The idea here is that Murphy’s Law is in full effect at all times during a tracking session. INITIAL STEPS: OUR STUDIO We will set up the studio using a fairly modest amount of equipment, as is typical of the low-end studio and the target audience I am trying to reach. For this article’s purposes, we have:
SETUP: WHERE THINGS GO Your most important consideration at this point is isolating the instruments. For this project it means getting the drums and that half stack as far away from each other as possible. For one session I put the drums in the front entryway of my house, and the guitar in the furthest bedroom. I want to touch briefly on using pillows and blankets for sound absorption. It kind of helps. For example, to minimize the sound of the room, record the guitar with several thick quilts or blankets draped over the speaker cabinet and mic. Close the door to the room, roll up a couple towels and stuff them into the crack between the door and the floor. You can find plenty of blankets and stuff at a Goodwill or Salvation Army – you get the idea. This would never fly in a “real” studio, but hey – we’re in a house, you have to work with what you have. It is very helpful to have a control room that is fairly isolated. For our situation, we will use one of the bedrooms for a control room. SETUP: DRUMS The way I work, the drums take the longest to set up. It is very important that you work hard to get as good a live sound as possible from the drums. If it takes four hours, that’s acceptable as it really sucks to spend all day recording to find out after the band has packed up that the drum tracks are unusable. This includes tuning the drum heads to concert pitch (or whatever the band is tuned to), checking for loose or floppy heads, shining up cymbals with cymbal paste or brass cleaner. Anything you can do at this point to get the drums sounding great will translate into a better sound on the final mix. More on preparing drums in a future article … TO MIC THE DRUMS You will always hear a different opinion about how to setup drum mics, and basically there are two methods of approach: The “Purist” method, and the “Control” method. In short, the purist method consists of using just two or three mics to capture the drum sound (the room you record in will become a big part of your sound). The control method requires a mic on each drum, which while mixing gives you more control over the sound and placement of the drums. In addition, the control method can allow you to compensate later for a bad room. However, I must stress that “fixing it in the mix” should never be your goal. I will explain how I would go about utilizing both methods. The Purist Approach: This method requires just three mics: two overhead condenser mics, and one kick drum mic. Starting with the overheads, there are a couple of ways of positioning them. You can choose to capture the sound from the drummer’s perspective (mics facing the front of the drum set) or from the listener’s perspective (mics facing the back of the drum set). Recording from the drummer’s perspective is most common, although I like to record from the audience perspective. Initially, place the microphones about two feet above the cymbals, one mic directly over the snare, the other mic directly over the low tom. Angle the overhead so they are slightly less than perpendicular to the floor. For the kick drum, I really like the sound of the beater, so I put the kick drum mic inside the shell about three inches away and at a 45-degree angle to the beater. The general rule here is the farther away the kick drum mic is from the beater, the roomier (bass-y) it will sound, to a point. At this point have the drummer play the full set a bit while you track the drums. Stop the recording and listen to the tracks, if it’s not what you want, you can fix it by moving the mics around. Have the drummer repeatedly hit each drum a few times while you record. Between each recording pass, move the mics slightly; you can rotate them left and right as well. But be careful; your intent here is to preserve the stereo image. You will eventually find a sweet spot where the set sounds good, if not great. One other thing that is very important here is to listen to the playback in mono. If you find that the overheads’ loudness decreases or wavers when you listen in mono, then you probably have phase issues. Your mic preamp or mixer channel should be able to flip phase; if not, then you will have to position the mics differently. I’ll get more into mic placement and the effects of phase issues in a future article. The Control Method: Since we are working with only eight inputs, it will be necessary to overdub one of the other tracks. It is necessary and good in our situation to overdub the vocals at a later time due to our equipment limitations. What I’m talking about here is recording the drums, bass and guitar on the first pass, then going back and recording another track or two of vocals. This serves a dual purpose: one is to increase the final track count, and the other is that you probably won’t have an isolation booth to record the vocals. Most bands are cool with this; some are not. If the band absolutely will not or cannot use this method, you will have to get good at the purist method, or expand your audio interface. Just a side note here: When I have to overdub this way, I will talk with the band beforehand and explain exactly what the recording process will be, just so there are no surprises. This method requires several microphones. Specifically, one dynamic microphone for each drum, two condenser mics for the cymbals, and if you really want to get crazy, two condenser microphones placed several feet away for ambience. Actually it’s common practice to use separate room mics for ambience but with our limited track count, we’ll stay away from that. Since we only have eight tracks to work with and limited hardware, we’re going to need to compromise somewhere. You can either use seven inputs for the drums and use the eighth input as the bass or guitar track, then come back later and lay down the other tracks, or if the band doesn’t want to or can’t do that, then you will need to sub-mix the toms down to two tracks. For example, let’s say our drumset has three toms; run those three mics to the mixer and set their channels’ pans accordingly (I never hard pan any tom; at the most I’ll go 9:00 or 3:00 on the low and high tom, and 12:00 for the middle), and then connect the stereo outs of the mixer to just two inputs on your audio interface – you’ve just saved one track! Make sure your pans match your overhead setup! i.e. – from the drummer or audience perspective. The two overheads are placed similar to the purist approach, except in this case, position them directly over the cymbals. Again, experiment here with different positions/angles and check for phase problems by listening to the mix in mono. Our drum mic kit contains five mics – one each for snare, three toms and a kick. For the snare and the toms, set the mics up initially so that they point almost towards the middle of the drum head; this will give you lots of attack (which in this case is the sound of the drumstick hitting the head). If you find that you want more of the tone of the drum, angle the mic more towards the rim of the drum. A common method is to use a Shure 57 and point it towards the outer quarter of the drum head. For the kick drum, I really like the sound of the beater, so I put the kick drum mic inside the shell about 3 inches away from the spot where the beater hits the head and at a 45 degree angle to the beater. The general rule here is the farther away the kick drum mic is from the beater, the more roomy (bass-y) it will sound, to a point. Check out the snare springs; if they suck, you will want to remove them; also you may find it necessary to put some duct tape on the drum head, but on the opposite side of where the mic is pointing. Another method is to clamp a wallet or something similar to the drum head to reduce any ringing. Additionally, be careful not to position the mic so that the drummer will hit it. Now that the drum mics are set up, you want to record a little bit and play it back, then adjust the mics accordingly if necessary. It’s easy to get overwhelmed here, so maybe just concentrate on one drum or stereo pair at a time. The hard and fast rules here are to make sure your not overloading any equipment, you’re getting a decent level to the DAW (above -10, but don’t exceed -2), your drums are fairly isolated – expect some bleed. Of course, above all, make sure this is the drum sound you like. Don’t assume that you will be able to add an EQ later or “fix it in the mix.” Try as hard as you can to get the best sound possible using mic placement. DRUMS: SUMMARY You can’t avoid some bleed with the equipment we have, so use it to your advantage. For example, I neglected to mention the all-important high hat. We don’t have enough mics to put a mic on the high hat, so try to capture the high hat in the snare and/or high tom channels. All the drums will bleed into the overheads, so if you’re not getting the sound you want from the toms, have a listen to the overheads. Also, a lot of “boom” from the kick drum may creep into the overheads, you can either use EQ to minimize this effect, or leave it alone – it’s up to your ears. The point I want to make is that you should approach the drum tracks as a whole. It is necessary and important to listen to each drum mic separately while muting the other tracks, but at the same time something that doesn’t sound good alone, might sound perfect when listening to the set as a whole. Adapt to your situation: If the drum set your recording doesn’t feature toms, use those mic channels for a high hat and the bottom of the snare! Or put another mic on the guitar. If using the control method, we have six drum channels: kick, snare, stereo toms, and stereo overheads. Two tracks remain, one for the guitar and one for the bass. SETUP: GUITAR I swear by Shure SM-57 for electric guitar. It is the microphone that was used on the majority of rock albums and is still being used in major studios today. I love the sound of a Marshall or Boogie Head pushed hard through four 12-inch Celestions; a 57 is perfect for this. There are many, I say too many, different dynamic mics being manufactured; you can’t go wrong with a 57. You want the guitar player to be able to hear his rig and the drums; at the same time, your job is to keep the instruments as isolated as possible and be able to allow the guitarist to have control over the loudness of his rig. As you probably know, tube amps sound better when pushed hard. It’s a challenging balancing act – but it can be done. The band we’re recording for this project features aggressive, rhythmic and crunchy guitar sounds. You’re going to have to get the mic placed in such a way as to be able to capture the bottom-end fatness, but also so that it doesn’t sound too shrill for the occasional lead or clean part. If you have two mics this is easier, but we only have one in this scenario. Start by positioning the mic about two inches away from the grill, and about 3 inches out from the center of the speaker cone. You can experiment with different angles, but generally this is a good starting position. This position should provide you with a balanced sound for most speakers. If this is not achieving the desired sound, feel free to move the mic around side to side and closer or further from the speaker. Moving the mic side to side (laterally) away from the center results in a punchier, but thin sound. Moving the mic farther away from the speaker results in a sound with more bass, but you may find it muddy and it will accentuate the natural reverberation of the room. You can get a great idea of how this works by having someone move the mic around while you are in your control room listening to the sound. If you don’t have a control room and you are physically close to the source, slap a pair of headphones on and wrap your head in a couple of towels to isolate your ears. Careful with headphones, though, as they can be deceiving. SETUP: BASS Most of the time I will DI the bass. This means I will plug the bass into a direct box and use a balanced (XLR or TRS) cable to connect that DI box to my audio interface. (DI stands for direct injection.) I have also used the line-out from the bass player’s amp in this fashion. Either way is OK; just be extremely careful with the sound you’re recording. Different styles require different approaches, but we are recording a rock band today. Let’s say the bass player insists on using his rig for his sound but due to our environment it is impossible to isolate the instrument and still allow the bassist to hear his or her rig over the drums. In this case we want to run a line out of the bass head into the DI box and then into the audio interface. In order for the bassist to hear his or herself, they will need to don some headphones. Here is where you most likely run into a problem of latency. In all but the most expensive DAW’s/audio interfaces there is a certain amount of latency involved. This means it takes time for the signal to travel from it’s originating point back to the headphones. This can cause the note to sound up to a half-second “late,” which is no good. So the important thing here is to plug the headphones into something as close as possible to the source. If the bass head has a “preamp” or “effect” out, you might try that. Run the DI into an extra channel on the mixer and route only the bass signal to the headphones out. Unless you have a top-end audio interface or your interface doesn’t delay the signal enough to be noticed, then you will have to deal with latency at some point. SETUP: INITIAL TRACKING At this point, hopefully all the sounds are getting to the DAW in an appropriate manner, and you are making sure you are not recording too hot. Try to keep you average level around -8dB and no peaks above -2dB. This may be impossible without the use of a compressor or limiter, but those elements will be discussed in a future article. Do a test run for a full minute of the full band. Bring all your faders up and listen to the tracks, make sure they all sound OK at this point. Ever hear an album or song that gives you goosebumps or makes you all tingly? This is what you want to lay the foundation for at this stage of the process. You probably won’t achieve this on the first or even fifth pass. The only way to prejudge the sound you are getting to disc is to be experienced and know the limitations of your equipment, which includes your ears and state of mind at the time. I want to point out that even with crappy equipment, it is possible to achieve commercially acceptable sonic quality with careful attention to detail and proper mic technique. Do not approach tracking with the idea that you can fix it in the mix. It is absolutely essential that you get the best sound your gear can reproduce in the tracking session. FINAL THOUGHTS This concludes this installment. In case I didn’t mention it before, have fun! I will continue our recording and mixing session with our band in the next article. Additionally, I will explain methods of mixing, using compression during mixing and tracking, how to EQ like a pro, reverb, chorus, phasers, etc. I will also write detailed articles on relevant topics such as phase issues, mic selection/placement, room acoustics, speaker placement and calibration, subwoofers, mastering and whatever else I can think of, so stay tuned, and above all have fun!
For topic suggestions, rants or raves, please e-mail me at audiomail@covad.net, or on MSN Instant Messenger contact e-mail ripeart@hotmail.com. By Eric Downing VOCALS: BEFORE YOU RECORD You may recall that our studio has the capability to capture only eight simultaneous separate signals. We have already tracked (recorded) seven tracks of drums and one track of guitar or bass. You may have submixed the toms down to two tracks; in this case, you will have six tracks of drums, one of guitar, one of bass. Or you might have put another mic on the bottom of the snare, which is the best thing to do in our case. As with almost everything recorded with a microphone, the environment the sound is recorded in affects the sound being captured. What you hear live and what is actually recorded are almost always two very different things! Some things to remember when tracking sensitive tracks such as vocals are:
Now that you’ve got as quiet a situation as possible, find a room that is small and contains a lot of cushions or blankets or pillows, such as a bedroom. You can also take the blankets we talked about before and hang them on mic stands parallel to the nearest walls. What we’re trying to do here is minimize reflections from the walls, ceiling and floor. If you have a large bookcase, chest of drawers or hutch around, you can place the singer so that he/she is facing it. If it’s a hutch, open the doors wide; if it’s a chest of drawers, open the drawers irregularly. Any relatively large area that has smaller, irregular shapes within it will help to break up the reflected sound waves and weaken them. I hear a lot of vocal tracks that were recorded in the bathroom or in a stairwell. The reflections in a typical full bathroom are very short and loud. Stairwell recordings have long decays and again are fairly loud. This is fine, but keep in mind that once the voice is printed to tape, it is impossible to fully remove the reflections (reverb), although you can minimize its effects using a noise gate if you later find that it doesn’t work with the music. MIC SELECTION Most often, vocals are recorded with a condenser mic. However, I have heard passable recordings using a Shure SM-58. If you’re singer who screams a lot, has poor mic technique and wants to flail all around, then you may consider using a dynamic mic such as a 58. For our session, we have a singer that sometimes just speaks the verse and sometimes will scream, but he/she is somewhat professional and knows to back away a little bit when screaming and get real close when speaking. More on mic technique in a future article. We are going to use a large-diaphragm condenser mic for this session. You’ll want to use a pop filter. A pop filter will attenuate the rush of air that comes out of the singer’s mouth when singing or speaking P, B or similar sounds. Additionally, it will also help to control the “S” sounds. Say the word “sounds” and notice at the end of the word the “s” seems to have its own syllable. Or have you ever heard on talk radio real loud “S” or even “CH” sounds? This is called sibilance, and when used in audio it refers to sounds that are made with a hissing noise. It’s good to attack these problems before you begin recording. Another thing to mention here is that low frequencies travel very well through solid objects such as walls and floors. Someone stomping around or dropping dictionaries in the next room will most likely be captured on tape. A couple of things to do are: Use a shock mount; they are relatively inexpensive. If your mics or preamps have a low-frequency shelf switch, definitely use it. Failing that, you could duct-tape a couple layers of pillows to the ground and then tape the mic stand to the pillows. I can’t stress enough that the main focus is to get the best possible sound to begin with. “Garbage in – garbage out.” MIC POSITIONING Pretty straightforward here – literally. You want the singer to sing directly into the mic at a 90-degree angle. The center of the recording capsule (the little plate inside the mic) should be even with the singer’s upper lip, and about a half-inch to an inch and a half away. If you’re having a hard time with pops, even with the pop screen, and/or overloads, try moving the mic back slightly and up. If you’re still having a hard time, move the mic up even more and angle it down. I’ve heard recordings where two microphones were used in a stereo setup, but I never liked them. In my opinion, the vocal should mono and in the center for most music, unless you’re trying to achieve a certain effect. MIC TECHNIQUE For an up-close and personal effect, have the singer sing very close to the mic. It’s OK if the singer’s lips touch the pop screen, although kind of nasty. For screaming, the singer should move back a little but no more than 2 inches away from the mic. More than that and the reverberations in the room really become a factor. This is very audible when listening to the mix as a whole. TRACKING THE VOCALS Of course the singer will need headphones; it’s best to have large headphones that wrap around the ear. Make sure you are familiar enough with your DAW that you know how to turn up the sound without raising the recording level. Also, you’ll need to know how to mute only the singer’s track but still be recording. The latency issue that was discussed in the bass section applies here as well. Make sure that the audio in the other tracks is not being routed to the track you are recording vocals on. Some vocalists will want to listen to just one side of the headphone, the best thing is to have a set of DJ headphones, but if not, make sure the music coming out of the headphones is not being picked up by the vocal mic. When tracking vocals, I find it best to play back the other tracks in mono, but this is a personal preference. While recording, try to be as quiet as possible. It’s OK to set a glass down on the table, but try to do so during a time when the singer isn’t singing. If you’ve followed the above advice, then you should have a fairly decent sound going to tape or disk. You don’t want to exceed -2dB while tracking, and you certainly don’t want to overload digitally. Some things I’ve seen singers do during sessions are:
I don’t know about the lemon/lime thing – that never helped me – but I’ve seen more than one singer do it. FINAL THOUGHTS This concludes this installment. In case I didn’t mention it before, have fun! I will continue our recording and mixing session with our band in the next article. Additionally, I will explain methods of mixing, using compression during mixing and tracking, how to EQ like a pro, reverb, chorus, phasers, etc. … I will also write detailed articles on relevant topics such as phase issues, mic selection/placement, room acoustics, speaker placement and calibration, subwoofers, mastering and whatever else I can think of, so stay tuned, and above all have fun! You can reach me at audiomail@covad.net, or on MSN Instant Messenger via ripeart@hotmail.com. By Eric Downing The first thing I do is bring all the faders up about equal (0db). I’ll then listen to the song and make coarse adjustments to the level and panning during the first pass. At this point all you want to do is be able to hear each track. After that first pass, I’ll play it again, but this time, instead of listening for relative loudness of each track, I’ll listen for frequencies. I want to make sure each instrument, or track, is represented in its own, sometimes shared, space. For example, one of the first things I do is mute everything but the kick and bass guitar, and make sure that they aren’t competing with one another frequency-wise. I want to make sure the bass guitar makes the kick sound thick and that the kick gives the bass guitar some punch. This is sometimes entirely dependant upon excellent musicians, so don’t get discouraged if the bass doesn’t seem to groove with the kick drum; just make sure they aren’t stepping on each other frequency-wise. While my ears are the primary factor in deciding if the sound is what I want, I find it helpful to view a waveform that represents frequencies. I use TC Electronics’ Inspector on the master fader, which shows me a graph of the frequencies in real time. This is a great aid to me, and because I’m aware of the acoustical deficiencies in my mixing room I can intelligently visualize and guess which frequencies will become a problem when the song is played back on any variety of systems. I can see the frequencies on a spectrum analyzer. I have enough experience in this room and with these speakers to predict how it will sound on a wide variety of systems. The point is that sometimes you have to “fly by instrument,” especially if you didn’t hire an acoustic engineer to design your control or mixing area. Anyway, if need be, use an EQ on the tracks that need some adjusting. Using EQ is a big topic, which I will attempt to generalize here: EQ
– Good Practices: Mixing
Volume when EQing: The secret to EQ lies in using it in a subtractive manner. More often than not, you don’t want to add to the sound; EQ should be used to shape the sound by subtracting what doesn’t belong. If the snare drum lacks bite, instead of raising 2~4K, try lowing 150-500 Hz and bringing the loudness of that track up a bit. You can increase the perceived and RMS loudness of certain frequencies by attenuating the lower (or higher) opposing frequencies. Try to approach EQ with the mindset that you want to take away what’s not working as opposed to trying to amplify a frequency that’s already where it needs to be. The most precise type of EQ to use is a parametric EQ. If you have a choice between a graphic and parametric EQ, go parametric every time. Parametric EQs allow you to adjust the “Q.” Let’s say in the bass guitar track there is an annoying hum – a ground loop type hum – centered at 60Hz. This is a common frequency in the States. In Europe, for some reason, ground loop is 50Hz. Anyway, with a graphic EQ, you could move the 60Hz slider all the way down to eliminate the hum, but you will also be moving the frequencies above and below 60Hz down as well. The amount that the slider affects the frequencies above and below 60Hz is variable according to the manufacturer; that is to say: With a graphic EQ you can’t adjust how much each slider’s surrounding frequencies are affected. However, with a parametric EQ, you have much more precise control over which frequencies are affected. Most parametric EQ’s have at least these settings:
High Shelf refers to defining a frequency by which all other frequencies below it are attenuated by the gain setting. For instance, if there was way too much muddy bass, you would set a high shelf at 2Khz and reduce everything below that by 2dB. Low Shelf is the opposite, in which the frequencies above your frequency setting are attenuated by the gain setting. Notch is a very thin slice of EQ taken out. For example, if you had an annoying buzz in the mix, you could use the notch setting to identify that the buzz was at 60Hz and the notch filter would attenuate only 60Hz. Parametric setting relates to the Q setting. In parametric mode, the Q is how wide or narrow the frequency adjustment is. The frequency determines the center point for the Q. You could use a low Q (Q of 2 for instance, which is a wide setting) centered on 4Khz, and a gain of about 2dB to bring up the relative highs on a track. That setting will bring up from 1Khz to about 8Khz, the most gain being applied to the center frequency, which is 4Khz. If you used a high Q setting (Q of 30 for instance, which is a very tight and surgical setting), you would only bring up from about 3.8Khz to 4.2Khz. The general rule of thumb is:
Of course, if you are trying to achieve a certain effect – for instance, a “telephone voice” – then by all means, experiment. The beauty of mixing is that ultimately there is no “right” way to do it. Modern pop culture will have you believe different and that the radio and CD labels dictate how music should be perceived. I say do what sounds good to your ears as an artist and a technician. What else can I say about EQing? There are EQs that are considered “transparent,” and there are EQs that affect the signal in such a way as to color the sound and add its own signature. Each has its own benefits and pitfalls; use your ear and your judgment to determine what sounds best. Now that the lecture is over, let’s get down to some EQing. When I listen to song, I want to hear everything fully. I want to feel the kick drum hitting me in the chest, I want the guitar to tweak my ears and I want the keyboards/bass/rhythm guitar to make it fat. I want the vocals to vibrate my nerves and I want the cymbals to be smooth, shiny and airy. Listen to Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon,” or another fine example is anything by the Eagles, early Metallica, recent Tool, Rush, Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp and lots of others. Listen to the frequencies represented in any of these albums. Realize that you can pick out any instrument if you concentrate on it, and realize how easy it is to just relax and hear all of it as a whole. This is your goal: to give each instrument or sound its own space from 20Hz to 20000Hz.
These are general settings that I have found to be useful when assigning instruments their space in the frequency spectrum. It should be noted that I consider EQ to be a corrective plug-in/filter only to be used when either:
It needs to be said that there is no substitute for getting the right sound from the beginning with strategic mic positioning. EQ, in my opinion, is a godsend that makes up for my steadily decreasing lack of mic technique. Another topic I want to briefly touch on is phase issues with EQs. I’m not sure how to explain this because I don’t fully understand it myself; however, from what I read and gather, it is an important consideration when using digital EQs within a DAW environment. Using a digital EQ can introduce phase inconsistencies. That is to say that the digital EQ pushes a certain range of frequencies, depending on the settings, forward or backward in time. On one track, this fact is pretty much insignificant; however, combine the effect on many tracks and you will get a cumulative effect of “phase shift.” It can make the stereo image of your tracks smear and cause the sound to lack depth. I have found that I can detect this, but it is very subtle and cumulative, and because this cumulative effect contributes to the sound of the song as a whole, as a result the music is perceived by the average listener as “muddy” or “yeah, it sounds OK.” I’m not sure how one could go about avoiding this except to use high-quality, expensive EQs that compensate for this. For our purposes, we can’t afford a $1000 EQ plug-in so we must try to get the best sound from the selection and placement of microphones and/or use of very slight, subtractive EQ adjustments. Even if one could afford the Waves EQ package for $750, the best bet is to get the desired sound via mic placement. Remember: “Garbage In – Garbage Out.” FINAL THOUGHTS EQ should be approached as a subtractive tool. You don’t want to add artifacts; you want to chip away until you get what you need. This concludes this installment. In case I didn’t mention it before, have fun! I will continue our recording and mixing session with our band in the next article. Additionally, I will explain methods of mixing, using compression during mixing and tracking, reverb, chorus, delay, etc. I will also write detailed articles on relevant topics such as phase issues, mic selection/placement, room acoustics, speaker placement and calibration, subwoofers, mastering and whatever else I can think of, so stay tuned, and above all, have fun! You
can reach me at audiomail@covad.net,
or on MSN Instant Messenger contact e-mail ripeart@hotmail.com. |