Correct sequence of doing things when recording?

Riaan

After playing around with Sonar for a while now, I find that I'm increasingly doing things that I know are not the way it's supposed to be done...it's time I go and do a proper course methinks, as I'm probably acquiring bad habits rapidly. For instance, I would add effects, adjust volumes and do all sorts of things that I think are actually part of the mixing process, while I'm actually still composing the piece of music in Sonar... I find it easier to progress with the composition part when I can hear what the rest of it will finally sound like - or so it feels at this point where I'm at as a hobbyist and novice. Rather than recording track for track or instrument for instrument, I tend to compose, record and "mix/master" all the tracks of the tune a few bars at a time. Is this very wrong?

So how do you guys usually do it? Lay down all the tracks without doing anything to them, and only start mixing/adding effects and things once everything is recorded?

AlanRatcliffe

Try to keep it to a minimum. Get it sounding right to tape and the music will mostly mix itself at mixdown stage and you'll just be adding effects for colour or to cure small problems here and there. If you've ever seen any of the Eagle Rock Classic Albums series of DVDs, you'll notice that when they play back the original multitrack tapes with no outboard effects or any EQ or anything, the recordings still sound strikingly similar to the final versions.

Work at getting the natural tones to fit together without any EQ (aside from lo cut) or compression. If a sound doesn't sit well in the mix during tracking, you're using the wrong sound - try find one that stands out naturally and use that.

While tracking avoid using bus compression and EQ, as it can give you a completely false impression of your levels and tones. Using reverb and delay (unless an integral part of the song) tend to hide or even encourage bad things - especially sloppy timing. If you must use reverb, keep the times short and the amount subtle. If you must use delay, synch it to the project tempo.

Vocalists usually like to hear their voice with lots of reverb in their foldback when tracking, many will even give a better performance with it than without. The secret is to use an external hardware unit to add it in to the foldback mix for the vocalist to hear, while recording it dry.

Guitar effects I'll often print them with the effects, because Guitar Rig is on a completely different computer (distributes processing power) - but I make absolutely sure that it's the effects I want before doing so and will often simplify or remove effects like reverb entirely, relying on adding them in the mix. However I got lots of practice doing this kind of thing early on - my first recorder was only a four track (three if I was synching a MIDI sequencer to tape via SMPTE or MTC), so I had to learn.

AlanRatcliffe

Just read through what I wrote and my age is showing. ? Herewith a few "old tape fart" vernacular to modern recording conversions or just plain old explanations:

To tape - When recording
Tracking - the recording stage, recording the tracks which are used to build the song. As opposed to the mixing or mastering stages.
Buss - a routing path within a mixer or recorder. Usually sums more than one track. Putting effects on a buss affects all tracks that are routed to that buss.
Foldback - monitoring
Printing (effects) - Recording an instrument or mixing down a track with the effects - usually can't be undone.

If I missed anything, just shout.

Riaan

Thanks Alan, that helps! I haven't actually used seperate busses up to now. One problem I'm beginning to realise now, is that I may add effects to seperate tracks individually, and then again on the master, which I suppose can lead to problems. So one would use a bus to route a couple of tracks to, in order to add the same effect to all those tracks one time only? And use effects sparingly on the master?

I must say, all the effects and things included with Sonar 8 Producer is a bit like the spicerack in our kitchen when I'm cooking...it's all too easy to become overly enthusiastic and add a bit of everything, and then a bit more still, and eventually ruin what started off as something good! ?

I'm slowly working my way through Sonar's manual, and through a book called Sonar 8 Power, quite a test for my self discipline as I'm not the "read the manual first" type of person...

deanBailey

+1 to everything Alan said. It's hard for me to explain this to the clients I get because most of them (mainly the guitarist) will have their opinion and stick with it whether it works with the song or not.

Certain things like Vocal FX being applied during tracking, I just apply on the track insert and switch on the monitor enable in Cubase so they can hear what's happening on the insert, but it will be recorded without the effect.

I also have several group busses for anything that has more than one track.
eg. Snare mic top/bottom and Snare trigger (transducer) into one group buss. It Not only does it allow me to control the volume of the "snare", which is the overall sound of the many snare tracks making one sound. But also allows me to free up CPU by applying only one plug to the buss, instead one to each channel.

Another good trick when record Guitar or Bass is to record the DI separately (muted or un-muted what ever you prefer) even if it's not gonna be used. This is just for reference, and you can delete it later. Because you can see the peaks of your playing a lot cleaner than you can from an effected audio track. This helps me see how far I'm off from the grid and how weak I'm playing (dynamics).

I think I might have sidetracked but I hope it helps.

AlanRatcliffe

Riaan wrote One problem I'm beginning to realise now, is that I may add effects to seperate tracks individually, and then again on the master, which I suppose can lead to problems.

It can lead to problems. But it is not uncommon to do so during mixdown either - it's quite possible to have a compressor on a kick drum, a limiter on the drum submix and a multiband compressor on the master (the latter only if you are mastering at the same time for an mp3 mix). If you are mastering in a different program or using a mastering service, you shouldn't have anything in your main buss.

So one would use a bus to route a couple of tracks to, in order to add the same effect to all those tracks one time only?

Umm... Yes - it's not a common thing to do specifically for effects though. Routing tracks to a buss is more commonly used to use the buss as a submix - say for instance setting up a buss with all the drum tracks so that you can fade all the drums together (far easier than grouping a bunch of individual drum track faders). Having said that, I will sometimes insert a limiter in the drum buss to control the peaks a little.

For effects like reverb, you will usually create an effects bus with the effect inserted in the buss. However, instead of routing the tracks to that buss, you use the aux sends (post fader) on the tracks to send a signal to the effects buss. This lets you control how much of each track goes to the effects buss, so you can have a near-dry kick drum, but a cavernous snare (for instance) - all with one reverb plugin! Note that if you have an effects bus, you set the mix to "all effect" and no dry (many default that way when inserted in a buss anyway) - otherwise it messes with track volume.

I must say, all the effects and things included with Sonar 8 Producer is a bit like the spicerack in our kitchen when I'm cooking...

At least in Sonar, you have good ol' CTRL-Z ?

I'm slowly working my way through Sonar's manual, and through a book called Sonar 8 Power, quite a test for my self discipline as I'm not the "read the manual first" type of person...

Good book that. Same guys publishing my next book.

AlanRatcliffe

deanBailey wrote Another good trick when record Guitar or Bass is to record the DI separately (muted or un-muted what ever you prefer) even if it's not gonna be used.

Excellent point. A DI track also gives you something you can experiment with if you have Guitar Rig, Amplitude or any other amp modeller. Of, if you are lucky enough to have a selection of amps around the studio, you can reamp. Reamping is when you route the DI signal out of an unused output, plug it into a different guitar amp (or two), tweak them, play with mic placement and different mics then record the result back into the DAW. It's the ultimate amp modelling - with real amps!

deanBailey

Hehe yeah just don't forget you need a reamp box to convert mic level signal back to line level ?.

AlanRatcliffe

deanBailey wrote Hehe yeah just don't forget you need a reamp box to convert mic level signal back to line level ?.

Ummm... Reamp boxes convert line level to instrument level to feed the amp. Mic to line you use your mic pres. ?

deanBailey

LOL crap!, Even thought I said line level, I meant to say instrument level, but I was typing that at 03:00 am this morning. sorry ???

AlanRatcliffe

I figured as much. ?