Drums

All this week I'm going to do a whole week of talking about drums because I have not giving you guys any information audio drums so all this week I'm going to be talking about drums and give you guys the information to teach you how to record and how to mix drums and how to get a great sounding mix 

Muting Instruments

Hey guys at some point on the blog I talked about dropping out the bottom end the bass guitar but right now I want to talk about dropping out the guitars in your song to open up your mix and make your mixing a whole lot Easyer. So let's say your coming out of a chorus and into a verse and you have 2 guitar tracks on that verse if you mute those 2 guitar tracks hafe I'm not talking about the whole thing just hafe way, it will really open up your mix and you can be left with bass piano drum and vocals trust me your mix will be more open and you it will be Easyer to mix because guitar rack up so much room in our mix I'm not trying to hate on guitar I love guitar if I could I would have a 100 guitar tracks in my mix but I would not do that because then I would not want to mix it but just dropping a instrument out can really make a differents in your mix and make Easyer. 

The Gear I Use In My Studio

The one peace of gear I want to talk about first that I use in my recording studio is my computer I use a, Windows 8 hp operating system I'm very happy with it a lot of people say you need to use a Mac for a recording studio know that's not true you can use any computer as long as you have a good hard drive and it cleaned and it's fast. That audio interface I use is a focusrite 2i2 and I will be updating to the focuserite 18i20 soon but right now I'm using the 2i2 it is sub powered and it has 2 inputs with phantom power and it sounds great I'm a huge fan of focuserite products. Some of the microphones I use are a GXL 2200 condenser microphone and I use a focuserite CM25 condenser microphone also and I use a USB M audio condenser microphone. For my drum set I use a electric drum set witch is a Ddrum Dd 1 drum set I also have 5 guitars and one bass guitar I'm not going to get into the names of those cause I have 6 of them the DAW I use is pro tools 11 and I also have the upgrade version 

Updating Your Computer

Hey guys today I'm going to talk about something new and it's something that you all should be doing with your computer that you use for your recording studio.

I'm going to tell you 2 of the most importing things you can do for a home studio computer to keep it nice and safe number one is keep it updated check for updates every week and if you have a new update make sure you update it because if you don't you will run into problems down the road. Number 2 clean your computer hear what you do for that every 2 weeks go through your computer see what you have if you see something you don't need get rid of it but make sure you read about it first before you delete it. These things can make your studio and work faster witch means you can get your music out and for people to hear faster 

Do these steps they will help

Off Line Bouncing

Hey everyone today I want to talk to you guys about off line bouncing, so let's say you have a kick drum track and a bass guitar track but then when you play them back they don't line up the bass is not playing the same pattering the kick drum in playing so what do you do to fix that. you grab your slicing tools and start slicing your tracks up and drag them to the right spot they need to be, so that bass guitar can line right up with that kick drum. But after your all done slicing and moving track and doing all that editing work your left with gaps. So right now Im going to tell you how you can fix those gaps so you have a full bare of audio and your not let with any gaps in your track because gaps can cause pops and cracks and all kicks off sounds you don't want in your mix So hears how to fix it

Highlight the whole track then go up to where it say's bounce and click that and your audio track will transform into one whole audio track you don't have to wast all that time pasting but remember you have to edit first and fix everything in the edit and then audio bounce it. 

Hope this help you for more information on recording audio and mixing please email me and I will get back to you as soon as I can have a great day

EQ Acoustic Guitar

Low End 80 Hz
Place a steep high - pass filter at around 80 - 100 Hz to leave the low end for the bass guitar and the kick drum. If the Acoustic Guitar is played strumming as a rythm guitar the high pass filter is often increased up to about 200 Hz to make it sit better in the mix. 
If boominess is troubling your recording you can also use an extra bell curve with a narrow to medium Q and turn down (Cut) the gain until the boom is gone.

Bottom 80 - 100 Hz 
If the acoustic guitar has a prominent role in a sparse mix ( like with fingerpicking for instance ) and the sound is too thin you can put some bottom back into it by very slightly boosting between 80 and 100 Hz. If the guitar has to much boom in the low end you can take away the boom by cutting at around 100 Hz. If the acoustic guitar is strummed this frequency range is often taken away by a high pass filter at around 160 - 200 Hz to kill the low end noise of the strumming and to leave the low end for the kick and the bass.

Body 200 - 250 Hz
If the acoustic guitar is thin and without body you can boost slightly between 200 and 250 Hz with a medium bandwidth (Q). This is often combined with a cut at around 100 Hz with a narrow to medium bandwidth bell curve EQ or a high pass filter up to about 200 Hz to give the kick and bass more space 

Metallic 500 - 800 Hz
If the guitar has too much of a metallic quality you can take away some of the sharpness or shrillness by cutting between 500 and 800 Hz with a medium to narrow Q. This is used very often to get a better quality acoustic guitar sound.

Clarity 2 - 2,5 kHz
Boost only a couple of dB with a wide bandwidth between 2 and 2.5 kHz to give the Acoustic Guitar a bit more clarity and presence in the mix.

Air 4500 Hz
If you want to give the Acoustic Guitar some Air you can use a shelving EQ at 4500 Hz and boost 3 to 6 dB.

Adding Reverb To Your Mix

Adding reverb to your mix is one of your thing's that can add depth and space to your mix, not I'm one of those guys that hates reverb because I just don't like using it I mean I don't have anything agents it the reason why I don't really like it is because it's so easy to mess up your mix and then it's hard to get it back, so that's why you want to be very careful with when you apply reverb to your mix. But hears a trick applying reverb with out messing up your mix and making it sound great. When you first start out only add a little bit just a tiny bit then play the whole song but play all the instruments together but play the song back in the chorus when all the instruments are in including the vocals, after that if there still is not a change go back to that reverb plugin and add more. Its a great way to control your reverb so that you don't do it in one try, because doing it in one try its very easy to mess up and not get it  right so just add a little bit and if you need to adjust go back and you always can. 

Tomorrow I'm going to be talking about delay so make sure you come back to the site tomorrow so read about that delay is a great affect to use on vocals, all get into more about it tomorrow.

Recording Vocals

Hey everyone today I want to talk to you about when you record your vocals, not when you recording your vocals are you standing in the right spot in front of the microphone because if your standing to far away then the microphone wont pick up your vocal that well, If your standing to close then your vocal track is going to sound all bad and your going to hear unwanted breaths and maybe some pops and some blows and some air on the track when your all done recording, so make sure you find a good spot where your going to get a good vocal sound and know feedback. 

The next thing I want to talk to you about is when your recording your vocal and when your up there at the mic and your singing and you hear your self in the headphone's but you sound kind of dry. Hears a great tip to fix that and its so easy and so fast all you have to do is grab and reverb and apply a little reverb to that track and then your singer wont sound so dry when she or he is singing into that microphone, because you want your singer to fell conferable so apply reverb that will help a lot, those are some tips I can give you to help you out with vocal recording 

If you have any other question about audio mixing or recording just follow my email at the top or bottom of this page and All try and answer anything you have to ask 

See you guys on the next post

EQ Cutting

One of the biggest mistakes I see music producers doing when they get to the mixing stage of there song is they boost there EQ instead of cutting. Hear is the number one rule is music producing when using EQ the number one rule is its better to CUT then BOOST the reason why is because tack a snare drum for some reason and then you grab a EQ through it on that snare drum track let's say you add a high shelving EQ to that snare drum track and you set it to about 200 Hz and the 6 dB when you play it back what are you going to hear that's right your snare drum is going to be popping through that mixing so loud that your not going to be able to hear any of the other instruments that's why on like a acoustic guitar we cut around 200 Hz and then we through it a 3 dB and then that lets the kick drum and the bass guitar to come through the mix better so you see what I'm trying to talk about hear is that every instrument has its own place in the mix and you need to sweep around in the EQ graft to find that place where it need to sit in your mix. So remember when using EQ it's better to cut then boost and all so tack your time listen well and your mix will come together a whole lot better trust me