5 Things I wish I knew, when I started my home recording studio: 1 Buy gear with future expansion in mind. This includes I/O needs. 2 Save money to buy better gear: Do not buy gear blindly because it is cheap, buy gear that will do what you need it to do. If you buy cheap […]
Month: February 2014
Mixing Tip of the Day: Effect Chains_Vox
Mixing Tip of the Day: Effect Chains – Vox Compression Effect chain presets are a huge time saver in DAW mixing. In the analog world we have “channel strip” hardware units, which are comprised of various effects in a signal chain. Typically you might see an EQ, Compressor and Limiter for example. We can […]
Save often and have a backup plan
Recording Tip of the Day: Save often and have a backup plan Learn the key command, “Control S” (“Command S” on a Mac). Whatever recording software you’re using, it will have two different save functions. “Save” and “Save As”. The one draw back of computer recording, as opposed to analog recording, is computers and […]
7 Tips to get the most out of your recording session
7 Tips to get the most out of your recording session 1. Have new strings on your instrument. Bring extra. If your a drummer, put new drum heads on and have extra ready to go. Oh ya, tune your drums too. 2. Bring a tuner and USE it. Seriously, I don’t care how good […]
Mixing Tip of the Day: Vocal Leveling
Mixing Tip of the day: Vocal leveling In my opinion, nothing beats good old fashioned volume automation to get the vocals level. If you add the compressor to a smooth vocal line, when you make adjustments to the compression it which will remain consistent throughout the song. This is especially […]
Mixing in the Box
Mixing in the Box ‘Mixing in the box’ means all of your effects and processing are done with software, in the computer (box). This is the most popular method for home recordists and there have been plenty of notable hits mixed “in the box” in recent times. The benefits to this method are huge, as […]
Getting started checklist for newbies
Getting started checklist for newbies: For this page we will mainly focus on DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) based recording. Although there are other recording options out there, you will have the most options recording with a DAW based system. A computer – Mac or PC – Both work equally well (yes, I said […]
Picking a Microphone
Picking a microphone PT1: If I could only have one mic?! In most home recording projects, budget is a major issue in separating our fantasy of gold plated albums on our walls, and our reality of hanging blankets over the windows, hoping it cuts down on some of the noise leaking out into our […]
Off Axis Mic Technique
Using off axis technique when a pop filter is not available. Useful for both live and recording situations. Mike Lizotte
Getting a clear bottom end
Mixing tip of the day – Getting a clear bottom Bass frequencies take up the most real estate in our mix and are probably the hardest thing to ‘get right’ when we mix. Of course, arrangement is key to a good mix, but let’s assume arrangement isn’t our issue. Often times the best […]