RECORDING

When you record yourself at your place make sure you get the best recording you can. The better the raw material the better the final result will be. You don’t really need thousands of dollars equipement to make a good song. What you need is a bit of knowledge and experience how to approach the process of recording, so there is a few of my advices:

• Record in the quietest place you can. The less noise on your recording the easier it will be to process.

• When recording vocal try a few positions in relation mouth-microphone. If you voice sounds nasal, try to move microphone a bit higher and point it down in your mouth direction, also try to ask vocalist to raise their head in mic direction as this slighlty angled position may help them to sound less nasal and more open.

• If you find your vocalist sounding harsh with lots os sibilance - “s” - try to turn mic a bit to left or right side

• If you want to make warmer vocals try to move mic a little bit lower than vocalists mouth and closer to him/her, bur be careful because the closer you get the mic to them the more proximity effect you will get and plosives - “p, b” may be hard to control later on

• During any recordings - live played instruments, vocals etc - try a few placements of the microphone. You will be surprised how the sound may change if you work in an untreated room. Try to avoid placing microphones in the centre of the room and close to walls as it may have negative impact on frequency resposne of your recordings.

• When recording instruments look for nice and balanced sound without favouring bass or treble, unless that is your artistic vision 😉

• When recording instruments it may bu beneficial to record it using few microphones and stereo techniques, for example you maybtry to record guitar in mono aiming in the area between sound hole and fret and in the same time set up two spaced or mid/side microphones in the room to capture the ambience.

• Avoid clipping at Analog to digital converters. Gain staging is extremely important at this stage.

• Record in at least 24bit/44.1kHz sessions and if you can it is good practice to record in 24bit/96kHz. Do not make any sample rate or bit depth conversions after you finish recording. Always deliver the original raw material to mixing or mastering engineer.