Vancouver Recording Studio, Mastering, VoiceOver & CD Design

Welcome to Recording for Beginners Series 6: Giving your Recordings a Produced Sound

soundadvice — Thu, 03 May 2012 18:26:26 +0000

Do you ever have any problem with your Mixes sounding strong ?
after listening to a commercial Cd ?

Welcome to Recording for Beginners Series 6: Giving your recordings a produced sound.

Why is it that some perfectly well-recorded songs sound like demos, while others sound like top commercial tracks? Paul White investigates the mystery of the ‘produced’ sound.

One of the questions we hear most from Sound On Sound readers is “Why doesn’t my music sound as ‘produced’ as the music I hear on commercial CDs?” I’m sure you won’t be too surprised when I tell you that there isn’t a single, simple answer. Some people assume that the superior equipment used in pro studios is the key, but although competent gear is required to do the job properly, you don’t actually need anything esoteric. Even when it comes to recording vocals you don’t have to use expensive high-end tube capacitor mics — artists such as Phil Collins and Mick Jagger often use relatively inexpensive dynamic models because that’s what works best for them. A few years ago, the drum sound was what gave away most demos, but now we have good drum machines, drum samples and sample loops, as well as real drums, to choose from.

The secret of a produced sound starts with the source material. It doesn’t matter what you do to your recording afterwards if this isn’t up to scratch. It almost goes without saying that good timing and good tuning are essential, but the choice of sounds and the way in which acoustic instruments and voices are recorded has a huge bearing on the perceived quality of the end result.

Vox Clever

If you record vocals in a small, untreated room, the chances are that the resulting sound will be boxy, so place your mic somewhere near the centre (but not exactly in the centre) of a larger room and put up improvised screens (sleeping bags, duvets, blankets and so on) where necessary to kill the reflections. Used in this way, virtually any respectable mic will give you good results providing you use a pop shield. You can also record acoustic guitars in the same environment.

Vocals invariably need compression, but what kind and how much? Listen to what you’ve recorded and try to establish how much variation there is in the vocal level. If you hear a lot of fluctuation it might be better to use a model of compressor that can pin down the level without changing the sound too much. The compressors that come as standard in Yamaha digital mixers are good for this, as you can really pile on the gain reduction without changing the sound too radically; there are also analogue models that can do the same. On the other hand, you may feel the vocals need thickening as well as levelling, in which case a compressor with a character of its own might be better suited to the job. Tube and ‘opto’ compressors generally produce the fattest sounds, and of course there are software plug-ins that emulate just about anything you can buy in a rackmount box.

The goal is to get the vocal sitting nicely with the backing track so that you don’t feel the urge to turn it up or down in different parts of the song. Professional engineers may also spend some time fine-tuning vocal levels with their mixer automation systems, and if you use either a digital mixer or a computer-based recording system you can do the same.
For more info go to recording for Intermediate series 6.

Stay Tuned for Recording for Beginners 7 .. Enjoy the musical process!

Producer Phil

Sound Marketing Recording and Mastering Studios
Vancouver / Surrey BC
When you are ready to master or would like some re-mixing on your tracks, come and see me here at the studio!
You may also want to consider recording or laying down your drums or vocal tracks here.
I offer a one-on-one instructional recording engineer course here in my studio or at yours.

For ongoing Sound Recording Tips go and like our FaceBook Page

I’d love to hear from you!
Just click ‘leave a comment’ below.

Recording for intermediate Series 6: Giving your recordings a Produced Sound – Vancouver Recording Studio

soundadvice — Thu, 03 May 2012 18:17:06 +0000

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Do you ever have any problem with your Mixes sounding strong ?
after listening to a commercial Cd ?

For this blog please start with our beginners blog on Recordings with a Produced Sound.

Recording for intermediate Series 6: Giving your recordings a produced sound.
Continued from beginner series 6:

Reduced Reverb

Once you’ve created space in your mix, don’t give it all away by filling every available gap with heavy reverb. As it happens, reverb is one area where a decent-quality unit really helps, especially if you use a lot of small-room or ambient reverbs. You don’t have to spend a fortune: the excellent Lexicon MPX100 costs around £200, yet still offers the general feel of Lexicon’s more expensive studio processors.

Bear in mind that heavy reverb tends to push a sound to the back of a mix, so if you want a vocal to appear up-front you should use a fairly bright reverb, with 80 mS or so of pre-delay. Don’t overdo the decay time, either, especially with up-tempo songs. Other effects should also be used carefully — use an effect because the track needs it, not because you happen to have it! Dramatic effects can be made even more dramatic if you use them for short sections of a song rather than having them full-on all the way through, and delay effects often work best when the delay time is related to the tempo of the song.

Master The Situation

What many people don’t realize is just how great a difference is made to commercial records at the mastering stage. Prior to mastering, you might be surprised at just how ordinary some mixes sound. Mastering often involves nothing more than compression, limiting and equalization, but it has a dispro —–
Favourite Strings

Guitars and basses can be a dead giveaway that a recording is not a commercial one if they are poorly recorded. Sticking a mic in front of an amp is probably still the best way to get a live-sounding recording of a performance, but if this is not feasible there are so many good recording preamps around now that there’s little excuse for getting a thin or buzzy guitar sound. However, go easy on the overdrive, and consider using less overdrive but combining it with compression if you need sustain. Use a gate to keep your guitar tracks clear of unwanted noise, and also try to reduce clutter in the arrangement: where two guitars are playing essentially the same chords, for example, first decide whether both guitars are actually necessary. If they are, consider using different chord inversions for one of the parts, or even a capo. Incidentally, acoustic guitars almost always sound better miked than DI’d.
Basses can actually be more difficult to record than guitars, because although they may sound great in isolation when DI’d via an active DI box and a compressor, they can still lack punch in the context of the overall mix. Again, consider miking the amp or using a guitar DI preamp so you can add just a little overdrive to warm up the sound. Compression will help keep the sound even and punchy. A good tip here is to make any necessary EQ adjustments when the rest of the track is playing, because then you’ll be able to make the sound match the track. If you EQ the sound first it might sound great on its own, but could get completely lost when the other faders are brought up.
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As you can see, the magic of musical production isn’t something you ‘paint’ on at some point in the recording process, but is rather the result of attention to detail at all points throughout the recording, starting with the musical arrangement and choice of sounds. Nevertheless, processing at the mastering stage (ie. after your mix) can make a huge difference. Professional mastering is expensive for a reason: pro mastering engineers have great equipment and a lot of experience in using it. If you’re not confident you have the necessary equipment and expertise to do your mix justice, think about getting your work professionally mastered, especially if it’s destined for commercial release. If you’re going to do this, don’t do any processing at all on your final mixes — leave each track just as it is.

Stay Tuned for Recording for Intermediate series 7 .. Enjoy the musical process!

Producer Phil

For ongoing Sound Recording Tips go and like our FaceBook Page

I’d love to hear from you!
Just click ‘leave a comment’ below.

Recording for Intermediate 5 -Compression / Limiting on Vocal / Instrument tracks – Vancouver Recording Studio

soundadvice — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 23:24:01 +0000

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Intermediate Series 5 – Compression / Limiting on Vocal / Instrument Tracks:

1) What is Compression ?

For the benefit of those who are still a little unsure as to what a compressor does, it simply reduces the difference between the loudest and quietest parts of a piece of music by automatically turning down the gain when the signal gets past a predetermined level. In this respect, it does a similar job to the human hand on the fader — but it reacts much faster and with greater precision, allowing it to bring excessive level deviations under control almost instantaneously. Unlike the human operator though, the compressor has no feel or intuition; it simply does what you set it up to do, which makes it very important that you understand what all the variable parameters do and how they affect the final sound.

2) How do I use the Compressor/Limiter ?

Threshold: With manual gain riding, the level above which the signal becomes unacceptably loud is determined by the engineer’s discretion: if it sounds too loud to him, he turns it down. In the case of a compressor, we have to ‘tell’ it when to intervene, and this level is known as the Threshold. In a conventional compressor, the Threshold is varied via a knob calibrated in dBs, and a gain reduction meter is usually included so we can see how much the gain is being modified. If the signal level falls short of the threshold, no processing takes place and the gain reduction meter reads 0dB. Signals exceeding the Threshold are reduced in level, and the amount of reduction is shown on the meter. This means the signal peaks are no longer as loud as they were, so in order to compensate, a further stage of ‘make-up’ gain is added after compression, to restore or ‘make up’ any lost gain.

Ratio: When the input signal exceeds the Threshold set by the operator, gain reduction is applied, but the actual amount of gain reduction depends on the ‘Ratio’ setting. You will see the Ratio expressed in the form 4:1 or similar, and the range of a typical Ratio control is variable from 1:1 (no gain reduction all) to infinity:1, which means that the output level is never allowed to rise above the Threshold setting. This latter condition is known as limiting, because the Threshold, in effect, sets a limit which the signal is not allowed to exceed. Ratio is based on dBs, so if a compression ratio of 3:1 is set, an input signal exceeding the Threshold by 3dB will cause only a 1dB increase in level at the output. In practice, most compressors have sufficient Ratio range to allow them to function as both compressors and limiters, which is why they are sometimes known by both names. The relationship between Threshold and Ratio is shown in Figure 2, but if you’re not comfortable with dBs or graphs, all you need to remember is that the larger the Ratio, the more gain reduction is applied to any signal exceeding the Threshold.

Hard Knee: This is not a control or parameter, but rather a characteristic of certain designs of compressor. With a conventional compressor, nothing happens until the signal reaches the Threshold, but as soon as it does, the full quota of gain reduction is thrown at it, as determined by the Ratio control setting. This is known as hard-knee compression, because a graph of input gain against output gain will show a clear change in slope (a sharp angle) at the Threshold level, as is evident from Figure 2.

Soft Knee: Other types of compressor utilise a soft knee characteristic, where the gain reduction is brought in progressively over a range of 10dB or so. What happens is that when the signal comes within 10dB or so of the Threshold set by the user, the compressor starts to apply gain reduction, but with a very low Ratio setting, so there’s very little effect. As the input level increases, the compression Ratio is automatically increased until at the Threshold level, the Ratio has increased to the amount set by the user on the Ratio control. This results in a gentler degree of control for signals that are hovering around the Threshold point, and the practical outcome is that the signal sounds less obviously processed. This attribute makes soft-knee models popular for processing complete mixes or other sounds that need subtle control. Hard knee compression can sometimes be heard working, and if a lot of gain reduction is being applied, they can sound quite heavy-handed. In some situations, it can make for an interesting sound — take Phil Collins’ or Kate Bush’s vocal sounds, for example. The dotted curve on the graph in Figure 2 (p.118) shows a typical soft-knee characteristic.

Attack: The attack time is how long a compressor takes to pull the gain down, once the input signal has reached or exceeded the Threshold level. With a fast attack setting, the signal is controlled almost immediately, whereas a slower attack time will allow the start of a transient or percussive sound to pass through unchanged, before the compressor gets its act together and does something about it. Creating a deliberate overshoot by setting an attack time of several milliseconds is a much-used way of enhancing the percussive characteristics of instruments such as guitars or drums. For most musical uses, an initial attack setting of between 1 and 20 mS is typical. However, when treating sound such as vocals, a fast attack time generally gives the best results, because it brings the level under control very quickly, producing a more natural sound.

Release: The Release sets how long it takes for the compressor’s gain to come back up to normal once the input signal has fallen back below the Threshold. If the release time is too fast, the signal level may ‘pump’ — in other words, you can hear the level of the signal going up and down. This is usually a bad thing, but again, it has its creative uses, especially in rock music. If the release time is too long, the gain may not have recovered by the time the next ‘above Threshold’ sound occurs. A good starting point for the release time is between 0.2 and 0.6 seconds.

Auto Attack/Release: Some models of compressor have an Auto mode, which adjusts the attack and release characteristics during operation to suit the dynamics of the music being processed. In the case of complex mixes or vocals where the dynamics are constantly changing, the Auto mode may do a better job than fixed manual settings.

Peak/RMS operation: Every compressor uses a circuit known as a side chain, and the side chain’s job in life is to measure how big the signal is, so that it knows when it needs compressing. This information is then used to control the gain circuit, which may be based around a Voltage-controlled Amplifier (VCA), a Field Effect Transistor (FET) or even a valve. The compressor will behave differently, depending on whether the side chain responds to average signal levels or to absolute signal peaks.

References: Sound On Sound Magazine

Stay Tuned for Recording for Intermediate #6 .. Enjoy the musical process!

Producer Phil
Sound Marketing Recording and Mastering Studios
Vancouver / Surrey BC
When you are ready to master or would like some re-mixing on your tracks, come and see me here at the studio!
You may also want to consider recording or laying down your drums or vocal tracks here.
I offer a one-on-one instructional recording engineer course here in my studio or at yours.

Leave a question or comment!
Just click ’leave a comment’ below.

Recording for Beginners Series 5 – Compressor Limiters – Vancouver Recording Studio Tutorials

soundadvice — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:17:55 +0000

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Do You ever have any problem with your vocal recording levels staying strong in a mix?

Welcome to Recording for Beginners Series 5: Compressor/Limiters:

Here’s a few tips on making your vocal tracks jump out of the mix.

1) Try using a Compressor/Limiter plug-in within your software on your vocal track/s

2) Use the preset for vocals, there’s probably a few within the plug-in.

3) This should make the vocal stand out in the mix. Play around with the compressors settings.

4) Start with very little compression then crank up the threshold and see what happens.

*You might have to add a bit of makeup gain ( the final output of your volume) if you use heavy compression.*
For more advanced setups, or hardware compressors please refer to:

The intermediate series #5 for Compression / Limiting

Stay Tuned for Recording for Beginners 6 .. Enjoy the musical process!

Producer Phil

For ongoing Sound Recording Tips go and like our FaceBook Page

I’d love to hear from you!
Just click ‘leave a comment’ below.

Recording for Beginners Series # 4 Vancouver Recording Studio Tutorials

soundadvice — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 02:29:37 +0000

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Producer Phil here from Sound Marketing Recording and Mastering Studios, Vancouver BC.

This time I’m going to press on with the Recording for Beginners Series 4:

MICROPHONES AND VOCAL RECORDING:

1) You will need a good quality microphone, (do not use a karaoke microphone or an old
Shure mic, as these types of microphones are good for live performances but not so good for recording.)
If you are on a budget, I would recommend buying a inexpensive condenser mic to start you off. There are lots available for around $100.00 or so, look on craigs list for a nice used one, such as …a Rode,. AKG, Apex, Audio Technica, & more.

2) Plug it in to your interface; use the phantom power ( your interface should have a button to turn it on. MAKE SURE YOU TURN DOWN THE VOLUME BEFORE YOU POWER UP THE MIC. Also put on your headphones and turn off your monitors.
As there will be a loud pop or noise when you press the button.
Or you can buy a USB condenser mic, then there’s no need for an interface or preamp. It plugs straight into your USB on your computer and that is used as your interface.

3) Now set your levels as you sing with in your audio software eg: Protools/Cubase/Logic etc.
Always do a test recording making sure the levels are good, Not to hot (track clipping in the red) and not to low (very low level). If you have to bring up your levels after your recordings, you may have to deal with a lot of unwanted noise. Make sure the levels are good for the softer vocal parts, and also for the loud parts. Once your singer gets warmed up, they tend to sing louder. So watch out for that.
You can level the track out in mix down via automation or compression, and I will be covering this in a later post.

Checkout the intermediate series #2 for proper mic placement and mic technique.

Stay Tuned for Recording for Beginners 5 .. Enjoy the musical process!

For only 97.00 per month, you may pick my brain with one question per weekday about recording. Ask me anything! If you are interested, please leave a comment and I will get back to you within 24 hours.
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Recording Intermediate 2 – Microphone Setup for Vocalists – Vancouver Recording Studio Tutorial

soundadvice — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 02:07:44 +0000

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Producer Phil here from Sound Marketing Recording and Mastering Studios, Vancouver BC.

Intermediate Series #2 - Microphone Setup for Vocalists.

1) Purchase Details: Before purchasing a microphone it is worth trying out several types.

A mic that makes one singer sound great can make another sound bassy or tinny.

Purchase a Condenser Microphone eg: Audio Technica, Apex, Shure, Neumann etc. Buy one that is versatile this way you can use it on other vocalists and instruments. Now that large-diaphragm condenser mics manufactured in the Far East have become so affordable, it makes little sense to use a dynamic mic for vocal recording, even if you’re working to a strict budget.

2) Room / Mic Placement:

A vocal recording starts at the microphone, but before even getting into the issues of mic choice and mic placement, there’s the matter of the recording location to sort out — and it goes without saying that this should be isolated as much as is possible from the physical noise generated by the computer’s fans and drives. A lot of people think they need to buy better gear to sort out a vocal issue, but when you get to the bottom of the problem, it’s often down to the room and its influence on the sound.

You don’t need to do anything too fancy to record vocals, but the mic should be well away from any walls, and the area directly behind the singer should be non-reflective. This could be an area of foam tiles or it could be a duvet, but one point to watch out for is that, in rooms where a lot of damping material has been applied, you’ll often find that it only absorbs effectively down to around 250-300Hz.
So what actually happens is that frequencies below 300Hz are allowed to predominate, making the sound seem congested or boxy.
This is a particularly common fault in small vocal booths, where introducing some reflective scattering surfaces helps balance out the low-frequency resonances. Worse still are rooms that have the walls carpeted, as carpet only absorbs higher frequencies, so you end up with a sound that’s both boxy and dull. It’s often best then to record in an ordinary domestic room, probably with a carpet or rug on the floor and a duvet hanging loosely behind the singer. If the room is still too lively, hanging further absorbers to the sides of the singer will help, but it’s very rare that you need to go much further than that.

Positioning your singer with their back to an non-reflective surface can help avoid a boxy sound when working in a small room — a few panels of acoustic foam or a double duvet are often enough to do the trick.

3) Shockmounts / Sheilds / Distance Away:

It’s always best to use a shockmount with any vocal mic, and unless low-frequency noise is a real problem, record without the low-cut filter, as you can do your filtering in software if need be. Equally important is the use of a pop shield, without which plosive ‘B’ and ‘P’ sounds are likely to cause popping. These particular vocal utterances are accompanied by a directional gust of air which, in the absence of a pop shield, slams into the diaphragm of the mic like a hurricane into a garden shed and results in a huge low-frequency signal that’s often so high in level that it clips the preamp. Trying to shift popping at the mixing stage using filtering is a bit like trying to level a mountain using a garden trimmer — it’s unlikely to work! The pop shield should be around three inches from the mic and the singer between six and 12 inches from the pop shield, though better-trained singers may vary their distance to help maintain a more even level.

If there are tonal elements in the voice being recorded that you don’t like, try moving the mic relative to the singer before thinking about EQ. Often moving the mic up or down by a few inches helps, and in some cases moving the singer further away works too. On the other hand, if you have a singer with a quiet voice and you need to add a bit more vocal weight, working closer to a cardioid mic can help, as the proximity effect adds some useful bass-end reinforcement.

Hope this Helps the process!

References: Sound On Sound Magazine

Stay Tuned for Recording for Intermediate # 3.. Enjoy the musical process!

Beginner Series 3 – Choosing the Best Monitors and Headphones

soundadvice — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:25:49 +0000

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Hi – Phil here from Sound Marketing Recording and Mastering Studios, Vancouver BC.

I’m going to press on with the - Recording for Beginners Series 3

How can you choose the best Studio Monitors, Headphones or Earbuds?

When you hit your local music store, bring some of your favorite CD’s as a reference.
They should have all of their monitors setup to listen to your music.
Now A/B different sets of monitors with the same song playing.
Choose the monitors that are within your budget and that sound the best to you. Same goes for Headphones.

Here are some monitors I would recommend:

1} Yamaha NS-10′s: They are my personal favorites. They are not the best sounding monitors by far, but your mixes will sound good on most other systems.These are getting hard to find as Yamaha stopped making them about 10 yrs ago.
2}Yorkville Studio monitors: These monitors are good for the money and sound descent too.
3}Tannoy: British sound, very high fidelity: I have a pair of Tannoy Reveal monitors

Some headphones I like to use are:

1 }Audio Technica ATM-m40 : Very nice sound and comfortable also they have sealed backs so there is minimal sound bleed when recording vocals and such. approx. $150.00 a pair
2} Apex Headphones: I have a couple of pairs of these. they sound great and are comfortable, also very inexpensive around $25 a pair.
3}M-Audio Earbuds : These rock ! Great for recording loud instruments such as Drums or guitars, they have excellent rejection, good for bass, as it’s hard to hear low frequencies in standard headphones when tracking live off the floor with the whole band playing. I also check mixes with them on.

Final tip: You should always mix your songs listening to the monitors NOT the headphones as the headphones cancel out any room ambience and reflections from walls etc.
But check the mix in the headphones as another reference.

Stay Tuned for Recording for Beginners # 4 .. Enjoy the musical process!

Recording for Intermediates 1 – Reference Monitors – Vancouver Recording Studio

soundadvice — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 00:13:59 +0000

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Producer Phil here from Sound Marketing Recording and Mastering Studios, Vancouver BC.

This is my first post in my new series: Recording for Intermediate 1

Intermediate Series 1 – Setting up Your Studio Monitors Correctly

Have you ever wondered how to set up your monitors correctly ?
I’ve been to some project studios with incorrect monitor placement.

Correct Studio Monitor setup:
Set up the speakers symmetrically, at roughly head height , I like the Tweeter just above my ear height. I use a tape measure to get the exact triangle measurement. You also need to consider the distances between the speakers and the room boundaries. Try not to setup in a corner of your room as this can give you a lot of reflection and phase shift from the walls. Also if possible to setup in a room that is NOT a prefect cube.

Spend some time getting familiar with your monitors. Ideal studio monitors will have a flat frequency response. Unfortunately, this is more of an ideal than a practicality. More than likely, your monitors will have some frequencies that they boost and some that they cut. Spend some time listening to music you are familiar with to get an idea of where your monitors are. Remember these characteristics of your monitors when you record and mix.

You can add a subwoofer to your monitor setup to get a better feel for the bass.

Reference 1: How to Use Recording Studio Reference Monitors | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_2240980_use-recording-studio-reference-monitors.html#ixzz1nzilqYpa

Reference 2: http://www.ehow.com/how_2240980_use-recording-studio-reference-monitors.html#ixzz1nziW0Nxs

Stay Tuned for Recording for Intermediate 2 .. Enjoy the musical process!

Vancouver Recording Studio, Mastering, VoiceOver & CD Design

Welcome to Recording for Beginners Series 6: Giving your Recordings a Produced Sound

Do you ever have any problem with your Mixes sounding strong ? after listening to a commercial Cd ?

Recording for intermediate Series 6: Giving your recordings a Produced Sound – Vancouver Recording Studio

Do you ever have any problem with your Mixes sounding strong ? after listening to a commercial Cd ?

For this blog please start with our beginners blog on Recordings with a Produced Sound.

Recording for Intermediate 5 -Compression / Limiting on Vocal / Instrument tracks – Vancouver Recording Studio

Intermediate Series 5 – Compression / Limiting on Vocal / Instrument Tracks:

1) What is Compression ?

2) How do I use the Compressor/Limiter ?

References: Sound On Sound Magazine

Recording for Beginners Series 5 – Compressor Limiters – Vancouver Recording Studio Tutorials

Recording for Beginners Series # 4 Vancouver Recording Studio Tutorials

Recording Intermediate 2 – Microphone Setup for Vocalists – Vancouver Recording Studio Tutorial

Intermediate Series #2 - Microphone Setup for Vocalists.

References: Sound On Sound Magazine

Beginner Series 3 – Choosing the Best Monitors and Headphones

Recording for Intermediates 1 – Reference Monitors – Vancouver Recording Studio

Do you ever have any problem with your Mixes sounding strong ?
after listening to a commercial Cd ?

Do you ever have any problem with your Mixes sounding strong ?
after listening to a commercial Cd ?