9 Mistakes To Avoid When Recording Your Own Album
Craig Hamilton
14 Comments
Before you can begin to think about marketing yourselves online you'll first of all need to take care of the music. If, like me, you're making that music at home then you'll be aware of the many benefits this arrangement brings - you have the freedom to try whatever you like, you don't have one eye on the clock and you never have to get the last bus home.
The flipside is that you are on your own and, to put this gently, there will be no-one there to keep an eye on you. You are entirely free to lead yourself down any number of blind alleys before you grab the wrong end of the stick and beat yourself up with it. Recording at home requires patience, discipline and good planning…...and all at the same time…and from musicians.
What could possibly go wrong?
Since the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, here are the 9 mistakes we made in homemaking our debut record that I'm keen to avoid as we begin our second. I'm fairly certain I'm not the only person in the world who learned his good habits the hard way so if you think I've missed anything important please feel free to add some tips of your own. I'd also very much like to hear your tales of self-inflicted recording calamity!
OK, off we go..
1: That Odd Buzzing Noise Will Come Out In The Mix
..and one day there will be free jetpacks for us all. No matter how good you think that last take was, if your singer kicked the mikestand halfway through or the small change was rubbing against the keys in your pockets, then you need to think about starting that take again.
2: If You Are Having Drums, You Might Want To Record Them First
You may think you’ve nailed that guitar part to that click track but there are two people who won’t share your confidence. The first person is the drummer and he will till you all about this when he comes to play along to the song. The second is the person who will spend weeks going through the all the component drum audio files, making miniscule adjustments to the placement of a kick beat here and a high hat there. When I say weeks, I mean WEEKS…easily enough weeks to fill a month or two.
3: "Hey, Shall We Tune-up?"
This one sounds teeth-grindingly obvious, doesn’t it. Oh yes, so obvious in fact that you’d never believe anyone could make such a stupid, stupid error.
*cough*
Moving on, then…
4: Effects Breed Like Rabbits
It might not sound the way you hear it in your head but if you cave in now and add that tiny bit of distortion - just to make yourself feel better about everything - then imagine how great you’ll be feeling when you come to the mix and you can’t get rid of it. Record EVERYTHING dry.
5: "You Sound Like You’ve Got A Cold…"
If you didn’t have a cold when you recorded the vocals for the other 9 tracks, why do you want to do record the vocal for this one now?
6: Clean Out Yer Ears
If you’ve listened back to that rough mix more than 10 times today then it’s probably time to go out, meet your pals and get drunk. Additionally, when you all come back from the your night out your friends will probably be in the mood for some ELO or possibly some Fu Manchu. That track without vocals and that piano part littered with cack-handed mistakes will be waiting patiently for you tomorrow - it ain’t going nowhere.
7: Less Is More
These days home studios can be augmented with a dazzling array of plugins that enable you to have thousands and thousands of different sounds and instruments at your fingertips. You are limited only by your imagination, but remember that this cuts both ways.
8: Organise, Label & File
At some stage, when you’ve recorded your last vocal or overdub, you’ll want to think about mixing your album. When this point comes it is waaay too late and entirely pointless to have the bright idea of giving audio files sensible names and putting them into folders that, say, represent the names of the different songs they come from.
9: Back-Up
Death, Taxes and At-That-Crucial-Point computer malfunction. They come to us all in the end. Back-up your work daily, weekly or even monthly….but make sure you do it.
Now, go and make a great record!
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Reader Comments (14)
So, Craig, you should really get a producer who knows these things!
I agree with all of them. I have spend time in the studio and know these things - they sound so obvious but so many people forget!
Only point 7 - less is more... ever listen to the guitar recordings of the Foo Fighters? They seem to work with more=brilliant. And it works.
Of course, Dave Grohl has had nearly 20 years of recording experience and worked with some very imaginative, clever and experienced producers.
All good points, Craig. Regarding "Less Is More," I agree that too many options can interfere with the creative process. Additionally, from a recording quality standpoint, spending your money on fewer items of higher quality is wiser than buying more gear of lesser quality.
Great tips.
"You are limited only by your imagination, but remember that this cuts both ways."-and a great line
These are all good common-sense suggestions, but I could write counter-arguments to a few of them. For example, "record everything dry" assumes that you know where the instrument ends and the effects begin. Guitar distortion, wah-wah, or rotating Leslie, are "parts of the instrument", and what we play through them would often sound embarrassingly awful if we took them off. I agree, though, that effects that add another layer -- like reverb and chorusing -- should generally be left separate so they can be adjusted later.
I also don't agree that ten playbacks of a mix will kill your ears and necessitate a drinking binge. Ten isn't a lot.
lol thanks keith, i was wondering to myself what exactly he meant by "dry" but u cleared that up, n1
D.I. boxes are your friends.
well stated! i've been there and your list is spot-on!
Again, about the "less is more" part. If you do decide to start pulling some complicated efeect-work i suppose one of the important things is to STAY FOCUSED on what sound you want to get and why, that is, how will it contribute to the whole piece.
Also, about the Foo-Fighters i suspect they are heavy into overdubbing like 5 guitars doing the same part - same as Vigg did with Nirvana.
not only is this very sound advice - it's also a spot on collection of the lessons you will ABSOLUTELY learn the hard way making your own album, especially for the first time. #2 is so crucial in my mind that is should be handed out in pamphlets to everyone walking out of Sam Ash music stores. And personally, the method my band employed along these lines really saved our record. We were predominantly a live band, playing several shows a week, so to get the foundation drum tracks for the album, we played a live set in the studio, where we could hear everything in the headphones but all the vocals and guitar/bass amps were isolated from the mic'ed up drum kit. That way, we got a clean recording of the kit, and if we didn't like how we played the song collectively, we just went back and played it again. No big deal. After that, we just scrapped all the other instrument and vocal tracks in favor of overdubbing after the fact, but the result was natural, energetic and consistent drum tracks. And our drummer loved it since he only had to spend one long day 'in the studio', and then his work was done : )
Another tip is to record at lower volumes if you're unsure how loud everything will be when mastered. You always raise the volume up as much as you need, but recording "hot" vocals or instruments will certainly be harder to compensate for (unless you're going for that sort of sound).
Been there, done that...all true. Employ a notebook - you can't remember it all.
yep great advice, particularly important to record dry and even not add effects til very end. I use program Acid and then use Goldwave where I then add effects which works great. Yes back up your files and save even the smallest of tweaks, get air and take time out and come back some time later...that small walk will give you fresh ideas. The best thing abut home recording is you can go do whatever needs to be done and chill. Listen also in little earphones as well as your good stereo speakers as it may be bassier in one and tinnier in the other. You need to balance that. Doubling vocal lines instead of copying that track will be more advantageous and give the vox a good sturdier beefing up