Herc's living room - Recording Tips

Disclaimer: These are tips intended for persons who have little experience in the studio and are VERY budget conscious. If you have time to mess around a little bit we can make a better record from the start. If you have some experience in the studio and know what you want you can ignore most of this.

Prepare your material

Finalize your song arrangements - record rehearsals - don't be deciding this type of thing in the studio. Load sequenced or prerecorded parts beforehand.

Have an idea of how you want to proceed - talk to or meet with the engineer or producer before the session to figure out:

A schedule. Properly the job of the producer, this is very important if money is tight. Without a schedule, you won't know if you are going over budget or not.
Preliminary track sheets for each song.
During initial recording (basics), will there be scratch vocals, real vocals or none?
Overdub solos or live?
Who/what needs to be isolated (singers, acoustic instruments, and amps mostly)? A note on isolation: In order to insure that a part is replacable later, it must be isolated acoustically, sometimes even for punch-ins. If mistakes are not an issue ('cause you're so good) it can still be necessary to isolate loud instruments from quieter ones. For example, it is practically impossible to record drums in the same room with finger-picked guitar or mandolin. Isolation methods include recording in different rooms (hopefully with eye contact through windows or video), recording at different times (overdubbing), using direct injection (DI) boxes for electric instruments (possibly re-amping later), and using remote (isolated) speakers. Each method has it's (dis)advantages, for instance, you cannot get feedback from a remote guitar speaker. All that said, it often sounds better to record all at once in one room, with mistakes handled by editing from a different take of the song. As rule of thumb, if you can balance your volume in the room, you can record in the room.
Click, count-off click, or no click? A note on click tracks: if your drummer is not well practiced at playing with a click, don't even try, although you might consider using a click for the count-off if you are having problems with initial tempo. A click should be used, however, if you plan to 'fly' parts around within the song (for instance: using the first chorus backing vocals for the second chorus).
Who will fill the role of producer? If you do not have a producer as such, someone must be responsible for: deciding which take to use, deciding when an overdubbed performance is satisfactory, dealing with the record company or other money people, paying the studio and other contractors, deciding whether and when to bail on an effort that is taking too much time at the moment, and keeping the session focused in general. I can run the session, give advice, give musical opinions on intonation and timing, but I will not "produce" without a specific arrangement before hand.
Here are some things I might need to know before we start:
What is your budget? If you tell me before we start, I can help you meet it.
How many are in the band and who plays what instruments?
How many singers for each song (lead vocals, doubled vocals, backing vocals, etc.)?
Are you going to use my drum kit?
Are you going to use the Hammond Organ for basic tracks?
What do you want the record to sound like (don't wait until the mix to tell me you need the Bonham drum sound)?
Are you going to press vinyl? There are some additional considerations unique to that format.

For maximum (bordering on anal) efficiency start a 3-ring notebook with the following items for each song:

Arrangements (like: verse - verse - chorus - verse - bridge - chorus - chorus, or whatever).
Lyrics sheets with each chorus written out (even though they are the same) for me to use if there are vocal overdubs.
Tempo or tempo map (if MIDI sync or a click track is to be used).
I will provide track sheets, status notes, and mix notes.

Other things I might need to know at some point:

Name of the band.
Album title.
Song titles.
Running order of the final CD.

Prepare your gear

Drummers:

Brand new heads all around (bottoms too) are ideal, but reasonably new heads are ok. I use coated ambassadors on top and clear ambassadors on the bottom of the toms and an ambassador or a power stroke on the kick drum. If you don't know how to tune your drums to get a specific sound you have heard on a record, ask me or a drum instructor. Bob Gatzen's 1994 video, "Drum Tuning Sound and Design" has the basic info. Online resources include the Prof. Sound's Drum Tuning Bible or type "drum tuning" into Google. Make sure your hardware and pedals are tightened and quiet. Use my kit if at all practical, we can set it up to your spec.

Guitar and bass players:

Install and break in new strings before arriving at the studio. Check your rig for hums and buzzes, get them fixed. Active instruments and effect pedals should get new batteries and cables should be checked out. Instrument amps should be checked for weird noises and unwanted distortion - think about fresh tubes. Use whatever effects you usually use, if I notice a problem we can deal with it. Electric basses should plan to go direct, if you want to use an amp I will put a mic on it in addition to the direct line.

It is sometimes a good idea to have a variety of instruments on hand, if you are borrowing or renting instruments/amps/effects, familiarize yourself with them before the session.

Singers:

Make sure your voice is well rested and otherwise in top shape. Schedule vocal sessions such that you are not trying to sing too much in a day, maybe intersperse some mixing (mixes can be recalled in one second). Don't be playin' gigs interleaved with vocal sessions (unless you have to).

Be prepared to spend some time auditioning vocal mics at some point, it doesn't take too long and the difference can be astounding.

Prepare yourself

Be rested and ready, if you are ill, cancel.
Rest your ears too.

Things to bring to the session:

Your instruments and accessories.
Song arrangements and lyric sheets.
Food/drink (I can arrange catering, but not for free).
Spare strings, drum heads, reeds, batteries, etc. (I may have some).
Spare instruments, amps?
Music stands/lights, foot stools, anything else you need on hand to perform your best.

Tips for Hip-hop:

If you are loading 'beats' in from a sequencer/keyboard setup, it is quickest to have the sequence laid out in 'song mode' with all breakdowns, etc. programmed in the sequence. Know how to slave your rig to midi clock, MTC (midi time code) or SMPTE (or bring the manual). One instrument per track is best (each drum counts as an instrument). If, for instance, the drum kit is all on one midi track try splitting instruments out by midi note number. If your rig has multiple outputs (in addition to stereo), know how to assign your parts to them. For maximum economy, do all this before you arrive at the studio!!

Tips for transferring your work from another studio: (in order of increasing difficulty)

Transferring from a computer based DAW (digital audio workstation)

When transferring from ProTools, Sonar, Cubase, Logic, Digital Performer, Nuendo, etc. the two important things are:

1.) Render the tracks to eliminate loops and edit points and make a single file for each track. All track files must start at the same time location. This operation is called "consolidate regions" in PTools. Refer to your manual, pay attention to volume envelopes and fades, If a track has plugins active you may need to perform other operations to print the plugin output to new tracks before rendering (if desired).

2.) Export the files in an appropriate format (WAV or AIFF). If the source computer is a Windows box use WAV, if it's a Mac use AIFF. No SD2 or other proprietary formats can be accepted.

Once you have created your audio files to transfer, each song in it's own folder, simply burn them to a CD or DVD, or better yet, if you have a laptop with a firewire connection, simply bring the files to the studio on your laptop's hard disk.

Transferring from ADAT (16 or 20 bit)

Bring the tapes, plan on spending some time (not too much) doing the transfers.

Transferring from DAx8

If you can, bring at least 2 DAx8 machines (include a master machine and sync/audio cables) to the session. I can do a digital transfer. Otherwise bring the tapes to me a week before the session with documentation and a deposit.

Transferring from 2 inch analog tape

Bring the tapes to me a week before the session with documentation and a deposit.

Transferring from a self contained DAW (ie. Roland VS880, Yamaha, Fostex, etc.)

You must bring the machine to the session. Do not expect to do anything else on the first session.

Anatomy of a Session

Modern record (CD) production progresses through five stages, in general each stage must be complete before proceeding to the next.

Setup

Plan for one to two hours setup time on the first day, plus an extra hour if your drummer sets up his or her own kit. This time will be spent setting up instruments and amplifiers, setting up microphones, patching, getting correct levels to tape, setting up headphones and monitor mixes, recording and listening back to some test sections to make sure everything sounds as it should.
My Advice: Unless you are an experienced drum tech use my drum kit, at least the kick and toms. Having me tech/tune your kit is an 'on the clock' activity.

Recording Basic Tracks

Once everyone is happy with the playback sound and headphone mixes, it is time to begin. Generally the band performs one or more take of each song for the record, until the producer is happy with the performance. During rest breaks we all listen back and mark a take as 'preferred'. I have seen bands get through multiple takes of nineteen songs in a six hour day. And not suck.
My Advice: As many people as possible should play at once, even if you are just going for drum takes. Only listen back if you need a break anyway.

Recording Overdubs

This involves recording a new part while listening to the tracks which have already been recorded. Vocals are the most common overdubs, followed by instrumental solos. Sometimes the performer will record several complete takes, the best parts of each being edited together, this is called "comp'ing" (for "composite"). Other times mistakes are corrected by the conventional "punch in" in which the performer plays along with his or her own part and the engineer records just the notes that require correction. In these days of digital editing, bass and rhythm guitar errors can often be corrected with an edit instead of a punch.
My Advice: Light some candles, keep the first take.

Mixing

With instant mix recall and automation, mixing is not as laborious as it once was. Each song is called up and track levels are balanced, panned left or right, compressed and EQ'd as desired. Effects such as echo and reverb, etc. can be added and any other processing (like re-amping) is done. I prefer to get input from the band right away (more cowbell!) and spread mixing over several shorter sessions, moving quickly from song to song to avoid ear burnout. Two hours per song spread over two or three sessions is probably about the minimum.
My Advice: Give me some "alone time".

Mastering

When all of your songs are mixed, your disc has to be mastered. In mastering, the songs are placed in the correct order with the proper spacing, the loudness of each song is adjusted and the digital signal is "limited" so that a few dB of gain may be added without causing "overs" on the CD. Sometimes songs are EQed individually and sometimes light compression is used. For a full length CD release, I recommend spending no more than ten percent of your total recording budget on mastering. Coventional wisdom is that you should use the services of a specialized mastering studio which has an impeccable monitoring environment, an array of special gear, and a talented mastering engineer. I'm not going to argue with that. Some mastering studios offer to do a "test mastering" of one song cheap or free, even. I would take advantage of those offers. That said, I seem to end up mastering about half the recordings I do.
My Advice: If your total CD production budget (excluding duplication) is less than $4000, let me master it.

Guidelines for cost effective yet uncompromised recording:

One studio setup works for all songs.
Band is very prepared.
Everybody plays at once.
There is almost nothing to fix.
There are almost no overdubs.