6 Secrets to Produce Great Recordings at Home

By | 2018-10-17T20:09:25+00:00 June 11th, 2018|acoustic guitar, epk, press kit, recording, recording music, song writer|Comments Off on 6 Secrets to Produce Great Recordings at Home

by Jessica Brandon

Remember the old days of recording on a 4 track cassette recorder and find out that the recordings are to plain and you need to go a 24 track recording studio to get a great recording? Well, those days are over. An old laptop with some inexpensive gear can now produce high fidelity recordings that can rival those made in expensive studios!

However, many musicians who aren’t recording engineers can find the task of recording and producing a great track really daunting. Here are 5 great tips that home recording enthusiasts can employ right now to start getting more polished recordings…

  1. Obtain a Preamp

Plugging a guitar or microphone directly into your recording interface can often produce a very transparent sound that lacks the warmth and volume that a great track requires. There is an easy and inexpensive way to get a better source sound: plug the guitar or microphone into a preamp first.

A decent preamp one can be obtained for as little as $50 and will immediately add volume and warmth to everything that you record. A few technical things to note: First, if you buy a tube preamp, it’s best to junk the tube that comes with it and replace it with a better one (doing so requires nothing more than a screwdriver) which you can buy at a guitar shop.

An example, I used PreSonus Studio Channel for a mic preamp and it really made a difference in my recordings. I used LR Baggs Beltclip Preamp with Passive 2-band EQ for an acoustic/electric steel string guitar and it made a bug difference in the sound quality.

Secondly, keep in mind that the output of the preamp will require a balanced audio cable such as a TSR or XLR cable. Don’t try and connect the preamp to your interface with just an instrument cable, even though it will fit into the input.

  1. Obtain a Large Diaphragm Condenser Microphone

It is important to get a good condenser microphone. I used a Audio-Technica AT2035 Large Diaphragm Condenser Microphone for just $150.00 and I could hear the big difference compared to my previous use of Shure SM57 microphone. The Audio Technica AT2035 is widely regarded as the ideal first mic for anyone starting a home studio on a shoe-string budget. Among the dozens of terrible mics in this price range, the AT2035 is one of the few that actually delivers on its promises.

I strongly recommend that anyone mastering their own recordings, even on a shoestring budget, make purchasing a large diaphragm condenser microphone mandatory. The reason I believe in this item so dearly is that in addition to recording vocals, you can also record acoustic instruments (banjos, acoustic guitars, mandolins, etc.), light percussion (tambourines, bongos, etc.), and a whole host of other things.

If you start buying separate condenser microphones of various shapes and sizes for all of these different tasks then your wallet is going to take a beating, and the results really won’t change all that much.

  1. Obtain Good Mastering Software

I use a product called Ozone 7  by Izotope. You can get it for about $250, and older versions of the product can be had for even less. This gives a pretty cohesive, pleasing mix, with enough dynamics to master.

One thing that virtually any new home recording enthusiast inevitably says is, “my track is done, but it’s not as loud or punchy as my favorite band’s tunes are.”

Many folks will then turn to professional engineers to master their finished songs. While these consultants often do great work (at increasingly cheap rates), it is no longer required that artists use them.  If you are like me and like to record a lot of material, using a lot of outside engineer help is just too expensive.

  1. Obtain Decent Monitors

Many home recording honchos fall into the trap of buying really expensive monitors for playback. But if you are on a budget like me, nothing fancy is required.

I used a pair of PreSonus Eris E5 5.25″ Powered Studio Monitors, and I obtained it for just $275.00. These speakers sound fantastic; very balanced, plenty of Bass, plenty of volume, etc. At this price and size, you can’t go wrong.

The only important thing is to simply know how your monitors compared to other speakers. Listen to your tracks, as well as commercial recordings on headphones, car stereos, and cheap computer speakers and compare what you hear to the sound profile of your monitors. Maybe your monitors don’t project certain frequencies especially well so you know to turn those up a little bit when mixing. If you follow this rule your tracks will be just as well mixed as the guy or gal who is using an exceptionally expensive monitoring system.

  1. Avoid the overuse of Auto-Tune and other Effects

A common mistake that many musicians make when attempting in-home recording is to rely on “Cher inspired” Auto-Tune and other effects that they hear on radio, both pre-amp and post-recording, to make up for the lack of clarity, warmth and overall quality of a recording. Here at USA Songwriting Competition, we have listened to demo tracks where the auto-tune, reverb and other effects overwhelm the song to the point that it is hard for the judges to listen to the actual melody and lyric.

The most commonly over-used effect is reverb, which is all too often used to make recordings sound less ‘flat’ or ‘more professional’. However, the proper amount of reverb to use to remove the flatness of a vocal recording is rather difficult and is why so many make the mistake of drowning out their recordings by making them so ‘wet’ with reverb that the notes become slurred together and indistinguishable.

A rule of thumb should be to always try to record each track as clean as possible, avoiding pre-amp effects whenever possible, and then only using effects to do minor touch-ups or additions afterwards.

  1. Obtain a decent Mixing Control Surface

If you use a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) , you may want to use a decent DAW controller. I used a PreSonus FaderPort 8 Production Controller for less than $500. This 8-fader control surface features motorized, touch-sensitive faders that handle effortlessly and follow automation precisely. Channel controls include all the standards, such as level, pan, solo, mute, and record arm, and a full set of digital scribble strip displays also help to keep you on track. The great thing is that this FaderPort 8 has native support for PreSonus Studio One DAW (got this a few years ago for less than $400).

So, do you have any more tips you wish to add? If so, please add your comments below!

For more information on the IAMA (International Acoustic Music Awards), please go to: http://inacoustic.com