So you’ve started to get serious about recording music. Maybe you have converted some room of your house into a project studio by now. With such a leap of faith you’ve decided its time to research into the next steps to feasibly bringing artists into your project studio. That may include knowing more about what things you could do toward getting better at recording other artists. It may also include knowing more about how to target the specific gear you need. For the time being we’ll assume you’ve already collected some initial gear and its ready and assembled. We will also assume that you may have already clocked some hours behind your DAW by now, which is perfect. That says to me that you have more than just a toe in the water. From there we’ll work together to flush in the rest of details, giving you a top down look at the entire thing. Doing so will serve to equip you with the perspective necessary to answer the big question. How do I become a better home studio engineer?
Becoming a better home studio engineer is achieved by proficiently coordinating one’s over all professionalism, one’s expertise and mastery of all technical components at their disposal, a wide view awareness and understanding of recording arts and it’s processes along with relentless practice and experimentation with recording and mixing technique.
But! Let’s not bite off more than we can chew. What do you say we break it down into much smaller and more digestible bits in order to give you a sense that everything I just said is indeed achievable even for someone who isn’t that familiar with any of it? That seems best. So here they are; Seven steps to being a better engineer.
1: BRAND YOURSELF WITH PROFESSIONALISM
First things first, I hate the term home studio, if nothing else it seems to minimalize what it is you are doing. Assuming that you have removed all of the bedroom furniture and accruements from your workspace, I’d much rather you call it a project studio. If for no other reason than “Do you want to see my HOME STUDIO in my bedroom at my house” sounds creepy.
If I was a recording artist exclusively and if I were looking for a place to record, I would be far more enticed to investigate someone who said that they had built a project studio in their home than to investigate someone who told me they had a home studio in a bedroom. Even if the are both the same thing, one is just extended to me more professionally than the other so I choose that because I respect myself. So respect yourself by allowing others to respect themselves.
When I think of the word home studios. It conjures visions of an army of you tubers equipped with Shure SM7B mics giving me whatever advice they have to give, into cellphone cameras filming overtop of their twin bed and across their bedroom towards a desk centered on the far wall with LED lights hopefully positioned on every exposed surface. On their desk you can see a two-octave controller keyboard and a scarlet audio interface-sending signal into their dell computer.
I mean no offense to any of those efforts but even if they have something enlightened to say their surroundings do not inspire any confidence. So even if your gear list includes precisely and exclusively the gear I just mentioned I do not intend to have shame, but rather, I intend you to think about how it is you can brand your self and conduct yourself going forward whatever gear you have, work on presentation in order to make it all seem more.
You could start by saying project studio, even if saying project studio refers to something you are building toward. It sounds so much more professional. Then start by being professional, even if being professional refers to something that you are building towards, because that is far more palatable.
2: BE THE EXPERT, ESPECIALLY OF YOUR OWN GEAR
In the truest sense of the word you must be an expert. You must know everything you can know about the gear you have and the god’s honest truth is the sooner you do that the better. Don’t waste a lot of time allowing yourself to procrastinate. People are going to come into your studio and you can expect to be responsible for the entire show. You will open the door, welcome them, usher them to your newly christened project studio and you will begin to do your best to make them feel comfortable in this foreign situation. Eventually they may be a returning customer and at that point you will have already established a report and a working relationship with them. All of that will be great but getting to that point hinges on what happens immediately after that first session begins and you just brought them into the project studio and you just started to make them feel comfortable. From that moment on everything gets extremely serious and the pressure of making your way through the entire session falls directly on top of your own shoulders. There is no boss or superior to rely on when you don’t know why something isn’t working.
In order to make everything go as smoothly for you and your client as possible it is in your best interest to have read all of the corresponding manuals and to be ready and proficient with all of the regular functionality of the gear you have at your disposal. Because you are the boss and you are your own superior and it is only you that you will have to rely on to navigate all of the complicated issues that have been known to come up during recording sessions.
Before opening up all the manuals make sure you have familiarized yourself with the basic process of recording and mixing, make sure that you are familiar with the incremental steps that go into making your way sequentially through a session. Once you are confident that you have a handle on all of that I recommend starting with the Manuals for the DAW and the audio interface first. Start by making sure you have mastery with exactly how those two devices interconnect with each other.
From there make your self aware of all of the various functions of the Audio Interface you are using. When you just get started a topical understanding of how the interface works will suffice. Once you are competent enough to get signal into the computer move your focus over to the DAW manual. You will eventually need a better mastery of the Audio Interface and the more advanced features of the Audio Interface will make more sense in tandem with an advanced knowledge of your DAW and seeing as how the DAW is the heart of the operation it does serve you to focus on that exclusively.
In addition to your DAW and AUDIO interface. You will have to pay some attention to your studio monitors. Make sure that you read up about how to properly position them, use them and how to set their levels correctly.
Microphone technique is one of the most important things that you will have to master. Everything you studied about before had to do with technical functionality of the components while there is technical functionality involved with microphones and you will have to make yourself proficient with knowing the differences between a condenser and dynamic microphone you will also require a general knowledge of the microphone companies and what microphones they offer to pair with the various sources that you may be recording in your project studio before you make your selection. But as mentioned before the assumption is that you already have selected and acquired some of the gear, and that you would exposed yourself to what you need to know in at least a basic sense about your microphones.
The microphones themselves may have limited information as to possible technique of use. Instead they may depict charts and graphs, which would indicate the circumstances and frequencies that they are best suited for.
So for now make your assessment of what kind of artists that you will be equipped to record at the unset and then familiarize yourself with the mic-ing techniques you’ll need to know to your artists performance. More specifically stated if you are not equipped to record bands, then focus on capturing a pop singers vocals or rappers vocals or a singer songwriters vocals and guitar. If they are pianist, then its more then likely your project studio will be restricted to using a midi keyboard. But you may grow with time. For now it may not be important to know how to mic a piano, while you could benefit from a cursory understanding there may not be a need to cross that bridge until you get to it.
3: LEARN ALL ABOUT MICROPHONES AND START A COLLECTION
All microphones are not created the same; they are differentiated in a number of ways which including how they were engineered, how they were intended to be used and then quality. A cursory knowledge and a capacity to differentiate between them will be one of the pressing responsibilities that you will have to see to. You should build up a sophisticated knowledge of all of the terminology and technical concepts about Microphones before you start calling your self a recording engineer.
Being Microphone literate is the starting point of knowing how to capture quality recordings from all of the various sounds sources within the environments where you will record. Knowing what does what will also help you to determine where to begin when you start acquiring additional microphones for your own mic locker. In the case of building a Mic locker it shouldn’t be a measure of quantity, instead you should focus on getting the microphones you need that can be somewhat multipurpose at the start.
Some people collect stamps some people collect cars while I wouldn’t mind a car collection I am in camp with those whom collect microphones. I wrote an article earlier about buying second hand gear. Microphones are a great thing to purchase used. You can stretch your money and build your collection faster. If you are going to mic a drum set you will need to have a pile of mics that are suitable for mic-ing drums. You will need to have one or two mics for guitar cabinets and eventually one or two choices for your vocalist.
The best way to start your collection is to make yourself aware of what microphones are available from each manufacturer for all of the various sound sources that you need to find solutions for. Then keep your eye out for any second hand deals you can find, and as you have the money work your way down that checklist collecting one mic at time. The one thing nice about mics is that they typically hold there second hand value so if you buy at a used price you can probably sell it for the same price if later you need the cash to upgrade.
4: GET GOOD SOUND
To get better recordings you will need to minimalize the reflective qualities of your room to mitigate the amount of sound frequencies that are bouncing around the room uncontrolled and unwanted. Not doing so will really mess up your recordings. So do what you can. Buy some hard Rockwool panels and wrap them up nice in fabric, place them around the recording room strategically.
Make sure that the instruments you’re recording sound good in the room. When they do it is far more likely that tone will translate well to the record. Make sure that the cymbals are not too old, that the drumheads are fresh and tuned and that the guitars have been recently restrung. These types of concerns should be something of a checklist to regularly inspect and keep appraised of. Simple maintenance items such as these add up. And by making it a regular habit to do so you will have already become a more competent recordist.
This would also be the point where you finally break open that mic locker you’ve saved your money so diligently to build. Now that you finally have your room situated with the appropriate sound acoustic treatment and all of your instruments teched and tuned. You can finally start finding your sound. That will involve exploring and experimenting with the various ways you use the microphones you have on the sound sources you have to record. There are lots of micing techniques to try for each source. So make this into a long process of familiarizing yourself with the concepts and the realities of working with the gear that you have at your disposal. If this process isn’t rewarding to you than I want to warn you that you may have chosen the wrong gig because that is really the whole deal. Its being playful and creative with the possibilities and testing the limitations of what can be done with what you have to do it with.
When working with multiple microphones at the same time you can come into problems with phasing of the microphones. Microphone phasing problems are no fun to try to have to unwind after the fact. So do your best to a pay attention from the start. If you are using multiple mics on the same source you should expect for the possibility that issues of this nature will arise. So be sure to monitor for it. The best remedy could be by simply inverting the phase of one of the source signals.
Micing and the exploration and experimentation are a life long process of building on your own experiences. Everyday you will have the opportunity to learn something new and build upon the wealth of knowledge that you had already collected. Every new piece of gear you will have to explore, experiment with and integrate into your workflow.
5: BE THOROUGH WITH EDITING AND COMPS
When you’re editing you’ll need to do your very best to get all of your audio tracks ship shape before mixing. Overtime editing your tracks will become second nature and you’ll learn to work your way through them with swift efficiency. For the time being make progress by taking measured steps to increase your knowledge base with repetition and practice.
Work to having all of your tracks edited before you begin the mixing process. By doing so you will be able to mix unencumbered. When you start the editing process you should begin with stripping the silence from every track you can. This is the process of removing all of the non-essential parts of the track where no one is performing. In these sections you may hear rustlings from the performer, room noise, or headphone bleed, which may include the sound of the metronome click track. Cut out all of those areas where there is no phrasing from all of the audio tracks. This is a critical step in the process, especially before you apply compression. Since compression makes soft sounds louder and loud sounds softer it behooves you to cut out all of that room noise and headphone noise in all of that otherwise dead space between vocal phrasings so that they don’t all become much louder and disturbing with compression. And compression aside it wouldn’t be professional not to make those essential edits so you’ll need to bring yourself to competency in doing so.
During the editing phase you will also be able to rectify most modest timing mistakes with simple edits to properly align the mistimed parts to better correspond the position they were intended to have struck on the grid. Be sure that all of your edits and fades sound natural, by making edits at the zero point of the compression and refraction curves of the audio file you will avoid creating unwanted pops and clicks.
Vocal Comping is a technique where an engineer or recordist records multiple takes of their vocalist. Those takes will appear on the DAW stacked one on top of the other. Edits are placed at the tops and bottoms of every start and stop of each phrase the artist utters. While you can be more precise and you could comp word-by-word it may not sound natural so it isn’t recommended. Instead select the best chunks of phrasing from each of the vocal takes and compile the best most illustrious track possible from what is available in each take.
6: BUILD ON RUDIMENTARY MIXING SKILLS – STEP BY STEP
This starts with not over doing it. I use to have a professor back in my college days who loved to remind us of the acronym K.I.S.S., The professor would look across the room at dozens of us wide eyed and eager to learn all the secret tricks of mixing and engineering. Then after a long pause for affect he would pose his question. “What does K.I.S.S. mean?” To which and in short order he would answer for us. “Keep It Simple Stupid.” he’d say. Now I know that it’s not the friendliest thing in the world to call one and another stupid. I am only using this story to help you form a strong focus on not overcomplicating things for yourself especially at the beginning.
Oh, it’s complicated for sure and it will take years for you to really pull over the jersey and be able to legitimately claim that you are on the team. For the time being you will have to be patient and systematically build skills that will allow you to work your way off the bench and into the game. The most important thing is making progress so that when you finally do get in the game you are competent.
Now that you’ve started mixing you need to focus in on mastering the basics. There are so many advanced techniques that will only serve to distract you from making these initial steps. So while you should continually take in new knowledge and constantly be familiarizing yourself with new terms and concepts do not be so naïve as to put a cart in front of the horse.
First and foremost be sure to enter the mix process with the cleanest tracks you possibly can. During tracking, and editing be meticulous. The saying goes never leave for tomorrow what can be done today and for the sake of being clear… leave nothing to be fixed in the mix. It is bad practice and when you figure that out for yourself the problem will only be exasperated by the fact that you’ve already sent the musicians home.
When you are finally in the Mix phase your primary responsibility will be for levels and panning. That is long before you start playing with any EQing or compression and certainly well before you think about adding any kind of spatial effects. Get your sea legs under you with managing depth of field before complicating things. Then and only then proceed.
Before you go littering every track with umpteen plugins that you are not precisely sure how to use, Educate your self on each. And rather than being responsible for knowing how to manipulate each parameter of every plug-in at your disposable, focus in on five or six most commonly used plugins and work those until you have reached mastery of application before you indulge yourself with others. There is an idiom that asks “how do you eat an elephant” if it isn’t apparent the appropriate answer would be; one bite at a time, and that idea holds true for gaining proficiency with your mixes. It is a step-by-step process. So for the mean time and for the foreseeable future do not add more than one or two plugins to your tracks.
In order to prevent ear fatigue and to better assess levels try mixing at just above nominal gain and only when your song has become just audible. At that volume you can easily observe whether you are able to distinctly discern each individual track and whether they are well represented at suitable levels relative to one and other.
7: ORGANIZATION IS ESSENTIAL
Stay organized, label your hard drives, name your tracks and save tracks with consistent designations. Keep your work environment orderly and organized in order to maximize your efficiency and capacity to handle and managed multiple sessions and artists who you are currently working with and who you have worked with in the past. You will of course have to be responsible for the master tracks that you create in one form or another so having habits that are imbued with sloppiness will not pay you any dividends.
In conclusion these basic concepts are a starting point from where you can hone your craft and establish yourself within the community of artists and musicians you serve as a reliable and competent professional with the capacity to add some sunshine onto their work that they care so passionately about.
No go and do well.
Good Luck!