The Official 'Secrets of the Studio' Thread!

[shaft9000]

I used to use that guitar spreading technique (copying, hard panning and delaying the other side about 5-7ms). However, doubling the part and then hard panning sounds so much better I don't bother anymore. Same goes for vocal harmonies (ie. double them, don't just copy and pitch shift).

...good point. And for truly LUSH guitars, detune it a little bit (manually, NOT electronically - detune the actual guitar strings before recording) for the other doubled part. GO further and use a different guitar and detune it. Double it w/ synth, whatever - be creative.


As for monitors, there's also the issue of near/direct/mid-field. home-stereo speakers generally are 'wide-field' so they fill the room with stereo sound. That's why most studios & mixing rooms have home-stereo speakers perched next the near-fields, so they can switch between them while listening back to the mix.

[pricklyrobot]

Give me a technical argument and I will yield to your greatness.

Read this article:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep08/articles/yamahans10.htm

Looks like you have to be a member to read that one, but here's another that you can read for free: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun02/articles/monitors.asp, and part II http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Jul02/articles/monitors2.asp

Their conclusion: monitors and hi-fi speakers both have their own strengths and weaknesses (which of course vary greatly from one brand/model to the next), but one isn't definitively better than the other for recording purposes. This made me feel like (slightly) less of a rank amateur for using my Cambridge Soundworks bookshelf speakers.

[premieklovn]

Never interpret studio advices as rules. There are no rules.

[Haydn]

Any advice for making hi-hats sound fatter/thicker?

Thanks

[Stab Frenzy]

Any advice for making hi-hats sound fatter/thicker?

Thanks

EQ.

[Haydn]

Ok sorry, one more question... do people generally record individual drum tracks (kick, snare, hat, etc.) in mono or stereo? I've been doing it in stereo lately but I've seen a lot of people do mono too... any advantages/disadvantages to either way?

[Joey]

Ok sorry, one more question... do people generally record individual drum tracks (kick, snare, hat, etc.) in mono or stereo? I've been doing it in stereo lately but I've seen a lot of people do mono too... any advantages/disadvantages to either way?

mono drums have a bit more punch to them, stereo drums sound 'bigger'

its really up to preference and what you are trying to do with the track

[GeneralBigbag]

Ok sorry, one more question... do people generally record individual drum tracks (kick, snare, hat, etc.) in mono or stereo? I've been doing it in stereo lately but I've seen a lot of people do mono too... any advantages/disadvantages to either way?

Stereo - in the sense of the individual track already has some stereo effects on it, or that it pans around the stereo field?

I am personally a fan of recording in mono what I can, and mixing drums into stereo after tracking the individual voices.

[Stab Frenzy]

Ok sorry, one more question... do people generally record individual drum tracks (kick, snare, hat, etc.) in mono or stereo? I've been doing it in stereo lately but I've seen a lot of people do mono too... any advantages/disadvantages to either way?

Depends on if you're tracking acoustic drums or a drum machine. Acoustic drums I mic everything mono and have stereo overheads, then mix it to stereo. Drum machines I usually start with everything mono cause I'm using mono samples and then mix to stereo. Sometimes though there's a stereo sample or stereo fx on a drum machine instrument and so I record it stereo.

[Joey]

I think this thread is proving/will prove to be very helpful...

could we get a sticky possibly?

[th0mas]

1. Learn your mixer in and out. I just read my manual for the first time since first starting to use this mixer and found a wealth of unused features.

2. Own more cables than you need - every time I go to our jamspace or a gig I have to tear apart my studio, having a seperate set of cables just for my studio would save me so much setup/teardown time

[Joey]

To get really heavy stereo synth bass ala mstrkrft:

Record your bass patch twice, once in mono, and once in stereo.

On the mono channel use a Lowpass filter to cut off the frequences above 1000

then on the stereo one, double it and hard pan each left and right.

use hipass filters to cut out anything below 1000, you want to have the stereo and mono channels intersecting at the exact same frequency range, so as if the one patch had a mono low end and stereo high

send the stereo ones to a bus with a fat chorus effect, and you can get some really cool phasing effects.

play with the panning of the channels to get the stereo width just right,

but doing this right will give you some seriously fat distorted sounds without hogging the mix

its the key to like 90% of mstrkrft's sound

[RobotHeroes]

I don't care too much for mstrkrft but this tip is interesting. Is there anyone else this sound resembles?

[Stab Frenzy]

Bass players have been doing that for years, split the signal to the lows and the highs and let the lows go through clean and fuzz/phase/wah/etc. the highs. It's a bit easier to do with synths and a DAW though, cause you just copy the track then use a HPF on one and a LPF on the other.

Powerful bottom end + cutting high end = happy bassists.

[th0mas]

its the key to like 90% of mstrkrft's sound

To me that's pushing it, 90% of their sound is side-chaining their bass against the bass drum