Tracking/Mixing ORDER OF OPERATIONS (post your lists here)

[median]

For engineers, post your list of general order of operations which you go through for tracking and then mixing a session. What would be some general guidelines that you go through when beginning a project (i.e. - setup template project file in DAW, mic drums this way, etc), working through a project, and finishing one? I think this kind of thread will help a lot of us home engineers get the most out of our projects. Please be specific!

 

 

median

[Phil O'Keefe]

I'm pretty old-school in my tracking. I like to capture the entire rhythm section together if at all possible, but that's often not possible at home. So here's my suggestions for home recording tracking procedures:

 

1. Session template and song files. If you don't already have a template suitable for the project, you can save some time by creating one as opposed to having to enter the info for multiple songs separately.

 

2. Determine tempos and decide if you want to use a click track or not. When recording at home where you can't track everyone together, you might have to resort to using a click. Alternatively, you might want to audibly count-in and play a "scratch" track on guitar / vocals or keys / vocals and use that as the timing reference for the overdubs.

 

3. Track the drums and bass. Again, I like having the rhythm section playing together whenever possible, but if you lack sufficient room at home, or sufficient inputs on your interface, you'll have to track one part at a time. If that's the case, I like to start with the foundation - the drums and then the bass. Assuming there are scratch guitar and vocal parts (which I'd probably want to use, even if we're using a click - it gives the drummer something to reference so they don't get lost and to make things more comfortable for them), the drums and bass will be my next step.

 

4. Edit drums and bass: If you're going to use any editing to tighten things up, now is the time to to it IMO. This way, the rest of the overdubs are referencing "solid" tracks instead of ones with timing errors or hiccups on them.

 

5. Track instrumental overdubs - rhythm parts first. Track your guitars and keyboards and any other "foundational" instrumental parts. As you track the overdubs, you'll be able to easily tell who's "off" - if the timing sounds weird on the overdub, it's the overdub and not the bass and drums - you've already checked on those and did any edits or retracking needed to tighten them up. Instead of trying to edit the guitars and keyboard tracks, you can just punch in and fix any problems in the tracking stage. If your track is largely MIDI based, the MIDI / sampled drums and keys might be best to do "first" as the foundation, then build upon them with the rest of the tracks / overdubs.

 

6. Lead vocals? This kind of is a personal thing and will depend on the preference of the singer. Some singers want to hear a track that is fully "produced" and "finished-sounding" in their headphones. This can be very inspiring for a singer. On the other hand, if you have a lot of lead guitar parts, sometimes you may want to wait and track those after the vocals so that you can make sure the vocals have the freedom to do what they want, and then put the lead parts in the spaces between vocal lines. That way, the guitarist will be able to more easily avoid "stepping on" the singer.

 

7. Comp / tune vocals. As with the drums, other things may rely on and reference the lead vocal, so comping together the final vocal and fixing any timing and intonation issues with it would generally be something I'd want to do before getting to those other parts.

 

8. Lead guitar. Either before or after the lead vocal - again, it will depend on the preferences of the musicians and the particulars of the song in question. Sometimes you have to be flexible in order to best serve the needs of the musicians and the requirements of the particular song and arrangement.

 

9. Track and edit the "Ear Candy" - Backing / harmony vocals, percussion overdubs and other fun stuff like that. Since the lead vocal is already comped and in tune, you're ready to track those backing vocals. If the timing and pitch of the lead vocals isn't nailed, it makes getting the BGVs done "right" very difficult; you're nearly guaranteed to have to edit them. If the backing singer(s) can hear the phrasing of the lead vocal, they can match it while tracking instead of you having to edit it later. Send them home with a rough mix of the track(s), with the completed lead vocal and let them rehearse to it. You'll save tons of editing and tracking time if they're well-prepared and familiar with the "finished" lead vocal.

 

9. Do any remaining comps / edits and fixes. Hopefully there won't be a ton left to do since you have been doing this as you go along. This is also a good time to do any "clean-up" - cutting out any un-needed sections of the waveforms (or writing mute automation) to silence any noise and gunk in sections where people aren't playing or singing, etc. Getting rid of this stuff will make for cleaner sounding mixes and songs.

 

10. Mixing.

 

11. Mastering.

 

I could probably write up a similarly long post for each of those last two items on the list... but they're beyond what I consider the "tracking" stage, and are kind of separate topics IMO.

[gubu]

I'll have a go at mixing, with the caveat that I'm no pro, so YMMV. Criticism welcome!

 

1. A calibrated listening environment is essential (as is room treatment). It will likely be a struggle to get your mixes to translate to other systems without standardising your listening levels.

Set your monitor gain to give an SPL of 78-83dBSPL on a SPL meter at the listening position (C weighted slow) for stereo uncorrelated -20dBFS RMS pink noise playing from your DAW and mark this setting on your output volume pot/amp volume with a wax pencil. Some people also calibrate to -14dBFS pink noise, but -20dB works fine for me.

In smaller rooms, you will need to calibrate to the lower end of that SPL range. 83dBSPL is far too loud for extended mixing sessions in smaller rooms. I use a smallish bedroom (15

[Cirrus]

I'm delighted to find that I do what Phil does, which genuinely feels like a validation

 

Cheers big O! Have a guinness on me.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I'm delighted to find that I do what Phil does, which genuinely feels like a validation Cheers big O! Have a guinness on me.

 

 

Thanks!

 

And a Happy St Paddy's Day to you too.

[gubu]

6. Is where I have to leave the step by step process.

You will need to attend to:-

 

In no particular order and depending on the material:-

 

-Panning - live style sound stage or something more creative, your call

 

-Compression of individual parts. Can help with the body and presence of mix elements but too much gets crappy sounding really quickly

 

-Effects - Tailored delays/reverbs on each instrument, or global reverbs for groups of similar instruments, or on the vocals, or one global reverb for the entire mix? Perhaps some modulation on a vocal or something else, for creative purposes.

 

-Do you want to submix certain elements, like the drums or some similar synth patches and rhythm guitars for processing as a group?

 

-All the while tweaking those original EQ's to suit the changes and double checking in mono.

 

This is the creative process IMO, and a mire in which we all get bogged down from time to time. And I've listed this as one step as it is a process that should all happen at once, sweetening the mix and tweaking each element to get the whole thing sounding like something you'd like to hear on the radio or at a party or club or up in your log cabin, or wherever.

 

Rule of thumb - if it sounds good, keep it. If not, try something else.

 

7. If you have more than one monitor system, you should have been checking the mix on each system. If you don't, and the mix is starting to sound good after step 6, now you need to bounce down a mix and check it on a few different systems.

How does it translate? Does that compression really work on the bass, or would it have been better just to relax the EQ curve a little and pull it back a dB or 2? Things like that. Make notes and return to the session, fixing those little things that stood out.

 

8. Repeat step 7

 

9. Bounce it down. Forget about it. That's as good as you're going to do.

 

Send it for mastering (or import the 2 track file to another DAW/editor/session, and do a simple EQ and brickwall limiting job) and get on with the next track.

[Lee Knight]

And... it is very handy to have CD around of the kinds of sounds you like and are shooting for. I'm not suggesting you rip anyone's stuff off. But, it is very easy to lose perspective on things like... how big should the bass be on this tune? How much distortion is too much distortion. How cracking/pingy/rattly/fat is the snare we all like?

 

It's so easy to lose perceptive on all the things you assume you know, love, and have agreed upon. Have a CD there and refer to it. Ain't no shame in that.

[nerol1st]

Keeping in mind I do mostly metal/hardcore/whatever dopey genre you want to go with...

 

1. Track the drums acoustically. Guitarist plays along if necessary (usually so). Usually I'm stuck with players that can't or chose not to play to a click. However this is metal so after this step:

 

2. I use the time warp tool to make a grid that fallows the drummers performance.

 

3. In the rare case that the drum set is in what I consider studio ready condition (new heads, no hardware squeaks, I tune said new heads) then I had edit the drums to the grid. I'm doing modern metal so unfortunately 16th note kicks have to be tight or it sounds like mush.

 

4. If the kit is NOT in studio ready condition, then I move right to strapping trigger on each track to capture the midi of each element. This works for all of the drums, but no the cymbals.

 

5. I had write in all the cymbals, it does not take that long usually drummers have no more than 6-7 to do with various articulations (ride bell, ride tip, ride edge etc...).

 

6. Quantize said midi with the exception of snare and tom rolls (they sound better untouched). Yes in most cases this is 100% quantized to the grid. I also go back and make sure nothing sounds ridiculous (I do not like drums that are programmed with all on/off messages at 127 velocity). Usually trigger is really good about capturing the strength of the hits and keeping that human element intact.

 

7. Remember how that grid fallowed the drums? Well if we are using the actual studio ready kit sounds then we are done. If not though then I conform the grid to one or a few tempo changes. Usually if no click is used the tempo track looks like a spiky mess (for lack of a better description). Smoothing it out helps track everything else. When using midi, all of your midi changes along with your tempo changes.

 

8. After that we decide on what kit we want to use for the midi (if that is what we are doing). I usually roll with Superior Drummer or one of it's add on libraries although I do have Addictive and Slate to chose from as well.

 

9. Track then edit the bass. New strings are paramount with this instrument and there are a few basses that IMO are not suited for this step (like P basses or anything epiphone makes for example). I really like how a Jazz bass sounds for this. Usually some sort of preamp, amp or a combination of the 2. If I'm going direct it's through a preamp designed for bass. I do not like "direct into the desk" tones for metal. Another thing to note: I prefer 10" drivers for this type of tracking if we are using a mic. I prefer a D112 for this step out of my options.

 

10. Track then edit the guitars, possibly re amp them if needed (hey sometimes you get that guy who wants to use his uber scooped mids super over gained line 6 spider). I ALWAYS record a DI at this stage just in case. Plus a DI track makes it easier to edit guitars as it contains all of the dynamics of the playing making it easier than looking at a compressed and distorted sausage wavform that the amp produced. (I also always use a real amp at this stage). New strings are again a must and usually we end up using 2 amps (most of the time it's my mesa DR and 5150 through vintage 30s). I'm a single 57 guy here, I have other options but have never really liked them (the e609 or i5) so I always come back to that mic.

 

11. Track the vocals. Usually several takes comping them together later. I also usually find that the earlier stuff is the better stuff most of the time. Insecurities will keep the singer wanting to do more takes, but 90% of the time we come back to the second or 3rd take as it was the point where there voice was warmed up but not warn out yet.

 

12. Any other candy: Guitar solos, keyboards, sub drops, whatever. I do them here. I find it's easier to add this stuff when all the essentials are there because it's easy for musicians to want to stack tons of {censored} on top of other {censored} and make the song more of a mess than it needs to be so it's easier to be objective if this step is last.

[nerol1st]

I have also just mic'd everything in the same room and recorded everything at the same time. Not a metal band, but it was still cool non the less.

 

I have 18 ch of inputs so I had no issues doing it (in fact IIRC I had 6 left over).

 

Very neat way of doing it, but also very different method of recording (and IMO not suitable for the majority of what I record).

[nerol1st]

As far as mixing goes that's a little more varied but I can sort of break down my way of doing it. I'm not going to be to detailed here as that would literally take a whole thread in itself.:

 

1. I start all faders down.

 

2. Buss everything I want bused, set up my sends (usually all this is setup in my template, but sometimes I have to add a handful of things).

 

3. I mix the bass stuff first. This is the stuff that gets muddy and it's easier if I setup in my mind where that stuff is going to sit before moving on. Plus the kick and bass need to play nice.

 

4. Once that's ok I mix the rest of the drums, panning them around where they go. I usually go just eq and compression for anything here although I do like a transient designer on some stuff. You will not find anything other than those 3 as inserts on anything I mix drum related.

 

5. I bring up the guitars, usually doing this starts to duck or mess up the snare and make the toms and bass guitar sound muddy as they just don't seem to play well. I do get rid of anything under 80-120hz depending. I try not to make the guitars to thin with doing that though. If the snare is an issue I'll go and eq that so it plays better or in the case of using superior I may decide on a different snare all together. I don't like doing to much eq other than that low end dump here. Sometimes I'll dump anything above 9k as well (again usually not needed).

 

6. Tom mud usually just needs more eq as well so I have at that. Surprisingly dumping a lot of the low end off the lower toms can make them come out more without losing the effect of thier hugeness. However that area is so varied I can't even give a range off the top of my head, but it's usually a scoop in the center and a drop off with the lower freqs and sometimes a small boost where the attack is.

 

7. Once all those elements are playing nice I bring in the vocals. I really do not like doing anything but cutting the low frequencies that are not needed with the vocals. I'm not into heavy eq on the voice, even with screamers. I will however compress the ever living piss out of them using a 10:1 or more ratio, fast ish attack slow release.

 

8. The vocals are bused to a stereo group where I have a multi delay and reverb running. I pan the different delays around and in time with the song. Then dial up the reverb till it sounds right with everything else, but not super noticeable.

 

9. The drums are also sent to the same reverb on a different buss. Dial in as appropriate.

 

10. I walk away for at least 3-4 hours.

 

11. I come back and decide if I have to start all that again or do a few more tweaks.

 

12. I bounce it and go listen to it a couple days in my car. If nothing jumps out as majorly wrong I'll either roll with it or make more changes.

 

Final step: Try to convince the band to do the mastering out of house. If I have to do it... well, I try not to do it.

[WRGKMC]

If I'm tracking one of my bands, I'll do 16 tracks at once. I have all the drums miced with 8 mics and have them in back of a partial barrier

up to 4 feet high. I use dual guitar ampre for each guitarist swt with different tones and different effects. The bass amp has a direct out that

has its one line send volume and low Z output so I'll use that If I'm tracking with a bass player.

 

Vocals I connect each mic to the interface from the Mixers insert. The mic just gets preamped by this and connects directly to the interface.

They also get sent to a PA so live vocals can be heard. Vocals are usually scratch tracks but I do capture tham in case a one of a kind vocal

tracks is captured, I can use it.

 

This kind of live recording does have its issues with bleedover, and the musicians have to be much better to get

good tracks then you would piecing it together as a Frankenstein recording.

 

I also have the feed from the DAW going through a small mixer as a mono feed to a camcorder which is kind of fun.

Its neet to play back the raw unmixed recording from a session so the players can see what thay played, even if the

sound quality isnt stellar its a pure truth detector of which songs have potential and which ones are stinkers.

I'm almost embarrased to post this but its on topic so what the hell. This was a clip I just happen to have on line.

Its just som warmup jams writing music on the spot so its a bit rough. I was playing a Tele, along with my drummer.

 

I was letting my other buddy practice his leads. If I had been his teacher when he was growing up learning to play

I would have beat him in the head with a club to learn his scales. He's OK for simple riffs and playing rythum but

I do most of the leads. The second song is a little better, but it is what it is a raw unmixed jam. I need to

scrounge through all the Videos and upload a decent take one of these days. Its a low priority though.

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1682170/Someday%20-%20Catch%20The%20Rain.wmv

 

We do allot of three pieces with two guitars. Then I'll go back and add bass, leads vocals with a good studio mic.

If the rythum guitar and drums are good I can pretty much wipe everything else out and re-do the other parts.

The rythum track just needs to be upbeat and have some emotion. I may get one or two out of a session

thats worth working with.

 

Recording solo is a whole different thing of course. I write allot of music with a drum machine and track rythum guitar

to the drums. I'll go back and add bass, leads and vocals usually in that order. I can track bass to drums too or even keyboard

but I'm usually writing directly to disk when recording and have no idea what the soung is going to be before I start,

The best i may have for an idea is a few chord changes I work out playing to the drums and write all the other parts

on the spot. I may not even have a melody for the lyrics till I get to that part and have no idea what its going to

sound like till I get all the parts done.

 

Heres an example of a song built part by part I been writing this week. I did a rough mixdown so I could judge how it will sound.

I need to go back and redo the lead an vocals, in fact I wrote the lyrics on the spot and have written new lyrics for it which

I need to go back and track.

 

Scratch vocals are just that. You song "something" the scratch them out and redo them.

Depending on the song, they are there to work your other parts in, leads, keys whatever. Then you can go back and

write some decent poetry, get your voice in shape and then pull out a good studio mic and capture a good vocal take.

That's probibly the hardest track for me because I dont sing that well. I get other good singers to

take it to the next level and sing the songs live.

 

Anyway,

Heres one done all solo with electric drums. Wound up sounding like an old Mobey Grape tune.

Guitars were recorded direct without an amp through an ART 2000 guitar processor with some

live effects adjusted in. I find a hardware preamp for tracking guitar just easire for writing music.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1682170/Absence%20of%20Memories%20Studio%20%5BMaster%5D.wav

 

Heres an example of one of the live studio cuts with some additional parts added like bass and keys.

The rest is a live single take including my vocals.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1682170/Poisoned%20Final%20%5BMaster%5D.wav

 

 

Heres I copy tune I did playing drums. I suck at drums so I played drums along to a Johnny Winter tune

instead of a metronome then went back and added all the other parts. This is a good way for beginners to get going recording.

They have a template to play to and mix to. You can even import the track and use it instead of a metronome to

track all your parts then delets the commercial track out when you're done. You just have to be sure you re sample

the song to the sample rates you'll be recording at.

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1682170/Out%20On%20A%20Limb%20%5BMaster%5D.wav

 

Anyway, theres no one method here and its good to have many options because only doing things one

way can be as boaring as watching the grass grow. One method works great for one song then the next song

it sownds awful approached that way, so you get there through another method. This is why many who record can only give

suggestions of what might work. The rest you'll have to invent for yourself.

[median]

This is awesome information! Thanks guys. I think us home engineers are going to get a ton out of this advice. Keep them coming!

 

median

[The Nick]

I'm about to start tracking a "live" record in the studio - vocals and all to 2" tape. I might add a couple things to stir the pot:

 

1. Pre-Production - get the band as tight as possible, the arrangements worked out, sketch out a track sheet (IE - what I'm going to patch where, even if I might not engage that particular piece of outboard...it's nice to have an EQ available if I want it)

 

2. Tracking - Make it sound like a record...before the record button gets hit. If I know I need to scoop some 200Hz out of a tom mic, I'll do it on the way in. Same with most other "foundational" instruments. As well, I'll work to make sure things are in phase before they hit the multitrack, just so I don't have to think about it later on. I might leave vocals or other lead elements for further shaping, or perhaps paint with more broad and subtle strokes that are easy to undo.

 

Make conscious choices and commitments in order to streamline the workflow. It feels really good to sit down for a mix and have it already pared down nicely. The tracking should really be the brunt of your work! It makes the mix that much more enjoyable - closer to an art. At that point, you do a bit of massaging to get things sitting nicely, add any spacial effects you may want, write your automation and print!

 

Practice getting sounds that are compelling and of such a quality that they'll be REALLY TOUGH TO SCREW UP later on!

 

Of course, that's not always an option when there's not a couple racks of outboard available, but there are many ways to get a good sound. If your guitar amp sounds too bright, it has an onboard EQ for a reason!

[mistersully]

This thread is a great read

[TBush]

Yup- dittos- all good stuff here.

 

I'm in the middle of a project that has an acoustic guitar as THE backbone for everything else, so that was recorded first (using a mid/side configuration) along with a click. Drums next, then vocals (what a great singer, too!), and now we're adding bass.

 

One thing- since the acoustic is so percussive, I kind of subdued the click once the song was going, and the drummer seemed to lock in a lot better to the overall tempo that way.

[TBush]

 

This kind of live recording does have its issues with bleedover, and the musicians have to be much better to get good tracks then you would piecing it together as a Frankenstein recording.

 

 

Excellent points here from "WRGKMC" for recording live bands- and I was wondering- is the bleed issue for you greater in the "guitars in the drum mics" area, or the other way around?

 

Personally, I don't mind a little guitar bleed in the overheads, but couldn't really stomach snare hits in the guitar mics. So I ended up turning my barn into a cabinet 'iso booth', and will usually connect and mic the band's main cabs out there, and have them plug into one of my cabs in the tracking room.

[WRGKMC]

I dont have allot of problems with drums in guitar mics.

I'd have to listen to that mic solo and really crank the quiet parts where no guitar was playing

in order to hear the drums, or any other instrument through them. The PG and SM57 mics are

very directional and when close miced to the amps you dont hear much else except the speaker.

 

I do record a second track on my own righ through my marshalls Emulated Speaker line out.

I did allot of experimentation micing the Marshall and recording through that like out and the

benifits of recording direct with that output were overwhelmingly better. Marshall really did it right

in getting that line out to sound like a miced amp.

 

My second amp is a tube amp driving 10" jensons and i like the way it sounds miced so I go with that.

I mic both of my buddies amps (actually my amps my buddy records with) He uses an old Sunn amp and a Fender M-80

I built into a 4X10" cab. I chose specific drive boxes for him to use so we had complementary sounds recording.

he likes that driven midrange sound kind of a grungy sound to me but its different than mine.

I move between the marshall drive sound and Fenderish sound depending on what I'm doing.

I may go for a cleaner sound playing rythum and singing and crank it all the way up to a doubble driven tone that sounds

almost violin like. I like it when I can get the body to sustain and a mere tap on it makes the strings resonate.

 

We can play dual leads together and not be competing for the same tones. makes it much easier to mix this way too,

in fact other thyan boosting the sound I dont do allot of tone shaping. maybe some lows rolloff, mild chorus

on one of the two guitar tracks will widen the sound.

 

 

For the drums I box them in so the lower mics are in back of a 4' barrier.

As a guitarist you can walk up to the drums and hear the entire set, stap back and you mostly hear snare and cymbals.

This is a good method and you dont have to crank the guitar amps as hot to hear everything.

 

The drum overheads will pick up some guitars nomatter what. I found keeping the drums in a corner

with padded walls minimizes this. Then I been using reflective surfaces lower down 4' up from the floor.

I'd like to have a reflective wall for the drums, but I built the studio first for sound proofing. I have many

layers of material on the walls to prevent the neighbors from hearing the sound.

 

I found cutting up some beer coozies and using them as a cupped barrier with the overheads works pretty good

to stop frontal bleedover. Then since my room is very dead room, I really dont have to move the amps too far from the

drums. I dont get allot of wall reflection from the amps. I shoot the wall with two hundred watts and the walls suck it all

up. Its a wierd effect playing in there and can actually be anoying if you spend too much time in there.

 

I simply need to move the guitar amps far enough away from the drum mics so I dont get side cabinet bass bleed.

This is the sound the drummer needs to hear to play along to. Without it he's be lost.

 

I dont use headphones except for multitracking vocals. I spent a good 30 years having to use them when I had small kids

and lived in appartments. Now I'm a big boy and have my own home and built my own studio in there after waiting

for all that time, I can do without them dam cans making my ears sweat and bleed.

 

Bass is a tough one for bleedover though. You have two options.

Set it next to drums and record the bleedover with the drums, or isolate

the bass from the drums. I dont mic my bass because the direct out works better for me,

especially if the bass player isnt so good. The times I recorded in high end pro studio

It was recorded with headphones and no amp, just the direct sound. I do all my solo stuff that

way with a bass modeler box. Live you got no choice. Its either use an amp or

headphones.

 

I do have wireless headphones for the drummer if he wants to use them but for the most part

I like to move my guitar around and use the speakers to get variations of feedback bouncing the sound off the body and neck

like I would playing live.

[median]

I am very appreciative to all who have posted here thus far. Keep the posts coming! I just finishing rebuilding my studio and will certainly be taking these posts to mind when I start tracking/mixing!