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Preparation and Production Tips
- Rehearse, plan and arrange thoroughly before coming to the studio.
- Decide on your approach. Will you cut basic tracks and then come back for overdubs, or will you record head-on with the entire ensemble (which could still involve overdubs)? Your engineer must know
the final instrumentation to ensure sufficient tracks. For example, drums may be recorded using 4, 5 or 8 tracks, depending on their relative importance and the demand for other tracks. Can
your project be done with 8-tracks? It's faster and cheaper than 16 or 24 tracks.
- Be sure of the correct keys. Many songs which fall naturally in certain keys on guitar or keyboard may not be optimal for the vocal. Find the best solution for vocalists and instrumentalists alike.
- Determine ideal tempos using a metronome prior to coming to the studio, then use the metronome to make sure the songs are counted-off at the correct tempo. Remember that tempos often are slower for
recording than for live performance.
- If you plan to use a click track, make sure the rhythm section is comfortably practiced with it.
- Know how each song will be counted-off and ended. A count-off may be essential to overdubbing. Often the drummer may stick count; a typical common time 2-bar count would be one two, one two three (rest).
The end maybe clean or a fade. If clean, allow all sounds to decay thoroughly without making any extraneous sounds. If faded, allow enough rollover, making sure that you don't waste your best
licks on the end of the fade.
- Avoid the long introductions you may use in live performances. (We've progressed from the needle-drop days of vinyl to the skip track days of CDs. Don't give your listener an excuse to surf your product.)
- Time your songs. Although the 3-minute radio model may not be right for you, neither should a selection be any longer than appropriate less is more!
- Arrange the structure to showcase the lyric and the vocalist, using long instrumental breaks sparingly they've all been done!
- Plan the instrumentation, still allowing for the tune to develop as it is being recorded.
- Remember that textures can be more open in recordings than for live performances, since silence can be the most powerful musical statement of all. Your tracks should breathe and have plenty of air,
unless that is inappropriate to the style.
- Each selection should have a dynamic map the relative volume and intensity of each section. We recently had a client lay down great basic tracks that were absolutely
"flat-line" in their dynamics. After pointing this out to the client, we developed the following map: intro at one level - up for the first verse - up again for the first chorus back
down for the second verse up for the second chorus up again for the instrumental ride back down again for the third verse up for the third chorus up in crescendo for the
rollover outro leading to a climactic ritard ending. Very often different sections of tunes will have thicker or leaner textures (instrumentation) to achieve this effect. But you have to record
the rhythm tracks with a good dynamic map or the remix will not support the change of texture.
- Know what selections you will be working on at the session. It's best to start with one that's relatively easy, while you and your musicians are becoming comfortable with the studio, and the engineer
is first getting his sounds. Then perhaps plunge into your most challenging tune second. In every visit to the studio, always have a plan B that song you might switch to if you are not
making progress on the tune you intended.
- Bring copies of lyric sheets of all songs for players, producer and engineer. Lead sheets and/or chord charts can also save time, depending on the personnel.
- Bring and use a tuner.
- Make sure your instruments are ready and you have the necessary and spare supplies:
Drummers should inspect their hardware and deal with any squeaks or creaks; tune their drums; have a variety of sticks and brushes; perhaps have a second snare. (At Alta Vista, Tom's kit is already set up for the studio and he has three snares.)
Guitarists should change strings: check cables and any effects (we probably have better ones in our racks); bring spare strings, picks and batteries; perhaps bring multiple guitars.
Bass players should not change strings (unless you are going for a very trebly sound), but should clean them down with isopropyl alcohol; have spares on hand; perhaps bring multiple basses.
Other instrumentalists should follow the above guidelines as appropriate to their axe.
- Be on time. That means not early and not late. Make sure you are all well-rested and well-fed in advance so you're not nodding out from digesting a plate of enchiladas, nor spacing from hypoglycemia
(low blood sugar} from not eating. Water, coffee and tea will be provided for you, but bring anything else you want to drink (a small refrigerator is available for you). And of course it is a
myth that musicians record better when they're high.
- Vocalists should avoid consuming dairy products before and during a session (creates excess mucous), nor should they take antihistimines (dries up the mucous). Avoid very hot and very cold beverages.
Room temperature spring water with a slice of lemon/lime or warm herbal tea with a dollop of honey is best. Smoking, of course, is horrible for a vocalist enough said!
- In the multitrack environment, we strive for as much separation as possible, not because bleed is inherently bad, but because it constrains both the overdub and remix stages. Taking the bass direct,
for example, keeps it out of the drum overheads. Utilizing our amp closet for the electric guitar does the same thing. Putting a scratch vocalist in isolation in the acoustic lock is another
technique.
- If the sound in the room is balanced, the artist(s) may elect to record without headphones. If headphones are to be used, finding the single best mix for everyone encourages the individual musicians
to play as an ensemble, i.e., to play in the mix. If needed, Alta Vista can readily provide a second headphone mix, and with some reconfiguration, even a third. (The fact is the
big kids do it with one mix.) Take the time with the engineer and the musicians to ensure that cans are a mix, not just a cue. Remember that headphones with their small speakers so
close to the ear are inherently deficient in low frequencies which is partly why so many bass players go direct playing in the control room. High quality cup headphones are preferred to
minimize leakage in and out, but vocalists sometimes find their intonation improves if the pull the cans back from one ear so they are not listening mouth and head tones separately.
- When tracking or overdubbing, avoid making any sounds or utterances other than the actual performance. It will end up costing you money when the engineer either has to erase such things or turn them
on and off during remix.
- Avoid keeping multiple takes of songs or overdubs. They end up costing a lot of time and money. Making comp (composite) tracks from several guitar or vocal overdubs may seem easy, but may actually entail extensive and expensive editing.
- Getting it in the mix is another myth. Properly conceived, performed and recorded parts are what make good recordings. Fixing things, other than simple edits, is typically more expensive than taking the time to do them right in the first place.
- Twelve selections is the typical offering of a commercial product. If they can all be recorded in a short span of time at the same studio, the product will exhibit greater continuity and coherence
than if the project is prolonged over several weeks or months at various locations. If you track all your basics first, it's often good to finish out a couple of tunes to a very good rough mix,
to test the overall vision and treatment. Rough mixing along the way should be done, but ideally the final remix for all tunes should be undertaken in the same session(s).
- At your remix session, your engineer will strive to achieve your creative vision. Heed his/her input, especially on technical matters, but you must be prepared to make the final decision on all
mixes. That should mean one person who speaks for the act no mixing by committee. In lieu of a designated or hired producer, someone must take charge to say yay or nay it is not the engineer's function.
Your engineer will listen to the mix loudly and softly; in stereo and mono; on control monitors, studio monitors (more closely emulating home stereos) and on small speakers (more closely
resembling auto, boombox and computer playback systems). In any case, the engineer will ask you to listen carefully and approve or disapprove the recorded mix before moving on to the next selection
and setup.
- Plan the sequence of the mixed master. The general trade-off is between continuity and contrast with respect to key, tempo, feel, meter, mode, mood, texture, etc.
- We mix to an Alesis MasterLink HD recorder (24-bit word length/48kHz sample rate), with the ability to sequence the selections, create appropriate segues and apply some DSP (Digital Signal
Processing: compression, equalization, look-ahead limiting, track fades in/out and normalization). We then burn you two Red Book audio CDs a production master (to be used for duplication) and a safety master (to be stored securely in the event of loss or corruption of the production master). Or we can simply transfer the mixes to either DAT or CD24s which you can then take to any of the quality mastering studios in Austin.
- We pride ourselves on the accuracy of our control room monitoring environment, and we have a simple formula for successful recording: good sounding sound sources in a good sounding acoustic space
with the right microphones in the right places into the right mic preamps with the right trim of the gain-chains for optimal fidelity!
- Ray Charles said it best: "Play in time, in tune and with feeling." Playing in time and in tune are critical, but not at the expense of feeling. After all, it's not sound we're recording
as much as emotion. Gettin' right ain't gettin' it good.
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