News and views about the world of DIY music and audio recording

Welcome to diyrecording.com, featuring news and views about the world of DIY music and audio recording for musicians.

Here are four points to keep in mind before you start mixing:

1. What are the acoustic properties of the room you’re mixing in? Surface treatments, walls, etc.? Is the room “live” or “dead”? You’ll need to take this into account when mixing, as it will affect the amount of reverb you’ll add.
2. Do your monitors (speakers) have a flat frequency response? Are any frequencies being boosted? This will also affect your mixes as you may unknowingly compensate for this in your mix, and end up with a different tonal balance than you had originally intended.
3. Are there standing waves in the room? Move around the room and use your ears – use a reference CD you’re familiar with and compare the perceived tonal balance at various locations in the room. This also has the potential to affect how you mix your recordings.
4. Do you have the choice of using several types of monitors (speakers) in order to compare your final mixes? Ideally, you’ll want to monitor your final mix on several types of speakers – including:
   • Good quality nearfield monitors for a more accurate representation of how your music will sound on regular speakers.
   • Headphones to verify your stereo imaging.
   • Cheap car stereo speakers. If your mix sounds good here, it’ll sound good almost anywhere!

Happy mixing! -kf

Want a clean recording? Start with a clean room. I’m not joking!

It’s not fun to to wade through a mess of cables searching for lost guitar pics, adapters, notebooks or (occasionally) missing musicians. Keep your cables running neatly together. One caveat: make sure power cables don’t run along parallel to audio cables! Run power and audio cables perpendicular when possible to avoid getting hum from the AC into your audio.

I don’t want to sound like a nagging parent telling you to clean your room. I’m just saying I’ve had my share of headaches because of messy cabling situations. Most of these could have been avoided by being more neat and organized. -mc

Here’s a neat trick for getting more bass out of your speakers at your next party: Place the speakers in the upper corners of the room.

First, a micro-lesson in acoustics and sound transmission: Geometrically speaking, each wall and the ceiling in a room is a plane. You get an extra 3dB of perceived bass response for each plane surrounding a speaker. This is because the volume of air in which the sound is projected is reduced accordingly. (The theory behind this exceeds the scope of this post, so just trust me on this one!)

What is boils down to is this:

• Putting the speakers in a corner where two planes meet (i.e. two walls) will increase the perceived bass response by 6dB.

• Placing the speakers in an upper corner where three planes meet (i.e. two walls and the ceiling) will increase the perceived bass response by 9dB.

Why should you care? This is a great example of how the location of your speakers and the shape of your room can affect the sound you’re hearing when mixing. Think about it – if you’re getting an extra 6 or 9dB of perceived bass response from your speakers, and you mix your song that way, what’s the result going to be? A mix that sounds super wicked in your studio, and super sucky (read: no bottom end) pretty much everywhere else.

The moral of this story: Be aware of how speaker placement and room shape/size affect the sound you’re hearing when you’re mixing. -kf

I was cleaning out some boxes today and ran across some old exams and assignments from my days at audio engineering school. Apparently in April 1998, I scored 41.5/50 on my Digital Audio Exam. The course was taught by Jim Burgess of Saved by Technology.

My favourite part was my answer to the last question on the exam (remember, this was in 1998):

50) Predict the state of digital audio production technology in the year 2005, and focus on the not-so-obvious developments that you predict will happen. (worth 2 marks)

DVD-Rs and DVD-ROMs will be commonplace. Distribution of audio recordings will take place mainly via the Internet. Aliens will intercept Earth transmissions and return a greeting to us – and it will be digitally encoded. Then top secret NASA digital recordings of the alien transmission will be lost in a tragic Purolator mishap, where they will re-surface two years later in a small UK dance music production studio (containing all digital gear). The recording will be released as an extended mix dance track and become a world-wide top 10 hit which we will listen to on our 96kHz 24-bit DVD audio players and over digital radio.

Amazingly, I only scored 1/2 on that question. Damn you Jim Burgess, my predictions all came true! Gimme my extra mark! -kf

I was going through my record collection today and came across Herb Alpert’s 1971 release, Summertime (not available on CD, argh!) and put it on. Kathleen and I talked about how if we could only have access to one label’s catalogue it would be A&M Records. After all, they had Herb Alpert, The Police, Burt Bacharach, Sergio Mendes and Cat Stevens.

Cat Stevens rose to fame at the age at 19 with the hit The First Cut is the Deepest in 1967. (Versions by Rod Stewart and Sheryl Crow are perhaps more well known than the original). After falling ill with tuberculosis in 1968, Stevens took a couple of years away from the limelight, then released the introspective album Mona Bone Jakon in 1970. And this takes me to the point of this post.

In my opinion, the song Katmandu is one of the best examples of simple yet interesting musical arrangement. It starts very simply with an single guitar, then voice, then suddenly an additional guitar just strumming a couple of chords. The chorus arrives and so does the bass. The bass line is pretty much straight eighths and adds a lush bottom end. There is also a beautiful flute part played by Peter Gabriel. A simple glockenspiel part completes the arrangement.

There are many great simple arrangements by Simon and Garfunkel, Nick Drake and Neil Young. For me, none have the character that this recording does. It works because the arrangement suits the song perfectly. I encourage you to listen for yourself.

Cat Stevens – KatmanduWhen recording your own music always ask yourself, “Does this part really add to the song, or am I just adding parts for the sake of it?” It is very tempting to keep adding. After all, with many software based studios, your track count is only limited by the speed of your computer and your imagination. But every track you add should be bringing something to the song, not just filling the blanks. This is where producers can really help you out. If you’re doing things on your own, be ruthless and “kill your children” (so to speak). Less is often more. -mc

triple j Unearthed is a gem of a website from Australia. Not content to simply feature terrific new artists from down under, they also offer a free 3-page PDF primer on DIY recording. Three pages is admittedly just a very basic intro to do-it-yourself recording, but it’s surprisingly useful if you’re just getting started. Their mixing tips are bang on.

The British go one step further. BBC Radio 1 offers a few more comprehensive guides to home recording. Their How to… recording guides cover everything from choosing the right music software to selecting tracks for a demo. Their primer on home recording even has advice on what to look for when buying equipment, whether buying new or second-hand. They also give some great advice on buying from overseas.

Here in Canada, I like Exclaim! magazine’s Where I Play section, which gives an inside peek into the home studios of musicians from across Canada—from Ninja Tune heavyweight Amon Tobin’s “mountain of digital and analog gear” to avant-garde musician Jesse Zubot’s “chaotic mess of wires, cords and blinking electronics.” It’s fun inspiration for any recording musician. -kf

I really don’t want to be Mac centric here at diyrecording.com, but I found a great resource for anyone considering buying a new Mac that I just had to share. Check out the Mac Buyer’s Guide at MacRumors.com. Because Apple is so secretive about new products, it’s hard to know when to expect an upgrade.

The fine folks at MacRumors.com have been tracking all of Apple’s releases for years now. You can come to your own conclusions on the right time to buy based on the time between releases. There are lots of “rumour” sites claiming to have news about upcoming Macs, but the Mac Buyers Guide here isn’t just speculation. After all, it really sucks to have spent $3,000 on a new setup only to have Apple announce a replacement the next week that’s got a faster processor, more RAM and a larger harddrive — and maybe even a cool new look — all for the same price. -mc