Some engineers even argue over which type of dither is best, claiming this algorithm is more airy sounding that that one, and so forth. But just because everyone believes this, does that make it true?

That quote comes from Ethan Winer’s great summary of his position on the matter – he’s squarely in the “dithering is usually not needed” camp.

I tend to agree with Ethan. Responsible mixing engineers don’t apply processing to a mix if they themselves don’t hear the effect of the processing. Simply put, if you can’t hear a difference, don’t make the change.

Unmitigated awesome: Daved Lee Roth’s vocal track from Runnin With The Devil, solo’d.

Converting Ikea bedside tables into studio racks: “the Rast bedside table makes a snug rack for music machines.”

Two unrelated sites feature famous songwriters discussing what went on behind the scenes as they wrote:

First, Joni Mitchell on the writing and recording of her most recent album:

When I recorded it, I was sick so a doctor prescribed some penicillin, which I had an allergic reaction to. I was delirious, stressed out, and we worked all night long. I was so delirious that I was playing way back on the beat… [I]n January 2007, I had demos of the Shine songs with me and played them to some friends at a party afterward. James Taylor told me that he had to play on this song. I wasn’t sure if anyone could because it was created in such a rare spirit. But James came in anyway and I asked him to play short figures like a saxophone. So you can hear fractions of James’ guitar playing here.

Jim Vallance’s site has some fantastic insight into the mind of a professional songwriter. Jim, who’s worked with Aerosmith, Ozzy, Bryan Adams, The Scorpions, and Thornley, meticulously lists every song he has ever written. The site is full of anecdotes and details about his creation process.

On our very first basement demo of “Summer of ’69″ we started the song with the 12-string riff, exactly like the “break down” section in the middle of the song … but on subsequent demo’s we replaced the 12-string with a chunky 6-string intro. In fact, we toiled over the musical arrangement for several weeks, maybe longer. We recorded the song three or four different ways, and we still weren’t convinced we had it right! Bryan even considered dropping the song from the Reckless album.

Now, 20 years later, when I hear “Summer of ’69″ on the radio, I honestly can’t remember what bothered us.

usually a “ring” isnt in one frequency…it’s a complex combination of frequencies. so you may need to eq out 2-3 different places. if you find a resonance, and eq it out, but still hear a ring, then repeat the process till all rings are gone. Then, give the snare a little boost in the mids to fatten it up, add a hint of distortion, send it to an aux with a plate verb…whatever it takes.

If you’ve never recorded outside your own home studio, you’ve likely found yourself wondering: How does the solo’d snare drum mic sound in a pro studio?

the mic picks up what you point it at. Your ears sit a good what.. 2-3 feet above the snare itself. When you hit a snare you hear a snare mic 3 feet below you and the rest of what you hear (a good portion) is how the room reflects the snare sound. When you have a mic an inch away from the snare itself..it’s picking up what your ears would hear an inch away from the same space. The snare sound you’re used to is compiled of the sounds from the top head, the bottom head, the walls, the ceilings…. and so on and so on

Tips for a fat, warm snare drum sound:

One thing that will help is a real consistent drummer. Grab some big sticks….. 2B Rock…. whatever. Tune the drum pretty loose with a little bit of muffling. If you’ve got a dynamic mic that is a little bottom heavy, try it out. I’ll use a ATM63HE, got the snap of a 57, with less honk and more balls. Light compression going in…. thats that….

And finally, some advice on reducing snare drum bleed on the kick mic …

The drummer is hitting the snare really hard and the kick really quiet. Tell him to stop. Moving the mic back will help because it puts the shell of the kick between the mic and the snare. You might also be using too much compression on the kick.

… and reducing other stuff bleed in the snare mic:

Is whoever that’s playing the snare hitting it properly? They should be attacking the shit outta the snare, make that hooker pop. On the flip side tell whoever it is to settle down on the cymbals, no need to mash them. It may be their thing and thats fine, just tell them to tone down their thing just a bit for the good of the recording. Playing properly will cure most of your micing problems.

Well, mixing isn’t the magic bullet it’s purported to be. A recording is about 90 percent as good as it’s ever going to be from the moment of the first rough playback.

In order to maintain a professional level of concentration on the task at hand, and to allow the band to make a record that represents them accurately, I try not to even think about whether or not I like the record. Having said that, sometimes everybody can tell that a record is going to be awesome anyway, and of the records I’ve worked on that ended up being really great, the majority of them showed their greatness in the first couple of hours of work.

Almost any competent engineer could have done what I have. I have been incredibly lucky to be working in a music scene that spawned a huge number of distinctive, talented bands, and I made myself available to them. There is no doubt in my mind that I get some credit I didn’t earn, for working on records that were going to be incredible no matter who was in the chair at the time.

If a record needs aggressive mastering to “save” it, then aggressive mastering isn’t enough to save it.

Albini’s minimalist (by professional standards) approach to recording is something every recording engineer should aspire to. Capture the right sound at the microphone, and mixing takes care of itself.

The name “Recorderman” comes from a user on the recording.org forums who is credited with popularizing the technique. (Though his approach has been used by engineers for decades. It’s largely a two-mic adaptation of Glyn Johns’ mic setup.)

Here’s Recorderman’s original post about his technique, along with some good followup discussion. And this Gearslutz thread on overhead drum mic placement has more discussion and pictures.

Recorderman in a nutshell: Use two drum sticks as a ruler to place your mics the same distance from the snare drum, and a cable or string to get them equidistant from the kick beater. Here’s the best video description I’ve seen, to better illustrate:

Recorderman’s approach accomplishes 3 things:

1. It places the snare and kick drums in the center of the stereo image.
2. It ensures any close mics on the kick and snare are in phase with the overheads.
3. It captures a balanced drum kit sound, close to what the drummer hears.

This microphone setup is ideal in a few situations:

When you have limited microphones for the drums: Especially when you only have 2 or 3 mics, Recorderman can still get you an open, balanced stereo image of the drum kit. If you’re recording a talented drummer, 2 or 3 microphones in this arrangement might be all you need.

Recording with low ceilings or in a tight space: Drums sound best in a big, open room. Traditional overhead miking approaches tend to capture a “smeared” drum sound when used in small rooms, largely because sound reflections off the ceiling interfere with the direct sound from the drums. Recorderman’s technique gets the microphones close enough to the drums that this isn’t an issue.

When the drums sound killer at the drummer’s position: With decent microphones, this setup usually captures a sound close what the drummer hears. If the drums sound ideal right where the drummer is sitting, you should consider a Recorderman setup even if you’re in a high-ceilinged space.

(Note: I use a modified version of Recorderman for The Morning Rain drum tracks. There are a few pictures, and sound samples here.)

Previously: Better drum mixes with a drum reference track, Parallel compression for fatter drum tones

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It sounds like you are not switching back and forth often enough. Don’t wait until you are committed to a balance to check mono. Make it an every-five-minute-auto button-push thing. After a while, you will get the hang of it.

Things to watch for when hiring an an online mixing company:

No names, no numbers, and no references. Any “studio” that does not say who actually pilots the sessions, does not give any way to contact them other than a general delivery e-mail – i.e. is totally anonymous – and does not offer up any references whatsoever is on the same level as any plumber, car mechanic, dentist or lawyer operating under the same conditions.

Would you hire any of those services anonymously and without references?

How do I get my mix to sound good in ALL systems?

but I almsot always mix loud on the main monitors or very loud on the bookshelves if the bigs are not useable. I PARTICULARLY ride solos or make big level changes while listening loud. And I don’t believe in making sounds small… I like every sound as full range as possible. The secret of a good mix, in my view, isn’t in the techniques and tricks… it’s in being able to tell what you’re listening to and then BALANCING everything.

There are three main things that make a ribbon mic sound good or bad
- The ribbon motor
- The housing
- The transformer
With a cheap ribbon, you can easily alter the latter two, but you are stuck with the ribbon motor.

The Shiny Box ribbon mics, in particular, are often recommended in the low end gold (inexpensive equipment that outperforms) discussion. Other low end gold that most folks seem to agree on: the SM57, the Audix i5 and D6, and the Studio Projects B1.

What’s the difference between gain and level:

On a mixer, the “Gain” – which can also be called “Input” or “Trim”, depending upon the mixer brand – sets the signal level at the input, or start, of the mixer channel strip, and the “Level” (or “channel fader”) sets the signal level coming out of the “end” of the channel strip.*

First, some drum recording suggestions from ProSound:

here are some of the few really useful things I can tell you:
Treat it like a drum kit. not like 6, or however many, individual sounds.
Use as few mics as you CAN.
Use only one type of mic pre on everything.
EQ when you have to, without hesitation. But don’t when you don’t have to.

Some tricks for recording hi hats quieter:

- Try different stick materials. Many find that maple sticks hit softer than hickory.
- Move the drum kit away from the walls.
- If the hats are mostly in the overheads, try a compressor with fast attack, rather than low-pass EQ, to reduce their level.

From Gearzlutz, thoughts on recording drums in a room with with low ceilings:

don’t put the mics over the drums… “overheads” are great when you have [minimum] twelve foot, ceilings… other than that I would suggest ‘underheads’… which are mics out in front of the kit roughly halfway between the ceiling and the floor in approximately an equilateral triangle to the snare… sometimes it works… other times the room sucks to bad to be used for any purpose what so ever… in which case, run a snake to another room and try that [or drop back and punt... whatever your instinct tells you to do is probably the right course of action].

And an older thread on capturing a bright, smooth cymbal sound:

I’ve had good results with slight compression (1:2 – 1:4) taking a 3-4db off. I filter out the low stuff and then add in some shelf (1-2 db) somewhere between 10-15k. The big thing, I think, is that the room has to have that sound.

IN the mix I took the shaker (I just realised we always CALLED it a shaker, but actually it’s the Linn Cabasa), through an Eventide Flanger to make it dance around in stereo a bit and get it out of the dead centre, where it was too demanding. It sounded better being a little diffused… less artificial.

Ever heard of the “Cardinal Points Pan Law?” It’s not a law, so much as a mixing guideline:

The poster is talking about “hard” panning everything, as if there were only L,C,R switches instead of pan pots. So basically, there is no middle ground, except for necessity, as he says. You only use the spaces in between when you want some thing to stick out, like a tom.

Here’s a thread on Gearslutz discussing the 1960′s bass sound

if we’re talking pet sounds/association type bass sounds…first off i’d recommend flat wound strings. a hollow body bass would get you very close to that da dunka dunk/clacky bass sound…playing very controlled and muted and towards the bridge of the guitar.

next…and this is a really good trick in general…use a guitar amp. preferably a 60′s style tube amp. i’ve been able to get awesome bass sounds using all of the above through a fender deluxe reverb. my thought process is…generally there weren’t that many massive peavy/ampeg bass rigs laying around…especially towards the early part of the 60′s. most bassists would have used slightly more robust guitar amps. lastly…i used a ribbon mic about a foot and a half away from the speaker grill.

a VERY VERY old demo of the Matchbox Twenty song “3 AM”. This was recorded around ’93-94 and is from the Tabitha Secret days, which was the name of the band Rob, Paul and Brian were in before they started Matchbox Twenty.

Some thoughts on mixing for radio, a situation I hope we all find ourselves in someday:

Also, remember that since the track will be so compressed, it’ll bring out your background stuff (reverb, FX, you name it). So you may mix a little dry for that situation.

The more systems on which you listen to a mix, the more confident you’ll be that the mix translates well. So just how many ways are there to check a mix for compatibility?

I SO walk to out of the room to check what mixes sound like. When you realize that most listening is done from everywhere but the sweet spot, it only makes sense to me.

Also, there is a whole LOT of room between center and hard pan. Many a hit has had vocals panned just to one side of center or another – perhaps 30% or so – in order to balance a call and response with a guitar or horn section or backgroud vocals that were about the same distance to the other side. Or how about vocal duets? Do you want them both up the middle? Perhaps, but often not.

How to care for a tube mic:

When not in use, keep it in a tightly sealed case with silica inside the case, and keep the case itself in a dry consistantly cool room (if you are comfortable in the room, so will the mic be).

Often, the bass and vocals fight for the same space in a mix. This thread on Homerecording.com has thoughts on finding a balance between bass and vocals:

I’m very surprised that no one else seems to be a proponent of ducking the bass… It’s almost magical to my ears.. I’ve stuggled with the problem deonoted by the thread’s tittle for years and ducking the bass is the most efficient and least harmful (to the original tone delivery that I have came across..