Archive for 'August, 2010'

I mention Pro Tools a lot on The Recording Revolution, mostly because it’s the DAW I use every day. But I’m not the only one using it…

So that is why I post every now and then with an “Optimize Pro Tools” series featuring helpful, easy tweaks to your Pro Tools rig that will enhance your music making experience. I thought it might be helpful to pool those all together into one simple post for your learning pleasure. Enjoy!

Custom Labeled I/O

Custom Plugin Presets

Free Massey Plugins

Set Default Plugins

Proper Session Backup

Shrink Your Session Size

Setting Your Clock Source

Marker Colors

Tweak Your Import Settings

Use An External Hard Drive

The Playback Engine

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For the ultimate in Pro Tools tutorials, download your copy of REthink Pro Tools and start becoming a Pro Tools power user by this weekend! www.REthinkProTools.com

Pitch correction: love it or hate it, it can be a super useful tool. But honestly if it weren’t for Melodyne I don’t think I would use pitch correction half as much as I do. Melodyne is an elegant pitch (and time) manipulation solution for the modern studio. Today I want to show you a brief tutorial covering the mechanics of tweaking and correcting a vocal performance. If you’re new to Melodyne this should help. Enjoy!

One of my favorite bands of the last few years has been Thrice. This southern California rock quartet has come a long way from the hard and heavy scene to, more recently, a fusion of melodic blues rock with a raw epic twist. I’ve written briefly about them before regarding their recent move to self recording at home rather than doing the big studio thing.

Last year they released their most recent self-produced album Beggars. For the last two albums they have setup a studio in their guitarists house, brought in their gear, and simply jammed, written, and recorded new music. In this video interview, Riley (drummer) talks about the benefits of recording at home and how it has helped them make better music.

Some things to take away from this:

• You’ll notice he mentions them still having a deadline. Despite the incredible amount of flexibility when recording at home, Thrice new they needed deadlines to actually come out with an album. Having some boundaries in place definitely create more productivity without stealing your creativity.
• Despite their years of major label studio experience, they took the time to experiment with mic placement. There is no right or wrong way to mic something. The goal is to free yourself of “rules” and “methods” so you can actually listen with your ears, try something out, and adjust as necessary. Sound is so complex, that each mic choice, placement, room, instrument, player, and song combination is totally unique.
• They were constantly writing and demoing respectively. Despite them having that one guy in the band who is the main recording guy, Riley mentioned them each demoing songs at home, bringing the tracks in to the studio and writing/arranging from there. That being said, I believe every musician should have a basic home studio, even if you aren’t the main engineer in your band. It helps you write and be creative.

Having a home studio is an absolute must for every musician (IMO) for many reasons, the biggest one being that your DAW can be the ultimate songwriting tool. Not all musicians approach the songwriting process in the same way, so how to best use your DAW in the creation phase is very open ended. Today I want hit 3 quick tips for taking max advantage of your computer recording setup specifically in the realm of songwriting. Let’s take a look!

1. Keep Your Sessions (or Templates) Simple

Whether you like to write music with Pro Tools always open, or you wait till you have a basic idea down before you fire up your DAW of choice, you want to have a simple session with minimal tracks to distract you. The goal in the songwriting phase is creation and idea capturing, right? So don’t let anything get in the way of that or slow you down. Maybe have a track setup for drum loops, a guitar track or two, maybe a stereo keyboard track, and a track for vocals. Much more than that and you’re moving into demo writing territory.

Which brings up an interesting thought: at what point are you no longer songwriting, but rather are demoing? The line between the two is super fuzzy these days because you can techinically do both at the same time. And sometimes that’s helpful. I recommend you keep things super simple in the early stages while you are still figuring out the main hook, melody, or lyric for a given piece. Write it, lay it down quickly, save it, and move on!

2. Close Your Web Browser

This may seem random, but these days because many of us write music at our computers it becomes easy to fire open Firefox and start surfing the web, responding to email, or updating our Facebook status all while we’re supposedly creating a new hit song! The web (or any other program on your computer) is only really going to slow you down, distract you from being creative, and suck out any energy and focus you may have. Creating new music is already a challenging and engaging process, so why divide your mind and your time with anything else for those precious few moments?

3. Use Your DAW’s Loop Playback Mode

One simple feature of most DAWs is the ability to loop a certain portion of a song (say 8 bars of the hook) and play it back over and over completely hands off. This allows you to just jam out with your original hook or beat and just try things out. It might seem obvious to some, but this one basic step puts you in the mindset of someone jamming with a friend or band mate; you keep the groove super simple for the express purpose of creation, soloing, and creativity.

When you just write by yourself with out a DAW or second musician you really can’t try out things layered over a previous idea. This one step can open up a ton of ideas that might even be better than the part you were looping. That original part may simply become a bridge to a new and more interesting hook!

Remember, Your DAW Is A Tool

If you find yourself fiddling with menus and settings too much while songwriting, something is wrong. Take the time once and for all to setup a songwriting template with custom settings that you can save so the next time you want to sit down and write, you can simply fire up the software and go! Your DAW should be a tool to help you make more music, not an obstacle.

If you are a Pro Tools user than you probably were aware of all the rumors that swirled around leading up to Tuesday’s launch of Avid’s latest line of HD interfaces. These are truly the first new interfaces for Pro Tools coming under the re-branded name Avid and that’s a big deal. And despite the fact that most home studio Pro Tools users are not using Pro Tools HD, I thought this was an important update to discuss none-the-less.

Phase One For Avid Pro Tools

The new line of HD interfaces and even Pro Tools HD 8.1 are really just phase one for Avid’s “takeover” of the Pro Tools name. All of us LE and M-Powered users shouldn’t get fussy that we only see HD updates because this is likely only the first phase of a complete overhaul of the Pro Tools hardware line. It would make sense for Avid to release updates to their flagship product first, and that’s exactly what they’ve done.

These new interfaces seem much more practical for the smaller project studio as well, which bodes well for the end user. I believe it means Avid understands that portability, feature set, and audio quality all need to improve in the new line if Pro Tools hardware, and they seem right on track. So even though us non-HD users don’t have anything to gain from these new boxes we can be encouraged that Avid is moving in the right direction.

What To Expect Next

The big question is what can we expect to roll out in the next phase of Avid’s new line of products. No one really knows, but here are a couple of guesses I have:

• New LE interfaces out soon. It’s been about 3 years since the 003 was released, and about 5 years since the Mbox 2 was launched, and despite some variations of these products, we haven’t had any new LE boxes since then. I expect a major overhaul of everything as Avid has an opportunity to start from the ground up like it did with the HD line.
• Potential re-branding of Pro Tools LE and M-Powered as simply Pro Tools Native. Now this might be a stretch anytime soon, but the idea is that they would make one native version of Pro Tools and package it with the Avid hardware (like LE currently does) and then allow M-Audio users to purchase it separately alongside their M-Audio interface of choice.
• Major Pro Tools 8 software updates. I believe there will be some serious updates coming for Pro Tools as version 8 hits the two year mark this fall. Not sure if they would jump straight to version 9, but at least better performance and more features.

At the end of the day the only thing that is for sure is change. This has finally been the year that Avid got rid of the Digidesign brand, merged the websites, fired and hired new people, and now are releasing new Pro Tools products. Change is happening and I think it is for the better. Stay tuned to Avid.com for more updates, but be encouraged. Pro Tools is the world’s most popular pro recording platform and it is only improving!

Not every idea in the studio is a good one. During the recording process it is a good idea to be open to creativity and innovation. You don’t simply have to capture the parts you’ve written, you can also explore new arrangement ideas, instrumentation, and sounds. But the flip side of all this brainstorming is the raw truth that sometimes you have to commit to saying “No” to an idea.

Learning A New Word…”No”

Why is saying “No” important? Well to put it simply, not every idea is going to work. I think we can all understand that concept. But in an age of limitless hard drive space and unending takes, we tend to record everything we can think of and then “decide later” what to do with all that audio. This is a bad idea for 2 main reasons:

1. If you choose creativity over commitment (as if you had to pick between the two) then you create an environment of indecisiveness in the studio. In the end, this is bound to leave you with a confusing, generic, unfocused recording that has no real character or identity to it. Just a lot of ambiguity.

2. If you don’t sift through the good and bad ideas when you are recording them, it makes it that much harder to decide later on in the editing/mixing process. You’re actually making more work for yourself later, which in turn leads to overly long mixing sessions where your focus and time are divided.

You need to learn the art of telling yourself “No” to some ideas. Don’t get lost in what might have been, just try something in the studio and analyze to see if it was a good idea or not. Say “Yes” or “No” and move on. Where this becomes tricky is when there are other band members involved.

Say “No” Together

When you get a bunch of people together in the studio, it becomes apparent very quickly that there are many different opinions relating to how a song should be recorded, which parts should be included, and how the arrangement should come together. Even the most unified bands will disagree at times. The key is to allow everyone to voice their ideas, try them out to see what works, and then be humble enough to be objective to what is really the best decision for a song. The more you learn to say “No” to an idea together as a band, ironically the more unified you will become.

Just this past week I dealt with this exact situation. I was recording a band and we were nearing the end of a long week of tracking. The lead singer had an idea for one song in particular that he wanted to try. His vision was for a bunch of “gang vocals” singing the chorus melody underneath the main vocal on the final hook of the song. In his mind it would be kind of like a male choir filling out the arrangement at the end of the song. So we setup a mic in omni mode, let a bunch of guys sing the part, doubled it all up so it sounded huge, and then stepped back to listen.

When I played stop, everyone was silent. No one seemed to be jumping up and down in enthusiasm. One band member started to say that he didn’t think it worked. The lead singer (whose idea it was in the first place) didn’t quite disagree, but he wasn’t sold on canning it all together. We all weighed in, listened to it some more, and then finally I said, “We need to decide, ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ people?” They all stepped up and said, “No”. It didn’t work. Let’s just forget about it. Whew! Problem avoided. What was a great idea, just didn’t quite work in reality for the song. No big deal. What’s great though is that it won’t waste any more of our time as we move on to editing and mixing this album.

Don’t Fear Commitment

The big lesson today is, just don’t be afraid to commit to something in the studio. People used to have to do it all the time and they made incredible albums. These days we struggle with the idea of deleting (or recording over) something. Just let go, use your ears, pick a sound (or riff, or arrangement) and commit to it. You’ll be glad you did.

If you caught one of my posts last week then you know I was out of town doing a remote recording project. When taking your studio far away and trying to think through the simplest setup you can bring, it’s good to have great sounding, compact, and reliable gear. One piece of gear that I could NOT have done this project without is the ADA8000 from Behringer, an 8 channel preamp and AD/DA converter that fits in a 1U rack space.

The Behringer ADA8000

I’ve written before about how easy it is to expand your audio interfaces inputs with an ADAT connection and how many choices you’ll find on the market for products that do just that. But I have to say from the countless recording projects I’ve used it on, the Behringer ADA8000 is the hidden gem of affordable home studio gear.

For a mere $199 brand new, you get 8 pristine mic pres with phantom power (or 8 line inputs), 8 channels of A/D conversion (via the optical cable), and 8 channels of D/A conversion to balanced connections on the back. So you’re basically getting a great mic pre and converter for just $20 a channel! It’s just insane to think that other “budget” 8 channel mic pres run for at least twice what Behringer is charging for the same thing.

Home Studio Needs At Home Studio Prices

One of the simplest (but best) things about the ADA8000 is having the pres and line ins on the front panel. This makes recording in the home/portable studio much easier. This past week I was recording 8 channels of drums, then switching to keyboard line ins, then miking vocals and saxophone in another room. All the while I was constanly plugging and unplugging cables and not once did I have to reach around to the back of the rack and somehow reach the correct inputs. Simple, but super helpful for home studio folks who can’t leave mics plugged int all the time.

Combine the great sound and usability of this unit with a typical Behringer price and you have a real practical piece of equipment for real home studio musicians and producers. At $199, expanding your inputs for another 8 channels is now affordable for everyone. I like gear that works for real people with real budgets, and the ADA8000 delivers.

These Can Be Your Main Pres

I want to make one thing clear. Some people reading this might get the impression that the ADA8000 will suffice for some “extra channels”. That it might sound decent enough and be priced well enough to simply expand your inputs…but you’d never use them as your go-to pres. To that I would say, think outside the box of your preconceived notions and brand snobbery. The pres in this unit are quiet, clear, punchy, and perfectly suited for any kind of source. I personally have used them on projects for drums, guitars, and lead vocals with stellar results. These pres are just as good as any other pre or channel strip you would laugh at comparing them to.

So if you’re in the market for one of the many 8 channel ADAT ready mic pres, don’t forget about this hidden gem. Save yourself some major cash and be glad you’re getting just as good of as sound for less with the Behringer ADA8000. I know I am.

All week I have been in Virginia (800 miles from sunny Florida) recording the latest album from the band at Aletheia Church in Harrisonburg. We’ve had one week (5 and a half days really) to track 11 songs of full band rock n’ roll and make it sound awesome. I brought up my portable recording rig and so far things have been going really well. I figured you guys reading the Recording Revolution would appreciate some pics of our multiple setups (at the church and a band member’s house) and see what we’re using to record everything.

The Studio Is Where You Are

Our “studio” this week has consisted of tracking drums in the church (which is really a big warehouse) and the rest of the tracks in a house basement. Despite challenges of outside noise, electrical hum at times, and radio interference, we’ve gotten huge sounding tracks in the most ordinary of places. The studio is truly no longer a place as much as it is a frame of mind. These guys want to record great music and we are making it happen.

My portable rig is simple, but effective. I’m running Pro Tools 8 with my trusty 002 rack interface as the core of my studio. Then I simply run a the Behringer ADA8000 optical lightpipe (ADAT) into the 002 for 8 more pristine mic pres. I have a Samson C-Control to run talkback into the tracking room and also use a little $40 tube/solid state hybrid preamp on a lot of tracks. Everything is running into my 6 year old Powerbook and it’s all stable as could be. This setup gives me up to 13 mic pres and plenty of I/O to run multiple headphone mixes.

The handful of pics below will give you an idea of the “ordinary” studio we are using and hopefully will encourage you to just make music wherever you are. Get the basic gear you need, learn it well, and then get to work! Stay tuned for audio updates on these tracks and more from my portable rig!

The following is a guest post from my good friend and fellow recording blogger Joe Gilder from HomeStudioCorner.com. Check out his site for some awesome tips and tutorials on making music in the home studio!
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Do you have that nagging recording project that just seems like it will never be finished? Do you work and work and work and work, and there seems to be no end in site? Perhaps you’re getting too caught up in the details and missing out on the big picture.

The 80/20 Rule

You’ve probably heard of the 80/20 rule, right? It’s this magical little formula that tells us that 80% of our results come from 20% of our efforts. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but I’ve seen it apply to almost everything. When I was in sales, I found that the majority of my sales came from a small percentage of my customers. After running my own business for a year, I find that less than 20% of the tasks I do are actually income-generating tasks.

So how does the 80/20 rule play out for you in the studio? Do you spend 1 day recording, 3 days editing, 7 days mixing, and 2 days mastering? I bet if you spent a few more days on the first step, recording, you’d find that your tracks sound better and need less editing, are easier to mix and master.

You may find if you spend 4 days on recording, you’ll only need to spend 1 day on editing and 1 day on mixing and mastering. That’s 6 days, rather than 13.

You’ve worked on those projects before, right? The tracks were recorded so well that the song seemed to mix itself. You didn’t have to anything drastic with EQ, compression, or automation. You just made a few tweaks here and there, and let the tracks just “be.”

Check Your Focus

There are obviously no rules when it comes to recording. Every recording engineer has a different process and workflow. We also have our weak points, those areas where we waste a lot of time…those areas that become a source of frustration.

Here are a few tips to help you get over the hump and start knocking projects out much faster:

1. Analyze – What tasks take up the most of your time? Do you spend an hour EQ-ing the shaker track when it’s going to be buried in the mix anyway?

2. Eliminate – Once you identify those silly tasks that take up so much of your time, get rid of them. That’s not to say you shouldn’t EQ your shaker tracks, but limit how much time you spend. Give yourself 2 minutes and be done with it.

3. Finish – There’s something about actually COMPLETING a project that does wonders for my productivity. I just finished my album, for example, and will be releasing it later this month. It feels GREAT.

Make it a habit to periodically analyze your production techniques and habits. Part of becoming a better engineer is learning how to get great results FAST.

Last week I wrote about how when mixing you want to keep things simple. But even when trying to create some helpful boundaries in your mixing, understanding and properly using your effects is crucial. This is especially true with what I think are the two most important effects in your arsenal, EQ and compression. I’ve done a video already on the basics of compression, so check that out if you haven’t already.

But today’s video is focused on EQ. What are the functions of a typical EQ plugin, terminology etc? And more importantly how can one use EQ as a tool to subtly and creatively sculpt that perfect sound? Let’s dive in and find out!