Recording Tips

Last update 10/98 - Jens Moller - http://www.colomar.com/Shavano/recording_tips.html

If this will be a recording of a live performance

Use as much of the signal as possible from your PA system. Most PA's have a low level signal out that can be used for recording purposes. Use that to get first generation audio signals instead of putting a microphone(s) out in the audience.
For signals not available from the PA, put a microphone no more than 12 inches (30 cm) away from the front of any speaker system an artist is performing thru.
For Drums, use 3 or 4 microphones - one on the Snare, one on the Bass Drum and 1 or more suspended immediately above the drummer.
For acoustic instruments - Guitar, Violin, Saxophone, Trumpet, etc. Find a microphone or transducer that attaches to your instrument and run this thru the PA system. You may have feedback problems on some instruments, if this is the case, attempt to close up any openings on instruments, such as a guitar, mandolin, violin, viola, cello, upright bass with cardboard or foam rubber. Also consider buying or renting a feedback eliminator (Sabine FBX or similar). If you can't run this thru the PA, have a separate feed from each acoustic instrument to a mixer and work down from there.
Use a compressor (2:1 is probably as high as you want to go) on the vocals. This will keep them more even and out front in the mix.
Get as close as possible to the performers to reduce audience noise.
Test your mix on a variety of sound systems. See below.

If this will be a home studio recording

Use Reverb sparingly.
Master your mixes to the best of your ability. This means that you should work for consistent volume levels between songs, and all instruments should be able to be distinguished when listening to the recordings.
Don't depend on what it sounds like from your headphones - these lie to you. Our experience tells us that mixes sound better on headphones than on most other speaker systems - make certain that you test on a variety of speaker systems. We promise you, you will be sorry if you only listen to your mix and masters using just headphones.
Record in a quiet area. We have some recordings where you can hear chirping birds (parakeets, We would guess) in some passages of songs - this is impossible to mix out, as are barking dogs and meowing cats. We occasionally hear a ringing phone in mixes - unplug your phones and let the answering machine get the calls.
Try not to use any more equalization than necessary. Most pros try to record with the EQ settings as flat as possible. Some boost around 3 to 5 kHz to force the vocals to stand out a bit better. Fixing your mix with lots of equalization tends to create a very muddy mix - this is a bad thing.
Test your mix on a variety of sound systems. This includes high end audio, car tape decks and the lowest quality junker cassette deck/speakers that you can find. Compare your mix to professionally done tapes in the same situations and adjust your mix accordingly.

Questions? Comments? .