Have you ever struggled with unsatisfying tracks? Are your original tracks thin, weak, dull, empty sounding, or distant? If you think you can fix it in the mix, you are wasting your time. You need to attack the problem where the problem really is...in the tracking room.
Many pros will tell you that great mixes start with great tracks. All you have to do is learn how to make your tracks sound better right from the start and the rest will practically take care of itself. Spend a little time experimenting with microphone choice, placement, and technique and it will be well worth it in the end. You need to learn a technique that works best in your room. Here's how...
First you must recognize that almost all mics sound different from one another. Some happen to compliment certain things while others tend to worsen them. In other words, a mic that sounds good on you may not sound good on me. Just like a shoe that fits you may not fit me. It's a game of matching up the right mic to the right voice or instrument. That's why engineers have a large collection of mics. Every time you record, you need to find a mic that sounds the sweetest depending on what or whom you are recording. Eventually you may find a few favorites that work more often than others. But in the beginning you need a variety of choices for discovery.
Next you need to figure out how to make your chosen mic really shine. Explain to your musician or singer that in order to get the best sounding tracks, you will need them to cooperate for a test session.
Your test session should consist of recording the same short instrument or vocal part several times over and over, each time making changes in between. You can dramatically change the way a mic sounds by moving it to different places within the room. You can also change the sound by moving the mic to different places around the subject. Closer mic positions always sound different than further positions, and so on. Keep doing your recorded tracks over and over with different mic positioning and placement. Move the mic and the musician a few feet to a new spot for each take. Move them to a new room if needed. Move the mic closer to or farther away from the musician. Try hanging long drapes or blankets around the room to minimize reflections, or build some "gobo's" (go-between panels. DIY articles
here and
here.) Sometimes those reflections sound good and sometimes they cause cancellation making your track sound thinner. No one can ever tell you which is best because every room sounds different. You need to find it for yourself.
Sooner or later you will discover that the room has some hot spots here and there. These are places where the sound seems to come alive a little better and give your tracks improved quality. Those are the spots you need to focus on for making even more improvements. Work one spot at a time and log your locations and methods if you must. Adjust your mic a few more times until you discover how to make the most of each spot. Try other mics at those same spots and compare them. Try moving large pieces of furniture away from those spots to see if it helps. Eventually you will land on a method that works best for that singer or instrument. (If you just cannot get a track to sound good no matter what, then perhaps you need some better mics or a better sounding instrument. Something must be way off to cause such an unusual disappointment.)
The idea is to get it to sound very much like the way you will want it to end up, (minus effects of course.) In other words, make it sound like it is almost finished, right from the start.
Next compare your tracks with commercial CD's that you like. Keep making changes or room tweaks until you are starting to get the sound you want and are happy with it. Then, and only then, will you have a "good" track to work with. Do this for every recorded instrument including vocals. The end results will prove the extra effort was worth doing.
Better sounding tracks will get you closer to that pro sound. Bigger studios already know from experience which spots and methods are working best for them. Perhaps because they went through the same crap in the beginning.
You can actually find ways to track almost anything where it will sound gorgeous without any EQ on playback. That's right; always listen to your tracks flat and dry. (Flat means no EQ and Dry means no effects.) When you get a few takes that sound good with
zero EQ, you are making good progress.
It is a simple fact. Great sounding tracks are way easier to mix than crappy ones. The less EQ you have to add, the better the end result will be. And it is nicer to be able to add EQ because you want to, not because you need to.
Good luck and enjoy.
