Step by Step Recording Thread.

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I had mentioned doing this a month or two ago, and I finally got started on it over the weekend. It's still got a ways to go, but I'm where some might consider finished if they weren't as anal as I am. :embarrassed:

This is a song that I wrote 4 or 5 years ago. I submitted it (and lost heartily) in the first HC Songwriting contest. That doesn't keep me from liking the song, and I thought I could probably make it sound better than it did back then with the gear I have now, and the fact that I can do real drum tracks instead of a drum machine.

The jury is still out on whether I can make it sound better than it did. I don't think I'm there yet, but I think I just need to do some major mixing and mastering corrections and I'll be close.

So, I'll go through the process in this thread.

My recording rig is the following:

Audio Interface - Presonus Firepod
Software - Cubase SX
Computer - 6 year old Compac Presario with 2.6 ghz P4 processor and 1.5 gb RAM.
 
Getting Started:

Open Cubase and create a new project folder:
1CubaseOpen.jpg


2NewProject.jpg


3AudioRecording.jpg


4CreateFolder.jpg


5TitleFolder.jpg


Once that is done, here is what you'll see.

6WelcometoCubase.jpg


Now you have to enable your inputs:

7VSTInputs.jpg


Since I've actually got 2 Firepods hooked up, I have 20 inputs (16 analog, 4 digital). I always just engage all of them so I can plug into any available input while I'm recording.

8InputsEngaged.jpg


Hitting F3 in Cubase pulls up the mixer:
9Mixer.jpg


I always turn the display off, and turn the master display on. That is accomplished with the two buttons un the upper left of the slider section of the mixer.

That leaves you with this:

10Mixer2.jpg


Cubase default to the first track being stereo, at least for me, so I hit the stereo button to make it mono instead.

11StereoButton.jpg


Next, I set up my click. There's a drop down arrow in the transport panel that you can right click and 'show all' to see your click options. Just type the tempo you want into the box (in beats per minute) and hit the 'click' button. It's a very annoying click, but it's easy to hear when you're playing drums through headphones.

12Click.jpg


Now, this may seem like a lot of work with no recording having been done, but in reality, it probably takes me less than a minute to get to this point from the time I open Cubase.

Now we're ready to lay down a scratch track.
 
Cool - looking forward to reading :)

I've been thinking about doing the same thing as well for some time now.
Would be fun doing, and perhaps quite useful, considering I probably have a somewhat different approach to recording. :wink:
 
The scratch track is just a way to get the arrangement of the song on tape so I can play drums to it and know where I am in the song.

I just used an acoustic guitar and a single mic to record my scratch track. Remember, you won't hear the scratch track in the final recording, so don't worry about playing it perfectly. Just make sure you have the arrangement the way you want it.

I name track 1 "Scratch", select the right input, and arm the track by hitting the record button on the track.

13NameTrack.jpg


Here's the mic and headphones I used for the scratch track. That's a CAD Trion 8000 large diaphram tube condensor mic and a cheap set ($30 tops) of Sennheiser headphones (they have really good isolation qualities, so the click doesn't leak into the mic too bad, and when you're playing drums, you hear a lot more of the click than you do of the noise the drums make, so you don't have to crank the click as loud in the headphones).

ScratchMic.jpg


Now hit the record button on the transport panel and record your scratch track.

14Record.jpg


15ScratchTrackRecorded.jpg



Here is the scratch track I recorded.

Scratch Track
 
Excellent. This is really good stuff. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the process. Thanks for doin this, mang.
 
I hope you guys get some use out of this. I know I do a few things that will make a lot of studio engineers cringe, but I get good results, I think. This is by no means the only way to record a song, it's just what works for me.

Now, on to the drums (where Dexter is gonna tell me I'm doing everything wrong, and he will be right.)

Here is the mic set that I use:
DrumMics.jpg


Left to Right: Audix D6 (kick), SM57 (snare), 3 fake SM57s (toms), 2 Audio Technica 2020s (overheads).

Here's the drum set all mic'd up.
Drums.jpg


I run the mic cables into a snake, since my drums are about 20 feet away from my audio interface.
Snake.jpg


And the other end of the snake goes to the Firepod.
Firepods.jpg


From top to bottom in the rack: Firepod, Firepod, Behringer Headphone amp, Power conditioner.

Now, I name the tracks on the mixer Kick, Snare, Tom1, Tom2, Tom3, OHHH, OHRide and assign them the appropriate mic input. Then record them just like I did the scratch track, having the click going through the headphones.

16DrumsRecorded.jpg


Make sure you leave yourself some time at the beginning of the track. I usually don't actually count off the song until I've let about 20 seconds go by. That give me time to run from the computer to the drums, or to grab my guitar or bass.

The next step is where some people will disagree.

I like to normalize all of my tracks to about -2 db. There's really no need to do it, but having everything normalized means that you don't have to mess with compression threshholds and such for each track. Say I've got two guitar tracks and one of them peaks at -10 db and the other peaks at -15 db, if I set a compression threshhold of -15 db, the track that peaks at -15 won't get any compression, while the track that peaks at -10 will get the upper 5 db compressed. A lot of people don't like to normalize anything, and that's fine...this is my thread. They can do their own. :tongue:
 
At this point, I like to get a half way decent drum mix. This (for me) includes adding compression, EQ, and reverb. I can't tune drums worth a crap, so I end up using a lot more compression, EQ, and reverb than Dexter does, and as a result, his drums always end up sounding a lot more natural than mine, but I work with what I've got.

Here's my kick drum compression (I also fiddle with the EQ, but apparently don't have a screen capture of that).
18KickCompression.jpg


Here's the compression on the snare (I use a lot of compression):
19SnareCompression.jpg


And this shows the reverb and EQ settings on the snare. I can almost hear Dexter choking on his own vomit.
22SnareEQandReverb.jpg


I also put some lighter compression on the toms and overheads and added a touch of room reverb to the overheads.

I'm pretty sure I've since changed most of these settings, but this is where I started with my drum mix.
 
At this point I can turn off the click track. Depending on how well you know the song, you can either mute the scratch track or leave it on while you do the bass track.

Here's the bass rig I used.

BassRig.jpg


I like to run a DI and mic the cabinet. The amp is an Ashdown MAG300. The cab is an Avatar B212 Neo. I used an AKG C-4000B to mic the cab.

Set your inputs and record your bass track.

23BassRecorded.jpg


Guess what I do next?

I apply some compression to the bass tracks.

24BassCompression.jpg


And here are the audo tracks:

Bass Mic
Bass DI
 
Next, move on to guitars.

I used the same rig for all the guitar parts, and honestly, I'm not completely thrilled with the tone I got, so I might redo them tonight. They just sound a little harsh and gainy to me, but I am using a rig that's kind of unfamiliar to me.

Guitar - US Masters LeGrand Floyd
Amp - '72 Fender Bassman
Cab - Peavey with Celestion G12K85s
Mic - SM57
OD Pedal - Barber Direct Drive SS
Wah - Dunlop Original Crybaby

GuitarRig.jpg


I then put a hint of compression on the guitar tracks, even though the signal is pretty compressed already due to the OD pedal. Add a touch of reverb to taste.

And here are the 3 guitar tracks.

Rhythm Guitar1
Rhythm Guitar2
Lead Guitar

I have guitar 1 panned almost completely left, guitar 2 panned almost completely right, and the lead dead center.
 
Next, I did vocals.

Here's the vocal mic and 'popper stopper'.

VocalMic.jpg


After the vocals are recorded, I use a lot of compression. Vocals are very dynamic and it's very easy to have parts that are buried and other parts that are way too loud. A healthy dose of compression levels the playing field. I don't have screen captures of my compression or reverb settings yet, but I'll be sure to get some by the time this song is completely finished.

Here are the vocal tracks.

Lead Vocals

Backing Vocals 1

Backing Vocals 2
 
That's all of the audio tracks. Hopefully they'll synch up and you guys can load them into your recording software and do your own mixes.

I've done a quick mix/master of it. I have a long way to go on the mix though, and the mastering is WAY too hot and compressed. This will at least give you somewhat of an idea of what I'm shooting for though.

Remember, this was a very quick mix and mastering job, and I'm nowhere near ready to call it finished. I usually do at least 3 or 4 mixes before I get something I'm happy with. I may end up redoing all the guitar tracks, since I'm not too happy with the tone. All the other tracks are probably 'good enough' though.

So, here's the crappy test mix/master.

Can't Help Myself Mix 1

I really think I can get it sounding a whole lot better than that, I just haven't had time to do it yet.
 
Like I said, as I go through and fix stuff, I'll take more screen caps and try to fill in any gaps or answer any questions.

I started off with really good intentions of taking screen caps of every little detail, but once I got started in the recording process, I kept forgetting to document more and more of the details.

I imagine a lot of this should carry over to whatever recording software you use, though the functions may be in a different location or under a different name.
 
OK, so, here's a dumb question but what if one doesnt have a drumset? Is there free drum software out there?
 
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