Music Production Services

Getting Started

One of the best pieces of advice I've heard for creating music is, Get It Right At The Source. I'm fortunate to have a lot of handy tools in my toolbox, the job is always easier with a better foundational recording. I've put together this guide so that when we work together we have the best chance of starting out with that strong foundation, and so we can get to the meat of bringing your artistic vision to life as fast as possible. If you're already a seasoned composer, some of this will be old news, but please read through it at least once anyway, as some of these suggestions are more geared toward my personal workflow than general recording tips. 

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Recording Your Tracks:

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There's plenty of info online on how to make quality recordings, so I'll just give you a brief rundown of the important points that will help us breeze through the editing process to the mix and you can look up the finer details. You won't be recording anything without some sort of audio interface, microphones and recording software/DAW. As far as software goes, whether you use a free one or not doesn't matter, as I prefer you only send me your exported audio files and not share your project sessions. If you're new, pick one that's within your means to install and work with. As long as you know how to get audio through your interface into the software, make sure it's at a nice starting level, (somewhere between -18db and -6db at the max) and export the audio as a 24 bit .wav file, you can leave the rest to me, and get more familiar with your software when you feel like it. The rest comes with just being a musician, making sure all the tracks are as close to playing in time as possible and everything is lined up. When you export your tracks, it is a big help if each export has the same starting point. A good way is to always have the beginning of the timeline in your record software as the start point of your export, and the end be a few seconds after the last audio track and or region in the timeline ends. This way, whether one of your instruments or vocal tracks plays for the entire song or just a few seconds 45 seconds in, the tracks will be the same length and when I import them into my software, I'll have a very good starting foundation. I'll more quickly understand where everything's proper place is, and if you've put the work in, there will likely be few timing issues to correct if any. PLEASE NOTE, that during the editing process you may be asked to re-record something if there are some performance or audio issues that cannot be corrected through editing. For audio interfaces and mics, don't break the bank. In both cases in solo recordings, $200 or so will get you most of the way there, and in the case of interfaces, you'll only really need to go higher if you need a lot of inputs for a lot of instruments being recorded at once. Again there is plenty of info online about the best gear for your budget and how best to use it, such as optimal mic placement based on instrument or best cabling for DI (Direct In) connections to your interface, so do your research if you don't already know or feel free to contact me if you have questions. 

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Your Room;

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Obviously optimizing your recording space for recording music will yield better results 9 times out of 10. If you're going for a raw garage band sound, then by all means record in your garage. Of course for most of us, the room we have is all we have. Don't worry too much about it. There's lots of things you can do to improve the acoustics of your room, reducing hard surfaces, filling spaces with furniture and soft materials, hanging blankets and acoustic paneling to name just a few. Again loads of How To's online. Doing some of this will take you a long way. Naturally some unwanted sounds are likely to get through, but I have tools to handle that in the editing process, provided they're not too extreme. 

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Vocals:

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Coming from the voiceover world, my advice would be to try to lay down your vocals in a relatively dead spot, but for music a little audible natural reverb isn't the end of the world. There's loads of tutorials on how to create a DIY vocal booth. Whether you build a vocal booth or not, recording your vocals separately from the other instruments will remove the bleed factor and make the edit/mix process faster. Whether you're a solo artist or in a band, my advice would be to track your instrumental parts first, and then listen to the track in your recording software through CLOSED back headphones as you record your vocals. This will help you stay on time with the song and minimize bleed from listening to the track. Ideally the interface you use to record your vocals has a headphone jack fro live monitoring My advice would be to get a headphone splitter to split your headphones to your interface and the output of your computer. When you're ready to record your vocals, start recording the vocal track at the beginning of your timeline with some of the instruments you recorded unmuted (as much as you need to sing in time with). Provided your headphone splitter works and yo've set things up correctly, this should work. In addition creating your own doubles goes a long way as well, but we'll cover that a little later. 

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Guitars (Electric and Acoustic):

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When it comes to recording your guitars there's 2 main methods. Mic'ing up your amps, and recording the DI signal, as in plugging your guitar directly into your audio interface. This is where the personal stuff comes in. I have no problem with you sending me both options but if I could only get one, I would prefer the DI. Ideally you would want to split your guitar signal to both your mic'd up amp and DI into your interface and record both at once, BUT to individual tracks. You should be able to set different input sources per track in your recording software to the corresponding inputs in your interface for your amp mic and DI. Some audio interfaces have a DI input built in, so if you haven't purchased an interface yet, keep that in mind before you buy one. That will save you the need to purchase a DI Box as well to route your DI signal to your interface. However, some DI Boxes have additional features of their own, so you may decide you want the extra toys anyway. Anyway, the reason why I prefer you send the DI guitar track, is because I have amp simulation plugins that can emulate numerous popular amp tones. The biggest advantages to this are that you can test drive all of these amps on the same DI track and make adjustments to the settings all in post, where as when you record a mc'd up amp, what you recorded is what you get. This is NOT to suggest that I don't want you to send me a recording of your mic'd amp if you made one. The recording could be perfectly usable for the song, and even if it's not, having the reference material is nice. Now for Acoustic Guitars, this is actually reversed. You DI your acoustic guitar if you have one of those acoustic electric hybrid guitars, but generally speaking an acoustic guitar sounds better if you have some of the natural reflections of the room that come with recording it with a mic, so if you can only deliver one track, I'd prefer you send a mic'd up version. It can be a little confusing, but remember, a few extra tracks to work with isn't a bad thing, so whatever guitar you have, if you can record it both ways, just do that and let your mixer worry about which version sounds better. Check the Other Instruments VSTs & Plugins section for more info. 

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Doubling:

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This applies to both vocals and guitars and potentially other instruments as well. Doubling is a great way to help vocals to have presence and sit comfortably in the mix, and let your guitars have that nice wide eruption of power for those big choruses. There are ways we can do this with a single vocal or guitar track, but it takes time and careful adjustments, and even then likely won't sound as good as if you just recorded another take. Considering you're likely to record multiple takes during the recording process anyway, you might as well make a few more. When you're satisfied with your primary vocal and guitar tracks, make 1 or better yet 2 or 3 alternates. Sing the song again but maybe at a lower or higher register, or give it a little grit, or anything that differentiates it from the original. Don't worry if the quality isn't as good. Your best take will be front and center during the mix your doubles are just there to back it up. For your guitars, try doing another take of your choruses, but change up your play style a bit, maybe add some more vibrato or do a half or double time version If you're recording you're amp, tweak the settings a little. Ultimately as long as it's a different recording that still fits in time, just do whatever feels right. In general I would say no amount of recorded takes is too much. If you recorded 6 takes of a guitar part that you like, go ahead and send them all. I can always pull elements from one take that might be a little better than another. Just please label alternate takes as such. Check the Sending Files section for more. NOTE: one of the main ways we make doubled guitar sounds is to hard pan the guitar tracks left and right. PLEASE DO NOT send guitar audio with this done already. Check the Other Instruments VSTs & Plugins section for more.

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Drums:

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I'm going to sound like a broken record, but do your research and do the best you can to get your drums right at the source. My preference would be for you to mic up as many of the kit pieces as you can. At least one kick and snare recorded track, and preferably a couple for your overheads. When I record my own stuff, I like to have a separate track for at least the high hat and one for the remaining cymbals if not one for each cymbal individually, so I can process them separately. Granted I also use sample drum programs and doing that for live drums is not always possible. One thing I can do for your live drums is do some drum replacement. If the audio quality of your snares and kicks is not ideal, I can digitally map some professional samples over them. Howver, this can not correct errors related to timing, so you'll want to try and minimize mistakes when recording live drums. When dealing with multi-mic'd instruments like drums, timing edits need to be made as a group, so if one piece of the kit is out of time with the rest, it cannot be edited individually without causing audible issues. Another option is having the drum kit replaced entirely. The benefit of this is it can be edited and processed more precisely with samples recorded in a controlled environment. The draw back is it takes a little longer to be made to sound authentic, meaning a longer editing process. If you believe this is something you'll need ahead of time, you may want to consider the Mix + Song Collaboration option. 

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Other Instruments VSTs & Plugins:

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Much like vocals guitars and drums, with any other physical instrument you need to find the recording method that will yield the best result within your means. If you're like me and use a lot of synths or midi sample libraries, you don't need to worry about your recording environment since it's all in the computer. That said there are a few recommendations for exporting these instrument tracks that will yield good results. First, and this is a BIG ONE, if your synth or sample instrument has any reverb or delays on it, PLEASE disable those effects before converting the midi information to an audio track and exporting it. This also applies to similar hardware based effects you might use when recording physical instruments, such as effects pedal boards for guitars. Those types of effects are best left for the mixing process, so they can work better with other elements. This is more important with reverb, but if you have a delay or other effect that you believe is critical to the sound of the instrument, then you may leave it in. It might be a good idea to send 2 versions of the audio, one with the effects added and one without. Likewise with things like guitar effect pedals, send a version with and without them added if you cam. Panning and Volume settings or automation are also important to be mindful of. If during the writing process, you pan tracks to the left or right, or automate the panning or volume, in the vast majority of cases it is best to return the panning to the default center position and remove volume or pan automation. Just like timed effects like reverb and delays, panning and automation needs can change based on how the mix comes together, so having a starting point where a guitar part only has audio in the left or right channel limits what you can do in the context of a mix. Similarly the volume automation you made for one section during arrangement may not be necessary during the mix. In certain cases where you're doing pan or volume animation to create a different tone, such as ping ponging left and right, then keep that when you export the audio, but I would still like an un-effected version as well if you can. All of this applies to any unique plugins you may use during the arrangement as well. When in doubt, send with and without. Please indicate which track has effects applied and which does not. It is a big help. Also as mentioned before, regardless of when your instrument is playing in the track, please set the export from the very beginning of the entire song to the end of the song or at least the end of that instrument's track.

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Sending Files: 

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When you've exported all of your audio tracks, preferably in .wav, compress them in a zip file and email them to me at djmvoices@gmail.com you may use a dropbox link or similar service if you prefer. Please take care to label your files appropriately. For example, if the track is an electric guitar, label it as such, but if it is a DI recording, include DI in the label. Indicating whether your vocal or instrument is a lead is also helpful. Also if 1 file is an alternate take of another, please include that in the label, ex: ElectricGuitar_Take 2 or Alt 2. In your email, the more information you can provide about your tracks, the better, like how they were recorded, your initial thoughts on how they might fit in the mix and the genre you're going for, is very helpful. Also, and this is not required, but it can also be helpful if you send along some favorite tracks that may have helped inspire your creation, for me to use as a reference. 

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