The recording tricks thread (formerly: I love reversed audio)

[midwayfair]

I almost always seem to sneak one in on any recording project, because when it's right there's nothing else that works as well. Right now I'm mixing a song by an alt-country guy I've been playing with, and he had this section where he does blank strums his guitar (you know what I mean, like a snare sound). Sounded kinda pedestrian for a creepy song, so I reversed it, cut it up into sixteen pieces, put a reverse reverb on it, and matched up each strum manually to the forward section. Sounds awesome, kind of like the reverse snare sound on Peter Gabriel/Phil Collins stuff.

The dude's got a voice that sounds like he smokes 80 packs a day and some killer lyrics, too. This line kills me: "Pine box stretch's the rest a man gets." His name's Stephen Lee if you want to check him out. Hopefully we'll have a little EP recorded by he autumn. (I'm basically playing everything except the guitar and vocals.)

Anyone have any favorite studio tricks they want to share?

[jtn191]

I do too! My fav examples of backwards guitar are Jimi Hendrix, Nels Cline? Built to Spill - The Weather: http://youtu.be/-OzuCXxM63k
When I do it, it ends up sounding New-Agey.

I don't know if they're studio tricks but I like getting a good drum loop (808 or real drums) to start out instead of just a bland click. Get people to play together instead of isolating... feeling and practice are everything. A lot of cool sounds Tchad Blake mixes come from doing weird experiments and using spaces as reverb chambers.

[GrindCustoms]

Something i've come to like doing is using the monitors to feedback my guitar and add texture/noise... to some tracks.

Here's an exemple of what i do with that... quite heavy content tho.

It's in the high pitched runaways that happen a little everywhere that then go thru 2 envellope filters... might be too much effort for just a layer of noise! haha 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28586266/THC/THC%20-%20ObsoleteDrum.mp3

[midwayfair]

I don't know if they're studio tricks but I like getting a good drum loop (808 or real drums) to start out instead of just a bland click.

The bass player in my band taught me this recently and it's been a lifesaver. The last few tracks I've worked on with people who don't practice to a metronome and who in the past have had problems playing to a click did their rhythm parts in one or two takes. It seems to make people relax and play better, too, because they can feel the rhythm better instead of focusing on "am I on the click? am I on the click?" constantly. I wish Logic had at least one drum beat that's just "boom chick" though. I had to manufacture one by having the drummer play half time and putting the tempo at double speed. :/

[rullywowr]

I like to use a drum beat as a click too. Easy Drummer is great for this, just drag and drop a beat into the daw.

[raulduke]

My simple studio trick is to use high pass filters on everything to cut the mud.

I find this make a big difference when mixing as loads of stuff has low frequency content that you just don't need (eg. guitars).

My other would be really simple splitting tricks if tracking guitars in a DAW. Eg. with Guitar Rig it's really easy to split your signal through different amp chains. Pan one left, and one right, and you can get some pretty chunky sounds quite easily.

[jtn191]

My simple studio trick is to use high pass filters on everything to cut the mud.

I find this make a big difference when mixing as loads of stuff has low frequency content that you just don't need (eg. guitars).

+1! I also read somewhere that suggested using more low pass filters as well, not everything has to retain high frequencies, only the things you want to stick out more

[midwayfair]

The thing I'm realizing I really need to work on is when to tell if something needs to be turned down or simply removed. I have some overdubs in a recording I'm working on with little guitar licks that sound really cool together sometimes and really intrusive at others. Part of me is thinking that if I have to turn it way down, or EQ the heck out of it, to make it work, it's the part that's wrong and not the sound. But I also know that in the past I've been too quick to leave those little extras out of a recording, which can leave stuff sounding a little too empty.

I guess this is the best part of being able to record at home, that I can experiment with stuff like this.

[culturejam]

Came here expecting a "C-Taper" discussion. 

[raulduke]

The thing I'm realizing I really need to work on is when to tell if something needs to be turned down or simply removed. I have some overdubs in a recording I'm working on with little guitar licks that sound really cool together sometimes and really intrusive at others. Part of me is thinking that if I have to turn it way down, or EQ the heck out of it, to make it work, it's the part that's wrong and not the sound. But I also know that in the past I've been too quick to leave those little extras out of a recording, which can leave stuff sounding a little too empty.

I guess this is the best part of being able to record at home, that I can experiment with stuff like this.

Try fading them in and out with automation when you want them to be heard.

Panning can also help. Bringing stuff from left/right to centre can create cool and interesting movement.

Personally I always like a bit of ear candy, but then again I listen to a lot of electronic music (Royksopp, Flying Lotus, Boards of Canada etc.) which is pretty much all ear candy (for better or worse) 

[midwayfair]

Try fading them in and out with automation when you want them to be heard.

Panning can also help. Bringing stuff from left/right to centre can create cool and interesting movement.

Yeah, I abuse the automation like nobody's business. I often use it as an engineer's thumb ... heck, on one track I manually edited an entire electric piano track on two channels to get realistic dynamics and make it sound more like an acoustic.

I've been trying to get away from panning for clarity, though. I realize it's necessary sometimes, but I've discovered that it's something that personally irks me when I hear it in other peoples' music.

[lincolnic]

I've been trying to get away from panning for clarity, though. I realize it's necessary sometimes, but I've discovered that it's something that personally irks me when I hear it in other peoples' music.

So do you only listen to records in mono, or...?

I kid, but panning is important. You've got a whole stereo field to play with; use it. Symmetry in a mix is a wonderful thing. Otherwise, most of the time you've got to resort to some really extreme EQ to make your tracks work together. That can force you to make some sonic decisions you might otherwise be unhappy with.

The thing I'm realizing I really need to work on is when to tell if something needs to be turned down or simply removed. I have some overdubs in a recording I'm working on with little guitar licks that sound really cool together sometimes and really intrusive at others. Part of me is thinking that if I have to turn it way down, or EQ the heck out of it, to make it work, it's the part that's wrong and not the sound. But I also know that in the past I've been too quick to leave those little extras out of a recording, which can leave stuff sounding a little too empty.

Mixing by subtraction is also a wonderful thing - the ability to be truly objective and say "This part doesn't work," is really, really important, whether you're working on your own music or someone else's. If your parts sound cool sometimes and obtrusive other times, mute them where they don't sound good. Always ask yourself: is this part helping the arrangement right now -- is it here for a reason -- or do I just think it's cool because I played it? It can be really hard to self-edit when it's your own material, but if you can put yourself in the position of someone else listening to the song, that's huge.

Listening to your favorite records and really paying attention to the production/arrangement decisions, rather than just the songs, can be a great way to develop an ear for this kind of thing. See if you can figure out why they made the choices they did, and see if you can apply that knowledge to your own recordings.

[alanp]

Hard panning can be jarring to the ear. Listen to some old S3M or MOD files from the 90s sometime.

[lincolnic]

Only if there's nothing balancing it out on the opposite side! Like I said above: symmetry is key. I'll rep for hard panning until the cows come home, as long as it's done properly.

[alanp]

Oh, it's still jarring, then. It's less noticeable on speakers, when you have room echo dulling it to a certain extent. (It sticks out like the dog's bollocks on headphones.)