Good Vibrations Part II: Recording

Welcome to Good Vibrations Part II where I give you an example of how to record a song track by track. As usual, there are links below to a variety of articles on recording theory, microphone techniques, room treatment, and more so you can do a deep dive into all of the possibilities available to you. I will use a song I recorded in the Horn Gallery over Thanksgiving break to demonstrate how an imperfect version of the recording process can still produce good recordings. The setup I used is pictured below.

The track was recorded in the main room of the Horn Gallery with no acoustic treatment. If you aren’t familiar with the Horn, it used to be a barn and is now a live music venue so it is by no means an ideal studio setting. In a separate article I’ll talk about some DIY tricks you can use to make your own vocal booths and things like that, but for this recording I didn’t do anything fancy. The room has really high ceilings and a good amount of natural reverb alongside pretty noisy power (called 60-cycle hum). Again, my goal is to talk about how to do the best you can. There are hundreds of articles on how to do it “perfectly,” but odds are you don’t live at Abbey Road and are rather trying to make the most of what you have.

To record the drums, I mic’d the kick with a Shure Beta 52a, and the rest of the kit, snare, two overheads, and hi-hat, with SM57s because that is all I had available. I did my best to mirror the angle of the overhead mics and keep them at least three feet apart to prevent phase and other potential issues using both of their recordings together. The kick mic I put inside the bass drum because I ran out of microphone stands. The snare and hi-hat microphones I was less precise about and just put them where I liked the sound I was hearing when I listened to my demo recordings. I made those recordings before tracking the song just to listen and make sure I liked the recorded sound of the kit so that I wouldn’t get done with the song and realize I hated the way the drums sounded. Rules and guidelines are extremely useful, but your ears are the only real measure of if something sounds right or not.

For the electric guitar, I recorded out of the Fender Champion 100 into an SM57 using a Kramer 450G. The acoustic guitar was a Takamine G Series recorded into an Audio Technica AT2035. To record the bass, I ran an Ibanez TMB100 into a Sansamp Bass Driver DI and then directly into my interface. I recorded both vocal tracks using an Audio Technica AT2035 through a pop-filter.

When you start tracking, make sure that the gain on each microphone is set so that it doesn’t clip. In Ableton, this is shown by the tracks level meter jumping into the red. You should adjust the gain on your interface so that at the loudest point in your recording reaches between -12 and -6 dB. It is much easier to boost the gain on a quieter track than it is to try and repair a track with clipping. Be warned though, if the track if you have to boost the gain too much afterward you will introduce more noise, so try and go for a good middle ground, keeping in mind the -12 to -6 dB guideline.

After setting the position of my microphones, I adjusted the gain on all of them appropriately. Like a lot of large diaphragm condenser microphones, the AT2035 needed phantom power, a selectable additional boost that is typically built into your interface. Be aware that giving phantom power to microphones that don’t need it can damage them, particularly ribbon microphones. Once everything was set up right, I just played the parts until I was happy with each of them.

I didn’t have the music written out on paper, so I recorded a “scratch track” of the vocals and acoustic guitar to a metronome. Afterward, I recorded drums on top of that, using the scratch track to cue me for the section changes. Next came the bass, since the bass and drums need to work together to create a tight rhythm section. The acoustic track, doubled vocal tracks, and finally the electric guitar part came after that. After cutting out the scratch tracks, I overdubbed places in the vocals where I made mistakes and then the recording was done.

You’ll notice at the beginning of the song you can hear the metronome which I accidentally left playing through a speaker when I recorded a guitar part. There also is not perfect isolation; when the vocal tracks are played solo, you can hear some bleed from my headphones because I was using open-back mixing headphones instead of monitoring headphones. My playing is also off in some spots and I could have done a bunch of other little things to make the recording better but by the time it has been mixed and mastered you would never know any of these things were “wrong.” My point is not to let perfect get in the way of good. If you do the best you can in the moment and use your creativity to deal with roadblocks, you’ll most likely get a satisfying result.

In the next article I will go over my mixing process for this track along with a few other, shorter clips. The best way you can make sure you get good recordings is to use your ears. Record test tracks and listen back to them to make sure the mic position you are using sounds good and that you’re not clipping. Your ears are the best tool you have in this case and through practice both using the equipment and your ears, you will get a feel for what the best moves to make are.

*a quick note: I did not use any acoustic treatment because I was recording in a public space and did not have access to any materials. Acoustic treatments get into the physics behind sound and can be a bit complicated, especially since the ideal treatment will be specific to each room. I have included some links for you to learn about your options but again, don’t sweat if treating your room is not an option. That said, feel free to get creative with ways to make your own sound treatment. One I have used often is recording vocals inside a closet filled with clothes to get a less noisy take.

LINKS:

Microphone Placement/Recording:

https://www.presonus.com/learn/technical-articles/mic-placement

https://www.shure.com/en-US/performance-production/louder/microphone-choice-and-placement-secrets-for-recording

https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/8-unique-mic-placement-tricks-pros/

https://www.uaudio.com/blog/microphone-selection-and-placement/

https://reverb.com/news/home-recording-basics-iv-how-to-record-acoustic-guitar-and-vocals

https://reverb.com/news/home-recording-basics-v-micing-a-drum-kit-from-start-to-finish

https://reverb.com/news/home-recording-basics-vi-how-to-mic-your-electric-guitar

https://reverb.com/news/home-recording-basics-part-vii-recording-vocals-in-your-bedroom

https://ehomerecordingstudio.com/home-recording-studio-design/

Acoustic Treatment: