15 MISTAKES to AVOID When Recording at Home!
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- Опубліковано 25 чер 2024
- Are you recording guitars and vocals at home, hoping to "finish it off" in a larger studio? Here are 15 VERY common mistakes to avoid. Watch this, your mix engineer will thank you! Get the Complete Guide to Drum Programming at: spectredigital.com/complete-d...
0:00 Made this for my clients!
2:23 By Request
3:05 File Format
3:55 Get the Best Possilbe Source
4:34 Count In
5:31 Gain Staging
7:10 Take a DI
8:50 Open Strings
9:50 Retune every time
10:00 Check for Pops & Clicks
10:53 Label things CORRECTLY
13:53 Edit Down your Vocals
14:21 Consolidation
15:59 Export CORRECTLY
16:40 Double Track Guitars
17:40 Decide who's editing
17:56 Send the CORRECT tracks!
About Spectre Sound Studios:
I'm Glenn Fricker, engineer here at Spectre Sound Studios. I love making records, and after doing it for sixteen years, I want to pass on what I've learned. On my channel you can find tutorials on how to record guitar, bass, real drums and vocals. There's reviews and demos of tube amps, amp sims, drums, mics, preamps, outboard gear, Electric Guitar, Bass Guitar, and plugin effects.
We've covered Moon on the Water, played Bias FX, given you the absolute best in Stupid Musician Texts, ranted & raved about bass guitar, and this channel is where The Eagle has Landed.
Everything you've wanted to learn about recording Hard Rock & Heavy Metal can be found right here on this channel!
I also respond to your comments & questions: The best make it into the SMG Viewer's Comments series of videos. Loads of fun, lots of laughs.
Thanks for checking out my channel & please subscribe!
honestly, if this guy was my algebra teacher in high school, i'd probably remember what algebra is.
I might have gone to algebra if he was my teacher
Probably not though the naps under the stairs was good
@@smiledespite that or any given gym closet or a friend's car or simply at the desk. Good times.
2+2=? Yo
Bro that hits hard. I feel that
Its exactly what everyone needs to remember something. Some old dude screaming at you..
Not only did this teach me as a PRODUCER on what to do for my own music. But also taught me how to have better expectations for the people I work with every week. Thank you so much this channel is better than some and most college courses. My career has only grown from watching you
"It sounds weird and abru-"
*ad plays*
Well played
I got interrupted by Tony Robbins UGH Giant weirdo
That was excellent. Never smiled at an ad break before.
Happened to me as well lol
Adblock
I love how his voice recording is clipping like Mad in the background 😂
I noticed as well,
I love the blunt reactions here. “If your track looks like this, you fucked up” 😂🔥
I lol’d
It's like Uncle Roger and fried rice, but with music
its perfect!
In his defense, that shit was horribly clipped.
yeah - he's good huh ?
Remember when the Staples store used to have those big red button things that said “easy“ on them and every time you press it, it would say “that was easy“. I need one of those for the studio, but Glenn’s voice to just yell obscenities and instructions.... maybe just obscenities.
Build it Glenn. We’ll all buy the fuckers.
My boss actually got everyone in the office one waaaaay back when I was an IT guy. I'm pretty sure I still have it somewhere around here. 😆😆
I'd buy one! Especially if it screamed, "Get your shit together dumbass!"
On a related note, there is a bullshit button but Glenn's Voice would be awesome. Here is a site for custom buttons: adprospb.com/easy-button-large.html
I new someone who took one apart and figured it out so that you could record onto the chip whatever you wanted. Pretty funny.
@@electricwhiterabbit Now I'm going to have to dig for it so that I'll have my very own blyat button. 😆😆😆
"You would assume that all of this is just common sense, but then again this is the music business" LMFAO so true.
When the assumption is ‘aw come on, man, everybody knows that’, you have not worked with users long enough. Pros compact their knowledge they acquired over a long time and internalise the message: because I know it everybody else knows it. But they really don’t. They only get that experience like everybody else does: by screwing it up a few times until they understand why it’s important (and then some of them still won’t care).
Never assume common sense when working with people you don’t know. They have no idea what that is.
Common sense is not so common anymore. 😂
"But that's my sound man..." LOL HAHAH "No one knows who you are, STFU GUITAR HEROOOOOOOO." This dude is fucking excellent.
'-6db, -12db' I don't give a fuck, just give it some space!' Spot on Glenn!!
worzz of wizzum!
Just to be clear, he's always talking about the peak and never mentions the RMS, right?
@@AllanFelipe Yes, -6db RMS will or could be fekin loud
@@Al_Mac125 True, and not even have headroom to accommodate the peaks :D peak it is..
Glenn's personality is literally "Is nobody else here pissed off right now?" And i love him for it lol
Except it’s fake outrage.
The Alex Jones of studio engineering
@@altonlyter2024 It's still hilarious. This guy could be a comedian.
@@randolphgallagher7942 hed get heckled and quit day 1
@@randolphgallagher7942 He's an absolute shill.
Man, that gain staging one seriously helped. I was always wondering why my recordings would peak even though I was recording at 0 db. Definitely gonna record with at least -6 from now on
16:40 I actually started to quintuple my guitars in the last year or so. I read in the book "Back to the Front" that's how Metallica tracked the guitars on Master of Puppets so I tried it, liked it, and that's what I've done ever since. I do hard left, hard right, 80% left, 80% right, and one dead center. You should try it, Glenn. I think you'll like the results.
That would also solve the mono compatibility issue. I only track 2 tracks hard left, 2 tracks hard right and that's it. Sometimes I will only do two tracks and use 2 microphones per guitar track to get a bit of extra thicness that is missing and it works fine for me but when turned to mono my guitars vanish :D I don't particularly care about that issue but having a rhythm guitar track in the center would certainly solve that. Also I did a recording of 3 rhythm guitar tracks with this band about 11 years ago - 1 Left/ 1 Right and one in the center and it turned out surprisingly good so I get what you're saying. I do have to say that with that setting I had a bit of an extra problem with the vocal fighting for space against that center guitar track.
I find it depends on the song to be honest. For more faster, tighter sounding tracks, I find that double tracking works much better. For more slow, sludgy tracks, quad tracking works really well. I think it’s actually most effective when you use quad tracking specifically in either the chorus or any specific part of the song that you want to make sound huge in comparison to the rest of the song!
"but thats my sound, man"
"nobody knows who you are!"
i almost spit out my drink laughing 😂
That was comedy gold!
A legend in his own mind that one
Haha - I know: what a burn!
goddamn I was actually in fact drinking coffee so I had hard times to withhold the stuff and not filter it through my nose
Owh... I thought he was saying "but that's my 'sound man' " and makes me confused about what he meant...
"stop huffing paint" as i am watching this in my freshly painted living room
Meh. It's water based. It's like acting drunk off root beer. BOOOOORING!
I felt personally attacked....
STOP THAT
I hear gold metallic is the most effective...just something I've 'heard'.
@@Genious. Would watch a Matt Parkey/Twey Storn protagonist in a movie on Juul Mango going missing with the youth of today being replaced by "Shining"
Man we are so lucky to have videos like these so freely available.
This is what I’ve been trying to get myself into. Thank you for making this video. This is good not only for engineers, but for musicians in their bedroom recording their own music. It’s important that we make sure that we get our sound on the money.
Why can I not upvote this twice? Once again Glen swoops down with the knowledge. Your demeanor and the way you put things literally inspires me to DO THE WORK. Thank you once again, sensei.
yes def the DO THE WORK part
Not gonna lie the whole 'don't copy & paste for a stereo sound' thing took me waaay to long to catch on to, lol
Yup same here
I used to offset one and didn't understand what being way out of phase sounded like.
@@wasserhahn903 Oh, man don't suggest stuff like that to me, lol!
@@davejohnsonmusic Same, I'd only notice on certain hi-fi speakers and wonder what on earth was going on!
@@JbfMusicGuitar
If you use sample delay instead of all sit in your cut and paste his sample delayed past 300 or so will sound in phase and will pair in separate from the other side. Sample delay tool and logic audio is especially good for this
Thank you Glenn!! I'm trying to learn to record at home, this is gold.
Greetings from a crappy bass player who quit his band cause he knew he sucked to practice more and actually try and make something good down the line. Cheers!
I love every single moment of scolding/screaming/shouting/ranting in this vid.
Glad you liked it!
I'm laughing and crying at the same time because every single point in this video is so true/important, yet so difficult for some to do properly.
As a bass player I don’t understand the open string complaint???? I only know how to play open strings !!!! Do want bass or not ??????
So funny to see Glenn going crazy about everybody "recording everything in to the red" while the Reaper meter on his back was actually into the red XD
I also noticed that, angry stuff xD
the aggression is strong in this one, he's gonna bust a few blood vessels
Common sense is a flower that doesn't bloom on every garden.
"In the fulness of time, a garden to nurture and protect."
Love is a nose and you better not pick it.
I went to the School of Audio Engineering in 1987, and just started recording digitally a few weeks ago, I've been aiming for 0db like I always have, so thanks for stopping me from fucking everything up! I also had no idea about auto crossfade on clips, so this video has been invaluable. Thanks Glenn!
You can calibrate your equipment and DAW to read 0db while still being in the actual Goldilocks zone if it makes life easier on your brain.
@@legacyShredder1 Thanks! I read up on that after watching the video, so I'll be checking a few things out today.
@@Dave-Rough-Diamond-Dunn If you use a ton of outboard gear calibrating can be helpful.
You should really do some reading on the new metering, here is a bit of information because as we go into the future of high-quality streaming zero is not 0!
LUFS stands for Loudness Units relative to Full Scale. It's a standardized measurement of audio loudness that factors human perception and electrical signal intensity together.
Incidentally all of the streaming services have different dynamic controls you can look them up via Google and find out what’s the optimum level for the service you were going to submit your music to
@@DrRyman Thanks. There's a lot to learn, but plenty of tutorial material available thankfully. I was on both sides of the desk for a few years, but for the last 20 years or so I've been behind the mic and others have done the engineering, too many cooks etc etc. It's a fairly steep learning curve going from analogue to digital, but the software is mostly based on the old hardware anyway, so it's not totally foreign, you still have to do the same things essentially.
"so even your signer can't fuck this up" Subscribed.
The Group that will go to the studio out of town after watching this:
👁️👄👁️
I've always found recording drums with at least scratch guitars at the studio, then doing the rest at home after has always been easier than trying to do the opposite when time/budget for studio work is an issue.
The video went to advert right in the middle of when you said “abrupt”. Please tell me you had control over that. The comic timing was gold!
"The start of the song just sounds weird and abru-" EARN CRYPTO BY LEARNING ABOUT CRYPTO
You get ads with your videos?
@@braunhausmedia watching on console, plus it supports the channel to right?
@@drummerbombom It sure as hell does!
This vid is just plain GLORIOUS, music schools should have the transcript made into a mandatory recited pledge.
A brilliant lesson. I love the humour and passion. Been recording since 1974 and every tip is so important. Also in the long run Glenn you want to produce quality and not go bust. You are a star. 😀
I just got Reaper. So excited to fuck everything up.
Last year was basically me learning almost everything what was mentioned here. After that I finished recording my EP and it took it to a whole new level just by applying the stuff you said. So glad this video took place.
Great info here and also the best humor I have witnessed in a long time! This is defiantly one of those videos everyone that comes over to my studio will have to watch as a prerequisite to a project. I just love the content and the way the humor just hammers it home (especially for those exceptionally talented musicians) Thanks Glen you made my day!
Thanks for this Glenn, I’m getting into home recording and you just helped me avoid a lot of pitfalls
Oh man, this is exactly what I was looking for for home recordings. Even without passing them onto an external engineer, the advice here is applicable to doing everything at home. Awesome work!
I always at least keep a whole bar open before I even say I’m ready to record. I had to explain that to my friends nephew because he let you start playing then he would hit record. You can always cut what isn’t needed but never add what’s not there.
Great stuff Glenn
new strings?
satriani says he never changes his strings.
Love your jam tracks man
i want every tutorial, guide, course and learning material in general to be shouted and screamed at me like this. it's really keeping my attention and i have to say it's very effective.
Taking notes altho I know my music will still suck, but at least it will suck properly. Thanks man!
I adore the pressure of studio-time.
I adore the luxury of recording at home.
Maximise whatever situation you are in.
Bless you Glenn and FFFFUUUUUUCCCCKKK YOOOOU from the unlocked-down UK (actually got gigs booked)
Beautiful delivery! Thanks!
Thank you for being such a good teacher.
More people need a stern talking to about treating music like a walk in the park
The ironic part of his gain staging advice is....if you look at the computer monitor in the background, you can see he was recording a little hot himself.
A) He's processing it before recording with outboard gear. B) He's recording for himself. C) He knows what he's doing.
I don't think you need so much processing for a youtube video, I mean what would you do with a voice track? Just cut the white noise and that's it xd
The red line seems to be set at the level he wants, where there is still headroom for momentary peaks, which is the point of setting it 6-12db down. And it looked to me like his levels were good. Digital can't go higher than 0db because the numbers can't go any higher, so you lose the peaks, and it looks like a buzz haircut. If the levels are too low, it can be boosted in software, but then it still has less precision in the individual samples, which is also distortion.
For some reason the moving part of the bar on camera is always red, but it's yellow in screen grab cuts.
He's slamming the mic pre signal with an outboard Distressor Compressor (probably)... so it's gona have that "wall of signal" appearance. He knows at what point he will get no more amplitude, and he's put that exactly where he wants it. His voice sounds good with the Distressor.... it sounds metal. That's the whole idea.... the screaming, the distressor... the cutting commentary. It sounds groovy and fits the content... it has become iconic. And hats-off for it.
YES! LMAO!
From now on when people ask what they need to do to come in i'm going to send them a link to this video.
Please do!
@@r.v.9005 what?
Or you can just make a list of what you want. Shouldn't you be doing that anyway?
@@B3Band yes. But this is funny ;)
Wow!!! Awesome video, Glen! Thank you. 😃
I love how Reaper is clipping in the background as Glen is yelling about gain staging lol.
*"... the fact that tracks aren't numbered is a huge pain in the ass."* So damn true. 😣😆
Hell yeah. Imagine doing a full orchestra template print with hundreds of tracks without systematic numbering...
either you don't know what you're doing, or you really don't like the guy who works with your stuff.
"..and it just sounds weird and abrup-" *ADVERTSTARTS*
Clever. lol
Amazing. Thanks for the brief description.
Thanks! I needed that!
Hey if I need to huff some paint fumes for inspiration that’s between me and Sherwin Williams
The non consolidated song was a masterpiece
Nice to see there's still bands being influenced by The Shaggs.
@@surfdigby 😂😂😂
Thank you, Glenn! It will be done!
Love this!! Thank you!
Hey Glen, I needed this. Right before I watched this, I sent a friend some files and they looked liked the 2nd gain staging example. He sent me a reply, "dude, your signal is way too hot. You crushed your signal". I face palmed and admitted to myself I don't know what I thought I knew. Keep these videos coming
You learned something and admitted you made a mistake that makes you better than 90% of the idiots Glenn is talking about
I learned a long time ago to check my ego at the door when recording...take criticism, deal with the fact that I’m not infallible. The guy that produced/recorded my old band loved that I (and the other guys)were open to his advice (he had recorded/mixed and played drums with many big name classic rock acts)...long time friendship forged and a wealth of knowledge learned...
Great video!!
thanks for sharing all your knowledge!!
Mistake 16: Not sending tranquilizers to your mixing engineer.
Mistake 17: Tracking drums on 2 mics
As a musician trying to learn as much as I can to do recording at home (because of this pandemic) I deeply thank you Glenn for the very valuable information, lessons, tutorials and the laughs to help get me the best sound possible. I have improved from a static and hum polluted pile of shit to a demo that sounds shockingly good (to my surprise). I wish I could send you the before and after so you can have a laugh at it as well... Thanks Glenn.. you are fucking awesome...
Great info! Thanks!!
This was great! Thank you!
That consolidated Operation Glenncrime - Gulfoss track sounds amazing.
Slow Tools. Vid of the year for that term alone.
LOL yeah - yet i was SO proud when i got it
Only they hadnt written PC drivers for the interface yet, so it stayed boxed up for months
Then shortly after i'd got it doing it developed clicky clicky click disease (power relay kept dropping - (due to what i now know was a his res power loom))
You could only use their proprietary hardware back then so i was silenced for MONTHS
Reaper for me :)
I really needed that, thank you!
I love this guy!!! No nonsense, tell it like it is, no bullshit! Awesome video! I've been telling my clients a few of these tips for years.... eventually, they will get it!
I'm no producer or engineer, I've sort of learned things as I've gone along when recording my own demos. Videos like this are so damn useful. Although, I still fear ever sending my stuff to be mixed by a professional 😅
Same here I just do what ever sounds good to me I don't really know jack shit when it comes to mixing but I've picked up a few things from watching some yt videos
Fucking thank you. As a guitarist that DOES double and quad track my recordings, I can't stand when someone sends me something to work on and they "doubled" the guitar... but just copy and pasted it.
I just had this conversation with my lead guitarist, He started into music late, so he's only been at it a year and a half, and is just learning to record, and his buddy taught him that was acceptable, and I had to tell him the reason his guitars sounded small compared to mine wasn't that I was using better software (Which, isn't better, just different from his, I was using Bias, while he was using Emissary) To prove the point I lined up the same free effects chain as him, and laid my tracks down again (for a total of 8 good takes, 4 just to prove a point) and the track came out, again, sounding absolutely massive.
So he learned though, having witnessed it. The second lesson, He has an SG, and myself being a Les Paul player, had to explain he needed to retune, all the time, because SGs, and LPs, are notoriously unstable, and chorus easily when multi tracking. (Actually for recording purposes, I usually actually use a Schecter 7 string, and when I play live or rehearse, I use my LP. Because the Schecter is a monster in the studio, and stays in fucking tune.
Still haven't gotten through to him to send me DI tracks even though he records as a DI, and then he isn't very skilled at tone creation yet, so he will have too much gain or, too much bass left in, etc, and instead of me, just rerunning it through either the same chain with a better tone setup, or you know, using other sims and IRs, I am stuck with the gain to the point of fracturing the guitars waveform (Dynamics are for pussies apparently) but yeah. All of this. And this coming from a fucking rhythm guitarist.. you know, the guitarist that hides in the back making sure the bassist doesn't wander off mid set...
This bass player wandered off half way through your comment. But spot on.
So much useful information in this video. It's amazing, thank you!!
Just loved this!
Slow Tools almost killed me 😂😂
Same here
Me too.. That’s why I use logic audio
It was a chuckle and PTSD rolled into one. From my experience, it's invariably a recording school grad who is computer illiterate and never bothered learning anything else. Take a task that is dead simple in my DAW (along with numerous others), yet they can't understand how. Then it's hours of me searching Profools manual to find an approximation, then going to the person's place to show them how. That's ......... slow.
Oh i felt so cool being a pro Fool, with my shiny new interface... But it almost killed ME too ;)
The 002R caught clicky click disease (which I later learned was a high resistance power loom) so I had NOTHING to use, for like ages (as ProTools only worked with it's own hardware back then)
Reaper! Fool no more ;)
5:27 gahd i miss this version of Glenn!
Thanks for useful advices!
Thanks for some of these tips. Really helps!
Glenn, you would have made a great drill sergeant! - I love watching this show, its like the spirit of R. Lee Ermey lives on! :)
Plus - dont put any fades in and out of finished songs until the mastering process, otherwise the fades will interfere with any compression necessary at the matering stage.
Problem is we got two decades of people that don’t know what the “mastering process” is… LOL
Do you mean putting Waves L3 Ultramaximizer on master track? Loud and Proud preset 'cause this is metal obvs. 😈
@@catwithoutsoul1531 if it dips below 0.01
is it even "metal"? lol
This was a great video. It could’ve been 15 sections of “set your levels correctly,” but above and beyond was the move.
I have learned and forgotten this more than once.
LOVE YOUR PERSONALITY IT GETS ME MOTIVATED
Thank you, I got my first studio session tomorrow. i’m nervous as hell even though my part is really easy and just backing chords. With a small solo in the chorus.
Don't sweat it. Go in and do what you've prepared for. Don't play in fear of missing a note. If you miss a note you miss a note, but don't fear it.
'...But I'm not sure how easy it is to fix in Slow Tools' - LOL
17:30-40, bang on!!!really the entire video is on point!!! You're a legend, and I wholeheartedly applaud and thank you for setting the mouth breathing musos of the world straight, and for helping engineers to have a better day at work!!! TRACK LIVES MATTER!
I have an e-kit going into EZDrummer plus a Blackstar 100 watt head with an emulated output directly into logic. The neighbours are happy with my near silent recording !
I want to hear more of that Not Consolidated band. Very avant garde,
600 years from now this video will be studied as a core philosophy "text" like Tae te Ching. Every lesson is super practical, but also metaphysical af.
Really, I just want people to not make terrible recordings, that’s all! :)
The modern Plato's Academy
darn man I've been realy needing to get out of my garage
The Analects of Glenn
Thanks Glenn!!!
I so fucking love this. Hands down, experience speaks louder when you are a professional and the frustrations when no one listens and think they know how to do things. You hire an engineer, LISTEN TO THEM!!!
Engineer: „consolidate your tracks please!“
Animals as Leaders: „We did.“
Haha!! Years ago I recorded some math metal with my old band. We tracked analogue and it was then chucked onto a pc to mix ( my friend was doing an engineering course so he bounced the project to disk to enable others in the course to use the studio) but when we first listened back to the tracks we were like " what the fark is this? my god dude, shits ALL over the place man".... and he said "isn't just how your tunes go? and I died a little inside, and felt a sense of pride at the same time that I still cant explain lol
When you mentioned that you use Reaper that was all I needed to hear. This is a guy who knows whats up.
i was SO proud when i got dear ol SlowTools ;)
Then the interface xxxxed up and I couhdt use non-Digidesign hardware (well, you codnt back then!)
And I had a Label get interested in my stuff that week, but couldnt do vocals
Reaper - never looked back ;)
Reaper is a godsend. For what I need, I don't think I have any reason to go to another daw. Just an awesome balance of affordability, simplicity, and capability
Idk where to start.. this is all new knowledge as i haven't really mixed .. just attempt and delete everything i try to create the last 2 years.
Glad i found this channel!
Love your style of teaching.
Awesome! Thank you
Same
Count-in , really really important, yet gets often ignored.
Good stuff here. Thank you Glenn
Thank you Glen!
"...even your singer couldn't fuck these up..."
Imma stop you right there...ha ha ha
It sounds like he's trying SO hard yell these days. I can feel the strain in his voice.
This is by far my favorite channel for this kind of stuff.
Perfect. Made my day.