Microphones

As a recording engineer I see microphones similar to the way a painter sees paintbrushes. A painter will hardly create a piece of artwork with one brush and one color. Microphones are often overlooked in the recording process. Understanding how they color the sound and how you can use them to begin shaping your song is very important to all recording engineers.

Before choosing a microphone to record with it’s important to listen to the voice and style of the artist you’ll be recording. Does the artists voice have a lot of high or low frequencies in it?  Is the artist a singer, rapper, or voice over artist? How dynamic is this artist? Once you know the answer to these questions you can begin choosing the right microphone.

When recording vocals we typically use two kinds of microphones; Condenser, and dynamic microphones. Condenser microphones are very commonly found in most home studios. Don’t under estimate the power of a couple of dynamic microphones in your microphone collection. When picking a microphone to record lead vocals I normally go for a condenser microphone. Condenser microphones generally have a open clean and detailed sound. For example an AKG c414 XLII will give you a clean sound with a nice presence boost in the high mid range. This works great for male vocals that have a lot of low end. The bump I the high mid range will balance out the signal.

Dynamic microphones have a slightly darker sound. They sound tighter and slightly compressed at times. This is great for very dynamic sources. Some singers can go from a quiet whisper to loud powerful singing this is can be a problem if the right microphone is not in use. I found that dynamic microphones handle these vocalists best. They tend to round things off nicely. Paired with the right preamp they can be important tools to your studio. Dynamic microphones also work well for rap, especially “old school” hip-hop tracks. They offer a nice gritty sound right at the source. For people with lots of high frequency content in their vocals dynamic microphones can offer a nice balance to give the vocals some body and tame the highs.

There’s no right or wrong choice of microphone.  Anytime you have a collection of microphones available take some time, listen and make a decision that fits the song and fits your vocalist.  It’s important to use your ears try things out you might find great results from microphones you wouldn’t have normally tried.

Improve the Recording Quality of Your Home Studio

Most people who have “home Studios” are fairly new to the world of recording and engineering. Whether you’re an artist, beat maker or a recording enthusiast It’s important to understand how digital recording works. This goes beyond “make sure it doesn’t clip.”

Take a Step Back

When receiving files from home studios I often get vocals that were recorded way too close to the microphone. Tell your vocalist to step back from the microphone. Keep at least 8 inches between the vocalist and the microphone’s capsule. By doing this you reduce proximity effect, and you eliminate mouth noises. If you’re not sure what mouth noises are they are the annoying sounds made by moving your mouth (lip smacks, spit sounds clicks etc.) they happen mostly when a vocalist isn’t drinking enough water while recording. By moving away you also avoid overloading the microphone’s capsule. Most home studios don’t have expensive microphones that sound good when they’re pushed a bit, so be safe and try not to distort the capsule. (Hint: Your microphone can distort without your digital meters show a clip)

Use Your Bits

Make use of the bit depth available to you. One of the first things most people learn is “Don’t hit the red.” Making sure you don’t clip is important but in a system where we have 24 bits (144 dBs) we have to try to use them as much as possible. 

The lower you record the less resolution you are actually using.

 In Pro Tools 11 and 12 we have a few more metering options but the following principles will work in any DAW. If you have an RMS meter available try to record with your vocals centered at -20dB RMS full scale. If your DAW doesn’t have an RMS meter available try to have the loudest peaks of your vocals at -6 dB full scale. These metering principles have given me great results through the years. They also make it easier on my analog gear since -20 dB full scale is very close to 0 dB VU which is the point where analog gear sounds it’s best.

Make Great Recordings

The last thing I want to touch on for this post is the following. Get the sound right at the source. The better you’re recordings are the better your mix will sound and the better your final master will be. Artists: Don’t be lazy in the studio. Be patient and make sure the recording is as good as possible, don't settle for a mediocre performance. Engineers:  make sure you’re capturing everything the best way possible, and be as alert as possible. You’re there to allow the artist to be as creative as possible so stay on your toes and be 5 steps ahead of them so you’re never slowing them down. Now go forth and make some awesome recordings.

Sources:

http://podcastanswerman.com/343/

http://www.homestudiocorner.com/24-bit-vs-16-bit/

http://www.sonicscoop.com/2013/08/29/why-almost-everything-you-thought-you-knew-about-bit-depth-is-probably-wrong/

https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct98/articles/20tips.html

If you’re not signed up with a PRO you're missing out!

 It’s very hard to make a living these days as a musician. Record sales are dropping budgets are decreasing and many other factors are making it hard to make money in the industry. Unless you’re part of that top 3% of musicians who get played on the radio daily and have millions of fans things are getting harder and harder. Most of us musicians do this because we love it but we still have to make a living somehow. Besides shows, digital sales, physical sales, and merchandise if you’ve published music and it gets played in a public venue or broadcasted you there’s money for you to get.

Performance rights organizations keep track of these things and collect the money for you. They have to pay you the money if it’s there but they don’t have to track you down to pay you. It’s up to you to sign up with them so you can collect your royalties. It’s important to understand that these won’t be huge checks if you’re a starting artist but if you’re music gets popular these checks can be surprisingly big. Whether it’s a lot of money or not so much every bit helps.

The sign up process is very simple. Pick one of these performing rights organizations, go on their page, sign up and register your music with them. Anytime your music is performed they will collect the money and once this becomes a significant amount they’ll send you a quarterly check with the money that your music made. It’s very simple so don’t forget to do this. We all want to maximize the money we earn from music so sign up and keep creating great content. Remember the better your content is the higher the chances of it becoming a major income stream for you.

3 Legal Controversies In My Industry

The three different controversies I chose to write about are: copyright in the Philippines, Sampling in Justin Timberlake’s “Suit & Tie” and Red Bull’s false advertisement lawsuit.

In the Philippines politicians have been using music in their campaigns without paying the artists or getting permission to use the music. The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines noticed this and sent a clear message to the Politicians. The message is simple: “Respect music and song and music copyright”. The lyrics and melody of songs are protected by copyright, this is owned by the songwriter. When people want to use this they need to pay the songwriter to get permission to use their material. Copyright law counts for everyone, politicians included.

Justin Timberlake’s mega hit “Suit & Tie” also got in trouble with copyright law. This is for the use of a sample. 70’s R&B group Sly, Slick & Wicked filed a lawsuit against UMG (Timberlake’s record label) for copyright infringement. The song that was sampled was Sly, Slick and Wicked’s song “Sho Nuff”. The song was released in 1973 and was produced by James Brown. UMG paid for the use of the sample but Sly, Slick and Wicked said that they don’t have the rights to use the vocal performances within that sample. This is a grey area of copyright law but I personally feel like they are just being greedy since UMG already paid for the use of the sample.

Red Bull energy drink was sued for false advertisement in 2014. They had a promotional campaign with the slogan “Red Bull gives you wings” some fans were very disappointed to learn that after drinking Red Bull they didn’t get any wings so they filed a lawsuit against the company for false advertisement. The courts agreed with the fans and Red Bull was forced to pay $6.5 million out to disappointed costumers. This highlights the reason for the small text we see on the bottom of the screen during commercials.

There are always legal issues in the entertainment industry, as professionals we need to know these things and make sure that we are covered and everything is legal.

Negotiating to Create Mutual Benefit

Learning how to negotiate is crucial when working in the music business. As engineers were normally hired for one project at a time so it’s important to know what you need to be able to do our best work. Negotiation can be a very scary process for most of us. One thing that we can do is break it down in to steps to make sure we don’t leave anything out. I found it easiest to break the process into four steps.

Step one is to find out what you need fro the deal. This is the step where you figure out how much money you will spend on the project and how much you need to be paid to make sure you make a profit. You also need to find out how much time you need to get the project done properly.

For step two you need to look at step one and calculate how much you can negotiate on the positions you came up with in step one.  This will allow you to understand when you need to walk away from the negotiation because it’s just not going to benefit you to do the project. One important thing is to understand that money is not the only valuable thing you can gain from negotiations.

The third step is analyzing the other person. Emotions play a huge role in negotiation. Find out what the other person cares about and what their motives are. Understanding this allows you to anticipate their position and stay a step ahead of them in the negotiations. It’s very important when negotiating to understand that nobody has to win or lose. When negotiating we need to try to create mutual benefit. Mutual benefit is when we both parties walk away satisfied with the outcome of the negotiation. This paves the way for a smooth relationship once you start working together.

The fourth step is figuring out what you are going to do if the negotiation goes bad and you walk away. This is your best alternative to negotiated agreement commonly referred to as a “BATNA”. Your BATNA can be as simple as taking a different project or as complicated as quitting your career as a producer to work at your uncles barbershop. The important thing is that you know what you will do if you walk away from the negotiation. You can use your BATNA as leverage in certain situations, in others it might be motivation to try harder to come to an agreement. Negotiations can be difficult and awkward but hopefully these steps will help you in your next negotiation.