Recording Engineering

I think it’s time we talked about your fader.

This is a directional microphone and when I point it away from my face You might expect it to be quieter than this But the thing is when you hear me, you’re not just hearing me in one place You’re hearing me and you’re hearing the sound as it bounces around the room and that might surprise you Because even this shoddy Designed to reject as much of the environment as possible still picks up a lot of sound off-axis Where it might feel more like 60/40 rather than 80/20 I like to think of any microphone as if it has two signals and not one There’s the room sound which never really changes and a direct signal where you do have some control and what you should Understand from this is that maybe more important than this mic or this one or this one is the room You’re in and which way are you facing?

The speed of sound is constant.

If you max out your signal and pan it to one side, you’re probably gonna clip your output.

Are you using green noise in your recordings because they’ll sell you anything?

This is your friendly reminder that your microphone comes with reverb.

Tricking yourself is just not a good long-term strategy.

Your condenser microphone needs power.

This is a Helmholtz resonator, and you’ll see them in studios.

When was the last time you used something like this?

Upward compression, downward compression, expansion.

This switch right here is something a lot of seasoned engineers understand instinctively, but don’t really articulate.

There are a few reasons that pro audio connections often run over balanced cables like this or this.

This isn’t a stereo connector.

Recording every instrument comes with its own set of challenges, but this one, it can be a real beast.

When you first started recording, you probably just stuck a microphone in front of your face and began to sing.

You’re gonna want headphones for this one.

There’s a reason we teach mid-side recording, and it isn’t because it sounds good, although that’s one of the reasons we like to use it.

This is a dynamic microphone.

Stand by, this is going to be take three and rolling.

I arrived in New York in the late 90s.

I am so stoked to talk to you about microphones, but before I do, we need to have a serious chat.

Stop doing this to your microphone.

You can try, but you can’t really separate frequency from level.

You probably won’t hear the difference between these microphones.

Somewhere out there, somebody’s telling you that it’s dangerous to use natural phase EQ because it imparts a phase shift on your recordings.

Stop singing. There’s nothing in your vocal chain that will substitute for a good performance. I can fix your pitch, I can fix your timing, but if the vocal doesn’t…

Two things in the studio you’ll never see me without.

As your equipment begins to age, it’s gonna need exercise, just like you will.

It’s a radical idea. But I teach mastering before I teach mixing, and I don’t spend a lot of time on it. Two reasons. Mastering is pretty straightforward. The objective…

Don’t look for a job in audio if you don’t understand this.

Let me show you something.

On paper, this mic is better than this one in pretty much every way.

Raise your hand if you have trouble hearing compression.

(footsteps) Allow me to show you the second best way to get rid of phone buzz that might be leaking into your microphone.

As a sound source gets closer to any directional microphone, it doesn’t just get louder.

You can expect to have a hard time understanding what a multiband compressor is if you don’t know what a compressor is, but you should also be familiar with a crossover network.

If you go to school to be an audio engineer, one of the things they’re going to talk to you about is mid-side.

Let’s talk about mastering, because it’s not just about making stuff loud.

If you go to school to be an audio engineer one of the things they’re gonna teach you about is speaker delays It’s because of the legs so here’s the thing sound travels at roughly 1100 feet per second that works out to about 1.1 millisecond per foot my front gate.

If you find yourself turning up your levels when you record and then turning them back down when you’re done, consider changing this setting in Logic Pro.

If you’re confused about microphones, think of it like ordering off a prefix menu.

Hey everyone, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.

Today at Beat Kitchen, we’re going to turn up the heat on our conversation of compression.

The act of transduction involves taking energy in one form and converting it into another.

Today we’re going to look at microphone polar patterns.

Today was ear training gym.

Let’s talk three to one rule, because first of all, not a rule, more of a back of the napkin guideline.

Do you need room acoustics and sound treatment?

Inexperienced producers tend to make a tactical mistake when they’re working with vocalists.

If you’re using Ableton Live’s hidden options.txt file to access extended features, functions, workflows, hacks, which experimental feature is your favorite?

You may already know you can fashion a windscreen by wrapping a hose around a coat hanger.

Does a compressor operate on level or frequency?

It was the great Greek physicist Archimedes who said, "Give me a lever long enough and I’ll break your keytar.

Raise your hand if you have trouble hearing compression.

Before you mix in earbuds, I want you to try this.

I made a mistake in a video.

Always run tape. That was a piece of advice I got as a young musician, and I still think it’s really good. I don’t just mean you should record your…

An impulse response is like an acoustic fingerprint.

This is your routine reminder that what you do is extraordinary.

Ideally, in the studio, I’m always recording, because you never know when something amazing is about to happen.

When we talk about stereo, there is no center.

We all do it. Part of studio culture seems to be fetishizing gear, but let’s level set for a second. Because aside from you and your instruments, the only thing…

Important stuff they should teach you at recording school, but don’t.

What the actual funk is a sine wave?

So one breakthrough that I had when I was learning how to do all of this, I think it’s very easy to forget about velocity when you’re putting stuff into a piano roll.

When you dither, you’re intentionally adding noise to your track.

You might be surprised to learn that the big studio sound you like isn’t just a byproduct of a big studio.

Time and time again, I see students run into trouble because of assumptions they make around the word "stereo." I’m not trying to take you down a notch by making you feel like you don’t understand something that you thought you did, but signal flow legitimately trips a lot of people up, so I want to challenge you by thinking about this example.

Your audio interface is a device that does a few different things.

With great power comes great responsibility.

The act of transduction just means taking energy in one form and converting it into another.

For me, the most impactful part of the move from tape to digital wasn’t the sound quality.

Learn to record your own vocals or somebody else’s because regardless of whether or not you’re making vocal-based music I can’t think of a better way to get you out of the box getting signals from place to place Navigating takes comping not to mention all those tools you need and if you can’t or won’t sing find yourself a vocalist Or we’ll find one for you vocal kitchen It runs six weeks two instructors from mouth to mic to mix will take you through warming up getting a great performance And delivering a solid vocal mix everyone deserves the chance to learn to work with vocals and vocalists share that with someone who belongs in a big kitchen

There’s one thing we all have in common and that’s water.

Can you have your cake and eat it too?

The next time anyone asks you if you believe in magic, consider this.

There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous.

You should maybe look towards a really, really quiet mic and a really clean, quiet preamp because you know that like a lot of this, you know, all of your verses or whatever are going to be like really, really cranked in order to bring it up.

One of the important things they won’t teach you at recording school, it’s how to give and receive feedback.

A student recently told me that the "aha moment", the one where they finally understood what a compressor was doing, was when they recorded a compressed signal so they could see and feel the resulting waveform.

I’m regarded as a producer who can capture a great vocal performance and get a great vocal tone.

I try not to think of this microphone as if it is pointed at me.

Do you need to break in new speakers?

This account is getting really big.

Okay, this just in. If you want me or someone from Beat Kitchen to come and talk to your newspaper, we would be delighted. Not only does that sound like…

If you get confused because things don’t sound the way you expect them to, that happens to everybody.

Listing your gear is just as likely to disqualify you from a gig than to qualify you for one.

Today, I’m ripping apart my studio.

This viewer raises a really interesting question and I’m gonna do my best to channel a Hank Green moment and answer it informally.

In the beginning, you didn’t know what a DAW was.

This Friday, I’ll be kicking off Beat Kitchen’s Digital Marketplace Summit with a free workshop for members.

This is a public service announcement from the people who like to sell you microphone stands.

A lot of vocalists love performing with compression.

Do you know what electricity is?

Make yourself a bootable backup drive with all your installations on it while everything still works and stick it in a drawer for when you really need it.

This cat has never stepped foot outside.

Don’t ever use wood glue on an instrument repair.

Compressors aren’t actually super complicated, but they are a little complicated.

People tend to want to put their best foot forward when they come to class, but showing me how talented you are isn’t the same as taking a shower and fixing your hair and putting on a nice shirt.

New students come in to me with their eyes all in glitter thinking about gear and gear is great But let’s level set for a second because aside from you and your instruments The only thing in your entire studio that makes a sound is your monitors and every decision you make comes through that lens This video is not so much for the rest of the video; it’s not so much for the rest of the

Hey, there’s nothing inherently wrong with presets.

It’s easy to take air for granted because it’s invisible, but from an audio perspective, that’s a mistake.

There is no best microphone.

Two things in the studio you’ll never find me without.

Human beings hear between about 20 hertz and 20,000 cycles per second.