Recording

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.

Here’s a cool little trick you can do that’ll help you with your ear and with your DAW skills at the same time.

You have a choice when it comes to engaging a filter.

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.

Speakers are kind of like a pair of new shoes.

Your condenser microphone needs power.

You had a great session.

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.

(beep) - What’s happening here might not be exactly what you think.

There are vocalists out there that will never ever give you a good performance in headphones, but even seasoned vocalists sometimes have a hard time matching the vibe and the performance of a relaxed studio environment with the monitors on.

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.

How tetrachords combine to form every mode and scale. Interval patterns, visual breakdowns, and practical applications.

Sometimes stereo is like an added byproduct of what you get when you use multiple microphones.

They say monsters aren’t real, but I’m not so sure.

This is a story about perfection.

Let’s do away with the notion that all major chords are bright and happy and all minor chords are dark and sad.

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

There’s an order of operations I prefer when announcing a new take.

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

Being unobjectionable doesn’t really sound like a compliment, but there is a beautiful ambiguity to a suspended chord that makes it fit in pretty much anywhere.

(piano notes) You don’t need to know anything to get better at ear draining, and you can know a lot.

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.

Your reverb has a job to do.

As soon as you send a signal anywhere, your stereo output, your headphones, you’re using a bus.

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…

Here are 10 things that are more important than your vocal chain.

Every day, thousands of potentially great songs are abandoned and left to wither away, unappreciated and unloved.

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.

Believe it or not, I’m not trying to impress you with my pitch.

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.

How many musical keys are there?

There’s a reasonable chance that the first minor chord you ever learned was an A minor.

I’ve got a broad definition of the term beat and beat making, but our students get a lot of theory.

If you don’t have a second engineer to work as your tape up, to start and stop the transport, and most importantly to slate the takes and document all the best ones, then finding the take that you loved can be like finding a needle in a haystack.

(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.

Within the lexicon of recording and mixing, the concepts of phase and polarity are similar enough.

A440. Here’s what we’re talking about. What it means is when I play this note, this string vibrates at 440 times a second. An octave up, 880. An octave down,…

When you sign on to go on a roller coaster and they buckle you in that chair, you’re signing up for a thrilling ride knowing full well you’re going to be returned back in one piece.

Here’s a follow-up to the phase inversion trick I shared with you the other day to get you untethered from your headphones It works on a similar principle, but it’s a little different in this scenario.

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.

I want to accomplish two things with this video.

This cable goes one way.

Before we begin to discuss delay, echo, and reverb, let’s take a second to talk about the Haas effect.

I would argue that sampling has changed our modern conception of harmony and here’s why.

When you’re working in the box, you enjoy a luxury, which is that all of your plugins and settings snap to attention as soon as you open your session.

Folders and Logic, underrated.

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

Is there a difference between a Bb and an A#?

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

The EQ in your DAW may have an edge over even some of the most coveted recording discs, but only if you know how to take advantage of it.

I’m a guy who loves to get my hands dirty.

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 we’re gonna build something.

Essential audio hardware and recording course. Learn microphones, interfaces, speakers, acoustics, signal flow, and recording practices for producers and beatmakers.

They’re going to tell you that this is not a minor chord.

Today was ear training gym.

Welcome to today’s first and possibly only episode of Stupid Logic Tricks, where I share things I almost never need to do, but I’m glad I know how to.

Major, minor, or diminished.

When your favorite application is updated, it’s generally considered best practice to preserve a working copy.

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

I think it would be useful to start a thread about things that made you a better mixing engineer.

Let’s take a look at this descending chromatic line and ask ourselves what it has to do with the key of C.

Do you need room acoustics and sound treatment?

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

Is a sampler a synthesizer?

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

It’s time I showed you how to wrap a cable.

Here I am at the beach.

Let me simplify chords for you a little bit by telling you that on the piano there are only four augmented chords.

Welcome to a ton of new followers and I figured I’d introduce myself.

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

I favor chord thinking over key thinking, and here’s what I mean.

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.

We see both experienced and beginner producers at Bee Kitchen.

I can’t believe I’m saying this.

Raise your hand if you have trouble hearing compression.

Let me share with you the steps I take to teach harmony to our students.

Who needs synthesis, right?

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…

You can’t learn how to be lucky, but you can learn a lot from failure.

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.

It’s time to hit the gym, but not this gym.

When we talk about stereo, there is no center.

The practical application of a multiband compressor comes into focus when you consider not just how it differs from a regular compressor, but how it differs from a traditional equalizer.

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…

The easiest way to start understanding chord inversions is to think of it like a cake with three ingredients.

If you’re starting to make your own music, there will come a time when you find yourself scratching your head looking at a bunch of notes and asking what chord is this?

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.

Is the circle of fifths overrated?

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.

You know that frequency response chart that came with your nice set of speakers?

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

The canvas for sound and music is neither digital nor analog.

Real piano. Sample piano. Oh boy. Gone are the days when piano in a can sounded like this. There are lots of great options these days and if you’re expecting…

Side chains are overrated.

If you’re starting to make your own music, there will come a time when you find yourself scratching your head looking at a bunch of notes and asking what chord is this?

You’re here to learn about music theory and you’re waiting for me to use words like Locrian and Neapolitan 6th And I’ve …

Somebody told you the attack and release time on a compressor is the amount of time it takes for the compressor to kick in, which impacts the transient or the sidechain or blah blah blah.

With great power comes great responsibility.

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

Three steps to identifying a chord.

One thing that tends to confuse new engineers is the difference between phase and polarity.

Reverb. I am brimming with things that I want to say about reverb. There’s no way I can put this into 60 seconds, but effects mixing and synthesis starts next…

If you know someone who’s making cool beats but they’re still adjusting stuff by ear, getting things sounding good without entirely understanding what those settings are doing, their success relies as much on luck as it does on skill.

I didn’t make something clear when I said the difference for me in moving from tape to digital was in that pause when you had to rewind after you did a take.

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

Distortion comes in lots of flavors, but one thing they all share is that distortion adds high frequency content to your program material.

It was the great Greek physicist Archimedes who said, "Give me a lever long enough and I’ll break your keytar." In my experience, a cable like this is pretty much guaranteed to break a jack like that, which is why in the time of the pyramids, they invented cables like this.

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

Music has rules, but the thing is, you get to write them yourself.

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

We’ll talk about these chords another day, because right now there are two things you need to understand about working with audio and working with loops.

Co-prime sequences are a backbone for evolving variations in pattern-based music.

Can you have your cake and eat it too?

The topics in this 10-minute video include the harmonic series and the physical nature of sound.

Okay, in 60 seconds, what do I mean when I say something sounds modal?

The best argument for doing music as a profession?

With or without an audio degree, you wouldn’t be the first musician to come to me, never having been told what key tracking is and what it’s for.

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

Take a song in a minor key and end unexpectedly on a major chord.

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.

The other day I made a post about how you should always run tape, which you should.

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

This old relic, this is your grandma’s motorized fader.

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.

So the song "Just the Two of Us" has a lot of opportunity for things like passing chords.

There’s sort of a secret reason engineers use pop filters.

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

Logic doesn’t have a straightforward way to apply an LFO across a bunch of parameters.

A producer today is like an island and to me nothing epitomizes that more than the topic of automation.

We had a lot of fun in Music Theory Gym today.

Those of you who subscribe to this myth that somehow learning music theory is going to ruin you as an intuitive musician are buying into a false narrative.

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

So I get this weird message from my friend.

Don’t be in such a rush to learn.

Do you need to break in new speakers?

So basically the way our classes work, we try and get you in and out of a DAW class as soon as humanly possible because we want to get to the fun stuff, the interesting stuff.

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.

Hey everybody, a lot of you are new and if you are, I want to let you know what we’re doing here.

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.

Achieve professional studio sound through recording diversity, not expensive gear. Learn why varying microphones, instruments, and recording positions creates better productions than relying on one setup.

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.

Today I got diagnosed with something called "dupertrans disease".

Complete guide to recording grand pianos: from the 'missionary position' to ORTF arrays, boundary mics, and advanced multi-mic techniques for capturing the perfect piano sound.

Complete guide to recording upright pianos: microphone placement techniques, removing panels for better access, dealing with player noise, and miking from behind the instrument.

Explore the fascinating history of sound recording from Edison's wax cylinders to the first recording ever made in 1860 by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville - the original 'take one'.

Essential beginner's guide to music production equipment: from headphones and MIDI controllers to audio interfaces and microphones. Start making music without breaking the bank.

Complicated doesn’t mean better.

The Beat Kitchen curriculum is a living document.

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

A lot of vocalists love performing with compression.

Welcome everybody. This is Mark Jaffe from Five Bridges. Mark is a wonderful attorney who really takes a focus on creative stuff and he’s agreed to come in and talk…

After teaching countless people how to use programs like Logic and Ableton, I’ve decided to give up.

There comes a point when everybody feels stuck and it doesn’t matter if it’s writer’s block or maybe you just can’t solve a problem.

So you’ve seen a few Beat Kitchen videos and you want to learn more about the whole program thing.

With the holidays upon us, you may not see us as much over the next few days, but don’t worry, we’re gonna be back in the new year with new content, new instructors, and in case I don’t see you, I wanna leave you with this thought.

I’m excited to announce that Beat Kitchen is launching our scholarship program with a pay what you can tuition option.

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.

I shared a toolkit with you yesterday.

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.

Whoever told you you can sample five seconds of a song and not have to get clearance is conflating that with one of two legal concepts the first being fair use and the second being incidental use Incident use is easy if I’m doing a documentary and that guy drives by blasting a song out of his window I don’t have to pay for it.

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

Good morning. Let’s make today take yourself to work day. At least let’s strive to make every day a day where you do what you love and where you love…

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.

I’m Nathan and I’m the founder of Beat Kitchen and I really hope you’ve enjoyed this little piece on music theory.

Three steps to identifying a chord.

Yesterday in class one of the students brought in a sweet Thundercat song called Dragon Ball Durag and it’s a great example of chords that are just stacked in thirds moving right up through the diatonic scale.

Creative vocal recording techniques for Jill Cunniff's 'Eye Candy': blending vintage and modern mics, piano cavity recording, and unique processing for otherworldly vocal textures.

What’s your first upgrade or purchase once you’ve set up the bare bones minimum for your studio?