Today I want to share with you 7 basic and obvious tips for better recordings. Why am I sharing such basic tips? Because we tend to forget them. We are so compelled by advanced techniques and new gear that we tend to forget the basics. So I wrote down this list, to remind us what really matters, and what's really important. Let's get started.
Change Your Guitar Strings & Drum Heads
I'm sure all of you know that by now, but I'll say it anyway. Changing your guitar (and bass) strings and your drum heads is essential for getting good tones and good sounding recordings. I know we sometimes tend to be lazy and skip this part so we can go ahead and press record. Try to remember that our goal is getting great recordings, and replacing our strings and drum heads is serving this purpose. Also don't forget to tune your instruments. With a tuner of course. Record Tracks That Sound Good Together This is probably the most important thing that people always forget. Don't just focus on getting each track to sound good on its own. Make sure your tracks sound good together. Start "mixing" your tracks at the recording phase. Record tracks and create sounds that fit well together, and virtually "mix themselves". How your tracks sounds together is much more important than how they sound on their own, in isolation. This is true for mixing as well. Create A Good Arrangement A good arrangement is a crucial part of a good song. You have to do your best job to make sure your song is interesting from start to end, and every instrument has its purpose. The recording phase is the best time to do that. While arranging your song you might need to change some parts or even record new one. That's why it's important to check your song's arrangement before you finish recording. Record A Quick Demo I really like to record a demo before I dive into recording the final version. When recording a demo, don't focus too much on playing and micing, to avoid wasting to much time. Use the demo to hear your song in its entirety, check and decide on the arrangement, and get an idea of the tones and sounds you're going for. When you get to the final recordings you'll be much more focused and confident, you'll produce much better results. Capture A Good Performance Before you even place a single microphone, make sure the instrument you're recording sounds good in the room, and the player you're recording knows his job. It's crucial in order to get a good sounding recording.
You won't believe how much a good performance improves the sound of your recording. More than that, it doesn't really worth anything if you got a great sound but the player can't even play his parts right. Don't "Fix It In The Mix" This approach is so bad, yet I see it almost everywhere. The mindset of "just record it, we'll fix it later in the mix" shouldn't exist at all. I've already talked about how your final mix is limited by your recordings, and I can't stress it enough. Don't record problems to deal with later. Record great sounding tracks, as if mixing doesn't exists at all. Record To A Metronome It's may be the most basic tip, but you'd be surprised how many people simply don't do that. It's so simple, just record to your DAW's metronome/click track. There's no other way to stay on beat.
Basic tips like these might sound obvious and boring to you, but you should always remember them. They are the core and base of any recording, and they are much more important than any fancy recording trick.
Do you remember all of these principals when you're recording?
Do you have any of your own?
Tell us in the comments!