by Kacey Y » Wed Nov 29, 2017 1:12 pm
I wish I had a concise way to describe the method I like to use for recording and mixing. I record digitally and I like to track everything very clean. High headroom, dialing in the tone at the source as close as possible to the desired finished product, no compression or EQ on the way in (unless it's for monitoring). I tend to use character mics only for accent, like a room mic, a heart mic on drums, something I know I'm going to cut to on guitar or vocals for a more tightly focused solo'd tone (like an intro riff or something). Then I get most of my character in mixing. I put a heavy emphasis on gain staging. LPF/LPF for inaudible (or unnecessary) frequencies and very super light compression on every track and group up front, to sculpt everything into place, before I even start going for character compression/EQ/reverb/delay, etc. I guess it's "naturalistic"...not trying to be the pure documentarian style recording of someone like Albini, not the far opposite extreme of artistic expressionist style recording/mixing (like Sgt Peppers or something contemporary that can't be performed live), but something that's meant to sound like what people think natural sounds like in context.
The downside to that is it takes a lot more pre-production and familiarity with the band/material. I usually have to have some kind of idea of how everything is going to sound ahead of time, though there's room for changes and surprises. I have had a couple bands flat out not trust me in tracking for guitars and bass and I had to essentially take 30 minutes to an hour to record a sample section, roughly mix it and show them how it's going to sound all together, because guitarists especially cannot seem to accept the idea that the heaviness of a band sound doesn't come from their solo'd guitar track. I have also run afoul of some people who have stock recording opinions, like insisting that every track have a parallel DI, in case we want to re-amp later. I have never reamped anything I've recorded, with the exception of getting natural reverb and reamping a snare to get more sizzle from the snare wires. I am not a fan of DI bass, especially because I'm primarily a bassist and have never had trouble getting a good clean bass tone with low end from recording with little effort. I find that a lot of engineers are just lazy or not willing to take the time to do a fully produced bass tone in tracking, so a lot of bassist labor under the misconception that doing everything DI is how you get a great bass tone. I have gotten shit from other bassists and engineers about that online though, so I'm aware it's not a popular opinion.
At any rate, I think if you have a good handle on mixing and/or have a strong vision for what you're recording, you can get away with a lot of shortcomings or limitations in gear during tracking. In a way that doesn't necessarily line up with how I like to do things either, some people bake in every tone up front and print it straight away on tracking and that works too.
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