Instrument(and Vocal)Recording

Tips and Tricks

Daniel J. Levitin

I started recording musi c when I was 12, taping our junior high school
band on an old Ampex reel-to-reel ma chine. I quickly learned that differ­
ent br and s of t ape affect th e sound differently , th at microph one placement
is crit ical , and th at th e most imp ortant tool in an engineer 's arsena l is
his or her ears . I have been lucky enough to work with , collab ora te with ,
wat ch and talk with some of th e best recording engineers in th e history of
popular music . Th e one thing th ey all share , besides a love for music, is
t ha t they all listen very care fully and use their ears as the final judge of
whether somet hing is being done right. There are no hard-and-f ast rule s
about which microphon e to use for a given sit uat ion, where to place it ,
or how to record , but I have gleaned a few shortcuts that might mak e
cer tain situations easier.
Thi s art icle is a collect ion of th e mos t pra ctical amon g th ese tip s. It is
divid ed into five sections . Th e first two reveal tricks for record ing the t wo
instruments that tend to give people the most troubl e: drum s and guitars .
Th e third section discusses track manag ement for recordists faced with
an ever-increasing number of tracks (real or virt ua l) and no idea how to
use th em. Fin ally, th e last two section s are quick tips on how to thicken
vocals, and how to mak e instrum ents sound huge usin g compression and
pannin g.

1 Drums
Th e two bro ad approaches to recordin g drum s and percu ssion are either to
use prerecord ed drum sounds-su ch as from a synthe sizer , drum machin e,

147
148 Instrument (and Vocal) Recordin g Tip s and Tricks

sampler , etc .-o r t o record live drum s. Each has it s adva nta ges and it s
dr awbacks. Prere cord ed drum s offer bett er contr ol and consistency of th e
sound, and the y comp lete ly eliminat e "leakage" of t he live dru ms ont o
oth er instrument al t racks tha t are record ed at th e sam e t ime. However ,
a nu an ced perf orman ce, in te rms of t emp ora l variati on and dynami c and
timbr al var iat ion , is more difficult to achieve. Many musi cians pr efer live
drums becau se of t he feel, subtl ety and nuanc e th at a good dru mm er
can cont ribut e. Most imp ort antl y, a live drumm er playing along with
othe r musician s can modi fy her perform an ce in real tim e to accomm oda t e
spo nt aneous cha nges in th e song's arr angement . Increasingl y, since about
1984, pr oduc ers are workin g with a hybri d appr oach in wh ich live drums
are used t o trigger pr erecorde d dr um sound s. This is discussed in Sect ion
1.3. Fir st , I will describ e some tri cks for r ecording drum s aco ust ically,
th en I will describe t riggering.
Live drum recordin g of a stand ard rock drum kit is most typically
accomp lished wit h mul tiple micropho nes--on e microp hone on each dru m ,
one to thr ee micro phone s on the snar e drum, an d two or four overhead
or "am bient" microphon es. Thi s is a lot of t ra nsducers in a sm all spa ce
and lead s t o phasing problems, which are distor tion s of t he spati al image
caused by sound from a given sourc e reachin g micro ph ones at different
tim es. Th e effect of such ph ase pro bl ems is manifest ed in th e final st ereo
(or multi cha nn el) mix as a sort of swishing or drif ting of t he soun d th rough
th e sound field, a failur e of th e sounds from a given instrument t o main t ain
a sta ble location in space. This can lead to muddine ss and psychoacous tic
masking effect s of ot her instr ument s.
Th e most parsimonious soluti on is to record th e drum kit with a very
small num b er of microphone s , say, two or thr ee. In an ideal situati on,
t he recordin g room meets one of two extremes; it is eit her perfectl y dead
or it has a nice, musically desira ble reverb erati on . In the case of a dea d
room , digital reverb erati on can be add ed t o t he drum tr ack as a whole ,
and in th e case of th e musi cally desirable reverb erant room , the drum kit
can be record ed wit h t he room 's natu ral reverb , and no supp lementa ry
pro cessing is necessary . However , rooms seldom meet eithe r of th ese ex­
tr emes, and th e aesth eti c requirements of most modern record s call for
ver y parti cular sna re and kick sounds tha t cannot typi cally be accom­
plishe d withou t signa l pro cessing. Thi s requires sepa rate snare and kick
mics (so th at th ese signa ls can b e isolat ed and tr eat ed separa t ely from
the rest of th e kit ).
Chrissie Hynd e of th e Pr et enders invit~d me to insp ect t he studi o set­
up at Air St udios in London when she and her band were recordin g Middl e
of th e Road in 1982. Produ cer Chris T homas had set up th e drum kit s
1. Drums 149

in the middl e of a very large, reverb erant ro om with a high ceiling , and
had spent several days moving microphone s around in ord er to captur e
a live sound with only thr ee mics: two ambi ent mics th at were severa l
yards abo ve and in fron t of th e kit , and one mic inside th e kick drum .
The result (which you can hear in the first fifteen second s of the song) is
one of the grea t drum sounds on record, but it t ook an enormous am ount
of time and mone y, and an esp ecially sonorous room. Most of the tim e,
producer s and engineers close-mic th e drum s so th at th ey ca n be tr eated
digitally and a room sound creat ed art ificially. This brin gs us back t o th e
phase probl em.

1.1 Getting Drum Overhead Mics in Phase

In a typic al set-up , th e engineer might plac e a pair of microphon es out
in the ro om to pick up an over all ambienc e of the room t o be mix ed in
with th e close mics in ord er to pr ovid e a bit of th e room 's natural sound .
Similarl y, a pair of mics might be placed dire ctl y above th e drums in ord er
to captur e the cymbal s and tom toms (esp ecially when th e toms aren' t
individually miked). This also applies to recording larg e arr ays of Latin
or African p ercussion , in which th e percussioni st is movin g around a great
deal , or playin g a numb er of different instrum ent s durin g th e perform an ce,
and the engineer want s to just place a pair of mics overh ead to pick up
whatever happens. It is essential in all the se cases for th e mics to be
in phase.
The trick to ensur e th at a given pair of mics is in ph ase is to inten ­
tionally put one of th em complete ly (that is, 180 0) out of phase with th e
other and th en move one or both of them around until mo st of the sound
you hear thr ough th em is cancelled out. You won 't hav e t o move th e mic
mu ch- som etimes a few inches or fraction s of an inch will do . Wearing
headphon es, go out into the recording room and just move one of th e
mics around until you find the pla ce in the m om where the sound in your
headphon es has reached a minimum volum e level. Some people also de­
scribe th e out-of-ph ase sound as being "hollow." When you' ve found this
minimum volume po sition , it is your proof th at the two mics are optim ally
placed with respect to each other. When you throw the mics in phase , you
will be cert ain that you have found the positi on that pr ovides the most
sta ble image, the most in-phase po sition possibl e. Thi s tri ck relies on th e
psychoacou sti c fact th at it is easier to hear th e ca ncellat ion of nod es- the
null point or minimum-than it is to hear th e maximum point.
Nearly all higher -end recordin g consoles have an out-of-phas e swit ch
th at you can flip to put one of your mics out of phase; it looks like a zero
150 Instrument (and Vocal) Recording Tips and Tricks

with a line throu gh it: 0. (Obviously, you don' t pu t bot h mics out of
ph ase, b ecaus e thi s will pu t t hem in ph ase with each ot her and t he t rick
won 't work; ther e has to be a 180 differenc e between t he memb ers of t he
0

pa ir you' re repositi onin g.) If your console doesn 't have a ph ase swit ch and
you are using a pat ch bay, you can make yours elf an out of ph ase pat ch
cable by cross ing the hot and grou nd wires on an un balan ced syst em , or
th e hot and neut ral wires on a ba lanced system. (B~ sur e to use a different
color for your ph ase revers ing patc h cab le-a black str ip e running across
t he length of a yellow cable is custom ary-so that you don't someday
thr ow a cha nnel out of ph ase by accident. Believe me, I' ve do ne t his and
it is not only emba rra ssing, but a pain in th e neck to fix later .) T hen use
thi s pha se reversing cable in t he pat ch bay somewhere in the signal chain
bet ween th e mic and the console. Finally , if your console doesn 't have
phase switc h and you 're not using a pat ch bay, you can make yours elf a
phase reversing mic cabl e. It only has to b e a foot long or so; you don 't
need t o swap t he who le mic cable- j ust add your phas e reversin g footlon g
cab le to t he end of the mic cabl e wher e it comes into your ta pe record er,
mic preamp , or mixin g conso le, and ta ke it out when you 've found t he
right positi onin g of the mic.

1.2 Miking Snares and Kicks

Most people pu t a mic on th e t op of t he sna re . For trig gerin g (see below)
you don 't really need t he optim al sound from t he drum , you only need
t o know when it was hit. A mic placed in a st anda rd positi on above the
sna re m ay pick up all kind s of sounds from ot her inst rume nts , such as the
high hat or kick drum , t hat will be a nuisan ce for tr iggering . To solve
thi s, put a sma ll piezo elect ric m icrophone insid e t he drum by pu shin g it
thro ugh the vent hole or ta ping it to th e side of th e dr um. You might even
like the sound of this and want to mix it in wit h th e top m ic if you' re
using the sna re's own sound . Also, put a mic un dern eath t he snare to
cap t ure th e sound of th e sna res. Some of t he best snare dr um sounds I
ever recorded came from mixing the t op and bot tom mics. Depe nd ing
on t he locatio n of t he mics and t he way th e drum sounds, you may need
to exper iment a bit with ph asing; in some cases, "in pltas e" will work
best , in oth er cases you' ll wan t t he top and bot tom mics "out of ph ase."
T hat is t o say, you want th e two mics in reverse pha se with each ot her,
usually accomplished by a small switc h on th e mic pre- amp t ha t reverses
the elect ronic polari ty of t he signa l of th e given mic. It is comm on to pu t
the mic on the und ersid e of th e snare in "reverse ph ase."
1. Drums 151

Kick drum s can be trea ted th e same way for trig gerin g: t ape a piezo
such as the one by Count ryma n ont o t he inside of th e drum.

1.3 Triggering Drums-Gates-Eq: Overcoming the

5 ms Delay on Triggered Samples
You can obta in t he best of bo th world s by having a live drumm er play, but
enhancing his dr um sounds (or replacing them) with prerecorded sounds .
Thi s is most typically done wit h kicks and snar es, alt ho ugh it can be
done with any member of th e drum kit. Say you want t o "beef up " t he
sna re sound , or replace it ent irely wit h one in your sam pler . You use t he
signal from t he microphone th at is picking up t he sound of your drum mer
hitting her snare t o activat e th e st ored drum sound . Samp lers, drum
machines, and ot her sto rage devices usu ally have a j ack lab eled "trigger
input" t ha t will play th e stor ed sound in respon se t o a voltag e spike at
the jac k. This spike can come from any source, but the volt age output
of t he mic on th e sna re drum trave ls fast eno ugh to trigger the sampled
sound almost imm ediat ely, and cause th e st ored snare drum to coincide
with th e drumm er 's act ua l snar e. (More about th e "almost imme diat ely"
in a moment .) It is p ossible to use t riggered dr um sounds in real time
durin g t he performa nce, so tha t t he musician s hear your sampled drum
sounds as th ey are playin g, or to add t hese sound s lat er to use in t he final
mix . I'm describin g a parti cular case, but th ere is no reason , of course,
why you can't use your drummer' s sna re drum hits t o tri gger a timb ale ,
a t amb ouri ne, or even an organ soun d . For t hat ma tter, you can t rigger
sounds wit h any voltage source, not ju st your dru ms, such as Futur e Man
of Bela Fle ck and th e Fleckt ones does when he uses his drumit ar t o trig ger
per cussion sounds.
Oft en , t he source of your inp ut voltage spike to th e sampler will have
ot her sounds in it an d will cause your sampl es to tri gger mor e oft en th an
you want th em to. Th e classic cas e is if t he drumm er is playin g a kick­
snare patt ern wit h t he kick on beat s one and t hree and th e sna re on beat s
two and four. The kick drum is so loud th at th e snare mic picks it up ,
and to t he trig gerin g input, t hey ar e bo th volta ge sourc es that it cannot
distin guish . Th ere are severa l approa ches to solving th e problem in a
"flow chart " ty pe of description .
However , before going into t hese det ails , if you are recording with a
DAW (Digita l Audio Worksta t ion) to hard disk usin g a pro gram such as
DigiDesign 's Pr oto ols, you can use a pr ogra m such as Sound Replac er to
insert t he sound you want whEm you want it . But for t hose of you who
152 Instrument (and Vocal) Recording Tips and Tricks

are using tape -based reco rding (eit her ana log or digital), t he following
ti ps may be helpf ul.
If yo ur kick drum is per cept ibly so fte r tha n your snar e drum . Use a noise
gate between th e signal an d the t rigger inp ut, sett ing th e sensiti vit y of
th e gat e so tha t t he gat e "opens" only when th e snare dru m is played an d
not when the kick dru m is played. If you haven 't used one before, a noise
gat e is a sign al processing device th at allows a signal to pa ss only when
it exceed s a certa in th reshold that you determin e. Soun ds louder th an
th is "op en t he gate " an d sounds th at ar e softer do not. You can t hink
of it conce pt ua lly t his way : it automates what you might do manu ally
by const ant ly turnin g your snare drum chann el on an d off (as you might
do wit h a "mute" butto n on your console) to open t he chan nel when t he
sn are drum plays and mut e it when th e kick drum pl ays. The bette r
gat es also have a "decay" pa rameter t hat you can cont rol to dete rmi ne
how long the gate shoul d stay ope n once it has be en op ened . In thi s case,
you want to set your decay long enough to let your sna re drum trig ger
your sam pler. If you pla n to replace th e acoust ic snare sou nd with th e
sampl e, you don 't need to let th e entire snare drum sound t hrough th e
gate . Remem be r , you 're only using t he snare as a voltage source- -a very
short piece of it will suffice. If you plan to mix the tw o to geth er , however ,
you will want t o ma ke sur e t he enti re snare sound passes t hro ugh th e
gat e, or alt ernativ ely, mix the acoust ic snare in with th e tri ggered snare
by splitti ng the original sna re 's signa l int o two pat hs: one that you use
in your mix and one t ha t goes t hrough your gat e an d t hat you only use
for tri ggering.
If the kick drum is not soft er than the snare drum (or if the gate didn 't
work). Use an expand er t o separa t e t he kick and snare drum in th e loud­
ness domain . An expa nder is th e oppos ite of a compress or' -it ma kes loud
signals louder and soft signa ls softer relat ive to one anot her . J ay Kadis of
St anford University prefers t o desc ribe gates an d expa nders as th e same
t hing : Wh ereas a gate complet ely turns off th e signal th at falls b elow a
certa in t hreshold, the expan der reduces the level below t his t hresho ld by
an adjus t able amount. Many gate s include exp and ers in t hem. An alt er­
nativ e is to use equa lization to sepa rat e the two in the spectral domain.
Becau se the funda mental frequency of a kick dr um is typi cally ,an oct ave
or two lower t han t hat of the sn are, you ca n use an equa lizer in t he signa l
cha in be fore t he no ise gate t o redu ce t he low frequencies (th us soften ing
th e kick) and to incr ease the high frequen cies (making the sn are louder ).
Some of th e more sop histica ted noise gates, such as th ose by Dra wmer,
actuall y include an equali zer so tha t you can mor e easily accompli sh this
t echn ique, called "freq uency select ive gat ing ."
1. Drums 153

I menti oned earli er that you might spli t the sour ce signa l (th e sna re
drum in th is example) into two part s so that you could use one for soun d to
mix in with t he samp le, and use th e ot her part to tri gger t he sa mple. Thi s
will be esp ecially imp ort ant if you are going to equalize t he acoust ically
recorded snar e dru m and you also intend to use that sound in your mix.
If you sp lit the sign al you ar e free to employ whatev er equalizat ion is
necessary on this "dummy " snar e channel th at is only used for tri ggerin g,
without irr evocably altering th e sound of the aco ustically reco rded sna re
tha t you may want to ret ain.

1.4 Overcoming Delay on Triggered Samples

Triggering t akes tim e. It is a sm all amo unt of ti me, bu t a finit e, quanti fi­
able am oun t of tim e nonethel ess. Typicall y delays in tri ggering are from
3- 7 ms , or about 5 ms on the aver age. If you ar e repla cing your live dru m
sounds with t riggers, t his will cause th e dru m beats to be ever-so-slight ly
behind t he beat . Thi s may be aes thetica lly desira ble in some kin ds of
music, or may be imp erceptibl e in ot hers. But if you want preci sion , you
will have to overcome this del ay somehow.
Conceptua lly, what you want to do is to get a t rigger voltage corre ­
sponding to t he sna re dru mm er 's hit to reach th e samp ler 5 IDS before
you need it-that is, 5 ms before t he drum mer hits his drum. Unl ess you
are psy chic, it is not obvious how to do thi s! In fact, t here is no way to
do this in rea l ti me, it can only be done afte r t he dru m t rac ks have been
record ed , and can only benefit t he m ixed versio n of t he song .
If you ar e recording analog. Hist orically, t he favor ed solut ion has been
to take t he analog ta pe of the dru ms, turn it upside dow n, add digit al
delay to t he drum tr acks you are using as t rig ger tra cks (e.g., snare and
kick) and reco rd thi s delayed signa l on a fresh tra de Whe n you t urn t he
ta pe r ight -side- up again, the sna re and kick will app ear early on t he new
tracks, ea rly enough for you to use them as t riggers and ca use the samp led
sound to align pr ecisely t o th e acoust ically recorded one. To det ermine
t he pr ecise amount of de lay you will need to employ, use an oscilloscope
or other measuri ng dev ice to measur e th e delay in milliseconds between
t he tri gger volt age and the onset of the sound that is produced by th e
sampler (or drum machin e or ot her st or age dev ice).
Sometimes in t he old days of an alog we used t o use t he "sync " head
to play back th e t rigger trac k, and use th e playb ack head for all th e ot her
instrum ent s. Becau se t he syn c head is locat ed an inch an d a half or so
before th e playback head , it will play back t he sound ea rlier. Thi s works
bet te r at slow tap e spee ds, such as 15 ips. Th e engineer t hen uses a digit al
154 Instrument (and Vocal) Recording Tips and Tricks

delay t o fine t une th e amount of delay requir ed between th e samp le and

the ot her instrumen ts.
If you are recordi ng digital. Most digital ta pe recor ders won't record back ­
wards, unfortunate ly. T here are only two solutions in this case . One is to
delay all t he other inst rume ntal t racks (except your tr igger t rac ks) by the
numb er of milliseconds you need to achieve. If you have a 16-t rack digit al
recording for exa mple, and you want to use the snare tra ck to t rigger a
samp ler, you' ll need to add 5 ms or so of delay to every t ra ck, perh aps
by bo unc ing t hem to anot her record er , or by offsetting th em on a har d
disk-based recording system .
If you ar e using certai n digit al recorders wit h built -in memory, you 're
in luck and can use the second solution. T he TASCA M DA-88, for exam­
ple, will let you advance t ra cks up to 200 samp les (4.5 msec at 44.1 kHz)
digit ally, since t here's t hat much system delay built in . Ot her m akes and
mode ls of digital recorders may have even more memory and hence more
offset ting capab ilities.

2 Guitars
2.1 Recording Electric Guitar Direct to Amplify Later
If you thin k you might want to modify the guitar t one lat er , record a
t rack of t he guita r dir ect. ("Direct" is the term used to describe when
t he guitar is plugged directly into the recording equipment with out going
t hrough an guita r amplifier. "Cabinet ," short for "speak er cab inet," is
t he complement ary te rm refers to recordin g a guitar using t he cabi net
th at is either part of, or connecte d t o, a guit ar amplifier.) T hen, you can
play back that t rack th rough a gu it ar am plifier late r and expe riment with
different sounds.

2.2 Recording Faux 12-String Guitar (If You Don 't Have
a 12-String Guitar that Stays in Tune)
This is a famo us old t rick, also called "Nashville TUning," deve loped be­
cause many 12-str ing guitars are difficult to keep in t une . The guit ar ist
first records her pa rt on a norma l six st ring. T hen, she st rings up a six
strin g guita r using only t he uppe r set of st rings from a 12-st ring set and
plays the part a second time. The slight t ime changes between t he two
per formances will thi cken the sound of th e perform an ce (if t hey are not
too far off) and th e sound of a 12-strin g is created from two six-st ring
guita rs. Another way to achieve thi s is to use a pitc h changer set t o an
3 . Track Management 155

oct ave above t he original t uning , send th e gui t ar signa l throu gh it , th en

pr int it t o anot her trac k . Th ere will be t he afore ment ione d 5 ms delay,
whi ch can be correc t ed as abo ve.

3 Track Management
Few p eople ever have eno ugh t rac ks . A lar ger n umb er of trac ks offers
increa sed flexibilit y for how you want t o pr ocess an d mix the instrumen ts.
If we ha d an unli mited nu mb er of tracks , we might record a ty pical roc k
band like t his:

Track # Instrument
1 Kick close
2 Kick piezo
3 Snare top
4 Sna re b ot tom
5 Sn ar e vent , drum s
6 High hat
7 Tom tom # 1
8 Tom tom # 2
9 Tom to m #3
10 Tom to m # 4
11 Floor to m
12 Cymbals overhe ad left
13 Cymba ls over head right
14 Roo m , am bient left
15 Room, ambi ent rig ht
16 Re -recor ded, 5 ms adva nce d kick trigger
17 Tri ggered Ki ck sou n d #1 from Samp ler
18 Trig gered Kick sound # 2 from Sampler
19 Tri ggered Sna re sound # 1 from Samp ler
20 Tri ggered Snar e sou nd #2 from Samp ler
21 Bass guita r cabine t
22 Bass guita r direct
23 Elect ric guita rs I, top cab ine t
24 Electric guita r I, bo t t om cabi net
25 Ele ctric guita r I , ro om mic
26 Electri c guita r I , direct
23 El ectric guita rs II , top ca binet
24 Elec tric guita r II , bo ttom cab ine t
25 E lectr ic guita r II , room mic
156 Instrument (and Vocal) Recording Tips and Tricks

26 Electri c guit ar II , direct

27-36 Lead Vocal Tracks, passes 1-10
37 Comp osite Vocal (see sect ion below)
38-47 Guit ar solo t racks, pa sses 1-10
48 Compos it e Gui t ar solo
49-5 0 Background vocals , ste reo
51- 52 Background voca ls, stereo, pass 2 for thickening
53- 54 Ste reo percussion
If your tr ack needs an orchest ra, horn s, pe da l stee l guitar , or ot her
instruments , you could easily eat up mor e tha n ano th er dozen trac ks. If
t he trac ks are availab le, and you don 't mind keeping tr ack of all t his st uff,
and your console is big enoug h, thi s is a great luxury . In pr actic e, most
people are limit ed to 8, 16, 24, or 48 simulta neously availab le tr acks, and
t hen combining is requir ed (or what th ey call in Brit ain a "reduct ion" ).
Lookin g over t his t ra ck sheet, you might decide th at you are willing t o
commit yourse lf early on t o t he balan ce you have in your drums am ong
tr acks 7- 13, redu cing t hem to a sing le stereo trac k. Wheneve r po ssible,
keep your snar e and kick sound sepa rate for as long as possible because at
t he final mix down , you may decide you need to change spe cific asp ect s of
th ose sounds, such as th e eq on the kick or th e reverb on th e sna re . But
you could combine th e different compo nents of your kick an d snare sound
at an earl y stage, bringing together Tr acks 1, 2, 17, and 18 to ma ke a single
kick tra ck, for exampl e. Wh en recordin g on 8-t ra ck, I typic ally have had
t o make t he unfortun ate and flexibility-lim itin g choice of redu cin g all the
drums to a single ste reo tr ack pair , meanin g t hat I need to commit t he
eq an d reverb s to th e drums and recor d th ese effects long before,t he fina l
m ix. If I can spa re one more tr ack for a MIDI or SMP TE tim e code pulse
(or FSK in the old days) I can still t rigger a new snare or kick sound in
rea l tim e dur ing mixd own (sub ject t o t he annoying 1 ms MIDI delay),
and can also add keyboard , synt h, and ot her sequenc er lines lat er .
A more par simoni ous tr ack sheet , aft er redu ction s (t hat might have
been done durin g initi al recordin g or at a subsequent reduc tion session) ,
might look like t his :

Track # Instrument
1 Kick (I' ll hop e tha t if I need a tri ggered prere­
cord ed supplement /replac ement I can do it later
in real tim e)
2 Snare (Same caveats as apply tp the kick drum )
3 Drum Overh ead left
4 Drum Overh ead right
4. Thickening Background Vocals Using Varispee d 157

5 Bass Direct (1 can run it out to an amp lat er ,

durin g th e mix, in real time, if 1 want )
6 Elect ric guita r I
7 El ectric guit ar II
8- 9 "Scratc h" area for recording lead vocal and guit ar
solo at t empts, can be erased lat er and used for
ster eo ba ckgroun d vocals
10 Compos ite Vocal
11 Composit e Lead Guit ar
12-1 3 St ereo st ring pads/ orchestr a (I' ll use EQ t o pull
out parti cul ar instrum ents lat er if I change my
mind about how the y are mixed)
14-1 5 Stereo piano
16 MIDI , SMPTE , t ime code, et c.

4 Thickening Background Vocals Using Varispeed

To get lush , thi ck backgrou nd vocals , have your background vocalists
sing t he par t two or t hree addit iona l tim es wit h the t ap e record er set at
a slight ly different sp eed (up to 5% fast and/ or slow). They will have to
sing in a different key to acco mmodate thi s , which will cha nge t heir voca l
ti mbres slightly, and when t he t ap e recorder is played ba ck at normal
spee d , t he form ant shi ft will ad d t o the illusion t ha t you had more singers
tha n you act ua lly did .

5 Making Instruments Sound Huge

Wit h mod ern recording , we can crea te sonic im pre ssions th at would be
imp ossibl e t o hear in real life, maki ng instrumen t s sound lar ger th an they
really are .

5 .1 Stereo Panning
Pl ace one micr ophon e on th e neck of an acoust ic guit ar , th e oth er near
the sound hole, record t hem on sepa rate t racks, and at rnixdown , pan
one tra ck "hard left " and t he oth er "ha rd right. " Th e guit ar will now
t ake up t he ent ire soun dfield. On spea kers , th e guit ar will sound as lar ge
as t he dist ance between th e spea kers. In a living room , for exa mple,
with sp eaker s 8 feet apart , the guit ar will seem to be 8 feet wid e! In
headph ones, it will sound like your head is act ual ly inside th e guitar .
158 Instrument (and Vocal) Recording Tips and Tricks

George Massenbur g did a beau tiful job of thi s on Lyle Lovett's J oshua
Judge s Ruth album, on the song "I've Been to Memphis ". Massenbur g
record ed th e piano in stereo, then "split pan " th e two mics as I describ ed ,
crea t ing th e illusion of an enormous pia no.

5.2 Compression
Compre ssion reduces th e dy namic ran ge of a performance , making it tak e
up less sonic space. Pa rad oxically, this can mak e an instrument sound
larger than it is. No one knows for sure why thi s is so, but I believe it
is be cause of the psycho acoustic phenomen on that our ears are natural ,
biological compre ssors. The ear compresses very loud sounds and our
br ain s have learned throu gh millions of year s of evolut ion that compre ssed
sounds are very loud ones. To creat e an illusion of size in a recording,
compress an instrum ent , and th en you can actu ally reduc e its relativ e
volume in the mix (making room for oth er instruments). The classic way
this is employed is to compress a distorted electric guit ar and turn it down
in th e mix.

5 .3 Small Speakers
Usin g extremel y close-rniked small spea kers, such as a 4- or 8-inch speaker
in a closed-ba ck cabin et tends to make guitars sound bigger. A numbe r of
great heavy metal sounding guita rs have be en recorded this way, including
tr acks by AC/DC.

6 Conclusions
This was a whistl e-st op t our throu gh some tim e-savin g tri cks for recordin g
instrum ent s and voices. Just as some of th e b est musical ideas come
from experim enting, so too did many of thes e trick s arise by recordin g
engineer s breakin g rule s and experimenting with equipment and sound.
Engineerin g can be creat ive too! To paraphr ase a hedoni stic mantr a of
the 1970s, "If it sounds good , do it!" Let your ears be the jud ge. An
additiona l source of tips and tri cks is th e interne t · user groups and
discussion boar ds are good pla ces to excha nge new ideas. In addit ion , Mix
Mag azine , EQ Magazine and oth er insider tr ad e publi cation s regularly
interview produc ers and engineers who describ e some of th eir late st audio
discoveries and how th ey crea ted new and innovative sounds. Klepko 's
"Under standing Microphon es" (pag e 115) is a good source for addition al
inform ation on recordin g instrum ent s and voices.