James's Recording Blog
Assorted of musings from the mind of a perpetual audio sceptic. These blog posts are hosted over at www.thirdcirclerecordings.co.uk – a fine website for people of strong will and good standing – assembled here for your intellectual delectation.
Guitar Cables Vs. Speaker Cables: The Same, Only Different
Mr. Paperclip, why do we keep being told not to use guitar cables as speaker cables? They look identical, and they fit in the same jack sockets. So why the insistence from Mr. Stapler over there that you absolutely must use the right one? Well, turns out there is a reason, and it’s not just audiophile pedantry (though that does play a part)...
Steve Albini, 1962-2024: Reflections On The Man I Met
Steve Albini taught me two important lessons that will forever stay with me. The first pertains to audio; the recording of drums, the dedication required to become a master craftsman, to hone your skill in uncompromising fashion, not to expect or accept less of yourself in your pursuit of that which you know to be possible...
White Noise vs. Pink Noise vs. Brown Noise
What noise annoys an oyster? A noisy noise annoys an oyster! Now we’ve established that, let’s turn our attention to another important question: what’s the difference between white, pink and brown noise? These different flavours of noise are separate and distinct concepts; yes, they’re all noisy and annoying, but they’re differently noisy and annoying in important ways...
Perfectionism Is Not Your Friend
“One more take for luck?” is fast becoming one of the most irritating phrases I hear in the studio. There is nothing lucky about doing seven takes of the same vocal part. If you didn’t get it right in the first three, the chances of some magic performance manifesting after you’ve exhausted your voice are very much subject to the law of diminishing returns...
Music and Mental Health
Last night I sat down rather begrudgingly to work on a new version of the studio website. As is often the way with things like this, what started out as a laborious chore soon turned into an unexpected pleasure; a meander down an avenue of fond recollections as the various recordings brought forth the times, places and people involved...
Editing Drums And How To Avoid It
By far the biggest hold-up that can impose itself on a recording session is drum editing. It’s a colossal pain in the arse that you really want to avoid, because it’ll gobble up time and money like Pac-Man gobbles up his brain medicine...
How Long Does It Take To Mix A Song?
Estimating how long it will take to mix a song, and therefore offering a reliable quote for it, is a bit like quoting for the time it might take to do a jigsaw or a Sodoku...
FAQs
Allow your eyeballs to graze upon a selection of real answers to real questions from real people. If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve just asked me something similar. I’ll add to this post as more interesting talking points emerge...
Why I Love Recording
This year has been tough on everyone, not least for those of us in the performance arts who have seen our lifeblood obliterated, and businesses subject to such relentless stop/startary that the possibility of following the shit advice of our Governmental Overlords to “retrain” was looking frighteningly real...
To Click Or Not To Click? That Is The Question
In the modern era of music recording it is generally accepted practice to use a click track as the basis upon which to construct your impending masterpiece. Ah, the humble click track; that annoying blippy-bloop that has become so much a staple of the music production process...
How To Prepare For Your Session
A band’s readiness in preparation for their upcoming session is one of the most defining aspects in determining the quality of the end result. To rock up unprepared with an out of tune guitar and no spare strings is to advertise your disinterest in achieving good results while keeping costs down...
What’s Involved In A Recording Session?
Prior to the session I open a conversation with the band, either by email or in person at the studio, during which the specifics of their project are discussed, with reference to any material that they consider instructive to the kind of result they’re looking to achieve...
How Long Does It Take To Record A Song?
The most common question I am asked by prospective clients is some variation of “How long will it take to record x number of songs?”. Perhaps, “Can we record and mix a song in a day?”, or “Can we get our EP done in a weekend?”. The trouble is, these are fairly involved questions with no straight answer...
DI Boxes: A Distinction Without A Difference..?
A good friend of mine recently purchased a new DI box; an Orchid Electronics Direct Inject box – an active DI that retails for about 40 quid. He excitedly proclaimed that for the money the sound was fantastic, enjoying in particular how it interfaced with his bass guitar. I was intrigued...
How To Make A Guitar Sound Like… A Guitar!
I am fervently of the opinion that the goal of recording audio is to accurately capture and faithfully reproduce a particular sound. Not to fuck around with it, contorting it into something that only dimly represents what was originally going on, but to trust in the natural character of an instrument and the preference of its performer...
MOTU??! Urrgh!
The association of price with quality is a well-documented phenomenon, and companies like Apple and Neumann are masters of its manipulation. Of course you’d pay £65 for a MacBook charger! That’s the price you pay for quality! And of course you would pay £250 for a U87 cradle! Why, you’d be an unprofessional fool not to...
Crushed To Hell: My Thoughts About Mastering
Mastering recorded audio became its own discipline after the Second World War, when a “dubbing engineer”, secondary to the recording/mix engineer, was tasked with transferring the recorded audio from tape to a master disc, which served as the template from which all following vinyl discs would be pressed...
The Bullshittery Of Audio Jargon
The topic of audio recording is vast and open-ended, and discussion about associated equipment in particular often gives rise to much heated debate with respect to perceived differences in the sonic performance between devices...
Stereo Recording Techniques On Test
Often in recording scenarios it is necessary to implement a stereo miking technique. Whether it’s for drum kit ambience, concert halls or choirs, ambient stereo miking provides a way of adding depth, width and general realism to the recording that is not possible through close-miking alone...
Comb Filtering In Drum Overhead Microphones
Recording drums in a small room is a problem that any engineer not blessed with an infinite budget must deal with at some point. Among the difficulties inherent in this scenario is the problem of comb filtering in the audio signal due to the microphone’s proximity to a boundary, i.e. the ceiling or a nearby wall...
Impulse Responses & Convolution Reverb
Those familiar with audio production probably know that there are two types of digitally synthesised reverb effect. The first, and generally most popular is known as “algorithmic” reverb, where the incoming signal is, sample by sample, multiplied by a factor dictated algorithmically by various twiddly knob-like parameters...
Binaural Recording
Have you ever wondered how it is possible for the human brain to so accurately detect the location of a perceived sound? We only have two ears, yet somehow we are able to discern the differences between sounds originating from any direction within our 3-dimensional environment – in front, behind, above, below, left or right...
Eliminating High-Hat Spill
When recording a drum kit one of the most perennial problems encountered is high-hat spill on the snare microphone. Some engineers claim to have made peace with this issue by utilising the signal as simply “part of the drum sound”. This doesn’t do it for me...
Thread Adaptors And The Pain Of Existence
My sound engineering brethren, I feel your pain. For years I have been struggling just as you have, climbing that familiar mountain, embarking ‘cross the bridge of despair, thoughts mired in the darkness of a wilderness within which only fools and heroes tread, all the while wondering, ever wondering, “does a man dare dream?”...
Mics Or Mikes?
Studio engineers, recording enthusiasts, musicians and journalists. I hereby call your attention to an issue of utmost importance. It is something that has niggled for as long as I have been writing about studio recording techniques, and I have yet to find a solution to it. I call upon us, here, now, to finally clean up this ambiguity once and for all...
Honesty
Honesty is a powerful weapon, but one that is continuously overlooked by everyone, every day of their lives, viewed instead as a potentially hazardous exposer of guarded vulnerabilities. This need not be the case...
Drum Miking Techniques
While working as a freelance engineer in a prominent Brighton studio I saw that here lay an excellent opportunity to properly exploit a decent live room and a large selection of microphones...
