{"id":5617,"date":"2020-06-20T11:41:12","date_gmt":"2020-06-20T16:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baselines.com\/?p=5617"},"modified":"2020-06-20T11:49:34","modified_gmt":"2020-06-20T16:49:34","slug":"7-home-recording-studio-hacks-for-the-bedroom-producer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baselines.com\/?p=5617","title":{"rendered":"7 Home Recording Studio Hacks for the Bedroom Producer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: 7 Home Recording Studio Hacks for the Bedroom Producer<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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7 Home Recording Studio Hacks for the Bedroom\u00a0Producer<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/header><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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BALANCE YOUR OWN <\/span>MIX:<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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You\u2019re an aspiring producer: making beats, recording sounds, trying to make it all fit together, and working mostly out of your home recording studio. You\u2019ve got some mixing chops\u2014the problem is, when it\u2019s time to do a lead vocal at your house, it just never sounds right. Ditto for that acoustic guitar\u2014you don\u2019t want to <\/span>go direct<\/a>\u00a0anymore, but it\u2019s just not sounding convincing enough when you have someone lay it down.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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If that sounds like you, read on: we\u2019re going to give you some hacks for recording in your project studio. With a focus on those who make music out of their domiciles, we\u2019ll walk you through the steps you should take for securing clear, natural recordings, from room treatment to microphone technique.<\/p>\n

1. Treat your room for recording<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Room treatment is not in any way sexy. Nobody wants to drop five hundred bucks on something that can\u2019t make a sound. Sure, I could go on and on about how fantastic a modicum of room treatment will make your inexpensive gear sound. I also have great recipes for cauliflower rice, and you\u2019d probably be just as interested in that.<\/p>\n

Still, room treatment\u2014especially in domicile-based studios\u2014is essential, even if we discount room treatment for mixing (which we shouldn\u2019t). But let\u2019s say you\u2019ll never take off your headphones when producing, no matter the pro advice. You should still outfit a segment of your workspace to achieve proper recordings.<\/p>\n

For vocals, you can get the cage that wraps around a mic stand, but I\u2019d wager you\u2019re better off actually treating dedicated portions of the room for recording. If you can only devote a segment of your room to audio capture, that may work out in your favor:<\/p>\n

Sure, you may want to convert a closet into an iso-booth, but you very well stand a better chance with a larger, multi-use space, as is-booths are hard to treat correctly. Handled wrong, you\u2019ll get a muddy, lifeless sound for a variety of acoustic reasons. It\u2019s easier to achieve tonal balance in a part of your multipurpose room, believe it or not.<\/p>\n

How to go about treating your room for vocal recordings varies on its shape, the materials of construction, and your budget. There is no one-stop solution I can provide, except to suggest that you do the proper research. Many companies, like GIK, offer free advice on how to go about treating a room on any budget. Other sources, such as\u00a0this article<\/a>, can be helpful.<\/p>\n

And really, you ought to treat your room for mixing purposes as well. It goes a long way to securing mix translation. You can read up on where to do so\u00a0here<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Treatment geared to both scenarios\u2014recording and mixing\u2014is essential, because there\u2019s no such thing as a demo anymore. With shrinking budgets and satellite schedules, any serious producer is expected to craft material that could go out for mass consumption. The better treated your recording environment is, the better your chances of capturing a usable performance.<\/p>\n

2. Invest in a solid mic chain
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The same assumption here: your audio needs to sound as radio-ready as possible. You can work all your magic at the mixing stage, but if you\u2019re a producer looking to create great sounds efficiently, it helps to have a solid recording chain to bring life to your audio on the way in. I\u2019ve often heard breakdowns like, \u201c50% of a good sound is the singer, 40% is the room, and 10% is the gear involved.\u201d If you think it\u2019s true, then it behooves you to go for that extra 10%!<\/p>\n

It may take a while to save up for good recording gear, but even one channel is worth the expense. And, luckily for you, many interfaces in the sub-$1000 range sound great. Provided you\u2019re working at sample rates at or under 48 kHz, Spire can act as one such interface since its preamps were made by Grace Design\u2014a manufacturer of high quality, transparent preamps. If you don\u2019t have the scratch to shell out for vintage gear or clones thereof, go for clean and transparent: you can vibe the sound later on with other tools. Mic presets are very important \u2014 it\u2019s why I wrote about them first. Conversion too is something worth researching. But you should also invest in a couple of great workhorse microphones. I\u2019d say two would do the trick. If vocals and the occasional acoustic instrument come through your space, a dynamic mic and a great large diaphragm condenser will serve you well.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Note I said \u201cgreat,\u201d not \u201cexpensive.\u201d Modeling microphones are getting better and better, as well as cheaper and cheaper. Large diaphragm condensers like the Aston Origin<\/a>\u00a0or the\u00a0WA47<\/a>\u00a0sound great in the sub-1000 category. For dynamic mics, a\u00a0Shure SM7B<\/a>, an\u00a0EV RE20<\/a>, or even a trusty\u00a0Shure SM57<\/a>\u00a0can get the job done.

If you pair one workhorse condenser and one dynamic mic, you\u2019ll probably have enough to handle most singer\/guitar situations that come into your home recording studio. Occasionally you\u2019ll come across a singer who\u2019d probably benefit from a ribbon, but until you\u2019re able to spend discretionary income on one, you can feasibly handle whatever comes your way in this department.<\/p>\n

3. Banish all noisy equipment to faraway place
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Noise is a troublesome issue for recording. It can come from anywhere in the domicile-based production studio. Do you live off a traffic circle? I did for six years. It seemed motorcycle drivers and truckers had a penchant for knowing when I wanted to record. Do you have roommates? I did, and they opened doors at all the wrong times.<\/p>\n

Yes, there are things you can\u2019t control\u2014and for those things, iZotope’s RX7\u00a0is a godsend. Even though RX is more transparent with each iteration, nothing beats a clean, noise-free recording. you can minimize noise on your end as much as possible.<\/p>\n

Air conditioners, refrigerators, hard drives\u2014all of these are within of your control. Turn the air conditioner off whenever you record. If you can hear the fridge on your recordings, unplug it for the session. Set your hard fives far away from the recording location, and outside of the microphone\u2019s pickup pattern. If they\u2019re still whirring loud enough to come through your recording, box them up. I had a particularly noise external hard drive and was lazy about replacing it, so I lined a large bucket with a packing blanket and just placed it over the top when I recorded. It worked well enough. Do what you can to banish extraneous sound in the recording process, and you won\u2019t have to worry about noise-reduction compromises later on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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