There are many ways to record vocals but there are two major ways, each of which have their proponents.

1) is to record the vocal track(s) and then go back and have the snger punch in to try and fix any areas where the pitch or the feeling or the timing is off.

2) called comping, is to have the singer record half a dozen takes, one after the other, and then listen to each track and choose the great sections from each track and combine them into the final composited master vocal track.

There are pluses and minuses to both approaches:

With 1) it can be hard on the singer because he/she has to have more attention on getting it perfect plus when punching in it’s sometimes hard to get a good continuity of feeling.

With 2) there’s more work involved with comping, especially for the producer and engineer but usually a more relaxed (in a good way) vocal with more continuity of feeling.

I personally often like the comping approach but different producers, singers and engineers have varying views on this. What about you – which do you prefer?

Mastering is the combined science and art of taking a finished mix and tweaking it in ways that can range from adding a professional polish to really taking the mix to a whole new level. Sometimes the before and afters can be quite dramatic and what you thought sounded great before can tend to now seem somewhat flat and lifeless.

As Paul White from Sound on Sound magazine put it, “What many people don’t realize is just how great a difference is made to commercial records at the mastering stage. Prior to mastering, you might be surprised at just how ordinary some mixes sound. “

The main mastering tools are compression, EQ and limiting and because of this there is something that you need to be very aware of when mastering and that is that these tools will raise the overall apparent volume of the mix and this alone can make the mix suddenly “sound better”.  It is important to be able to switch effects in and out in such a way that you don’t get fooled by this artificial improvement caused just by raising the volume.

One of the problems with long mixing sessions is that the ear very quickly becomes acclimatised to the amount of treble (high frequencies) and it is easy to succumb to the temptation to add more and more as the mixing continues. Then you listen to it later or the next day and go, “What was I thinking?”. The data about about treble is also true of adding exciters which can get quite harsh and nasty if overused.

This phenomena is even worse when mixing after midnight (which I used to get asked to do many times in my engineering days). I quickly learned that, for whatever reason, one’s perceptions can be radically different after midnight and what sounded great the night before can sound hideous the next morning.

There was a scene in one of my favorite movies, “L.A. Story”, where Marilu Henner’s character (who has kept Steve Martin waiting for about an hour while she tries out different outfits before they go out to a restaurant), explains that the secret to getting dressed is to put on the outfit and various accessories and then spin around and look in the mirror and the first thing you see is the thing that doesn’t work and that has to go.

While she was being facetious, this is actually a very good rule of thumb for mixing – mix until you think it sounds good and then go away and leave it and come back, preferably the next day, and play it and immediately anything that’s wrong with the mix will leap out at you. Do you have any favorite mixing techniques or tips you’d like to share?

When mixing a song it can help to visualize the mix as a 3D cube. EQ (bass, middle and treble) is the front face of the cube going from the bottom (bass) to the top (treble). Panning places the instruments in the space between the left front wall and the right front wall. Volume goes from front to back with the loudest instruments at the front. Reverb primarily provides the front to back (and side to side) instrument locations (depth) within the cube.

Compressors and equalizers can make an instrument seem more upfront as can short delays (long delays can make the sound seem more distant and delays can also make it seem wider depending on where they are placed).

The art of mixing involves the creative placement and movement of the instruments within this 3-dimensional space.

This concept is illustrated extremely well in David Gibson’s excellent book. “The Art of Mixing: A Visual Guide to Recording, Engineering, and Production”.

So what exactly is record production?

Record production is a skilled craft that ideally should include a working knowledge of music, engineering, writing, diplomacy, organizing, budgeting, and sometimes marketing.

THE MAIN TYPES OF RECORD PRODUCER

There are basically two types of record producer. One strives to capture on tape or hard drive the energy, the life, communication, intention and vision of an artist or band as they are with little change other than to enhance their sound or effect (often considerably).

The other type of producer goes into a studio to deliberately create something out of nothing — to paint a picture using the colors and textures of sound. He might be using a sound or a rhythm or a concept to build on in layers of sound and there may not even be an artist as such on such projects.