For the DIY musicians and amateur engineers who want to know more about audio recording and production, I figured I’d start out with a small post sharing some insight in the recording field.

Surprisingly, a recording session starts before even entering the studio. The band or artist should have their music worked out from start to finish and know exactly what they are going to play. In addition, knowing the number of tracks you plan on recording beforehand will save you tons of headaches and time in the studio. A band shouldn’t write new parts or change existing ones during a booked session since that can waste the engineer’s time, and even more so, the musician’s money.

The rule of thumb for knowing how much time to book is generally ‘1 minute of material = 1 hour of recording time’. So, if you have an album that is 35 minutes long, you can expect to spend about 35 hours in the studio. This formula can definitely change either way depending on the musician’s skill level, but it’s a good starting point.

The musician should always change his or her guitar strings and drum heads a day or 2 before the session begins. Since your instruments are what you’re recording, you should attempt to make your instruments sound the best they possibly can.

Probably one of the most important pieces of the recording process is ‘timing’. The way I start out every new recording project is by first finding a tempo by use of a metronome (or ‘click track’) for each song that a band or solo artist wants to record. Some music has multiple time changes in a single song, so it’s better to have it all worked out before the recording process actually begins. No matter what the tempo of the song is, remember, the better you can play to the click, the better your song will sound. The reason this is so important is because it makes the song ‘flow’ better and sound more professional.

Once we get our tempo, I personally like to lay down a ‘scratch track’ or ‘reference track’ which is a track of guitar and possibly vocals that follows the tempo. The whole idea of the scratch track is just to have something for the drummer to follow along to so he or she doesn’t get lost in the monotonous, repetition of clicks. Once the drummer finishes his or her part, the scratch tracks are almost always deleted.

The next extremely important part of recording is ‘tuning’. Tuning plays a big part since the notes you play are going to carry your tune. I personally like to tune bass and guitars after every take since they can fall out of tune very easily, especially if you just changed the strings recently before a session. Of course, for those of you who play keyboard, tuning is not an issue.

Also for guitarists, always use the same tuner! It is possible for guitar/bass tuners to differ from each other. Even though the pitch difference may be either slight and not even noticeable to you, it will be noticeable in the mix. You should always use the same tuner to achieve a perfect pitch between instruments.

Once the instruments are finished being recorded, vocals are generally the final step in tracking. There really isn’t much one can do on the vocalist’s end except to try and deliver the best performance that they can. Hot tea with lemon can help loosen the vocal chords before a take. Do not drink cold beverages like soda, water, or beer since the cold can constrict the vocals chords making it more difficult to achieve higher ranges.

Once everything is finished being recorded, it is now up to the engineer to make everything sound its best. He or she will add noise gates, equalization (eq), compression, limiting and effects like reverb and/or delay to make the tracks stand out and sound their best.

It is possible for the mixing and editing process to take as long as the recording process. If you sunk 30 hours into recording, you’re likely to spend 30 hours mixing. Again, that depends a lot on the length of the songs, the number of tracks per song and how well the tracks were recorded.

A good way to tell a ‘good mix’ from a ‘bad mix’ is to turn your monitor or computer speakers as low as they possibly can go until they’re barely audible and see if you can hear each individual instrument clearly. Of course, there’s much more that goes into creating a good mix, but that’s a good starting point. Also, test it on every possible audio system you can. The best places to test a mix are either in the car or on a home stereo system. If there are any errors in your mix, you’ll definitely notice them there.

Once you’re happy with your mixes, it’s onto the ‘mastering’ process. Mastering is the final stage in audio production, right before duplication, where the music is given overall equalization, compression, stereo imaging and brick wall limiting to basically make the tracks ‘loud’ and flow well between each other. Essentially, mastering creates that ‘polished’ sound to your songs and is crucial, especially in today’s audio market.

Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg and recording can get very involved as with any profession. Hope you didn’t get too bored.