A decade or so ago, Sound On Sound magazine introduced a new regular column to its pages in which I, Paul White, Editor-In-Chief and our Technical Editor Hugh Robjohns, visited SOS readers’ studios in person to help solve their specific recording, monitoring and acoustics problems. Studio SOS, as we titled the column, proved to be a hugely popular addition to the magazine, and revealed to us many of the most common studio problems and misconceptions that our readers were encountering. Taking the concept of hands-on help a bit further, we subsequently added the equally successful Mix Rescue regular column to the line-up, in which we take the multitrack files of readers’ songs to remix them ourselves, allowing us to describe the artistic and technical decision-making processes involved. Between them, those two columns encompass more or less the entire home and project studio experience, from setting up the gear to mastering your album, and over the years that we’ve been running them, we’ve noticed that many of the issues encountered were common to the majority of the studios we visited. And that’s what led us to this book, gathering all the solutions in one place to serve as the definitive home and project studio manual.
At one time, high-quality recording equipment was so expensive that few musicians could afford their own studios, but now most of us have access to both hardware and software recording systems that cost less than the price of a decent guitar. Even the most modest of these is capable of recording to a very high standard, but all too often the results are compromised due to inappropriate microphone techniques, inattention to the recording environment, inaccurate monitoring or simply a lack of experience. Whilst there are countless textbooks that purport to tell you everything there is to know about audio and recording, these sometimes make it difficult to pinpoint what is really important. The aim of this book is to allow you to ‘cut to the chase’ and concentrate on those areas of recording technique that really make the biggest difference. So, if you have already started out in recording but aren’t entirely satisfied with the results, this is the book for you. It’s almost like having your own personal Studio SOS and Mix Rescue rolled into one!
Often the problems start with the placement of equipment within the room and with the acoustic treatment (or lack of it), so we have some practical, low-cost advice to offer in that area. The next most problematic area seems to be associated with the choice and use of microphones and the acoustic space within which they are used. Once again, these problems can usually be solved very simply and at minimal cost using only the most basic of DIY skills. Once the material has been recorded, even if it has been recorded well, musicians often experience difficulty processing and mixing the parts together to produce the ideal, finished version they hear in their head. This can be due to a number of reasons, all of which we’ll explore here: it may simply be due to an inappropriate use of effects or processors, or even a poor arrangement, but there are also several simple mixing techniques that can be employed to make the process easier. Working for Sound On Sound magazine we’re in the privileged position of being able to interview some of the best music producers, recording engineers and acousticians in the business, and a great deal of what we’ve learned from them has also found its way into these chapters.
Once you’ve read The Studio SOS Book and put some of its techniques into practice, you’ll be amazed by how simple and logical the whole business of recording and mixing is. Your mixes will sound clearer, with front-to-back perspective as well as stereo width, and you may well find yourself far less reliant on radical processing to shape your sound. When you consider that this book costs around the same as a couple of decent-quality XLR cables, it just might be the best recording investment you ever make!
Paul White
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Paul White, Hugh Robjohns, Dave Lockwood, Sam Inglis, Chris Korff, Matt Houghton, George Hart