To be sure, contemporary home studio equalization uses digital equalizers. A couple of years ago, when I was trying to design a couple of equalizers, I finally understood what they actually do, so perhaps before we go into how we use equalization we should talk a bit about digital equalizers.
Panning is one way to separate clashing instruments. Equalizing is another. Equalization changes the amplitude of various frequencies in the sound mix. Some people even swear that equalization creates the perception of moving instruments up and down in the mix (as opposed to panning, which moves them left and right). Is that even possible? Perhaps. Having different instruments occupy different frequency ranges definitely makes them more distinct in the mix.
It is time to cover panning. On a scale from -100 to 100, where "-100" is "left channel only" and "100" is "right channel only", here is where one of my songs ended up:
The purpose of this and the next couple of post is to discuss the volume, pan, and equalization of the tracks in a mix. These are related – as you adjust one you may want to consider changing the other. For now though we will discuss them separately.
Mixing to get the sound that you want is not easy and so putting down some simple rules to guide you through the process is important. As always, these are my rules – yours may be different. You should do what sounds good to you. Hopefully though, my experience will help. Why a rock song? Because this is what I have experience with.
Recording vocals is difficult. It takes a lot of experimentation and the end result depends a lot on the vocal that you want to record. Every person’s vocal is different and different setups and mikes work for different people.
Here are some tips about recording electric and acoustic guitars. What I will write here is, of course, very subjective. The contemporary guitar is a very pronounced instrument and various people like various things. Nevertheless, here are some things that work well in general.
Recording drums right could use a set of 10-12 microphones and 10-12 separate tracks. Getting a full drum mike set with as many microphones and a mixer with as many tracks is not expensive nowadays. You can find a good drum mike set for as little as $200. Still though, it is possible to record drums with a lot less expense.
Our setup for bass recording is basic and we do not experiment much. This said, we definitely know that we want the bass to be heard and its melody understood. I would be happy with a song that takes only the bass, the vocals, one guitar, and some drums. That should be good enough if the bass can carry its weight. I like a bass that carries a complex melody throughout the song. I like when this melody is different than the melody of the rest of the instruments and when it complements the song without hindering other instruments.
The good soundcard is also a must for home recording. Standard soundcards that come with contemporary computers are not great. They do not have a good frequency response. They are not shielded. They do not have the necessary inputs. Unless you are recording only simple demos you should look for a better soundcard. There are many good soundcards and they all have various characteristics. Some characteristics are easy to explain and some are more complex. I will list some of the obvious ones: number and type of inputs, mixing consoles, and so on. I will skip esoteric ones such as signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio and analog-to-digital (A/D) conversion accuracy, as those will not help you in choosing the best sound – it is difficult to understand how those affect sound quality anyway.
