The Stereo Bus Blog - Daily Music Production Tips

This post focuses on the process of getting the vocal chain right for the given performer.

The signal chain for vocals is probably one of the most important production choices in pop music.  Of course, it helps to have a healthy selection of devices to choose from.  Every voice has unique qualities, some of which should be emphasized and some of which should be de-emphasized.  The tools available to accomplish this are, in order of affectiveness: microphone selection, mic placement, and preamp selection.

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This post focuses on the classic challenge of how to record a band in a single room and not have it sound completely awful.

Lots of us have small production studios and tons of bands have single room practice spaces.  Inevitably the question arises: “How can I record the band live in a single room and not have it all turn to mush!?”  There are some strategies for accomplishing decent results from this situation and, although it won’t sound like a record that was recorded in a multi-room facility or overdubbed, for some music that’s for the best.  It’s an incredible challenge that can be really rewarding.
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This post is focused on the simple, neglected, and powerful practice of labeling tracks in a session.

This post may seem like something entirely obvious that should remain unspoken… but it isn’t. You would be surprised how often I have seen session tracks titled “New Track” and audio files named “Untitled1.wav”. The first step to organizing your sessions is labeling your tracks well. Every little bit of efficiency and extra brainpower that can be saved makes things run smoother and cheaper.

The general rule of DAW software labeling is that all of your audio files will inherit their names from the tracks on which they were recorded. This means that simply throwing up a track called “New Track”, recording on that, and renaming the track after-the-fact will result in a disorganized mess of audio data. It’s really important to not be lazy here.

There are some conventions in the industry for naming tracks and I’m going to describe them. Sessions that are clearly labeled will make your collaborators giggle like schoolgirls. If that image in your head makes you smile, follow me…

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