We contacted renowned sound engineer, James Collins, to see if he had any mixing tips he would be willing to share with our PureSolo users. Read on for James’ advice to ensure you’re getting the best from your recordings:
So you’ve selected your favourite Karaoke track from the vast library of downloads available…..you’ve put on your best clothes, combed your hair and done some la la las into the bathroom mirror.
It’s showtime…you tense up…no one is listening…you hit record, start to sing and the magic is happening…….you get to the end and give yourself a bow to the imaginary audience. Coming back to the real world you press the save button and on the next screen you give the take a title and add some reverb to taste…must use the Concert Hall because that sounds expensive…and maybe just turn yourself up a bit more as you sang it soooo well? You save the track and burn yourself a CD to listen to in the car on the way to work later…..
Some time later…
Hmmm……hang on, whats happened? That doesn’t sound so good in the car…all you can hear is your vocal and no backing track…and where did all that reverb come from? sounds like you’re in the Grand Canyon!!!!!
D’oh!
Ok…here are some tips for you to help you get the most from your recordings using PureSolo. Not just for vocal, but for instruments too.
Approach
You’ve probably chosen a piece of music you know very well as you can be confident singing/playing over it. That’s great, but remember that doesn’t mean you need to play or sing extra loud over the top of it when you record. Most studio recordings are thrown out if the approach isn’t sympathetic to the backing track, so try and think of how the original track sounded that you know and love. Was the original artist shouting the vocal or singing nicely? Stand up if you can while you perform, a straight back and lungs with maximum air in will help you breathe more easily which will help your performance.
Recording
The next thing to think about is the distance you are performing from the microphone. If you’re too close to your laptop mic, turning down the “mic” slider on PureSolo’s recorder will not stop the microphone overloading, it’ll just make your distortion quieter. If you’re too far away from the microphone, you’ll have to sing unnecessarily loud or turn up the “mic” slider on PureSolo’s recorder. The result of which is that you will also turn up the sound of the washing machine in the background. If you have an external mic plugged into your computer, it should be between 3 to 8 inches away from your mouth/instrument. Once you’re comfortable with your distance from the microphone, then adjust the “mic” slider so that the level meter is just below red when it’s the loudest part of your performance. Experiment, do 2 or 3 takes to get this bit right, then you are ready to make the most of the recording.
Mixing
When you’re mixing your track it can be tempting to want to hear yourself much prouder than the track – but in reality this isn’t how studio recordings are mixed. Ideally you should be able to hear all your words/notes and the backing track equally well and a good gauge on this is to play your mix back with the computer speakers turned down so you can just about hear the vocal. If, at this lower volume, you can hear voice but no backing then the voice is probably too loud. On the other hand if you can hear a lot of backing track but are missing some of your beautifully recorded words/notes, then you can turn yourself up a bit. Most mixing engineers will check the mixes they do in this fashion at some point just to check your relative level against the backing track is correct.
Reverb
PureSolo allows you to add reverb to your mixes just like the professionals do. Again, overuse of reverb is a common mistake! Certainly with instrumental recording it’s easier and more common to use longer reverbs like the Concert Hall or Club. But, with vocal tracks, shorter reverbs work better for most genres like rock, pop and jazz, so try the Studio or Small Room settings. There are exceptions of course, if you are singing over a classical track then a longer reverb will fit your voice better and help you blend into the track, if it’s a Hip Hop track then using no reverb is often the best thing to do – just like your idols practice. Reverb is all about blending, it’s available to use so you don’t sound like a cardboard cutout on top of a backing track that will itself have been mixed with varying amounts of reverb.
Remember, we are not using tape in an expensive studio where to sing another take you may have to erase an older one. This is you, on your computer, in your own time. Try different takes, try different settings, make yourself sound the best you can and you can and be proud to email/burn/upload your tracks to the whole world using PureSolo.
Have fun!
About James Collins:
James Collins is an experienced music recording and mixing engineer having spent nearly 20 years honing his craft. If you are interested in his credits visit http://www.jcmusic.co.uk
