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I have Native Instruments Guitar Rig 5.0 right now. It's the demo so you can't save presets and it boots you after like 20 min., so I usually dial in a sound, make a mental note of what I used, log back in and record what I need to get done. Whether or not it sound as good as the real amps/cabs/effe...

Retain, if not further, the artistic intent of the song's creator(s).

So if a 57 sounds best, use it. Maybe play some tricks on your insecurity, like buying a fresh SM57 and reserving it for studio vocals only. Get a fancy little hardwood box for it when you're not using it. I love it. Life is full of little opportunities to trick ourselves into the place we want to ...

I've been mixing down some songs I recorded for family/friends' band. Saturday we're wrapping up the tracking with some vocal and acoustic guitar overdubs. I shall post a song or two and pics when all is said and done. ...it occurred to me that it's likely no one really cares... but oh well. It's he...

Don't be married to the idea of how things are going to go. Once you're in the thick of it, things change and it pays to be flexible.

Get in an extra rehearsal before recording.

for mastering, i use the same eq, clipper, limiter, de-esser 99% of the time. pretty much the same in mixing. i don't want to think about which eq to use, i just want to eq something and move on. semi-related note...does anyone else feel like a lot of modern plugins induce option anxiety? i.e. they...

Rain Dogs - Tom Waits. Junkyard surrealism at its finest. Spirit of Eden/Laughing Stock - Talk Talk. These are both really cool, unique sounding records. Darkside of the Mood - Pink Floyd. In some ways I feel like I took this one for granted for a while. Having revisited it recently I was reminded o...

For christmas I was given Inside Out, Nick Mason's account of his days in Pink Floyd. As I've been reading it, I usually put on a floyd album or bootleg from the era being discussed in the book. It's quite a good read - Mason is a keen writer with a fondness for cynicism and dry wit.

Thanks for the detailed reply, Ryan. That's good info. I realize that I've committed the cardinal tape op sin, in asking a vague "it depends" question...ha ha. I know I'm going to have to experiment with mic placement once I get the band in the room, just trying to narrow my focus in the interest of...

The 1st example was in a small living room. Probably 12-15' wide give or take, ceilings @ around 7.5-8'. Very cramped. Bass cab was in a tiny kitchen. Those samples sounded really good. Were you close miking the kit at all? Asking because I'm going to record a band next month in a similar sized roo...

Maybe because of where you were standing/sitting you were hearing too much of the backline and not enough foh. Could be that the person mixing thinks of guitars as more integral to the arrangements and the keys as an "icing on the cake" thing that if you can hear it, great but if not, no biggie. Thi...

I don't have any "tried and true" techniques or a system of arranging. Now that I think about it, usually I have an idea for the arrangement or at least the vibe of the song before I start recording, as opposed to throwing down some guitar/vocals and asking "now what?" Well I have done that too I su...

It's tough to say without knowing what you've got on those bounced stereo tracks, what you're going to be overdubbing, and the aesthetic you're going for. Drumsound raises a good point as well. Don't forget that straight up the middle and hard L/R are not the only options.

The fact is that almost everything that almost everyone has ever done to make money from the arts ? including the old ways of making money from the arts ? mostly didn?t work. We always look back on artistic incomes with what economists call survivor bias. We look at the people who succeeded and not...

Gorillaz - Plastic Beach
Jay Z - American Gangster sndtrk.

I needed some upbeat stuff to help with the sanding/priming/painting I'm doing in the kitchen.