Couple Recording Questions [Acoustic Music]

I just have a couple recording questions.

Im mostly doing acoustic music with some djembe and acoustic percussion thrown in to my mixes. im having a few problems, as i just started recording things.

My first problem is i have trouble knowing what post production i need to do. Adding Effects and such on after, im not quite sure. Ive been mostly doing minor compression of vocals.

Also, should I be Eqing on my Mixer or Eqing post in Adobe Audition?

Any advice on suggested things to read / suggested ways of mixing acoustic music would be good.

My second and biggest problem is singing. I am a moderately good singer. I can be on key most of the time if im just singing along or singing around the house. When im in front of a microphone singing over a track, its another story. I have a problem hitting notes, and i cant quite solve this. Ive tried one ear out, one ear in headphones, different headphones. Is this something I just need to work on?

any help is awesome. suggested readings even better.

Hey Quiksilver,

Generally effects are added after recording so that you have a clean sound to play with. I wouldn't apply too much EQ while recording either, unless you're very confident that you like how it sounds. This especially goes for beginners as they tend to over-EQ things. Light compression on vocals while recording is normal, this helps balance the dynamic range of the performance. As for your singing being a little off, there are pitch correction tools that you can use, and they're very effective when used properly. Unless you overdo it (some people use it as an effect - ie. Cher's "Believe"), only people with trained ears will hear it. The industry standard for this is the Antares Auto-Tune plugin. It's used in pretty much every pop song you hear heh.
I have a ton of recording tutorials on my server, from eq and mic techniques to mixing and mastering, and everything in between. If you know how to use FTP, send me a pm and I'll give you the info.

Welcome to the collective!

yah i just got auto tune.


Im mostly using automatic mode, although my music theory bg is kinda poor (ive had no formal guitar lessons, i learned chords and powers and their relation and thats it).

I need to learn more about keys. Ive read a few things so im getting there. Autotune confuses me i can never tell when its doing things. I set the key and turn it on automatic on a track, is this enough?

I have been playing djembe and recording it for years now. I've tried a lot of different methods, and this is what's worked for me. I start off by setting up my playing space: plenty of room all around, with as high of a ceiling as possible. I play seated with the drum between my legs, head angled outwards.

I put up an overhead, either a small diaphragm condensor or large diaphragm condensor, about 3 feet above the drum, out away from me. Basically put the mic along the firing line of the drum, about 3 feet up. Sometimes what I'll do is use two condensors, in an XY spacing, again about 3 feet out and spaced about 5 feet apart on either side of the centerline of the drum.

Underneath the drum, I put a thick piece of carpet, and put a good kick mic on it - like an AKG D112.

I mix these tracks in my DAW (I use Cubase SX2). For the most part, the mix is the overhead(s), and I mix in as much of the bottom mic as needed. I roll out all the top end of the kick mic - I'll use a lowpass rolling off everything over 1kHz and a highpass rolling off everything below 55Hz (there's no systems that play lower than that anyway). Effects wise, I'll send a bit of the overheads to a reverb as necessary to make it sound like it fits in the song. I tend not to use a whole lot of compression on the actual track. If I needed more punch out of the bottom mic, I might throw a 7.5:1 compressor on it with a longish attack time (maybe 50-75ms). You can do the same on the top mic if you want, but the dynamics of a djembe are pretty naturally punchy. You can get the fucking sound of doom out of it if you want to....real subwoofer killer

There's a shitton of djembe in the song I wrote for the T:V trailer, "Tribal". I recorded the djembe using that micing technique and it turned out nicely. Upon listening now, I would have given it more bottom.

Regarding mixing and vocals: Stay away from crutches like autotune!

You should be doing all of your effects, compression, EQ and the like in your recording program. If you do EQ or effects in your mixer while you're recording, you don't have the option to change your mind later. So just record the raw signal, and you can play around with all kinds of stuff later in Audition.

As far as recording vocals: It's hard. It's hard when you're the guy recording and singing, because you start to wonder if it's your recording technique that makes you sound less than what you want, or your singing technique. Well, the only solution is to do it. A LOT. You get used to singing in front of a mic after a while. I can give you a couple of pointers, though:

1. Get a pop filter, or make one out of pantyhose and a coathanger. Put it about 6" away from a condensor mic. Don't have a condensor? Get one. My MXL V57Ms (I have two) are like $60 on Ebay. I use the hell out of them for all my recordings. When you cut your vocals, sing with your mouth on or very near the pop filter. That solves a lot of problems up front.

2. Use compression on your vocals in Audition. So record your vocal, and add an insert effect on the vocal track. Set the ratio to 2.5:1, and run the threshold down until the reduction shows about 6dB of reduction on the loudest parts. Turn up the makeup gain 6dB to compensate, and viola: instant great vocalist.

3. Turn the low end down on your vocals. Put an EQ on the vocal track after you record it, and use a highpass filter to roll off everything below about 200Hz. Poof, no more boominess.

4. Send your vocals to a reverb effect. Don't use a lot - turn it up until you can hear the effect, and then turn it down 2dB at a time until you can't hear it anymore.

Hope this helps.