Method #1: The Simplest Method- > One microphone

The crudest yet acceptable method is to use only one microphone to record the band. The best type of microphone is an omnidirectional pattern because of its ability to pickup sound waves from all directions. For example, you can use blue yeti USB microphone to record a live band set up as shown in the screenshot below:

This does not however pickup the stereo image of the band since you are only using one microphone and the recording will be in mono. The recording chain can be as follows:

Microphone — > Computer USB port — > DAW (setup to record in mono at least 24-bits)

In the above setup, you only need DAW software (Reaper for example) and you need to configure it to accept signal from the USB microphone. Read this Reaper DAW tutorial to get started.

However, if you want the best sound quality that you can get with a single microphone, you need the following:

a.) A high quality external audio interface. If you are using Windows and you computer has an USB port, you can get some recommendations for some affordable 24-bit 96 KHz USB audio interface.

b.) Omnidirectional large diaphragm condenser microphone with flat frequency response. These are not very expensive and some microphones are affordable such as Behringer C-3. The recording chain will be:

Behringer C-3 — > Audio interface preamp input (with phantom power on) — > USB port on your PC — > DAW (recording in mono)

Of course you need to watch out for clipping and all other stuff that could degrade the quality of your recording. You might want to make sure that the sound of the band is balanced; that is the drums would not drown the vocals as well as the guitar amplifier. These needs manual adjustment and discipline on the part of the musicians. In all methods discussed in this tutorial, you need to apply proper gain staging to minimize noise and optimize recording levels.

Bear in mind that the recording quality using this method (and also other methods below) strongly depends on the acoustic environment where the band would be performing. In some instances, it would be hard to get a clear definition of the band particularly that there is no way to mix the instruments after recording since they are recorded together. This method would be useful for creating a rough demo of any of your songs.

Method #2: Two Microphones Live Recording Setup

In this setup, you can attain the stereo image of the band live performance. The resulting audio recording would now be in stereo since two microphones would be used to capture the performance. You can set it up as follows:

This method will implement the 3 is to 1 rule in microphone placement to fix phase cancellation issues in recordings.

In this method, you will place the guitar amplifiers, drum sets (no microphone is needed) and vocal amplifiers in front of these two microphones at some distance defined as “d”. Then these two microphones should be spaced at “3 x d” to minimize phase issues, see diagram below:

For example if the distance from the microphone to the band is 6 feet, then the microphones would be spaced at 6 feet x 3 or 18 feet from each other. These microphones can be two cardioid condenser microphones and a large diaphragm (LD) type. An LD condenser microphone is an advantage of picking up a wide response, more warmth and better bass response with less gain required for your audio interface preamp. Dynamic microphones such as SM-57 would be doable in a small room with nice sounding acoustics but it does not capture as detailed and open sounding as those recorded using large-diaphragm condenser microphones.

In some instances this method requires you to experiment with microphone placement until you get the best sound for recording. The recording chain is as follows:

1st/2nd microphone ==> Audio interface input 1/2===> USB/Firewire ==> Stereo recording to DAW

You can read this tutorial on how to record in stereo. In all methods, you will be doing several sound-checks, trials and microphone placement adjustments before you will be able to record the band with their best performance.

Method #3: Mixer stereo output method

In this method, you will need a mixing console. First you will need to connect your music instruments to the mixer such as shown below:

Then record the mixer stereo output to your audio interface as follows:

Instruments — > Mixer Preamp inputs (shown in screenshot above) — > Mixer stereo output — > Audio Interface Inputs — > Computer — > DAW (recording in stereo)

This method produces one of the cleanest live band recording performances because of the following advantages:

1.) The sound engineer can optimize the instrument recording levels by applying appropriate gain on the mixer preamp.
2.) The engineer can also apply effects such as EQ, compression, reverb that will enhance the sound quality.
3.) The stereo image can be improved by adjusting the mixer panning settings.

In some instances (depending on the skill of the engineer and the band), professional sounding recordings can be made using this method.

Method #4: Audio Interface Output Method

In this setup, you will not need an audio mixer but you need an audio interface capable of recording a full band live. You will mix inside your DAW (within your computer). The recording chain is as follows:

As you can see in the above screenshot, you need an audio interface with at least 5 inputs if you are setting up the band recording with the example above. However take note that the percussion is only using one input which is not always common.

Actual drum recording requires at least 3 microphones so you will need an audio interface that can simultaneously record 8 inputs total including guitars, etc. It is important that these inputs do have preamps on them so that the recording is clean.

Finally all these inputs would be tracked to your DAW via a multi-channel recording session. The band would be playing together like a normal live performance. The engineer can mix the band song inside the DAW to get the best results. Depending on the skill of the mixer, this method can produce professional sounding results.

In reality, there is still lot of situations and complex scenarios that could confuse songwriters even more. As a result, it’s hard to make a distinction between the two.

So you will ask: “How to really publish a song?”

Definition of “published” and “unpublished” song

To know how to publish a song is to start defining technically these terms. The best definition that would be easiest to understand is below:

“Published song is a song that has been released or distributed for public use and access whether it is commercial or non-commercial in nature”.

Of course the opposite is the definition of unpublished song. An example:

Supposing you just written a song today; then you want to publish it. You might ask: “Does copyrighting itself an act of publishing the work?”

The answer is no. It is because copyright is simply putting your song ideas in tangible forms such as on a paper and recorded on a cassette tapes. This is an evidence of ownership and creation. You are not publishing anything to the public.

The act of submitting your work to copyright office is just a registration of your copyrighted work (which will be used as evidence of copyright ownership that is recognized by the state copyright laws). Registration is not the same as publishing your song. It is because it is not yet released and distributed for public use.

So in this case, your song is still “unpublished”. It is why if you register your work to the copyright office, one of the fields in the copyright form would ask you if the work is published or unpublished. Now you should know the basic difference.

So how to really publish the song??

You will notice that there are many ways of publishing a song:

1.) Upload your song in the Internet (any websites). The file should be publicly accessible (whether as a download or for streaming). Good examples of these are artist and music websites such as Sound Cloud, YouTube, ReverbNation, MySpace, Facebook, etc.

Since they are now available to the public, the song is now published. This is true even you have not yet make a living out of it. If you simply upload the song privately and have not yet shared it with anyone or not accessible by public users; the song is still unpublished by definition.

2.) Burn the song into a CD or any mechanical media (tape, DVD, etc.) and share it with to the public. This is true if you went to off-line media promotions such as providing giveaways to the fans or selling the CD.

However if you simply share the CD with your private friends (not the public), the song is still unpublished in nature.

3.) If your song has been played on the radio with public listeners, then the song is now published. This is regardless whether you made a royalty or not from public performance.

4.) If the song has been included in a video or film which will be shown to the public, the song is considered published because it has already been synchronized.

5.) If you allow any bands or artist to cover your song and have it recorded on a studio that is under a recording contract/agreement with a label, the song is considered published.

6.) If the song has been licensed to anyone for use (regardless of application), the song is not anymore considered unpublished.

7.) As a songwriter, if you have entered into an agreement with a music publisher and have the song included in their catalog. The song is considered published.

Why “publishing” a song is sometimes a risky act?

Songwriters are proud to publish their song but sometimes this is a very risky act. Why? Consider the situations below:

1.) If you have written a really great song and you published it, you decrease its opportunity for future exposure. A good example is when a label requires songs from writers to be unpublished. Or a prestigious songwriting contest requiring songs to be purely unpublished. In this case, your great song may not be able to grab this opportunity.

2.) When you write and record songs and have it marketed and published, big recording labels or major music publishers are sometimes hesitant to touch published songs especially if they are not successfully marketed. They sometimes correlate it (although not true in all cases) as a “bad or low quality product”.

Best practices for songwriters when to publish a work

To increase the marketing potential and success of your every song, consider the following advice:

1.) Don’t hurry up self-publishing your songs in useless and non-profitable ventures. As a songwriter, you should spend a lot of time improving your song than thinking for ways in publishing it. Remember that time will come your great song will be presented with a proper opportunity.

2.) Its not your job to market your song. It’s the job of your customers which could be the labels or the music publishers. Bear in mind that when you start marketing your work, you will be publishing your songs. Save the publishing for last. For more details, read this post on to understand how the music industry works.

2.) Keep copies of your original work; these are evidence of copyright. And do not forget to register them to the copyright office and beware of these common copyright mistakes.

3.) If you self-published your work, make sure you do it right and you make a living out of it. Reckless publishing can only reduce the value of your catalog and minimize the opportunity for your great songs. Learn how to succeed in your independent music publishing business. It requires proper timing and careful planning.

4.) If you are not confident with your marketing and self-publishing skills, don’t publish your work. Instead wait for the proper opportunity to be presented to you and partner with an established music publisher that would be publishing and marketing your songs. This is where you can start to make a living as a songwriter.

I am a committed follower of your website, and this site made me to start my own home studio. Attached is the song and your honest comments will be appreciated. What should be done to make it sound more professional? It was done at my home studio.

-Mixed down using Adobe Audition 1.5
-drums/percussions were done using FL studio 10.0.8
-Pc used was P4 Ram 512mb, running on Windows Xp sp2.
-Behringer 502 Mixer was used,
-Shure Sm58 was used for recording
-the room/studio is not acoustically treated

Regards,

My reply:

Thanks for following my blog and I appreciate your interest in music production. I made this review so that others would also have a realistic idea what “quality” music production should be regardless of where you are creating your music (at home for example). This will minimize the guess work during the process and would allow the producers to create their best quality work as possible. Below is the MP3 sample provided:

Copyright info: “Blessing from above” by Peter Banda

I will give my suggestions based on the provided audio. These are my honest assessments and some recommendations that could help improve the song and the recording. To make this as complete as possible, I will group the review according to the following aspects:

Songwriting aspect

The songwriting is unique and original; however one way that this song can be improved is to add more lyrics. Although the song hook “Blessing from above” sounds OK; too much repetition throughout the song can be annoying and boring to listen.

To provide more lyrics, try to think of words that could add more value and meaning to your song. It could be reasons why you need a blessing or healing from above. Praising songs usually have great and inspiring lyrics, and this is lacking from the song. Listeners of this song are expecting more meaning. To get the listeners truly engaged with the song, put substantial lyrics to catch their attention. It is why lyrics are important in any songs; it cannot be ignored or underestimated.

Why I emphasize the importance of great songwriting in any music production projects? It is because if you want to make it sound as professional as possible, it should start with the song. An awfully written song would still sound awful even if recorded in top/high end professional recording studios. If the song sucks, no other recording techniques or audio mixing tricks can save the damage. As a producer of any song, you need to put strong importance and priority on the songwriting aspect before heading to the recording studio.

Top producers know this importance. It is why they are very selective with the songs to be included in the artist album project. Remember that recording does take time, money and resources, so make sure you are only working with the best songs as possible.

Spend some time to examine the song. If you find that the song has a problem or deficiency, fix it before recording with the artist in the studio. This is a rule of thumb. One common mistake with home studio producers is hurrying on recording without thoroughly examining the songwriting aspect for further improvements.

Useful resources on this topic:

a.) 6 Most Proven Hit Songwriting Tips
b.) How to become a professional songwriter with a home studio
c.) How to Write or Make a Hit Song: Tips & Secrets in 3 Songwriting Steps

Recording and Mixing Aspect

The song starts with a drum beat. It’s OK on that part. However the moment the vocal starts to come in, I sense an imbalance on the part of the vocal levels, drums and the background instrumentation. Why?

The vocals are strong on that section while the background instrument rest sounds weak except the bass and drums. You should pay attention to the level balance to all of your tracks when mixing. For example, the vocals are too dominant and too upfront. You might want to push them a little back at the mix to attain the balance. This takes some experimentation and critical listening. You can also add a small reverb or EQ to your vocals to get that balance. The following are some tutorials that can help you:

1.) Tips on how to mix vocals
2.) Adding Reverb to Vocals
3.) I also sense some clipping or distortion somewhere on the vocals. Probably you clipped it during recording or you are tracking too hot. You should know how to record the vocals properly.

4.) The blending of the backup and lead vocals is not properly done. The backup should sit at the back of the mix. So a little EQ and reverb on the backup vocals can make this possible. Read this tutorial on how to mix background vocals.

The stereo image of the mix is also very poor. I cannot sense instruments being panned left and right which are characteristics of professional music production. The reverb is also not properly being used. The song is too dry. Refer to the following tutorials for help:

a.) Creating Realistic Stereo Image with Panning.
b.) How to Apply Reverb to a Mix Properly
c.) Panning Instruments in a Mix-Getting Great Stereo Image using Reverb
d.) The Art of Two-Dimensional Audio Mixing: Front & Back

5.) Some EQ problems do exist. For example, the bass is too dominant/strong in the mix. This can be hard to fix during the mastering process. Since your room is untreated, it will be harder for you to make accurate EQ judgment. Refer to the following tutorials for more details:

a.) EQ settings for audio mixing
b.) Studio setup acoustic design
c.) Testing room acoustics

Also I find the arrangement boring and tiring. I only hear some drums, keyboards and that’s all. Why not add more instruments such as a guitar, additional keyboard arrangements? This makes the song very interesting and spacious to listen.

Mastering and Post-production

I also find some severe issues on the mastering as well. Guess what? Clipping and loss of dynamics; see the screenshot below of the waveform:

It clearly shows that some aspect of the waveforms exceed the maximum 0dBFS resulting to clipping and distortion.

The song is lacking in natural dynamics, almost all the sections are loud. You can read this tutorial on how to make radio friendly mixes.

Conclusion

The song really needs a lot of re-work particularly on the songwriting and production aspects. It seems that the production really misses a lot of good practices for quality sound. As you can see, none of those problems are the results of low end hardware/recording equipments.

This is where a lot of beginners can go wrong or being misled. They blame the poor sound quality due to their low-end/cheap recording gears that in fact that the number one reason for poor quality lies in the skill of the songwriter, engineer, producer and the artist. This is the most important aspect where you will concentrate full efforts for improvement.

Major recording label projects sounds good because they have great writers, experienced engineers, top producers and high caliber artist. Even if the production would take place in a home studio like yours and using your own gears, I bet the project would still sound great!

How to check if you are dealing with a broadcast wave format?

Take note that the broadcast wave format file extension is still .wav. So by file extension you won’t be able to distinguish whether that file is a BWF. The only way to check is to confirm through WAV file properties inside your DAW.

Follow the steps below:

1.) Load/import or insert the WAV file in your digital audio workstation. In this example, let’s use Reaper.

2.) Select any of the audio waveform in your project (you can check them one at a time).
3.) Go to Item — > Source Properties.
4.) In the properties, if you are able to see the text information under “BWF chunk”, then the WAV file is using broadcast wave format such as this:

Reaper by default will use broadcast wave format when you are recording and saving the tracks to the hard drive. As you can see on the above information, the date and time as well as the “start offset” has been provided. These are the most basic information that you can get from a BWF file.

What is “Start Offset” and why it’s very important?

Start offset is defined as the start time of that specific BWF file in your multi-track projects. This is a very important piece of information in synchronizing your tracks in a multi-track project regardless of any DAW.

For example, say you recorded 3 guitar tracks in Reaper. By default, it will be assigned with a “start offset”. And supposing below are the start offset data taken from the BWF chunk.

Guitar1: 0:00.000
Guitar2: 0:01.500
Guitar3: 0:06.500

These are visualized as follows in your Reaper session:

Start offset is referenced from time 0, which is the start of the multi-track timeline. This data is also called “timestamp” in other DAW. There are other methods on making your recordings compatible with any DAW. But using BWF is the best solution if this feature is fully supported by your DAW or recording software.

Assigning BWF Chunk data to your existing recordings

Supposing you are not using Reaper and would like to add BWF chunk data to your multi-track recordings. This is particularly useful if you want to import your recordings to any DAW and still retain synchronization of the tracks. Follow the steps below:

1.) Make sure your software is capable of adding chunk data to your WAV file. Not all software can do this. For example, this is not possible with the current version of Audacity. Other software does support but it’s not clearly visible as features. In this case, it is recommended to read the entire manual or ask the DAW software support on this matter. As an example, let’s use Adobe Audition 1.5.

2.) See the screenshot of the multi-track project:

As you can see, the two tracks do have different “start offset” properties. To retrieve the time offset (start time of the track) in Adobe Audition 1.5 (if you are using another DAW, refer to your manual); select the track waveform (by clicking on it) and click “audio clip properties”. The time offset is shown as (e.g. for track #1):

Take note of this time offset, maybe copy it to a blank text file. Now do the same for the remaining tracks in your project to get the time offset data.

3.) Once you have all the data, it’s time to embed them in BWF chunk header. Select the track, right click on it and click “Edit Waveform”.

4.) Go to View – Wave Properties. Look for a tab that says “EBU extensions”. In some DAW, this may be labeled directly as “BWF”; if you don’t see anything probably this feature is not supported. Better consult the DAW support.

Input your time offset data as well as other important information that you want to embed.

Take note that the time offset format is in hours:minutes:seconds. Make sure you follow the format correctly. So a time offset of 0:05.590, (that’s around 5 seconds from the start), can be structured as 0:00:05.590

5.) Save the wav file. Don’t forget that this is one of the most important steps. Make sure you check the option “Save extra non-audio information”. This will add the BWF chunk data to the WAV file.

6.) Repeat the above steps for the rest of your tracks until you have completely assign the BWF chunk header data to your WAV file.

Importing BWF files to another DAW

Supposing you have now BWF files, it’s now very easy to import them to another DAW. Simply load them up and retrieve their BWF chunk header data for time offset information.

Below is an example BWF file created in Adobe Audition 1.5 and loaded in Reaper session:

Using the start offset data; you can re-assemble the tracks in another DAW even if it’s recorded in a different DAW. You can do it by:

1.) Retrieve/copy the start offset data of the recorded track in the BWF chunk header in “Source Properties”.
2.) Right-click the waveform in Reaper (let’s use this as the DAW example) and go to “Item Properties”.
3.) Paste the start offset data in “Position”. This is how it looks like:

4.) Do the same for all the tracks until you have completely assembled/synchronized the entire session files.

If you want the complete technical specifications of the broadcast wave format, you can read this PDF file: http://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/tech3285.pdf

1.) How to install Reaper in Windows operating system?
2.) Reaper DAW tutorial and getting started quick guide

Or if you want to find out if Reaper is appropriate for your production projects, you can read my Reaper DAW review.

Recording New Tracks

First, let’s illustrate on how to perform multi-track recording in Reaper. Below are the steps:

1.) Go to Insert — > Multiple Tracks. This will let you add several empty tracks for recording at once.

The number of tracks to be inserted depends on how many instruments you wish to record at the same time. If you are only recording one instrument, then add only one track. Otherwise if you are tracking or recording more than one instrument (such as a live band) then insert a suitable number of tracks for recording.

2.) Identify the audio interface inputs associated with the inserted new track:

In the above screenshot, it shows that track#1 is ready to accept inputs from the first analog input of your audio interface (example using a Saffire Pro 40 audio interface). If you inserted more than one track in the session, make sure the inputs are set to another analog input of your audio interface and not Input 1 since it is already used by Track #1. Some guide on multichannel (simultaneous) recording below:

As you can see in the above guide, every musical instrument has its corresponding audio interface analog inputs. And every analog input of the audio interface has its corresponding REAPER tracks added for recording. More details on how to do a multi-track recording session tutorial.

3.) Check if you are recording mono. Mono (one channel) is the suggested recording mode for most projects. It is because this corresponds to one instrument to be recorded per track. Refer to some basic guide below:

a.) Recording one singer with one microphone is mono in nature. It is because there is only one audio source.
b.) Recording one guitar is also mono since there is only one musical instrument.

To confirm that you are recording in mono, click the audio interface inputs in your REAPER track. You should see “Input: Mono” checked. See screenshot below:

As you can see, REAPER track #1 is set to record in mono and will receive input from the audio interface analog input #1. For other REAPER tracks for recording, make sure to set them to mono and configure proper analog inputs that they are going to use. Another example guide on this tutorial on recording vocals in mono or stereo.

4.) Connect your musical instrument to your audio interface. This can be a microphone, guitar, etc. Observe the following golden rules of connecting instruments for recording:

a.) Connect microphones to microphone preamp input for your audio interface.
b.) Use balanced inputs and outputs (refer to your hardware specifications for details). (read:”Balanced and Unbalanced Audio Guide in Home Recording“)

5.) Aim the track for recording by clicking the record button (see inside the red box):

If you mouse over the button after clicking on it; you should see the message “Record Armed” and this implies that the track is now ready to accept recording from your audio interface input 1.

6.) Play the loudest section to be recorded with your musical instrument and stop. Take note of the captured recording levels received by REAPER. You should make sure that the loudest part of the recording is less than -6dB. This will minimize the occurrence of distortion and clipping. See screenshot below:

For example in the above screenshot, the maximum peak levels captured is around -8dB which is OK. If it hits beyond -6dB; lower the preamp gain settings in your audio interface. Repeat the test until the maximum peak recording levels should fall below -6dB. On the average, you should aim at the recording level of -18dB for most of the time.

7.) Ensure that you are recording at 24-bits. To do this, review your project settings shown at the top right menu. You should see 24-bits. For example see below:

The main objective of doing step 6 and 7 is for proper gain staging.

8.) Assign a track name. For example, see below:

Note: If you added multiple tracks at once in Step1. It will automatically name your tracks based on numbers. For example, if you want to record multiple guitar tracks, it will be named automatically as guitar1, guitar2, etc. when you assign a common name “guitars”. In the above example; the track name assigned is “acoustic guitar recording”.

9.) When everything is set and ready, hit the record button:

The captured waveforms would then appear on the track under recording (inside the yellow box).

10.) When the recording is done or you would like to stop the recording, hit the stop button. You will then see the options below:

To save the recorded track, hit “Save all” and it will be saved in this path by default: C:\Documents and Settings\Your Windows Username\My Documents\REAPER Media. To remove the recorded track because it’s not a perfect take or you would like to repeat the take, select the track first (highlighting it) then hit “Delete selected”.

11.) You can then listen to the recorded take by hitting the playback button in REAPER.

12.) At the end of the recording session, do not forget to save the project by going to File – Save Project.

Inserting New Media File

The quickest way to add new audio file to REAPER is by inserting new media file. This is particularly important if you already have the recorded audio files and you need to mix them in REAPER. Before working with them, you need to insert these media files to REAPER. Refer to the steps below:

a.) For professional music production projects (such as used in audio mixing, mastering, etc); always use a high resolution WAV file. This should be in 24-bits resolution and matches with the REAPER project settings bit depth and sample rate. This would preserve the original sound quality of the media file. The project settings bit depth and sample rate information is clearly visible on the top right menu. See screenshot below inside the red box:

It shows that it is set to 24-bits/48KHz. Your media file should also be in 24-bits/48KHz. If the media file sample rate is different; you can use Voxengo R8brain sample rate converter to convert that to 48 KHz. You can download this free tool here: http://www.voxengo.com/product/r8brain/. Leave the bit depth unadjusted and set Quality to “Very High”, see screenshot below:

You can then insert the converted media file to REAPER.

b.) To insert new media file, go to Insert – Media File.

c.) To confirm the bit depth and sample rate of inserted media file; simply click/select the waveforms of the audio then go Item – Source Properties. You will then see all the information pertaining to the inserted media file.

It shows that the sample rate of the audio is 48000Hz with a bit depth of 24-bits.