Audio Recording

There are times when you need to be quick in producing music. This is true if you are going to submit it for a demo or an important event. Music production can be both complicated (containing a lot of tracks) and simple. Actually, you can simplify your music production in such a way you can complete it as early as possible. This tutorial will illustrate some of the techniques you should remember when aiming to produce music quickly. There are some requirements before you can implement these techniques:

1.) The artist is fully rehearsed and mastered his/her performance. In this way, the number of takes will be minimal and at most there will be no mistakes in the recording/tracking process.

2.) The band (which will be the one that performs the multi-track recording) should also be fully rehearsed with the song arrangement before it will be recorded. Once the band is in the studio, it is not the time to re-arrange or experiment on the arrangements. Make sure the band arrangements for that specific song are final before it will be recorded.

3.) The band should be aiming for the simplest arrangement as possible while not sacrificing music production quality. A simple test is that the band can play the entire song from start to the finish without needing additional tracking, overdubs or special tracks. Treat it just like a single band performance except that you will be tracking it as a multi-track project. You can even create the best musical arrangement from a 4-piece band (one vocal, one guitar, one bass and one drummer). As an example the band U2, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Led Zeppelin are 4-piece band with very simple musical arrangements yet it sounds good. These are the steps aiming for a quick and fast music production.

Step1.) Basic drum recording techniques- if you are using real drums. Track it as simple as possible. If you are using the basic drum kit, then it won’t consume a lot of time in the tracking. Simplify the drum arrangement or let the drummer play a simple drum arrangement. If you are using drum sequencing software, make your loops as simple as possible. You can compose just 3 different drum loops for the entire song (then use your DAW duplicate loop feature to complete the process)

a.) Stanza drum loops
b.) Chorus drum loops
c.) Bridge drum loop

Composing a drum roll can take some time in software. So you can eliminate or minimize the presence of drum roll in the song if you are using a drum sequencing software.

Step2.) Load the completed drum tracks to the multitrack recording software. This is very important for timing. Drum tracks are the basis for timing for the rest of the instruments to be recorded. They should be the first one to be loaded into the multi-track session project. Screenshot:

Step3.) Record the entire guitar tracks of the song in a single take. Since the guitarist is already well-rehearsed for this recording performance then chances of committing a mistake in the studio are very small. This is not a difficult thing to do because it is just like recording a live performance (such as in a concert).

Step4.) Record the vocals in a single take. Since the music production is much simplified there are no vocal overdubs or backup vocals.
Step5.) Record the bass guitar also in a single take.

Step6.) Start the audio mixing process by creating a stereo image of the guitar. Duplicate the guitar tracks and place one track on the left channel. As a result, the guitar tracks will occupy both the left and the right channel. Apply some double tracking guitar mixing technique. In this technique you can put a slight delay on the other channel so that it will create a nice sounding ambiance on the guitar. You can also read the tips on achieving great ambiance on recordings for more details. To save time, the only important effects are EQ, Compression and Delay (for double guitar tracking).

Step7.) Continue the vocal mixing process. The most important effects are EQ, Compression and Reverb.

Step8.) The bass guitar mixing often consumes some time to balance the EQ between the kick drums and the rest of the instruments. The only important effects for the bass are the EQ and compression.

Step9.) This is how your multi-track session should look like (for e.g. if you are using Adobe Audition) after tracking and mixing all instruments. If you have noticed the guitar only occupies two tracks (left and right channel). And all of the tracks are recorded as one take (e.g. vocals and bass). The lesser number of tracks in the project; the easier will be the audio mixing process.

Step10.) Finally you can mix down safely then start mastering. If you are hiring a mastering engineer, they can complete one track in less than 2 hour per song. After this you have basically completed the production of one song in the shortest time possible.

Final note: If the tracks for mixing are well-recorded, then less effort will be needed in the mixing process.