Lessons Learned From Recording My Latest EP

Every time I complete a recording or mixing project I try and take a moment to sum up what I learned from the process. This week I released my latest solo EP, The Tree and I’ve enjoyed sharing it with many of you, hearing feedback, and celebrating the completion of a 3 month journey.

But today I want to point out a few lessons I learned along the way in hopes that it will encourage you to keep learning and stay humble!

Drum Editing Isn’t Always Necessary

Now I could have told you this years ago. If you have a talented drummer who is fairly comfortable playing to a click track, drum editing isn’t always needed. In fact, my mantra has been to only edit if you need to. Otherwise leave it alone. But truth be told, I actually love drum editing. In fact, there’s some addictive quality to using Beat Detective to snap transients to the grid. I know, I’m weird.
 
But on this project, I decided to “look the other way” and ignore the slight variants of tempo on the drum tracks. Literally I did no quantizing or beat alignment whatsoever on these songs. In fact, the only thing I did to the drums editing wise was comp in a better drum fill here or there (I had recorded two takes of the song for drums). That’s it.

Instead, I ignored the grid for the  most part and recorded the rest of the instruments to Logan’s performance as it ebbed and flowed with the beat. Now for the most part, he nailed it. But it’s clearly imperfect. And that’s OK. It kept the drums sounding more natural and the overall set of songs benefited from the human element, in my opinion.

Vintage Guitar Tones Rock

For this EP I tracked all of my guitars direct through the ridiculously awesome Avid Eleven Rack. The problem was, too many options for guitar tones. For some reason I felt I wanted to skip the modern amp tones and go for something old and vibey. My choices? A vintage Fender Deluxe 1×12 combo and a Fender Bassman through the 4×10 cab.

By themselves each amp/speaker combo sounded lacking in power and drive, but together and in the mix they brought warmth, character, and clarity that I really liked. Guitar tones are a very subjective thing to be sure, but there was something to be said about writing modern songs with vintage style tone that creates something fresh and musical. Really enjoyed how it all turned out.

Simplicity In Mixing Wins

When it came time to mix these songs, I had one aim, and one aim only: keep it simple and don’t screw up these songs. I spent more time adjusting volume and pan then anything else. I tweaked and tweaked until the volume balance as as perfect as I could get it. Then and only then did I move on to using plugins.

And as far as plugins goes, other than some mix buss compression, saturation, and EQ, just about everything was covered by a simple channel strip plugin. And even then, I only applied processing if I really needed to. I tweaked way less on these tracks then I have in the past, and I’m pleased with the results.

It’s Only Up From Here

Recording and mixing music is truly one of the only areas in life that you are practically guaranteed to only get better at over time. Each time you complete a project, be it an album, an EP, or simply one song, you can rest assured that your next project will only sound better.

The experience and knowledge gained from completing a recording or mix is invaluable and it adds to your skill and craftsmanship each and every time. Here’s to the next album. It’s only up from there folks!