Recording Techniques

Thanks to the shift from analog to digital technology, the excitement, and satisfaction of recording are accessible to more people than before (Barlett & Barlett, 2009). There are six main ways to record music, depending on the kind of music you want to record and the way you want it to sound you can switch between these methods and techniques.

There is “live stereo recording” which is mainly recording the overall sound of the instruments, so naturally, it is most commonly used for recording orchestras, jazz bands, and folk bands. Then we have “Live Mix Recording” which is recording with a mix of several microphones directed in front of their own sound source using a mixer and putting the mixer’s output signal into a two-track recorder. This method can also be used for recording jazz bands. “Multitrack Recorder And Mixer” is another method which is basically recording with several microphones into a mixer and mixing them later on which can be used for pop tracks. There is also stand-alone Digital Audio Workstation or ‘DAW”, computer DAW, and MIDI sequencing.

There is a guideline to each of these methods that show you what tools and mics to use, how to place them, when and what to use them for, and describes why these techniques work which in my opinion is an audio engineer’s best friend. Since recording and mixing is a big part of our jobs, studying and learning these methods can save us a lot of time and energy that can be put into perfecting the production further in the process. it is also very important to use the right technique to get a high-quality recording as your base instead of a low-quality one which you may or may not be able to fix in the mix and mastering process, as it can affect your final production and take up a lot of your time.

References:

Bartlett, B., & Bartlett, J. (2009). Chapter 2: the recording chain. In B. Bartlett, & J. Bartlett, Practical recording techniques (5th ed., pp. 5-14). Oxford, UK: Focal Press.