Engineers engineer musicians make music BUT...

[Jeroleen]

Today musicians have to have some engineering skills themselves. This site is, I think, a great place to learn a bit about what engineers are looking for and how musicians can minimize their time spent on tech issues and max their time on the music.

I have learned so much about what to do and what not to do, I truly think there should be a section for musicians and how to engineer tracks for mixing byy real engineers. Not only for mixing but for further tracking, mastering, whatever.

Communication between the musicians and engineers would be greatly helpful. Yeah, some top guys have thier own engineers but many of us don't. There is so much we need. Like:
When to use EQ, effects, compression and when not to.
How to set up the levels, panning and when to sue stereo tracks,
Also, should the instruments be recorded in a particular order, for instance, bass drum on track one, then snare on two, etc.
When to use bussing and group things, why, how does that effect the mix, is it something we should worry about.
Do engineers prefer receiving a number of different takes so they can use the best sonic pieces?

I wonder about all of this and I am certain the answeres are all in here however, it would be nice to have a little bit of a guide here.

Anyway, I for one thank all the contributors. The wealth of info here is just unbelievable. Thanks for sharing it all!

[covert]

Originally Posted by Jeroleen

Today musicians have to have some engineering skills themselves. This site is, I think, a great place to learn a bit about what engineers are looking for and how musicians can minimize their time spent on tech issues and max their time on the music.

Musicians have engineered themselves since the dawn of serious recording. Namecheck Les Paul. The best way to minimize time spent on tech issues is to get a competent engineer involved.

I have learned so much about what to do and what not to do, I truly think there should be a section for musicians and how to engineer tracks for mixing byy real engineers. Not only for mixing but for further tracking, mastering, whatever.

That's pretyy much the entire purpose of this site, and many others.

Communication between the musicians and engineers would be greatly helpful. Yeah, some top guys have thier own engineers but many of us don't. There is so much we need. Like:
When to use EQ, effects, compression and when not to.
How to set up the levels, panning and when to sue stereo tracks,
Also, should the instruments be recorded in a particular order, for instance, bass drum on track one, then snare on two, etc.
When to use bussing and group things, why, how does that effect the mix, is it something we should worry about.
Do engineers prefer receiving a number of different takes so they can use the best sonic pieces?

I wonder about all of this and I am certain the answeres are all in here however, it would be nice to have a little bit of a guide here.

You use eq when you need to, usually when something doesn't sound the way you want it to.

You use effects when you want that effect.

You use compression either when you have a problem that it will solve, or when you want the effects it can create.

Setting levels and panning is called mixing. It's one of those creative acts, much like creating a song. Rules don't usually help the process. The exception is on the way into the recorder (tape, computer, whatever) where levels should be set to avoid nasty distortion. Unless you want nasty distortion.

What order you record tracks, and what channels you assign them to is either a project by project determination, or a personal preference thing. Some guys like drums on teh first few faders, some like them in the middle of the board. Some bands do well recording a particular thing for a reference (click, scratch guitar, etc.) some like other things.

Bussing and such are ways to achieve various ends, and again are often personal choices on the part of the guy doing the work. The first step towards knowing when to do them, is knowing what ends you hope to achive, and then knowing when those ends can be gotten that way.

Some mix engineers might prefer having multiple takes to edit together. Some producers will insist on the editing. I suspect that everbody in the game would rather have a single, well performed, good sounding take from downbeat to song end.

This stuff is no more possible to present as a digest type guide, than is, how to write good songs. The process differs among people doing it, and what works for me, or some well known big bucks mix guy, may not work for you. In fact trying to do it my way may impede you badly. What does seem to work, is learnng about how others do things, and then adapting from that to suit your own methods. It took me some time to get my guitar playing anywhere near passable. It's taking me a bit less time to get my compressor technique up to snuff, but the comp is a bit simpler of a device.