The Self-Recording Band

Find your vocal range in 3 simple steps with Matt's free web app:
https://rangefinder.ramseyvoice.com

APPLY FOR A FREE IN-DEPTH 1-ON-1 COACHING CALL WITH BENEDIKT:
https://theselfrecordingband.com

Download the free Ultimate 10 Step Guide To Successful DIY-Recording here: https://theselfrecordingband.com/10stepguide

Download the free Essential Gear Guide here:
https://theselfrecordingband.com/gearguide

Join the free Facebook Group ("The Self-Recording Band Community"):
theselfrecordingband.com/community

Benedikt's voice on this episode has been recorded with the Antelope Axino Synergy Core

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A great vocal recording is all about the performance. Emotion, energy and vibe are so much more important than microphones, plugins or recording techniques.

But how do you learn to sing with confidence? How do you write songs that fit your natural voice? How do you know what you're even capable of, so that you can really give it your all in the recording session? And what can you do to make sure your voice will last and you won't hurt yourself even after days of full-on recording or touring?

Well, there are a couple of great exercises, habits and things you can implement right away. Great starting points that are available to everyone who's willing to put in some effort.

And if you're serious about it and really want to take your vocal technique to a new level?

That's where a voice teacher comes in. Vocal lessons are so underrated and so many artist don't take advantage of this opportunity to drastically improve their songs and recordings.

For this episode we sat down with vocal coach Matt Ramsey of ramseyvoice.com to talk about all of this, give you plenty of actionable advice that you can implement right away and to get answers to our burning questions on how to improve our vocal recordings.

Matt is a voice teacher and YouTuber with over 170,000 subscribers who's helped thousands of people find their natural singing voice and level up their vocal game.

Now he's here to help you and your band, too!

Let's go!

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/86

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

APPLY FOR A FREE IN-DEPTH 1-ON-1 COACHING CALL WITH BENEDIKT:
https://theselfrecordingband.com

Download the free Ultimate 10 Step Guide To Successful DIY-Recording here: https://theselfrecordingband.com/10stepguide

Download the free Essential Gear Guide here:
https://theselfrecordingband.com/gearguide

Join the free Facebook Group ("The Self-Recording Band Community"):
theselfrecordingband.com/community

Benedikt's voice on this episode has been recorded with the Antelope Axino Synergy Core

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• Reason number one for doing this episode: Malcom wanted to say "SUPER HACKS" on the show. 🤷
• Reason number two for doing this episode: There are a couple of tricks that we've discovered and learned over the years, which we would actually call "super hacks", because they are really useful, sped up our workflow, solved problems for us and increased the quality of our work. Of course we wanted to share those with you!

Let's start with recording hacks in this episode. If you find these helpful and are a sucker for hacks and tricks like we are, we'll do another one on mixing. And maybe another one. We'll see.

Listen now, take notes and use these super hacks in your next session!

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/85

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

APPLY FOR A FREE IN-DEPTH 1-ON-1 COACHING CALL WITH BENEDIKT:
https://theselfrecordingband.com

Download the free Ultimate 10 Step Guide To Successful DIY-Recording here: https://theselfrecordingband.com/10stepguide

Download the free Essential Gear Guide here:
https://theselfrecordingband.com/gearguide

Join the free Facebook Group ("The Self-Recording Band Community"):
theselfrecordingband.com/community

Benedikt's voice on this episode has been recorded with the Antelope Axino Synergy Core

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What does your typical project layout look like? Which colors do you use on which tracks? What about the routing and your bus structure? How do you make sure you never lose any takes? How do you keep track of all the magic moments happening in a session, so that you can move on quickly and then reliably come back to find them? How do you navigate your session quickly and switch between tasks? What about going back to previous stages of the session, archiving files and accessing mixes, stems, masters, demos etc quickly and everywhere?

If you don't have a good answer to any of these questions, this episode is for you.

Listen now and learn to set up your session and workflow like a pro!

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/84

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

APPLY FOR A FREE IN-DEPTH 1-ON-1 COACHING CALL WITH BENEDIKT:
https://theselfrecordingband.com

Download the free Ultimate 10 Step Guide To Successful DIY-Recording here: https://theselfrecordingband.com/10stepguide

Download the free Essential Gear Guide here:
https://theselfrecordingband.com/gearguide

Join the free Facebook Group ("The Self-Recording Band Community"):
theselfrecordingband.com/community

Benedikt's voice on this episode has been recorded with the Antelope Axino Synergy Core

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This episode is an interview and a real world, DIY-recording case study with the band "Offset Vision". Hosted by Benedikt Hain.

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/83

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

APPLY FOR A FREE IN-DEPTH 1-ON-1 COACHING CALL WITH BENEDIKT:
https://theselfrecordingband.com

Download the free Ultimate 10 Step Guide To Successful DIY-Recording here: https://theselfrecordingband.com/10stepguide

Download the free Essential Gear Guide here:
https://theselfrecordingband.com/gearguide

Join the free Facebook Group ("The Self-Recording Band Community"):
theselfrecordingband.com/community

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This episode is an interview and a real world, DIY-recording case study with the band "Wet Future", hosted by Malcom Owen Flood.

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/82

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

APPLY FOR A FREE IN-DEPTH 1-ON-1 COACHING CALL WITH BENEDIKT:
https://theselfrecordingband.com

Download the free Ultimate 10 Step Guide To Successful DIY-Recording here: https://theselfrecordingband.com/10stepguide

Download the free Essential Gear Guide here:
https://theselfrecordingband.com/gearguide

Join the free Facebook Group ("The Self-Recording Band Community"):
theselfrecordingband.com/community

Benedikt's voice on this episode has been recorded with the Antelope Axino Synergy Core

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Are your mixes static? Chances are, things are not moving enough. And by "moving" we mean automatic changes in volume, pan, or plugin settings throughout your song.

This is called "automation" and it is a technique that is absolutely essential for creating exciting mixes. And even if you don't mix, understanding this concept will definitely help you make better engineering decisions and communicate better, because you will understand what is (hopefully) going to happen in the mixing stage.

Using automation, you basically tell your DAW (or desk with built-in automation) to make automatic real-time changes in order to bring certain parts up or down, highlight or hide things and create or enhance the dynamics from part to part, as well as within a part.

With automation you can guide a listener through your song, put the focus on the most important element at any time and turn a static mix into an emotional, dynamic experience of an artistic performance.

As always, there are best practices and common methods but there are no rules. Automation opens up wonderful creative opportunities and we're talking about all of that on this episode to help you make more exciting, less static mixes.

Let's dive in!

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/81

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

Download the free Ultimate 10 Step Guide To Successful DIY-Recording here: https://theselfrecordingband.com/10stepguide

Download the free Essential Gear Guide here:
https://theselfrecordingband.com/gearguide

Join the free Facebook Group ("The Self-Recording Band Community"):
theselfrecordingband.com/community

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The vocal sells the song, right? It carries all the energy and emotion. And it's the one thing we really have to get right because we humans are so used to the sound of a voice that we immediately notice when something's wrong.

At least as listeners we immediately notice it.

As engineers, however, it's actually pretty hard to get it right. For whatever reason people overcook their vocals all the time, using huge vocal chains without really knowing why.

Or they don't do enough because they are afraid of messing things up and what they end up with is a flat, amateur sounding vocal.

We've been there. And over time we've built vocal chains that work for us and help us deal with all kinds of different vocalists and situations now.

Our chains are different from session to session, of course. But they are still consistent enough for us to talk about them and share them with you. The why behind what we do is consistent and knowing the reasons why we use certain things in our chains over an over again is more valuable than the actual settings.

In this episode we talk about what we are using to record and mix vocals, why we use these specific plugins and pieces of gear and how we use it in different situations.

Let's dive in!

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/80

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

Download the free Ultimate 10 Step Guide To Successful DIY-Recording here: https://theselfrecordingband.com/10stepguide

Download the free Essential Gear Guide here:
https://theselfrecordingband.com/gearguide

Join the free Facebook Group ("The Self-Recording Band Community"):
theselfrecordingband.com/community

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Almost every DAW lets you create MIDI data from audio files. And if not, there are plenty of plugins that can do it.

But why would you want to create MIDI notes when you have a "real" performance? What are the benefits and typical use cases? And how do you do it properly, so that the MIDI actually represents the original audio accurately?

Let's discuss!

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/79

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

Download the free Ultimate 10 Step Guide To Successful DIY-Recording here: https://theselfrecordingband.com/10stepguide

Download the free Essential Gear Guide here:
https://theselfrecordingband.com/gearguide

Join the free Facebook Group ("The Self-Recording Band Community"):
theselfrecordingband.com/community

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Right after balancing, which we've covered in episode 75, panning is the second most important thing you need to get right in your mixes. Again, this seems trivial but it's crucial to spend some time diving deeper into the subject. There's more to it than most people think.

There are no rules, but there are definitely best practices, proven techniques and a couple of different approaches that everyone should experiment with to fully understand the concept and idea behind panning.

And then there's the fun part: Beyond the basic stuff there are endless ways of using panning creatively to add excitement, movement and dynamics to your mixes.

Listen now, take notes and then figure out what works for you to give your songs exactly the width and clarity they need!

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/78

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

Download the free Ultimate 10 Step Guide To Successful DIY-Recording here: https://theselfrecordingband.com/10stepguide

Download the free Essential Gear Guide here:
https://theselfrecordingband.com/gearguide

Join the free Facebook Group ("The Self-Recording Band Community"):
theselfrecordingband.com/community

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You've probably heard about Apple Spatial Audio or Dolby Atmos. And you've probably heard the marketing message, telling you you're missing out if you're still listening to music in stereo. Is this true, though? And does that mean we need to upgrade our home studios and build expensive immersive audio rooms? Or switch to headphones exclusively? Is your stereo setup becoming useless?

Let's discuss!

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/77

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail

If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: [email protected]