The Self-Recording Band

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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It's Q&A time again!

This question came up in our Facebook community:
"Saturation. What is it? I have an idea of what it is from my king gizzard addiction, but i have no idea what it really is or how to use it."

Well,  let's discuss!

(We also answer a couple of follow-up questions around the topic, covering mastering/mix bus saturation, parallel saturation and a couple more.)

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/76

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

--
There's one thing that we immediately pick out as listeners, even if we don't have very trained ears and even if we're not very experienced or familiar with the genre: We immediately notice when something is way too loud or way too quiet.

And we subconsciously notice when the song doesn't feel right, maybe because it's hard to make out the bass line, or the drum groove is just not hitting hard enough, or there's this weird, buried thing in the background that's distracting us, while something else is jumping out too much.

We might not be able to put it into words, but we definitely notice when there's something wrong with the balance.

So there is one skill that we have to learn and constantly improve as engineers and mixers if we want our music to translate well and deliver all the emotion and energy with minimal distraction: Balancing. Simply finding the right levels for every track in every part of the song and every mic on a every source that we record.

Technically it's super simple, but it's also incredibly difficult to get right. If you get it right, however, assuming that your source tones are good, you're 80% there. Without touching an EQ, compressor or effect.

Let's discuss!

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/75

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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Jacob Hansen is joining us for this week's episode!

Jacob has worked with some of the biggest names in metal and alternative music. He's produced and or mixed records for bands like Volbeat, Amaranthe, The Black Dahlia Murder, Heaven Shall Burn, Evergrey, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Primal Fear and many many more. 

We're getting to pick Jacob's brain and talk about

• DIY recording
• getting amazing guitar tones
• mixing records remotely
• reamping
• the most common home studio pitfalls
• guitar tuning
• workflow and efficiency
• communication
• collaboration best practices
• the future of (home) recording
• evertune bridges
• amp sims and Kempers

among many other things.

Enjoy!

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/74

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

--
In this episode we talk about the critical five things you need to get right if you want your drums to sound "professional". 

And by "professional" we mean exactly spot on for your project. The way your favorite records sound. 

Whether you want massive, modern rock drums or tight, dry 70s drums, you need to get these 5 things right. No matter what. And they are much more important than mics, preamps, etc.

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/73


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

--
Today we have a challenge for you that will help you learn and grow faster than ever before:

Write a new song each jam. Record what you have at the end of the jam, no matter what. That's right: Schedule your next 5 practice/jam/writing sessions with your band or alone, then write a brand-new song after every session and record a demo version of it. 

Don't give yourself too much time to refine and overthink it. Keep the sessions short and force yourself to come up with something. The goal is not to write the best song ever, but to write and record five songs no matter what, set the foundation for a new writing and productivity routine and then reflect on the challenge to see what you have learned, what worked, what didn't work and how you can make writing and demoing a habit that sticks.

If there's any great stuff in those demos in the end that you can actually use: Great! If not: Absolutely no problem at all. Trust us, you'll benefit greatly from it, regardless of the immediate results.

Why all of that? 

• It forces you to be creative. Creativity does not depend on inspiration or how you feel. It's a process and it's a conscious decision to show up and do the creative work, no matter what.
• It helps you be more objective. You simply don't have enough time to get too attached to ideas. Just record it and come back to it later to see if you still like it. You're still gonna be objective enough to be able to trust your gut feeling.
• It’s always better to have more options than you need. Want to make a 12 song album? Then write 50 songs and choose the 12 best ones.
• You’ll become a better songwriter. Obviously, right?
• You'll learn to just move on and keep the flow up. You'll stop focussing on the result too much and will start to focus on the process, instead. The results will follow automatically. And they will get much better, as you practice more.
• If you show the results to other people, you'll also get good at engineering, fast. You'll get instant, regular feedback on your demos and people will point out the most important things that need to be fixed. You'll learn to focus on those things when you're producing, engineering and mixing.

Bonus points (and the best learning experience) if you do this:

Put the demos in an online folder and share your results with The Self-Recording Band Community and us.

Are you in?

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/72


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

--
Reamping used to be a problem solving technique. You recorded a DI as a safety net and when you later found out that the guitar tone didn't fit the song as well as you thought, you could just change it, or enhance it by blending it with another amp or pedal. 

These days, reamping has become a standard practice and is part of the plan for many records, right from the beginning. Especially when things are recorded at home and then sent to a studio for mixing and mastering. 

We believe you should always try to commit to a tone and you should at least take the time to play with whatever you have available, try to reamp yourself until you're happy and then see if your mixing engineer can do any better. 

Also, if you have some cool amps and pedals, why not use them to create unique signal chains and ultimately a unique guitar tone? That is fun! Especially if you don't have to play while dialing in the amp.

In this episode we dive deep into reamping with hardware amps and answer questions like:

• Should I capture the DI pre or post pedals?
• Where exactly has the DI box to be placed in the chain?
• Do I need dedicated reamp box?
• Is my interface suited for reamping?
• How do I make sure to hit the amp with the right level?
• Why does the reamped signal sound different than plugging directly into the amp?
• What is “real-time reamping” and why would I do that?
• I don't have a lot of pedals or amps, why should I care about reamping? (Your computer is a huge pedal board!)
• What should I watch out for technically? Timing, phase etc.?

Let's go!

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/71


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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Are you making this record all by yourself? No? Good. You need this episode. If you are working on it alone now, will you at some point bring others in? Maybe on future projects? If the answer is yes, this episode is absolutely for you. 

If you have more than one band member working on your songs and arrangements, if you want guest musicians to contribute to you record, if you're working as a session musician for others, or if you're hiring a mixing engineer - you need to make sure that those other people can actually work on your songs (or that you can contribute to theirs)! 

And if you truly want or need to be a lone wolf, then you can make your own life easier by following the principles and best practices described in this episode. Because better organization and clearly defined processes for consolidating, exporting, labeling or archiving audio files make you faster, prevent mistakes and boost your creativity by freeing up that "brain RAM" for the things that really matter.

And as soon as an opportunity presents itself, you're ready to jump on it because you know how this all works and you'll be such a pleasure to work with.

Let's discuss!

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/70


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 Essential Gear Guide here:
https://theselfrecordingband.com/gearguide

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

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

--
Let's talk gear! Here comes our totally incomplete recording studio gear recommendations list for 2021. We go through the different categories of audio gear and give you options in the low, medium and upper price ranges, so you can pick and choose whatever fits your budget. 

This list is totally subjective and there's much more out there, of course. But if you listen to this, you're going to get an idea of what to watch out for and why we like and recommend certain pieces of gear. 

We're not sponsored by any of the brands mentioned (as of May 2021) and we hope this helps you get started with or finally complete your home studio rig.

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/69


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 Essential Gear Guide here:
https://theselfrecordingband.com/gearguide

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

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

--
Let's talk gear! Here comes our totally incomplete recording studio gear recommendations list for 2021. We go through the different categories of audio gear and give you options in the low, medium and upper price ranges, so you can pick and choose whatever fits your budget. 

This list is totally subjective and there's much more out there, of course. But if you listen to this, you're going to get an idea of what to watch out for and why we like and recommend certain pieces of gear. 

We're not sponsored by any of the brands mentioned (as of May 2021) and we hope this helps you get started with or finally complete your home studio rig.

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/68


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 Frequency Chart / Spectrum Overview (Cheat Sheet) here:
https://theselfrecordingband.com/frequencychart

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

--
Equalizers are the most important audio tools right after faders and pan knobs. This episode is here to help you understand how they really work and how to get the most out of your EQ plugins or hardware. 

You'll discover when to use the different filter types, how to use surgical EQ moves to solve problems or how to polish your recordings using broad, colorful strokes.

Understanding EQs is a crucial skill you need to have, whether you're recording, mixing or mastering. They can even serve as an analyzing and practice tool to help you develop your hearing and your general audio production skills. 

How? Listen now and find out!

For full show notes go to: theselfrecordingband.com/67


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]