The Antfarm Dogma
Ok, so… what do you get when you work with me? I’ll try to tell you my views on the subject of recording music.
I am the kind of guy who will make a band’s album. I like to always make the band’s ideas the starting point of the production.
I want to try to make every record something special, and I would hate for all my records to sound the same. If I always made you play with MY guitar amp, used the sound I say is the right one, and never listened to your ideas about sound, everything would always end up sounding the same. That would be a great shame, I think.
Your music is meant to sound like YOU. So I don’t have a preference as to whether I like this or that amp, prefer 2 or 4 guitar tracks, double-track vocals or not, etc. etc. It’s all about the sound that we want to achieve for this particular album.
Played by musicians, not computers
These days there’s a tendency to let the computer do the work for you. My belief is that music should be played by musicians, NOT computers. I believe in letting you play your parts with your own hands — to capture the essence of what is YOU, not straightening you out to sound like a machine without a heart.
IT IS ACTUALLY POSSIBLE TO PLAY MUSIC.
This doesn’t mean I’m not willing to help you out here and there. I am not an asshole — or at least so I like to think… hehe.
I can only talk about the records I’ve recorded myself, but you generally think of them as being played from start to finish — by humans.
When I’m only mixing
It’s very hard to tell you what to do and what not to do when recording yourself or in another studio. Follow your ears and do what you think is right… but:
If you’re recording on a Mackie / Behringer desk or the likes — don’t touch the EQs. You’re going to mess up more than you win.
Always get the sound at the source. Whether it’s drums, guitars, bass, whatever: get as close as you can at the source and get it clean into the computer (or tape).
So tune those drums. Tune those guitars. Sing in tune. Autotune is the enemy. Don’t make your expensive vocal mic / singer sound like a piece of plastic.
Of course there’s help to get if everything else fails — but never rely on the computer to turn shit into gold. It’s not gonna happen. Shit in, shit out. So do it right.
And remember: we can fix a lot of things. We can construct good music that’ll sound alright in the end. But you’re still going to look like a jerk on stage afterwards if you don’t do your homework.
Don’t assume things on my behalf. Stuff like: “It’s going to be alright once he puts a compressor on it and some reverb.” If it sounds like shit now, it’s still going to sound like shit when it’s done.
Practical bits before you send stems
I’d like you to record a DI signal of the guitars as well as a miked signal. I’ll always start by using your sound — the DI track is only for worst-case scenarios.
If you have enough inputs, get DDrum triggers and record those clicky signals they make on separate tracks for snare (!), toms and kicks.
Don’t do vocals two meters from the mic in a reverb-hall type room. You better believe I’m going to compress the shit out of your vocals — that means tons of natural reverb if you didn’t record it right (and that is NOT a good thing).
When you name the tracks / audio files, use CAPS ON, titles without spaces, and please use the same track names for all tracks across different sessions if they’re the same: KICKIN, KICKOUT, SNTOP, SNBOT, T1, T2, GTRL, GTRR, etc.
Don’t leave stuff in the sessions that I’m not supposed to use. Who knows — I might think the noise in a break sounds cool, but you don’t. So don’t give it to me. If you consolidate the tracks, don’t do fades; it affects the way compressors work. If you leave them unconsolidated, it’s fine to leave those fades in.
If you’re not recording in Pro Tools, you have to consolidate all the tracks so they start at zero. You can use .wav, .aiff, .sd2 — 16-bit or 24-bit. Never 32-bit.
Make sure all the files are there.
When I’m travelling to you
Send me a link to the studio(s) we’re working at, so I can check what equipment I need to bring myself.