Why Your Home Recordings Never Get Any Better

[@FrightboxRecording]

►► {FREE TRAINING} 4 Dead-Simple Ways To Improve Your Recordings & Mixes: frightboxrecordingacademy.com/free-training/

[@whome806]

1.) Guitar strings Gauge and intonation matters 2.) Tune your guitar after every take 3.) Quantize actually helps tighten your mix 4.) Ezdrummer, ezbass, nueral dsp doesn't need alot of mixing just try doing a small amount of EQ 5.) put a glue compressor on your master bus fastest release .10 atk 4:1 ratio maybe 1-3db reduction when beginning mixing it saves time 6.) Try using delay on your guitars and vocals over reverb 7.) Try using a clipper before your limiter when mastering 8.) Save yourself a ridiculous amount of time and set up a default template so every time you open you DAW it has everything loaded up so you don't waste time setting up plug ins and routing

[@alessandrosummer]

Tell me you follow Jordan from HCMS without telling me you follow Jordan from HCMS 🙃

[@whome806]

@alessandrosummer dudes good at teaching

[@oldguysplaymetal5517]

Agree, especially tune guitars after every take, because you sure as hell can't fix that in the mix

[@Durkhead]

@@oldguysplaymetal5517 autotune

[@oldguysplaymetal5517]

@@Durkhead I respectfully disagree. I've tried that with rhythm guitars and when out of tune, you have multiple strings which might be fighting each other. Of course, you might get away with it, but I usually make the guitar player tune and do another take, since that , to me, is a completely avoidable error.

[@jamescendrowski4844]

I can't thank you enough for the many hours you put in to all this. Your high pass instructions cleaned all the mud and grumble out of every track we did.

[@FrightboxRecording]

So happy to hear that!

[@oldguysplaymetal5517]

Great advice. Learned a long time ago, not to record "final "or "non-demo tracks" until the entire drum track from first note to last note, was recorded. I have been recording for over 20 years and I can absolutely assure you that Bobby is right on all these points. Pro results = arrangement, performance, accuracy, editing and basic mixing. NOT gear, plug ins or some "this one trick..."

[@eyeandeye9540]

Every advice from your videos are little nuggets of knowledge that turn a mix to gold, I can't thank you enough for the progress I made with everything you put out. Big up !

[@whome806]

Between this dude, hardcore music studio, and udemy choruses I made massive progress in my mixing and mastering skills

[@flamen89]

Great video man 🙏

[@CemeterySoulsMusic]

Hrmmm... this is perfectly valid for writing music with guitars, drums, etc. But when doing EDM, you're basically in the box the whole time, so the pre-production process is done in the same place that you're doing the mixing. And the sound design process sure feels a lot like the mixing process. Bit the advice still applies. Great video

[@drewinman7171]

Thank you for your emphasis on editing. That's been happening for so long that our paradigm on what's "natural" is a fallacy. Hard fact, your favorite album, your holy grail recording from which you set your standard, is edited. Keep speaking the facts, my friend!

[@Slugcoil]

Great video Bobby, I think point #1 is where most people I see fail but it's all valuable.

[@jamescendrowski4844]

Oh yeah! Stack up can be an issue in the realm of automotive engineering as well. I think my 20 years in quality and layout really makes me appreciate your approach to everything.

[@christopherharv]

Over the past couple years I’ve gotten so much better at mixing drums, bass, synths, sound fx, clean and acoustic guitars…. But I still struggle so much with overdriven guitars, whether lead or rhythm (but especially rhythm). Which is ironic because I’m a guitarist mainly playing overdriven lead and rhythm guitar… they’re always too harsh. So I try to tame the harshness and then it’s too dull, and I can never strike the right balance between harsh and dull. And yes I’ve tried Soothe.

[@FrightboxRecording]

No need for Soothe. Just use a solid cab with V30's mic'd with an SM57 (in the right spot) or a quality IR and you're tone will be set.

[@andthensome512]

Having good songs, guitars being in tune and singing with good pitch is 90% of a good sounding recording.

[@williamwolfdagger9788]

Sir, I really appreciate your help with these videos, you are doing what other people are afraid to do. You are talking with the truth with no interest in being superior. It seems that every KZbin creator out there tries to either sell you something you don't need or treat you like a dumb for not doing what they do. Now, I'd like to ask you something. What about DI input levels? I'm confused on how to capture a good and healthy DI signal. A couple of years ago, everyone said that you should strum your guitar as hard as possible and increase the gain up to somewhere it is not clipping. Now, even the plugin manufacturers say it is incorrect and nobody ever said to do that. Even after uploading videos telling you to do it. (Neural DSP). Honestly I'm confused. I feel strange by recording guitars with the interface preamp at zero. What are your thoughts on this?

[@tube-2025]

1:41 video start

[@sickmessiah]

I’ve constantly made progress in the last 25 years. Sometimes big. Often small steps. I’ve also taken steps back a few times but turn it around to an improvement eventually.

[@adamskaggs4494]

Bro. I feel attacked.😂

[@sachii.k1802]

Im a metal head but I do my own hip hop production. Sm57 into Antelope discreet 4 into logic pro and a well treated bedroom and the results are pro!... Basic gear, just know how to use it👌

[@Durkhead]

I got kicked out of a production discord server for saying that better timing will improve your guitar tone

[@carlosamado7606]

Timing, string attack, downstroke most stuff if possible for note clarity. If you don't really dig into those strings you won't bring the nice harmonics of the gain that make the guitar cut through. Playing sloppy and low energy will be muddy and will sound much worse even if trying to fix it with more gain , harmonic exciters ,etc.

[@doknox]

🤣

[@FrightboxRecording]

@@carlosamado7606 You're 100% correct!

[@EmperorKamikaze]

Ppl have quantitative dependency

[@jackgolden5006]

Last one though: you can make it sound amazing via mastering but it's a bloody bloodbath rarely worth doing. I normally love to record in a way so that I barely have to edit and recording is my main edit - good in = better out...

[@FrightboxRecording]

You can make it slightly better, but never great. It's best to just get it right in the first place...it ends up taking less time in the long run.

[@tgstk2]

ohh yes First baby!!

[@simonvalentine4256]

My takeaway from this is that I need to have the basic framework of my songs down (as in the guitar, drums and lyrics/vocals) before I start even double tracking the rhythm guitars.

[@FrightboxRecording]

That's the way to do it.

[@ThreadBomb]

Are people not demoing anymore? I always demo. Work out the structure of the song and how I want the performance to go, without worrying about good sound or perfect playing. Then I record it again. If the tempo of the demo is right, the re-record might involve just replacing all the scratch tracks with good ones.

[@EmperorKamikaze]

Amateurs don't demo because Ableton is writing the song as they go

[@mikemaysmusic5519]

SECOND BABY!!! 😂

[@JSNM_]

I'm wondering if post production would be a valid extra step in the process ( before mixing?), or would it fit into something there already? For example if I wanted to have a grainy, old tape like effect on part of a track or other fx and things that add to the atmosphere rather than be an instrument or something directly? Or I guess that could be under pre-production, not sure. It doesn't seem important to add things like that at that stage.

[@adamwells6079]

I used to use sleep over mastering until I found out that Iron Maiden skips the mastering stage altogether

[@EmperorKamikaze]

And the Beatles sometimes

[@Maxischupp93]

i mean i was stuck in a hole for over 2 years, just to figure out, editing (timestretching) to a grid was what did the trick for me, it wasnt a secret setting on a compressor or anything, those things were dialled pretty good. But now it actually sounds like a modern metal record, so in essence: my playing was too bad, not my mixing :D as the saying goes, cant polish a turd to make it look like gold :S :D

[@wardman21]

Music is hard

[@mitchellmantell4754]

Natural is different to shit. I’m pretty sure people confuse the two.