Return to EQ index

All information in these pages is copyright (c) 1989-2003 by Roger Nichols. All rights reserved. Permission for personal reference only, and may not be reproduced by any method without written permission.

Got Questions?
by Roger Nichols

As you have probably figured out by now, there are as many variables in recording as there are in a manned space flight to Mars. Here are a few of the questions I will try to answer in this month’s column.
1) Where in the room do I put the drums?
2) Can I fit all the musicians in the studio?
3) Did someone call yesterday with the correct setup?
4) How many mics should I use on the drums?
5) Should I use a bottom mic on the snare?
6) Should I take the front head off the kick drum?
7) Am I supposed to stuff a blanket in the kick drum?
8) Does a sandbag work better than the bottom of a mic stand for deadening the kick drum?
9) Should I flip the phase on the snare mic?
10) Do I need a capsule pad on the hihat mic?
11) What kind of mics should I use on the tom toms?
12) Does Roger really use a shotgun mic over the snare drum?
13) How high should the overhead mics be?
14) Should I record room mics?
15) Which mic should I use on the vocal?
16) What if the drums sound crappy?
17) Is there enough isolation for the vocal?
18) Should the vocalist record in the bathroom? She’s in there most of the time anyway.
19) Should I compress the vocal during recording?
20) Should I record all the background singers on one mic or use separate mics on separate tracks?
21) Do I have enough DSP to EQ all the drum mics?
22) Should I record the guitar with the effect on the same track?
23) How many mics am I going to need to do this session?
24) Should I have enough working mic cables, or should my studio be like all the rest?
25) Do expensive mic cables sound better?
26) Do vintage mics sound better?
27) Do other engineers recordings sound better?
28) Are the mic stands going to droop with these heavy mics I borrowed?
29) Do I record the guitar in stereo or mono?
30) Should I mic the bass or go direct?
31) Should I use an active or passive direct box?
32) Which reverb to use for monitoring?
33) If I had $12,000 to spend on a reverb should I get the Lexicon 960 or the tc6000?
34) Should I monitor on the NS-10s, naahhh!
35) How many cue systems do I need?
36) Should I get a “more me” headphone system?
37) Which brand of headphones don’t blow up as often?
38) If the mic signal is too hot should I use the pad switch on the mic or the one on the console?
39) Should I set the record levels so all the playback faders are at zero, or max the level on each track?
40) Is it true that some digital machines have a hidden switch to turn off the over lights?
41) I see overs on the recorder, why aren’t there overs in my DAW?
42) Do I need to turn off the air conditioner during recording?
43) Should I record on tape, hard-disk, or directly to DAW?
44) Should I go over that take or keep it?
45) Am I going to run out of tape/disk space before the end of the take?
46) Should I tell the singer I only have ten tracks for vocals?
47) When the producer asks me if I’m using Dolbys, what should I tell him?
48) Should I record a 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 96kHz or 192kHz?
49) Should I record 16bit, 24bit, 32bit, or 48bit?
50) When the producer asks me which I like better should I lie?
51) Should the audio files on DAW be recorded as WAV, AIFF, SDII, or Broadcast WAV?
52) Should the SMPTE time code be 30 drop, 30ND, 29.97 drop, or 29.97ND?
53) Which device should be the word clock master?
54) Should everything be sync’ed to video black burst?
55) If recording at a higher sample rate and bit depth should I charge more for the session?
56) When I mix should I bounce to disc, print the mix to Masterlink, DAT, CD recorder, or 1/2” analog tape? (Sorry, I didn’t mean to use the “a” word.)
57) Should I use Apogee or Monster digital cables, or can I just use mic cables for digital audio?
58) There is a 96kHz DAT and there is a 24bit DAT, but why isn’t there a 96kHz/24bit DAT?
59) If I burn CDs should I use silver, gold, green, blue or black CD-Rs?
60) Should I use 74 minute CD-Rs or 80 minute CD-Rs?
61) Should I backup the project to AIT, DLT, Jaz, DAT, Exabyte, firewire hard disks, CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, or DVD-R?
62) When mixing should I use the reverb plug-ins or the hardware reverbs using inserts?
63) Should I take the extra time to label all the audio regions ‘KICK, SNARE, HIHAT, etc. or just leave them AUDIO1, AUDIO2, AUDIO3…?
64) A couple of tracks were recorded at low levels because the keyboard player turned down and I didn’t notice. Should I normalize the track so the producer doesn’t notice?
65) What about sample rate conversion when I mix? Should I use the plug-in sample rate converter or external hardware?
66) Should I master the songs myself or send them to a mastering house?
67) After mastering the producer wants me to make MP3s to send around to the record companies. Should he send CDs or are MP3s good enough.? Will the A&R guy know the difference?
68) Should I do dithering to 16bit or should I send the 24bit file to mastering and let him do it?
69) Should I use limiters during the final mix to get the song as loud as possible or should I let the mastering guy do it.
70) Are three-band compressor plug-ins good enough or do I need five-band compressors for my mix to sound professional?
71) What is the difference between mastering at Gateway or Bernie Grundman’s, and just sending the project to House of CDs in Chula Vista?
72) If this is an independent project where should the CDs be pressed?
73) If the project is on a major record label should I make them do the stampers at Denon instead of their own plating plant, or should I just go kill myself?
74) Should I do surround mixes now while everything is set up, or wait ‘til later?
75) Do I stick with 5.1 or should I mix 7.1 versions?
76) Can the 7.1 versions be folded down to 5.1 if I need to?
77) On the DVD is there room for AC-3 and DTS and MLP and PCM stereo?
78) Do the surround mixes sound better as AC-3, DTS, or MLP?
79) Should we try to sell the album on the Internet or through a record company?
80) How do record companies figure royalties? What is 60% of 75% of 100% of un-recouped freebies?Oops, it doesn’t look like I will have time to answer any of these questions right now because I am busy trying to get my friend Richard Hoagland on the phone to schedule a seat on the first manned Mars mission. I decided to take the easy way out.