I really appreciate two things a lot of your video: 1. Telling people who make music, that talent and making good music (I'd add, exercise) is in the first place. Then, if you have the money, the audio gear and room treatment comes into place. But no room treatment or any audio gear makes bad music good. 2. "A room is an instrument." Yes, absolutely 💯. I'm playing the violin as let's say semi professional. And when I was young and studying what I decided to be my main profession, I did lots of concerts and earned my money with it. As a violinist you regularly used to play live concerts without any mic and pa, which means you always have to adopt your playing technique to the room acoustic. And this differs massively between a rehearsal in the empty room compared to the room filled with audience. So, thank you very much for making this point, because it also refers to making records in a room.
Wow thanks for this! I had no idea you play violin on that level. Yes, it’s always a worry with my channel, that it perpetuates the idea that you need to buy gear, when you really should worry much more about your skills with playing and recording. Thank you so much for the kind words :)
You're maybe the only youtuber I know who really focuses on the "self-producer", the bedroom musician, which is exactly where I sit. I know my recent inability to make music stems from myself more than anything, but yeah consumerism is a curse and sometimes I find myself looking for ways to improve my recording experience even if that's not the issue. Anyway, I love your content and I really hope to see more of these musician-oriented videos!
Thanks! Yeah I try my best to use gear and techniques that work well for those in less than ideal conditions, because I know thats what most of us are working with :)
Thank you for this. And thank you for your other videos which discuss the differences between expensive and inexpensive gear and how much you can do with inexpensive gear. I'm in my 50s. I've been writing, performing and recording music since I was a teenager. When I started recording, a portable cassette recorder was my best friend. It had a built-in microphone. That's all I had. Today I can get the same audio quality at home as I did when we used to book studio time. Before we (me and my bandmates) booked studio time, we rehearsed a lot. I guess now you'd call that "pre-production". We recorded those rehearsals in sub-optimal spaces with whatever equipment we had. Most of the time it was the live PA gear run into a VHS HIFi deck. Don't laugh. Those VHS HiFi decks recorded great quality audio and you didn't have to stop and change a tape during rehearsal. Some of those recordings sounded pretty damn good and passable as demos. I think it's because even though we had cheap equipment, we mastered using what we had. We knew how to get the best out of what we had. We weren't chasing gear we couldn't afford. I'm not trying to make a generational comment/argument, but it seems from looking at the content on RU-vid young folks are obsessed with the latest mic, interface, plugin, etc. to get the "best" sound. Seems like a big diversion. Today my phone can record better sound than my old portable cassette ever could and with the right app it can be a multitrack. That's something teenage me would have loved. All the gear is already here and you probably already own it. It's good to hear you (and some others) echoing this sentiment. Thank you again for the video.
I think there's definitely a trend on youtube to propagate and show cool gear, which can lead to people lusting over the next item to buy, thats certainly true. I just want to keep letting people know they definitely don't need any of it to make good music!
Well said! The first three rules of acoustic treatment are, in order: 1) Have an idea you want to express as a song. 2) Come up with some words to convey that idea. 3) Pick up an instrument. As you pointed out, clutter can be our friend. We are used to spaces with a lot of diffusion (consider the acoustic properties of a table lamp for example). A Realtor can take you blindfolded into a space and you will be able to tell if it's furnished or not just by the diffusion, or lack thereof. The skill of the Russ Bergers and John Storyks of this world is that they can make an empty room sound good, - because commercial studios have to swap out clients and stuff, so the room goes back to empty again and again. But most of us don't need to worry about that. Some producers are quite good at setting up usable spaces in houses. Daniel Lanois has done that brilliantly. By way of example, check out photos from Bob Dylan's Time Out Of Mind album.
Thanks! This is, without a doubt one part of audio production, where you are leaps and bounds ahead of me. Great video, tho a bit short. I know the bare minimum and I don’t use half of it. That being said: To my defense, I might add, that luckily, for my use, I rarely need to. Having the microphone as close as I do, I have distanced my voice so far from the room, that my voice is perfectly dry - with a bit of post processing of course. But even with my trickery with noise reduction and noise gating I don’t mean to take away from your knowledge. Because my post processing for the most part deals with my choices with the recording space, the placement of my voice in said space and of course the distance to the microphone.
Fr its so easy to get intimidated and feel demotivated by realizing your room isnt great, but tbh in 2022 who cares lol everyone makes music in their bedrooms and a lot if the times it turns out great! heck most of my favorite songs by my favorite artists were made at their home, I heard that even Billie Eilish made her first hit song in an untreated room with an at2020 the song is "Ocean Eyes" and I can name many others too Ghostemane's biggest song mercury (400+mil views) was recorded in his closet and mixed in his apartment, Most Lil Peep, Suicideboys songs were all recorded at home with No fancy well treated rooms, at the same time Im not saying you should just completely ignore it, Im just saying make music! dont wait until you have it all, make the most of what you have right now! And ofc always try to improve your art just dont stop doing it bc you dont have the perfect gear yet whatever you get the point hehe
Absolutely! Its totally a myth that music can't be made in your bedroom these days, I know people miss the studio days, but its brilliant that you can get the same level out of your room
I have a pretty good feeling your videos are going to blow up man, these are some of the best quality videos I've seen on RU-vid for music production. Also, I love your message when it comes to gear. Too often I find videos where people focus on selling some sort of equipment instead of giving people the tools they need to learn the trade. Keep up the great work!
One of my lectures would always say 80% of any good recording is the song and performance. He also said that if you want an excuse to why you cant do something, there is always gearsluts. His main argument was "do what you can, then reference tracks are still reference tracks regardless of the room".
This speaks to me, because I have steel frame shelves. Sneeze or cough and they will ring for a few seconds. Also you can hear any noise made outdoors or in a neighbours apartment including one in the next stairwell somewhere, playing e-drums with real poor sense of timing, headphones on. If my room is an instrument, my room is from the worst era of Behringer, and I'm moving to a new place in August where nothing can be heard until the doorbell rings. (Still made stuff that received great c&c including vocals)
LOL my music room, a hallway in a manhattan basement is so small many of the acoustic calculators don’t allow for a dimensions like sub-6 foot height and width, but 20 feet long. Oh and it’s stuffed with bookshelves holding TP, paper towels and the odd cardboard box. … anyway. Great video.
Great video, love the part about the messy recording space. My recording/rehearsal room is wall to wall clutter lol. Now I can just say it's purposeful haha.
Great video and great points, especially at the beginning. Ed Cherney once said that if you're recording a great drummer with a great set of drums, you could have a single 58 pointing in the wrong direction and it's still gonna sound good! 🙂
You made a incredibly significant piece of advice here, in my humble point of view. Since my room treatment sucked and I had only basic equipment, I had waited for YEARS to start creating some music and wasted probably dozens of good ideas because I didn't record it and then ended up forgetting the melody and/or lyrics. Finally, I decided the ignore all that BS and started recording some stuff and I am more than satisfied with my first recording even though my room is not treated and I could use better equipment. So, I would just like to reiterate your advice for other beginners like me - just create some music, as you said - if the song is good, a lot of producing errors can be forgiven, but no amount of editing can make a terrible song sound great. Thank you!
First 50 seconds: Exactly💯 Good gear works best with a great performance. "You don't listen to the equipment, you listen through the equipment." (Bruce Swedien)
Hi man! I'm wondering, cuz looking at different youtube videos about room sound treatment and stuff they are all talking about it in the context of creating a studio where you can mix and master and hear your tracks without the room coloring it. My thing is, I use headphones, I don't have monitors and I record voice overs, and want to step up my quality, remove reverb from my room. Now I've seen lots of people speak poorly about the cheap acoustic foam panels you stick on your wall but my understanding is if there's anything good that they do is that they block the high frequencies, so wouldn't it be good enough for me to just use them to remove reverb or should I go for the thick expensive sound panels?
Can you make a video of recording a resonator guitar? I wrote a song with a resonator and it is the hell of a thing to capure in a oke way and yes my room is not a great space (:p). Thanks!
Definitely recommend! You may have to accomodate for the bias in the low end due to proximity but you can mitigate a healthy amount of room reflections
I love your content man!! its really helpful for someone like me studying audio engineering, and voice directing! you give me a lot of tips, and i often share your videos to people i work with, and it helps them too! keep it up!!!
Here it is!! Been waiting for it :D Any tips on reducing microphone feedback loops? I recently visited a karaoke booth and also sung on a public stage for the first time, and wondered how they are able to attain zero microphone feedback in such loud environments. Some of my long-sustain low notes caused clearly audible distortion in the speakers though, not sure what is up with that
Hm, well with a karaoke machine they probably just use a dynamic mic, which should do fine in loud environments unless its pumped too hot, that will also cause the distortion issue :)
@@AudioHaze I've been mainly using condenser mics till now. It never occured to me it would be that much of a difference; I thought it would be close if their polar patterns were similar XD Thanks for the revelation :)
"You can make amazing stuff with none of this." Case in point: Finneas & Billie Eilish's - "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?" album. It won some Grammys btw 😊
I started off with a second hand Sennheiser E835. I've still got it and I've tried other things but none suited my voice better in a live event so I kept it. I've bought a SM57 recently and have used it already on guitar cabs and even recording bass.
Comment off topic: one problem I've encountered is that if you're an acoustic guitar player, you never get to hear how your guitar really sounds because your behind the sound source. So it's really difficult to hear how your acoustic guitar needs to sound when recording.
Hahah, still, whatever room you have can work out in the long run :) Okay, thanks Sadie. you're too kind! 280 Pro: amzn.to/3vzRopJ 20X: amzn.to/3F8fxXA
hello Ricky, new sub here, nice channel! I think I can hear a noticeable improvement on your voice in this video compared with oldest ones. Despite mic/room position did you change something in the post-chain? a video about actual post workflow would be nice and could get a lot of interest imo, cheers from Spain!
I love this video. I have been watching a ton of videos where people tell you that if you don't have a perfectly acoustically treated room you should hang your head in shame and forget about recording. Or something along those lines. At least they tell you that whatever you try to record is gonna suck. Which is kind of bad news for guys like me who has a tiny music room/studio space in the attic with a slanting roof 3/4 of the way from the room entrance,. And yes, although I try to keep it tidy it's full of clutter. Guitars on the wall, Bass and guitar amps along the floor, cupboards for storage, my studio desk and so on. There is no room for any acoustic treatment. Thank you for telling me that it's ok. I can keep working towards creating good stuff nonetheless and there are ways to mitigate most of the shortcomings of the room. That's very encouraging. Thank you, so much.
What you tell about your poor rooms is really overmodest. I disagree with many things you do and say, but the quality of your voice over is one of the best I've heard on youtube (with measured monitor speakers and eqed headphones btw). I try to figure out since 5 of your videos, which kind of fancy deessing stuff and processing you use on your vo - or if you are really capable to do voiceover without any sibilance problem, which is, to be honest, frustrating. Perhaps you could bring light to this dark question.
sound advice for the nontech and great info for the curious want to be tech...especially the room resonance stuff. I've watched at least 4 of your vids tonight alone. thanks a ton.🙉
@@AudioHaze I’m sorry, I was being a smart-ass. I meant a hearing test for your ears. But you know what? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything about having good hearing as it pertains to the subject of this video. 🤷🏼♂️👂🏼🤷🏼♂️
I understand many people do not like totally dead room, but for me there is nothing better for voice recording and singing. Then the microphone captures only the voice, which gives a lot of power later. Unfortunately, my room is the worst in the visible universe. :)
Well if you're in a dead 8x9ft room like me and you record...anything at all...all you get is boxy overtones and mud and standing reflection stacked on resonant standing reflection stacked on muddy, boxy overtones. It. Sucks.
@@oinkooinkBut if you have comb filtering then the room is not dead, it sill have reflections bouncing all over the place but with much smaller times so the end result is a mess. But you are correct, it is better to have a little bit of reverberation, no matter how ugly it is, than to have comb filtering and all sorts of nasty resonances. However, I was talking about no reverb at all, just like recording outside without nature noise and wind. This gives you freedom to compress like crazy, and play with reverbs to make it sound better, not to cover up the ugly room reverberation.
@@oinkooink I just found a free plugin that uses the AI to remove the background noise and room reverberation: GOYO Voice Separator, and it works incredibly well. I do not like solutions like this, but this one gives great results. This makes my situation less problematic, however I do not think there is a solution for your small room except singing very close to the microphone.
