5 BIG Mistakes Home Studio Producers Make!

if you're not doing this your stuff will forever sound amateur what's up you guys Nathan Larson here with another video for those of you who make music at home whether you're a songwriter a producer or an artist if you're writing and recording your own music this is the channel for you first off what do you guys think of the new tagline make music at home I'm curious to see what you think first video trying it out leave me a comment if you liked it we'll make shirts make hats we'll make we'll make all the merch I don't know who knows what will happen this might not even fit we'll see what happens we'll see what happens but in this video we're talking about the five biggest most common mistakes I see home studio producers home studio artists making all the time let's do it the first things first if you liked the video smash the like button I don't know why you say smash the like button actually I do it's peer pressure because everyone else does it okay anyway you should also subscribe to the channel hit the bell for notifications we're gonna have a lot more videos coming out here in the very near future that are good it's gonna blow your face off man I think I've had way too much coffee today make sure you stick around to the end because the last one here if you're not doing this your stuff will forever sound amateur so mistake number one is kind of two parts it's either recording your material too loud or too soft now what I'm talking about is anything that you're recording with a microphone this could be a vocal guitar drums it doesn't matter what it is so often what ends up happening is that when the signal is coming into your DAW it's coming in way too hot clipping distorting those are completely irreparable you cannot work with that and don't don't don't say we can fix it in the mix because you you cannot fix clipping in the mix it's not repairable so the target for recording when it comes into your DAW is to have your gain set so that on the meter it's coming in peaking at about minus 6 DB peaking at that level so in other words that's where it is at the loudest moment so if you're recording a vocal for example you want to make us the loudest part that's where you're peaking at so what I want to do is quickly just jump into the DAW and show you some examples of the wrong way and then we'll talk about some examples the right way so the first one is two but then we're also gonna talk a little bit about tracking things too quiet because that is almost as much of a problem it's not quite as bad but we'll talk about that here in a second let's jump into the DA first alright guys so we are in my DAW and what we're gonna do is basically show you three examples here I have version that is too hot too soft and then perfect and what you're gonna be seeing here is in the in the metering which is down here you can see like for example my voice here we're peaking up you know 4.8 you're gonna be seeing here this one that's too hot it technically is not clipping I don't believe I think there's maybe a little bit of clipping here you can see the waveform there's a little bit of clipping maybe there but nothing else in here is like really clipping but you're gonna notice once we listen to it this has no effects on it and the thing is is that this is we're just kind of a side note it's a really good idea to record your stuff with no compression no EQ no reverb and get it sounding really good with none of that because then once you start adding the compression the reverb the delay the EQ all the other stuff it's gonna sound that much better so let's go ahead and just do this we're gonna listen to this this is one of my originals it's a single that I'll be releasing here down the road it's a duet so this is just the chorus so this is too hot ready let's just go ahead and listen and then be looking down here in the inspector window on the meters here you're gonna be seeing the peak level over here and we'll take a look even in the hardest days even through the darkest days will be will be here together we'll hold on another we'll fight for each other we will walk away even through the restless nights even through the longest of fights love whoa okay so I think you get the idea and even when you can hear me talking now like my voice sounds a little quieter compared to that of course that's because this was peaking at like zero dB not good that's just that's not great when you start talking about compressing this when you start actually processing this this is not going to sound good okay let's listen to two soft now you can even just see in the waveform here that's just it's yeah so let's give this a shot here and so again no compression no EQ nothing on it faders at zero let's listen so you get the idea even if we start boosting the gain what's gonna happen is maybe sort of noise that could be happening in the room any of that stuff you're also going to be boosting that and so that is not good it's too soft so let's listen to the example here of perfect you can see even here the waveform looks good it's kind of in the in the middle between the two of these and let's check this out we'll say for each other we won't lock away even though the restless nights even donkeys so you get the idea and of course this is like I did one take for all these so that it's not like I practiced or anything so no it doesn't sound fantastic doesn't sound great it's not like I mean I literally was sitting here at my desk doing this so you can get the idea here now what I'm gonna do is actually go ahead and just really quickly run some processing on this one the perfect take so you can see how good this can sound once we start applying compression EQ and doing all that other fun stuff delay and in reverb so I'm basically just can quickly run through processing on this just with the piano just to get just so you can see what this would sound like because listen to this again doesn't sound like great right I mean like it's a good it's good though I mean like obviously the takes not good but the quality of the audio is good this is something that we can absolutely work with everything all that all the checks are all the the all of the boxes have been checked as far as what we want out of it take so I'm going to go ahead and process this give me a second here okay so this is just like five minutes worth of just throwing some stuff in here I have some compression EQ D s or another compressor have a little bit of reverb and delay even in the hardest day even though the darkest days will be will be here together will hold on another will fight for each other we both walk away so again that compared to nothing on it and then after even in the hardest days even through the darkest days will be so there you go number two the second mistake is blaming mixing on what is actually a sound selection problem the overwhelming majority of people who are producing in a home studio think that their biggest problem is mixing that is the number one reason their stuff does not sound great in while there is some definite truth in the fact that mixing makes things sound really great and can can make things sound fantastic and everything if you're mixing properly the truth of the matter is that your production should sound good before you are even at the stage of mixing producing and mixing rx to different parts of the process producing is when you're actually building the arrange when you're actually tracking things in you're actually developing the whole project the mixing process is you know gain staging and EQ compression all that fun stuff where you can start adding the effects and you know for some of us were kind of mixing as we do it but then even for me when I get to the end a lot of times I take everything off and I start from scratch and I actually mix it 100% from the beginning but the problem is that so many people blame mixing on what are really not mixing issues in the first place a lot of it comes down simply to sound selections so if you're doing anything with like MIDI for example making sure that you're using sounds that actually fit the session that fit the project so often people end up choosing these sounds that sound really artificial or just don't fit and that more than anything is simply a sound selection problem I know this is really difficult to demonstrate so we're not gonna really jump into the dot I'm sorry I'm not gonna demonstrate specifically what I mean hopefully you can just understand what I'm talking about basically things like the piano doesn't sound good I should probably EQ it differently or compress it differently when really it's well why don't you two start with a really good piano sound why don't you start with a really great sounding guitar start with a really great sounding well you fill in the blank the problem is is that so often people think it's a mixing problem when really this is just straight-up a production problem your music should sound good before you even get to the mixing process so often the music sounds like garbage and then you just kind of expect the mix to just fix everything and it can sound garbage for a lot of different reasons but I've seen so often a lot of it comes down simply to sound selection so the truth of the matter is you can definitely get away with using presets and stock instruments and things like that I made an entire video where I produce the entire song using only stock plugins and stock instruments in logic you can check out the video in the corner here so it's definitely possible however it is in my opinion worth it to invest in sample libraries and invest in sounds that's for me where I've invested the majority of my money is to have as many sounds available possible because I'm a very firm believer in my music sounding the way it does because I'm very good at sound selection let's talk about number three number three is not getting it right at the source this is sort of similar to the first one but I want to dive into a little bit more deeper detail than the first mistake which is recording things too hot or too quiet by getting it right of the source I'm talking a lot about performance primarily I'm talking about the room you're in making sure that you're in a space that is conducive for recording making sure that when you are performing the actual performance itself is just fantastic there's no question that if the performance is not good it's not going to translate into a really great track you need to understand that so much of the decision-making process that goes into what a great sounding song is going to be it's a lot of very small decisions a lot of very small things that add up into the very big things so when it comes to like performance for example you have to be extremely rigorous in terms of making sure that performance is just totally spot-on so when it comes to vocal performance of course you need to edit your vocals you're probably going to have to do pitch correction even if it is a killer take we're gonna talk about that here a little bit but there's no question that the performance just has to be a spot-on performance in order for this to be a great sounding track and so don't think that you can just get away with you know well I'll edit that now I'll tune that and I'll I'll do XYZ instead or I can make that work or I'll fix it in post like all of that stuff is just not good if your stuff doesn't sound good right away at the source and buy at the source I'm just talking about when you are recording it when you are getting it in you want things to sound good as you are doing it it is never a good thing for you to say I'll fix it later that's usually not something that's great now there are definitely things that you're gonna fix later of course there are but work to get things sounding as great and is amazing at the very beginning as possible so getting the levels right we are talked about in the very first example here getting a really solid performance making sure that you're recording in a room that is conducive for recording it's not a super echoey room or it's not in an environment that just sounds terrible I'll leave that I'll leave that there I think you get the idea if you need more clarification on it just leave me a comment we'll talk about it oh and if you'd like to talk with me beyond just the comment section down below feel free to follow me on instagram send me a DM love to say hey how's it going now we're moving on to mistake number four and that is over arranging the mids so what I'm talking about is making arrangements that are simply just too cluttered again I think this is where so many people say my mixing isn't as good as it should be when it's really no actually you're arranging needs work because if you're thinking that you can just EQ the snot out of everything and you can y'all make this all kind of work and I've got all these layers and all this stuff happening and I'll I'll fix it in the mix that's not good listen to basically all of the music that is the most successful today you're gonna find that typically the arrangements are not just like tons and tons of things happening especially if you're working in a genre that has vocals you want your vocal to have space for that vocal to exist in the mid-range and getting in that you know kind of four hundred to a thousand Hertz is really where the vocal is gonna be the most kind of existent most existing that without know why I said that okay you get the idea the main thing is that you should not be overdoing it and I think there's a difference between layering to get a really good sound and then layering just for the sake of layering so be really careful that when you're making decisions on the production side those decisions are intentional you're doing them on purpose you're not just doing it because you saw some person's dog where they had a hundred tracks so now you feel you need to do stuff with a hundred tracks and I've had stuff in my sessions here that you've probably seen in other videos if you watch my channel where I have a lot of stuff going on but all of that stuff is very intentional and all hundred of those tracks are not happening at the same time I'm making sure that each individual track each individual part has a very specific purpose so just to give you an idea so you've got this synth part that's doing like it did like you know this you know cool little melodic line it's giving us some information regarding what the chords are that we're using and say that's got a really soft attack and you know it's got a really cool sound though but I want that sound to be a little more unique so then let's say I decide to use like maybe a hammered dulcimer which has a little more of a percussive attack but then it's got that really amazing kind of string sound that's going to compliment that I'm gonna fuse those together but the idea is not to have like two completely unique sounds that kind of don't work together the idea is I want my listener to almost think that that's actually all the same sound that's the idea of layering so when we're talking about arranging typically you don't need as much as you might think you need so if you have some rhythm guitar your bass guitar maybe a piano maybe some other keys and stuff that's usually plenty that's plenty to have in fact you don't even necessarily want to have all of that happening at the same time except for in the really big moments you just need to be really careful that you're not overdoing it you're not adding too many counterparts you're not adding too many countermelodies you're not doing too much stuff that really just gets in the way and this is really really pertinent if we're talking about vocal music you want to have room and space for that vocal to exist especially if you're wanting to have a relatively bigger kind of vocal production so that's the fourth one is overdoing it in the mids specifically just arrangement wise and just adding stuff for the sake of adding stuff the biggest thing that I think as a composer as an arranger and as a producer which I kind of see all three of those things being kind of like very well interlocked is the idea of intentionality this is something that I talk about a lot with the artists that I work with - on the songwriting side as well is being very intentional what the things are that you're doing you have to think through why am I doing this what is the purpose what is it accomplishing and if it's not accomplishing that don't do it and number five here we go about to probably make some enemies not editing your sessions meticulously I listen to alot of music done in home studios self producing artists artists that are looking to work with me my artist development company for example sending me music and you can tell that it's self produced this is one of the biggest tells in my mind that I can tell that this was self produced and not done by a professional producer not editing and if this goes a lot deeper than just like oh yeah just kind of removing little stuff and adding fades like that's important you need to do that so for example but if you have something like a guitar part and then there's like maybe two beats or something where the guitar isn't playing and then it comes back in Dada Dada da bum but um bum bum bum bum bum during that silent part you got to cut that out you got to add fades and if you're not adding it fakes you're gonna get popping and clicking noises little artifacts and stuff that the moment you start compressing and adding EQ and all of the different effects and especially like reverb and stuff it's gonna be noticed it might not seem like a big deal but anyone who has experience and expertise in this is going to be able to tell that is not even the worst of it the worst of it is I get so many tracks sent to me that are clearly not edited rhythmically rhythmic editing has to be done now first and foremost you can do whatever you want like you can you can take this advice or you can ignore this advice totally up to you so if you're one of those people that's thinking that's cheating just why don't you just get it right at the performance and all that stuff first and foremost I recall I said I want these that you shouldn't get things right at the source correct I think I said that yes get things right at the source it's super super important but there is no one that plays perfectly in time there is no one that sings perfectly in pitch and so when it comes to editing it is not about fixing a bad performance it's about taking a good or a great performance in really making it stand out I can tell you that when I worked at a studio under a producer this was the very first thing he had me doing was editing drums and guess what it's super time-consuming it is not fun stuff it's actually really kind of aggravating work to do but it is 100% essential and if you're not doing it your music will forever sound like it was done by an amateur and not trying to just be really mean and rude or any of that stuff I'm just saying this as a fact if you listen to anything on the radio anything on Spotify Apple music or any sort of distribution that really sounds good they are all edited editing is in my opinion where things really start to gel together even a really great performance by a drummer or guitarist bass whatever the moment you start editing stuff and by editing I'm talking about using the scissor tool using crossfades lining everything up to the grid I do have an entire course on this by the way you can buy it down in the link below that's what I'm talking about is by fixing any sort of errors tempo wise with the rhythm this also has to do with editing vocals in terms of pitch okay you need to edit pitch I'm not talking about auto-tune I think a lot of people when they hear auto-tune many people have this very visceral reaction like oh my gosh like autumn tone is the worst thing ever while I don't like auto-tune I don't I like flex pitch though where I can manipulate the tuning of individual notes it does sound natural if you know how to do it it does sound natural if you're good at it if you're not good at it then yeah it's gonna sound like you just slap a bunch of auto-tune on it's gonna sound like crap by the way I have an entire video on flex pitch as well that's right there okay so the main thing here is that if you are not editing your tracks it's not gonna sound in the pocket it's not going to be super locked in the extent at which you edit that's up to you like you don't have to edit every single little thing down to the sixteenth note 100% perfect though if you're in any sort of mainstream genre you're you're probably going to want to do that I mean I do that and basically everything I'm doing too so make sure that when you're getting the takes down you're doing it to a metronome the performance is really solid and then take the time to edit and I'm just gonna say this for those of you guys who are logic users because my channel I talk a lot about logic flex time sucks I'll probably up to make an entire video on that I do not use flex time except for sometimes on bass guitars and very very simple stuff it I just there's so many bad artifacts and stuff that you get with it it's super annoying I hate it I don't like it is it more time-consuming to do it by hand with a scissors yes of course it is but I also really would like my stuff does sound like it was actually produced in a professional studio not in a bedroom so if that's you I would highly recommend learning how to do it my course that I have down the link below has like a couple hours worth of video where I go through an entire session I also give you example tracks that you can you can pull the whole thing into your DAW and actually practice editing that stuff yourself as well if you're interested no pressure if you're not interested don't buy it I don't care so if you like this video if any of these parts resonate with you if you haven't already button and also subscribe to the channel make sure you click the bell for notifications and let me know in the comments what you think I'd be very curious I'm super curious to see if you agree disagree and if you disagree well I don't really care whatever that's cute and if you have any suggestions for videos I should do here down the road in the future let me know I'd love to hear what you're interested in what you'd like to see from my channel as we before because I do want to be putting out a lot more content and thank you thank you thank you for everyone who is subscribed become part of the channel family so have fun guys continue making music at home boom there's the big yeah see in the next video Oh

Channel: Nathan James Larsen

Views: 94,787

Keywords: 5 mistakes home studio producers make, big mistakes producers make, mistakes producers make, avoid these production mistakes, huge mistakes producers make, home studio producer fail, home studio producer mistakes, mistakes home studio artists make, home studio production mistakes, production mistakes, producer mistakes, nathan larsen, dont make these producer mistakes, studio mistakes, self production mistakes, artist production mistakes, music production mistakes, music

Id: GPXgpdCIU6w

Length: 21min 44sec (1304 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 16 2020