In the world of guitar, you should probably be practicing at your craft. I've had a rule for many, many years that I relay to every student, and every aspiring guitarist that asks about how to get better on guitar. I say "Touch the guitar once a day, everyday". Whether you sit and play for four hours, play for two hours, play for a half an hour, play for ten minutes, or just go over to the guitar, touch it with one of your fingers, and say to yourself "There! I touched the guitar for today!" Touch the guitar once a day, every day. To me, if you're going to go over and just touch it, chances are you'll probably pick it up for at least a few minutes, which is better than nothing at all.

And if you DO pick up the guitar and play, there should be some warm-ups, stretches, possible scale exercises, or working along with metronome to get your hand, wrist, forearm and shoulder muscles loosened up for playing.

Well, the same applies for mixing and working with computers. I know, there are no scales to run on your computer keyboard, no stretches to click a mouse, but in the world of music recording, mixing and producing there are many things to work out on.

For instance: How well do you know how to EQ? Can you pull up a snare drum sound for a rock sound, a blues sound, a jazz sound, and a country sound without really thinking about it? They do sound different. Obviously, the player, and the type of snare make a big difference, but there is a particular approach to each to make it fit the genre.

So practicing using your EQ could be a good exercise. Get a snare drum track going in your DAW. Try adding or cutting by -6dB of say: 80Hz, 120Hz, 250Hz, 500Hz, 1Khz, 1.5Khz, 2.5Khz and 4.5Khz one at a time just to see what they do, or don't do for that snare sound. I think you'll start to hear things. Perhaps a sound from a record or CD you know.

Then pull up a kick drum track, and try like-wise. Then a hi-hat, toms, and cymbals. Sometimes I'll grab a notepad to describe what these adjustments sound like to me. For instance: "Snare: add 2dB @ 500Hz makes it sound more meaty". It can be your terms, whatever it sounds like to you. This is your document, so words like "Boxy" "Nasal", "Squishy", "Thud", "Thwack", "Thick", "Heavy", "Smooth", "Raw", "Cheesy", "Terrible" and "Cool" are all acceptable. What's important is that you attach a word to a sound. Because later, when you're on a session, and someone is trying to describe a sound to you, they may use one of those words, or something close to it. You'll know exactly where to go for that sound. At a minimum, you'll be able to go to your notes to look it up.

This can make for very good studio mojo. If you have to spend an hour trying to interpret what the difference is between a "Thud" and a "Thwack" on a Kick drum, this could kill a vibe in a hurry. Practice, Practice, Practice. Once a day, Everyday.

Now let's go to another favorite: the ever tricky compressor. Grab a vocal track, and really start experimenting with your compressor. Listen for how the Threshold control works with the Attack Time. Really discover the Ratio and when that actually sucks the life out of a vocal track. What does "Soft Knee" or "Hard Knee" SOUND like?

How does the release time affect the vocal on something more staccato, versus a more flowing legato ballad? Do you really need the compressor on the whole vocal track? Can you automate it? Have you tried putting the parts that you think are troublesome onto another track altogether, and put the compressor only on that track? Leaving the original vocal alone?

Have you practiced parallel compression (I had a column on this a few months ago) on kick and snare, or on different tracks to see what that sounds like? Have you tried riding the input fader while recording a vocal track, to possibly eliminate the need for a compressor at all? It may take some rehearsal with the talent, but might be very worth it. I like to record a scratch vocal during the rehearsal stage, and study the volume of the singer throughout the song. Then, when it comes to recording the actual track, I can anticipate the vocalist, and ride the fader with no real surprises. It's pretty fun actually.

One other big thing that can always use practice is the reverb. Go outside the preset patches. Check the pre-delay, the room shape, type of reverb, Plate, Hall, Room, etc. What does diffusion do to your vocal, or snare? Did you notice that using high cut on ballad vocals can give a longer reverb time without being brittle? Changing the room size can change a lot. Again, get out the notepad, and write down how this stuff sounds. If you have a reverb that supports it, what is an IR sample? Have you ever looked at the list of impulses? What is the difference in sound between a City Street and a Country Road when it comes to reverbs?

Have you ever EQ'd your reverb? This can be very cool. Try recording the reverb of a snare onto a separate track, then on playback, gate the snare track, but not the reverb track. Instant 1980's snare drum!

What about panning the reverb? Are you really cool with sending three or four back-up vocals to the same reverb? Setting them at different send levels to compensate for the individual volumes of each back-up vocal track? This can save DSP power on your computer instead of an instance of reverb on each back-up vocal track.

Try different things. Practice. Warm up. Stretch your ears to these palettes of sound. Your perception of sound will grow, and make engineering, and mixing more fun, just like finger exercises on the neck of your guitar make playing more fun.

makintrax@philgates.com
http://www.philgates.com
www.myspace.com/philgatesmusic