Talking Tech: Your Ultimate Studio Tips

It’s time for a brand spanking new feature here at MusicTech.net, where we ask questions to you – our rather staggeringly big online readership – about how you make music and the advice you’d give to others making music in the modern age! We’ll collate the best answers from our Facebook page each week and arrange them on a page for you to peruse more easily. This week: It’s your ultimate studio tips!

Victor Mabry: “Don’t neglect room treatment and monitor placement. I can’t stress this enough-it makes all the difference. I’m constantly amazed at how many “show off your studio” pictures I see of really cool gear set up with no acoustic treatment in sight and monitors pushed up against the wall, or something like that, and thinking, ‘mix is not going sound good, no matter how much cool gear you have…”

Lorie Johnson: “Ban cats from the room. They’re magnetically attracted to computer keyboards, and know exactly where to put their paws to trash your unsaved mix. I know this from bitter experience… Also, don’t dither forever on the details. I’m still stuck using my dining room table because I can’t decide what color to paint the walls in my soon-to-be studio. All these photos make me think I just use Navaho White and get some colored lights.”

Siobhan Garvey:“Make the studio you actually need, not the one you want. If you think or know that in the future you’ll need more space or equipment then try and allow for that so come the time you need it you are prepared. Buy the best gear you can afford, invest in your future.”

Troyus Krishna:“Flow. Take intervals, look at nature likes trees, it has a proven phychological effect on the mind. A creative mind knows no bounds, meaning the right ideas will come at the right time. (I’m not that great at producing especially mastering, but I find the process more fun than if you slave away at it hitting ur head against a wall) my humble tip anyway”

Cisco Rendon: “No matter how much money you have invested in your equipment, the best tool in the studio are your ears. If it sounds good to you, then it’s good. Your ears are the best tools that no money can buy”

Paul Knight: “When mixing, I like to turn my monitors down so I can barely hear them, Any thing to loud will be very apparent. Also if you have one to hand, put a vacuum cleaner on and listen to a mix at the same time!”

Don Das: “No matter how hard people try to destroy you. Stay strong. Build faith in what you’re doing. No one needs to like it. Only you do.”

Lloyd Wright: “Go with it, if you go in knowing everything about the track it will never sound as good as if you just go with the unexpected!”

Patrick Corballis: “Buy it once and buy it right. Having racks full of behringer and old synths might look cool, but targeting specific items and saving for them is well worth the effort. Took me three years to get rid of the derelict rack gear I had collected and replace it with 1176s, 1073s, 160x’s, LA2A off an RME and ISA828 combo … I should have started there with a plan instead of buying lots of indiscriminate items when I was younger.”

Kevin Dodd: “Apply digital effects in the right order, and in the proper amounts. When recording instruments, don’t add any compression to individual tracks, until you do a rough mix, using some light compression on your mix bus. Then, add only enough to each track, to make them sit right, within the mix.”

Pops Mason: “Fix it in tracking not in the mix. If it sounds bad or wrong when tracking, it will still be wrong and bad in the mix, no matter how much you tweak”

Cisab Nitram: “The vast majority of tips are things should occur to you if you do any exploration. Get to know your gear play around have fun discover stuff. Do whatever feels good.”