Recording With Computers - Some Basic Things To Remember

Working with computers and recording can be a wonderful and/or exasperating experience.   There are several things that, no matter how many times they are said, needed to be mentioned again.  

Saving.   You must save every five minutes or so, in addition to saving every time you record something.   You cannot save too much, or too often.

Backup.   You must backup everything you do.   On a separate hard drive if you can.   I have a dedicated external harddrive just for backing things up.   And as often as I do it, I always realize while I’m not doing it enough.

Remember this is a computer.   It will do whatever you tell it to do .   It will also do somethings that may surprise and enrage you.    It’s a computer.  It’s going to happen.

When it does happen, remember this simple adage:   “what do you want to have happen?”  

It doesn’t matter what the manual says; what it’s supposed to do; what it should do.   It only matters that you get it to do what you want it to.

If you are working with someone else, unless they are a complete idiot (in which case, why are you working with them?), they didn’t do it on purpose.

Going on and on about the lost file or files will not bring the files back, it will only communicate to all those around you that you have no grace under pressure and that you are the type to pour gasoline on a fire.   NOT helpful.

Be courteous, be patient  offer you knowledge if it is applicable.   If you are a MAC user and you are working with a PC or vice versa, you don’t have any experience to bring to the other.   They are different operating systems, different commands, different mind sets.    Just be patient and calm.   Being any other way will not help you or your partners.

And because it is digital, if it doesn’t sound right when you record it, you CANNOT fix it in the mix.   Make it sound the way you want it to sound going in to the computer and it will make it that much easier to bring it out of the computer sounding great.

If it isn’t right, just record it again.  Change the mic position, change your attack, change everything til it sounds right.  Then record it again.

And don’t record with outboard gear.   Try to send into the computer the cleanest purest signal you can.  You can always compress it, limit it, eq it, etc later.     Check out my last three recordings :  Backstage At The Resurrection; All Wood and Doors and The Eternal Contradiction.  They sound fantastic.    Get the signal right going into the computer and you will be happy.

You cannot un limit, un compress, un eq it later.   So give yourself the easiest row to hoe.

Thanks for reading this far, I’ll try to do this more often again.  I have been remiss, I know.