by Joe Gilder

If you’ve followed Home Studio Corner for any length of time, you’ve inevitably heard me say,
“Get it right at the source,” a few hundred times.

What gives?

Is it a gimmick? A fun little slogan? A cutesy saying? Nope. Heck, the anagram doesn’t even
spell anything cool. GIRATS. The most creative thing I could come up with is a bunch of rats in
the armed forces. GI-Rats.

The point of this cheat sheet is to help you get it right at the source, but first we have to
define what the source actually is.

So...what is the source?

It can be boiled down to a combination of the following four items:

1. Song - If the song isn’t awesome, it’s hard to make the recording or mix sound
awesome. This is the ultimate source, because you can’t do anything else until you
have a song (preferably a really good one).

2. Performance - A bad performance sets the stage for a bad-sounding mix. Your goal
should be to capture the absolute best performance possible.

3. Production - This includes everything from arrangement to instrumentation. It’s the

glue that ties the whole thing together.

4. Recording - This covers both technique and equipment, including the room itself.

If you really focus on getting these four things right, you’ll be well on your way to something
incredible.

In case you didn’t know, I do a weekly podcast where I answer subscriber questions. I’ve
heard just about every question you could imagine, but one common theme keeps popping
up in my answers. Several years and thousands of questions later, I still find that the absolute
best solution to almost any problem people face in their home studios is to, you guessed it,
get it right at the source.

It’s hard to really do this justice on a one-sided Q&A podcast. Ideally, I would ask lots of
questions to get to the heart of the problem, because (and this is huge) any problem you’re
dealing with right now could most likely have been prevented, by you, at some point in the
past.

A classic example:

“Joe, I can’t seem to get my acoustic guitars to sound right in the mix. I’ve tried every EQ trick I
can think of, and they still sound so boomy!”

Do you see what’s happening here? This poor fella (let’s call him Bob) was so focused on
finding a mixing solution that he couldn’t see the real problem. Most people discover me and
Home Studio Corner by searching for mixing advice. I love it, because it gives me a chance to
offer them the REAL solution.

When I worked in sales at Sweetwater Sound, selling music and audio equipment over the
phone, I used to love it when someone would call up and ask for Product XYZ. I would ask
what it was going to be used for, and nine times out of ten I could come up with a better
solution for them than Product XYZ. Sometimes that meant selling them a different product
(even a less expensive product, which they loved). Sometimes it meant telling them they
didn’t need to buy anything at all; they just needed to change their approach to whatever
problem they were trying to solve.

Truly embracing the Get It Right At The Source mentality means questioning your questions.

You might be asking the wrong question.

Let’s go back to Bob’s problem with muddy acoustic guitars. I bet you my Gibson J-45 that
Bob’s real problem has absolutely nothing to do with mixing. Most likely it has to do with how
he recorded the guitars. My guess would be mic placement. I’ve recorded many an acoustic
guitar with the microphone as close to the guitar as physically possible, because I thought
“that’s how you do it.” Many frustrating mixes later, I realized that my acoustic guitar mixing
woes weren’t mixing woes at all. They were recording woes. (That’s good news, by the way,
because it usually means the solution is fairly simple and, best of all, free.)

It didn’t cost me anything to back the mic away a good 8-12 inches. I didn’t have to buy any
fancy mixing plugins. I didn’t have to get all new mics and preamps. I just needed to tweak my
technique. I needed to (say it with me) get it right at the source.

If you focus all your energy on constantly getting it right at the source, I guarantee you’ll see
improvement in everything you work on in your studio. If you only focus on learning new
mixing tricks, your mixes will perhaps improve slightly. But if you focus on the SOURCE, you’ll
find yourself getting dramatically better recordings and mixes than you ever thought
possible. Get. It. Right. At. The. Source.

🤘😎👍

Now, to kick things off and get you into the GIRATS mindset, I’ve put together the following
list of “cheats.” Make it your goal to work through and apply as many as you can to your home
studio over the next 30 days. Even ONE of these techniques will, if you really apply it, bring
about major results for you.

So here they are, on a proverbial silver platter for you. Choose a couple and get to work!
 GIRATS Cheat #1

Avoid Crappy Songs Like the Plague
This one might ruffle your feathers a bit, but if you ever hope to produce really good music in
your home studio, you have to work on good, quality songs. An awful song will always and
forever be an awful song. No amount of voodoo recording tricks or secret ninja mixing hacks
will make up for the fact that the song is horrible.

Have you ever sat down and listened -- I mean really listened -- to some of the older Beatles
recordings? The quality of the audio itself isn’t all that great. You could argue that we can
record cleaner, better audio in our bedroom than they could back then. And yet, they’re The
Beatles. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you have to admit they had a ginormous impact. What
contributed to their success? The recording techniques used? The fact that they were limited
to four or eight tracks for many of their major albums? Nah. I’d say the contributing factor to
the success of the Beatles was their ability to write and perform really good songs.

(As an aside, just the other day I got an email from a subscriber who was going on and on
about a new plugin bundle that faithfully recreates the sound of a lot of the gear used at
Abbey Road Studios to record the Beatles. He seemed to be implying that if he owned those
plugins his music would be as good as the Beatles. It’s a really appealing lie. Many people
believe it. But it’s still a lie.)

No one will sing your praises if you do an absolutely stunning job of recording and mixing a
horrible song. The horribleness of the song will always overshadow the good work you did.

On the flip-side, you could do a mediocre job of recording and mixing an incredible song,
and you might go down in history as “one of the greats.”

Now, you may be wondering how you go about following this little cheat. How do you avoid
crappy songs like the plague? Well, it’s fairly simple; you have to develop the ability to say
“No.” That can be difficult, and most people who read this will never take it to heart and apply
it. It’s a real shame.

Continue working on bad songs at your peril.

A few quick notes on how to practically apply this cheat:

Working On Your Own Music - If you are the songwriter, your job is actually pretty easy. If the
song isn’t that great, it’s not time to start recording. Shut the computer down. Pick up a pen, a
piece of paper, and your instrument and write some more. Write more songs than you need
for your next project. If you only write a handful of songs, then you only have a handful of
“sources” to choose from for your next recording project. However, if you have a whole
notebook full of songs, suddenly you’re in a position of great power. You can pick and choose
the best of the best for your next album. I did this for an album I released a few years ago. I
wanted 10 good songs, so I wrote 50. That’s not a typo. Fifty. I ended up with 13 songs I
loved, and I scrapped the rest. Waste of time? Not at all. It’s called getting it right at the
source. :)

Working on Other People’s Music - This one is tough. You can’t very well tell your latest client
that his song is absolute garbage. But you also don’t want to commit yourself to spending
countless hours working against the awfulness of the song in a vain attempt to make it sound
halfway decent. The solution is to gently (that’s the key word here) enter the role of producer
or maybe even cowriter. Chances are the song has some great moments in it. Capitalize on
those. Help the artist rewrite the song. The better you can get at casting the vision for the
whole project, with enthusiasm, the more open the artist will be to your suggestions. This also
goes back to preparation. I recommend never accepting a gig without first hearing the songs.
If the songs are truly beyond repair, then it’s okay to simply turn the job down. Remember,
even if you do a stellar job, you’ll never be happy with the work you do if the songs are
horrible.

You could stop reading this issue right now and see dramatic improvement in the quality of
your recordings if you simply take this idea to heart and avoid crappy songs like the plague.

GIRATS Cheat #2


Take Matters Into Your Own 

Greedy Little Hands
I’ll be the first to admit it. Buying gear is fun.

But unless you have unlimited funds, you need to make every dollar count, right? I suggest
applying a little GIRATS to your gear purchases to ensure that everything you buy makes a
huge impact on the music you’re producing in your home studio.

The first step is simple: stop foaming at the mouth for that new plugin bundle. Mixing plugins
(EQ’s, compressors, channel strips, reverbs, etc.) will not help you get it right at the source.

In fact, if you become a fanatic about always getting it right at the source, you’ll find that the
basic plugins that came for free with your DAW will be more than enough to get incredible
mixes. I know, I know. That sounds like a big, audacious claim. But, as I think back over the last
several dozen mixes I’ve done, most of them were in Studio One using the stock plugins. I’m
talking about EQ, compression, reverb, delay, and maybe distortion.

I’ve met so many people who spend all their extra money upgrading the back end of their
studio (stuff to help them mix), when upgrading their front end would yield much bigger
results. When I say “front end,” I’m not just referring to things like microphones and preamps.
While mics and pres are important parts of getting it right at the source, there are more ways
you can expand your front end without constantly buying new mics and preamps. I’m not
downplaying their importance. As my buddy Ronan Chris Murphy says, you don’t want to use
any equipment that will degrade the audio. While you don’t need a locker full of $2,000
microphones, you also don’t want only bottom-of-the-barrel equipment that prevents you
from capturing quality audio. I would much rather you have three very different-sounding,
good microphones than one really expensive, great microphone. Same with preamps. Mics
and pres are your paintbrushes. They color the sound you’re capturing. Use good stuff, but
remember that they’re only one small piece of the puzzle.

While I like looking at mics and preamps, I get more excited about other front-end
equipment. Things like guitars, keyboards, amps, amp simulators, effects pedals, percussion
instruments, etc. Whenever I have a little money I want to throw at my studio, I much prefer
buying a new creative tool over anything else. A microphone doesn’t really inspire me to
create something. But an old, used Tech21 guitar amp with some gritty tones and a great
spring reverb? Heck yeah.

This obviously applies to you if you’re a musician, but it’s equally applicable if you’re strictly
an audio person who records other people. The more front-end gear you have, the more
options you have for getting it right at the source.

I think a piece of gear like the Avid Eleven Rack makes a lot of sense for anyone who records
electric guitars. Sure, a real amp is ideal, but what do you do if the guitarist owns a really
horrible-sounding amp? All the mic techniques in the world won’t improve his guitar tone.
But if you have an Eleven Rack sitting there, you can plug into that, find the perfect amp
model for the song, and dial in a sweet tone. If you didn’t have that option, you’d be stuck.
The recording would obviously suffer, and you’d find yourself dreading the mixing process,
knowing that the majority of your time would be spent fighting that horrible guitar tone. It’s a
losing battle. Trust me.

Other purchases to consider? Maybe a really nice keyboard, like a Nord or a Yamaha Motif.
These give you the option of capturing some really cool sounds, without relying on software.
It simplifies the recording process quite a bit, forcing you to make decisions on the front end
(which piano sound should we use for this song?) rather than leaving everything open-ended.
(By the way, I’m not against buying virtual instrument software. There are some crazy-cool
sounds to be found with those. I just personally would rather have a physical instrument than
a piece of software.)

Owning various guitars could be beneficial, too. Perhaps the guitarist only owns a Les Paul,
but the song is dying for a chimey Telecaster part. If you own a few inexpensive guitars, you
can pull one out and be the hero.

Don’t overlook this stuff. We like buying gear. Why not focus on gear that will help both us
and our clients get it right at the source?

GIRATS Cheat #3


Something Borrowed, Something New
I have a confession.

I don’t think I’ve ever had an original idea when it comes to recording, audio, or songwriting.

When I think about my process for recording or mixing a song, I can trace back so many of
those ideas to someone else. Every song I’ve written borrows chord progressions, melody
ideas, and rhythms from other music I’ve listened to.

But you know what? I’m not upset about that. Sure, it would be nice to have a drum recording
method named after me (the Joe Gilder Technique has a nice ring to it), but the reality is that
everything I know was learned from someone else.

I learned how to mic an acoustic guitar from lots of trial and error and from studying other
people.

Yes, you should (and must) try lots of new things in your studio. Experiment. Do something
crazy. But you should also study and learn from those who have gone before you, those who
have also tried lots of crazy stuff and gotten cool results.

While stealing song lyrics is bad (and illegal), “stealing” techniques is the name of the game.
The more you study other people, the more ideas you’ll have. The more ideas you have, the
more things you try. The more things you try, the more things you either accept (and make a
part of your “process”) or reject (“eh, that’s not for me”). If you do this enough, you’ll end up
with a set of skills, techniques, and approaches that is completely unique. No one else will do
things exactly the same way you do them.
As you fill up your “bag of tricks,” you’ll find yourself feeling more confident in the studio.
Every new technique you borrow from someone else becomes another problem-solver for
you. The more problem-solvers you have in your possession, the less stressed you’ll be when
a problem arises in the studio. It’s an awesome, fun process. I learn something every week
from both engineers I study and from my own customers and subscribers.

If you commit to continual learning, especially focusing on how other people get it right at
the source, you’ll be unstoppable.

GIRATS Cheat #4


Record the Right Parts
This may seem obvious, but a huge part of getting it right at the source involves recording the
right parts.

When you first discover the joys of multi-track recording, your brain explodes a little bit. (You
mean I can record 24 guitar tracks?!?!) The technology-imposed limits of the past (first 1-track
mono recordings, then 2-track, then 4, eventually 24 or 48 tracks on a 2-inch tape machine or
two) have been lifted. You don’t have to pick and choose which parts to record, because you
have unlimited tracks. Isn’t that great?!

Eh...

Having all those tracks available means we have to fight the temptation to record everything
we can think of and sort through it later. In other words, we record a bunch of the wrong
parts, because it’s easier to mindlessly record things than it is to step back and make
decisions about what the right parts are.

Read that last sentence again.

Having unlimited options can short-circuit your ability to make decisions. Being indecisive
leads to bad recordings and huge piles of unnecessary work.

My friend Brent Milligan is a well-known producer here in Nashville. He has either produced
or played for folks like Steven Curtis Chapman, Michael W. Smith, D.C. Talk, and Charlie
Peacock. He said something once that stuck with me. He was talking about tracking guitars for
a song. When he’s producing a song, he will literally sit there between the speakers, and they
will record until the song starts to connect with him. They record various parts until it feels
right.
Note that he didn’t say they record twenty tracks of guitars and say, “Okay that should be
enough to sort through and find something that works.”

No, he said they sit there until all the right parts are recorded. It could be as simple as one or
two tracks. Or it could involve 8 to 12 or more. The number doesn’t matter. The emotional
response the tracks evoke is what matters.

I’m not suggesting that you should know exactly what parts are to be recorded beforehand.
Some people can do that. I cannot. Typical recording sessions for me go like this:

1. Try a bunch of things.

2. Listen.

3. Make decisions.

4. Repeat 1-3 until the song feels right.

It’s important to note that I didn’t mention anything about “mixing.” All of these decisions are
based on the raw tracks themselves. I’ll pan tracks left and right while recording, but I almost
never put plugins on the tracks during tracking sessions. I want the raw tracks themselves to
sound like I want them to sound. That means we first have to dial in the right sound (which
includes choosing the right instrument for the part), then we have to capture that sound well
(mic choice/placement, preamp choice/settings), THEN we have to make sure the part itself is
right. If a track sounds too boomy, I fix it at the source. I do NOT slap an EQ plugin on it. I
move the mic or maybe adjust the EQ on the preamp. Again, the goal here is to get it right at
the source. That means when I’m done with this tracking session, I should be able to press
play, sit back and listen to the raw recorded tracks with no plugins whatsoever, and be excited
about the song. If I’m not excited about the song, it’s time to go back and do it again.

This can be a frustrating process, but if you don’t take the time and effort to do this well, I
guarantee that mixing the song will be an even more frustrating process.

I’ve had sessions where I try things for several hours and come up with nothing. I’ll leave the
session feeling deflated and insecure about my ability to do anything right in the studio. I’ve
found that almost every time this happens, when I go back into the studio to try it again,
something clicks. I walk out of that session excited about the song again, because I finally
discovered the right parts for that song.

It’s like Thomas Edison and the light bulb. It took him hundreds, maybe even thousands, of
attempts to invent a working light bulb. The way he saw it, each failure got him one step
closer to success. You’re going to have those sessions where nothing goes right. When that
happens, try telling yourself, “Well, we discovered a lot of things that won’t work for this song.
We’re that much closer to getting it right.”

One more thing, you might be recording the right part but using the wrong person.
Sometimes you need to have someone else play the part. For example, I’m a “faux” lead
guitarist. I can play a basic solo, but it won’t be nearly as good as a real lead guitarist. For
some solos, I’m better off putting down the guitar and finding someone who can play it better
than me.

If you don’t listen to anything else I ever tell you, listen to this. If you force yourself to record
the right parts (played by the right person with the right instrument) and do everything it
takes to make them sound amazing, you will absolutely transform your recordings and mixes.

GIRATS Cheat #5


Do Some Good Old-Fashioned 

Pre-Production
If you’ve never heard the term pre-production before, don’t sweat it. A better word is simply
planning.

How many times have you gotten halfway through the recording process on a song, only to
wish you had doubled the final chorus, or added an extra 4 measures before the second
verse, or realized the song was too fast for the singer?

Some of these things can be fixed with some fancy editing tricks, but why make all that extra
work for yourself? Before diving into a song or project, you absolutely must do at least a little
bit of planning, or pre-production.

The goal with pre-production isn’t to plan out every single element of the song. This is a
creative process, and you should leave room for creativity and spontaneity, but to record the
entire song at the wrong tempo is just silly, and preventable.

Before you press that big, shiny, red recording button, sit down and plan out the song. The
best way I’ve found to do this is to write up a chart. Keep it simple. Try to fit everything on a
single sheet of paper. Then map out the song.

Is the intro 4 or 8 bars? Is there a turnaround after the first chorus or does it go straight into
verse 2? How long is the solo section? Did we decide if we want to double the final chorus or
not?
It is far better to answer these questions before you start recording. The musicians will be far
more comfortable if they know exactly what’s coming.

Another huge part of pre-production is setting the tempo. The best way I’ve found to do this
is to set the tempo while the singer sings the chorus of the song. Too many times we set the
tempo to someone playing the intro of the song, but the chorus is the most important part. If
you set the tempo based on the intro, you’ll find that when the chorus kicks in, it’ll feel too fast
or too slow. Have the singer sing the chorus a few times until he/she is comfortable with the
speed, tap in that tempo, then have him/her sing along with that tempo clicking away. Adjust
until everyone’s comfortable. This literally takes 60 seconds and can save you hours upon
hours of wasted time later.

Pre-production, like most things in life, isn’t terribly fun. But the more you get in the habit of
developing a plan of attack for your session, the better the musicians will play, and the better
the recordings will be. It’s worth the effort.

A Quick Note on Rehearsing

Did your mom say things like “practice makes perfect”? Well, as much as you may hate to
admit it, she’s right...at least when it comes to recording music.

This is one of those tips that seems super obvious (so obvious that people will ignore it), but it
could be a game-changer in your recordings.

Whether you are the musician or not, your recording sessions will go much more smoothly if
everyone is prepared and ready to go. I’ve worked on sessions before where the players
didn’t even know the song before they walked in. With A-list Nashville session players, that
wouldn’t be a problem, but for the rest of us mere mortals, preparation is a must. I once
worked on a session where the artist was constantly rewriting lyrics...during the session.
Rather than focusing on getting a good performance, he was always second-guessing the
line he just sang, or even forgetting the new line he just wrote.

Stuff like that can bring your session to a screeching halt. The musicians wind up practicing
their parts instead of showing up ready to perform their parts.

Much of this is out of your control, but rehearsal and preparation should become regular
topics of discussion between you and your clients (or bandmates).

Here’s a great example: let’s say your band wants to track a few songs this weekend for an EP.
You want that live, raw, organic feel, so you’re going to track as much of it live as you can --
everyone playing at the same time. The only problem? No one is comfortable playing to a
click track or metronome. This can REALLY hinder the recording process. Everyone will get
frustrated very quickly, and the session will go downhill in a hurry. To combat this, everyone
should spend plenty of time practicing their parts along with a click track. (There are plenty of
free metronome apps for your phone out there.) They can do this as a group or individually,
but when the recording date arrives, everyone should be well-rehearsed, ready to deliver
stellar performances while listening to a click.

We typically understand the importance of rehearsal when it comes to playing live shows. We
don’t want to be embarrassed on stage in front of a live audience. But for some reason we
don’t treat the recording process with that same sense of urgency. “We’ll just fix it in the mix,”
we say, when in reality the song will be infinitely better if we get the performance right the
first time, at the source.

GIRATS Cheat #6


Don’t Freak Out About 

Acoustic Treatment
It cracked me up every time.

I don’t do it anymore, but I used to spend a fair amount of time hanging out on some of the
popular audio forums. One thing I noticed was that any time anyone would ask a question
about anything, it seemed like a whole platoon of trolls would pop up and say, “You need
acoustic treatment.”

“What’s the best microphone for male vocals?”

“You need acoustic treatment.”

“Should I record with a click track?”

“You need acoustic treatment.”

While I’m not downplaying the importance of acoustic treatment (it is important), I think
people tend to freak out over it a little bit too much. It can get so bad that they will postpone
all creative work until the room is in the perfect shape for recording and mixing. It’s just
another form of Gear Acquisition Syndrome or just plain old procrastination.

Again, acoustic treatment is important, but it’s not a magic pill that makes everything sound
instantly better. In my experience, acoustic treatment tends to be more beneficial for mixing
than for recording. And even then, you don’t absolutely need to have foam on the walls and
bass traps in the corners to get good results.

My wife and I recently bought a new bed. When the delivery guys dropped off the mattress,
we had them leave it standing up in the hallway outside our bedroom door. It’s a pretty
narrow hallway, with wood floors and nothing on the walls. Sound bounces around like crazy.
As I was walking back to the bedroom to get something, I immediately noticed a dramatic
change as I walked past the mattress. The room instantly went from a boomy, reverberant
mess to a tight, punchy, almost eerily quiet space.

As complicated as room acoustics can be, sound waves are pretty predictable. If your
microphone is picking up too much room sound, figure out a way to help the microphone
“ignore” the sound of the room. That could mean hanging up a blanket or a curtain to deaden
the sound a little bit. It could mean standing up a mattress and singing into it. No, it’s not an
elegant solution, but I would much rather capture an awesome recording in an ugly space
than get a really bad recording in a beautiful space.

Depending on the room, you may need to rig up a few things to get reflections under control,
but that’s not always necessary. I did a vocal tracking session for an album a few years ago. My
son was a baby at the time, and we simply couldn’t track vocals at my home studio. He cried
way too much, and our house was way too small. So what did we do? I packed up my gear
and set up in a spare bedroom at the producer’s house. Not a lick of acoustic treatment in
sight. We had the vocalist stand in the doorway of a closet. We hung a blanket behind her. I
brought a few spare pieces of Auralex foam, but I don’t think we even used them.

We set up the mic, recorded a few phrases, and it sounded fine, no excessive room sound.
We could have just as easily had her facing the closet so the sound of her voice got absorbed
and deadened and didn’t make it out into the room. It really didn’t matter. For us, it was more
important for the singer to be able to see and talk to us without having to turn around every
time. I ended up mixing that album, and I had zero issues with room noise on the vocals. It
wasn’t a tiny room, but it had furniture and bookshelves and lots of stuff to disperse the
sound. I honestly expected to be battling room sound all day, but it simply wasn’t an issue.

But that’s not always the case. If you’re recording in a room with no furniture and bare walls,
you will probably have issues. But if your room has some “stuff” in it, you might be able to just
slap up a mic, find a quiet spot in the room, and have fun.

The key to all this is to simply let yourself try things. I could have refused to track that vocal in
an untreated bedroom, spent a lot of time and money setting up a bunch of treatment or
gobos, but it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference. Instead, we just tried it. We set up the
mic, recorded her singing, then listened back to the recording. It sounded great, so we
moved on.

If you took away every piece of acoustic treatment from my studio and told me I could only
buy ONE thing to treat my room, I’d go with a pair of gobos. (Okay, I know that’s two things,
but you get my point.) What’s a gobo? It’s like a small “wall” usually composed of a wood
frame, filled with insulation and covered with a cloth of some sort. On a whim a while back, I
hired a guy here in Nashville to build two 6’ x 3’ gobos for me. With the casters (wheels), they
stand about 6.5 feet high. I didn’t think I’d like ‘em as much as I do, but I absolutely love my
gobos. I can wheel ‘em around my studio, set ‘em up wherever I’m recording. They
completely block out any room sound, and if I want more room sound, I can record without
them. But now I have the option to record in my open recording space with or without a lot of
room sound, all by wheeling around these two gobos. It’s like having a make-shift vocal booth
on hand whenever I need it. Plus, they work really well for creating separation between two
musicians. I’ve recorded acoustic guitar on one side and a vocalist on the other, and you can
barely hear any bleed on the tracks. And finally, when you’re done recording, you can place
the gobos to the left and right of your mix position and use them as acoustic treatment for
mixing.

Gobos are a fantastic, cost-effective solution for any acoustic treatment needs you might
have, real or imaginary. :)

GIRATS Cheat #7


Down with DIY!
My wife is a big fan of those do-it-yourself home improvement shows on HGTV. They’re all
about “DIY this” and “DIY that.” If you want to renovate your kitchen all by yourself, go for it.
But when it comes to making music in your home studio, please don’t fall into the DIY trap.

There’s a certain amount of pride that comes from doing something yourself. I get that. But
pride can be a good thing and a bad thing. Sure, it’s great to be proud of your work, but what
if your reason for doing it all yourself is because you’re too proud to ask for help? Or maybe
you have this idea in your head that everyone will be insanely impressed with you if you do
everything on your next studio project yourself - write, perform, record, mix, master.

While there’s a certain “rite of passage” aspect to a DIY studio project (and I would even
recommend that you do at least one of them, if for no other reason than to recognize how
lame they can be), music was meant to be made by people. There’s a level of creativity that
simply cannot be achieved by a single person, sitting in a bedroom all by himself.
There’s a great quote by Mick Fleetwood (of Fleetwood Mac) in the fantastic documentary
Sound City. He says:

“I think the downside these days is thinking that I can do this all on my own. Yes you
CAN do this on your own, but you’ll be a much happier human being to do it with other
human beings. And I can guarantee you that.”

Now, before you write me off as some touchy-feely, needy people-person, you should know
that I’m actually a pretty hardcore introvert. I enjoy spending time alone, by myself, in my
studio. There are plenty of things I like doing myself. For example, I prefer to do songwriting
by myself. I like tracking acoustic guitars by myself, too. But when it comes to other
instruments, I think I will always default to using other people. For example, on my first full-
production album, Out of Indiana, I did almost everything myself. I programmed all the drums
in EZDrummer. I played all the guitars (except for one guitar solo). I recorded all the keyboard
parts, and I sang all the vocals. My brother-in-law Joel Bezaire recorded bass, and my friend
Derek West mastered the album. While I did outsource a few things, I did almost everything
myself. It was the DIY Joe Show. While I’m still proud of that album (there’s that word “pride”
again), I don’t think I’ll be doing a project like that again. I missed out on some killer
opportunities by choosing to program the drums myself and to not involve other musicians.

On the following album, Help of the Helpless, I hired my buddy Tim Horsley to record the
drums at his home studio. Joel played bass again, and I even hired one of my VIP members to
play B3 on a few tracks. I stuck to the things I do best - arranging, guitar, vocals, and mixing.
The great Ian Shepherd mastered it. I am much happier with that album, because I
collaborated with more musicians, playing real instruments. In fact, I didn’t use any MIDI at all
on that album. It was all real people, playing real instruments, recorded with microphones.

Since then, I’ve released lots and lots of music, each time collaborating with other musicians.
You can check out all of my music over at www.joegildermusic.com. Or just search my name
in whatever music streaming service you prefer.

One great way to get it right at the source is to involve more people. Down with DIY!
 GIRATS Cheat #8

Know Your Gear (no, seriously)
Have you ever owned something for a long time before discovering a really cool feature? I
bet you’ve got some gear in your studio with features just waiting to be discovered.

I’m not talking about actual product features. (Oh, hey! This preamp also makes a cup of
coffee!) I’m referring more to those “alternate uses” for your gear, stuff you can do with your
current equipment that yields some really cool results.

For example, if you own only one microphone, you might think that you need to buy a few
more to be able to capture different sounds. While that’s true, it’s also not true. Every
microphone has the ability to sound wildly different, depending on how you use it. Change
little things like distance from the source or the mic angle, and you’ll get drastically different
results. You would never know that if you never tried it.

Like most engineers in the world, I own a Shure SM57. One day I spent some time placing it in
a bunch of different positions on my amp, and I recorded each one. I tried with the mic right
up on the grill, backed it away a foot, tried various different locations and angles. Some
sounded better than others, but they all sounded different. My favorite spot ended up being
with the mic angled at 45 degrees.

Now, imagine you’re recording a guitarist and can’t seem to capture the tone you want. By
experimenting with mic placement, you’ll eventually discover that sweet spot. If you want to
get better (and faster) at finding those sweet spots, you need to spend a lot of time
experimenting with your mics.

The same goes for preamps, guitars, amps, effects pedals, etc. The more time you spend with
them, discovering all the cool sounds they can help you capture, you’ll find that you have way
more tonal options in your arsenal than you thought.

Tight on cash? Don’t have money to buy lots of new mics and guitars, etc.? Explore all the
tonal options of the gear you have right now. I think you’ll be surprised and excited. It might
even feel like you just acquired a bunch of new gear.
 GIRATS Cheat #9

Stop Worshiping at the Stereo Altar
Man, people love stereo.

I’ll admit, there’s a certain awesomeness to listening to a great stereo recording of something
like a grand piano or acoustic guitar. The big, wide stereo image, especially on headphones,
can be intoxicating. If you spend too much time basking in the glory of stereo recordings, you
convince yourself that anything in mono is horribly low-fi and amateur.

That’s a mistake.

[Quick note: When I say “stereo” I’m referring to recording sources with two microphones,
one panned left and the other panned right. This is very common with overhead mics for
drums, and also piano and acoustic guitar.]

Stereo recording can be appropriate, specifically on songs with sparse instrumentation. If

you’re recording a simple guitar/vocal tune, then it might make sense to experiment with
stereo recording to get a wider sound. But that’s where it should stop.

I’ve worked on big mixes where it seems like everything was recorded in stereo. Multiple
acoustic guitar parts in stereo. Tons of synth and keyboard tracks, all in stereo. The net result
of having so many stereo recordings? Everything sounds mono again. In an attempt to make
each part sound nice and “wide,” you end up with the opposite effect, making the mix sound
very mono.

Here’s a good rule of thumb:

Once the track count reaches 2 or 3, don’t record in stereo.

You may disagree with me on this, and that’s fine, but I’ve done full albums (even very
acoustic-heavy songs) where I’ve only used one mic on the acoustic guitar.

And guess what? It sounds awesome.

See, there’s a myth going around that stereo is automatically better than mono, that stereo
“sounds better” than mono. It’s just not true. You can actually have more issues in stereo (due
to phasing, etc.) that will make it even more difficult to get a good recording.

Want wide-sounding guitars? Here’s a simple solution that’s MUCH better than trying to
record them with two mics: DOUBLE THEM.
Record one part with one mic, pan it left.

Record the exact same part again, pan it right.

Boom.

This will sound far wider than anything you’d get with a fancy XY recording, and you don’t
have to worry about phase issues.

Now, this doesn’t work for every song, and sometimes you’ll just want one acoustic guitar
part. If that’s the case, I would still reach for a single mic and record it in mono.

When you’re dealing with a mix with multiple tracks of various instruments, you lose that
stereo image pretty quickly. When I encounter a mix with lots of stereo tracks, I’ll usually use a
plugin to make them mono before I move on. If you make it mono from the beginning, you’re
practicing some hardcore GIRATS. It’ll make the recording process simpler for you (one mic
instead of two), and the mix will be much easier to handle.

One quick caveat: If you DO want to record your acoustic guitars in stereo, I recommend
using an XY pattern. With XY, the mic capsules are super close to each other. If you decide
later to make the track mono instead of stereo and pan it off to the side, you can easily do that
with no audible side effects. When you space out the microphones, this becomes more
problematic.
 GIRATS Cheat #10

Don’t Wig Out About Setting Levels
People really get bent out of shape about setting levels. If you find yourself stressed about
setting levels during a recording session, let me share a little secret with you:

Levels Don’t Matter

There’s a pervading theme among recording folk that says you have to get a “nice hot level”
when recording. When you’re setting the preamp level, and the meter doesn’t bounce up
really high, getting dangerously close to clipping, you’re not doing it right.

I call foul on that one.

The idea of “turning the signal up until it clips, then bring it down a bit” is a recipe for disaster
and stress.

Fact: Your recording will sound the same if it peaks at -13 dB on the meter or if it peaks at -1
dB. All you get by turning it up another 12 dB is the risk of clipping, thereby ruining the take.
Why do that to yourself? Record at a nice, conservative level, and you’ll never have to worry
about clipping again.

Some might argue that certain pieces of outboard gear, like some preamps, sound better at
higher levels. That may be true, but that doesn’t mean you have to crank the levels to near
clipping. Besides, most preamps have an output trim knob, so you can get the benefits of
“driving” the preamp without getting super-close to clipping the input on your converter.

I rarely find myself needing to turn up tracks when I’m mixing other people’s songs, but I find
that I’m constantly having to turn tracks down because they were recorded too hot.

You don’t need really loud tracks to produce really good and loud mixes and masters. So why
stress yourself out even further and risk clipping everything? Turn ‘em down. Focus on the
music. You’ll thank me.
 GIRATS Cheat #11

Don’t Listen to Mixes
When you first start recording and mixing, it doesn’t take long before you completely destroy
your ability to simply listen to music. You constantly analyze everything.

Oh wow, that snare drum sounds great!

Listen to how much reverb they put on the lead vocal.

I’ve even ruined my wife at this point. She points out weird stuff in mixes on the radio all the
time. (So cool.)

Anyway, I want to challenge you to stop listening to the mix and start listening to the
production. Far too many people assume the overall tone of a song comes from the way the
mix engineer mixed it. I just don’t think that’s true. The real magic of a mix happens long
before the mix engineer gets his eager little paws on it. It’s all in the tracks. It’s all in the
source.

Just the other day I was listening to an album recorded and produced by two friends of mine.
I found myself getting lost in the production of the whole thing, not the mix. The mix was
stellar, don’t get me wrong (a bad mix can ruin a great production), but it was the way the
song was recorded that really captured my attention and imagination. I found myself thinking
things like:

That organ part really holds the whole song together.

I like how roomy and raw the drums sound.

That high bass part is just sick.

I never noticed all those tasty little acoustic guitar parts.

That synth with the eighth-note tremolo really makes the song.

And on and on.

Now, of course you’re going to hear stuff in the mix that you like and want to apply to your
mixes. That’s fine. It’s certainly a great way to broaden your mixing education, but don’t miss
out on the even more critical education you can get in the world of production. The more you
listen to music with a critical “producer’s ear,” the more you’ll stuff your brain with small little
production ideas. The more you stuff your brain, the more these ideas will just pour out of you
on your next session.

You’ll be working on a cool acoustic/vocal tune, and you’ll remember that great muted strum
rhythmic thing you heard on an album two years ago that would be perfect for this song.
You’ll create this awesome loop with a combination of quirky muted guitar strumming and
the guitarist pounding his fist on the guitar to get a kick-drum-esque sound.

Those ideas don’t just come out of nowhere. Like we talked about earlier, most of your best
ideas will be “borrowed” from someone else. But you’ll never have those game-changing
ideas if you’re not constantly listening for them every time you flip on the radio or reach for
your earbuds.

It’s free education, and it’s worth more than you can imagine.

GIRATS Cheat #12


Don’t Be a Weenie. (Commit.)
I touched on this earlier, but it deserves its own section.

While technology has allowed for almost anyone to start recording and making music in a
home studio, it has also created a whole generation of weenies.

We’re terrified of committing to anything. Instead of deciding on what part to record, or what
guitar tone to use, or whether to use a delay pedal or not, we recoil back in fear. Then we do
one of two things:

1. We record everything we can think of, planning to “sort through it all later.” (The
problem with this approach is that quantity doesn’t always mean quality. Recording
twenty bad guitar parts won’t magically make one of them good.)

2. We record everything as clean as possible, insisting that we can make important

decision about tone and effects later.

While both responses are bad, I can understand them. I’ve been there. We’re afraid of making
a mistake, an undoable, unforgivable, world-ending mistake. But in an effort to avoid making
mistakes, we end up playing it much too safe. We’re left with something sterile and boring.

I’m gonna let you in on a little secret:

It’s okay to make mistakes.

If you record a really rockin’ guitar part with tons of delay, only to realize later that the delay
doesn’t work for the song, that’s okay. If you have to re-record the part, that’s fine. I firmly
believe that you’re more likely to stumble across something awesome and unique if you’re
willing to commit to things on the front end and risk making mistakes.

The two areas that seem to be the most problematic for people are electric guitars and MIDI
parts.

With guitars, the temptation is to record everything clean, even direct, and then re-amp the
direct guitar signal and dial in the right tone later. That is an absolute waste of time. Why not
dial in the right tone up front? “Because we don’t know if that’s gonna be the tone we want
for the song, Joe.”

Are you kidding me?!

When were you planning on making that decision? That’s what recording is. It’s about
deciding what to record and then recording it. You don’t record lead vocals and then go back
and write the lyrics, do you? Of course not. So why would you record a mediocre or
“temporary” guitar tone, only to spend hours later trying to re-amp it and “find that right
tone”? Find the right tone on the front end, when the guitarist is there. Find a tone that
sounds good and inspires a killer performance, then record it, effects and all, to a track.

This goes for amp simulators, too. Don’t leave yourself with a lot of options for later. If your
guitar tones come from something like a Guitar Rig plugin, I challenge you to “print” your
guitar parts to an audio track, just like if you were recording a real guitar amp with a
microphone. Force yourself to make decisions and commit to the sound. Putting the pressure
on yourself might be uncomfortable, and you might royally mess things up a few times. If that
sounds stressful to you, don’t write it off just yet. All stress isn’t bad. When I set a deadline for
a mix, it stresses me out a little bit. But if I don’t set the deadline, I don’t finish the mix.

I challenge you to just try it. The next time you hear yourself saying, “Man, I just don’t know.
Let’s just lay something down and figure it out later,” stop yourself. Remember that the goal of
the recording process is to record something awesome. The goal is not to record something
as fast as you can so you can get to the fun part of mixing. Trust me, if you spend more time
on the front end really capturing a fantastic source, mixing will be a breeze. Instead of fighting
the mix, it will come together almost by itself.

I can tell you from experience that whenever I record a project and force myself to get great
tone on every single track I record, it can be frustrating. But when I sit down to mix the song
and start moving faders around, I’m immediately reminded of why it’s so important to get it
right at the source. The mix sounds great before I really do anything to it. At that point, my job
as the mix engineer is to simply get out of the way and help these tracks gel together. Trust
me when I say that it is infinitely better to work with a mix than to fight against the mix.

The only way to ensure that you’re not fighting a fight you know you can’t win is to -- drumroll
please -- Get It Right At The Source.

*****

Thanks for reading this. Can you see what a massive impact this “Get It Right At The Source”
mindset can have on not only your recordings, but your mixes, too?

If you are interested in more training like this, training that’s designed to help you make major
improvements to your recordings and mixes, check out the variety of products and
memberships available to you over at www.HomeStudioCorner.com/products.

Also be sure to connect with me on Facebook and subscribe to my YouTube channel for more
free content to help make your recordings, mixes, and even life better. :)

A word of caution: all the training material in the world won’t work if YOU don’t. Take one idea
from this article and go apply it to a project. Right now. Today. Implement it. I promise you it’s
worth the effort.

Until next time,

Joe Gilder