Recording - October 2019 - 54

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Chain of Tools

By Bill Stunt

Creating Signal Path Templates for Home Recording
It's all in your head
Recording yourself is fun and rewarding. It's also uniquely
challenging. I know this from experience. I've been working
on a project of guitar-based tunes for a while now. I'm a busy
person, so I like to have things set up in a way that allows me
to work fast when the opportunity presents.
From the start, I've been pretty pleased with the performances,
but critical listening left me less than enthused with some of the
sounds. I was reaching for EQ and compression
more than I ever do when recording other people.
I often find this to be true when mixing someone
else's home recordings.
I believe this comes down to a couple of issues.
When recording yourself, you split your focus.
Worrying about getting the feel right or playing
through a challenging part takes attention away
from the recording process. This can be a serious
impediment. In my mind, the more critical issue is
that you're dealing with a compromised monitoring environment, often using headphones to monitor yourself while tracking.
Headphones are fabulous for many things,
including keeping peace in the family when
you're burning the midnight oil in a less than perfectly soundproofed studio. They aren't so great at

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3...
To get around these issues, I've invested a lot of time into
testing and documenting various mic, instrument, preamp,
etc. combinations. That process revealed ideal signal paths
for all the instruments and sound sources I use in my home recordings. I now consider these my personal verified recording
chains. They serve as engineering templates that I can apply
for each instrument, and tweak for each style of music I write
and perform.
Knowing in advance that these chains assure quality results
takes the pressure off my engineering shoulders. They let me
54 RECORDING October 2019

revealing tonal balance. Spatial orientation can get messed
up. Even with good closed-back headphones, you're hearing
a blend of the source both acoustically and amplified through
the headphones.
It's a confusing soundscape, and the tendency is to turn up
the volume so you can hear 'better'. This leads to fatigue. Not
good. The solution, I think, is to make the most of the sonic decisions before you put the headphones on and start recording.
I'm going to explain how I do this.

An array of closed and open-backed headphones

concentrate on my playing and singing. I'm now able to work
quickly and confidently, and the results have been much better.
I'm going to detail here what went into creating the signal
path chains that perform the best for me. I hope that you'll be
able to adapt some of these principles to your situation!
Courses for sources
To create ideal recording chains, you need to understand the
instrument or voice-its character, tonal balance, and dynamic
range. It's essential to have a clear idea of what its role is in the
mix. You also need to have a complete understanding of your
tools, including mics, hardware, and audio interface.

Recording - October 2019

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