Did I have to re-record everything? Did I waste an entire day of recording?
No, I used the tracks, but I had to work 10 times harder during mixing to get them to sound right. And for several tunes, I had to settle for a compromise in guitar tone…all because I didn’t take an extra 10 minutes to make sure the mics were in the best position.
There are two lessons here for you:
Lesson #1 – Listen Before You Commit
This isn’t a big, time-consuming thing. All I’m asking is that you literally take an extra 10 minutes to record a quick “practice take,” listen back to it on monitors or nice headphones, and make adjustments to the mics as needed.
Had I done that, I would have noticed the excessive low end, and I would have moved the mics back 6-12 inches. Problem solved.
Since I didn’t, I had to work much harder during mixing, which leads to the second lesson:
Lesson #2 – Move Forward With Your Mistakes
I could have thrown my hands up that day. I could have deleted all the guitar tracks and re-recorded everything. But I didn’t.
The performances were actually really good. Plus, I simply didn’t want to go through that whole recording process again, so I moved forward.
I made myself mix those less-than-perfect tracks.
The result? It made me painfully aware of how important it is to get it right at the source. Also, it helped me develop my skills in mixing poorly-recorded acoustic guitar.
Let’s be honest. Sometimes you’ll have to mix something that doesn’t sound all that great. Your job is to make it sound as good as possible.
This big stupid failure of mine gave me valuable training that I have used since then to be both a better recording engineer AND mixing engineer.
To avoid big stupid failures like this, consider joining the Recording Acoustic Guitar class. I’ll teach you how I go about recording acoustic instruments, which I learned to do after many, many failures. Sign up here.
Joe Gilder is a Nashville based engineer, musician, and producer who also provides training and advice at the Home Studio Corner.