My Take on Music Recording with Doug Fearn

Send us Fan Mail This is part two of a 2-part series contrasting recording to tape versus digital recording. In this episode, I look at the strengths and weaknesses in digital recording. And then I summarize both episodes with a comparison of the two approaches, in a number of categories like sound, ease of use, maintenance, and cost. For each comparison, I share my conclusion about which is bette...

Send us Fan Mail A tape machine was the only way music was recorded for about 40 years. Then, in the 1990s, computer technology made digital audio recording possible. There was a period when both technologies were in use, but the advantages of digital were overwhelming. The cost of a digital recording system, using commodity computers, was less than a tenth the cost of a multitrack tape machine. T...

Send us Fan Mail In electronic equipment, a schematic diagram is used as a map to show how all the various components are interconnected. This is useful for troubleshooting and repair. And following the signal path through a circuit gives us a deeper understanding of how the equipment does its job. Schematics in the past were beautifully drawn and easy to interpret. But today, most electronic equi...

Send us Fan Mail The design of professional recording gear requires knowledge of how to best distribute the necessary gain through multiple internal gain stages. In this episode, I explain how that is done, and how you can use the same principles to achieve the best gain-staging of all your equipment. Proper gain-staging optimizes the signal chain for lowest noise, and the least distortion. email:...

Send us Fan Mail This is the third installment in a series on Basic Electronics for Recording Engineers. This episode focuses on equalizers and amplifiers. Why do we call them equalizers? And amplifiers are at the heart of every piece of audio gear, even if we don’t usually recognize them as such. I discuss different approaches to designing an equalizer. And cover the concepts of amplification fro...

Send us Fan Mail In this second episode of a multi-part series on Basic Electronics for Recording Engineers, I continue with the fundamental principles of electrical and electronic devices, with an emphasis on practical implications. The explanations are simple, and therefore, incomplete. But I hope it will give you some insight on what goes on inside your equipment – and in the electrical world i...

Send us Fan Mail The chain of equipment between the recording artist and the listener is long and complex. Every piece of gear, from the microphone to the listener’s speaker or headphones, has the potential to be the weakest link in this chain. In this episode, I go through every major link in the chain and describe why it could be the weakest link in any recording situation. Are there types of eq...

Send us Fan Mail Music relies on technology, and music recording is entirely dependent on electronics technology. You don’t need to be electronics engineer to record, but some basic knowledge of electricity and electronics can be useful to any recording engineer. When something doesn’t work as expected, or a piece of studio gear fails, some insight into what might be the cause can save time and mo...

Send us Fan Mail Back in the 1960s and 70s, it was common to slightly change the speed of a tape machine when recording vocals, and sometimes other instruments. When the tape was played back at normal speed, the singer sounded younger and the performance was more exciting -- an important consideration back then. The tape speed was only changed a small amount, around 2% was typical. But the effect...

Send us Fan Mail What makes a good engineer? There are many skills required, both technical and interpersonal. In this short episode I talk about some of those skills and how they apply to a recording session. email: dwfearn@dwfearn.com www.youtube.com/c/DWFearn https://dwfearn.com/

Send us Fan Mail Creating software plugin versions of actual hardware is challenging. Acustica did a superb job of creating a plugin version of the D.W. Fearn VT-5 Stereo Equalizer several years ago, called Ruby. And now MixWave has done the same for the VT-7 Compressor. In this episode, I speak with Taylor Larson, founder of MixWave, about creating the VT-7 plugin. Taylor explains the process for...

Send us Fan Mail Recording sessions can be technologically complex. There are mics to set up, cables to run, headphones to deploy, maybe patching in the control room, and software and hardware to configure. It is a lot for one person to handle. The job of assistant engineer has existed as long as recording. It not only spreads the work around, but it is also potentially a stepping-stone to becomin...

Send us Fan Mail Since the advent of multitrack recording, the goal of most engineers has been to keep the sound of every instrument totally isolated from all the others. That makes our job much easier, since we can adjust the mix of every track as needed, and apply effects like equalization and compression to each sound individually as needed. But does that make the best recording? For some types...

Send us Fan Mail I live and work in the woods, surrounded by wildlife. There are many species of birds and in the spring their songs are pretty amazing. Over the years, I have thought about recording those birds, but the background noise level was a problem. Although very quiet by most people’s standards, there is still a lot of man-made noise -- too much noise to make recording the birds feasible...

Send us Fan Mail Virtually all digital recording uses a format called PCM. But there is another digital format that works in an entirely different way. It’s called DSD, for Direct Stream Digital, and you might find that it sounds better than PCM. In this episode, I explain what DSD is, mostly from a practical, user, viewpoint. If it sounds better, why don’t we use it? Well, DSD comes with some ser...

Send us Fan Mail Does audio quality really matter? Our society in general has seen a major loss in quality of goods and services. Music recording has not escaped this trend. In this short episode, I give some examples, some possible explanations, and a bit of guidance on how recordists can do a better job. It benefits the listener, even if they can’t even describe the difference between a good rec...

Send us Fan Mail Most recording occurs in a studio, and the design of that facility has a major effect on the quality of the recordings made there. In this episode, I discuss some of the things that I think are most important for a successful studio. I don’t get into room design, soundproofing and sound conditioning, or even much of the infrastructure of studios and control rooms. I’ve covered a l...

Send us Fan Mail Monitor speakers are a necessity for most of our recording. But I have always had a problem with the sound of speakers, and I explain why in this episode. Speakers always exist in a space with  boundaries, even outside. Our control rooms tend to be small, and making a small room sound good for performing or listening is a challenge. The monitor speakers and the control room form a...

Send us Fan Mail Vinyl record sales have been increasing every year for a while now. Today, vinyl outsells CDs. Fans like vinyl for its unique sound, and the large format of the jacket. Record pressing plants are busy! Most are backlogged for months. The process of converting your digital mix to a vinyl record is complicated. The entire system of phonograph records is plagued by many deficiencies,...

Send us Fan Mail If you are working as a recording engineer, how did you learn your craft? A formal recording program? As an intern with an accomplished engineer? Or maybe you figured it out on your own. All are valid ways to get started. Many successful engineers used more than one approach. In this episode, I look at the various approaches, their pros and cons, and suggest ways that you might fu...

Send us Fan Mail Using a single microphone, or one stereo mic, to record a musical performance all at once without any overdubbing can result in a recording that is very compelling to the listener. When everyone is performing in the same space at the same time, usually without headphones, there is a musical interaction that occurs that we often lose in the typical session using lots of mics, extre...

Send us Fan Mail When you are just starting out in recording music, you are likely to need microphones. And if you have been recording for a while, you may feel the need to add to you microphone collection. But how do you make those choices? In this episode, I look at the criteria that I think are important in picking mics to add to your studio. Simply choosing a mic that is what other people use,...

Send us Fan Mail Joseph Arnold is a talented violinist that has played on a variety of projects I have produced. He is also an excellent writer, who just published his first book, titled, “Soul Force: How to discover your artistic purpose, create more freely, and make art that matters.” In this conversation, Joseph talks about his career path, his pursuit of art, and how his concepts of Soul Force...

Send us Fan Mail In this last of three episodes on the art of producing, I talk about my process for mixing. It is all part of the concept of a song from the beginning. Mixing is where everything comes together to create the version of the song that the artist and I have had. As an over-simplification, my approach is to turn up the things I like and turn down, or mute, the things I don’t like. But...

Send us Fan Mail This is the second of three episodes on the Art of Producing. In this one, I talk about the mics and equipment I use in my studio, and the reasons why. The example used for this series features an album project for singer-songwriter Corrie Lynn Green. It is an acoustic-based project, although there are some electric guitars and bass on some songs. I explain why I make certain deci...