CHAPTER 2 : Getting Started

Focus on Your Instrument
Experiment
Keep it Simple
Get it Hot
Target Your Frequency
Gain Staging
Limit Compression & EQ When Recording
Avoid Phase Cancellation


Avoid phase cancellation

While recognizing and avoiding phase cancellation takes experience and understanding,
using a three-to-one ratio is a good place to start in your home studio when using more
than one microphone to capture a sound source.
Three-to-one means the second microphone
should be three times (or more) the distance from the source than the first microphone.

Bear in mind, if the sound source or your microphone is close to a reflective wall, that could cause another phase cancellation. In a
gigantic empty space, the threeto- one rule generally works. It also works in a smaller space,
but you have to deal with other artifacts like early reflections, reverberation in general, standing waves, and nodes.

“An out-of-phase signal can cause instruments
to disappear from your mix if somebody’s
speakers are wired incorrectly,” says Raison. “In
a home environment, you have to be doubly
aware of this because you’re working in smaller
spaces and potentially have greater possibility
of phase problems.

“If you’re using a computer for your home recording there are phase correlation meter plugins that will show you the health of your phase in your stereo field. If you’re working outside of a computer environment, you have to be able to recognize it, and that takes a set of ears. A trick that sometimes works is to flip the phase on one of the channels in your mix and then put the mix in mono. Most stand-alone units have a mono button, so if you flip the phase on either your left or right channel, and you put it in mono, you’ll hear if things disappear. Typically it’s the stuff down the middle that disappears, which in my world means the stuff that splits evenly between right and left — bass guitar, kick drum, snare drum, lead vocal.”