Audio Mistakes Novices Don't Know They Make

[Moseph]

This thread is for sharing the mistakes that novices to Pro Audio make without realizing it. This is not a beginner's guide, though the lessons should be about explaining misconceptions and mistakes that beginners to the field make.

To help avoid confusion and promote discussion, the following rules should be observed:

Rules

1) Each new mistake should be presented as a heading in bold text. Each new mistake should be presented in its own post.
2) A concise, informative explanation of why it is a mistake should be included with the original post.
3) A concise, informative explanation of how to correct the mistake should be included.
4) All questions or further discussion regarding a posted idea should include a quote of the most recent pertinent discussion of that idea for easy reference.


I'll post in here every so often with a new idea. Let's see what we can come up with.

[Moseph]

Handling a Mic Stand or Shockmount

Most people who use mic stands or shockmounts find that they wear out and will very quickly. A worn out mic stand or shockmount will not hold its position, and will either slowly drift out of place, or will quickly fall out of place when positioned.

The two most common reasons this happens are improper re-positioning and overtightening of the joint/clutch.

The common improper repositioning occurs when small adjustments to position are made. Many novices will simply leave the joint/clutch tightened, and force the adjustment until the mic is in the proper position. This rapidly wears out the grip of the joint/clutch, as the friction that is needed to hold the mic in place is being forcibly overcome by the user. The proper method of repositioning is to loosen the appropriate joint/clutch, make the adjustment, and then re-tighten as needed. This is not only better for the equipment, but makes it easier to be more accurate in the adjustment.

Overtightening is another mistake often made by novices. It is unneccessary to tighten a joint/clutch to the point where it is difficult to move. Overtightening causes undue stress on the clutch/joint and will deteriorate the ability of the clutch/joint to grip. A safe method level of tightening a clutch/joint is to tighten until the mic stays in position, and then provide another 1/8th of a turn for safety measures.

Keeping with these practices will ensure a long, dependable life-span for your mic stands and shockmounts.

[Moseph]

Wrapping Cables

A lot of musicians and hobbyist/semi-pro engineers find that cables fail very regularly. This is largely due to improper wrapping technique. Most beginners tend to assume that a cable can be wrapped in any method desired (much like a rope), which is untrue.

Many novices will wrap their cables similar to nylong rope by coiling it tightly around their hand and elbow until they can tie off the end of the cable. This is bad for the cable in a number of ways.

A well-wrapped cable should be able to lay on the ground in a neat stack. Additionally, the wrap should be loose enough that there are no kinks, knots, or sharp bends (there's a reason it's often called "coiling" the cable). Having an unsmoothe wrap causes heavy stress in the conductors of the wires, which will cause them to break more rapidly, causing a failure in the cable.

Additionally, something that is often overlooked is that the cable should be wrapped in the same manner every time. This causes the "memory" of the cable to remain, thus limiting the amount of stress that is added to the cable by successive rewrappings. The loop size isn't very important, but the same loop size should be maintained for the life of the cable.

There are two basic well-known methods of cable wrapping that help maintain a long cable lifespan.

The first is a simple series of loose overhand loops. This is similar to the method used to coil rope for life-saving (if you are familiar with it).

The other method is a series of loops alternating between overhand and underhand. This method has the advantage of helping to avoid twist propagation down the cable as it is being wrapped, making long cables or large loops easier to manage.

Once the cable is wrapped, the best way to maintain the coil is with a snug tie (but not so tight as to leave an indentation). So long as it is not too tight, the type of tie is irrelevant: velcro strips, nylon cords, and twine are common.

[Jon]

Very informative, thanks.

[Moseph]

Very informative, thanks.

Feel free to post your own. Actually, anyone who reads this should feel free to post their own for discussion.

[Moseph]

Testing a Microphone

Can you recall a time at a concert or show where a guy from the crew checks the PA by tapping and blowing into the mics? That guy was a jackass. Tapping on or blowing into the mics is one of the best ways to cause damage to a diaphragm. And that means a damaged mic.

Microphones are sensitive instruments, and powerful plosive (bursts of air) applied directly to the diaphragm are not only incredibly audible (which is why vocalists use pop filters when recording) but also the equivalent of incredibly high-pressure sound with a large transient amplitude directly into diaphragm. When was the last time you heard a sound so loud it felt like somebody was blowing on you or tapping on your shoulder? That's what's happening to the mic, and it wasn't designed for that.

There are many, much safer ways to test a mic.

Obviously, the simplest method is just to speak into the microphone.

If you need a simple way to check levels on a PA, snapping your fingers or clapping your hands a little ways away provides a strong impulse sound.

Alternately, if you need a method where the only mic picking up the signal is the one you're checking, instead of blowing into it, scratch the grill lightly. Because the scratch is very close the diaphragm and creates vibrations of the mic, the sound will be very audible in that single microphone but will obviously remain silent to the other mics in the setup.

[Moseph]

Software Influence on Audio

A common misconception is that audio software "sounds better" because it is inherently superior than other software. In terms of recording raw audio, with no processing, this is based almost completely in myth.

While it is true that a software's panning laws, latency compensation, and volume normalization may come into play, these are post-recording decisions. However, all things being equal and ignoring differences in workflow, using Pro Tools does not inherently equate to better sounding audio than using Audacity.

Software, for the most part, simply does the work of recording bit-streams determined by the hardware. These bit-streams are generated using algorithms written in the drivers of the hardware. In other words, the dominant factor of the quality of digital audio is not the software, it is the hardware and controlling drivers.

It should be noted that the same audio engineer using two different softwares will likely show consistently better results with one choice or the other, however this is almost entirely due to factors after the recording process, such as work flow, or the factors listed above.

[poeticdrums]

Yeah I cannot tell you how many times I've heard someone bash me because I use Adobe Audition 2.0 instead of Pro Tools. I get that "well uhh Pro-Tools sounds better" crap all the time, even in my audio engineering courses at my university. In the digital realm, there are a ton of different factors that go into the sound quality of the final product, and the majority of which are not dependent upon what software you use (unless you're using a crapp VST /DX/RTAS plugin in your software).

Things like a stable word clock, sample and quantizing rates, A/D and D/A conversion, among others, are all things which help to determine the quality of the sound, and we're not even really touching the actual analog equipment before the digital process.

[Nicko_Shmicko]

Making Bad Investments

Addmitedly I'd be guilty of this one when I first started, but I've learned from the mistake and so can you.

When first starting recording most people have a smallish budjet, and the temptation is there to go and blow what they do have on a lot of junky Behringer or similar gear. They say "hey, Why do I want to buy that sm-57 or decent rode mic with all my money, when for the same price I can get a mic, a mixer, an audio interface and a mic stand from behringer?"

The answer is because a year down the track you will have no use for it, be fed up with the quality, and wont be able to give it away.

The moral of the story, try to invest in decent equipment even if it means you end up with less gear. It might take a bit longer to set yourself up, but you wont pay twice, and your recordings will benifit!

[Moseph]

Making Bad Investments

Corollary: Gear Acquisition Syndrome

A lot of times a novice will have less than stellar gear as mentioned above, but will never feel satisfied even after upgrades. The general feeling that many novices experience is that "the gear makes the sound." This is completely untrue: it is the skills of the performer, producer, and engineer that make the sound.

The home studio market is very spoiling these days, as there is a glut of reasonably priced equipment that is good, and even what most consider junk is far beyond what most home studios were equipped with 20 years ago.

Once you've acquired gear, regardless of how good or bad you feel it actually is, learn to maximize its potential. There are a number of novice engineers in that post in this forum who have achieved very good results using what many would call sub-par equipment.

The bottom line is this: When the track sounds good, it is your success. When the track sounds bad, it is your fault. Always.

[Nicko_Shmicko]

Corollary: Gear Acquisition Syndrome

A lot of times a novice will have less than stellar gear as mentioned above, but will never feel satisfied even after upgrades. The general feeling that many novices experience is that "the gear makes the sound." This is completely untrue: it is the skills of the performer, producer, and engineer that make the sound.

The home studio market is very spoiling these days, as there is a glut of reasonably priced equipment that is good, and even what most consider junk is far beyond what most home studios were equipped with 20 years ago.

Once you've acquired gear, regardless of how good or bad you feel it actually is, learn to maximize its potential. There are a number of novice engineers in that post in this forum who have achieved very good results using what many would call sub-par equipment.

The bottom line is this: When the track sounds good, it is your success. When the track sounds bad, it is your fault. Always.

I'll second that. Always keep in mind that if the best engineer in the world had your gear, he would probebly get a better sound than you would by hiring out a million dollar studio

[JayLinkReturns]

Top of the line gear is always good to have. but everyone is correct in saying, a skilled engineer who has spent years learning how to use the gear properly is where you'll get your very best recordings.

[Jon]

Would a PG57 be considered junky?

[The Chemist]

Not really. It's a 57 with a mesh over the diaphragm. It's designed for live stuff. So no, it's not junky.

[Det_Nosnip]

Writing Bad Music.

[Moseph]

Writing Bad Music.

I'd call this unrelated to Audio Engineering, actually. However, this does remind me of...

Tangential: Expectations of Mixing/Editing/Mastering

With advanced digital mixing and editing so inexpensive and readily available in the modern production process, a lot of novices get the idea that if a session doesn't turn out very well that they can always "fix it in the mix."

They probably have overheard some professional in the industry using the term, and figure with the wealth of tools available to them that it shouldn't be too difficult to correct an erroneous session.

The thing that these novices don't tend to realize is that they don't actually have all the tools that an expert professional has, nor do they have the experience to maximize the utility of the tools they do have.

Fortunately, avoiding this mentality is as simple as believing that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. When assembling tracks, keep doing takes until you feel absolutely certain that the results are worthwhile. It's much easier to reposition mics, overdub a solo, or comp another sequence in the moment than to spend hours trying to tweak, edit, and nudge things together later.

A similar concept is to "fix it in the master", often considered when passing a poor mix to an outside mastering engineer. This is an even more extreme version of the above misstep, since in the mastering stage there is only access to a mix-down version of the project, rather than access to raw, discrete tracks to be mixed. When considering the mastering process for a finished product, it's never smart to start with a handicap: always prepare the mix to be finished before attempting to master a finished product. This makes the mastering process simpler, and also minimizes the amount of trade-offs needed in putting together the final product.

[siva_chair]

I'd call this unrelated to Audio Engineering, actually. However, this does remind me of...

Tangential: Expectations of Mixing/Editing/Mastering

With advanced digital mixing and editing so inexpensive and readily available in the modern production process, a lot of novices get the idea that if a session doesn't turn out very well that they can always "fix it in the mix."

They probably have overheard some professional in the industry using the term, and figure with the wealth of tools available to them that it shouldn't be too difficult to correct an erroneous session.

The thing that these novices don't tend to realize is that they don't actually have all the tools that an expert professional has, nor do they have the experience to maximize the utility of the tools they do have.

Fortunately, avoiding this mentality is as simple as believing that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. When assembling tracks, keep doing takes until you feel absolutely certain that the results are worthwhile. It's much easier to reposition mics, overdub a solo, or comp another sequence in the moment than to spend hours trying to tweak, edit, and nudge things together later.

A similar concept is to "fix it in the master", often considered when passing a poor mix to an outside mastering engineer. This is an even more extreme version of the above misstep, since in the mastering stage there is only access to a mix-down version of the project, rather than access to raw, discrete tracks to be mixed. When considering the mastering process for a finished product, it's never smart to start with a handicap: always prepare the mix to be finished before attempting to master a finished product. This makes the mastering process simpler, and also minimizes the amount of trade-offs needed in putting together the final product.

Agreed. I always try to get the sound I am looking for before I start twisting knobs. I am of the mindset that the less EQing you have to do the better. I try to view the EQ as a tool, not a crutch, and the less I have to use it the better off I usually am. Using the right mic for the application and placing it in the right spot goes a very long way in my experience.

I think the "fix it in the mix" mindset is one of the most common problems with people new to the Pro Audio world.