Advice regarding creation of band music on Audacity

[Sib Bachchan]

I am a member of a music band. We have just begun our band and wish to progress to professional level. I being in charge of audio editing, I prefer using Audacity. I wanted to ask what precautions should I take while recording the audio and also during editing the audio in Audacity?

[Leanne]

Problems like over dubbing are often seen among amateur bands. If you are facing the problem of over dubbing, then I advice you should use a drummer to create a low sound that can cover the over dubbing. In professional music industry, special tools are used to eliminate over dubbing. Take care of mics and other musical instrument’s connections. Weak connections can cause the creation of buzzing sound which can later create trouble while editing high frequency sounds.

[Erakna]

The room which you are using should be wide but also properly enclosed. Many amateur bands try to do recording in bathrooms or basements but then chances of echo increase. You need a room that is sound proofed. This will avoid the echo of sound and also mixing of sound from exterior of room. If sound-proofing is not possible, then see to it that the walls are not creating reflective surfaces. The walls must be aligned such that they do not become parallel to each other.

[Gania]

When I started a band, we would record music and send it to professionals for reviews. At that time we were advised to compress the music. The compression is important part of creating music. Compression should be done in such a manner that it does not distort the audio. In Audacity, you can turn on Dynamic compression. This will reduce the spikes which are harmful for quality of sound. Compression is one factor that adds professionalism to work.

[Alfons]

Audacity has a function by name ‘GVerb’. This creates the illusion of audio playing inside the head. This can be done using placing 2 vocal tracks above original track. Set ‘GVerb’ for 2 & 3 layer at ‘dry’ level set to 0. Now try different values of ‘reverb’ with combination of gain level. Does this till you get the desired effect. Don’t overdo it; else it will result in echo like sound.

[BillieJ]

You should try avoiding Recording Latency. Audacity has a function for adjustment of multiple layers for overlaying each other. With perfect timing and skills you can use this function to cover up the recording latency. Avoid using mp3 format for final output file.