Joshua Simon

My personal recording studio consists of two Shure SM58 Dynamic microphones (with attatched pop filters) connected to my Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 audio interface via XLR cables. I also use Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro headphones to listen as you perform. The SM58 microphone is ideal for recording high-quality, crisp vocals and instruments, as it directly converts the vibrations of your sound into an electrical signal that can be processed by your audio interface. The Scarlett 2i2 allows two microphones to be recording simultaneously and to receive their signals via the XLR cables (which is very useful for recording two vocals at once, or one vocal and one instrument being performed together). These XLR cables use a balanced connection to transfer the electrical signals, which is a technique used to negate any external sounds picked up by the cables as the signal travels from the microphone to the audio interface. Finally, the Scarlett 2i2 is able to convert these signals into digital form to be sent to your computer and edited in a digital audio workspace.

As you’re recording, the DT 990 Pro headphones may be worn to hear yourself sing live and make adjustments as needed. They feature an open-back design so that the sound of your own voice can pass through to your ears, almost as if you weren’t wearing headphones at all.

The majority of editing work consists of working with the performer to make sure first impressions are above and beyond. Multiple takes of a section of a song can be done and spliced together, or laid on top of each other if you’re doubling, and basic volume levels and timbre can be fine-tuned. Most importantly, however, will be the quantization and pitch-correcting steps, which I use a software called Melodyne for. Quantizing is the act of making sure each note is held for the exact value it’s supposed to, and snapping it into place with the needed BPM of a song. Melodyne makes this process easy by allowing the user to choose the smallest note value that is used in the song and simply clicking-and-dragging to move each note or shorten/elongate them. If needed, notes can be split or joined as well. Melodyne also allows you to pitch-correct each individual note, that is, to adjust the sound of each note to match the key of the piece, as well as fix any slight drift in the voice that may not be intentional.

The magical part of the audio production process happens in the mixing stage, where digital audio is skillfully manipulated on a digital audio workstation (DAW). My DAW of choice is Pro Tools because it contains many very useful plug-ins that can be used to fine-tune music exactly how one needs it. These plug-ins consist of tools allowing you to apply filters and mask certain frequencies, adding effects like delay or echo, and producing specific tones like sine waves or white noise, among many others. Pro Tools is great for visualizing your audio, so that you can see how your audio changes in addition to hearing it. It has incredible organizational features as well that make finding and editing each clip significantly more accessible. Ultimately, it is compatible with the Scarlett 2i2 and can produce quality sound that can exceed that of human-hearing, making it perfect for getting the sound you expect to hear out of your music.