Making your first recording
...............tracks hard left and hard right to keep the orig-
Mixdowninal stereo image produced by the source.
For mixdown, it?s a good idea to use speakers, Typically, the aim is to make the listeners feel
as though they are ?really there?, listening to
rather than headphones, so turn the speakers
back on. the original performance, but you can often use
Unplug the headphones to achieve the best pan positions for special effects, and an unnat-
ural pan position (or change to the pan posi-
sound quality from the [LINE OUT].tion) is an attention-grabber. Remember that
Mixing levelspeople listening on mono equipment (AM
When you?re mixing down, make sure that the radio, etc.) won?t hear the benefits of this,
master meter?s [+6] indicator is only lighting in though.
the louder passages. If it is continuously lit, Making the mix
you will overload the amplifier of the CR-4 and
cause distortion.When you?ve adjusted the level, you should:
1 Rewind the CR-4 tape to a little before the
If you?re recording to a digital recorder (such as start of your recording.
a CD or MD recorder), remember that digital
distortion is extremely unpleasant?you 2 If you?re mixing to a tape, rewind the ste-
should adjust the input levels of your recorder reo tape to a little before you want to start
the mix (you don?t need to do this if you?re
or (if it has no recording level controls) the
[MASTER] fader).recording to disc). Put your stereo recorder
On the other hand, if you make the recording in record ready mode.
too quiet, you may hear background noises 3 Play back the CR-4 tape, and if your stereo
and tape hiss which you don?t want.recorder has meters, watch them carefully
You may want to move the [MASTER] fader to at the loudest parts to make sure that you
are not recording at too high a volume.
about the [4] position, and get a balance before
adjusting the master level.Adjust the recording level (or if your stereo
recorder has no recording level controls,
lower the CR-4?s [MASTER] fader).
4 Rewind the CR-4 tape to a little before the
start of your song.
5 Play back your CR-4 tape.
6 Start recording on your stereo recorder in
the quiet passage before the song actually
starts.
7 At the end of the song, stop your recorder,
and then stop the CR-4 tape.
8 You can now listen to the mixed tape. It?s
quite possible that you will not get it per-
fectly right first time, so be prepared to do
There are no absolute rules for mixing, but you
should try to avoid making one part too loud at it again (and again!) until you get it right.
When you?ve finished, we suggest you
the expense of all the others.
clean the tape heads of your CR-4 before
Mix positions turning it off and putting it away.
You can also use the [PAN] controls to position
the different tracks in the mix.
Typically, lead vocals reside in the center,
equally balanced between the left and right
channels.
If you have recorded a stereo source (stereo
rhythm machine, synthesizer, etc.) on two
tracks, you will probably want to pan these
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