Bleed Isn't Always a Bad Thing

Since the advent of multitrack recording, the goal of most engineers has been to keep the sound of every instrument totally isolated from all the others. That makes our job much easier, since we can adjust the mix of every track as needed, and apply effects like equalization and compression to each sound individually as needed.

But does that make the best recording? For some types of music, the answer is yes. But having all the players in the same room where they can see and hear each other often results in synergy from the musicians working together that can create exceptional music.

Without baffles, isolation booths, or overdubbing, the music can be better. But this can create problems for the mix engineer, since there can be at least some of the other instruments bleeding into the mic of an instrument you want to manipulate.

In this episode, I talk about this approach to recording, which can be very challenging. It requires a studio setup that works to help maintain the desired balance of the instruments. In essence, you are recording and mixing at the same time, although there will likely be overdubs added to the basic tracks.

This isn’t an approach for everyone. But it might be a good technique to have in your repertoire when the situation is right. It will definitely stress your skills as an engineer or a producer.

email: dwfearn@dwfearn.com
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Transcript

107        Bleed Isn’t Always a Bad Thing                                           July 30, 2025

I’m Doug Fearn and this is My Take on Music Recording

 Humans have been making and listening to music for a very long time. For most of our history, it was an experience that only existed during the performance. There was no way to bring it back, except through the listener’s memory of the event.

Music was performed in many different environments. It could be a solo singer, or a singer with an instrument. It might be a symphony orchestra, or an opera. People heard the music as it was produced, on a stage, or in a living room, or outside. 

The performers had to create the proper balance of instruments and voices. That meant that the instruments had to have a loudness compatible with each other, and with any singers. The instruments were also placed to achieve the best balance.

I have no idea of how good they were at doing this. Perhaps the audience was excited enough just to hear music that they weren’t too critical of the balance. But – I suspect that many performers worked at making it sound as good as possible, just like we do today.

When it became practical to record music in the late nineteenth century, the system was entirely acoustical and mechanical. The performers played or sang into a large horn that was mechanically-coupled to a cutting stylus. The rotating cylinder, or later, disc, had the music cut into a medium. That master recording went through a process to make it possible to make multiple copies, which could be purchased by the music lover.

Actually, except for the recording horn part, that’s the same process we use to make vinyl records today. It works a lot better than the early disc recording systems, but the fundamentals are still the same.

The mechanical method of recording required significant sound level to make it work. Remember, there were no amplifiers in existence. So the performers had to be very close to the recording horn.

If there were multiple performers, they had to array themselves to achieve the proper balance on the recording. Quiet instruments were closest, and louder ones farther away.

By the late 1920s it was possible to record with a microphone and audio amplifiers, so the need for loudness in the performance was reduced. But the balance problem remained until it was practical to mix multiple microphones together. And when magnetic tape machines were invented, it didn’t take long for a tape machine with multiple tracks to be developed. You know that story. It led to the way we record today.

It became practical to record a featured voice or instrument on a separate track and worry about the balance later, during the mixing process.

And creative engineers, producers, and musicians figured out that they could manipulate various tracks with electronic gear that altered the frequency balance, or the dynamics. It also became obvious that if you wanted to only affect one sound, say a lead vocal, that sound had to be well-isolated from the others sounds in the performance.

And so came along acoustic baffles, isolation booths, and overdubbing. It was possible to have just one pristine sound available to work with and apply effects in a creative way.

But recording that way can sound very sterile and it can lack excitement, particularly if everyone is playing their part totally isolated from the other players, or even at a different time, perhaps in a different studio.

The interaction between musicians is lost in many cases. Or at least it is not optimum for creating that synergy that happens when players work together.

There are lots of times when despite these shortcomings, it is the best way to make a certain type of record. But I think far too often we get into that mindset without considering other approaches. Isolation makes our job a lot easier. And great recordings can be made that way.

But over my decades of recording, I have increasingly become convinced that for my style, that total isolation concept does not always make the best recording. I prefer to have everyone playing together, in the same room, at the same time.

There are always exceptions. Sometimes you need to totally isolate a sound. A common example is a lead vocal. The vocalist performs the song while the other instruments are recorded, with the intention to replace that vocal later with a more carefully produced version. The vocalist is in an iso booth so that their performance does not get picked up by the mics in the room. It’s a great solution to a common problem, and that is pretty standard practice for me.

I should add that I always make the scratch vocal recording sound as good as possible. It is not unusual for the singer to be inspired by the players at the session and their original vocal performance might be the best they will ever do.

But let’s focus on everyone else in the studio, making the basic tracks for the song.

Lots of times one or more instrument might be taken “direct,” through a DI box. That’s total isolation for that instrument, although the player might also want to go through an amp. But often things like bass and electronic keyboards work very well with a good DI.

The rest of the instrumentation will probably be very specific to the genre, but as a generic example, let’s use a common rhythm section consisting of drums, bass, electric or acoustic guitars, and maybe a grand piano or electronic keyboard.

If you have a studio with multiple isolation booths, you can achieve nearly total isolation. But is that the best way to create music? Often, I think it is not. Musicians generally prefer making music together and ideally, they should be able to hear and see each other. You get a better performance that way, most of the time, because the players are interacting and enjoying the process. It affects the end result.

But that may also create problems because a studio setup where people are close enough to each other to see and hear what the others are doing means that it is difficult to achieve the level of isolation between instruments that we might want.

And here’s where it becomes challenging to record this way. Maybe every mic is picking up at least some sound from many of the other instruments.

That puts a lot of pressure on the room sound. A poor-sounding room is not going to work in this scenario.

No matter how and where you record, the room has an influence on how it sounds. You may not notice the sound of the room, even if you solo a track with perfect isolation and try to hear the room. We may become so accustomed to the sound of our room that we can’t hear it.

If you recorded that track in an anechoic chamber, which, by definition, has absolutely no room sound, how do you think it will sound? If you have ever had the opportunity to be in an anechoic chamber, you know it is foreign to any listening experience we have in the real world. It is extremely uncomfortable. It sounds so odd to us that we can’t make sense of it, and everything is extremely dull and lifeless. It’s not frequency response, because an anechoic chamber should be perfectly flat. It is the lack of reflections from the room surfaces and furnishings that bothers us.

So even if you have a very dead studio, the sound of the room is still there. And it has an influence on the sound of the music. You cannot avoid it. Nor would you want to. A real acoustic space is necessary to achieve any kind of effective recording of music. I talk more on that in the episode, “Buiilding a Studio,” and others.

A good-sounding room enhances the music. And a good room is more comfortable to play in.

That’s why many engineers and producers will use room mics when recording certain instruments, to bring out the power that a room can provide. Drums and electric guitars are good examples.

However, if you have some bleed from the drums into other mics in the room, you have essentially the same effect as room mics. Maybe not as controllable or predictable, but it can still be better than a totally isolated drum sound.

The same applies to any instrument.

What does that sound like? How does it enhance the sound?

Percussive instruments often are best at illustrating this. I remember listening to records early in my career, when stereo became possible on vinyl records. I heard drums, perhaps on an early Beatles record, that had a very present, close-mic’d sound, but also an amazing echo from other mics in the room. I was captivated by that sound. It created a picture in my head of the actual studio space. I have no idea if the image in my head had any relationship to the reality of the setup, but it didn’t matter. It put me more into the music than it would if there was perfect isolation.

I had an opportunity to experience this for myself some years later. It was before I had my own studio, and before I could legally open a business, so most of my recording was done on location. It was a great experience, and taught me a whole lot about the recording process.

One recording project I remember very clearly was in an amazing venue in West Philadelphia, in a huge multi-purpose arena that was called, simply, The Arena. The stage was in the center with audience all around. This was a typical arrangement for a boxing match, and the music performance I was to record had to use that setup.

We were in early to set up. It was a simple recording. It was direct to a two-track Ampex tape machine, and used only a few mics.

As I was loading in my gear, I could hear a drummer on stage, practicing. I walked into the arena and was greeted by this amazing sound. The reverberation time had to be over 8 seconds, and it was a very smooth and comfortable reverb, with distinct echoes, which we call the “first reflection.” There was no audience at this time.

Right away I wanted to capture that glorious sound, and did so with a couple of mics on the drums. It sounded great, but not like what it sounded like in person.

I was disappointed, but had to keep focused on the setup. I had a couple of other mics connected, and for some reason I don’t recall, I couldn’t yet place them on the stage. They were off to the side, ready to move into place when it became possible.

The mics needed to be tested, and as soon as I brought up one additional mic into the mix, there it was. The sound I heard in the giant arena. Not quite as good as the real thing, but much better than the close mics on the drums.

The concert recording went well. The concert was sold out and all those people in the audience absorbed a lot of reverberation, but it was still highly reverberant. I used my last pair of mics about 50 feet from the stage, as wide-spaced omnis. A small amount of those mics mixed in brought the recording energy up to something much better than with just the stage mics.

I no longer have that recording, and I might find my memory was better than the actual thing. But that experience made a huge impact on me at the time.

Now we come back to the studio application of this effect. Years of running a commercial studio required me to maximize isolation and minimize bleed into other mics. But my studio was large and did not have any iso booths. Well, we had a large mic closet we could use on occasion if necessary. But mostly everyone played in the same room.

I wanted to do something to reduce the bleed, so we made some baffles that increased the amount of isolation, but not dramatically.

Most of our business came from record labels, who booked the studio for weeks for an album, usually with very experienced producers. I was afraid they would be disappointed by the lack of perfect isolation, but to my surprise, no one ever mentioned it. In fact, in talking with some of the producers I got to know well after many sessions, they said that one of the reasons they wanted to record at my studio was of the sound of the room.

Today I have the luxury of only working with artists that I am producing, so I don’t have to be concerned about pleasing anyone but myself and the performers. So I embrace the bleed and make it part of the sound.

Soon after building my present studio, I was certain that its small size would not provide any useful room sound. And believe me, it is definitely less than optimum. It can sound bad if I am not careful how I set it up. But after about twelve years of working in this room, I have learned what sounds good and what does not.

Years ago, I did a podcast interview with Joe Tarsia, the founder of Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia and a friend for decades up to his death a few years ago. I wanted to preserve Joe’s experience of working on hit records from the 1950s and beyond, particularly those early days of pop music recording.

I had a pretty good idea of how those records were made, but I was surprised at some of the details. For example, I learned from Joe that often on those sessions they did not mic the drums at all. The entire drum sound was bleed into the other mics. Remember, these records were made all at once. There was no overdubbing. You recorded and mixed as the music was performed.

The entire session might only use a few mics, for vocals and perhaps on some instruments like an upright bass, or on a horn section. Those 1950s recordings sound primitive to us today, but they are undeniably powerful. A lot of that was due to the excitement and skill of the performers, of course, but also from the recording technique.

I generally prefer the intimate sound of fairly close mic’ing on most instruments, especially in my studio. I try to get as much isolation as I can. But it is never perfect. You can always hear a bit of almost every other instrument in any track I solo.

Recently I did a project different from my usual approach. The instrumentation was drums, electric bass, electronic piano, and a couple of electric guitars. The singer and his acoustic guitar were in my shop, which I often use as an isolation booth.

The players wanted to take all the electric instruments direct, which certainly made my job easier. And it permitted punching in parts where the player made mistakes.

When it came time to mix, I couldn’t get the drums to have the sound I usually get, despite using the same single stereo mic technique I use. I quickly realized that what I missed was the sound of the drums bleeding into every other mic. There were no other mics. The difference in energy was remarkable.

True, it was a different drummer, playing a different drum kit. But the sound wasn’t that different; the drummer on this project was excellent.

In retrospect, I should have put up a couple of room mics. But it didn’t occur to me at the time. As a result, the drum sound was much smaller than what I usually get with other mics in the room. The sound lacked energy.

I could have sent a version of the mix into speakers in the studio, and used room mics to get more of the sound I was used to, but I have done that in the past and it never really achieved what I wanted.

Marginal isolation often makes my job more difficult. I almost never use any processing on the mics while tracking – except maybe some bass roll-off on ribbon mics on vocals, and maybe some compression on the vocals and electric bass. I try to get the sound I want from the mic choice and placement, and that is all I need over 90% of the time. I use a couple of dBs of high-boost on the mix bus, and that’s it for eq on the music I record.

But there are occasions when I find that a bit of eq might make a worthwhile difference on an instrument, usually after overdubs change the role an instrument occupies. And lack of isolation can make that frustrating.

But that’s rare.

My typical tracking session has drums, upright bass or cello, an acoustic guitar or two, sometimes grand piano, and maybe an electric guitar. Those instruments are not very compatible level-wise. So there’s going to be some bleed. And I have learned not to worry about it.

It’s not that I simply live with the bleed. I try to improve the isolation as I improve my use of the studio. And I try to make the sound a bit more predictable by finding techniques to keep the bleed fairly balanced between all the instruments. For example, since I record many instruments in stereo, I try to avoid a situation where all of the bleed is concentrated in either the left or right stereo mic. That extreme left or right bleed sound can be great in some contexts, but usually not in the music I work with.

How much isolation do I get? And at what level of bleed does it become more of a problem than an asset?

The answer is totally dependent on how it sounds. It has to feel right to me, with just the right balance of direct to reverberant room sound. I can’t make those decisions based on listening to each track individually, since the true sound is only evident when all mics are heard and the balance is roughly how the final mix will sound.

It is not unusual for me to be surprised by how good or how poor the isolation is. I rarely solo individual mics during this phase of recording, unless I detect a problem. It is only after the session that I may listen to individual tracks. Sometimes I am impressed by how little of the other instruments I hear, and other times I am appalled at how much an instrument bleeds into another track. But if the overall sound is what I want, I don’t worry about it.

On one recent project, I was amazed that when I muted the drum tracks, the level of the drums didn’t change all that much. Almost the entire drum sound was from the bleed into the other mics. It worked great in the song. I was actually kind of pleased that I had inadvertently achieved that 1950s sound.

The lack of isolation means that I do not have much control of the balance of the drums and other instruments, but that was not a major problem. The mix sounded right, and although it offended my engineering compulsion to keep the tracks pristine, I was satisfied that I had captured the sound that was very effective in conveying the feel that the song needed.

In that case, the level of the drums into the other mics might be only 10dB lower than the instrument that I was listening to.

Other times, you can only hear a hint of other instruments in the track. And as much as I try to standardize the studio setup to achieve consistent results, the truth is that every song is different and the musicians will play each song differently.

The downsides of this lack of isolation are obvious. In the worst case, you can’t get the proper balance. But that should be evident early in the setup and changes made to fix that problem.

Obviously, you can’t punch-in a replacement for any of the tracks in most cases. That’s OK because on my projects we rarely do any punching.

You can’t pitch-correct tracks that have bleed from other instruments, but I rarely apply any pitch correction anyway.

It is difficult, or sometimes impossible, to pull an instrument out of the mix when you need to. That can be a problem, but often I find the nebulous echo of a removed part actually works pretty well in the song.

For example, a particular verse or bridge may need to be played more quietly than other parts. I can rely on the players to achieve those dynamics, but in some cases the drummer continues the beat very quietly, to keep everyone in time. As you probably know, I never use a click track. I have run into a problem when I would have preferred to remove the drums entirely from that section of the song. But other times, just muting the drum tracks is very effective because all you hear is the distant sound of the bleed from the drums.

In many ways, this approach is a throwback to the old days of recording when everyone had to perform perfectly in order to make a good record. There is something about that pressure that can put energy into a performance. Players tend to play differently when they know that a mistake they make can’t be easily corrected. That makes some musicians accustomed to micro-managing their performance very uncomfortable. But all the people I work with like working this way.

Sometimes I can record this rhythm section without any headphones. Players love that, and it does change the music.

Obviously, this is not an approach that works for everyone. Or maybe it only works for a very small number of sessions. But when it works well, it can result in an amazing recording.

Perhaps this will be something for you to consider. You might be surprised at the effect that bleed has on the overall sound and energy of the recording.

Thanks for listening, subscribing, and commenting. You can reach me at dwfearn@dwfearn.com

This is My Take on Music Recording. I’m Doug Fearn. See you next time.