Discoveries you made early in Recording.

[Bellringer]

Anyone who has been recording for a while has moments they remember where they figured something out that made things sound better, move faster, discovered an unorthodox use for some gear, or anything that might be considered common sense to you now.
Lets share some moments of clarity, discoveries, any ideas that may help beginners or even some cool ideas that you figured out earlier in the game. They might be common sense to you now but to others it could be new info.
Examples: Early 4-tracking as a teen, I figured out that headphones would work out as a mic or an acoustic guitar pickup.
When I got into some early digital recording (VS1680), I always saw eqing as adding more, "that needs more bass, That needs more 1k, etc. I usually ended up with distortion in the mix or it didn't sond as good as tracks solo'd out. With some experimenting I learned about subtractive eqing. Taking away can make things sound a lot better! Eq and panning to create space was magic and it seemed ridiculous that I hadn't thought of it before.

[Nubus]

I couldn't believe it when I put a tape in on side B. What? The four track plays backwards? Um... record.... flip ... oh my god....

[Whoopysnorp]

This isn't really about recording per se, but in high school a friend of mine discovered that if you point a remote control at the pickups of your guitar and hit the buttons, you get some crazy electronic noises (especially if your gain is turned up). Recently I discovered that my cell phone does the same thing.

In an old band of mine, we had a tune that went at 60 BPM, and our bass player counted us off by holding his watch up to his pickups.

[dagosto]

I remember when I first discovered how to get the Black Dog lead tone. Plug straight into the pre and crank it up. Also I was really excited when I found that sweeping the mids made a wah wah.

[Whoopysnorp]

I discovered this way too late, but the first time I got a front rim and head for my kick drum and made some recordings with it that way, I was floored at how much better it sounded than with the front head off. That's with a hole cut in the front head and the mic inside, of course.

[smopo24]

in my earlier 4-tracking days i learned to double-check that the track was not on "safe mode." i lost some good performances because of that. oh, and to always have fresh tape on hand, just in case.

[mikegee]

playing 4 track tapes backwards, good fun, good times...

[smopo24]

Originally Posted by mikegee

playing 4 track tapes backwards, good fun, good times...

oh yea, it is endless fun. i used to listen to entire albums by recording them onto 2 tracks and playing them back. loveless sounds just as awesome backwards.

[dagosto]

I would just listen to me albums I had on tape through my four track. You could listen to one side forward and the other backward at the same time if you wanted, and at double speed. I listend to Black Sabbath like this all the time in 8th grade. I think kids doing this is what led to speed metal.

[smopo24]

Originally Posted by dagosto

I would just listen to me albums I had on tape through my four track. You could listen to one side forward and the other backward at the same time if you wanted, and at double speed. I listend to Black Sabbath like this all the time in 8th grade. I think kids doing this is what led to speed metal.

you were lucky, all of my 4-tracks only went at one speed! it reminds me of that old cheech and chong sketch where chong says "i played black sabbath at 78 speed man," cheech asks "and then what happened?" chong replies "i saw god!"