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Post by svart on Dec 7, 2014 19:13:10 GMT -6
So I ran into some guys interested in doing some voiceover work for a short film. They came by the studio to check it out and first things out of their mouths...
"Dude, this setup is AWESOME!"
"When we get our studio set up, we're gonna hire you to come build us a studio and all the gear like yours!"
I'm like WTF..
And also recently, someone asked about what gear they should get if they had xxxx money to buy something. I suggested they take that money and go to a real studio with real gear and watch the engineer and learn what he does before going to GC and buying something the salesman suggests.
I was told in no uncertain terms that I was full of shit, they are going to do it themselves.
I mean, c'mon, when does the madness end?
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Post by Johnkenn on Dec 7, 2014 20:35:51 GMT -6
So, I'm pretty sure that every musician has their own "studio" now and if they don't, they will. Owning a couple low-mid level mics and a macbook and some interface with integrated preamps between 2-8 inputs and put in a spare bedroom is now the official definition of a studio. It's settled. No debate. I'm also sick to death of every musician going online and reading all the armchair engineer shit and then reading right over the years of dedication it takes to try to run a decent studio and only taking away that others make it look easy, so it should be easy. A guy came to my studio yesterday. he came along with the band I'm recording because they needed someone with a higher voice that could sing some harmonies. Fine. Whatever. Dude can belt it out. Anyway, he's eager to impress and above all I can tell he wants something from me. He keeps hovering around and trying to get into every conversation. About a hour into the session he's taking a break while another sings. He finally works up the courage to ask me.. "Hey man, I want to build a studio, can I pay you to help me build it and then build me some gear? I follow your studio on Facebook and I want to make one just like yours!" Being in no mood for this bullshit, I turn and immediate snap at him.. "Dude, why would I do that? If I did that for every person that asks me to do that, I'd be out of customers and out of fucking business." The truth is that I've helped 3 people build personal studios and they've turned around and gone commercial with them, each one taking potential customers away from me, and I helped that happen. Imagine how sick that makes me feel.. Anyway, dude thought I was joking. He laughed it off. I told him I wasn't. He then turned around and said that he'd pay me to make a list of gear he should go buy. Blood boiling, so I ignore him and his request. I just go back to giving direction to the person at the mic. Stuff like this is just unbelievable. Anyway, that's just the latest in another string of networking with bands where 80% of them tell me that they don't want to come to my studio since they "have their own studio where they record themselves and their friends". I'm getting so sick of it all again. My mixing is getting better by the day but the client base is thin, lackluster and unwilling to pay real money and it's only getting worse by the day. I've been doing this project where I'm re-writing some songs, doing demos here at the house and then we're going in and cutting them in the studio with musicians. So - one of the chicks I used on one of the demos is a really good singer that I knew when she lived here in Nashville. She was in town, so I just happened to use her on the song. Well, they loved her voice...the problem is, she doesn't live here. So I had to farm the vocal out to her and she apparently bought the local Fullsail student dinner. Good Lord...it was a nightmare. I was using her on a song that she hadn't heard, so I sent them separate tracks and vocal files. Both zero'd out so they could be lined up. So they do the recording and send me a rough. The vocal is completely off. Like 2 bars and several milliseconds. Out of time...I'm completely flummoxed, but I'm thinking, ok - somehow it just got moved over in the bounce or something. I have them send me the file to see if I can line it up...I can't. Long story short, I assume this guy didn't line the track and vocal up to zero and she just sang exactly what was on the guide vocal - even though it was completely out of time. Seriously, you should hear it. They also sent me stereo files and after I asked for mono, I got, "Do you happen to know how to bounce to mono in Ableton?" I had her sing it again and she did it right...but jeesh. It wasted two days of my time. I will say this, though...shockingly, the recording wasn't that bad. |
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Post by svart on Dec 7, 2014 20:47:50 GMT -6
So, I'm pretty sure that every musician has their own "studio" now and if they don't, they will. Owning a couple low-mid level mics and a macbook and some interface with integrated preamps between 2-8 inputs and put in a spare bedroom is now the official definition of a studio. It's settled. No debate. I'm also sick to death of every musician going online and reading all the armchair engineer shit and then reading right over the years of dedication it takes to try to run a decent studio and only taking away that others make it look easy, so it should be easy. A guy came to my studio yesterday. he came along with the band I'm recording because they needed someone with a higher voice that could sing some harmonies. Fine. Whatever. Dude can belt it out. Anyway, he's eager to impress and above all I can tell he wants something from me. He keeps hovering around and trying to get into every conversation. About a hour into the session he's taking a break while another sings. He finally works up the courage to ask me.. "Hey man, I want to build a studio, can I pay you to help me build it and then build me some gear? I follow your studio on Facebook and I want to make one just like yours!" Being in no mood for this bullshit, I turn and immediate snap at him.. "Dude, why would I do that? If I did that for every person that asks me to do that, I'd be out of customers and out of fucking business." The truth is that I've helped 3 people build personal studios and they've turned around and gone commercial with them, each one taking potential customers away from me, and I helped that happen. Imagine how sick that makes me feel.. Anyway, dude thought I was joking. He laughed it off. I told him I wasn't. He then turned around and said that he'd pay me to make a list of gear he should go buy. Blood boiling, so I ignore him and his request. I just go back to giving direction to the person at the mic. Stuff like this is just unbelievable. Anyway, that's just the latest in another string of networking with bands where 80% of them tell me that they don't want to come to my studio since they "have their own studio where they record themselves and their friends". I'm getting so sick of it all again. My mixing is getting better by the day but the client base is thin, lackluster and unwilling to pay real money and it's only getting worse by the day. I've been doing this project where I'm re-writing some songs, doing demos here at the house and then we're going in and cutting them in the studio with musicians. So - one of the chicks I used on one of the demos is a really good singer that I knew when she lived here in Nashville. She was in town, so I just happened to use her on the song. Well, they loved her voice...the problem is, she doesn't live here. So I had to farm the vocal out to her and she apparently bought the local Fullsail student dinner. Good Lord...it was a nightmare. I was using her on a song that she hadn't heard, so I sent them separate tracks and vocal files. Both zero'd out so they could be lined up. So they do the recording and send me a rough. The vocal is completely off. Like 2 bars and several milliseconds. Out of time...I'm completely flummoxed, but I'm thinking, ok - somehow it just got moved over in the bounce or something. I have them send me the file to see if I can line it up...I can't. Long story short, I assume this guy didn't line the track and vocal up to zero and she just sang exactly what was on the guide vocal - even though it was completely out of time. Seriously, you should hear it. They also sent me stereo files and after I asked for mono, I got, "Do you happen to know how to bounce to mono in Ableton?" I had her sing it again and she did it right...but jeesh. It wasted two days of my time. I will say this, though...shockingly, the recording wasn't that bad. Occasionally I get external files from clients.. Most of the time I have to figure out what program they are using, then send them instructions I find online about how to use their DAW to do file consolidation, or else I'll get a folder full of little bits of takes and stuff where they've destructively trimmed/cut their audio while editing. It sounds like they either didn't line it up or the latency of the system they used (or how they used it) caused it to be off. One of the most prevalent problems I have is that artists will play freestyle and then go back and try to use a click for other things, OR they'll play slightly out of tune. Because they are so in love with what they are doing, they can't hear that it's all over the place. Most of the time they do this thinking that they'll save time and money by trying to do as much as possible before coming to the studio. It's very rare that we don't end up re-recording those tracks once they hear how awful it is with everything else. |
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Post by Johnkenn on Dec 8, 2014 9:43:29 GMT -6
It's the arrogance of youth that surprises me...They know it all. I would say it's mostly insecurity, really...but I swear, I was humble and willing to learn when I was coming up.
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Post by svart on Dec 8, 2014 10:28:52 GMT -6
It's the arrogance of youth that surprises me...They know it all. I would say it's mostly insecurity, really...but I swear, I was humble and willing to learn when I was coming up. I wasn't. I was certainly one of those "damnit I'm going to do it myself" people. Looking back, I wasted so much time and money on it. I really wish I could have just gone to a big studio and learned from a professional instead of pretending I knew what I was doing. Unfortunately it's impossible to convince people to do that, even when I tell them my story. I usually get the "where you failed, I'll succeed" type of retort. Anyway, couple that with the ease getting cheap gear and just about every single musician I come across does some kind of self recording these days. Only a few recognize that they are unprepared or unequipped to record themselves with any justice. The rest of them who don't record themselves think they know how, but are just too lazy to try. I rarely get folks into the studio who will say that they aren't interested in recording themselves at all. |
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Post by Johnkenn on Dec 8, 2014 10:57:13 GMT -6
Actually, I started recording because I was tired of the wham bam thank you ma'am attitude of all the studios...get 'em in and out. Plus, other people didn't seem to care about the product nearly as much as I did. I guess too, though, I'm mixing in the whole writing thing too. Man, the confidence from all these young dudes with affliction t-shirts and leather wrist bands is amazing.
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Post by unit7 on Dec 8, 2014 11:16:20 GMT -6
Man, the confidence from all these young dudes with affliction t-shirts and leather wrist bands is amazing.  Spot on! |
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Post by tonycamphd on Dec 8, 2014 12:12:58 GMT -6
I was one of those young brazin pricks lol, I walked into a broken down studio in Socal by chance in 1992, the owner of the complex had me there doing some work, he told me the tweaker hell story of the people that occupied/destroyed the studio a couple years earlier, it had been abandoned for about that long, he asked me if i knew anyone who could figure the place out, and fix it? and i said "I just grad'd music college for audio engineering, my dads got an awesome set of tools, I can fix it... I can fix it"  (i actually went to the Grove school of Music in hollyweird Ca as a percussionist, dickgrove.com/wd/t/httpdocs/contact/Dick_grove_credits1.htm ) So i gathered up some of my close buddies, and made it happened, i signed a 5 year lease, and rebuilt the studio(big time redo, i worked ownership of all the gear into the deal, as it was all busted to shit! It's where i almost learned electronics originally, i probably have learned about as much as a student taking a month of electronics courses since then lol). My biggest regrets are selling a crappy 16 track 2" ampex MM1200 tape machine, and trading a 1/2" 2 track ampex AG440 machine for a AKG414 TLll, but i also picked up a 1972 Jazz bass for $100, and some other cool gear i still have today! I really knew hardly anything about recording, I moved into(literally lived in) the place, i bought books, and ordered all the back issues of mixmag, home recording, and any other mag i could find, and just was determined to make it work, and i did(i'm exhausted just writing this 8) I struggled through some early sessions with bad results, then I gave Ben Moore run of the place (switchfoot AE amongst many others), as an engineer, he was 19 years old or so and knew a ton of shit for a kidd, he was a godsend at that time, i figured out quickly that i hated recording shitty bands lol, i mainly did it because i wanted to record my own shit, which i never did, fast forward to today, i'm building this place to record my own shit lol! Fuck me 8) |
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Post by popmann on Dec 8, 2014 19:50:33 GMT -6
I was gonna chime in with a smart ass "everyone but Tony, you mean?" ....but he beat me to it.  |
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Post by platinum on Dec 8, 2014 23:33:05 GMT -6
I'm sorry to read of your troubles. It's such a hard issue to navigate well too; on one hand work is work and you can't turn away clients unless you're really lucky and; on the other hand if you are forced to mix horrible productions, your portfolio/reputation can suffer. I'd be tempted (being a musician) to re-do the performances with real gear and charge them session musician rates for it They probably won't come back, but at least your reputation gains a few points. |
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Post by M57 on Dec 9, 2014 6:31:19 GMT -6
I can see your point in this thread, but the small market recording artist don't have many choices either, so they gradually build their own studios. And then there's the hobbyist - and at the risk of getting yanked off the stage, I'll put myself in that category. I have no interest in marketing - I'm not looking to rent out my services or my space, etc. I have little regard for an industry that screws the little guy, so I fly mostly off the radar. I doubt I'm an anomaly. There are and will be even more like me because the 'home studio' is becoming more and more affordable. On the software side, recording is dirt cheap. The only impediments to a good consistent recording are mostly on the front end. Get a good mic and a pre that plugs into your computer - mix-down on a nice set of headphones - and everything else is in the box. If I'm to believe what I'm reading on these very forums, emulation software is getting better and better even as it gets cheaper and cheaper. Even setting up a good sounding space is becoming easier. You can do the research on-line without having to ask someone for help in RL and risk insulting or infuriating them - that's what I'm doing. Anyway - it seems pretty clear what it is that most of you have that isn't included above. Knowledge and expertise. You know how and where to put the mics - what all those knobs do and how to use them to make the music sound better - not to mention how to manage a session. But there's no question, the quality margin is getting smaller. Assuming the quality of gear is logarithmically proportional to its cost (which is of course debatable), even those with low end equipment can make some pretty decent sounding recordings. That said, I think there will always be musicians who have little interest, or want to have little to do with the recording end of things - and then there are those who realize the extent of their abilities in the studio - and figure out (usually the hard way) how to use your services. And of course there will always be those who think they can walk on water ..and that is my goal. |
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Spot on!
(i actually went to the Grove school of Music in hollyweird Ca as a percussionist, 
