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Post by popmann on Jan 5, 2014 15:06:58 GMT -6
(mass produced quality) Cassette.
Vinyl.
AAC (or high rate mp3) sounds better on "typical" systems than either of those formats that enjoyed a couple of decades as primary release format. While I do wonder why there are not dual formats now...one for active listening and one for the convenience crowd...so long as we're selling files--24/88 and mp3 should both be made available. The same way vinyl sounded better than cassette, yet sold only like 15-20% by the 80s--the rest the indisputably sonically inferior cassette format. But, that's what so many people miss about the scenario--the DOMINANT format for decades was CASSETTE....AAC/mp3 kills cassette's fidelity. They forget that convenience has ALWAYS been king for a huge amount of the buying public. They've actually gotten an UPGRADE in fidelity AND convenience with compressed PCM. an mp3 sounds better AND they can have their whole "cassette box" in their phone. Hell, most people can now carry their entire music collection in their phone or little iThingy AND stream internet radio to it.
We as audio professionals and/or enthusiasts lack that perspective I think. Often younger folks who grew up with only CD...then mp3...thus less lossy to more lossy...lack the panned back perspective.
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Post by Johnkenn on Jan 5, 2014 15:21:24 GMT -6
The project/home studios have really taken off mainly because in this day and age, people feel that they can achieve good results with cheap gear, and feel that buying their own gear is a reasonable option to spending that money on someone who knows how to actually record using good gear. Mainly this has come about due to Ipods and MP3s that decimate the sound to mush so that the span between well-done recordings and noisy crap is not able to be discerned. That and the misplaced pride most artists feel when recording themselves. And the sheer number of cowboys on the scene too. I know many guys with much better gear, spaces and a higher budget who get objectively worse results than what I can do with my portable rig. Not because I'm hot shit - I'm not - but these guys are a joke when it comes to getting the Recording, Mixing and Production processes to gel towards anything goal other than them getting paid and looking good while doing it. Mostly because they're self important douche bags and they put themselves above their clients. And secondly there's such a blood lust that artists are recording songs before they've gigged them - or even know what gigging a song means - because of pressures within the creative community. What you then have is a totally destructive cycle and it's poison in the well, whether the artists are pop based or not. On a side: if you think less-than-audiophile DAC's and Lossy Compression are ruining music, that's totally whack. Gramophones? How lossy can you get!? Well, I know for me, recording at home offered two big advantages. 1) Money 2) Time I couldn't afford to go in and spend the time it took to get things right. These days, though, things are cheap as hell. I was just figuring out how much a new demo session was going to cost me...and if I record 5 songs in 3 hours, I can come in around $350 a song. That's with Five A-team musicians, first class pro studio and minimal cartage...Then, I can record all vocals and mix at home. If I co-write the song, that cuts the bill in half. That's cheap as SHIT...and honestly, worth it so I don't have to play it myself and be unhappy with my skills. |
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Post by svart on Jan 6, 2014 8:40:07 GMT -6
The project/home studios have really taken off mainly because in this day and age, people feel that they can achieve good results with cheap gear, and feel that buying their own gear is a reasonable option to spending that money on someone who knows how to actually record using good gear. Mainly this has come about due to Ipods and MP3s that decimate the sound to mush so that the span between well-done recordings and noisy crap is not able to be discerned. That and the misplaced pride most artists feel when recording themselves. And the sheer number of cowboys on the scene too. I know many guys with much better gear, spaces and a higher budget who get objectively worse results than what I can do with my portable rig. Not because I'm hot shit - I'm not - but these guys are a joke when it comes to getting the Recording, Mixing and Production processes to gel towards anything goal other than them getting paid and looking good while doing it. Mostly because they're self important douche bags and they put themselves above their clients. And secondly there's such a blood lust that artists are recording songs before they've gigged them - or even know what gigging a song means - because of pressures within the creative community. What you then have is a totally destructive cycle and it's poison in the well, whether the artists are pop based or not. On a side: if you think less-than-audiophile DAC's and Lossy Compression are ruining music, that's totally whack. Gramophones? How lossy can you get!? I think you missed my point.. Cheap gear isn't necessarily ruining music, it's the access to the cheap gear that ruins the music. I see it like this.. When Johnny Music writes his song, he puts all his heart and soul into it. Momma said he "sang like an angel", so it must be true, right? So when Johnny Music saves some money while working as a bartender, he has a choice to make regarding his money. He can go to a nice studio and record 2 songs with the amount of money he has saved, or he can go to Guitar Center and buy a mic, a computer interface, cables, etc. 20 years ago, there wasn't a choice because there wasn't a bunch of cheap gear laying around at a store that is designed to take advantage of people's egos. You had to go to the studio. You had to practice. You had professionals who could help you make things sound good. You had to make it sound good or else you just wasted your money and went nowhere. Now, a person can go to the store and buy a "studio"-in-a-box and go home and just piece a song together with minimal practice, minimal help, and absolutely no effort involved... And the product shows this. Now, because Johnny Music grew up hearing that he had a "voice of an angel" from Momma Music, no amount of criticism is going to drive him to be better, and because he's not working with a producer or other band members who might help him realize that he's not nearly as good as he thinks he is, he's now set up for failure. All because he has absolutely no reference to the real world other than his opinion of what others sound like. There are no objective parties involved to tell him that his performance sucks, and that even though he followed all of those YouTube videos on "How to mix like a pro in 10 easy steps", his recording sounds like shit. But he doesn't want to know that. He wants to hear that it sounds just like a top-10 recording, and he's just going to dismiss anyone who says otherwise as "not knowing what they are talking about". That's just part of how the music gets worse, and I see it every day. Bands hand me demo material. It sounds AWFUL, yet they say things like "My brother's best friend recorded that and it sounds great. We are thinking about getting that Protools thing too, so why should we come to your studio and spend money?" And when you tell them that Protools is just software and that they actually need to know how to use it... The reply is almost always "My brother's best friend just used all the presets and it sounds just like (insert radio star here)!!!!!!!!!!!!! Besides, we've never heard of Neve or SSL before, they must not be as good as Protools, so why would we come there if you don't have gear as good as my brother's best friend?" Secondly, people ALWAYS think they are, or will be, the one who makes cheap gear sound good. Guess what? It doesn't happen. It took ME a long time to realize this too. I was as guilty as anyone else thinking that I could buy some piece of cheap gear that was going to fool the system and make me sound like a pro, from an amateur budget. Newsflash: IT DOESN'T HAPPEN. I've heard so many bands and artists over the years who buy into the sales and marketing hype around cheap gear. The sales and marketing hype is designed to stroke egos and make people feel like they are getting a steal when they buy the gear. All of those advertisements have some kind of endorsement from a big-name engineer, or some catchy phrase, or something else that is designed to make the person feel like that product is going to be the defining object that they have been missing in their gear... The one that will make them sound professional. Of course, this is designed to keep the artist from thinking about performance, song writing, etc. It's designed to make them think that buying gear is the way to a professional sound.. So when they don't quite get there, they decide to buy more gear. GEAR ACQUISITION SYNDROME.. For example.. when buying 10 cheap mics over the years, modifying them, etc, when you could have just spent the same amount of money on one good mic and been done.. Why do people do that? Because EGO says that they'll be The One to put together a mic for 100$ that will (insert amazingly desperate adjective here) the 2000$ mic that they really want. It ain't gonna happen. |
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Post by kevinnyc on Jan 6, 2014 10:21:14 GMT -6
Good can be a subjective experience and analysis. I believe I can make an sm57 sound good.....but I'd prefer to use my U87  |
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Post by kevinnyc on Jan 6, 2014 10:40:49 GMT -6
I'm sure everyone has one of these stories as well.....
250 years ago when in college the band I was in won a battle of the bands. The prize included recording one of our songs at the local pro studio on 24 track 2" tape.
Of course we had demoed all our songs on our 4 track cassette recorder in the barn we rehearsed in....
Low and behold when it was all said and done our 4 track demos trounced the pro recording.....by a significant margin.
The barn had huge ceilings and drums sounded ridiculously good.....and we had minimal recording skills.
We got lucky and we put our heads together to get it as good as we could with what we had....
So, while I'd always prefer to use higher quality gear it's clear there are other factors always in play....
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Post by svart on Jan 6, 2014 10:51:40 GMT -6
I'm sure everyone has one of these stories as well..... 250 years ago when in college the band I was in won a battle of the bands. The prize included recording one of our songs at the local pro studio on 24 track 2" tape. Of course we had demoed all our songs on our 4 track cassette recorder in the barn we rehearsed in.... Low and behold when it was all said and done our 4 track demos trounced the pro recording.....by a significant margin. The barn had huge ceilings and drums sounded ridiculously good.....and we had minimal recording skills. We got lucky and we put our heads together to get it as good as we could with what we had.... So, while I'd always prefer to use higher quality gear it's clear there are other factors always in play.... But that's kinda my point.. that's your opinion... I'm sure the person running the studio thought otherwise, and I'm sure that others might have thought otherwise as well but probably didn't say anything because it's a battle not worth fighting for most people. "Hey, does this recording we did in a barn sound great, or what??" to which someone might answer the loaded question: "yeah, sounds... uh fine". You speak pridefully of recording on a 4track in a barn.. That says a lot about the uphill battle anyone would have to face to try to match the level of expectation you have set for anyone else who is working with your art. Not trying to rag on you or anything, it's just you've kinda made an example of what I was talking about. |
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Post by kevinnyc on Jan 6, 2014 11:22:07 GMT -6
Interesting. So your point is that the guy with the better gear's opinion is more valid?
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Post by kevinnyc on Jan 6, 2014 11:34:26 GMT -6
You also seem to have some mystical knowledge of what other people's opinions were that somehow remained silent. Lol.
I didn't speak "pridefully" of recording in a barn....it's what we had to work with at the time....and we made the best if it.
We couldn't have been more psyched to record in a real studio. I've conceded we probably got lucky that the space we rehearsed in sounded phenomenal. We were clearly comfortable in our space and got a better vibe during the performance than (in this case anyway) with a know-it-all engineer who clearly didn't.
I'm all for great gear and it's why I've accumulated lots of gear by Manley, some Neumanns and my trusty old ISA 215.
However, I find your exclamation that you can't make good recordings on cheaper gear simply untrue.
My pointing out that many other factors are involved....including the physical space, the comfort of the musicians, or that it may be the Indian at least as much as the arrow has you quite defensive. I find that interesting.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2014 11:43:56 GMT -6
From recent experience I can add to this thread. Beware singer songwriters who have discovered presets such as "large acoustic guitar" and "add sparkle" on stock Avid plugs.
F**kin nightmare!
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Post by svart on Jan 6, 2014 15:56:24 GMT -6
You also seem to have some mystical knowledge of what other people's opinions were that somehow remained silent. Lol. I didn't speak "pridefully" of recording in a barn....it's what we had to work with at the time....and we made the best if it. We couldn't have been more psyched to record in a real studio. I've conceded we probably got lucky that the space we rehearsed in sounded phenomenal. We were clearly comfortable in our space and got a better vibe during the performance than (in this case anyway) with a know-it-all engineer who clearly didn't. I'm all for great gear and it's why I've accumulated lots of gear by Manley, some Neumanns and my trusty old ISA 215. However, I find your exclamation that you can't make good recordings on cheaper gear simply untrue. My pointing out that many other factors are involved....including the physical space, the comfort of the musicians, or that it may be the Indian at least as much as the arrow has you quite defensive. I find that interesting. Actually, your words do portray a prideful opinion of your recording. You used an overly descriptive and subjective word like "trounced", which is above and beyond a normal descriptive word choice.. Choices of wording can mean more than the words themselves sometimes.. Anyway, I deal with this kind of stuff all the time. And yes, it's defensive. As someone who has to essentially market and sell myself to potential clients, I've found myself having to do more and more convincing artists why an investment in going to a studio is a good thing. It's a grueling and tiring thing to do when all you really want to do is record music and meet cool people. Usually in retort from the artists, I constantly get stories about how someone's 4 track recordings beat 800$-a-day top-of-the-line studios full of awesome equipment(and yeah, that's not my studio). I mean I get these stories ALL THE TIME. Most of the time it's simply not true, though. I listen to these 4 track recordings and the pro studio recordings and the argument is almost never for the 4 track recordings in my opinion. Yeah, the "pro" recordings can range from radio ready to "blah", but it's almost always better in most cases. It's just that people don't get the subconscious self-satisfaction of recording themselves when they go to a studio, and then all they see is money leaving their bank accounts, which has a negative reaction for most poor musicians. So two strikes against going to studios. The third strike (IMHO) is almost always because the bands don't have a clear idea of what they want to produce. They have a demo recording, which they are proud of due to the sweat equity, and they get used to that sound as "their sound". Anything else after that is different and is almost always seen as inferior, mainly because it's not "their sound". So the last strike is that the band isn't communicating with the engineer to get what they want, because they don't know what they want. Get it? I don't know your specific case, so I apologize if I came off as criticizing or anything like that. It's just that most of the artists have this "sweat equity" in their personal home recordings, or in other words, they have an emotional investment that is biased towards their own work and almost nothing will convince them otherwise. And in closing, I never said that people can't make decent recordings with cheap gear, I just think that the gear sets the precedent for the type of recording that will be made. There are too many artists that ride over to the store, get a studio in a box and then crank out crap, because they have a mistaken belief that just putting things out there will bring prosperity. Because of the ease of obtaining cheap gear and not having to be "studio ready", they no longer practice and hone their music. They just hit record and play until they get a decent section, cut/paste and then move on. Case-in-point.. I recently worked with a guitarist.. Before he came, I asked what kind of guitar and amp he used. He told me. I thought it was a decent pairing and said "OK". He showed up to record with NOTHING. I'm like "where's your gear?" He's like "I'll just play one of your guitars and we'll go DI and then just use an amp plugin, right? That's what I do at home and it sounds fine" We then proceeded to fumble through the songs recording section by section because he hadn't actually rehearsed the parts.. |
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Post by jazznoise on Jan 6, 2014 16:32:07 GMT -6
Yeah I sort of take exception to this too. It seems like things are only subjective when the "Pro" might be wrong. I've said it already - but the industry is full of hacks and cowboys. There's many people running facilities of various budgets putting out poor products. In particular I'm aware of one group who worked with a local bigwig engineer using an extremely shmancy rig in a very nice venue who made a lemon of a recording. It was objectionably bad - but everyone involved was so damn cool that turning down the product would have been unacceptable on a social level. The point about ego you made earlier is a valid one too - but with one contention: everyone is under the influence of hype. All the time. The idea of a pro engineer or any form of musically trained outsider is to provide fresh perspective. They haven't been listening to everyone blow air up the clients ass, and they haven't been scrutinizing whatever media buzz the client seems to think is the secret to getting big either. They're there to make everyone take a deep breath and really listen - not judging, not comparing to peers, not just think about their bits and mistakes, just listen - and think about the music and what it is and what else it could be. |
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Post by Guitar on Jan 6, 2014 16:54:57 GMT -6
I think that collaboration with competent other people is hugely important for the general formula of success.
I don't think it's as simple as "that studio downtown with the big room, good gear, and hourly rate is the guy or girl who holds the key."
There are lots of people with various different kinds of talent related to music, playing, producing, and recording, and not all of them are physically or economically established, per se.
Assembling a group with a high level of talent, and all the basic requirements of gear and technique met, is a good recipe for getting results on tape.
Trying to do too much yourself, completely alone and aimless with no second person, is a pretty good way to suck.
..
I think the self-recording phenomenon is kind of interesting. You can't say that everyone who does it is an automatic failure. Generally the people who build up mic lockers and racks of recording gear are budding engineer and producer types that have an actual passion for the craft. And generally I've found they don't only record themselves, but also other people.
I have a lot of friends who do basic lo-fi demos of themselves, but they know without any hesitation that when it's time for a release, they rehearse their best songs, and go to me or somebody else who's been doing it more seriously for a while. Someone with at least a moderately professional skill set and gear set. I think the myth of the self-recording and self-defeating musician is a little overstated in some of these discussions. Most people are smart enough to hire help when they need it. But I haven't met these buffoons people are talking about, either. I know there are some real idiots out there. They suck at everything, though, not just music.
On the other hand, I've seen a few times a half and half scenario that is pretty ugly, that sounds like this thread. I know two or more bands who tracked all their own stuff very badly, then went to a professional mixer to do the mixing and mastering, thinking they could provide the magic touch, and the results are pretty disappointing. I wish I could have said to them in some time machine, "You are not actually interested in engineering. You are a musician. Don't buy that expensive microphone and preamp to 'save time and money by doing it ourselves'." It was the half-assed approach that really crippled them. Maybe too much misplaced confidence? Maybe awful monitoring and sub-par equipment? I'm being harsh but these people really did screw up their records, they sound like a mess, from a sonic taste-testing perspective. There's a point where bad sound in tracking does take away from the songs and no amount of mixing or mastering can help. I don't think it's a coincidence, though, that a lot of poorly recorded music is just..poor music.
..
I think the last idea I have is that there are not too many tragedies in recording. As people kick the can around, go through the trials of gigging and writing, they will inevitably steer themselves upward or downward, in a very natural process. I think that the people who are truly approaching greatness are going to recognize it, and through their networking and feedback (music being an inherently social endeavor), will do things the right way, at the right time, with the right people. The magic studio guy, meet the magic band. And for the rest of us who keep screwing up, or missing the mark set by legends, low and mid-level recording seems pretty appropriate to me. And a lot more fun than it used to be.
My perspective is as a passionate hobbyist, lifetime artist, whatever, who has been paid to record other bands, sometimes in "real?" studios, but I and most everyone I've worked with are pretty far removed from the "industry." My peers that get paid through music on a regular basis are either teachers, players in working bands, or people that record like I do but more often. Everything I've ever been involved in has been pretty home-grown and predominantly locally-distributed for the most part. I like reading about this other world of money and profiteering--it's fascinating.
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Post by Guitar on Jan 6, 2014 17:04:25 GMT -6
Yeah I sort of take exception to this too. It seems like things are only subjective when the "Pro" might be wrong. I've said it already - but the industry is full of hacks and cowboys. There's many people running facilities of various budgets putting out poor products. In particular I'm aware of one group who worked with a local bigwig engineer using an extremely shmancy rig in a very nice venue who made a lemon of a recording. It was objectionably bad - but everyone involved was so damn cool that turning down the product would have been unacceptable on a social level. The point about ego you made earlier is a valid one too - but with one contention: everyone is under the influence of hype. All the time. The idea of a pro engineer or any form of musically trained outsider is to provide fresh perspective. They haven't been listening to everyone blow air up the clients ass, and they haven't been scrutinizing whatever media buzz the client seems to think is the secret to getting big either. They're there to make everyone take a deep breath and really listen - not judging, not comparing to peers, not just think about their bits and mistakes, just listen - and think about the music and what it is and what else it could be. I love that Zen approach. Forget all the ego and hype. Here we are together, in this musical "church," let's really put some love into this thing, shutting out the outside world for a moment, and meditating on these sounds. I think that's the perfect producer/band relationship. Act like musicians. Get excited, use creativity and careful judgement. |
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Post by Guitar on Jan 6, 2014 17:25:48 GMT -6
I recently worked with a guitarist.. Before he came, I asked what kind of guitar and amp he used. He told me. I thought it was a decent pairing and said "OK". He showed up to record with NOTHING. I'm like "where's your gear?" He's like "I'll just play one of your guitars and we'll go DI and then just use an amp plugin, right? That's what I do at home and it sounds fine" We then proceeded to fumble through the songs recording section by section because he hadn't actually rehearsed the parts.. This is a well know phenomenon, even at the highest levels of music, and I have also experienced it a lot. I think it's best to try to be a communicator and share your wisdom in a gentle way without destroying the delicate musician's ego, so you can get the better results you know you can get, and still have a comfortable client without stepping on too many toes. I get so frustrated by drummers that insist on playing cracked cymbals and beat to shit or poorly tuned drum heads, over damped kick drums, guitarists with too much treble, bassists that shouldn't be playing at all, on instruments that are falling apart. It never ends. Sometimes you can trick people or work around them. Sometimes with enough gentle pressure they will cooperate. The guy who can't play is the worst one. At some point you have to stop working and send him home, in front of the whole band usually. It's humiliating. You can only pretend to do takes for so long before you just want to kill yourself. I think those are the most difficult moments in the recording game, long stretches of failure during tracking. I personally think mixing is pretty unglamorous and dry also, compared to writing and tracking. I love that story about Kurt Cobain where he said he was sure the amp sounded better with some of the tubes pulled out, refused to let the tech put them back in despite constant advice, so the tech secretly put the tubes back in and Kurt said "what did you do it sounds perfect" and he kept it a secret or something like that. There are so many stories like this in Tape Op interviews of rock stars making grotesque engineering-related mistakes and the producers having to compensate. Kurt also got Steve Albini to tape a bunch of U87s to the wall or something weird like that. Steve humored him. I wonder if any made the mix. |
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Post by svart on Jan 7, 2014 8:00:40 GMT -6
Yeah I sort of take exception to this too. It seems like things are only subjective when the "Pro" might be wrong. I've said it already - but the industry is full of hacks and cowboys. There's many people running facilities of various budgets putting out poor products. In particular I'm aware of one group who worked with a local bigwig engineer using an extremely shmancy rig in a very nice venue who made a lemon of a recording. It was objectionably bad - but everyone involved was so damn cool that turning down the product would have been unacceptable on a social level. The point about ego you made earlier is a valid one too - but with one contention: everyone is under the influence of hype. All the time. The idea of a pro engineer or any form of musically trained outsider is to provide fresh perspective. They haven't been listening to everyone blow air up the clients ass, and they haven't been scrutinizing whatever media buzz the client seems to think is the secret to getting big either. They're there to make everyone take a deep breath and really listen - not judging, not comparing to peers, not just think about their bits and mistakes, just listen - and think about the music and what it is and what else it could be. I love that Zen approach. Forget all the ego and hype. Here we are together, in this musical "church," let's really put some love into this thing, shutting out the outside world for a moment, and meditating on these sounds. I think that's the perfect producer/band relationship. Act like musicians. Get excited, use creativity and careful judgement. You know, I do try to make the studio a fun and exciting place. I tell jokes and humiliating stories about my past and generally run it by feeling out the people and trying to tailor the session to them. However, I also run a tight ship. Someone has to be the ringleader or NOTHING gets done. Maybe you guys have more focused musicians in your areas or something but unless I keep the atmosphere one of creativity and adhering to schedule, the artists are apt to sit around and talk about things rather than DO those things... And yes, I've had bands do this and then turn around and say "we aren't paying for today's session because we didn't do any recording". I don't show my frustration to the bands when the session is going roughly, because that'll kill the atmosphere. I just turn my ship back into the wind and keep sailing once something goes wrong. I make the best of it and all that. I'm just griping on this forum. |
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Post by kevinnyc on Jan 7, 2014 11:42:16 GMT -6
It seems to me that you could head these problems off at the pass with a conversation before your sessions begin.
I'd think it only need happen once before determining it wise to make your policies clear to your existing and potential clients.
Following that, it's clearly up to them how productive they choose to be with the time they're going to pay for.
I'd go as far as to say it's also in your and their best interest to hang out with them at a rehearsal to gauge how ready to record they are and what their work ethic/organizational structure is like....
Just curious, where are you located?
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Post by Guitar on Jan 8, 2014 14:44:43 GMT -6
A quick addendum to my longwinded post from earlier. I think it's just as easy for a "pro" to screw up a record as an "amateur." There are many famous albums I own that have great songs, but something went wrong in the production, mixing, or mastering that kind of just takes the power right out of the music. The latest example of this is the new Queens of the Stone Age LP "...Like Clockwork." Some of those songs are so brilliant, but the recording is so bunged up I don't even want to listen to them. Hardly want to hear them once, let alone many times after. I actually had to hear them live to realize how good they were. I guess this scenario is something of a recording tragedy, because albums like this sell in the thousands and tens of thousands, or whatever. The "volume wars" are part of this tragedy, to my ears. Some stuff seems to scrape by and sounds good n loud, but very often other stuff just comes out dead, decapitated.
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