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Old 02-27-2016, 10:22 AM   #2455
stevedcook
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 31
Default Progress is possible

Quote:
Originally Posted by FriedaCalor View Post
Yes, Yep it will not die. Thank you.

"finished is better than perfect"

My advice for bands - work quickly, put out as much product as you can, the time you will stay "vital" and/or be able to stand each other is finite and if you sit around waiting for the big deal to make the pristine record all you will do is slow down your creative process. What might be a brilliant initial concept will eventually turn into kitsch if you are successful so enjoy the process while you can, every bit of it. I did, and am also very glad that is not my life anymore.

The recording advice in this thread is solid, grounded, well-explained and fundamental for someone who wants to wear the hat of engineer.

I came from a Tascam 3440 in the 70s into the 1" Otari 8 track world to end up in the A&M and Capitol recording studios. The records I cut on the 4 track sound more like a band actually sounds than any of the 24 track work I did. The less limitations you have the less realistic the result will be.

Exploit that, you are now creating sonic landscapes, not "Kind of Blue".

I do disagree with the assertion that there are only 100 great recordings, if you delve into the classical music world there are hundreds there alone, maybe thousands. Most of the Deutsche Gramophone catalogue was recorded by amazing sound engineers who pioneered many audio principles and microphone techniques that are still used today. The same can be said of BBC, lot's of our recording science came from them. Columbia were no slouches as well. Get rid of Glenn Gould's humming? No plug-ins, just mic technique. Window editing? Sure we can do that.

This post reminded me of a few Boston centric things: I got to work with the great mixer Joe Chicarelli, who I believe was from there. Watching him dial it in was a treat. I also think the mastering engineer I used to work with at Capitol, Eddie Shreyer, was from there as well. I was bringing in a lot of 8 track work at the time and he told me he was rooting for us. Watching him do his thing was really cool, still have a bunch of reference disks (disks that were cut for me to approve the mastering that are 2 vinyl surfaces stuck to an aluminum core) that were cut right there in the mastering room. Bottom line - Boston sent some very good engineers to LA back in the day. Probably still do.

Eddie once took me in the Capitol tape repository which is in the basement (also where the mastering lab was) - 2" 3 track Sinatra masters, Beatles masters, it was like a dream.

Sorry to derail, maybe some can appreciate these tales. Glad I got to live it.

This is a great, demanding, sometimes tedious read. Well worth it. Thanks to Smurf as well for compiling it.

Enjoy the journey - Reaper is the bomb.

Finally I do miss the visceral aspect of a recording studio. Hardware effects that can be seen at all times, tape machine running, non-flying faders, etcetera. That was fun.

great stuff, FreidaCalor, I for one, enjoy tales of how it used to be. I never got the real studio experience outside of some radio broadcast control rooms and commercial production rooms.

Much like you, I came from the world of tape, and my initial forays involved bouncing tracks from cassette machine to cassette machine. Thanksfully, none of those tracks survived, but I did eventually move up to a Boss Micro BR digital 4 track...that was 5 years ago, and all I could produce was total ass. This link is representative. http://stevedcook.me/music/2011/sixth.mp3 . It's bad. SO bad...

Five years later, after having read this thread, and having undergone some serious rethinking of some musical/engineering/producing philosophies due to Yep's amazingly real-world and honest advice, along with tips and input from some other seriously talented people in this very thread, I've moved to here in my home recordings: http://stevedcook.me/music/theship.mp3 It's not great and there's still some ass-ness around the edges because I'm still learning, but what a great time I'm having doing it!

Just kind of wanted to maybe help some beginners out by reassuring them that, yes, it IS ok to be finished more than perfect. Just create. Keep creating. Never stop. And always enjoy what you're doing. If you don't, you might as well be punching a clock or killing your brain in front of the TV...
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