Can someone explain to me how a professional music studio works?

S

stephensproject

New member
After a few days research I've pretty much got everything down in the home studio area. However, I would like to know more about how professional studios work. For this question I'm going to include pics of a specific studio I found on the internet:

Strange Weather Studio, New York -
http://https://imgur.com/a/Pk3e1

Now, here are the questions I have:

1. If someone could simple explain the huge mixing console and what it does. Do the instruments/mics/vocals/keyboards in the live room connect to the mixing console similar to that of an audio interface? And also, I think I read most of the knobs are for EQ, but why would you need so many on one mixer?

2. What are the big racks behind the mixing console? I'm not familiar at all with what those are... I think I read that they are limiters, compressors, mic pre-amps. What do all those do?

3. Where do you plug the microphones in from the live room? In a home studio you simply plug into the audio interface. In a studio like this, where would it plug into?

4. Where is the computer/DAW/MIDI keyboards? In a home studio, those are the three main components. However in this studio I don't see a computer with a DAW anywhere. It may be a dumb question but how would you even record or do anything without those two?
 
You've asked a HUGE question. Much of your confusion is because of technology changes in the music industry. In the 70s, these images would have been in the state of the art magazines, and the give away is the reel to reel machines in the room. Back then many mixers were built to have a section for inputs - big studios could have 56 or more input channels - so that's a lot of knobs. In general, there would be a gain control, then eq, then sends, then routing, then the faders. A few more buttons for the new-fangled automation systems that actually moved the faders. Then, you'd have another pile of input channels for the tape recorder returns - so 24, 32 or maybe 48 from two 24 track machines running in sync. The racks are full of exactly what you said. sound producing devices and sound processing devices. Most studios had racks full of patching - bays where you could route things. Some had mic patching but that wasn't hugely common, most patching being done from the individual mixer channels that came up on the patchy. Nowadays on a screen we can connect almost anything to anything. Back then, it was cables - hundreds of them! Computers/DAWs/MIDI keyboards are in modern studios. You had MIDI from Yamaha DX-7 days, but again, it wasn't till the late 80s that computers crept in numbers wise, and were dismissed as a fad by many.

The images here are from a very expensive, commercial studio. Back then, home recording was rarely professional. Nowadays, big studios are rare, and professional recording can be done in your bedroom. That studio would still be perfectly efficient, with a few small sized additions, but the costs of running that sized installation are what has closed thousands down all over the world. Look at the wonderful studio on the island of Montserrat - mega stars to ruin in not that many years. Look at the huge monitors, but no tiny check monitors. That shows that it doesn't work like modern studios. Auratones and NS-10s would suggest late 70s? I think NS-10 was 78 or 79. Their absence is a clue. The picture is also stage for the photo. day to day items have been tidied away. No sign in the racks of any small format stereo, just the big machine next to the MT. Patchbay could be behind the panel on the wall? Plenty of tube gear - really nice, but just ancient, by today's standards. Very nice though - but MEGA expensive at the time.
 
Hidden away in their collection of great antique equipment are two control room pictures that have ....... a screen, keyboard and mouse. Being a Brit, I have no idea about them, but their unique selling feature is analogue authenticity, as some of that kit is very rare. Looks like they're still making use of all that equipment - a studio for traditionalists. Also hidden away is some data that reveals Protools, with .....NS-10s!
 
1. Mic preamps, routing (to headphones, studio monitors, to/from multitrack tape, 2-track tape, effects), channel eq, levels, panning. Some consoles had onboard compression.

2. There are usually patch panels around the recording room wired to the control room. Typically there will be XLR mic sends and headphone returns on the panels.

3. This style of studio is from a time when they had actual humans to play actual instruments, so MIDI wasn't necessary. They record to tape. In that first picture you can see what appear to be tape decks, probably one multitrack and one 2-track, in the back right corner of the room. Computers were only available to governments and banks because they were giant and very expensive, and they weren't even capable of handling audio.
 
Now that I'm at a proper computer, I actually looked at the pictures...

That mixer really doesn't have many knobs compared to most of that size.

To put this studio into perspective for the person that has only used a DAW and interface:

Imagine every track in the DAW being a channel on the mixer.

Now, imagine every compressor, reverb, delay, etc... that you insert on a track being a separate physical unit that needs to be connected to the mixer with cables. If you are using a different reverb on the drums than you are on the vocals, you need two separate units to accomplish that. Each channel of compression is a separate unit in the rack (some units are two channel), so if you compress all 24 tracks, you need at least 12 two channel compressors and 48 patch cables.
 
Good points, also what you have to remember, every channel on the old boards were usually the same, learn one you knew them all. with the DAW age the big boards are pretty much obsolete. what 20 years ago would cost you hundreds of thousands or millions to do can be done now with a few thousand. I have a whole rack of outboard gear, a 48 channel console that is just collecting dust in storage. my setup now has the fraction of the foot print of my old stuff. as Rob said, imagine a physical knob or piece of outboard gear for everything in a DAW mixing console. :D
 
Sry to enter like this in this topic but i was wondering something too...
I heard somethign of finnished masters or mixes are recorded last time trough analog gear to get that real sound. Is this true or i'm confusing something?
Is analog ( real) equipment that much better from digital versions that we use in DAW_ s.
 
No, it's not necessarily "better". There is a different "feel" to something that's been recorded on tape. One of those elusive "warmth" things. Lots of modern stuff you hear on the radio and elsewhere has absolutely no analog equipment used. A lot of what you hear here has a lot of analog. Anything from outboard gear -- preamps, outboard effects, compressors, etc. to full on 2" tape setups are available to the home recordist if that's what you mean by "real". My Tascam 1800 is "real" gear, but I understand what you're asking.

It's not some special equipment with a "Sucks/Rocks" knob. Yeah, there's not a lot of people at home with SSL or Rupert Neve designed consoles, but there's a pretty wide range of what can be considered "home" recording...and all the equipment is "real." :)
 
BroKen_H said:
No, it's not necessarily "better". There is a different "feel" to something that's been recorded on tape. One of those elusive "warmth" things. Lots of modern stuff you hear on the radio and elsewhere has absolutely no analog equipment used. A lot of what you hear here has a lot of analog. Anything from outboard gear -- preamps, outboard effects, compressors, etc. to full on 2" tape setups are available to the home recordist if that's what you mean by "real". My Tascam 1800 is "real" gear, but I understand what you're asking.

It's not some special equipment with a "Sucks/Rocks" knob. Yeah, there's not a lot of people at home with SSL or Rupert Neve designed consoles, but there's a pretty wide range of what can be considered "home" recording...and all the equipment is "real." :)
Click to expand...

So when we are taking of real equipment is that means that old records 50" and 60" are recorded back in the past with setings on inputs only ? What i mean is did they set everythig and they recorded it that way with no alterations later on. Or the tracks are recorded clean and then they recorded again with eq and other sound changes to one master track?
 
No, in the 50s and 60s, recordings were almost exclusively recorded live. Very few during that time were recorded as we do today. Four track tape was HUGE (for the most part). Everything had to be played well, and retracks and dubs were not the norm. Lots of stuff was mixed down on the fly, and an audio engineer actually "rode" the faders. You set your effects (if any) and got what you got...Going into the late 60s and into the 70s, tape machines got big enough for 8 and 16 tracks, then later 32 and 64.

There's a certain magic to those early albums, because the artists had to be "on the money" with their performances...People today listen to Johnny Cash or original Beatles/Stones recordings from the mid 60s and don't realize what level of musicianship was there...although what they played may not be technically what other genres have given us over the decades since, there was a pure artform that was those early recordings...
 
Google "mowtown studio a" and take a look at how small a space that room that produced 100s of hits was. A group of guys/gals walked into that room, set up instruments and mikes and did their very best. Then the tape was "mastered for vinyl" and sent to press.
Have a look at THIS LINK. If it doesn't answer some of your questions, maybe it will give you a better idea of what you're asking. :)
 
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