Guerilla Recording Podcast

pipelineaudio

Well-known member
I'm starting up a new podcast, mostly question and answer format, and hopefully dealing with the subject of guerrilla recording, but general recording, audio engineering and studio tech as well of course. Please post any questions you would like answered in ridiculous depth here or at the facebook group page http://www.facebook.com/groups/542840852426807/
 
So does guerrilla recording mean recording outside studio environments then? (i.e. making the best of minimal equipment in noisy, unpredictable locations?)
 
Yeah, or any sort of non traditional thing. One of the giant issues is monitoring, and knowing you can trust what you think you are getting to tape.

My definition: Guerrilla Recording is the practice and process of recording as is, where is, with whatever gear, budget and environment you have at your disposal. With the added caveat of ending up with a professional album.

Kind of building up a database here Guerrilla Recording » pipelineaudio.net
 
Yeah, or any sort of non traditional thing. One of the giant issues is monitoring, and knowing you can trust what you think you are getting to tape.

You should hook-up with the guy who wants to record his rapping in his BMW. ;)

Guerrilla Recording is the practice and process of recording as is, where is, with whatever gear, budget and environment you have at your disposal.

Well...that pretty much defines a lot of "Home Recording", and to some degree, "Location Recording" in out of the way places.

With the added caveat of ending up with a professional album.

That is the rub, and it begs the question then why the "guerrilla" approach...just to create the technical challange....?...or to be different for the artistic aesthetic...?...or just because current gear and technical capability is preventing anything more, and given a choice/opportunity, the preference would be a more elaborate "Hi-Fi" approach....?
 
That is the rub, and it begs the question then why the "guerrilla" approach...just to create the technical challange....?...or to be different for the artistic aesthetic...?...or just because current gear and technical capability is preventing anything more, and given a choice/opportunity, the preference would be a more elaborate "Hi-Fi" approach....?
I think the rub is that sometimes it feels like there has been an increasing movement in home recording towards the very kind of technical perfection and high endedness that caused home recording to take off in the first place.
 
Are you saying that home recording took off with a quest for perfection or lo-fi?

I think home recording from it's earliest beginnings was attempting to achieve the same end-result as one could in a pro environment. The whole "lo-fi" approach is a splinter of that, and was mostly driven by the inability of some home recording SOPs to achieve that perfection, and then from there it morphed into an intentional methodology.
 
The point isn't to create a technical hurdle, its the fact that budgets have shrunk to nothing and you have to be able to do whatever wherever with whatever. A lot of times its actually pretty good, like setting up quick in a church, but sometimes its sketchy, like doing guitars in a motel room.
 
Are you saying that home recording took off with a quest for perfection or lo-fi?
Neither.
I think home recording from it's earliest beginnings was attempting to achieve the same end-result as one could in a pro environment.
I think that was definitely a part of it but I think that there was more to it than that. Alot of people with day jobs still had the desire to record their own stuff and not just play live at weekends and that drove much of the home recording thing. Plus many full timers recorded demos at home and overall, there was the cost factor ~ 'proper' studios cost money. As recording equipment became more affordable, non pros could utilize some of the equipment that the pros used and the natural step from there was getting the same kind of quality that could be achieved in a pro environment. The manufacturers of gear were quick to seize on this hence what we see today with a vast scope in terms of quality. But remember, some pros got good results with some of the equipment that was at the lower end.
The whole "lo-fi" approach is a splinter of that, and was mostly driven by the inability of some home recording SOPs to achieve that perfection, and then from there it morphed into an intentional methodology.
I agree with this in part, but remember, what is now referred to as 'lo fi' existed long before home recording did. It was 'raw', 'edgy' and 'sparse' production. Alot of punk was like that. I think it's slightly sad that the inability to get good recordings was the foundation of so called lo fi.
But that's different to the guerilla approach. The Beatles were prime movers of this, utilizing cupboards, stairwells, cassette tapes, found sounds, boxes and packing crates as snares, plugging guitars straight into mixing desks etc, etc. That kind of thing {and before them, guys like Joe Meek coming out with amazing sounds from his studio in his Holloway Road flat with productions that were created in the most unorthodox way} is really what has driven guerilla recording, the mavericks that utilized their surroundings to help in the creation of great music.
I don't see it as better or worse. I have a natural affinity for it because it fits my circumstances. I tend to be one of those people that sees all of these various strands as valuable in their own right with overlaps between the two. I just notice that sometimes, the bar in 'home recording' is set too high and the pro world has shown that actually, there has long been varying quality between recordings.
'Professional quality' is an interesting phrase and concept because of that very disparity that has always been in recorded and released music.
 
I know what you mean by guerrilla recording. I love the approach. And the whole idea is to capture the moment, where ever the moment occurs.
 
I went to your link....but where's the "episode".....?

Looks like you're having fun with this, and that's cool...everyone should do what they enjoy. That said, your site IMHO, rather than bringing audio things into a focus, has the potential to just add more clutter to the already existing clutter of Internet audio info and wisdom.
I mean.....what are you going to do different that hasn't already been done countless times...and AFA actual audio info, are you just going to link to a bunch of other sites and/or simply repeat what's already been said a million times...?
So why would someone want to go to your site...just to get links to other sites where the info really is.....?.....I just don't get it.

Anyway, maybe it's way over my head and I don't see it....the excitement of a blog....but I find the whole blog thing rather boring....not yours specifically, but every site I've ever gone to that has a blog is a BORING site....and the blogs are BORING. It's like every blog looks like it was invented by Dr. Bogey (that's an inside joke, you have hang in the Cave to get it).
So...if you found a way to avoid that....it will be a first, so good luck with it. ::thumbs up:
 
It seems like you didn't actually go to my site. It isn't a content farm or blog at all. All the links on my site go *to my site* with a very few exceptions. There are tons of articles and downloads there *from my site* not links to externals of things like drum samples and impulses I made, including a free drum sampler.

I don't know what site you were looking at
 
I went to THIS link: http://pipelineaudio.net/articles/guerrilla-recording/

There's not much there.

AFA as the "podcast"...I hate to say it, but you won't get many people just listening to the narration.
This is the internet, there has to be visual content too...unless it's pure music.
A narrated podcast is just a blog without the reading...and equally as boring IMHO.....

I'm not just saying this to be mean...but if you're going to all the trouble of doing this, I think you need to consider who would want to use it. I mean, there is a TON of the same info in much better format already on the INternet that can be gotten with just a few Google searches...so that's your competition, not to mentoin the countless forums where there are other people to interact with.
Listening to someone tlak about audio and their experience would only work if the person talking was a major name in the industry, and even then, you wouldn't get a lot of people bothering to sit there at the computer and listen to talk.
 
Wow you guys are being uncharacteristically harsh. Here are a few random thoughts:

Podcasts are HUGE - people listen to them, on their iPods, while commuting to and from work in cars, trains, buses and autos

Blogs (Wordpress et al) are great content management systems. There is nothing inherently wrong with them. They can be a great tool for a musician.

Guerilla recording is quite different than regular home studio recording. Focus is on portability, ease of setup - etc. It's a total blast. My Guerilla rig consists of a MacBook Air, a Scarlett 2i2, an inexpensive dynamic mic and stand and a couple of older flips from craigslist. I use the flips because I record alone in public and I'm not as worried if someone runs up and steals a flip.

There are a lot of people interested in location recording. Maybe you aren't, but why go to such lengths to trash the whole thing, when you aren't even interested.
 
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