My experience in a "real" studio

Armistice

Son of Yoda
As a birthday gift, my girlfriend bought me two 5 hour blocks with engineer at a studio/rehearsal rooms complex nearby.

I rocked up on Sunday for the first of the sessions, and the following things occurred:

1. The engineer was late - had a drummer all set up in the studio at the time I was due to start - took about 35 minutes to break down drums, move all the stands, roll up all the leads etc (I was there to record acoustic guitar only)

2. They didn't have the ability to provide a click track (they were using ProTools) - luckily I had a drum machine on me so we recorded click tracks at various speeds for the songs

3. They used a KM84 and I think an AKG something or other in the distance - and went straight into a Spirit mixer, then into the PC - I was surprised they weren't using any outboard pres - I know nothing about the quality of the ones on the mixer

4. I was doing stuff which was to be accurately edited together by cutting and pasting - I realised afterwards that the engineer was quantizing the edits - going to the exact beat - meaning if I has slightly ahead of the beat, the note got chopped.

5. The engineer monitored at a low level, which meant I couldn't actually hear the effects of 4 until I got home with the comped WAV files - the monitors were NS10s which seemed to have zero bass response in them. I realise now I've some EQing to do to fix these tracks - too bassy/boomy

6. You could hear the bands rehearsing while you were in the studio - it was very low level, but when I do a "ringing chord" fadeout, as the level drops to its lowest level I can hear the other bands playing away - hopefully I can kill it with a rumble filter, but I don't know yet.

7. The engineer chopped off the tails of my "ringing chord" endings before the sound was completely gone - presume this was because he was monitoring at such a low level and couldn't hear.

8. The engineer took a phone call on his mobile while I was tracking, and left the control room with everything running - I had to go and retrieve him when it was over. This happened more than once.

9. The studio got hot, and playing fingerstyle acoustic, you want to be able to play well - I found it very difficult to play properly - the fingers just weren't slipping over the strings like they should have been, resulting in lots of mistakes and extra takes,

I have another session to go, in two week's time - won't be letting him do any editing, and will complain if I can hear the thump/crash of other bands in the studio.

Pathetic experience really, this isn't a studio at all, it's two rooms with some very average equipment and a staff who lack professionalism. Get what you pay for I guess - I can see I'll be buying the high end mics and doing it myself from this point on rather than try to do it this way - a "real" studio is too expensive for my hobbyist stuff.

Anyone else had bad experiences with these low level "studios"?
 
Does your GF know about this?

That would thoroughly piss me off. I'd at least demand the other half of the money back. Why torture yourself again?
 
That is a shame.... it's too bad when lack of professionalism rears it's ugly head.... I would complain about the service and insist on getting the rest of your money back.
 
Well, it is the thought that counts, after all . . .

I'd grin and bear it and tell your girlfriend everything went wonderfully. Remember, it's her gift to you, and if you complain about what a rotten experience it was, she might take it personally. Chicks do that.

Just thank her for the wonderful present, and make a mental note not to go back to that place again.

You can't assume that all studios are like that, btw. I've had rotten experiences with everything from restaurants with poor service to incompetent auto mechanics, but that certainly hasn't steered me towards fixing my own cars or, god forbid, taking up cooking. :D
 
Porter, no it wasn't JMF - I won't post who it was at this stage, but think Alexandria..

GF's fine with it - she knows nothing about music recording and knew that whatever happened, I'd learn heaps about all sorts of things, which I have.

I'll go back for the second session because at this stage, I can manage the process, knowing what will happen - and it's the quickest/cheapest way to get done what I need to do. I think I can rumble filter out the rumbles, but if I can't then I'll make a point of asking them to ensure that all the rehearsal rooms have both doors closed.

Chess - I know they're not all like this - it does tend to reinforce my long-held aversion to the music business though - a lot of unprofessional behaviour - everyone's real casual and cool - and the engineer was a really nice dude, but not a lot of professional behaviour going on. I have the same prob with music shops...
 
Arm,

Shoot me a PM with the name... I'm curious.

I was going to say if it was JMF, my cousin went there to record some tracks. A week later she came over to my house to reherse / record a rought take.. she said that my set up sounded better than the studio... even after she listened to it on her CD player which she listens to everything on.. if you want, I'll offer you the same if you wanted.. just to see how it sounded. I'm free Saturday if you are interested...

Porter
 
How much was he charging? All project studios have their drawbacks. I know my place gets hot because I have to turn off the AC while tracking and there are occasionally outside noise issues.

My guess is the session cost less than a chinese mic. Whether or not that is a good value is up to you. If you want constant AC and high quality gear in a sound proofed studio expect to pay around $50 US/hour.

The editing and no click track stuff is just lame though. Any moron who knows how to cut and paste can create a click track in a couple minutes.
 
How much was he charging? All project studios have their drawbacks. I know my place gets hot because I have to turn off the AC while tracking and there are occasionally outside noise issues.

My guess is the session cost less than a chinese mic. Whether or not that is a good value is up to you. If you want constant AC and high quality gear in a sound proofed studio expect to pay around $50 US/hour.

The editing and no click track stuff is just lame though. Any moron who knows how to cut and paste can create a click track in a couple minutes.
 
I haven't gotten that advanced yet . . .

I just go "click, click, click, click" with my mouth, or I'll tap a pencil or something in to the talkback mic.

They never know the difference.
 
Tex - yep, you're dead right about the cost. It cost $450 AUD - there's a whole heap of places in Sydney that do the "10 hrs + engineer for $450" bit.

To put that in perspective for non-Aussies, a Rode NT2 can be got for about $600AUD, an MXL603 for low $200s.

Ulitimately, despite all the issues, the "sound" is better than I can get at home, mainly because of the KM84, I suspect - that's why I'll go back for the other half - just disappointing.

I think a similar package at a better studio is probably $1000+ AUD.

If I could soundproof a room and buy decent mic(s), I'd do it all at home. The decent mics are on the cards, not much I can do about the soundproofing, though!
 
Trade off - time vs money!

Pro studios sound great, but cost so much relative to the time you can afford to be in them (hope that makes sense!).

At home, yes there are issues regarding sound quality, proofing, equipement, etc, but you do have 'unlimited' time.

Now given that time is THE most precious asset for any of us, it should be possible to produce some excellent recordings at home on a limited budget, but 'unlimited' time, shouldn't it?

I mean having sufficient time to get THE BEST from average equipment and time to experiment may be far more effective than having the best equipment available in a top studio, but insufficient time to get the best from it?

Let's look at the options...
So you go into a studio and spend $1-2,000. What do you end up with? Maybe a four song demo, very well recorded & mixed, but just a fixed four song demo, that's it. A couple of months down the line you decide you are writing much better stuff now and really wished you could get the new stuff recorded. But too late, the $2000 has gone. Now you wish you'd spent it on some equipment so that you could record the new stuff at home, but the money is spent and all you have to show for it is an out of date 4 track demo.

I know what I'd sooner spend my (very limited) money on - building up my own facilities so recording can be an ongoing thing.

Of course if money wasn't an issue I'd spend unlimited time in a pro-studio...but that isn't going to happen.
 
This thread reminds me of how I got lured into recording.

Back in '94 I did live mixing for a band while I was in college. Anyway, I went into the studio with them a couple of times and saw how much money they spent on recordings they were half pleased with. Mainly they would run out of time, trying to get their songs done. I already had some sound equipment for the live shows, so I told them I would invest some money in some recording gear if they would pay me (to cover equipment expense) instead of that studio. That was supposed to be a way they could record and not have to worry about time. The sad part of it all is that they broke up before we finished the project, and I was stuck with the unpaid equipment.

Looking back, I am amazed how little I knew about recording in general. I could do the live sound thing, but technical knowledge of recording was not in my world. I did not know what I didn't know. I suppose ignorance is bliss. Now that I have some years under my belt, I tend to be more anal and worry about things a bit more.
 
Re: Trade off - time vs money!

glynb said:
Let's look at the options...
So you go into a studio and spend $1-2,000. What do you end up with? Maybe a four song demo, very well recorded & mixed, but just a fixed four song demo, that's it. A couple of months down the line you decide you are writing much better stuff now and really wished you could get the new stuff recorded. But too late, the $2000 has gone. Now you wish you'd spent it on some equipment so that you could record the new stuff at home, but the money is spent and all you have to show for it is an out of date 4 track demo.

Time is crucial but if you think you can setup a good sounding home studio for $2k you are kidding yourself. The minimum to getting a good sound is around $5-10k and that is really just for tracking. A good mixing system and room is easily $10-20K. And that is still amatuer quality. A more realistic figure is around $50k for a modest studio.

If a musician has their shit together than tracking time can be minimal. There is no reason a tight band can't track 2-4 songs a day. The real time is in the mixing and the better designed and equipped studios will enable you to mix 2-4 songs a day and sound killer.

The only reasons you need a lot of time is when you don't know what you want to play or can't play it well or the room is bad for mixing and you have to do a lot of mix checks on other systems.

Lets look at your numbers again. If a decent studio can give you 4 songs for $2k then you could have 20 professionally produced songs for $10k within a year.

That $10k spent at home would barely yield you one professionally sounding song within two years if you are learning engineering from scratch.
 
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All of the difficulties associated with not having enough time to finish something up in the studio is very, very, avoidable. And it's a copout.

The secret is in something called pre-production.

I have another word for you, too. It's called rehearsal.

All the giggers should know what that word is. You get plenty of it when you're playing live, right, and hopefully in between gigs?


I just don't understand why someone would put themselves on any sort of time clock and not have a thorough plan in place, mapping out exactly what tracks they're doing and who's doing them, and what instruments/amps they're going to do them with. This is really where I think a home studio comes in use; use it to work all this crap out ahead of time, so you don't have to waste valuable time and money figuring it out when you get to the real studio.

And don't accept half-assed playing or technique out of anyone. Make sure everyone can play what they're supposed to play in one take, or tell them to go home and practice more before you actually book the studio time.
 
That $10k spent at home would barely yield you one professionally sounding song within two years if you are learning engineering from scratch.

Your absolutely correct Texas Killer, but I would like to insert a couple of thoughts.

Although I am generally unhappy with my final quality of songs, do to the limitations of equipment, space, money and most importantly experience, I find that using my own gear at home gives me other things that if I were to pay someone, I could not do.

First and for most, writing creativity. With my cheesy little analogue and digital set ups, I am only limited to my imagination. With Cakewalk or Cool Edit Pro, I can do what I want to music. Do my songs sound like shit, absolutely, but I’m getting better at tracking, recording and mixing everyday and I have no illusions as to the quality compared to the real guys. Plus, I have heard some very surprising quality in the Clinic on crap gear.

Second are time constraints. Being a working man, my time can get quite short. With equipment in my bedroom I can use it everyday, or once in a blue moon.


Food for thought.

Great post.


Sean
 
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