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"?
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"?