The Secret To Great Recordings

  • Thread starter Thread starter Todzilla
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You would be wrong. Again.

I made the statement that some recordings (there's that worrisome qualifier "some" that you seem to struggle with) do not take place within the confines of a room at all. Some of these recordings are quite good. I guess you're not experienced enough to know that? I don't think so, actually. You seem to have some command of the tech, I think.

BTW, that was a pretty weak assesment of my experience level. Care to try again, or are you unable to? Hint: Inablity to produce said assessment could mean you are wrong about something. An anathema, I know. Look at it as a growing experience. :laughings:
 
And as i said, the vast majority would say direct guitar is not preferrable to a miced amp in a good room. We can test this theiry at your decision with a poll on gearslutz, up for it?

lol @ gearslutz.


I would agree, DI guits are not preferable to a miced amp in a good room, in a very general sense. There are a shit load of qualifiers to every session. I tend to consider them before I decide what I'm going to go with. I don't have a "throw a mic on a cab" auto response...and I sure as fuck don't engineer a session by a gearslutz poll.:laughings:
 
You would be wrong. Again.

I made the statement that some recordings (there's that worrisome qualifier "some" that you seem to struggle with) do not take place within the confines of a room at all. Some of these recordings are quite good. I guess you're not experienced enough to know that? I don't think so, actually. You seem to have some command of the tech, I think.

No I'm not. the point you made was that SOME recordings were outside of rooms, as if to say that good rooms aren't needed for good recordings. Good rooms TRY TO BE INVISIBLE, as if you are not in a room. Now think about what your original point was and stop attempting to cloud the issue.
 
lol @ gearslutz.


I would agree, DI guits are not preferable to a miced amp in a good room, in a very general sense. There are a shit load of qualifiers to every session. I tend to consider them before I decide what I'm going to go with. I don't have a "throw a mic on a cab" auto response...and I sure as fuck don't engineer a session by a gearslutz poll.:laughings:

Thank you for admitting I am right, though you sure are bitter about it.
 
Great logic there Gregory, lol. I love how you get to the core of things, right on topic.

I already posted my thoughts and how I interpret yours. I guess you missed it or agree with me as you conveniently didn't respond. Let me paraphrase: I was right, I'm still right, and I'm getting righter, so the rest is just fun and games.
 
So sorry, the room is far and away more important because you aren't getting a good recording with those problems present and that's the bottom line, talent or not. I don't care if you are recording the beatles, put them in a small bedroom with no absorption, standing waves and bass build up that smears the low end and they would laugh you out of the neaighborhood because they would know you weren't recording anything that would be releasable in any pro's opinion.

And yet we have facts that refute that - "Yer blues" was recorded in a tiny equipment cupboard at Abbey Road studios with the whole band in there, no one worried about separation, bass trapping, absorption or reflection. There's bleed all over the gaff and on the last verse, Lennon sings into a deliberately dead mic - but it's picked up faintly by the other mics. And it's a blazing track - and it was released ! Sold 2 million in it's first week.
The reason I asked Todzilla what he meant when he said he got better recordings in shittier circumstances {he was emphasizing the importance of the players} was partly because I feel that we have become almost obsessed with things like "the room" and it feels like so much of the daring and willingness to experiment, that meant that bands might record in a glorified broom cupboard or a heftilly reverby stairwell in a stately home or a rooftop or the kind of thinking that inspired mobile studios to exist in the first place has not only gone, but is frowned on at any suggestion of a return. Whereas there was a time when there was a race on to see who could come up with different sounds and ways of recording things and pristine-ness be damned. And that's not living in the past or nostalgia. Until this thread and the song that Jeff 0633 posted, I'd never once tried to 'hear the room' in a recording. As a punter (that is, a listener first and foremost, before being a recorder) I'm too busy digging the song or not digging it. Sure, I'll notice certain production points now and again (often without realizing), but the room ? By the way, I liked the song posted. But I heard no room. I heard music. Some of it was very bright. But reverb can do that.
 
I genuinely couldn't care less how I appear to a scripted retard like you. You're not even debating. You're just regurgitating the same shit in every post. Flutter echoes, phase smearing, etc. You probably don't even know what the stuff actually is or what it really sounds like. Keep copying and pasting and I'll keep laughing at you. :laughings:

Another gem from the guy who doesn't need to make any sense with his arguments. I actually feel embarrassed for you. And here tey was trying to champion you as some intelligent person here. How pathetic.
 
No I'm not. the point you made was that SOME recordings were outside of rooms, as if to say that good rooms aren't needed for good recordings. Good rooms TRY TO BE INVISIBLE, as if you are not in a room. Now think about what your original point was and stop attempting to cloud the issue.

Earlier you made a statement about how you could hear a good room. Now, you can't cause it's invisible? Dude, please.

The mere existence of good recordings absent good rooms is ample proof that it's possible. However, I'm not taking the absolutionist stance that All good recordings do not need good rooms. Recordings will always benefit from a great room if the room is ever a factor. A direct feed from a sampler and synth do not need rooms. Great rooms are flexible, btw. I've worked in some fabulous rooms over the last couple of decades where the resident engineer could tweak the room to whatever characteristics were desired. To me, a flexible room is a great room...one that can be invisible when needed or one that can be bright with some early reflections if needed.
 
I listened to the song, no low end smear. You don't know that the room was bad. Show me a good recoirding with the low end smear and comb filtering as obvious. That's what several are claiming, that it can still be a good recording WITH THOSE elements in it. A BAD room does those things, or most of them. Show me a song where we can actually hear those things so that we know they were in a bad room, and then tell me how it's a good recording anyway.


And yet we have facts that refute that - "Yer blues" was recorded in a tiny equipment cupboard at Abbey Road studios with the whole band in there, no one worried about separation, bass trapping, absorption or reflection. There's bleed all over the gaff and on the last verse, Lennon sings into a deliberately dead mic - but it's picked up faintly by the other mics. And it's a blazing track - and it was released ! Sold 2 million in it's first week.
The reason I asked Todzilla what he meant when he said he got better recordings in shittier circumstances {he was emphasizing the importance of the players} was partly because I feel that we have become almost obsessed with things like "the room" and it feels like so much of the daring and willingness to experiment, that meant that bands might record in a glorified broom cupboard or a heftilly reverby stairwell in a stately home or a rooftop or the kind of thinking that inspired mobile studios to exist in the first place has not only gone, but is frowned on at any suggestion of a return. Whereas there was a time when there was a race on to see who could come up with different sounds and ways of recording things and pristine-ness be damned. And that's not living in the past or nostalgia. Until this thread and the song that Jeff 0633 posted, I'd never once tried to 'hear the room' in a recording. As a punter (that is, a listener first and foremost, before being a recorder) I'm too busy digging the song or not digging it. Sure, I'll notice certain production points now and again (often without realizing), but the room ? By the way, I liked the song posted. But I heard no room. I heard music. Some of it was very bright. But reverb can do that.
 
Another gem from the guy who doesn't need to make any sense with his arguments.

Hey, when in Rome........

Your "arguments" boil down to repeating the same copy and paste job over and over over with no flexibility, just hypocrisy. It's funny how you reply to the tone of a post but not the content. For example, you'll agree with one person, but disagree with another that says the same thing. :laughings: :laughings:
 
I listened to the song, no low end smear. You don't know that the room was bad. Show me a good recoirding with the low end smear and comb filtering as obvious. That's what several are claiming, that it can still be a good recording WITH THOSE elements in it. A BAD room does those things, or most of them. Show me a song where we can actually hear those things so that we know they were in a bad room, and then tell me how it's a good recording anyway.

That equipment closet must be an awesome room!

Or not.
 
BTW, that was a pretty weak assesment of my experience level. Care to try again, or are you unable to? Hint: Inablity to produce said assessment could mean you are wrong about something. An anathema, I know. Look at it as a growing experience. :laughings:

...................:laughings:
 
Here's where I put the Nomex suit on, but it seems to me there's a whole lot of recording going on these days not for the sake of the music, but for the sake of the recording itself.

It's all about the music - or at least it's supposed to be. It's not really about the recording. Sure, we want to make as good a recording as we can afford and muster, but if the music ain't there, the rest is meaningless.
For me, recording is simply a means to an end, I think ez Willis called mixing "a necessary evil" which I sort of can see the thrust of that, applied to the general process. That I happen to find recording enjoyable is kind of secondary. If it were possible to have everything magically recorded and mixed in an instant, I'd go for that ! So I could then just play. But it's like cooking. When I have to get the dinner on for the kids, in my mind I'm like "mutter, grumble..." - until I actually get up and do it. Then I enjoy it. But I'd rather it just appeared ! :D
 
"Earlier you made a statement about how you could hear a good room. Now, you can't cause it's invisible? Dude, please."

And here we have it again. When I said i heard the room, I obviously mean I hear what was recorded or the sound made in it with no problem frequencies, nothing interfering with what the sound actually is. The mere fact you could make this statement shows you don't understand much about what a good room is. You clearly don't understand that a good room attempts to be like a quiet outside. Yes, you can add reflection like a wood floor or whatever to add high end, but the fact that it would be controlled for a certain effect has little to do with uncontrolled low end frequency dips that cause poor bass definition and such. You don't get good recordings in bad rooms. You can get good msuicianship, good performances, good songs, but not good recordings.




The mere existence of good recordings absent good rooms is ample proof that it's possible. However, I'm not taking the absolutionist stance that All good recordings do not need good rooms. Recordings will always benefit from a great room if the room is ever a factor. A direct feed from a sampler and synth do not need rooms. Great rooms are flexible, btw. I've worked in some fabulous rooms over the last couple of decades where the resident engineer could tweak the room to whatever characteristics were desired. To me, a flexible room is a great room...one that can be invisible when needed or one that can be bright with some early reflections if needed.[/QUOTE]
 
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