pipelineaudio
Well-known member
the recording gear itself tho DOES determine the absolute ceiling that the sound can aspire to. Of course, most will get nowhere near the ceiling of even crappy gear, and I guess that's the point
ALL cable sucks. ALL of it. So do all of the Preamps and Compressors.
skippy
New member
Re: Tchad Blake, a DAT, and a pair of SM57s: his skills are amazing. If you have a chance, get a copy of Tony Levin's "From The Caves of Iron Mountain", recorded by Blake. The entire thing was recorded live, one take, with a pair of small condenser mic capsules inserted directly into Blake's ear canals, straight to DAT. He basically converted *his own head* into a binaural head, and then spent the production walking around inside the cave as Levin, Steve Gorn, and Jerry Marotta played, changing the auditory viewpoint as they changed the feel of their improvisations. I'm listening to my copy now, in fact: Papa Bear Records PBDC2. Get it.
Minimal gear, maximal creativity. The music itself may or may not be your cup of tea (improvisational jazz with some very unusual instrumetation), but there's no guesswork as to the craftsmanship involved... It's marvelous to hear the ducks in the pond outside the cave, and have a perfect stereo soundfield to let you tell where they were at that instant with respect to the performers.
Chops are *everything*. No question, gear makes it easier, but a duffer with an SSL is very likely to produce a hissy, crunchy, not-quite-there product. Whereas a real pro with a Mackie will squeeze every bit of dynamic range out of his signal chain, optimize the gain structure to the limits of the art, and still make it damned good despite the gear. I'm a great believer in live (or nearly so) production, and minimalist gear and postprocessing. Blake can make it dance and sing with _nothing_. Amazing...
Minimal gear, maximal creativity. The music itself may or may not be your cup of tea (improvisational jazz with some very unusual instrumetation), but there's no guesswork as to the craftsmanship involved... It's marvelous to hear the ducks in the pond outside the cave, and have a perfect stereo soundfield to let you tell where they were at that instant with respect to the performers.
Chops are *everything*. No question, gear makes it easier, but a duffer with an SSL is very likely to produce a hissy, crunchy, not-quite-there product. Whereas a real pro with a Mackie will squeeze every bit of dynamic range out of his signal chain, optimize the gain structure to the limits of the art, and still make it damned good despite the gear. I'm a great believer in live (or nearly so) production, and minimalist gear and postprocessing. Blake can make it dance and sing with _nothing_. Amazing...
cavedog101
Well-known member
Skippy....got it. If you really 'know' yer stuff and play within the parameters of each and every devices abilities, you will produce a recording of some measure. The 'ease' comes with better gear coupled with experience. I posted earlier about needing a great assistant for work done on an SSL...while this is true, it is for me, only true in the mechanics of that system. It would have nothing to do with my abilities to 'hear' and deal with intricate parts of a mix or tracking.I know about mic placement because I've placed a couple million of em in my time. And I have the experiences of complete and utter experimentation in doing this very thing...Throw the book out and start over!! And this sort of thing has led to knowledge of tricks that work in most cases. Same with mixing.Having the run of a pro mid-level facility with enough toys to make records, and enough time to experiment has also brought me knowledge .Time is the only good teacher in this business. If you have the time to experiment and change things in a way thats not supposed to work at all,and then make them work in a new way, then you're moving forward. I can make a mackie sound like a lot of things, but for me its a lot of work.cause i dont like em that much. But give me an old quad-eight or a huge old MCI without all that computer crap in it , and i can give you a sound people will like and respect..
cominginsecond
Decentralized Media Mogul
Oh, man Chess, you beat me to it. The source is the most important thing to get right when you're recording. Skills are the second most important thing, and recording gear is the third most important thing.
Z
zallen25
New member
equipment matters as much as the engineer. No matter how good of an engineer one is, they will be limited to the performance of their gear they use.
cominginsecond
Decentralized Media Mogul
This is true. However, the difference between the maximum acheiveable sound quality in a prosumer studio and the maximum acheivable sound quality in a million dollar studio is not nearly as big as the difference between the maximum acheiveable sound quality that an inexperienced engineer can contribute and the maximum acheivable sound quality that, say, Tchad Blake can contribute. This is especially true as the quality gap being cheap gear (e.g. MAudio Interfaces, Rode and Studio Projects mics, RNC and RNP) and pro gear (Avalon, Neve, Crane Song, Neumann, Apogee, etc) gets smaller and smaller.zallen25 said:
Therefore, although pro equipment can make a big difference, it does not make as much of a difference as knowing what you're doing and having a great set of ears. I wholeheartedly agree with light.
pipelineaudio
Well-known member
doing a two channel recording and mix by design requires a LOT less from the gear that it is using. No summing is even involved in many cases, thats a whole 'nother animal.
L
littledog
New member
zallen25 said:
The mark of the expert professional, whether in music, art, athletics, or engineering, is the ability to find a way to get the job done regardless of the limitations and roadblocks.
The mark of the "not-so-expert" is that they require an idealized set of equipment or else they cannot function. And even then, their results suffer by comparison.
Think of it from a musical point of view: would you rather hear a great musician on a mediocre instrument or a mediocre musician on a great instrument? Anywhere else I'm sure the answer would be unanimous (although around here one can't assume...)
Reminds me of those nights when the substitute drummer showed up with a truckload of drums - six toms, eight cymbals, double kick, etc. The rest of the band looks at eachother and groans. It's obvious before he plays a note that the cat can't play. And is trying to cover up his inadequacy with thousands of dollars worth of gear.
The next night another drummer shows up with a kick, snare, and hh. Period. We're all in awe - we know he's GOT to be a motherfucker!!!
I'm not implying gear is irrelevent. Obviously, because I'm not giving away any of mine. But to say that the gear is equally as important as the person who is using it defies logic. Considering all the tremendous technological advances, shouldn't the top recordings today be exponentially better (from an engineering perspective) than those of twenty or thirty years ago? And aside from improvements in playback systems, are they really?
While great gear can make life far easier, provide inspiration, and stretch the possibilites much farther, a brilliant artist always finds a way of making music. With the mediocre artist or technician, there is no such guarantee.
By the way, I'm not putting myself in the "brilliant" category. Much like Zallen, I'm probably extremely dependent on my gear to get a good sound. But at least i recognize that there are guys out there who, in a weekend, could scrounge enough junk from a few yard sales and flea markets to jerry-rig some sort of recording chain and proceed to make a record that would astonish me.
Doug Quance
2006 Cave Roast Chairman
10-4 on the source. It's pretty hard to fix a sorry source.cominginsecond said:
Skills are only as important as the piece that's being played. Some musicians are more talented in their knowledge of what NOT to play (because of their limitations).
Some instruments are more forgiving that others. A relatively simple piece played on a keyboard by a novice can sound acceptable... whereas a novice playing a tenor sax sounds... well, like a novice. And a drummer on a $20K kit that can't keep time or stay in the pocket sucks... even if their technique is otherwise pretty good.
I just can't believe those marketing guys to the point of coughing up the kind of cash they want for those monster cables.
Z
zallen25
New member
littledog said:
4 1/2 days with a VS 1880, 3 decent mics, and 3 crappy ones, some good musicians and a lot of fun and what I got for these dudes was not to bad. Other than the streaming audio quality you could check out some of it here if you like.
http://www.inversionmusic.com/inversion.htm
Light
New member
As to the importance of the source, well, yeah, obviously. But even there, skill matters much more than the gear. It pains me to say that, as my father and I build guitars, and my family owns one of the largest repair shops in the country. None the less, a great player will get you father than a great instrument.
Want proof? Will Lee (the bass player on the Letterman show) is one of the most recorded bass players in the world. He is also one of the most recorded singers in the world. A producer I used to know had booked Will for two sessions in one week. The first was supposed to be as a bass player, the second as a singer. There was a miscommunication, and Will believed the first session was a singing gig, so he did not have his cartage company deliver his bass rig and instruments. It was not possible to do the vocals, as the rest of the tracks had not yet been started, so Will did the bass part with a bass which was in the studio. The strings where rusty, the action was about a mile off of the finger board, and the intonation was something better not to mention. This producer played me the track, and the bass part was a great, Will Lee bass line, with that unbelievable feel he always has. He was able to bend the notes, and make that bass sound great, because of his skill.
I would much rather listen to Leo Kottke play a mediocre guitar than listen to a bad guitar player one of my or my fathers best guitars (I love the guitars we make. If I did not, I would make different guitars).
A great player (sadly) makes a bigger difference than a great instrument, and a great engineer makes a bigger difference than great gear. I wish it weren’t so, because I like to buy gear, and I love building guitars, but the work, and the practice, gets you much further, and it always will.
Light
"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
Want proof? Will Lee (the bass player on the Letterman show) is one of the most recorded bass players in the world. He is also one of the most recorded singers in the world. A producer I used to know had booked Will for two sessions in one week. The first was supposed to be as a bass player, the second as a singer. There was a miscommunication, and Will believed the first session was a singing gig, so he did not have his cartage company deliver his bass rig and instruments. It was not possible to do the vocals, as the rest of the tracks had not yet been started, so Will did the bass part with a bass which was in the studio. The strings where rusty, the action was about a mile off of the finger board, and the intonation was something better not to mention. This producer played me the track, and the bass part was a great, Will Lee bass line, with that unbelievable feel he always has. He was able to bend the notes, and make that bass sound great, because of his skill.
I would much rather listen to Leo Kottke play a mediocre guitar than listen to a bad guitar player one of my or my fathers best guitars (I love the guitars we make. If I did not, I would make different guitars).
A great player (sadly) makes a bigger difference than a great instrument, and a great engineer makes a bigger difference than great gear. I wish it weren’t so, because I like to buy gear, and I love building guitars, but the work, and the practice, gets you much further, and it always will.
Light
"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
cavedog101
Well-known member
Light, Exactly what I've been saying.
There's been many many times where the artist or group has left the studio with a mix that far exceeded the material..
Were they happy? Gosh yes...but did it last? hardly ever. A high quality mix on mediocre material will always in the long run, expose the weeknesses in the arrangment and songwriting like nothing else.
BTW....light....PM me about your instruments please....thanx
There's been many many times where the artist or group has left the studio with a mix that far exceeded the material..
Were they happy? Gosh yes...but did it last? hardly ever. A high quality mix on mediocre material will always in the long run, expose the weeknesses in the arrangment and songwriting like nothing else.
BTW....light....PM me about your instruments please....thanx
Light
New member
skippy said:
And then when he gets into a studio, you end up with a record like Peter Gabriel's UP. Best record of the year, by far.
Light
"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
A
acorec
Banned
Light said:
I have spent all my life recording with all manner of equipment. In the 70s it was expensive shit equipment that was available to the home recording crowd. Now it is cheap shit equipment available to the home recording crowd.
Yes, you must learn how to use any recording equipment to get decent recordings.
No, you will not get any better than the limitations of the cheap equipment without moving up. It is the question of what to move up to and when that is the problem here. If you have really practiced and really know your current equipment, then there is no question as to your next purchase. If you really have no clue what you are doing with your current equipment, the a new pre-amp or mic is always the answer as it "sounds right to me"
I can say that these days I have all high end equipment and the difference is totally night and day from the bad sounding stuff I had as a kid, but you would never really know it if you only work with the low end stuff.
I forgot to say that I agree with you on the experience part and the Monster cable garbage, but disagree that good equipment gets none of the credit 'cause I can sure prove anyone wrong on that one.
P
pweaver
New member
I certainly agree with the wisdom needing to learn the basics before blaming
the gear!
However I have also had the EXTREMELY frustrating situation of being forced
to work in a studio that is not yours . . . and is not well maintained . . .
the gear is old and tired . . . bad channels on the board . . . bad mic cords
everywhere . . . bad mics that have been dropped one too many times . . .
This is what actually led me to start buying my own gear which I could take
care of and maintain.
My two cents.
the gear!
However I have also had the EXTREMELY frustrating situation of being forced
to work in a studio that is not yours . . . and is not well maintained . . .
the gear is old and tired . . . bad channels on the board . . . bad mic cords
everywhere . . . bad mics that have been dropped one too many times . . .
This is what actually led me to start buying my own gear which I could take
care of and maintain.
My two cents.